Project Spotlight: Beyond Skyrim - Cyrodiil

PatrickTheDM · October 22, 2018

In response to post #64545121. #64566621 is also a reply to the same post.

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Check my profile. ;)

theblackpixel · October 22, 2018

In response to post #64519381. #64520881, #64557586, #64558091 are all replies on the same post.

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ghaladh wrote: Tamriel rebuilt, Skywind, Morroblivion and massive projects like this one will never get done. What baffles me is the fact that people never learn that no such undertaking has ever been completed so far in TES history, yet people keep being so dumbly optimistic and try it again every single time. I don't know if they keep lying to themselves or they truly believe that "this time is gonna be different". It's ludricous.

Rather than wasting time, efforts and resources in such a grand hopeless project I suggest you to learn from the previous failures: there is no use for a huge landmass when there is really nothing to do in beside walking and exploring. Start smaller, do just a part of land with a town and fill it with side quests. When you are done, proceed with another chop of land and do the same thing again. If the Gods smile on you, you might get enough towns to start connecting those places with more intricated and significant quests.

Many claim that Tamrield rebuilt has accomplished a lot. Yeah, in more than a decade has added a significant landmass to a (wonderful) game that very few people still play. Yet it's still a WIP. What's the point of it?

By releasing a finished town with quests every time you are done with it, it allows the player to remain interested in the project, to play what has been done so far (not just have a stroll in the new places, I really mean "PLAY" the mod).

You need different teams:
1) Environment team: those modders will merely create the environment and will keep it updated when necessary. That's going to be the biggest team because it encompasses graphic designers to develop new textures and meshes, exterior and interior designers and possibly programmers to implement new eventual features (interactive items, dynamic weather and lighting and so on...).
2) The NPCs and quest development team: those will fill the land prepared by the previous team with quests and NPCs. Two/four modders at best is what's necessary here.
3) Beta refining team: just a couple of modders that will scout the forum and apply the changes and the bug fixes reported by the players.

Think step-by-step and if one day the project would fall into oblivion, at least you will have given to the players a mod that can be played and enjoyed. Anything else would be a waste of time, talent and resources. Having teams dedicated to so many provinces at the same time will set the whole project in the neverending limbo of the never finished and unplayable WIPs.

Quote
theblackpixel wrote: First of all full disclosure: Until recently I was the department director at Beyond Skyrim: Iliac Bay (I left due to time constraints). Second, the things I say here are my views, not some official statement by Beyond Skyrim.
Now, let me adress some of your complaints. The first thing you have to keep in mind is that modders do not work work for the players. I worked on the project because I liked doing level design and enjoyed the change of scenery that Beyond Skyrim offered. I met a really cool group of people and together we worked on a grand project. I rarely play Skyrim anymore, but I still very much enjoy modding it. I did not work on Iliac Bay because I wanted to release it but simply because I enjoyed working on Iliac Bay.

You make the mistake of viewing the effort Beyond Skyrim and Tamriel Rebuilt put into their project as wasted time. We're just having fun making things and every piece that gets released is just a gift to the community. The act of making those things in and of itself made it worth my time. You're upset at the presents you could've gotten instead of appreciating the ones you're getting. I understand why that bothers you but keep in mind; these projects are free, you invested nothing to get them. It's not like you paid 60 dollars for an early acces title which did not deliver, these projects do not have a responsability to you. A lot of these projects even avoid giving release dates as to not disappoint people if they miss them.

Now onto the second part of your complaint. A rolling release would indeed be something which lends itself well to larger projects like the ones in Beyond Skyrim, I certainly do agree with that notion. Your other issue however misses the point of what Beyond Skyrim is. It is not a single project but a conglomerate of multiple separate projects, sharing assets and a community, among other things. Think of it as this analogy, you cannot expect every European country to go help say Germany imrpove as a nation, they have their own nation to run but can help eachother out in other ways. People who work on Morrowind might have no interest in working on Cyrodiil and vice versa. In order to join Beyond Skyrim you already need to have an established project with some progress, in other words you need to have a team before you can become part of the larger endeavour.
Now onto the third part of your comment. You suggest having different teams to take care of different things. These do exist within every project, in Beyond Skyrim they're called departments. At Iliac Bay we had:
Level Design
Audio and Composing
Implementation and Scripting
Voice Acting
Writing and Lore
2D Artists
3D Artists
Marketing
Software development

I hope that answered some of your questions and offered some clarification as to how the things are the way they are.

