Holds

[Galandil]

Looks good, quite eager to see what you do next. Have considered releasing the cities individually in a JK style?

Glad you like it! And well.. Yes and No. It did not occur to me when I began the project, but much later on that it may have been a good idea to release it in bits. However by that time I had already come quite far ahead and I had everything on one ESP. I do plan on separating the content for those who want to pick and choose what towns and cities they want to have in their game. However I also plan to add systems like banking, ship travel, and quests which will occasionally ask you to travel in between cities. For this reason it may be necessary to use all of the cities to get those features. I do understand though that not everyone wants this, and that some of the added villages may conflict with other mods, so once I am finished with step 1, which is to create all of the interiors and all of the exteriors I will make sure to get a hold of some of the more experienced modders here on the Nexus and hope they will give me a hand and hopefully offer some guidance on what I should do.

 

Worst case scenario, if you only want some of the cities, you will get the interiors and the exteriors, and all of the NPC's. And that with time I will add the systems and the quests(Those that do not require you to travel to other added towns).

[Galandil]

Since I am going back to school on Monday I thought it would be fitting to give a report on what I've managed to complete this Christmas Break, as well as talk about what that remains to be done before the first release.

This Christmas break I have been very busy, naturally, but I did manage to finish my work on Riften and Windhelm; Save giving the NPC's AI, which will not take too much time to finish. I have spent today, and will spend this weekend rooting up minor issues, like doors clipping through barrels or hay flipping due to colliding into one another. I still got some work to put into the Whiterun and Solitude Sewers, as well as a second round of cluttering. I have some work to put into the Jarl's Palaces, adding more floors and so on. A second round of cluttering will involve making sure there is books in shelves, things on plates, etc... (I have done this for most of the towns and villages already). I have a lot of books I have yet to make in order to fill up the libraries. There is lastly the work that needs to be put into testing, navmesh and lighting fixing, potential bug fixes, and optimization. When it comes to creating interiors, and building on the exteriors, this mod is technically finished. While what remains may sound like a heavy load of work left to be done, it actually isn't. What was hard work was creating interiors, writing NPC's backgrounds, and essentially coming up with good designs and solutions (At least in my opinion :) ) and doing this for not one, but for 7 out of 9 Holds, all of the interiors in the Holds that are edited, as well as adding 298 new Interiors. Why I'm leaning towards forfeiting Markarth and Morthal is that I honestly don't know what to do with the places. Morthal has always felt right with me, there are a ton of other mods out there that effect Morthal, and there will be no compatibility problems if you wish to use them along with my mod. Markarth is the same, I only really had the idea that I'd expand the Warrens, but it serves really no purpose to do so really, as it will be difficult to find daily chores and work for every new NPC to do. Here you will also have no problem finding compatibility with other mods that alter Markarth. It should also be mentioned that the sole edit I've made to Riften's capital is the waterfront. Riften within the city walls have very little edits. I've only changed the door near the northern gate to instead of teleporting you to the exterior on top of the gatehouse, you get inside the gatehouse instead, and need to climb through it before getting on top of the gatehouse. I will also do this to the keep as I intend to allow the player to get to the various balconies.

To put it short; The hard work is over. While I do like I said, start school again on Monday and will therefor be largely preoccupied with schoolwork, I do think that I will manage this just fine.
Once the mod finally is released I will begin immediately working on getting additional stuff put into the mod, such as NPC dialogues, quests, custom armor and clothing, and lastly the systems (Banking, Travel Option).
I kind of want to know what you guys think. I feel a bit as though I will be prematurely releasing a mod that isn't entirely finished. Having a ton of NPC's without dialogue I think tears a bit at the contents worth where players will no doubt expect this to be part of the mod. Currently I fear I don't know how to add this, but believe there are many tutorials on the subject. However there are a TON of NPC's, adding dialogues and quests will take a LONG time, and getting voice actors will also be a lengthily ordeal. I will add a Poll into the forum, and watch it as I finish this up.

I also want to start prematurely on recruiting voice actors, pinning down tutorials I can use to learn stuff to help me add these extra features, and as always remind potential people on the forum that I am very open to a kind helping hand, no matter what your skills are. :)
SO! If your a voice actor and want to voice character/characters do let me know and show me what you can do!
If your a experienced mesher, or texturer and want to help me out creating some custom outfits for the characters in my mod, or perhaps is eager to teach me what you know, do let me know!
If your a fellow modder and could give me a hand with some Navmesh issues that would be very appreciated! They are very minor and I will look here on the forums for proper tutorials but I will appreciate help none the less! :)

I've also seen that some of the other modder's here on the forums who create quest mods have no qualms about sharing their quest stories here on the forums, to let people on the forum to give input and idea's. I really don't want to ruin peoples experience by having them spoiled here on the forum.... I could always put them in spoiler tags, but I think we can all agree that anything in a spoiler tag is just too tempting not to read. So I will add a poll for this as well and see if people want to give me some input on the idea's!

