Project Spotlight: Beyond Skyrim - Cyrodiil

[BinakAlgo]

Personally, I'm amazed by this kind of works, it is almost unbelievable that a group of volunteers is basically making a new game with only the engine and mechanics of a previous game as a base, it is mind-blowing how much they are able to advance with so little. We've been waiting for a new TES for at least 6 years from a professional, fully paid and experienced developers companies, and here we have people trying to make a name for themselves or just wanting to create something, creating quests, maps and such in just some years.

 

Despite the unavoidable shortcomings that these projects have, I want to congratulate all the team of Beyond Skyrim, your efforts are highly commendable. I don't understand why people are so rash and criticize project like yours so much, I don't know they think that create a playable are like Solthsteim it is just like telling the CK to do it and wait a few hours.

 

If anything, I would suggest delivering more footage so people know that you all are still going forward and even incomplete parts so people can realize how hard is to organize and execute projects of this magnitude.

 

Again, you have my admiration and I wish you the best for this project.

[Sonja]

In response to post #64513911. #64514896 is also a reply to the same post.

JoseSnake wrote: This is one of those projects that goes on for years and never releases, or when it releases is pretty much outdated (we'll have TES:VI by then).

I mean no disrespect to the Teams working on it though, is just the general rule for projects of this scope.

BandyRFC wrote: Beyond Skyrim Bruma...

"we'll have TES:VI by then"

~~~
First of all, I wouldn't want to bet on that.
Secondly, so what? The Tamriel Rebuilt Team is still, after all these years, continuing work on their project.. and guess what? People are *STILL* playing, and modding Morrowind. In fact, the Morrowind modding scene is very active, especially considering the age of the game.
What's to say that the same won't apply to Skyrim and the "Beyond Skyrim" project?
Thirdly, as is the case with Bethesda games in general, once it's even released, it will take at least a year before various patches and mods have begun to address whatever shortcomings TES VI has.... making Skyrim the more viable option for all kinds of people. Not to mention, there's no reason you can't play games concurrently; I switch between Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim on a regular basis. Edited October 21, 2018 by Sonja

[PatrickTheDM]

Cheers on this! :) I started creating dungeons and adventures back in the 70's so having a digital means to do that and share them with a massive community is a dream come true. I'm still new to modding and I plan to keep my Skyrim for years to come. When modded it can be just as new as any new game and I love that teams form to create such immense content. Thanks to Bethesda for the open doors and CK that make this possible as well. :) Edited October 21, 2018 by Asaforg

[Pherim]

In response to post #64519381. #64520881 is also a reply to the same post.

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.

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.

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.

[ghaladh]

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

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.

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.

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.

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. Edited October 21, 2018 by ghaladh

[Deleted57218227User]

This is going to be great when they finish it. Not if...I said WHEN.

[ForRedwall]

Don't forget the most important project..

 

Beyond Skyrim: Skooma

[ForRedwall]

In response to post #64545121.

Asaforg wrote: Cheers on this! :) I started creating dungeons and adventures back in the 70's so having a digital means to do that and share them with a massive community is a dream come true. I'm still new to modding and I plan to keep my Skyrim for years to come. When modded it can be just as new as any new game and I love that teams form to create such immense content. Thanks to Bethesda for the open doors and CK that make this possible as well. :)

if you make any cool dungeons let us know fam xD

[matias1908]

Perfectoooo!!!! :ooooooo <33333333

 

[eragon4x10]

Well, this is goddamned amazing. Also, yall are working faster than Bethezda...