Quote
Pherim wrote: If they like what they do it's not a waste of time, at least not for the modders who participate in making it, but I agree that there is no reason to believe this will end up being any different than previous projects which aimed to do the exact same thing in the earlier games. To my knowledge, not even a single province has ever really been completed, not even the Morrowind main land in Tamriel Rebuilt, where they didn't even have to create the entire province (although the main land is bigger than the original game). And I totally agree that even if the landscape and towns and everything were finished at one point, there would still be the problem of content. Making all these areas is difficult enough, but filling them with fun and interesting gameplay is a completely different matter. Now, I haven't played Beyond Skyrim: Bruma yet, and from what I've heard it's pretty good, but for a whole continent many times the size of the original game? Not going to happen any time soon (and with regard to Tamriel Rebuild, "soon" could be at least up to 16 years). Skywind is also not available yet, 7 years after Skyrim's release. The only real exception seem to be the guys who made Enderal, who also managed to complete similar total conversions for Oblivion and Morrowind. On the other hand, Black Mesa (a fan remake of Half-Life 1 in the Half-Life 2 engine, if anyone is not aware) seems to be close to completion now, more than 14 years after the release of Half-Life 2 and three and a half years after it became an Early Access Steam Title (so they actually get money for making it now), and that's a pretty linear First Person shooter, no Open World RPG like Elder Scrolls, and certainly no huge open continent with multiple different provinces to explore. What I'm trying to say is these things take time, A LOT of time, and most of them never get finished.

Anyway, I don't want to be rude or anything, I have a lot of respect and admiration for people working on projects like this, being a modder myself. But some of the people commenting may be a bit too enthusiastic or optimistic about it. Still, it's great that a part of it can already be played, and even if the entire thing never gets finished, that's more than many other big projects managed to achieve.

Quote
ghaladh wrote: Thank you for taking your time to explain. I admit I never considered the modder's point of view and I realize that I'm ignoring the rewarding feeling given by the creation of a mod; for a modder, I guess, working on a mod is as fun as actually playing the game, sometimes even more.

I created a few small mods for Morrowind, in the past, although I never released them to the public, because I simply wanted to modify a few things in the game that I didn't like the way they were, so I see modding as merely adding to the game something to make me like more the game itself. I didn't consider that modding itself might be something fun to do and that a modder doesn't have to necessarily "work for the players" or aim for a release.

Another thing I misunderstood is that those teams working on different provinces started as independent projects. Thanks to your explaination, I understand now that you guys are simply sharing the efforts to create a more compact and seamless work.

However, please, do not take my observations just as a mere complaint: I wanted to give some constructive criticism and hopefully some helpful insight, although I admit my point of view is biased and personal and it didn't take into consideration what you kindly explained to me.

I'm glad I read your comment, as I mentioned there are some insights I would consider useful to me, other modders and the people at Beyond Skyrim (like the rolling release idea). You're correct, 'complaint' was definitely a bad choice of words. I'm not a native speaker, but I'm pretty sure it was a subconscious choice I made because I was a bit annoyed, my apologies. The view of Beyond Skyrim as one project is still a widespread misconception, and I'm not exactly sure how or if we would ever be able to alleviate that.
And of course your comment is personal and biased, so is mine. It would be concerning if you thought it wasn't. Looking into other point of views is what allows us to better understand both our own and someone else's opinions.
Have a nice day

Patchier · October 23, 2018

In response to post #64516096.

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What you need to remember is that the Empire was just in a major war with a very powerful Dominion, and included fighting and occupation on both sides in several areas.

There's no guarantee that the DB would have survived such a massive conflict, especially if Dominion AND Imperial forces were hunting them down during and after the war. Not to mention the fact that the Empire is STILL hunting them down, even with the civil war in Skyrim brewing. If anything, they probably would have gotten MORE serious about destroying it, since they will need as little chaos in the Empire as possible if they want to fight the Dominion again in the future.

HaemProjects · October 23, 2018

It was interesting to read, thank you!

Mythos214 · October 23, 2018

In response to post #64519381. #64520881, #64557586, #64558091, #64581501 are all replies on the same post.

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ghaladh wrote: Tamriel rebuilt, Skywind, Morroblivion and massive projects like this one will never get done. What baffles me is the fact that people never learn that no such undertaking has ever been completed so far in TES history, yet people keep being so dumbly optimistic and try it again every single time. I don't know if they keep lying to themselves or they truly believe that "this time is gonna be different". It's ludricous.

