84 replies to this topic

[lilpandagirl]

@darthsloth74

Nicely put. I was thinking along those lines myself when i read through the comments but I haven't the patience to do a write-up like yours. As a side note I believe I've read somewhere that Bethesda has said they'll do expansion(s) the size of shivering isles so you should be spot on there. Cheers.

[darthsloth74]

@darthsloth74

Nicely put. I was thinking along those lines myself when i read through the comments but I haven't the patience to do a write-up like yours. As a side note I believe I've read somewhere that Bethesda has said they'll do expansion(s) the size of shivering isles so you should be spot on there. Cheers.

Thanks. Glad to know someone else decided to read that lengthy response and is also in touch with reality.

I mean go on Bethesda's track record if any of you own New Vegas load up the Geck. Load Mojave Outpost delete the collision box on the northern gate, set the gate to unlocked. Disable borders in the ini and then walk 5 miles north into the NCR.

No expansion in that area ever came out, its totally unneccessary dead space, probably for exterior testing or poor LOD design. As it is its totally pointless having that surrounding crap even bother to load into memory, a totally distinct lack of optimization.

Oh and before anyone adds that NV was done by Obsidian, yes I know that but Bethesda are their masters and have final say. Oblivion has this too and Fallout3 and they're Bethsoft.

Edited by darthsloth74, 28 November 2011 - 07:57 PM.

[metalmanindian]

Sounds awesome

Edited by metalmanindian, 29 November 2011 - 06:07 AM.

[Symphonicx666]

Its interesting how many articles this topic has spawned across the net. Any experienced modder will tell you that terrain maps with huge rips/tears in them are totally useless as viable modding locations. Not to mention the fact that no pathfinding or navmesh is present in those areas. For the record I love the TES games but I think some of you have some unrealistic expectations and this kind of wild rumour mongering is really the kind of thing I'd come to expect from Todd Howard.

yep, finally someone speaks sense and hopefully people will listen. This landmass simply exists for immersion in quests such as the Dawnbreaker one for Merida (which has been rightfully mentioned by another poster). This wild speculation that Bethesda are doing a massive copy/paste from Morrowind to this game is absurd - and also, it's really worth noting that the landmass is only approximate - if you tried overlaying the Imperial City over the landmass in Skyrim you'll find quite easily that it doesn't even come close to fitting.

The no clip borders we can all see are just decoration! Darthsloth74 is spot on, and all those who have also noticed that this extra "feature" is purely aesthetic only.

[SitchBlap]

Bethesda games wouldn't be the same without the Nexus and even in Beta I'm loving the NMM, keep up the great work!

Edit: Hmm... not sure how the comment got on this thread, I meant add it to the post about the 2 weeks since launch... sorry =)

Edited by SitchBlap, 29 November 2011 - 05:14 PM.

[JechtStrife109]

Hi guys I'm new on the forums! I have to agree with Journeyman and darthsloth74, Morrowind was mostly destroyed due to its eruption and Cyrodiil was the previous full game and there wouldn't be much interesting there either due to the great war damaging everything apart from the white gold tower but that was even looted. I think these are easter eggs in the game to provide some great sight seeing. I would'nt mind going to solstheim again though but that would probably be a pointless expansion seeing as its a pretty small island

Edited by JechtStrife109, 30 November 2011 - 10:14 AM.

[Crozier]

Ok reading the debate i haz 2 questions...

1) Isnt this game based hundreds of years after the oblivion story?
2) What stops modders opening the "dead space" provided, navmeshing and expanding? (edit : in general but u mentioned geck)

Hi new TES player

Edited by Crozier, 30 November 2011 - 10:39 PM.

[skweeky]

I didn't see a comment thread for the NMM, so here's the thing:
You advertise it as "less hassle free" which means it's more trouble. I think you want it to read "less hassle" or "hassle free."

[darthsloth74]

Ok reading the debate i haz 2 questions...

1) Isnt this game based hundreds of years after the oblivion story?
2) What stops modders opening the "dead space" provided, navmeshing and expanding? (edit : in general but u mentioned geck)

Hi new TES player

Well in answer to your questions.

1. Yes the game is set in a different time period to the Oblivion story so that gives you more options for individuality.

2. What stops modders using the "dead space" is the dirty great rips in the terrain mesh. Such tears would mean a modder would have to regenerate the entire height field for the terrain again, a process in the past which is extremely prone to era. Not to mention that redoing the entire terrain mesh can cause other unintended issues resulting in floating meshes, lost map makers and creature spawn locations. Its simply not very practical.

The tools provided for this process in Oblivion's Construction Kit were flawed, caused naming eras when generating textures and many modders were forced to use third party applications such as TESIVLOD and TESIVqlod to simply make the game actually do proper LOD. When I worked on the Unique Landscapes project, even editing the terrain in one individual cell could cause further rips and LOD problems so its not a good idea.

If you add in the "dead space" areas and fix the heightmap, navmesh it, populate it with props, dungeons and npcs, plus add in all the extra scripts needed for all this content you would probably only succeed in bottlenecking the game further, given that all this extra stuff would have to be loaded into memory.

This is why all DLC uses its own worldspace. Its simply too much effort for Bethesda to go back and rework what they've already technically finished. Its a shame these areas aren't used but thats the way it is.

Personally if you want to mod a large empty area do the NCR beyond Mojave Outpost in New Vegas, since the terrain mesh is relatively sound and shouldn't present too many problems. Of course you'd have to figure out how to make the main map scroll since after a little walking you go out the mapped game area altogether.

[Xodarap777]

I didn't see a comment thread for the NMM, so here's the thing:
You advertise it as "less hassle free" which means it's more trouble. I think you want it to read "less hassle" or "hassle free."

Apparently you haven't used it!