LE Player Houses

[TheAstroSteve]

I put this somewhere else, but luckily someone felt the need to point out that I'm "uneducated" because I thought that the best mods should already be part of the game. Thanks for that, hope you're happy now it's properly organised.

 

You don't just have to think of new houses, fell free to include unorthodox living quarters like cliff-side caves and deep-sea safe havens! Also, of the houses already created in Skyrim that aren't available for player purchase, which ones should be?

 

I think you should be able to take control of Orc strongholds like Dushnikh Yal - it comes ready equipped with a forge, smelter, workbench, alchemy table, enchanting table, animal pens, basement cave in the main building and even a mine with miners working inside! On the same thread, you should be able to buy labour slaves who can double as companions and be able to tell them what to do even when they aren't following you around e.g. Go to the mine or Stand guard at the tower.

 

I would also like to see some new homes added, like a fortress balanced on top of a huge stone pillar like the College of Winterhold. It should have loads of land for labourers and private guards to wander around in and a secret exit through a tunnel leading to the base of the pillar. Maybe a rickety old drawbridge over a massive cliff with demonic looking locked gates at either end would add to the aesthetic power of your house. Maybe a catapult too, stolen from the Imperial Legion that can fire flaming cannonballs just outside your gate.

 

And it would be nice to have player-type-oriented living quarters such as an imposing looking spire surrounded by electrical fog by the cliffside for the mages, a nice spacious cave kitted out in the wilderness with loads of training equiptment for warriors and a series of columns positioned off-shore connected by interesting paths and plenty of targets practice for the archers.

[Bismarck]

I'd like to see the following housings:

- a castle for warrior types

- a paladin order building for paladins and clerics

- a shack in the woods with lots of animals and plants nearby for ranger characters

- a ruin for necromancers

- a secret building for thieves/assassins

- a cave at a shore and a ship for pirates

- a mining camp with a lucrative mine for merchant characters

 

Those houses should be earned via quests. The places should grow and allow you to hire companions and to get access to standard and more exotic services.

[Choisai]

Naah, uneducated? it doesn't really matter, it's the internet so don't go around trying to organise things ;)

 

It are some pretty cools ideas you write. I myself too think mostly about mods for better homes, personal castles and not, like some people do, complete HD retextures of pillows (yes, it exists).

 

Indeed, a castle like the one at winterhold but there are some problems. your ideas, which are mostly the same as mine, are focusing on castles in a gothic style. The nordic style of castles is more smooth. square castles, elliptic walls, and flat on top. This can be seen in early Norse architecture and early Medieval architecture. The more epic style of building is the Gothic style, which can be seen in the Late Middle Ages.

 

Morrowind was melancholic,

Oblivion was epic,

and Skyrim is adventerous.

 

That means that a Gothic style of building would fit in more in Oblivion then in Skyrim, since Oblivion is epic (Late Middle Ages) and Skyrim is adventure (Early Middle Ages). The Gothic style castle wouldn't fit in with the rest of Skyrim's architecture. It would be like stepping in an other world. Think of your first time going to Oblivion or your first time in Markarth. Complete different architecture and ambience. So in order to prevent collision of style, your castle should be rather desolate. this is already being discussed in the forum 'player owned fortress' where I pinpointed the same problems.

 

I thought about the castle from beauty and the beast, which is like the college on a tower of rocks in a desolate area. It's huge, it's epic, it's Gothic.

The most appropiete area for this would be in the county of Falkreath. Like some other people I too thought about a 'Helgen revisited' in which you can rebuild Helgen and make it your own personal fortress. But it's not desolate enough. Therefore, i was thinking about a area more southern, or one in the Jerall Mountains south of High Hrothgar. West of Autumnwatch tower, these mountains that form the borders with Cyrodil. In that desolate mountain area a gothic castle could be placed.

