Silgrad Tower from the Ashes

I thought we could use this thread to throw ideas around on how we'd like to rebuild our capital, Silgrad, for Oblivion. Since it's built in Hlaalu architecture in the Morrowind mod, I think it would be a good idea to try and use Hlaalu house models with the Oblivion mod as well. If possible I think it would be lovely to have fan-made Hlaalu house models which take advantage of Oblivion's graphic capabilities, but that might be very hard to realize. If that's not possible then I think we should try and convert the house models from Morrowind and use them. Alternatively, we could rewrite our background history to say that Silgrad was rebuilt by the Empire, not by Hlaalu masons... come to think of it, that might actually be a better idea.

I also think we could use the existing NPCs, quests etc as inspiration, if we wanted to, but that we shouldn't feel restricted to recreating the city 100% accurately. After all, people die or move away, houses get torn down and new ones are built, things change - so change wouldn't be illogical. On the other hand if someone wants to recreate a location as accurately as possible, they should have that opportunity too.

On another note, I think a nice big park with some fountains would be lovely to have in the center of town. Perhaps dedicated to Valderon, if he opts to not come along for the ride with Oblivion? It could also have monuments to other 'fallen comrades' we lost along the way. So they know they always have a home with us.

Also, what things would you like to see changed between the current version of Silgrad and the next one? Personally I'd like to see a clearer (and simplified) power structure replacing the Council of Elders. That's a personal opinion of course.

Hey RW, some nice ideas you've got going there...

I importing Hlaalu house models doesnt seem the best option. TES4 will be offering all kinds of new toys for us to play with...
I think if Silgrad is going to be made into Oblivion, we should go with grand imperial structures. Although people often when making Imperial like builds try to mirror Tolkien.

We should try and steer away from MiddleEarth. Definitely .
Opting to create our own distinct blend of grand buildings and run-down slums.

Quest and story wise, Silgrad-Oblivion can be more or less the same in that department...
Coping quests,NPC's and adding them to ST-Oblivion should be quite easily done...

As for a memorial park, it seems quite fitting to have one of these... Perhaps we can also add references to the old Silgrad.

Just my ideas...

Thanks! Yes, maybe using Imperial buildings from Oblivion would be best... though we'd really need to do something different for Reich Parkeep, I think. Having two major Imperial-looking towns in the Morrowind province would be a bit unnatural. I'm hoping we can save a lot of the flora too, so it feels like we are in Morrowind.

About the references to the old Silgrad, perhaps we could have an 'Old Silgrad' buried under the new one we're building, similar to Old Mournhold in Tribunal? So that in certain places the player could descend down into the ruins of the old Hlaalu town that used to be there, and for that we could really use the Morrowind Hlaalu buildings. It wouldn't be a complete rebuild, just a location or two with a limited number of ruins. Aah, I dunno... it's fun to talk about it though

You've got some great ideas there Razorwing. Personally I'd go for the Imperial style houses, just for the ease of things, because I'm not a big lore-fanatic lol, but I do think it would be very cool to have the Imperial Silgrad, with Old Silgrad buried deep beneath it (Maybe some multi-level dungeoning would be nice, with a few little sections of Old Silgrad, then the Tombs of those 'Missing in Action' and then a nice big secret buried deep, deep under the city.

I think how close we stick to the Morrowind version should be variable. There were some parts of the city better developed than others, so we should just pluck out all the best bits, and keep improving the rest.

yeah, that's right, i hitting all the threads! but am i saying anything? hmmm...

anyway, i'm more worried right now about finding the money to upgrade my system for oblivion than anything else (you'd think i could manage by the time it came out, but i'm not so certain at the moment)

i just want to build and script, and i'm not concerned too much about what i'm building and scripting... just so long as we stay far far far away from the lore wars (that seemed to hurt the project more than anything else).

one thing i've always wanted to see in morrowind is a giant network of underground tunnels and caves and cities that keep going deeper and deeper (kinda like Arx Fatalis, if anyone is familiar, or perhaps the underdark) just something that really starts to make the player feel alien, alone and perhaps a bit frightened as well.

my other love are floating islands, although i do realize the problems that arise lore-wise. i just feel its a fantasy world and we should aim toward the fantastic! i'm all about the places that don't need quests associated with them, the places that are there just to explore.

one thing i think we need to do first thing though, is set up a guide for adjusting the brightness/contrast and gamma of everyone's monitor, because this will make lighting and atmosphere much easier. i think a lot of a dungeon's effect is lost if someone has the contrast too low, or the gamma on superbright so it'd be good to have a standard.

my two cents for now.