Outside main TR: Concept travel

For topics that just don't seem to fit anywhere else.
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Ragox
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Post by Ragox »

I must say I find it really pointless to blow this thread up with ideas concercing a rework that will most likely not see the light of day until the year 2025 or so. [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=320640]A cave claim that's located East of Old Ebonheart[/url] which I finished in April 2014, and which has been approved since August 2014, is still not even included in the latest release. NPCing seems sadly to be at an all-time low for the project.
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Gnomey
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Post by Gnomey »

Yes, the rework will only see the light of day years down the line; we will probably only revisit Telvannis when the rest of the province has been implemented. However, a good deal of the planning should be done sooner rather than later; we should form a rough, flexible picture of how the whole of Morrowind looks like, and then plan out a rough travel network covering all of Morrowind, and then hold ourselves to that rough plan, only adding further details. If we do not make plans on a province basis, inconsistencies will appear between regions. So though it will no doubt be a long time before we implement any of this stuff in Telvannis, the planning needs to be done, relatively, much earlier.
Also, as I wrote in the post, it helps inform mod authors like abot what sort of things we are considering long before we implement them, so that they can make an informed decision on whether they want to continue modding TR, and what supporting their mods in future could entail, and so that they have all the time in the world to provide feedback and hash things out with us. It's bad enough when a mod author becomes so frustrated with our plans that he stops modding TR; it's far worse if we essentially end up stringing a mod author along with a vision of TR we've long abandoned just because we haven't gotten around to fleshing out our new vision.
As far as NPCing is concerned, we are NPCing Indoril-Thirr and Old Ebonheart. Anyone can be involved in the process; we've changed the workflow so that the writing occurs mostly on the forums, and CS implementation is only done at the end. Any lack of NPCing is due to a lack of writers, or that the writers lack feedback, or due to a lack of characterization of the people or places to be NPCed. I don't think this thread can be falted for the former issues, while it could potentially be helpful as far as the latter issue is concerned.
As far as you interior is concerned, that's even less related to this thread. I can only assume the cause is that the wrong version of the [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=22756&start=120]Old Ebonheart East[/url] file was merged into TR_Preview, because I personally merged you interior as well as others into the Old Ebonheart East file back in June. The problem with the Old Ebonheart East merge is not that we're having seemingly random conversations like these, but rather that it was ejected from Old Ebonheart but nobody bothered to inject it anywhere else, leading to an ongoing cycle of people consecutively remembering and forgetting the orphaned file again, which will hopefully be closed at latest when Old Ebonheart East is merged into Indoril-Thirr, which can be done at any time by whoever happens to be working on the Indoril-Thirr file.
RyanS wrote:But we do have to worry about the situation now, as it appears to be ending the great support and relationship with a well known modder from outside TR's close community. And frankly, he has every right to find this proposed idea slightly offensive after all the work he went through to create his mods.
I certainly agree with this, but it only really applies if abot is willing to talk it out with us, which I frankly think he has good reason not to bother to do. As far as unsupported mods are concerned, while I think we could certainly consider avoiding making them fully incompatible on a case-by-case basis, (for example I could see us not raising land along the river strider route, if only because there's no real reason I can currently think of why land would need to be there), I don't think we should go out of our way to keep them compatible either.
It's a different story if a mod author is still supporting the mod, in which case we can try and reach a compromise; perhaps the mod author will still need to change stuff, but perhaps not as much. That requires energy from the side of the mod author I don't think we can expect from them.
RyanS wrote:It's more that the Telvanni lords would be too lazy and uncaring to bring in the river striders for their cities/strongholds.
With the specific idea of putting river striders under the Deshaan, nobody would have a reason to want river striders in Telvannis, anymore than they'd import sleds from Uld Vraech. River striders would be foreign to Telvannis, and I don't really see them providing a significant advantage over ships, which would be present in Telvannis anyway.
River striders would live in a subterranean network of canals fed by the waters of Lake Andaram as part of the Thirr watershed which feeds into the Inner Sea and eventually the Sea of Ghosts, whereas trade between Dres and Telvanni would occur along the eastern coast on the Padomaic Ocean. Two completely separate routes.

As for using siltstriders universally, I'm sort of going back and forth on that issue myself. It does depend largely on Morrowind's topography, which is a topic I've wanted to start tossing concepts at for a while but we haven't really gotten around to.
Glisp
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Post by Glisp »

RyanS wrote:Gnomey, It appears you've touched up on what you think I, and a few others, believe about the current system here at TR. It seems you think we are opposed to much of what is going on nowadays, or that we don't understand how things work here nowadays. The truth, I'm sure, is that the majority of us, if not all, agree and have almost always agreed with just about everything you said in your post.

