"Another Balmora"
Version 1.1
Upated Release

A modification for "The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind"

by basswalker
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Description
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This plugin alters the city of Balmora (yeah...same same, but different, I hope.)


My goal was:
- to make Balmora more diversified in general...has been done before, but never as I would have liked it.

- to make the city quarters more detailed and distinguished

- to integrate it more into its region, the westgash, and thereby making it look a little more as if the
city "grew" into the landscape.

- to keep the mod all "vanilla" (No, I did not achieve this 100%, but 99.9%)

I added lots of detail to the whole city, from lanterns to trees to shrubs to stone arches to misc items, overhangs,rooftop seating-accommodations, you name it, to give the city a more rural look and to make it feel more like there are really people LIVING in this city. I also added some docks to the river-areas, so now theres for example a boat transport to suran and vivec, a fishermans wooden dock at the lower quarter side of town, and an abandoned (fishermans) hut just outside the northern end of town. That hut is for you to spend a night or two
and maybe store some stuff.
Next to the bridge on your way to Caldera you?ll find a friendly waterfall, pouring fresh water into the Odai.

theres more to see, so check out the screenies or better try the mod ingame, because the screenshots dont show everything.

The textures you see on the screenshots are NOT part of my mod!

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Compatibilities/Incompatibilities:
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- should be compatible with "Necessities of Morrowind" and "Children of Morrowind". Has optional esp-files for use with "the illuminated order", "Necessities of Morrowind" or both together.

- will most likely be INcompatible with most other mods in/around Balmora, including "Balmora Expanded" and "Vality?s Balmora Mod".

More info in the readme.


Screenshots: http://s1010.photobucket.com/albums/af221/basswalker1983/balmora/

Download: http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=7995


Sorry, I ust copied some text from the readme...but after having written the readme I was too lazy to write a new text with mostly the same content...

Hope you enjoy!

Looks fantastic. Better than mine, for sure How's the FPS in Balmora with this enabled?

Thanks.



Laughable...but my overall FPS is laughable, no matter where I am or what view-distance/resolution I have. Crappy low-end-laptop.
On my system I got around 5-10 fps less with my mod, depending on the view distance...with the graphical settings and view distance on the screens, using also "skyfires npc additions", I had around 5 fps :yuck: ...without my mod maybe 8-10.

Are you going to be making patches? I can see that it conflicts with a few mods going through you pictures.

Depends.
I`m not going to make patches for little mods like houses and stuff like that.
But for bigger mods I might do patches, and people can feel free to make and release patches or altered versions of my mod.

Yay! Congrats on the release! :celebration:

In the screenshots - do you have texture replacers active? I'm just wondering, because the ground texture with the square road blocks looks quite turquoise/teal.

Yes, there are texture replacers all over the place. Thats why I mentioned that the textures seen on the screenies are not part of the mod.

Wow, that looks awesome! I much prefer this design over Balmora Expansion or the one made by princess_stomper.

Just one question - the only mod I have that adds any buildings to Balmora is The Illuminated Order (Demnevanni's house). From memory, the house is located near http://s1010.photobucket.com/albums/af221/basswalker1983/balmora/?action=view¤t=overviewfromtowerbridge.jpg. It actually looks like the two mods are probably compatible! But I'm not certain. Do you use The Illuminated Order?

Is it possible for you to make a compatibility patch for Balmora Expanded? I loved you mod, but I loved BE too, and I don't want to choose one over another.

This just got an update to version 1.1
Solved some minor issues that came up, and added more compatibility esp-files.

You might want to replace the 1.0 with the 1.1 instead of having both 1.0 and 1.1 downloads available - makes things less confusing. I mean, I'm not confused, but you'd be surprised what some people can be confused by.

Just doing the mlox rules for this and I was wondering if there're any special load orders you'd suggest, particularly for the compatibility versions.