Rather than wasting time, efforts and resources in such a grand hopeless project I suggest you to learn from the previous failures: there is no use for a huge landmass when there is really nothing to do in beside walking and exploring. Start smaller, do just a part of land with a town and fill it with side quests. When you are done, proceed with another chop of land and do the same thing again. If the Gods smile on you, you might get enough towns to start connecting those places with more intricated and significant quests.

Many claim that Tamrield rebuilt has accomplished a lot. Yeah, in more than a decade has added a significant landmass to a (wonderful) game that very few people still play. Yet it's still a WIP. What's the point of it?

By releasing a finished town with quests every time you are done with it, it allows the player to remain interested in the project, to play what has been done so far (not just have a stroll in the new places, I really mean "PLAY" the mod).

You need different teams:
1) Environment team: those modders will merely create the environment and will keep it updated when necessary. That's going to be the biggest team because it encompasses graphic designers to develop new textures and meshes, exterior and interior designers and possibly programmers to implement new eventual features (interactive items, dynamic weather and lighting and so on...).
2) The NPCs and quest development team: those will fill the land prepared by the previous team with quests and NPCs. Two/four modders at best is what's necessary here.
3) Beta refining team: just a couple of modders that will scout the forum and apply the changes and the bug fixes reported by the players.

Think step-by-step and if one day the project would fall into oblivion, at least you will have given to the players a mod that can be played and enjoyed. Anything else would be a waste of time, talent and resources. Having teams dedicated to so many provinces at the same time will set the whole project in the neverending limbo of the never finished and unplayable WIPs.

Quote
theblackpixel wrote: First of all full disclosure: Until recently I was the department director at Beyond Skyrim: Iliac Bay (I left due to time constraints). Second, the things I say here are my views, not some official statement by Beyond Skyrim.
Now, let me adress some of your complaints. The first thing you have to keep in mind is that modders do not work work for the players. I worked on the project because I liked doing level design and enjoyed the change of scenery that Beyond Skyrim offered. I met a really cool group of people and together we worked on a grand project. I rarely play Skyrim anymore, but I still very much enjoy modding it. I did not work on Iliac Bay because I wanted to release it but simply because I enjoyed working on Iliac Bay.

You make the mistake of viewing the effort Beyond Skyrim and Tamriel Rebuilt put into their project as wasted time. We're just having fun making things and every piece that gets released is just a gift to the community. The act of making those things in and of itself made it worth my time. You're upset at the presents you could've gotten instead of appreciating the ones you're getting. I understand why that bothers you but keep in mind; these projects are free, you invested nothing to get them. It's not like you paid 60 dollars for an early acces title which did not deliver, these projects do not have a responsability to you. A lot of these projects even avoid giving release dates as to not disappoint people if they miss them.

Now onto the second part of your complaint. A rolling release would indeed be something which lends itself well to larger projects like the ones in Beyond Skyrim, I certainly do agree with that notion. Your other issue however misses the point of what Beyond Skyrim is. It is not a single project but a conglomerate of multiple separate projects, sharing assets and a community, among other things. Think of it as this analogy, you cannot expect every European country to go help say Germany imrpove as a nation, they have their own nation to run but can help eachother out in other ways. People who work on Morrowind might have no interest in working on Cyrodiil and vice versa. In order to join Beyond Skyrim you already need to have an established project with some progress, in other words you need to have a team before you can become part of the larger endeavour.
Now onto the third part of your comment. You suggest having different teams to take care of different things. These do exist within every project, in Beyond Skyrim they're called departments. At Iliac Bay we had:
Level Design
Audio and Composing
Implementation and Scripting
Voice Acting
Writing and Lore
2D Artists
3D Artists
Marketing
Software development

I hope that answered some of your questions and offered some clarification as to how the things are the way they are.

