Silgrad Tower from the Ashes

Hello everybody, long time no see. I hope everything is alright with all of you.

I think a lot of us have lost the appetite for modding for Morrowind over these past couple of months. I'm not critisizing anyone for that, because I'm not either that keen to start modding again. Especially now, with Oblivion but a year away, it's not surprising that one would feel that modding for Morrowind is kindof a dead end.

On one hand we can look back on the massive amount of combined time we've spent on Silgrad Tower and think, "oh well, that's all for nothing now." Soon no-one will play Morrowind anymore and all our efforts will fade into history. If we don't do anything, that will likely be what will happen, too.

But instead we can choose to look ahead to the future - we have a whole year's headstart to plan and organize for Oblivion! We have a brilliant design plan in place with our current mod, we have plenty of fleshed out characters, stories and quests on which to draw inspiration for the coming project. The Silgrad Tower project as a whole has a lot more going for itself right now than it had a couple of years ago, thanks to the brilliant minds who sired it (some of which are still here).

So I would propose that our first order of business is to discuss what we want to do with (*drumroll*) TES4 Oblivion: Silgrad Tower. Perhaps I should start off by jotting down my suggestions, then the rest of the group could give their views and suggestions?

- I suggest that, right from the start, we open up three areas for development. 1) Northeastern Cyrodiil 2) Silgrad Tower and a suitable chunk of the Velothi Mountains 3) Reich Parkeep and the surrounding northlands.

Cyrodiil is included both to help make our world a nice logical square, as well as since the architectural styles used in Cyrodiil comes with the game it'd be easy to pick up and start building right away. Also, by starting in three separate locations there is plenty of room to grow and sprawl within the imaginary square canvas as is needed by one's quest.

[050509 Outdated (til.gamingsource.co.uk/maps/EmpireOfTamriel.gif)] [ According to this map ], which is said to be the most accurate there is and is taken from the Imperial Library, there is basically nothing in northeastern Cyrodiil. I suggest we draw our canvas slightly east of Windhelm (although maybe not as far north as Windhelm) and slightly north of Kragenmoor, then we'd only have to commit ourselves to making Riften (a Nord city). Any thoughts on that?

- I don't think we should restrict ourselves into recreating our TES3 mod 100% accurately, rather to use it as a guideline. Things have changed in the world since Morrowind took place and it's only logical that people have been born, died, moved elsewhere, built new houses, other houses have been destroyed, et cetera.

- Instead of doing one layer at a time - first exteriors, then interiors, then NPCs, then quests - I really think we should do one step at a time, so if a modder chooses to do a particular feature then do all of it before moving on to the next thing :o)

- I also suggest we appoint 'managers' who get to be boss of their area, and have absolute rule over it, so that decisions come quickly. Just to clarify I don't really mind who becomes manager and I don't have any aspirations to become one myself.

- I think we should try to import models used in Morrowind (whenever possible) when we're recreating our cities and areas, to give it that Morrowind feel. You can bet we won't be the only ones importing models so I have no doubt they'll be available online shortly after Oblivion is released. A great advantage is Oblivion's terrain generator, because if we find new and cooler models that are recreated based on the Morrowind style - let's say a Bitter Coast tree with higher polygon count that sways in the wind - we can just enter it into the parameters and click a button and presto, it's integrated.

I could buy into the theory that we revise our history so that Silgrad City was rebuilt by Imperials instead of Hlaalu, meaning we could use imperial houses instead of Morrowind-Hlaalu houses, but Reich Parkeep doesn't really lend itself to that explanation.

Let me know what you think!
Let's kick this forum back to life!

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An unrelated problem. Is anyone making backups of the forum database? I've tried to get answers on that a couple of times, but I still don't know, and I have never known where the database is hidden so I haven't been able to take copies myself. If we lose that database, we lose much of our history, so I pray to God someone has backed it up securely.

Nice to see you again RW, been a while!

I agree with most of that. But by expanding Cyrodill, which may or may not be the same size as in that map, that adds quite a bit of work, even with that amazing landscape creator.

I think that if they allow total conversion mods this time around, easily, then we should try to start from that. I believe that would be better.

I agree that the mod should not be 100% accurate, at all. There was a lot of things about our ST that I didn't like and that should definately be changed.

I also agree that we should take it step by step and not in divisions. If a quest is being made, make the entire thing, from objects to destinations all in one round.

I am really looking forward to this game, and once I've played it, probably a week after it's release or so, I will be up to modding again immediately. I definately look forward to it. :]

Indeed, far too long. So, four more years eh? I didn't see that one coming, hehe, but it's all good I suppose. Anything is better than another court drama.