Thanks, just did that.
Too bad I, for some reason, cannot edit the thread title here. O.o





Well, I loaded both "illuminated order" and "NoM" AFTER my mod, which seemed to work fine.
The compatibility versions are to be used INSTEAD of the standard .esp, so you only need one .esp

Cool, added in the order rules. Already caught the compatibility versions, you'd be surprised the number of people who enable everything in an archive...

[edit: typo]

I hope I made it a little harder for those people, by having the compatibility versions in separate folders.... If someone adds them all to the data files folder, ignoring the readme and aktivating all esp-files together, I cannot help it. O.o

I'm not sure if the newest version fixes it, but there are two doors in Labor Town (Drarayne Thelas and the house next to hers) that have had their targets deleted, so you can't activate them. This breaks the very first quest for the Fighters Guild. If not already fixed, well, now you know

Not good. I wonder how that happenend, because I didnt to anything to the doors or interiors...?!

The door to Drarayne Thelas? house already got fixed in version 1.1, but I just checked for that other house, and you?re right, no teleport to an interior...the problem is I?m not even shure who?s living in that house, so I dont know to which interior that door should lead...?



EDIT: Never mind that stupid question, I can just check it out ingame...update should follow sometime today.

Added the update 1.2.

Uhm, its possible, for sure...but I wont do it, because my mod was not meant to be used together with BE...its more for people who do NOT use BE but still want a nicer Balmora.
And I just dont want to mess with BE.

So you?ll have to make a choice, or make the two mods compatible yourself.

I MIGHT make a version thats compatible with valitys bittercoast Balmora, but for now I?m gonna leave this as it is...but I?ll fix any issues related to my work and maybe add compatibility versions for other mods if theres demand, depending on the amount of work necessary for doing so, and also depending on my mood, since I?m doing this only for fun during my few "recreational hours".

i love this and don't play without but since i'm in the thieves guild now i noticed, that the door to hecereindes house leads nowhere. i tweaked your mod for me for better fps, so i could have done it too. but maybe you have a look into

love it as much as white suran and can't imagine a game without

Hey sister,
thanks for your comment!
Glad you like this, and also my white suran!

The door to hecerindes house has already been fixed in the update 1.2, which you can find on PES.

Working on a little update here, thought I′d let you know....
First I just wanted to erase some minor issues like getting stuck in some locations, there were also 1 or 2 steps that did not always work quite right, and one construction was kind of blocking your way.
Then I also reworked the main dock area a little bit, because access to and walking around on it was a little too difficult, I think.
While I was doing this I klicked around a little more and added/altered some other stuff...heres some screenies, dont know yet what else will change. Had the idea of reaching out all the way to Caldera...reshape the way from Balmora to Caldera a little bit and then see what I can do about Caldera itself...

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/5206/mgescreenshot130.jpg
http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/920/mgescreenshot131.jpg
http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/3148/mgescreenshot132.jpg
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/6113/mgescreenshot133.jpg
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/9139/mgescreenshot134.jpg
http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/2402/mgescreenshot135.jpg
http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/9741/mgescreenshot136.jpg
http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/4159/mgescreenshot137.jpg
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/5551/mgescreenshot138.jpg
http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/958/mgescreenshot139.jpg
http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/8584/mgescreenshot140.jpg

Lol you really gave me some ideas for my tc, neat.

I generally don't have much good to say about most of the Balmora expansions out there, but this looks fantastic.

I do have some comments/feedback/suggestions though:
- There's a bit too much grass over in Caius' area. Even if it is in the poorest section of the city, it is still part of one of the biggest cities in Vvardenfell, so you'd think it would at least have a rough dirt path between the patches of grass.

- While the natural terrain looks excellent, it looks a bit too swampy here and there, considering Balmora is located in the West Gash area.

- Have you considered building on top of the roofs in the poorer section of town? Having a "rooftop slum" in Balmora could end up looking kind of awesome. Some of the larger buildings could probably even support a shack, I think.