The South Andothren-Thirr merge

Development of the Northwestern bank of the Thirr River, including the Hlaalu port of Andothren. Hlaalu territory.

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The South Andothren-Thirr merge

Post by arvisrend »

This thread is going to contain the south Andothren-Thirr Merge: an ESP file containing claims 4-13, 4-26, 4-11, 4-25 and parts of 4-20, 4-21, 4-9, 4-24.

This is a permanent merge, not a demo file. I'm not planning to cut it ever again. So all changes have to be done on this file; don't modify the 4-13 and 4-26 claims anymore!

What remains to be done:
- merging in the remaining ints (particularly 4-20, with some ints possibly subject to debate!),
- bordermatching (this can start soon; Gnomey?),
- finishing the NPCing of 4-13 (Rats),
- landscaping changes in the WG buffer zone between Armun Ashlands and TRV, maybe turning this zone into RR (Gnomey? Nemon?),
- possibly landscaping changes around River Thirr, which should be proposed as soon as possible! (but really I'd prefer no such changes at all).

Note that this merge deliberately has cut some claims in two rather than following claim borders. This should facilitate border matching.

I'll post the file proper when it's done; right now I just need to have this thread started.
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Re: The South Andothren-Thirr merge

Post by arvisrend »

Attached is the actual merge.

WORKFLOW CONVENTIONS:

- If you want to edit this file (and are a TR modder), please ask the section leads for approval first. IRC is the easiest way to do that.

- If you want to do any kind of edits on the file and you have been greenlighted, please make sure that noone else has claimed it and then please claim it for yourself. Claiming the file means making a post (here in this thread) in which you explicitly announce in boldface that you are now working on the file. Once you either have made your changes or decide that you aren't going to, or just want to take a break, drop your claim by again announcing in boldface that you are no longer editing the file (and, obviously, uploading your latest version along with relevant information). To make this efficient, don't shy away from dropping and claiming liberally. If you know you have no time to work on the file for the next 2 days, do drop it -- maybe someone else will ninja in some edits in that time. Of course, you should not claim the file if someone else has it currently claimed.

- You don't need to get greenlighted by the section leads every time you want to re-claim the file; one approval (normally) lasts forever. That is, unless you're intent to make big (and/or possibly controversial) changes (e. g., new quests, or an overhaul of a region, or a new plantation); such changes should always be first suggested, then discussed and only then implemented (or not).

- The newest version of the file is always going to be attached to a recent post (not the first post in the thread, because not everyone has editing rights).

SPECIFICS:

I recall Gnomey being interested in border matching and Rats being interested in continuing his NPCing claim. (I'd be happier with Rats completing q2-29, but I shouldn't be the one to push...) Once the remaining ints are merged into South Andothren-Thirr, there will be a distillery and a further little outpost to NPC. The South Andothren-Thirr merge can be very nicely characterized by being the intersection of "map 4", "x >= -2" and "y <= -20" (yes, it's just a rectangle), so the existing ints should be easy to find on the claims browser.

In the next post I'll make a list of all bugs in this file, gathered from the various threads. (This will be tomorrow, though.)
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Post by Gnomey »

I'm ready to work on the exterior as soon as I get the go-ahead, really. That being said, I'd probably give priority to adjusting the coast of the north Andothren-Thirr merge whenever that is ready.

The landscaping changes that need to be done are roughly as follows (to my knowledge):

-fixing border seams
-general border matching, adding a road south from Indal-ruhn, prettifying Indal-ruhn.
-changing the strip of land between the Armun Ashlands and Thirr River Basin to Roth Roryn.

If I were to do those changes, I'd do them in that order.
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Post by Sload »

I think arvis is going to have the other file ready for you soon & you should work on that. Rats will keep this one for NPC stuff.
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Post by Gnomey »

Yeah, that was my impression.

