Ibsen3

Apologies for neglecting TESNexus but you should know that this mod has sputtered back to life. Follow us on Facebook or on our forums for more details. As ever, we could always use an extra hand but do be aware that you would have to work on parts of the mod that are incomplete rather than adding more content or contributing too much 'new stuff'. The goal is to get a release out rather than expand. Expanding achieves the opposite of that goal.

Thanks Ynguatep! As I mentioned on our own forums, the depressing reality for me is that the time I now have to spend modding is a fraction of the time that I used to have to spend modding about 3 years ago. At least from my end of things, I was about 80-90% complete before my free time started to get steadily worn away. It's like winning a long distance race until the last lap when your body just decides to suddenly pack in. And to think I was once confident of having this out clearly before Skyrim! Nevertheless, AndalayBay's influence has been tremendous in getting things right and implementing the important stuff so even if it's just the two of us (as it pretty much is), we'll get there.

Quick update: lots of fixes happening all over the mod as we work to neutralise errors for the next alpha release. AndalayBay is covering a whole range of areas whilst I mainly focus on making the Eastern half of the map look more presentable. As we had mentioned, the plan was not to release the Eastern half of the map with any degree of proper landscaping but that has since changed. The Eastern half will certainly be less polished than the West but it shouldn't be too obvious anymore and should prove to be of a playable quality. I've been merging the regions so as to minimise texture errors and noticeable seams and transitions besides sorting out the watery zones where texture errors were occurring. Also, I might actually be able to make the rather-complex-to-landscape Vudai Marshes (marsh poppies!) and Throttlemesh Myre (mangroves!) much more convincing. The progress isn't pretty and doesn't lend itself well to screenshots but it's very much needed right now.

Alpha thread released here. Here we go, people.

http://www.theassimilationlab.com/forums/uploads/gallery/album_17/gallery_25_17_78494.png Brief History & Introduction One of our oldest threads from the archives on the Silgrad Tower forums is dated Mar. 11, 2006 and involves SwedishFish who appears to have been one of our founding members. Early posts assigned naming codes to current members. Much literature was written by KuKulZa in those days but, barring very early, undeveloped versions of the settlements currently known as Sloughpoint, RockGuard and Soulrest, very little was physically developed in the first three years. In 2009, Ibsen's Ghost took up the reins as leader with Koniption working hard to develop unique models, Deeza contributing to the lore and modding and sandor as Lead Admin. Before then, Black Marsh had seen several teams but has since seen dozens of contributors and several forums. The period between 2009-2012 saw the most physical changes until AndalayBay helped the project take off as our new administrator in 2011. I am sure we will be thanking many others for their support and contributions upon full release. Making full use of the Shivering Isles, The Black Marshes project adds the mysterious lands of Black Marsh, otherwise known as Argonia, one of the darkest and most dangerous regions of the fictional universe of Tamriel. Other lands from this fantasy world have been explored in detail, such as Morrowind and Cyrodiil, but the lands of the reptilian Argonians have remained shrouded in mystery... until now. Our aim is to recreate a region which no player has explored in the Elder Scrolls series since Arena. The finished mod will include many new cities, new architecture, detailed new quests, and most importantly a large new marsh and jungle landscape, filled with deadly new enemies and dungeons. The finished mod will feature six quest lines: a Main Quest line, some Miscellaneous quests, and quest lines for the Hist Tribes, Shadowscales, Trillium Magnata and Sotho Tren. The Main Quest line will have at least five quests and we haven't decided how many quests the other quest lines will feature. Features The completed mod will have: Entire province of Argonia to explore, completely landscaped, with lots of unique and nasty creatures.Five full questlines plus some miscellaneous quests.Custom races, unique items, tons of new flora and ingredients, new weapons and armour, unique books with background and lore.Lots of dungeons, including some unique to Black Marsh that utilize custom tilesets.Several different varieties of Argonians and six new races (Naga, Marsh Cat, Lilmothiit, Sload, Paatru and Sarpa).Many new creatures specially selected or created for the province.A transportation network, including custom mounts that can be purchased.All major cities of Argonia featuring shops and inns, plus many towns also with shops and inns.Current Development Status After a bit of a hiatus, Ibsen's Ghost is back and writing up the remaining quests. He has completed the Sotho Tren questline. That marks the completion of one of the faction questlines. I am still away from modding, but hope to return soon. When I return I will start coding up the quests and adding them to the mod. We have a new member, puddles, who's working on our custom races. We haven't decided if we'll have another round of alpha testing or just wait and release a beta. Want to Help? We still need modellers, so if you've got some modelling skills and would like to give us a hand, please drop us a line! Current Team Ibsen's Ghost - Leader, writing, lore, landscaping and level designAndalayBay - Co-leader, quests, scripting, landscapingCray - Writing and loreVincent - Modelling, level designEnvy123 - Custom dialoguepuddles - modellingSifonseal - landcaping, region generationAlpha Testers These are the folks who reported bugs for us in the first alpha. RivenianRubiconMacKlaudLeonardoDoZeNtJetpackAngelMercerGGodEnvy123Project Site The Black Marshes is hosted on The Assimilation Lab. Follow our progress and have a look at our galleries. Credits There are tons of people who have helped create Black Marsh. All testers will be added to the credits if they submit reports. :smile: Thanks to all those who have supported our mod and offered ideas or suggestions. Black Marsh is not a province mod with a couple of quests thrown in. Black Marsh is a story that requires an entire province to tell it.