Didn't Morrowind allow for total conversion, though? You could start out with nothing, the blank slate for a whole new world, though not many modders went for that option. Perhaps players would be hesitant to play a mod that required them to kiss goodbye to the main game (and all other installed mods based on the main game) for the rest of that player character's 'career'? I know I would be. On the up side there really isn't anything official in northeast Cyrodiil so it would be fine to leave it just as wilderness until we wanted to work on it? And if someone wanted to do something, like building a small town, we could discuss it then, maybe?

What were your gripes with ST? I thought the Council of Elders concept should have been fleshed out a lot more than were in the mod. I added a lot of the councillors who were supposed to be there, but much more could have been done with them if the inspiration had been there. The lack of dialogue bugged me early on, too.

Quote:I also agree that we should take it step by step and not in divisions. If a quest is being made, make the entire thing, from objects to destinations all in one round.

Absolutely. Everytime something is postponed to the future, the risks increase that it won't be done at all, which was evident here and there in ST. In my humble opinion we can't have a situation again like the Murdered Baker quest, to take one example.

I like your ideas gentlemen.

The challenge we will have is finding out the scale and extent that the Imperial Province is being created for Oblivion.

Once we know that, we can determine how much land we can handle... although it sounds to me that exterior work will be much, much simpler and faster. That would be excellent, because then we can focus on the quest, the characters, the story lines and the interior details.

Count me in for Oblivion ST.

Ben

Though I have been rather silent lately and though RL has me in a tight grip you can be assured that I'm with this baby as long as it is finally grown up.

*gets a nasty kick in the kidneys from RL, but responds with an elbow blow that loosens some teeth ...*

Greetings

Quentin

I'm glad you're still with us, Quentin
So, what are your thoughts on the discussion?

Hehe, to quote my favourite Vorlon - I have always been here.

Just give me time until the weekend when work will be over for a week (yay, a few days off), so I'll have a chance to clear my head of all the thoughts of dissatisfied customers and moronic technicians and can concentrate on the more important things.

Greetings

Quentin

It's a shame Babylon 5 was cancelled. It was a darker, grittier, more realistic if you will, show than the usual Star Trek fare. I loved it. Have a great weekend, and see you when you have time

EDIT: I'm seeing a lot of people logging in but not replying, which is kinda strange I think, since this is the only active topic. While I did offer my own personal suggestions in the initial post, that's not to say I don't value everyone else's suggestions. I'm very much interested in any ideas from other members of this group on how we can proceed with the Silgrad Tower project. Your ideas may have nothing in common with mine, and that's totally fine. Just express them =)

Hello everybody,

I apologize for still having not added my few septims on that matter, but these days off have become more strenuous than I could have wished for.

Just two things, before I return to cleaning up the mess my flat is right now :

I like the ideas I read so far very much and I think that with proper planning we can achieve a lot - just like we did with this version.
I think that we should start gathering ideas for quests and storylines and call the talented writers we have here (and I know we have some excellent ones around here ) ) and let them turn these ideas into shining gems.

We should also take the time and rummage through all the old quest ideas and see which of them should be revived again. There are some too good to let them fall into oblivion.

Nevertheless, I'm not so sure that the current version of Silgrad Tower is as good as it gets. I had once the idea, that we should scrutinize (and I mean it) interior after interior to wipe out even the tiniest glitch or bug.
I'm quite sure, if we look hard enough, we'll find a lot of things we can still make better.

Oh, and I have still some open issues, but unfortunately my new 2nd hand graphics card refuses to open either Morrowind or the CS (does anyone what's wrong with the GeForce FX 5200 and is willing to lend me a hand) and so modding for me has come to a halt until I either get this problem solved or get a new PC, which will take another 4 to 6 weeks.

To end this rant, today is my second anniversary in Silgrad Tower and I don't see it that I will leave that project in the next two years ... or after.

Take care everybody and good luck to you, Black Knight.

Greetings

Quentin

For the future Oblivion version of Silgrad Tower, we should have a quality-control system that evaluates submitted mods before they are finally merged with the main mod. That system might be as simple as one of us, who has deep knowledge both of TES and our own world, will check out and playtest the additions slated for inclusion. (We should also recruit a little base of ordinary players who are eager to playtest, in due time) In my opinion that would prevent a similar situation happening again, as well as keeping work from piling up behind us. I ironed out probably a hundred minor bugs during my stint as filekeeper - of course not anywhere near Deus' record of thousands of bugfixes - but it did plant the conviction in my head that many of the issues that were resolved should have been caught and remedied before they were submitted, not a year afterwards. Careless use of limeware is one of my pet peeves, broken quests are another.

On the subject of old quest ideas, seeing as you're the most senior active member, do you remember any unused quest ideas that were particularly great and should make it in?