Quote
Pherim wrote: If they like what they do it's not a waste of time, at least not for the modders who participate in making it, but I agree that there is no reason to believe this will end up being any different than previous projects which aimed to do the exact same thing in the earlier games. To my knowledge, not even a single province has ever really been completed, not even the Morrowind main land in Tamriel Rebuilt, where they didn't even have to create the entire province (although the main land is bigger than the original game). And I totally agree that even if the landscape and towns and everything were finished at one point, there would still be the problem of content. Making all these areas is difficult enough, but filling them with fun and interesting gameplay is a completely different matter. Now, I haven't played Beyond Skyrim: Bruma yet, and from what I've heard it's pretty good, but for a whole continent many times the size of the original game? Not going to happen any time soon (and with regard to Tamriel Rebuild, "soon" could be at least up to 16 years). Skywind is also not available yet, 7 years after Skyrim's release. The only real exception seem to be the guys who made Enderal, who also managed to complete similar total conversions for Oblivion and Morrowind. On the other hand, Black Mesa (a fan remake of Half-Life 1 in the Half-Life 2 engine, if anyone is not aware) seems to be close to completion now, more than 14 years after the release of Half-Life 2 and three and a half years after it became an Early Access Steam Title (so they actually get money for making it now), and that's a pretty linear First Person shooter, no Open World RPG like Elder Scrolls, and certainly no huge open continent with multiple different provinces to explore. What I'm trying to say is these things take time, A LOT of time, and most of them never get finished.

Anyway, I don't want to be rude or anything, I have a lot of respect and admiration for people working on projects like this, being a modder myself. But some of the people commenting may be a bit too enthusiastic or optimistic about it. Still, it's great that a part of it can already be played, and even if the entire thing never gets finished, that's more than many other big projects managed to achieve.

Quote
ghaladh wrote: Thank you for taking your time to explain. I admit I never considered the modder's point of view and I realize that I'm ignoring the rewarding feeling given by the creation of a mod; for a modder, I guess, working on a mod is as fun as actually playing the game, sometimes even more.

I created a few small mods for Morrowind, in the past, although I never released them to the public, because I simply wanted to modify a few things in the game that I didn't like the way they were, so I see modding as merely adding to the game something to make me like more the game itself. I didn't consider that modding itself might be something fun to do and that a modder doesn't have to necessarily "work for the players" or aim for a release.

Another thing I misunderstood is that those teams working on different provinces started as independent projects. Thanks to your explaination, I understand now that you guys are simply sharing the efforts to create a more compact and seamless work.

However, please, do not take my observations just as a mere complaint: I wanted to give some constructive criticism and hopefully some helpful insight, although I admit my point of view is biased and personal and it didn't take into consideration what you kindly explained to me.

Quote
theblackpixel wrote: I'm glad I read your comment, as I mentioned there are some insights I would consider useful to me, other modders and the people at Beyond Skyrim (like the rolling release idea). You're correct, 'complaint' was definitely a bad choice of words. I'm not a native speaker, but I'm pretty sure it was a subconscious choice I made because I was a bit annoyed, my apologies. The view of Beyond Skyrim as one project is still a widespread misconception, and I'm not exactly sure how or if we would ever be able to alleviate that.
And of course your comment is personal and biased, so is mine. It would be concerning if you thought it wasn't. Looking into other point of views is what allows us to better understand both our own and someone else's opinions.
Have a nice day

Didn't really read the whole thing, but all I can say is I've noticed the same thing that ghaladh's initial comment was saying (or at least the first paragraph about projects this size never getting finished or released), and I have the same fears. Which is why I would like to see this mod released in sections as they are finished and THEN as one whole province (or "mod pack", which in this case would be "Beyond Skyrim: Cyrodiil"), that way at least the people who have been waiting for it can actually get a chance to play what is finished, instead of being disappointed by another project that will never be finished.

I feel like Bruma was a step in the right direction, in that regard and is a format that should be repeated. Edited October 23, 2018 by Mythos214

lokisenna · October 23, 2018

In response to post #64516096. #64593056 is also a reply to the same post.

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It's actual setting canon established in Skyrim (and expanded in TES: Legends of all places) that the Dark Brotherhood had been wiped out in Cyrodiil - Cicero came from the destroyed Bravil Sanctuary. The same journal entries of Cicero's also establish that the DB had been in serious decline even before this, and was down to just the sanctuaries in Cyrodiil and Skyrim.

phillipjohnmc · October 23, 2018

In response to post #64513911. #64514896, #64539931 are all replies on the same post.

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tes: vi is presumed for 2024. I think some of the smaller beyond skyrim projects (Roscrea, Atmora) will be out soon enough. be a little more encouraging! they'll be more likely to finish the whole thing

Catsmacker · October 24, 2018

In response to post #64519381. #64520881, #64557586, #64558091, #64581501, #64606941 are all replies on the same post.

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ghaladh wrote: Tamriel rebuilt, Skywind, Morroblivion and massive projects like this one will never get done. What baffles me is the fact that people never learn that no such undertaking has ever been completed so far in TES history, yet people keep being so dumbly optimistic and try it again every single time. I don't know if they keep lying to themselves or they truly believe that "this time is gonna be different". It's ludricous.