There are two more possible exterior changes mentioned in the goodle drives file. I'll repeat them here so that they are kept in mind, but both probably require further discussion, likely in [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24220]this thread[/url] or in connection with the Thirr River Valley Master Plan:

-changing the crops grown in the plantations from saltrice and wickwheat to whatever House Hlaalu should grow in plantations.
-possibly adding signs of former Indoril habitation of the region. (OM ruins?)
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Post by Aeven »

If any interiors don't actually exist: tell me what they need to be and they'll be put up ASAP. I can even take down lower priority ones so these get made faster.
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Post by arvisrend »

BTW I just recalled from an IRC conversation a few days ago that the Hlaalu outpost in 4-11 might be for guarding the TRV from whatever comes from the Armun Ashes. A tunnel could be made from the outpost to the Ashes for easy transfer of troops.

Also, map. The merge in this thread is the green rectangle.
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Post by arvisrend »

Here's a compilation of bugs mostly reported by others. I am not saying they're all up-to-date, though the few I've checked out are. Not all of them are fixable on the file, sadly, since there are still some border issues between South A-T and North A-T (not to mention the border to map 3).

Outstanding bugs:

In_Hlaalu_Door_01 Thirr River Valley (4,-24) 34184 -195648 404 "use different door?"

ex_h_trapdoor_01 Eastern Rethil Lookout 4928 4160 15784 "remove lock"

hlaal_loaddoor_01 Rethil Plantation (2,-25) 19155 -202297 482 "probably should be owned and guarded or locked"

flora_bc_fern_02 Emmurbalpitu (1,-22) 11979 -177261 434 "float"

terrain_rock_wg_13 Thirr River Valley (1,-23) 9402 -180873 1574 "Casper, and floaters around"

TR_terr_WG_Cliff_02 TR_4-24 (-1,-30) -832 -240640 -2029 "caspering a bit" another cliff :(

TR_flora_tree09_ND Thirr River Valley (4,-26) 39342 -211518 561 "try rotating this tree, so it doesnt bleed into the wall so obviously, some leaves are coming out of it on the other side"

The bosmer in the Rethril(I think) plantation platform uses "him" where "he" would be more correct to refer to the orismer offering boatrides to hlaalu members

TR_terrain_AI_rock_12 TR_4-13 (4,-20) 40907 -155817 196 "this ends abruptly" border issue

terrain_rock_ai_08 TR_4-13 (3,-27) 28373 -220926 232 "land gap here" no longer, but a land tex mismatch remains

ex_hlaalu_fb_01 TR_4-13 (3,-26) 28096 -208256 0 "caspering with terrain" I don't know how to fix things like this nicely

flora_chokeweed_02 TR_4-13 (2,-23) 24398 -180308 226 "land tex mismatch 4-13 vs itself"

furn_banner_hlaalu_01 TR_4-13 (2,-20) 22941 -156614 2691 "blows into the structure. Replace with non-moving version. Check nearby plantation for similar issues"

terrain_rock_gl_04 TR_4-13 (2,-20) 23998 -155650 1996 "caspers" border issue

terrain_rock_wg_13 TR_4-13 (1,-23) 9402 -180873 1574 "giant casperer"border issue

flora_bc_fern_02 TR_4-13 (1,-22) 11925 -177243 427 "float"

flora_bc_fern_02 TR_4-13 (1,-22) 11979 -177261 434 "float"

terrain_rock_wg_12 TR_4-13 (1,-22) 9248 -174728 3688 "caspers"border issue

Terrain_rocks_GL_03 TR_4-13 (1,-21) 9964 -164899 440 "this place needs signposts (Almas Thirr, Othras Plantation, Andothren)"

flora_wickwheat_01 TR_4-13 (1,-20) 10461 -155967 647 "flaot" border issue?

flora_wickwheat_03 TR_4-13 (1,-20) 12098 -156033 795 "flaot" border issue?

flora_wickwheat_04 TR_4-13 (1,-20) 12283 -156131 848 "flaot" border issue?

Terrain_rocks_GL_04 TR_4-13 (1,-20) 10126 -156195 582 "flaots"border issue?