So in closing. I started working on this mod late November 2012, and have devoted nearly every day, two hours on average, it has been a lot of hard work, and now that everything that I had envisioned has just about been created it feels like this is soon done. What drove me to start work on this was that I got tired of hopefully waiting for other modder's to make it for me. So if you wish to help out now on the closing sprint towards the finish line, do let me know! It will greatly speed up the wrapping of this project.

[AG97]

Very impressive! This is easily one of the most promising mods in development in my humble opinion. I especially like your work on Dwanstar, Winterhold and Falkreath since the vanilla versions are so boring. You've managed to give all the towns/cities/villages a unique look in a way that still fits in with the game's lore and style.

 

Unfortunately my modding skills are limited to making the occasional NPC, so I can't help you there. However, if you want a hand coming up with quest story lines I'd be happy to help, Just drop me a PM if you don't want to post the stories here to avoid spoilers.

 

Finally, I don't think people will have a problem with you uploading the mod without the quests and other features implemented. Just make it clear in the mod description that updates will follow with said features.

 

Overall, I'm really looking forward to the release.

[Galandil]

Very impressive! This is easily one of the most promising mods in development in my humble opinion. I especially like your work on Dwanstar, Winterhold and Falkreath since the vanilla versions are so boring. You've managed to give all the towns/cities/villages a unique look in a way that still fits in with the game's lore and style.

 

Unfortunately my modding skills are limited to making the occasional NPC, so I can't help you there. However, if you want a hand coming up with quest story lines I'd be happy to help, Just drop me a PM if you don't want to post the stories here to avoid spoilers.

 

Finally, I don't think people will have a problem with you uploading the mod without the quests and other features implemented. Just make it clear in the mod description that updates will follow with said features.

 

Overall, I'm really looking forward to the release.

:sweat: Oh I don't know about one of the most promising Mods exactly! Don't set yourself up for disappointments now, so far it is only a city overhaul mod! There are many other great city overhauls like JK's, and upcoming ones like The Better Cities Project. I think also a lot of players regard the most promising mods as the ones which aim to give them something new, a new place to explore and so on. It is one thing to talk big about all the quests and systems you want to add to a project, and quite another to actually implement them successfully. It takes time, and yeah! Still! Thank you! I hope I won't disappoint regardless!

 

There are probably a lot of things when creating a NPC that I may have overlooked, it would always be nice to have someone to ask should I wonder about something. I hope you will consider helping me out :smile:

 

I will drop you a PM about the quest idea's. I would love to hear your idea's!

 

I do hope you are right about the patching things later. I almost fear that if I don't break up features into patches I will probably never end up releasing, because there is always a new good idea you just have to try and put into the game.

 

Glad to hear you liked the designs! I am a bit... on the fence with Falkreath. I like it on one hand, on the other I feel bothered by it and feel like I should make drastic theme changes. Always happy to get compliments for my work! Thank you! :happy:

Edited January 2, 2015 by Galandil

[GetTheJojDone]

I like this mod. Winterhold especially, now that it looks like it could've been a great city once. But...IDK. Something about a town hall in Dawnstar where you hire a boat doesn't make sense to me. Or an Earl of a keep (the Jarls ARE the Earls, it's literally the old Norse translation) somewhere.

 

I'm also iffy about the new towns you've made up when there are still so many that don't exist but should - e.g. Granite Hill, Heljarchen, Nimalten, Old Hroldan (as an actual town instead of an inn), the ones from ESO, expanding existing towns like Stonehills, Shor's Stone, Kynesgrove and Darkwater Crossing, etc.

[Galandil]

The idea of purchasing passage in the town hall in Dawnstar, Solitude and Windhelm was inspired by the Oblivion Mod Better Cities. I like the concept and will stick with it. The idea is that you buy passage, head to the docks, and go on the boat, if you have a writ of passage you will be given the option to tell the captain to sail for sea. After a short loading screen you will be at sea at a random location near the shore of Skyrim. Depending on how far your traveling certain days will have to be passed. The idea I had was that you would sleep in a bed and if you had collectively slept X hours you will arrive at your destination, as well as possibly risk certain radiant events along the way. Say you want to sleep 24 hours, but after 20 your forced to wake up, and the ship... is sinking. And you need to find a lifeboat before X-time or you will sink with the ship. If you have Frostfall then this will be really bad for obvious reasons. The concept is not in the mod as of yet, but this is what I had in mind.