Rather than wasting time, efforts and resources in such a grand hopeless project I suggest you to learn from the previous failures: there is no use for a huge landmass when there is really nothing to do in beside walking and exploring. Start smaller, do just a part of land with a town and fill it with side quests. When you are done, proceed with another chop of land and do the same thing again. If the Gods smile on you, you might get enough towns to start connecting those places with more intricated and significant quests.

Many claim that Tamrield rebuilt has accomplished a lot. Yeah, in more than a decade has added a significant landmass to a (wonderful) game that very few people still play. Yet it's still a WIP. What's the point of it?

By releasing a finished town with quests every time you are done with it, it allows the player to remain interested in the project, to play what has been done so far (not just have a stroll in the new places, I really mean "PLAY" the mod).

You need different teams:
1) Environment team: those modders will merely create the environment and will keep it updated when necessary. That's going to be the biggest team because it encompasses graphic designers to develop new textures and meshes, exterior and interior designers and possibly programmers to implement new eventual features (interactive items, dynamic weather and lighting and so on...).
2) The NPCs and quest development team: those will fill the land prepared by the previous team with quests and NPCs. Two/four modders at best is what's necessary here.
3) Beta refining team: just a couple of modders that will scout the forum and apply the changes and the bug fixes reported by the players.

Think step-by-step and if one day the project would fall into oblivion, at least you will have given to the players a mod that can be played and enjoyed. Anything else would be a waste of time, talent and resources. Having teams dedicated to so many provinces at the same time will set the whole project in the neverending limbo of the never finished and unplayable WIPs.

Quote
theblackpixel wrote: First of all full disclosure: Until recently I was the department director at Beyond Skyrim: Iliac Bay (I left due to time constraints). Second, the things I say here are my views, not some official statement by Beyond Skyrim.
Now, let me adress some of your complaints. The first thing you have to keep in mind is that modders do not work work for the players. I worked on the project because I liked doing level design and enjoyed the change of scenery that Beyond Skyrim offered. I met a really cool group of people and together we worked on a grand project. I rarely play Skyrim anymore, but I still very much enjoy modding it. I did not work on Iliac Bay because I wanted to release it but simply because I enjoyed working on Iliac Bay.

You make the mistake of viewing the effort Beyond Skyrim and Tamriel Rebuilt put into their project as wasted time. We're just having fun making things and every piece that gets released is just a gift to the community. The act of making those things in and of itself made it worth my time. You're upset at the presents you could've gotten instead of appreciating the ones you're getting. I understand why that bothers you but keep in mind; these projects are free, you invested nothing to get them. It's not like you paid 60 dollars for an early acces title which did not deliver, these projects do not have a responsability to you. A lot of these projects even avoid giving release dates as to not disappoint people if they miss them.

Now onto the second part of your complaint. A rolling release would indeed be something which lends itself well to larger projects like the ones in Beyond Skyrim, I certainly do agree with that notion. Your other issue however misses the point of what Beyond Skyrim is. It is not a single project but a conglomerate of multiple separate projects, sharing assets and a community, among other things. Think of it as this analogy, you cannot expect every European country to go help say Germany imrpove as a nation, they have their own nation to run but can help eachother out in other ways. People who work on Morrowind might have no interest in working on Cyrodiil and vice versa. In order to join Beyond Skyrim you already need to have an established project with some progress, in other words you need to have a team before you can become part of the larger endeavour.
Now onto the third part of your comment. You suggest having different teams to take care of different things. These do exist within every project, in Beyond Skyrim they're called departments. At Iliac Bay we had:
Level Design
Audio and Composing
Implementation and Scripting
Voice Acting
Writing and Lore
2D Artists
3D Artists
Marketing
Software development

I hope that answered some of your questions and offered some clarification as to how the things are the way they are.