Terrain_rocks_GL_02 TR_4-13 (1,-20) 8668 -157015 625 "flaots"border issue

Terrain_rocks_GL_02 TR_4-13 (1,-20) 8668 -157015 625 "apart from the caspering, a land gap here" border issue

Terrain_rocks_GL_02 TR_4-13 (1,-20) 8426 -157676 454 "casper"border issue

Terrain_rocks_GL_02 TR_4-13 (1,-20) 8426 -157676 454 "ground gap nearby" border issue

flora_wickwheat_02 TR_4-13 (1,-20) 8264 -163810 412 "flaots"border issue

flora_wickwheat_04 Thirr River Valley (1,-20) 12283 -156131 848 "two plants floating" (border issue?)

flora_wickwheat_04 Thirr River Valley (1,-20) 11825 -156161 719 "floating a bit"

flora_wickwheat_04 Thirr River Valley (1,-20) 10187 -155955 791 "two plants floating"

flora_wickwheat_01 Thirr River Valley (1,-21) 8256 -163963 414 "two plants floating"

terrain_rock_wg_08 TR_4-9-Hla (0,-24) 1008 -195625 1252 "here be under-detailed terrain and square-ish land texture zones. (note: this is supposed to be a minor path leading to some lookout slightly to the south.)" This could use Nemon's hand - Haplo

Terrain_rocks_GL_02 TR_4-9-Hla (0,-27) 2426 -217437 2036 "not many refs around here, maybe some submerged?" Nope, but this will be an area to be detailed by Nemon later on before we release a real Map 4.

terrain_rock_wg_02 TR_4-9-Hla (0,-26) 6653 -206848 1355 "realm of emptiness" see last comment

terrain_rock_wg_10 TR_4-9-Hla (-1,-25) -1100 -199997 1041 "realm of emptiness" see last comment.

Replace deprecated books.
Last edited by arvisrend on Sun Jan 26, 2014 9:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Gnomey »

This error slipped its way into the northern merge thread:

flora_tree_gl_06 ATSouth_TR_4-20 (-1,-20) -1378 -157017 1101 "ground tex mismatch nearby"
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Post by arvisrend »

Claiming this for a little round of bugfixing.

Also, part of the thread is now at http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24316 .
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Post by arvisrend »

Releasing the file again.

I'm useless today. Fixed half a dozen bugs, simplified some scripts and replaced deprecated books; that was it...
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Post by Nemon »

Hijacked file just to check feasability of a mountain range. Pics [url=http://imgur.com/a/pMez2#1]here[/url].

This is just in case nothing else happens with the file, and the stuff is worth keeping.
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Post by Swiftoak »

HERP DURP.

-Added 7 tombs and 6 caves around the TRV area, per what was discussed & planned here. All of it was TRV only (4-13, 4-26) and NOT the 4-20 RR area to the west.
-Added another cave entrance for missing interior i4-227 here. Still needs to be merged.
Desunkified dwemer ruin entrance in 4-26. Also still needs to be merged with i4-471.
-Added claims for all the new interiors.
-Some detailing around the new entrances. Oh, and I somehow managed to botch this and dirty a cell (idr which one) by moving an unlinked door into an empty cell that was adjacent to the claim. Someone will have to clean this.
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Post by arvisrend »

Cleaned version of Swiftoak's file.

For the record, this version doesn't come from Nemon's rapid prototype.
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Post by Swiftoak »

Thanks arvis, I derped out and realized (thanks to rot) I added too much in some areas. Deleted 2 tombs (one on the north end of the merge, and the other west of Indal-rhun). Also deleted a cave that was too close to another cave (227), but didn't make a claim for because I was a dumbass. Already locked affected claims to be repurposed for future filler claims. The count is now +6 caves (not including 227) and +5 tombs. 471 to be merged.

Final file on my part. Releasing file.
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Post by rot »

so as to keep track,
THESE ARE ALL THE INTERIOR CLAIMS SWIFTOAK CREATED FOR THIS MERGE - that's i4-490 to i4-451 (except 498). Most are in reviewing. Edit this post when they are merged.

