We've had the crypt set in our mod for quite awhile now. Originally it was only used for a partially completed crypt in Reich Parkeep. I finished that interior recently, coupled with modding the crypt in Steadhelm (which TheImperialDragon will finalize for his quest) and the Shrine of Dibella which will be situated some distance south of Soluthis.
During my modding I worked a bit on some of the crypt pieces. Among other things I developed a collision template for the tileset based on primitives that I used for a special tileset piece used in TheImperialDragon's quest. Or in other words the tileset pieces look a lot like each other architecturally, which makes it easy to use the same collision parts in different ways, and while making the template was a lot of work it makes it very easy to give primitive collision to the rest of the tileset. And primitive collision means you get better FPS when playing/playtesting crypts plus that it behaves more stable especially when it comes to opening doors, containers, etc.
Anyway. The crypts in Reich Parkeep and Steadhelm and the Shrine of Dibella is the sum of what can be done to recreate what we did with the set in the old mod. But somehow that doesn't feel like enough
So I figured maybe we could discuss ideas for new locations we can mod with the crypt tileset?
The only rule I can think of is that it has to be an Imperial location, since the crypts are obviously not of Dunmer design. And we already have crypts for the two major Imperial settlements, so what would that leave us... hmm... maybe we should have a major Imperial fort on our landmass? We can't mod the fort until Tobi has finished working on his castle set, but if we decide to do that once we can then we could start on a crypt for the fort right away. Another idea is to mod a crypt for Deepen Meadows, which is a large Imperial village far east of Silgrad Tower. Again the village can't be modded until we have Imperial houses, but the crypt can. I'm sure there are other and maybe better ideas too, so if you have one - fire away
We could mod the remnant of an old Imperial village (ruins), the crypt is the only interior that's still intact. It would be a nice location for a quest as well.
Howdy
I like the idea of more crypts
Under the assumption of having an Imperial Temple's all around as we've begun to do in ES3, a crypt of this type would accompany those temples.
If I remember well enough the Crypt located just east of Steadhelm was associated with Dibella
But I don't remember the other , I will have a look and edit
We had begone some discussion of the locations of the Imperial Temples in Silgrad, but considering ES3 is expanding we have more cities which can be used for this purpose
I do recall we had discussed a Temple for Arkay, Akatosh, Kynareth, Dibella and Zenithar for ES4, but we did not get into detail of their locations
Regardless of all that ... if we have a desire to have these temples in Silgrad then a crypt can and should accompany each one or we can just layout a crypt as Sandor has suggested near a "ruin" or abandoned imperial village
Enjoy
Bob
There is a crypt laim in Deepen Moor...
sandor: I like that idea, and I'm sure I can make some decent models for the ruined village later on too. Should I write a draft for the crypt's claim post, or would you prefer to do that?
bob196045: Not sure how you mean with Imperial Temples. Could you elaborate more on what you had in mind?
kingevil: Ok, that's good. Perhaps you should expand the claim description more to get the discussion going? I'm sure the main reason it has gone unclaimed is that readers don't get what they're supposed to do. Also I noticed you mention Sanpicture. He stepped down as reviewer quite a long time ago, so you should probably remove his name.
Quote:Originally posted by Razorwing
bob196045: Not sure how you mean with Imperial Temples. Could you elaborate more on what you had in mind?
Certainly
What we had been doing in ES3 was to bring the Imperial Cult worship system to Morrowind as an alternative form of worship to the Tribunal.
The thought behind this is simple, as the Imperials moved in and began to colonize they would have brought their priests and other clergy with them and established small shrines devoted to one or more of the Nine Divines, over time these small shrines would have grown as the patronage increased. In ES3 we had begun adding some of these shrines to areas around Silgrad (Morrowind) mainland, we have the Temple of Mara near Karther Keep in the Velothi Mountains, we have the Temple of Akatosh in Silgrad, we will have Zenithar in Steadhelm and Arkay near Kragenmoor near the Shadowmoth Fort.
Some of this had continued on into ES4 as Sandor had discussed bringing one of those Temples into Steadhelm and later another into Silgrad (at least thats how I remember it).
With regard to those crypts, it would be more proper if they were near or part of an Imperial structure or at least a village colonized primarily by Imperials.
Enjoy
Bob
Aah, kk. How does the Shrine of Dibella fit into that system? We could change its name to Temple of Dibella if you like.
There's not much substance yet to the Shrine/Temple of Dibella I modded. I went by the version I saw in Silgrad_Tower_internal_build_1-4_3 and that didn't give much in the way of backdrop, but I set up some general dialogue and basic AI so I think the interior works amicably. It would be great to have a quest tied to the location but it's not likely I'll mod it myself, at least not in the foreseeable future.
But anyway, back to the Temples in the TES3 mod. Some of them fall outside the skope of the Oblivion mod but Silgrad's Akatosh and Steadhelm's Zenithar sound interesting. I look forward to hearing sandor's thoughts on them.
I read the other suggestions, but here was my first thought on what we could do:
i) Very few (three at maximum), but very large crypts in a few locations. These should take more than an hour to completely explore, and each be modded by many modders who follow a general set of guidelines for consistency. The downside to this is that our tileset doesn't have a lot of variation. We only have a handful of models that would be used over and over, and the crypts would probably get repetitive and boring very quickly. We could model more pieces and a 'huge' set for bigger rooms so we could get that bit of essential variation. A modular set for both small and large rooms would be ideal. The models would take a lot of time and effort to make though.
ii) Several small Imperial crypts dotted across our regions. Not very Morrowind-y in my own opinion, but it adds a new type of location the player can find. Modders would mod their own crypts and labyrinths, maybe a little more freely than if we went with the above i) where they would have a set of guidelines to follow so the megacrypt was consistent. New pieces would still help a lot.
In either case, the crypt set is simply
awesome and it should have a few more appearances at least. There's no reason why we can't combine ideas (maybe even the two above)... I'd just like to mod with it.
Oh, and the crypt quest is just about finished. All I need to do is put the word "gravedigger" in at various points in text.
Well, my idea was more that of putting the existing pieces to use in modded work than modelling new pieces as the
base for modded work. To get a higer "return" in modded work from the time spent working on it, so to speak, since the existing scope of what we were going to do with the crypt pieces didn't leave much room for new locations. It's not a bad idea of course, I'm all for it, it's just not something I can personally commit to doing.
I can agree there's a risk of huge crypts feeling repetetive if for instance you take the interiors I modded as a rigid template, but I think there's ways to lessen the effect. For instance I don't think it would be wrong to use stock Oblivion caskets and other horror stuff, and that would open up a lot of variations. Or a modder could make a section of the crypt submerged in water, either partially or fully, which I'm sure would get the player's attention. If there's plenty of action to be had I'm sure that would also serve to draw the player's attention from potentially repetetive architecture.
Looking forward to playing your quest TID