Quote
Pherim wrote: If they like what they do it's not a waste of time, at least not for the modders who participate in making it, but I agree that there is no reason to believe this will end up being any different than previous projects which aimed to do the exact same thing in the earlier games. To my knowledge, not even a single province has ever really been completed, not even the Morrowind main land in Tamriel Rebuilt, where they didn't even have to create the entire province (although the main land is bigger than the original game). And I totally agree that even if the landscape and towns and everything were finished at one point, there would still be the problem of content. Making all these areas is difficult enough, but filling them with fun and interesting gameplay is a completely different matter. Now, I haven't played Beyond Skyrim: Bruma yet, and from what I've heard it's pretty good, but for a whole continent many times the size of the original game? Not going to happen any time soon (and with regard to Tamriel Rebuild, "soon" could be at least up to 16 years). Skywind is also not available yet, 7 years after Skyrim's release. The only real exception seem to be the guys who made Enderal, who also managed to complete similar total conversions for Oblivion and Morrowind. On the other hand, Black Mesa (a fan remake of Half-Life 1 in the Half-Life 2 engine, if anyone is not aware) seems to be close to completion now, more than 14 years after the release of Half-Life 2 and three and a half years after it became an Early Access Steam Title (so they actually get money for making it now), and that's a pretty linear First Person shooter, no Open World RPG like Elder Scrolls, and certainly no huge open continent with multiple different provinces to explore. What I'm trying to say is these things take time, A LOT of time, and most of them never get finished.

Anyway, I don't want to be rude or anything, I have a lot of respect and admiration for people working on projects like this, being a modder myself. But some of the people commenting may be a bit too enthusiastic or optimistic about it. Still, it's great that a part of it can already be played, and even if the entire thing never gets finished, that's more than many other big projects managed to achieve.

Quote
ghaladh wrote: Thank you for taking your time to explain. I admit I never considered the modder's point of view and I realize that I'm ignoring the rewarding feeling given by the creation of a mod; for a modder, I guess, working on a mod is as fun as actually playing the game, sometimes even more.

I created a few small mods for Morrowind, in the past, although I never released them to the public, because I simply wanted to modify a few things in the game that I didn't like the way they were, so I see modding as merely adding to the game something to make me like more the game itself. I didn't consider that modding itself might be something fun to do and that a modder doesn't have to necessarily "work for the players" or aim for a release.

Another thing I misunderstood is that those teams working on different provinces started as independent projects. Thanks to your explaination, I understand now that you guys are simply sharing the efforts to create a more compact and seamless work.

However, please, do not take my observations just as a mere complaint: I wanted to give some constructive criticism and hopefully some helpful insight, although I admit my point of view is biased and personal and it didn't take into consideration what you kindly explained to me.

Quote
theblackpixel wrote: I'm glad I read your comment, as I mentioned there are some insights I would consider useful to me, other modders and the people at Beyond Skyrim (like the rolling release idea). You're correct, 'complaint' was definitely a bad choice of words. I'm not a native speaker, but I'm pretty sure it was a subconscious choice I made because I was a bit annoyed, my apologies. The view of Beyond Skyrim as one project is still a widespread misconception, and I'm not exactly sure how or if we would ever be able to alleviate that.
And of course your comment is personal and biased, so is mine. It would be concerning if you thought it wasn't. Looking into other point of views is what allows us to better understand both our own and someone else's opinions.
Have a nice day

Quote
Mythos214 wrote: Didn't really read the whole thing, but all I can say is I've noticed the same thing that ghaladh's initial comment was saying (or at least the first paragraph about projects this size never getting finished or released), and I have the same fears. Which is why I would like to see this mod released in sections as they are finished and THEN as one whole province (or "mod pack", which in this case would be "Beyond Skyrim: Cyrodiil"), that way at least the people who have been waiting for it can actually get a chance to play what is finished, instead of being disappointed by another project that will never be finished.

I feel like Bruma was a step in the right direction, in that regard and is a format that should be repeated.

While these projects may never "complete" in a way a commercial release might, I do not see this as a failing. These are volunteer projects by people who love the game, and want to enhance, repair or expand the experience and share the results of their efforts. Even if completion never happens, it seems to me that building a team, and defining and meeting milestones have value, and provide valuable experience and networks of talent for future projects. From my own external perspective, it seems that this lack of completion / polish is often a result of what I refer to as scope creep. It can be seen along the lines of well we accomplished a, but be would also be cool, so let's do that next. The only real failures I see typically revolve around unclear or ambiguous messaging and not clearly setting expectations, but again, in a volunteer project there are no guarantees that you will have every skill set covered.

phillipjohnmc · October 24, 2018

In response to post #64519381. #64520881, #64557586, #64558091, #64581501, #64606941, #64627541 are all replies on the same post.

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Quote
ghaladh wrote: Tamriel rebuilt, Skywind, Morroblivion and massive projects like this one will never get done. What baffles me is the fact that people never learn that no such undertaking has ever been completed so far in TES history, yet people keep being so dumbly optimistic and try it again every single time. I don't know if they keep lying to themselves or they truly believe that "this time is gonna be different". It's ludricous.