Swiftoak Edit 21.07.2014: All Interiors in this section have been merged, see post below

[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=320108]i4-490[/url] - merged
[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=320109]i4-491[/url] - merged
[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=320110]i4-492[/url] - merged
[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=320111]i4-493[/url] - merged
[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=320112]i4-494[/url] - merged
[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=320113]i4-495[/url] - merged
[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=320114]i4-496[/url] - merged
[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=320115]i4-497[/url] - merged
[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=320117]i4-499[/url] - merged
[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=320118]i4-500[/url] - merged
[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=320119]i4-501[/url] - merged

edit: orphaned interiors, also merged:

[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24180]i4-471[/url] - merged
[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=21267]i4-227[/url] - (4, -27)merged
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Post by Swiftoak »

Major work has been done. The following interiors have been merged. These require NPCing ASAP.

TR_i4-227 [Kanasami/Adryn Ancestral Tomb]
TR_i4-471 [Bthungtch, Halls of Resonance/Bthungtch, Basilica of Nfund]
TR_i4-490 [Adhuhartis]
TR_i4-491 [Yadamsi]
TR_i4-492 [Massaunus]
TR_i4-493 [Ibbanud]
TR_i4-494 [Zeddan]
TR_i4-495 [Udanasit]
TR_i4-496 [Edryn Ancestral Tomb]
TR_i4-497 [Sevil Ancestral Tomb]
TR_i4-499 [Selas Ancestral Tomb]
TR_i4-500 [Nerethi Ancestral Tomb]
TR_i4-501 [Dadrys Ancestral Tomb]

I also did quite a bit of detailing around the dwemer ruin to the south of Indal'rhun. Added a campfire and watch post for the bandits inhabiting the ruin, and a dirt trail to the riverbank, which they use smuggling. NPCers should add one or two low level smugglers to watch the entrance area.

As always, after any major work, I may have dirtied something, so could arivsrend or rot check this out?

Releasing file.
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Post by Yeti »

Open for NPCing?

I can claim this then and take care of the above-mentioned dungeon populating.

What level range should the baddies here fall between? I know it should be low level on average (with a few higher difficulty places put in for some variety), but how low exactly?
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Post by Swiftoak »

I would say fairly low, but there could be fairly mid-level to high-level pockets (I'm thinking the dwemer ruin in particular or the tombs tucked away from the roads could be higher level). I'd say the further south you go away from the Andothren/Almas Thirr Area, the baddies can be slightly tougher.

The Dwemer ruin is an extensive smuggling operation. Alot of the baddies will be running the river doing their thing, with a possible connection to CT interests in the area. There might even be some smuggling happening right under the nose of local Hlaalu officials (hence the brazen proximity of some of these hideouts to the Rethil Plantation).

You're welcome to it Yeti! Also if you want to start fixing/implementing some of the stuff regarding plantations, feel free to. I know Rats did some previous work here, so I would love it if you took a look at it and see if any of it works.
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Post by Yeti »

I'm by no means an exterior person (I did post an attempt at one in my Showcase thread once, though), but I really think the exterior changes to the plantations should take place before any NPC fixing (If I'm going to do it, I want to fix them all in one go).

Looking back on the thread for shrinking the Rethil (now Oran) plantation, it doesn't seem to require much major landscaping. Could I try my hand at moving buildings around and see how it turns out? I would do it first before starting on the ruins, and I would put up my progress for a real exterior person to look over before moving forward with the NPCs. If I do a shitty job, I would scrape the file and start on placing bad guys with a fresh one.
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Post by Swiftoak »

Yeah sure, go for it. No need to ask for permission :P

Just try and follow the outline of what was agreed on in that thread, and I'll take a look at things later if needbe. Would be nice to have stuff happening in this section again.

As for the smuggling, I wouldn't try to go too overboard, but see if you can establish some sort of character/theme. I imagine alot of these caves are actually part of a wider Thirr smuggling network. Perhaps establish some relationship with the CT and Khajiit slave trade? (I reckon the majority of slaves in this area would be Khajiit). Myabe even have the leaders of one or two caves co-ordinate/communicate with one another? Wouldn't need to be a huge story arc, maybe a note or journal or two that piques the player's interest hinting at a greater narrative when they explore this region.
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Post by Gnomey »

I'm all for you taking a stab at the exterior. I'll keep an eye on your progress, but, while I am an exterior modder, my work has never been reviewed aside from my old showcase, so I'm probably not really an authority on the matter...