 

But a Gothic castle like the one from Beauty and the Beast isn't entirely fit for snowy regions. It would be hard to build, and that's why you don't see them very often. In cold regions a more cubistic style is preferred. A perfect example is Windhelm. It's cold, harsh and unforgiving. building there is hard, which you can see in it's architecture. the Walls are high and thick and made from dark stone. It's the type of city you rather would not want to live. If you placed Assassin's Creed 1 you should see it as the city of Acre in a snowy region without the Gothic cathedral. The architecture of the houses is simple. Thick stone walls to keep the warmth inside and that's all you need. No need for high buildings, as long as you have thick stone walls. No need for spiky high towers.

 

So the best place for a Gothic Castle would be where the snow only falls in the winter. The forests of Falkreath. But Falkreath isn't that big unfortunatelly. So a mod would have to be just in Cyrodill, so you are as far as possible away from the Reach and the town of Falkreath.

 

Remember that you can still have a collision of styles. The castle from Beauty and the Beast is a Romantic representation of Late Middle Ages architecture. Real castles like that are actually quite rare. Such extravagant building is normally only used for cathedrals. Cathedrals are usally the highest points in the city, symbolizing the 'highest power' of the Church and being 'higher' then that of the political rulers.

 

Romantic is Epic. Epic is a reference to Oblivion. Skyrim is NOT epic, but adventerous. One can spent his entire lifetime of fighting and taming the wild, the forests are infinite and so is the danger. Epic would actually be a clash of organized and collected forces of good and evil.

In Skyrim, these borders are almost invisible. There is no clear moral (Imperial or Stormcloak) and no one is actually right. That's why you can hear during the trailers people saying 'Skyrim is in Chaos'. It has always been in chaos, but now even more then it usually is.

 

A collective force of moral and men that can be defined as 'good' and one as 'evil' isn't present in skyrim. That's why Skyrim isn't epic. there is no epic war (like the war against the Thalmor) but there is a civil war (one without a clear moral view).

 

Escapism, which is actually the viewing of the 19th century artists of the Late Middle Ages doesn't fit in entirely with Skyrim. Skyrim is way to rough for it. The only morals that you will meet out there in Skyrim isn't the one of men and mer and Daedra, but one of who is the mightiest. Oblivion was clear in it's style. You must prevent the destruction of the world from pure evil mass (the daedra). Sure, you got the evil Alduin but also his good/evil brother Paarthunax, the nihilistic views of the Greybeards who don't view Alduin as being entirely evil. Alduin is the only personification of evil in the game. Okay, you got the draugr but they are undead and are not really 'coming out of the dungeons to destroy the world'.

But there isn't really a big overhead view in which you can say 'they are evil' and 'they are good'. The companions are neutral in the civil war, the greybeards are neutral in the civil war and even the war against alduin. There is no good, there is no evil. There is only the strength of your arm.

 

That's why I keep coming back on the point of collision of style. In order to do this, slightly introduce the Romantic viewing of the Late Middle Ages, instead of a epic castle out of nowhere. The mountainous region of Fort Neugrad would be suitable in order to make the player 'forget' the Nordic architecture and style and by making a long, long road (one with many unneccesary curves) in which the road slightly changes, and so does the climate, and so do the roadsigns, and so do the little walls, and so does the occasional inn you encounter and then you end up in the climate of Falkreath.

 

There you encounter a dark Gothic castle on a spire of rocks, only accessible via the bridge that leads towards it's huge main gate. Black Dragons guard the castle and can be seen circling around it. beneath the castle is a misty swamp filled with vermin. The castle itself? filled with the undead and foul beasts like many vampires and werewolfs. you encounter horrible rituals which involve human sacrifice. A real Horror element is now being added.

 

You can see the paintings of many Nobles, and you sworn that you catched one painting looking at you. most of them have been damaged, scratched diagonelly thanks to the claws of some large monster. No spiders are encountered here. No Hagravens can be found here. In here, there is no such thing as the living. Only the dead and the damned.

 

But i think my comment is long enough now;). Give a reply and let me know what you think of it!