Rather than wasting time, efforts and resources in such a grand hopeless project I suggest you to learn from the previous failures: there is no use for a huge landmass when there is really nothing to do in beside walking and exploring. Start smaller, do just a part of land with a town and fill it with side quests. When you are done, proceed with another chop of land and do the same thing again. If the Gods smile on you, you might get enough towns to start connecting those places with more intricated and significant quests.

Many claim that Tamrield rebuilt has accomplished a lot. Yeah, in more than a decade has added a significant landmass to a (wonderful) game that very few people still play. Yet it's still a WIP. What's the point of it?

By releasing a finished town with quests every time you are done with it, it allows the player to remain interested in the project, to play what has been done so far (not just have a stroll in the new places, I really mean "PLAY" the mod).

You need different teams:
1) Environment team: those modders will merely create the environment and will keep it updated when necessary. That's going to be the biggest team because it encompasses graphic designers to develop new textures and meshes, exterior and interior designers and possibly programmers to implement new eventual features (interactive items, dynamic weather and lighting and so on...).
2) The NPCs and quest development team: those will fill the land prepared by the previous team with quests and NPCs. Two/four modders at best is what's necessary here.
3) Beta refining team: just a couple of modders that will scout the forum and apply the changes and the bug fixes reported by the players.

Think step-by-step and if one day the project would fall into oblivion, at least you will have given to the players a mod that can be played and enjoyed. Anything else would be a waste of time, talent and resources. Having teams dedicated to so many provinces at the same time will set the whole project in the neverending limbo of the never finished and unplayable WIPs.

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theblackpixel wrote: First of all full disclosure: Until recently I was the department director at Beyond Skyrim: Iliac Bay (I left due to time constraints). Second, the things I say here are my views, not some official statement by Beyond Skyrim.
Now, let me adress some of your complaints. The first thing you have to keep in mind is that modders do not work work for the players. I worked on the project because I liked doing level design and enjoyed the change of scenery that Beyond Skyrim offered. I met a really cool group of people and together we worked on a grand project. I rarely play Skyrim anymore, but I still very much enjoy modding it. I did not work on Iliac Bay because I wanted to release it but simply because I enjoyed working on Iliac Bay.

You make the mistake of viewing the effort Beyond Skyrim and Tamriel Rebuilt put into their project as wasted time. We're just having fun making things and every piece that gets released is just a gift to the community. The act of making those things in and of itself made it worth my time. You're upset at the presents you could've gotten instead of appreciating the ones you're getting. I understand why that bothers you but keep in mind; these projects are free, you invested nothing to get them. It's not like you paid 60 dollars for an early acces title which did not deliver, these projects do not have a responsability to you. A lot of these projects even avoid giving release dates as to not disappoint people if they miss them.

Now onto the second part of your complaint. A rolling release would indeed be something which lends itself well to larger projects like the ones in Beyond Skyrim, I certainly do agree with that notion. Your other issue however misses the point of what Beyond Skyrim is. It is not a single project but a conglomerate of multiple separate projects, sharing assets and a community, among other things. Think of it as this analogy, you cannot expect every European country to go help say Germany imrpove as a nation, they have their own nation to run but can help eachother out in other ways. People who work on Morrowind might have no interest in working on Cyrodiil and vice versa. In order to join Beyond Skyrim you already need to have an established project with some progress, in other words you need to have a team before you can become part of the larger endeavour.
Now onto the third part of your comment. You suggest having different teams to take care of different things. These do exist within every project, in Beyond Skyrim they're called departments. At Iliac Bay we had:
Level Design
Audio and Composing
Implementation and Scripting
Voice Acting
Writing and Lore
2D Artists
3D Artists
Marketing
Software development

I hope that answered some of your questions and offered some clarification as to how the things are the way they are.