I do feel as though TR is lacking a clear method of making areas within a section available to exterior modders, though, which we need to solve before we are able to effectively work with the new system.
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Post by Yeti »

Can some look this over to make sure I'm on the right track? I've basically done the work creating the independent farms in between the Oran and Mundrethi Plantations.

Change log:

The Oran Plantation now farms comberry on its fields

Thirr River Valley 2,-26 - This comberry field here should be owned by the ranking Hlaalu person in Indal'ruhn, due to it being disconnected from the Oran Plantation and the person in Indal'ruhn needing something to make money from. The owner employs two villagers as field hands.

I made two farms north of the Oran Plantation instead of three. I thought the field on the small island wasn't large enough to support an entire farming family realistically, and making it independent would have required reworking or scrapping an interior, and I didn't see the overwhelming need for three farms.

Thirr River Valley 4,-24 - I added a Hlaalu yeoman farmer's house. He owns the Hack-lo field next to his house and the one on the small island with the storage building. Has one son and two Khajiit slaves to work in the fields. The slaves are housed in the home.

Thirr River Valley 2,-23 - I added a Hlaalu yeoman farmer's house and a shcak. Occupied by a husband and wife. The farmhouse should eventually use the former interior for the Mundrethi Farmhouse, which I plan to replace with a slightly larger plantation manor. The shack nextdoor houses two slaves. I decided to make the field Corkbulb here, mostly because I wanted to distinguish it as seperate from the other farms and add a tiny bit of variety, since every other field in the area will be comberry and hack-lo. I can change this if people think we should stick exclusively to two crops in this area.
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Post by Gnomey »

Yeti wrote:Thirr River Valley 2,-26 - This comberry field here should be owned by the ranking Hlaalu person in Indal'ruhn, due to it being disconnected from the Oran Plantation and the person in Indal'ruhn needing something to make money from. The owner employs two villagers as field hands.
This is a fairly large field. I would consider adding a large slave shack to Indal'ruhn or something; two villagers would be hard-put to work it. Indal'ruhn requires an improved layout (and replacement of the apostrophe in its name with a hyphen?) anyway.
Yeti wrote:I made two farms north of the Oran Plantation instead of three. I thought the field on the small island wasn't large enough to support an entire farming family realistically, and making it independent would have required reworking or scrapping an interior, and I didn't see the overwhelming need for three farms.
That sounds fine to me.
Yeti wrote:Thirr River Valley 4,-24 - I added a Hlaalu yeoman farmer's house. He owns the Hack-lo field next to his house and the one on the small island with the storage building. Has one son and two Khajiit slaves to work in the fields. The slaves are housed in the home.
For the Hackle-lo, I suggest putting them into clumps and perhaps slightly tilting them, to make them more visually appealing. Not very farm-like, but Hackle-lo doesn't really lend itself too well to a more orderly distribution, in my opinion. You might want to replace the tilled dirt texture with another dirt texture to that end.
Yeti wrote:Thirr River Valley 2,-23 - I added a Hlaalu yeoman farmer's house and a shcak. Occupied by a husband and wife. The farmhouse should eventually use the former interior for the Mundrethi Farmhouse, which I plan to replace with a slightly larger plantation manor. The shack nextdoor houses two slaves. I decided to make the field Corkbulb here, mostly because I wanted to distinguish it as seperate from the other farms and add a tiny bit of variety, since every other field in the area will be comberry and hack-lo. I can change this if people think we should stick exclusively to two crops in this area.
Corkbulb is fine, in my opinion, but the bulb is usually sunk further (halfway) into the ground.