Everything you brought up about the planning system, and how this particular decision is not final, is pretty much consistent with my beliefs. Would anyone here be trying to share their thoughts on this subject if a decision had already been made? Probably not. So clearly we all know nothing has been made absolute.

Also, I very much believe that we should keep with at least close to the amount of planning we have now. I am just convinced that the amount of content we redo is really quite ridiculous, and ends up pissing a lot of people off. And so, we should try to hold back on redoing so much content.

Also, don't get me wrong, I very much support the travel plugin that is the main topic of this thread. I am only opposed to moving the river striders away from Telvanni lands.

Edit: Reading over what I just wrote, my post(s) might appear to be a bit aggressive. Just to let you know, I'm not trying to come off like that, so hopefully people don't take them the wrong way. I still stand by what I've said, though.

There was actually talk recently in IRC about taking dropped content and putting it in a plugin as a sort of showcase to show off the project's history and explain "this is such and such, and this is why it was scrapped"

I've personally decided to call this the "TR museum" plugin for the time being. There are certain things, such as the Necrom Indoril Gauntlets that I'm still wondering why they were dropped. (I mean come on, the armor kinda needs gauntlets)
Anonytroll
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Post by Anonytroll »

This here contains some bug fixes to the Mages Guild guides and a more proper integration of the Seyda Neen shipmaster. I checked the dozen Seyda Neen mods I know of and this little dock addon doesn't conflict with anything I have.
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Ironed Maidens
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Post by Ironed Maidens »

Anonytroll, I have a few concerns about the Darnim and Ebonheart travel destinations. For Darnim, the shipmaster has dialogue that directly reflects to not be able to do runs to Vvardenfell, yet Tel Branora is now a destination. I know this is supposed to make the dialogue frivolous, but at the same time I think it would still make sense for there to be some restrictions on travel to and from Vvardenfell. Also, her other destinations are VERY far away (Helnim, Morag, and OE) and I'm wondering if there aren't any other settlements nearby for her to take you to instead? It's a pretty large-ish jump across the map for either of those destinations.

For Ebonheart, I really think that this is were restrictions for travel would come mostly into play. I don't mind a backwater Telvanni town or even Raven Rock having travel to the mainland, but bigger places like Ebonheart and Seyda Neen (I know in-game Seyda Neen is small, but it's called the Gate-Way to Vvardenfell, which implies a pretty significant importance) would be way less likely to just ignore the quarantine. Unless we are reconciling the entire idea of a quarantine, I have a proposal for you that may better fit the bill. Why not use certain "bandit" boats stationed a ways away from both of these cities, where a bandit will transport you for a little more of a fee? It would make more sense to me that way.
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Post by Anonytroll »

I didn't touch most of the dialogue yet, of course it would need to be changed.

As for the rest, I thought the quarantine didn't exist as such anymore in TR?

In any case, I suggest drawing lines on a map if you want to make a change proposal - since I didn't pull those here out of my hat but went by an older travel design map, I'm not going to change those without it being decided on first.
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Gnomey
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Post by Gnomey »

We are removing the quarantine, probably completely. The idea simply doesn't hold up to scrutiny; it was a hand-wave to explain why you couldn't get to the mainland, which may have seemed reasonable enough when there was no mainland to go to anyway but certainly doesn't now that the mainland physically exists in the same space as Vvardenfell. We could try to make it work, but it will pretty certainly not be worth the effort.

You've got the Telvanni, who would pointedly ignore the quarantine, a vast number of smugglers, who seem to avoid the quarantine just fine, long stretches of uninhabited coastline from which people would be able to board all sorts of vessels from fishing skiffs to the larger ships and cross the Inner Sea, a variety of teleportation magic and levitation and water breathing and water walking -- in short, there are so many ways to avoid it that if Imperial locations like Seyda Neen and Ebonheart were to enforce it, neither would be the Gate-Way to Vvardenfell, as pretty much everyone not part of the Imperial government would ignore those easily-ignored locations and cross the Inner Sea from pretty much anywhere else.
Then on the other side you have the Empire, which lacks authority and presence and popularity due to the Armistice and due to being a foreign entity, maybe the Great Houses, who seem to spend too much time bickering with each other to reasonably contribute to such a project, (and, again, would not necessarily want to anyway), and the Temple, which from in-game dialogue seems thoroughly overwhelmed as it is without getting involved in such a massive undertaking.
In other words, the quarantine would probably either be so inadequately enforced as to be meaningless, or would be a mammoth undertaking with no definite duration which would seem to be well beyond the means of the Empire or Morrowind in their current states.
That's the overly technical criticism of it; there are other equally valid points one could make, such as that in-game dialogue has nobodies like Vodunius Nuccius and [url=http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Drulene_Falen]Drulene Falen[/url] talking about going to the mainland as though it would pose no difficulty, which would seem to suggest either that the quarantine was a last-minute change made after dialogue had already been written and implemented or that the quarantine is completely ineffectual, or, at best, that the Empire has set up some sort of infrastructure for letting healthy citizens get around the quarantine, which would make things a good deal more complicated with little to gain from it.
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Post by Anonytroll »