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Pherim wrote: If they like what they do it's not a waste of time, at least not for the modders who participate in making it, but I agree that there is no reason to believe this will end up being any different than previous projects which aimed to do the exact same thing in the earlier games. To my knowledge, not even a single province has ever really been completed, not even the Morrowind main land in Tamriel Rebuilt, where they didn't even have to create the entire province (although the main land is bigger than the original game). And I totally agree that even if the landscape and towns and everything were finished at one point, there would still be the problem of content. Making all these areas is difficult enough, but filling them with fun and interesting gameplay is a completely different matter. Now, I haven't played Beyond Skyrim: Bruma yet, and from what I've heard it's pretty good, but for a whole continent many times the size of the original game? Not going to happen any time soon (and with regard to Tamriel Rebuild, "soon" could be at least up to 16 years). Skywind is also not available yet, 7 years after Skyrim's release. The only real exception seem to be the guys who made Enderal, who also managed to complete similar total conversions for Oblivion and Morrowind. On the other hand, Black Mesa (a fan remake of Half-Life 1 in the Half-Life 2 engine, if anyone is not aware) seems to be close to completion now, more than 14 years after the release of Half-Life 2 and three and a half years after it became an Early Access Steam Title (so they actually get money for making it now), and that's a pretty linear First Person shooter, no Open World RPG like Elder Scrolls, and certainly no huge open continent with multiple different provinces to explore. What I'm trying to say is these things take time, A LOT of time, and most of them never get finished.

Anyway, I don't want to be rude or anything, I have a lot of respect and admiration for people working on projects like this, being a modder myself. But some of the people commenting may be a bit too enthusiastic or optimistic about it. Still, it's great that a part of it can already be played, and even if the entire thing never gets finished, that's more than many other big projects managed to achieve.

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ghaladh wrote: Thank you for taking your time to explain. I admit I never considered the modder's point of view and I realize that I'm ignoring the rewarding feeling given by the creation of a mod; for a modder, I guess, working on a mod is as fun as actually playing the game, sometimes even more.

I created a few small mods for Morrowind, in the past, although I never released them to the public, because I simply wanted to modify a few things in the game that I didn't like the way they were, so I see modding as merely adding to the game something to make me like more the game itself. I didn't consider that modding itself might be something fun to do and that a modder doesn't have to necessarily "work for the players" or aim for a release.

Another thing I misunderstood is that those teams working on different provinces started as independent projects. Thanks to your explaination, I understand now that you guys are simply sharing the efforts to create a more compact and seamless work.

However, please, do not take my observations just as a mere complaint: I wanted to give some constructive criticism and hopefully some helpful insight, although I admit my point of view is biased and personal and it didn't take into consideration what you kindly explained to me.

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theblackpixel wrote: I'm glad I read your comment, as I mentioned there are some insights I would consider useful to me, other modders and the people at Beyond Skyrim (like the rolling release idea). You're correct, 'complaint' was definitely a bad choice of words. I'm not a native speaker, but I'm pretty sure it was a subconscious choice I made because I was a bit annoyed, my apologies. The view of Beyond Skyrim as one project is still a widespread misconception, and I'm not exactly sure how or if we would ever be able to alleviate that.
And of course your comment is personal and biased, so is mine. It would be concerning if you thought it wasn't. Looking into other point of views is what allows us to better understand both our own and someone else's opinions.
Have a nice day

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Mythos214 wrote: Didn't really read the whole thing, but all I can say is I've noticed the same thing that ghaladh's initial comment was saying (or at least the first paragraph about projects this size never getting finished or released), and I have the same fears. Which is why I would like to see this mod released in sections as they are finished and THEN as one whole province (or "mod pack", which in this case would be "Beyond Skyrim: Cyrodiil"), that way at least the people who have been waiting for it can actually get a chance to play what is finished, instead of being disappointed by another project that will never be finished.

I feel like Bruma was a step in the right direction, in that regard and is a format that should be repeated.

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Catsmacker wrote: While these projects may never "complete" in a way a commercial release might, I do not see this as a failing. These are volunteer projects by people who love the game, and want to enhance, repair or expand the experience and share the results of their efforts. Even if completion never happens, it seems to me that building a team, and defining and meeting milestones have value, and provide valuable experience and networks of talent for future projects. From my own external perspective, it seems that this lack of completion / polish is often a result of what I refer to as scope creep. It can be seen along the lines of well we accomplished a, but be would also be cool, so let's do that next. The only real failures I see typically revolve around unclear or ambiguous messaging and not clearly setting expectations, but again, in a volunteer project there are no guarantees that you will have every skill set covered.

I disagree that the beyond skyrim projects won't finish. they're well organised and dedicated. just give them some time. if it took Bethesda six years to make skyrim, it's no surprise that it would take six years to make another province. and it's going to be six more years before TES6, so, just be patient for this. it'll happen

Lagit12343 · October 25, 2018

If this goes through my life is completed.

Project Spotlight: Beyond Skyrim - Cyrodiil

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