Realism, Immersion, and Lore Mods

[Pymous]

Hello there,

 

If you have any suggestions/ideas to improve settlements immersion, please feel free to share them here: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/33162 .

That's the point of my mod :)

[Tank0123]

*snip*

 

Absolutely! Skyrim, sadly, needs some form of a Better Cities mod. Maybe not to completely overhaul them, but the cities are ruinous and empty... the only problem with this is that I read somewhere that it's hard to make it work or something. Think it had something to do with the terrain that Bethesda used, in that it was all one tile or something. Made for the buildings, very hard to alter. I don't know, I just heard that there was difficulty in altering landscapes, so that leaves BC modders severely limited.

 

tl;dr Cities are dead, agreed, and need overhauls. However it's said to be very hard to add to them.

[chacotaco91]

From what you guys are saying it seems modifying base skyrim has some built in difficulties when trying to fix the immersion problems of the game.

 

I think the best project possible would be to simply make a whole new world space. An island, say, that's a 1/4 the size of the original skyrim's size but is meticulous in its details and feels fully realized from the bottom up.

 

Instead of 5 empty, lifeless cities have one legitimate city that feels alive. Shops, beggars, sewers, alleyways, neighborhoods, nobles, brothels, and a fully visualized economy. It should be surrounded by farms, even suburbs. It needs to have its mansion estates to rob and slums that you can get lost and feel endangered in.

 

The landscape outside can't just be a bland repetition of the same trees, ponds, etc etc. The small touches that oblivion had in its "unique landscapes" mod made the difference between shutting the game off or constantly saying "just one more hour.."

 

I think the main problem comes is dealing with the console limitations. Its the standard that Bethesda makes the game with while on the P.C. we can push boundaries as we get a better feel of the limitations on the engine.

 

I'd much rather play a detailed and fully realized new world than a patched up Skyrim that has a large helping of makeup.

[jackowonderful]

or make a new world 5x bigger and move everything over.

[Pevey]

I have a mod called Bards & Merchants. Only the bard part is ready right now. http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/31680

 

I also second the recommendation for Katixa's Ciderhouse mod.