I have added Granite Hill. Old Hroldan I am a bit... well to iffy to edit, as it kind of hit me the right way, and there isn't really that much space to expand upon. I am sure there are other mods out there that add more content to Old Hroldan which you can use with no compatibility issues. I decided very early on that I did not wish to add a town at the locations that you can purchase land. This is partially for compatibility purposes with mods that add things to these locations, as well as because the locations of these land slots are in such open area's that I feared it would ruin Skyrim's feel of Wilderness and far reaching landscape(If there is a town visible everywhere this would no longer be so, in my opinion).
I did not add Nimalten for the same reason as stated before for the land slots. I have added a lot of towns that was present in Arena and tried to get as many in as possible, but I reached a point eventually where I asked myself what purpose the towns would have, and if the towns would actually exist in the fourth era. If you disagree with me on this then good news! You will be able to download optionally which towns and cities you want added and edited. So if you want to combine Holds with say, a mod like Legendary Cities - Tes Arena - Skyrim Frontier Fortress by Jabr: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/47989/? then there should be no problem :wink:

I do expand upon Shor's Stone and Stonehills, etc- The only towns I do not expand upon are Darkwater crossing, Old Hroldan, Dragonbridge, Morthal, and Markarth. Once again, this makes the user perfectly free to use other mods to edit these area's. Some places just feel right to me, and I'd hate to forcefully make changes, when I know that it doesn't feel right for me.

You actually made me question myself on the Earl and Jarl part, and its not the first time either. When I first started I wanted to call the "Earls" Hersir's. Which are more of a local military commander for settlement. I decided against this when I started writing the stories for the new settlements and what challenges they are facing. In Skyrim you have a High King, below him would be a Jarl which I feel in some way should have been called Kings, though I recognize the title meaning has historically meant the highest title below King, although Jarl's have often held an equal sway of power as King. And below them are the potential landowners and village governors. The term governor just did not sit right with me, and so the challenge was to find a term that would accurately fit someone below a Jarl. I decided to go with Earl, and your probably right in your assessment that Earl and Jarl might be the exact same thing. It would be nice to get some recommendations for what we could use instead of Earl, but I personally do not see anything wrong with keeping the title, because the Jarl's are technically King's, who serve under a high king, and it would be a little odd to have a Jarl for each respective settlement, at least this way they are differentiated a little.

Edited January 3, 2015 by Galandil

[GetTheJojDone]

I'd recommend Thane, AFAIK (I never joined the Ebonheart Pact while I was playing) they're being used for leaders of single settlements in Eastmarch and The Rift in ESO.

 

My point about town halls was that there's kinda little reason for a separate town hall to exist when the Jarl's longhouse/keep/palace is effectively the town hall in-game.

[Galandil]

I don't really think Thane is the right one either. A Thane can of course own land, but I don't think land comes with the title, it doesn't in the game, and I don't think it did in real world history either.

There are town halls in the capital cities of each respective Hold, the Jarl's of each Hold no longer lives in a Jarl's Longhouse. In Falkreath the Jarl resides within a great keep digging into the mountain, the Jarl of Dawnstar lives within a tower surrounded by a fort, and spends half his days within the White Hall which is now more of a mead hall for the warriors of Dawnstar. In Winterhold the Jarl resides in a castle, but there is no town hall (... Anymore), so here representatives for the "Architects Guild" (Leaning towards just calling it the Builders Guild), and the couriers message board is located within the Jarl's Castle, but the couriers themselves sleep at the inn. In Whiterun there is no town hall. There is a Bank and a courier headquarter though. The city of Riften has a town hall, the city of Windhelm has a city hall, and the city of Solitude has a town hall.

I'd have no problems changing the name of the building from Town Hall to something else, but I think it is somewhat appropriate when so many services are offered there.

Otherwise I agree with you. The Jarl's longhouse did cover civic matters in a typical Scandinavian viking age society, but with the changes that I've made to each respective capital, these cities are now no longer so simplistic. The outlying villages on the other hand like Amber Guard and so on are, and so there it would be the case as you said; The "Earl's" Hall is effectively a town hall.

Edited January 3, 2015 by Galandil

[Galandil]

Small update and question's. I've added mounted Whiterun Guard's outside of Whiterun. Patrolling between the two watchtowers. I always wanted to implement this, but of course there is the annoying issue where NPC's will dismount when in combat. Does anyone know if Convenient Horses or any other mod fixes this? I am not going to code this into the mod as from what I've gathered it is a complex affair, and I'd rather spend time finishing up this mod, then sit and pull my hair out over not getting this to work. I do wonder if there are any mods who do this, so that I can perhaps suggest them to players who want that sort of potential combat with the Whiterun Horsemen.

I also wonder about LOD. This mod adds a lot of new houses and etc, and I was wondering if anyone have any tutorials they could share on how to create proper LOD for this in the game. :)

[TheBawb]

Here's a tutorial on generating Lod:

 

However he doesn't recommend generating Lod on the Skyrim worldspace, so I'm not sure if this will help at all.