[Planned] Travel to Cyrodiil Mod

[Earendel.co.uk]

Diabolickal and I have created a forum for further discussion of the mod and for better co-ordination, if you are in terested, either as becomeing a member of the team, keeping up with updates, suggesting some things you would like to see please visit: Forum

 

I'm trying to use the wiki to coordinate different projects across Tamriel and help out with organising Cyrodiil. How would you like this to work with your Forum?

 

We could use the forum as the main place of discussion and the wiki as a repository of decisions, summaries, and facts?

 

For example, we could discuss Bruma in the forum to try and work out some ideas, then put those ideas on the wiki to keep it more concise.

[Jacen000Solo]

Diabolickal, you wrote you will be creating block by block. Using invisible walls you can limit the acces to the "empty" blocks gradualy expanding from existing land. Also allowing other modders to use your mod for creating quests and content in cyrodiil will greatly expand the playability of the mod.

 

How i see this mod creation progress:

1. Block is finished (landscape, npcs, quests).

2. Beta relesed (other modders create quests, npcs, etc) (closed or open beta for other modders primaraly).

3. Fix the block bugs, integrate other modders content.

4. Beta 2 relesed (open more for bug testing).

5. Fix bugs, merge with existing part, relese the new version. goto 1.

 

This model gives you an opportunity to create more sophisticated and large mod (more of a DLC), keep bugs to a minimum and give the players an opportunity to play your mod sooner rather then later. Main problem with large mods for Oblivion and Morrowind was it took too long to create and a new game in the series came out, thus destroying the mod.

 

Concerning the "main" quest line: It cold be integrated into expantion of the world. For example when a new part is complete pc should travel there by quest (traveling with a quest npc from village to village (smth like in Diablo II different act diferent city)).

[Diabolickal]

Most of the lands have been already placed in skyrim, we just need to fill them with things. Currently they are just "land" no trees or houses or anything.

 

I took the time today to noclip into these already existing regions and i have declared them unusable. The collision of the land dissipates after traveling so far, and the scaling is waaay of due to the fact that these, in my opinion, are what bethesda used for LOD's of the regeions, if the player where to get that high in the mountains. I also believe that there is a quest that takes place in the sky? Ive read that somewhere. The large body of water separating Vvardenfell and the rest of morrowind is nothing but a mere river, Solestein is nothing more than the size of a house, the large body of water in Cyrodiil near the Imperial City is also nothing more than a mere creek. So it would be unproductive to use these as the lands as the actual lands. What we may do is edit these and add onto the LOD's so you can see the distant lands in more detail, such as the cities, towns and maybe larger landmarks. Then we would recycle the Gate(s) near Pale Pass and have you "enter" a separate external land, the land being Cyrodiil, not 100% seamless but very effective, none the less. If we were to edit and recycle the existing ones, we would just be working backwards.

 

It was actually quite funny to see the great volcano from Morrowind in such a small state. Lol

[Diabolickal]

Diabolickal, you wrote you will be creating block by block. Using invisible walls you can limit the acces to the "empty" blocks gradualy expanding from existing land. Also allowing other modders to use your mod for creating quests and content in cyrodiil will greatly expand the playability of the mod.

 

How i see this mod creation progress:

1. Block is finished (landscape, npcs, quests).

2. Beta relesed (other modders create quests, npcs, etc) (closed or open beta for other modders primaraly).

3. Fix the block bugs, integrate other modders content.

4. Beta 2 relesed (open more for bug testing).

5. Fix bugs, merge with existing part, relese the new version. goto 1.

 

This model gives you an opportunity to create more sophisticated and large mod (more of a DLC), keep bugs to a minimum and give the players an opportunity to play your mod sooner rather then later. Main problem with large mods for Oblivion and Morrowind was it took too long to create and a new game in the series came out, thus destroying the mod.

 

Concerning the "main" quest line: It cold be integrated into expantion of the world. For example when a new part is complete pc should travel there by quest (traveling with a quest npc from village to village (smth like in Diablo II different act diferent city)).

 

Yea I that's actually very similar to what we are going to do. Deamonata had came up with the idea of just add Bruma + Cloud Ruler Temple for our "beta". We would simply allow player to travel through the Pale Pass which is directly north of Bruma and the Cloud Ruler Temple. But not allow players to stray too far off the trail/landscape to and from Bruma and the Temple. And disallow player to leave Bruma through any Gates except the North. This would be our "beta", this would get us on the board and get us recognized, and to also build confidence in our audience.

