LE Better Cities?

[AssyMcGee]

I was just curious if anyone had any plans to make the cities in Skyrim better.

 

Don't get me wrong I enjoy the vanilla cities of Skyrim much much more then Oblivion. It's more or less the secondary cities that bug me. By secondary cities I mean Morthal, Falkreath, Dawnstar and Winterhold. This is just a nit picky thing that I have. But I would love for the cities to each have unique architecture. If I could I would. Trust me. I tried. I'm not sure what programs some of you guys use but I attempted using Google Sketchup to start making my own meshes. I made a large rectangle. I also know that this kind of thing is a big undertaking, but I've seen the awesome custom meshes some of you have created for Oblivion and know it can be done. Here's a list of my gripes and suggestions:

 

Winterhold was supposed to be a rival to Solitude back in the day. Now I know that the city fell into the sea in the Great Collapse, but to me it would have been cool to have ruined walls hanging along the cliff in places, and husks of old stone houses and buildings inside and out, and down in the sea piles of stones and pieces of walls and buildings. Not just a couple old tables. I did go down there and look.

 

Dawnstar, a city that is supposed to be a great trading hub and sea port, some unique buildings that speak to this would have been great. A city that's comprised of a mash-up of early colonial American architecture and traditional Nordic designs would have been awe inspiring. Imagine narrow streets leading to the harbor, surrounded by grey, or weather beaten natural wood colored buildings. All with large gables, small windows, built with steep roof pitches and tall chimneys.

 

Morthal, built in the festering reaches of a cold swamp. All the houses would be built of mosey wood on stilts to protect the inhabitants from spring time floods and to keep them elevated from the stink of the cold mud of the marsh below. The only way to get around town would be to use the wooden walkways bridges and gangways. Just don't fall off or you may lose a boot in the cold muck below and come out stinking like a dead carcass.

 

Falkreath, a city made famous for it's dead residents. The architecture would be decidedly darker, gloomier and more gothic. Tall roofs, large stone courtyards, mossy stone walls and large heavy wood doors would adorn the buildings of this city. Most of the buildings would be a darker stone, and/or wood.

 

As I said these are all ideas and suggestions. I'm really just hoping I can inspire someone. As I've said I've seen some of these incredible meshes some of you have made and have been thoroughly impressed with them. I know those must of taken a long time to complete but the outcome was worth it.

[Matth85]

This is actually less work than you would expect.

A few tilable textures, a few house models.

 

The major work would be to get the pathing for NPCs right and make sure it does not screw over any quests in any way.

 

When the CK is out, I might take a look at redoing some cities. Just because I need practice in Architecture and tileable modelling.

[AssyMcGee]

Really? Well that would be pretty awesome. I mean the NPC thing would be a hassle, but it's something I've done before in Oblivion, Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Using vanilla meshes of course and just swapping things around. It's actually something I don't mind doing. Of course we'll all have to see what the new Creation Kit will be like.

[darkninjaproductions]

This is very much an awesome idea, I love the 'Better Cities' mod for oblivion, you may not even need any new meshes, just re-arrange the area so that you can fit more in, adding more detail, as mentioned above the main problem is NPC mapping and quests in general. I myself worked on a modding team that re-developed the town of Anvil and we had some problems, if someone had gone through a door before loading the mod due to some problems so doors would appear in there vanilla place not where we had modded them to, I will dig out some old files if need be to see how we overcome that problem if needed.

 

Regards

-Ninja

[Guest MajinCry]

I can help with that. Maya is my canvas :3

 

When my ram arrives (Should have arrived on Friday! Damnit Bluepoint!), I'll see when I can find time (See my "Waffling" about? Non-commital!) to make a few examples. Would be a good test to see how much I can remember.

[havefunwilltravel]

I like the cities, too but think they are small as 'cities.' Too bad they didn't make them on the scale Assassin's creed made them. A quick fix would be to add a few peasants and huts per farm.

[Deleted2558536User]

This is something I would very much like to see. The "cities" aren't at all big enough. I think the minor settlements should be close to the size of Solitude, Whiterun and Windhelm. And those cities should be doubled in size, due to their importance. They can hardly be called cities when they only have around 100 residents.

[AssyMcGee]

100 residents? Being a little generous aren't we? Haha. I thought I read that the cities in this were supposed to be bigger then the ones in Oblivion, from what I've seen, now correct me if I'm wrong, they seem smaller. In Oblivion the cities had distinct districts, i.e. middle class, lower class, upper class. But here we've got 2 maybe 3 shops, and a handful of actual houses. The main cities bother me just because there is a lack of houses and a variety of shops. Just thinking about it, in Chorral there were what 5 middle class houses near the cathedral, a blacksmith, a book store, a general store, 3 upper class houses, 4 lower class houses, 2 taverns. I suppose the city that comes closest to this in size would be Whiterun maybe? It has a couple taverns and a few houses scattered about hear and there. I guess using better cities in Oblivion just spoiled me.

 

My main problem with the secondary cities though is just the fact that the same exact building set was used. The same wood and thatched Jarl's longhouse, the same exact tavern. It's just annoying to me haha. As I've said in the initial post, these cities were/are important to Skyrim. It'd be nice if the architecture spoke to it.

[havefunwilltravel]

Upper and middle classes inside the walls and low on the outside. Peasants--supposed to be the vast majority, yet just another class. Like i said, an easy fix would be to add at least 2 peasants per farm that surround, for example, Whiterun, with shacks to accompany them http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Meeko%27s_Shack

[Melissia]

You could always vary the style of the buildings without changing their sizes, if you wanted to avoid pathing issues.