I think it would be nice to be able to release a fully, 100% completed mod to the public at some point or another for TESV. My ideas for how to organize the project are designed to concentrate modding efforts to certain areas. This will assure that we have some areas that are 100% compete (exterior, interior, quests, etc) by the time TESVI comes out.
Our past approach to making our landmass (both TESIII and TESIV) was to choose how big we want our mod to be at its maximum, based on how much we thought was possible to complete. The problem with this approach is that it's impossible to gauge how much the project can complete based on modding activity when TESV is first released, since the activity will slowly decline in the years between TESV and TESVI. As a result, you get a large amount of land where nearly every area is approximately 80% complete.
Therefore, I propose we use a system similar to Tamriel Rebuilt's "map" system, where we focus on one area at a time until it's done. This would assure that at least one area is 100% complete, and can be released as a finished mod at some point.
For example, let's say that Silgrad Tower (the city) and its surroundings are "Map 1." We can do the project in the following steps:
Step 1: Exterior modders make the exteriors for ST and its surrounding areas. Once this is mostly done, we open up exterior modding for our map 2. This assures that map 1 exteriors will be mostly complete. At the same time, by opening map 2 as we conclude map 1, we ensure a diversity of claims available for our exterior modders to choose from. The whole point is to make sure we aren't spread too thinly.
Step 2: After each exterior in map 1 claim is completed, its interiors are opened for claiming. As map 1 exteriors are mostly completed, map 2 interiors will be opened, once again to avoid spreading ourselves too thin.
Step 3: As interiors are finished, their quests become available. For experienced modders, they can include quests with their interiors, as is currently the case.
Step 4: Once map 1 is 100% complete, we call it Release Version 1.00, so the player can play a completed mod made by us. We may have an early release once exteriors and interiors are completed ("Version 0.5"?) just to show that we have made progress.
Then, we can work from there to add each completed map as it is finished. Once we run out of time (TESVI is released), we must find a way to cap the work on our final map so that it will be 100% complete as well.
In other words, this plan assures that there will be no unfinished work in our final release version. We will only make what we can finish.
On a side note, we should make sure not to say, "We won't open map X interiors until map X-1 interiors are complete." We tried that at TR back in 2004 to encourage interiors modders to finish map 1. It didn't work
. They simply stopped modding until we opened Map 2 interiors
.
We may also choose to call our maps "regions" just for originality.