And thanks for your support! :thumbsup:

With about a month since any update, people must be wondering what's going on. Well, with moving into a new house besides working full-time in RL, my own work on the mod has been super-minimal but that hasn't stopped AndalayBay and others polishing off the landscape in readiness. She's also been tweaking the scripting on the quests and fixing various errors. Talking of which, we'll be going into ALPHA phase in about two weeks. Our committed Russian testing team are anxious to get hold of things for checking. Error-checking isn't exciting to report on but strictly-speaking, it's the final big phase before a release so for anyone waiting with baited breath, it's much closer now. In the meantime, I have managed to write up another quest this week for our criminal syndicate Faction questline (the Sotho Tren) which, sadly, will not include the Sload model as yet (at least until we can bring in another member to animate it and polish it off).

Thank you, VikingofTamriel! I don't think we'll need those skills at the moment but the offer is much appreciated. We will be looking for playtesters shortly but we're also going to have to insist on experienced playtesters, purely in order to accelerate the pace of development. We'll get there eventually.

Thanks for the new thread! I'm loving the profile name.... :biggrin: We don't get much interest on the Nexus forums but here's a link to our official thread, our Bethesda forums thread and our Facebook page (most frequently updated out of the three). If you wish to get involved, please send a PM by any of those forums or Facebook. We're mainly looking for experienced scripters and quest modders at the moment as a hell of a lot of the actual physical modding has been done for quite some time now. And although we'd like to have voice acting, it's most likely to appear as an add-on once the beta is released. But yes, I've done plenty of voice acting in the past. If you were to follow my account on youtube, you can go check it out.

Thank you very much, Sarus31! We rarely get noticed over here for some reason but it's good to know that we still have people keen to get their hands on the mod. In case you didn't know, you may be interested to hear that I try to regularly update our Facebook site with an indication of our progress. I'm due another update soon since we've recently recruited another dungeon modder. The truth is we don't really need another dungeon; it's just that he's really good so I figured why the hell not just expand on what we've done so far? :biggrin:

Just thought I'd mention that we're still going as always. It looks like the whole worldspace's regions will be generated for the release although there won't be perfect landscaping to the East. Go check out progress on our FB page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Elder-Scrolls-IV-Black-Marsh/159193210793000

This is just a quick message to request assistance for the impending release of Black Marsh beta. If you wish to find out more, please go check out our Facebook page here. We also have a TesNexus and Bethesda forums page and our trailer on youtube . Finally, this is where we live. As some may already know, we have been trying to get a release over this year but sadly the small numbers of people in the team keeps pushing back the release date. We currently have over half a worldspace almost totally complete with around 98% interiors, 96% towns, 90% dungeons and a truly vast collection of new items that are completely unique to the mod, including creatures etc. Most of what remains of the physical modding I can handle myself but we are short or overworked in some crucial areas. As yet, we are most in need of quest modders, scripters and modellers to finalise plans besides needing someone to help out a little with establishing the in-game map. All scripts and models requiring completion are listed on our own forums and I am in the process of finishing the writing of the quest ideas already developed. If you can help or know of anyone who can assist, please send me a PM or get in touch via Facebook (preferred method) but please: no timewasters! We've had enough of them but even if your contribution is small, it WILL be credited and greatly appreciated.

Ah, sorry to hear that. That's a pretty shitty state of affairs. Been there and felt the pain. I look forward to hearing from you when you're all set up but thanks for letting me know....and take care to choose the right PC. I tend to always trust Dell.

Oooh, an offer of help! That would be gratefully received, mhahn123. As long as you're realistic about what you can manage then that would be great. If you can drop by the Dark Creations website and set up an account here then you should be able to make your way over here and send me a message to let me know you've arrived. At the moment, we're very much in need of quest modders and scripters but there is certainly a need for someone to help me out with designing the last few dungeons if you fancy that. And we should eventually have some more interiors and NPCs to sort out (although at the moment, all of that is done.....I'm just thinking of adding a few more towns and cities). Sadly, we don't have the resources to teach people how to do stuff much as we're all way too busy ourselves so we don't take on any noobs anymore (not that I have anything against them, of course). Yet you sound like you know your way around the CS. Hope to see you soon. :thumbsup:

In response to queries on Facebook and youtube, I felt I should update our thread here with the following information about the postponement of the beta release. This is quoted directly from a response to a query on Facebook: "We've struggled a little recently. As often happens, some new members haven't been contributing so it's meant more work for the 3-4 core team members. Quest building is still underway though and I'm writing up the rest of the quests that will appear for the beta now. We had marked out October as a release date but I think we're now looking at November/December at the earliest. Sorry to keep folks waiting but it's best to have something that feels finished." Annoying but true. Teams tend to report the same thing each time despite having had some modders drop in to produce something really nice and then disappear (it may be small but we appreciate it). Others can just waste your time. >:( We'll get there anyhoo. There's waaayyy too much content here to give up so if anyone knows of any experienced quest coders, let us know.....