[Deleted2039153User]

Diabolickal, you wrote you will be creating block by block. Using invisible walls you can limit the acces to the "empty" blocks gradualy expanding from existing land. Also allowing other modders to use your mod for creating quests and content in cyrodiil will greatly expand the playability of the mod.

 

How i see this mod creation progress:

1. Block is finished (landscape, npcs, quests).

2. Beta relesed (other modders create quests, npcs, etc) (closed or open beta for other modders primaraly).

3. Fix the block bugs, integrate other modders content.

4. Beta 2 relesed (open more for bug testing).

5. Fix bugs, merge with existing part, relese the new version. goto 1.

 

This model gives you an opportunity to create more sophisticated and large mod (more of a DLC), keep bugs to a minimum and give the players an opportunity to play your mod sooner rather then later. Main problem with large mods for Oblivion and Morrowind was it took too long to create and a new game in the series came out, thus destroying the mod.

 

Concerning the "main" quest line: It cold be integrated into expantion of the world. For example when a new part is complete pc should travel there by quest (traveling with a quest npc from village to village (smth like in Diablo II different act diferent city)).

 

Yea I that's actually very similar to what we are going to do. Deamonata had came up with the idea of just add Bruma + Cloud Ruler Temple for our "beta". We would simply allow player to travel through the Pale Pass which is directly north of Bruma and the Cloud Ruler Temple. But not allow players to stray too far off the trail/landscape to and from Bruma and the Temple. And disallow player to leave Bruma through any Gates except the North. This would be our "beta", this would get us on the board and get us recognized, and to also build confidence in our audience.

 

Sounds like a great idea to get started. It's a shame that you can't use the voice files from Oblivion without issue, as you could add the more generic speech in and it would make the people living in the towns seem more lively (and not have them talking about Skyrim all of a sudden).

[hirosoma]

I think it's a fantastic idea. Can't wait to see it. Edited November 29, 2011 by hirosoma

[darkblayd]

It's a shame that you can't use the voice files from Oblivion without issue, as you could add the more generic speech in and it would make the people living in the towns seem more lively (and not have them talking about Skyrim all of a sudden).

 

True we can't use the voice files from the old game, but I think there are plenty of people willing to record their best impressions of the old stuff.

[ThomasQ]

Why not contact Bethesda about that? Since they are obviously full supporters of the modding scene. It would be more of a problem Oblivion was produced with other publishers and royalty owners then Skyrim, but to the best of my knowledge that's not the case.

[gemezz]

it would be a lot of work i guess. Hope you make it :D

[sgtsteve]

Now, I haven't had time to read through this whole thread, please don't be offended, but I have to ask if there has been any talk of Heightmaps.

 

I'll bet the LOD map in Skyrim would be useless; so I assume you will be making a new one?

 

Any idea of the scale?

 

I swear I have a point... I was part of the old "Imperial City Reborn" team that came to be when Oblivion launched. We were able to stretch and skew the land to fit our visions and concepts. Unfortunately, the mod leader fizzled away, and that was the end of that; but it did lead me on a journey to "fix" the problem of stretching.

 

I created a vaporware WIP called the The Gold Coast Expanded, or something along those lines. My map was about the same size as Cyrodiil as it was in Oblivion, but contained only the Gold Coast and Colovia.

 

After the extensive research we had done in order to make a lore correct concept for the Imperial City, I grew very upset that Cyrodiil was so far away from what was hinted at in previous games. In my spare time I redesigned cities, created landscapes, and made new maps. It was less a WIP than it was a Hobby, I guess. As time went on, I must have re-made my maps a hundred times. I got better tools for the job, and got better at them. I've lost most of my work on individual locations, but I'm sure I have some of the heightmaps kicking around.

 

I ended up with a new map of the entire province. The heightmap is huge; about three to five times larger than Oblivion's Cyrodiil IIRC. I just found a few old images of it on my friend's server; the rest of the map work is on one of my HDDs somewhere.

 

http://i.imgur.com/AHFqc.jpg I used a higher res version of this as a base ground texture; as a sense of scale, the entire Imperial City island is about as large as the island cluster at the south of Lake Rumare. I hated the way the old one felt more like a moat than a body of water.

http://i.imgur.com/PMN65.jpg This was a render of the landscape before I placed roads and city locations. I wish I could find a newer one, they look much more detailed.

 

I'll try to dig up more.

 

I'll hold my ear to the ground if you want to talk. I'm much more likely to see a response on Reddit (I am sporkfortuna) since these forums are blocked for me most of the time that I'm not playing Skyrim. I'm also sharing this with other people working on Cyrodiil projects. I want to see what you all plan. :D

Edited November 30, 2011 by sgtsteve