Right, so about the "maps you can edit your own ideas in", there's we go:

[url=http://www.labofabyll.com/others/TR_TravelRoutes.png]Travel Lines[/url]
[url=http://www.labofabyll.com/others/TR_TravelRoutesBlank.png]Blank version[/url]
[url=http://www.labofabyll.com/others/TR_TravelRoutes.7z]XCF Base Map (18MB)[/url]

With the obvious apologies to Swiftoak.. sincerest form of flattery. :D

I'm working on a version with the changes highlighted, but that won't be out today.
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Post by Ateiggaer »

I also think removing the quarantine completley is a good idea.
Instead you could hear at best some people in the random dialogue speaking about how "they",tribunal, Imperials whoever, should put Vvardenfell under quarantine, but it whould be more like a hopless exclamation.
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Gnomey
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Post by Gnomey »

I did a travel run, trying to visit each destination of each network at least once. It wasn't a very thorough test run, as I didn't test every possible travel link, but I did find a few things that could use a bit of fixing:[spoiler]-the caravaner travel marker in Enamor Dayn (that is the marker associated with the caravaner in Bosmora) is rather far away from Enamor Dayn's caravaner, which is a little disorienting.
-I dislike the double riverstrider at Port Telvannis, especially as they're so far apart. Having two isn't even necessary, as each links to two locations and as such they could be consolidated.
-a bit of nit-picking: I'd move the Kogotél siltstrider to the east of the platform it is currently to the north of. Its route probably follows the river to the coast.
-the banners outside of the Narsis Mages Guild block access to the door. They should be removed.
-the exterior door of the Kragen Mar Mages Guild doesn't link to the interior.
-I think I got a little stuck on the Andothren-to-Old Ebonheart Guild Guide marker, (as in the marker in Old Ebonheart). You could adjust its position a little just to be safe.
-Mjara, the Guild Guide in the Akamora guild, is a little far away from the platform and could be nudged closer. In general, I found some of the Guild Guide platform set-ups in Telvannis either too easy to overlook or too big an obstacle, but this is probably getting beyond the sort of changes you'd want to make in the plugin.
-I got stuck on the Helnim-to-Wolverine Hall ship travel marker; I'd just move the marker a little forwards, towards Wolverine Hall. That being said, I still advocate removing the separate Wolverine Hall ship travel node, consolidating its destinations with the Sadrith Mora node. (To do so, I'd advocate removing the link to Marog, bringing the total links down to four, but I'll elaborate on suggested alterations later).
-the Andothren-to-Teyn ship travel marker is not correctly placed.[/spoiler]And a minor quibble about your new travel lines map:
-the Bahrammu dock is -- and in my opinion should be -- one cell to the south, not the east, of Bahrammu.

Now these are the suggested additions to the networks, which I mention separately because they're quite straightforward, as opposed to my suggested alterations:
-add a siltstrider link between Verarchen and Bodrem. (There's a convenient shallow river for the siltstrider to go along).
-add a ship travel link between Enamor Dayn and Almalexia. (The link will be more direct later on, as the Orethan's course will be changed to flow more directly eastward).
-add a ship travel link between Dunkreath and Askareth. The only downside is that the dock is one cell north of Askareth, so that cell will need to be renamed to Askareth as well.
-add a ship travel link between Gah Sadrith and Llothanis.
-add a Guild Guide to Bosmora to round out the Mournhold network. I know that there isn't a Mages Guild there; I'd just use the Marketplace for now. The Velothi town that is currently planned to replace Bosmora and Enamor Dayn will have a Mages Guild.
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Post by Anonytroll »

Okay, so the following things are addressed
(some not raised in this thread but IRC):

* general fixes of Travel Markers
* map correction for Bahrammu
* added a boat link Llothanis <-> Gah Sadrith, added a shipmaster to Llothanis for that (it could only receive boat travel)
* added a Silt Strider link Verarchen <-> Bodrem
* added a boat link Dunkreath <-> Askareth
* added a Guild Guide (Almalexia Hub) to Bosmora
* added a boat Enamor Dayn <-> Almalexia
* added a boat Almas Thirr <-> Narsis
* changed Seyda Neen <-> Vivec to Seyda Neen <-> Rhanim ("gateway to Vvardenfell", step off the boat, cross Seyda Neen and hop on a Silt Strider to explore Vvardenfell proper; don't know about the Hla Oad connection)