A few general points. As your file is a WIP, you probably already know some of this, but bear with me:

-When working with tilled dirt, the plants should technically be placed only on the wider, lighter bands of the texture. (The ridges). Bethesda didn't bother with that, though, so you probably don't need to either.
-Evenly spaced plants are visually uninteresting, and in farms the space between rows of plants should generally be fairly consistent. However, there are a few workarounds: the space between plants in a row can be irregular, the scale of plants can be slightly irregular, and the rotation should naturally be irregular. (Though farm plants shouldn't have much tilt to them, typically, limiting you mostly to z-rotation).
-At the moment, you don't have a lot of stuff along the edges of the fields. That may be because it's a WIP, but just to be sure: especially for larger fields, it's generally better to have some visually interesting stuff around the edge to balance things out. Stuff like carts, containers, maybe a guar pen? (With larger fields, it would make sense for guars to pull the non-existent plows). This mostly applies to the fields in (2, -23) and (2, -27), by the way; you don't need to go overboard with it.
-You could also try sticking some weeds (grass) in the larger fields, to add some variety; just a few here and there, to give the player the impression that the workers haven't gotten around to weeding. If you place too many, it will make the workers seem lazy/will make the overseers seem incompetent.

One more thing: I'd really appreciate it if you found some room for i4-416 and i4-417, the two interiors whose exteriors are currently in the southeastern corner of the North AT merge. Nobody seems to be against moving them, and the Thirr delta could still use a bit of work, in my opinion. They could replace the building you currently have in (4, -24), for example. If you'd rather not I can think of a way of making the buildings work where they are, but I'd really rather they were just moved.
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Post by Seneca37 »

I wrote a program that adds random x, y, z rotation to flora within an esp file. If interested I'd be glad to share it with you - it would just need a bit of tweaking.
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Post by Yeti »

I've already given all of the plants in the fields different rotation values. I believe I made the spacing relatively irregular, but I'll see if I can change it up a little more. I'll also look for places to put the two interiors you mentioned.
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Post by Yeti »

I assume i4-416 and i4-417 are the Hlaalu house and shack in
(4,-18)? the shack can be used on the (2,-23) farm. I'll find a place for the house on the Mundrethi Plantation.
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Post by Yeti »

Here's an updated file with my attempt at a slave market. I tried giving it a "festive" market feel (the best I could given what was is being sold). Let me know if anything looks cobbled together.
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Post by Swiftoak »

Hey Yeti, it's looking good.

An unrelated sidenote: This could just be my OCD, but I recommend though changing the version numbers on the esp and resulting 7z for each iteration. It's easy to keep track that way. We now have three files in this thread that are marked v.005. So the next version would be 006, etc etc.
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Post by Gnomey »

Yeti wrote:I assume i4-416 and i4-417 are the Hlaalu house and shack in
(4,-18)? the shack can be used on the (2,-23) farm. I'll find a place for the house on the Mundrethi Plantation.
Yes, and your plan sounds good to me.

The slave market is looking really good. I do think the area around the docks could use a bit of work, specifically the TR_ex_Narsis_basement1 models and how much the ex_hlaalu_buttress_04 is sticking out of the ground, but I'm being very nitpicky here.
I would consider adding a few more decorative ropes, perhaps with lanterns hanging off of them, if you want it to look really festive, and would consider adding a second one of those large wooden cages; in my opinion having just one of them might make it stand out too much as a unique (cobbled-together) object. (I also really like how you did the cage and think it would be a pity if it was only used once).
Other than that, I assume you're going to remove the saltrice in the nearby field. Edit: should the waterlilies be kept?
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Post by Yeti »

I'll try to fit in a second cage. Do you think I should remove the field entirely or just replace the saltrice? Right now, Mundrethi doesn't have a lot of fields as is. I'll try to spruce up the dock area and add more clutter, ropes and lanterns.
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Post by Gnomey »

I'd personally suggest keeping the field, but if you want to make more room for the slave market that probably has higher priority. Mundrethi probably shouldn't be nearly as well-off as Oran anyway, and he might get a lot of his income from the slave trade, if not from other sources.
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Post by Yeti »

I believe I've finished the exterior changes. Tell me what you think and I'll move forward with re-adapting the NPCs.
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Post by Gnomey »

Magnificent work, Yeti! It makes me look forward to working on plantations in Othreleth.