Things I did not address:
* the travel markers for the caravaners (that's part of TR_Mainland)
* the River Striders in Port Telvannis (that's part of TR_Mainland)
* those goddamn banners in Narsis (can't delete objects from one esp in another esp)
* the Wolverine Hall connections
* stops inbetween Darnim and the northern cities (there's just nothing there to stop at, sorry)
* bandit boat travel (non-applicable as of right now)
* placing the Silt Strider in Kogotel to the east (it would step on the boats, the river is too narrow for both at the same time)
* adding the Propylon network

Thoughts:
* Dunkreath <-> Raven Rock if the colony is sufficiently updated? Perhaps its own mod (addon to AnSol/AnTotSP)?
* Tel Fyr is an issue, I haven't yet checked if the Unofficial Morrowind Patch adds a travel route there, it would conflict with the edits to Sadrith Mora or Tel Aruhn, possibly both.
* Propylons on the mainland? I do recall that being tossed around years ago when I was last active, but I have no idea if that went anywhere.

The new map is [url=http://www.labofabyll.com/others/TR_TravelRoutes.png]here[/url].
The added/changed travel links (and the removed one) map is [url=http://www.labofabyll.com/others/TR_TravelRoutesNewDeleted.png]here[/url].
The new XCF isn't uploaded yet.

The plugin is attached.
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TR_Travels_III.esp
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Dragon32
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Post by Dragon32 »

Anonytroll wrote:<snip>
* Tel Fyr is an issue, I haven't yet checked if the Unofficial Morrowind Patch adds a travel route there, it would conflict with the edits to Sadrith Mora or Tel Aruhn, possibly both.
<snip>
1.6.2 added Cinia Urtius as the Medium Armour master trainer in Tel Fyr, but no travel service. 1.6.3 added the travel service.
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Post by Anonytroll »

Right, thanks. Looked at it in version 1.6.6b and it's one-way Tel Fyr -> Sadrith Mora, so no conflict (just something I'll add to the next/final version of the map).
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Post by Anonytroll »

Okay, I think I got it. The current map is [url=http://labofabyll.com/others/TR_TravelRoutes_Solstheim-75.png]here[/url] and the file is attached.

Unless something drastically changes (like the Darnim rename), that's about it I think.
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Anonytroll
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Post by Anonytroll »

Version checked and resaved against TR1512.

For future note: every time TR_Mainland gets changed, Bal Oyra needs to be rechecked. There are deleted statics (the Silt Strider port) which will randomly reappear and delete part of the imperial fort instead.
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Anonytroll
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Post by Anonytroll »

Done I think, for now.
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TR_Travels.esp
Now with the Mournhold/Almalexia Palace Gate working.
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Artaios
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Post by Artaios »

So is there any news concerning abot? It would be really sad to see him go.
Vicano
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Map

Post by Vicano »

What's with the "Velothi" faction affiliation on the transport map? I'm not sure about Bahrammu or Darnim, but Ranyon-Ruhn and Vos are both firmly under the control of House Telvanni. It's merely their architectural style that is Velothi.
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Post by Anonytroll »

TR is placing a bigger emphasis on the difference between the ruling house and the houseless underclass they ruler over. It is not really implemented fully yet, but it will be more noticeable than in vanilla Morrowind.

It does have some throw-away lines in Vvardenfell's dialogue, but it's not as noticeable over there, as the island has only been settled for 12 years (the three Great House settlements aside), so it wouldn't really matter as much as it would on the more reactionary mainland.

Even there, Vos just plopped a wizard tower and a mushroom dock near an already existing fishing village and called it a day. That's not really a house settlement.
Glisp
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Re: Map

Post by Glisp »

Vicano wrote:What's with the "Velothi" faction affiliation on the transport map? I'm not sure about Bahrammu or Darnim, but Ranyon-Ruhn and Vos are both firmly under the control of House Telvanni. It's merely their architectural style that is Velothi.
Ranyon-Ruhn is still technically a velothi settlement despite being ruled by house Telvanni. Vos is the same way (though less implied.)

Akamora is a town that will eventually be changed to feature Velothi housing for the lower class and middle class residents. The Mournhold/Indoril tileset will still be used for House Indoril territories but only buildings important to House Indoril will use said tileset. The exception being Almalexia which will be all Indoril tileset iirc. (except for maybe a few buildings, mostly lesser temple related ones I would think)
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