Some notes I took:

(3, -21) 32608, -166573, -4 - vertex shading error (this isn't your error, but it's pretty much a one-click-fix)
flora_comberry_01 (3, -25) 28161, -203706, 240 - not properly sunk into the ground
(2, -27) - more clutter around edge of field?

Though a minor detail, some of the field vertex shading seems a little odd, (the crops lack proper shadows), but it works. While I'm discussing niggling details, I might as well mention that the fact that the fields are right next to the beaches is a little odd, but also utterly inconsequential.

All of the above wouldn't affect NPCing, though, so it can probably ignored it for now. The question of whether the Thirr River Valley should have waterlilies as it currently does can also be dealt with later.

But how should we handle Indal-ruhn? I'd personally prefer if you were to avoid it when NPCing for now, so that we can properly plan how to improve it. But we could also discuss it now. As it stands, the town is a little lackluster, in my opinion, both in layout and clutter. Edit: at the moment, I believe it is the only Hlaalu settlement on the Thirr, and though it should remain small I think it could be better presented. Then there's that road that should continue southwards from Indal-ruhn.
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Post by Yeti »

I don't see the need to change up Indal'ruhn's current layout, unless we want to significantly expand the town's size (I'd rather not, given its close proximity to Almas Thirr), but I'll direct my attention elsewhere for now.
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Post by Swiftoak »

I think Indal-rhun suffers from the same problem as many of our other "make first, ask questions later" settlements. That being said, I don't think it's something that we necessarily need to get too hung up on though, since it's not very big. We can discuss this in another thread though.

Yeti, I think we can start with some very basic NPCing at the least (populate them bandit caves/tombs, and perhaps come up with some minor backstory that relates to the smuggling/slave trade/CT activity in Andothren). I'm not entirely sure what needs to be done on the dialogue front though. Do we have the background information to figure out whether the current dialogue needs changing? Rats' input would be nice, since he did alot of the work here.
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Post by Yeti »

I've already been updating some dialogue entries and NPCs, mainly to reflect the diminished size of the Oran Plantation. Here's my most recent file.

An updated personality for the councilor in the Oran Plantation would be nice. I've removed his background as a former "pit fighter" in Narsis, because I thought that was ill-fitting and unrealistic for an extremely wealthy Hlaalu councilor who has built up enough influence that he has a family member [url=http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Serjo_Avon_Oran]governing Suran[/url].
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Post by Gnomey »

A few things I noticed while looking at Indal-ruhn dialogue and am posting here mainly for future reference:

[spoiler]NPC: TR_m4_Savyani Romalen
Topic: Indal'ruhn
Quote: "Their ramshackle shacks blight my sight whenever I gaze out an open window."
Note: this line strikes me as out-of-place, considering the distinct lack of open or openable windows in the Hlaalu tileset.

NPC: TR_m4_Savyani Romalen
Note: apparently saved from mudcrabs by a local fisherman ('Alnas Driln') as a child. She should probably have a response to an Alnas Driln topic, even if that response is just "Who's that?".

Note: there should be an Almas Thirr topic in Indal-ruhn.[/spoiler]
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Post by Yeti »

I thought I removed that connection between Alnas Driln and the Hlaalu lady (didn't I change her name as well?). Regardless, I'll probably heavily revise the dialogue for the town once you've finished the exterior changes.

In case I haven't been clear enough yet, Gnomey can claim the file now.
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Post by Gnomey »

Ah, claiming this file. I'll work on it tomorrow, though, as it's currently pretty late here what with my timezone. Hopefully, I'll finish the changes in one day.

My changes will be as in my proposal in [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24614]this thread[/url]. I will not touch dialogue.

Should I make the Indal'ruhn -> Indal-ruhn change?
I'll also change "Indal'ruhn, Dovesea Llarno" to "[...] Dovesea Llarno's Shack" for consistency's sake.
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