no, no new website is planed. information is stored in a google docs folder and communication happens by email and irc. i dont see a need to bother with making a website and forum since i plan to keep the team small and intimate. i plan to make tasks ("claims") based on the skills i have in the current "team" versus trying to find people for the tasks.

Lenowin: it will be released either way. ive received several offers to help, so hopefully the initial release will be pretty complete. right now my first goal is to get everything thats already made merged, so if nothing else gets done we will at least release that.

I'd like to contribute my 5 cents to this discussion, without hijacking your thread Lady Nerevar. But I think my points are universal to some of the discussions I've seen here lately.
The reasons why large mods never or rarely see the light of day or get abandoned has already been discussed and is not the reason I'm posting. I'd just like to touch down on a few points and share some of my experiences while working on Sands of Destiny.
Actually, Sands of Destiny is one of those larger scale mods that is currently under a very similar struggle than Hammerfell, just in different areas, namely quest making as opposed to modelling. I've spent almost 2 years modelling unique and new assets for SoD and making the worldspace, which is now finished. That is only half the battle won though.


Perhaps I should've joined up with the Hammerfell team a long time ago. I could almost guarantee that Hammerfell would be much more progressed as it is already. On a side note, I must say that the quality of what I've seen from Hammerfell is absolute top notch. The reason I started Sands of Destiny was mainly freedom to do whatever I want without restrictions though.
But this comes at a price. Not only is it much more work, it will naturally be seen with much more skepsis from the community. Especially if it starts out as a one man band without a team. The skepsis part from the community is one of the reasons why I've never started an official thread on the forums. Too often people propose ideas (that sound great), but they have no idea what they're getting themselves in to (aside from the lack of skills). However, without continuous and active discussions, a project can't and will not progress. It will certainly not attract willing modders to help either. Therefore, things are much slower, ultimately leading to a possible abandoning of the mod. From my experience, It's not so much the lack of skills that stop a mod dead in it's tracks, but in my case all those "small" things that keep adding and adding and adding up. You just don't realize how many things need to be done when creating a custom worldspace. Especially if you're modelling custom assets at the same time and writing your own lore. Piecing everything together so it makes sense is another issue. That being said, I've always been willing to do the entire mod myself and have not yet run into any dealbreakers. The learning experience has just been tremendous.

As for modder's resources, I've tried to stay away from them as much as possible for exactly those reasons that Lady Nerevar adressed above. Eventually every other mod will start to look the same. Although the beta version of my Desert Architecture has been used in many other mods, the final versions as seen in SoD are very different and much more optimized.

Sorry for rambling on and on, but I just thought I'd share a few points.

~DE

Ah, okay. I like intimate. It makes things easier. At TR, it seems like I got to know everybody because everyone was always part of the discussions.

Here's an idea I've been mulling over for quite some time now. How about, to generate interest in the mod, after Goldmoor we work on some completely self-contained parts of Hammerfell, Tribunal-style?

I was thinking Stros M'kai and Dragonstar (that is the one that's split between the Redguards and the Nords, right?) would both be perfect for such a thing, as both have appeared in previous games (I think Dragonstar was in one of the Elder Scrolls Travels games) so concepting shouldn't be too much of an issue, and releasing stuff people can actually play through would really help get competent modders on our side.

its a good idea Cath. Both those areas originally used different architecture styles, however, we can compromise with modder's resources if need be. its definitely something to be considered. In terms of a fully do-able area, how about Fang Lair? There already are several dwemer resources, and if phitt gives us permission to use his upon release there will be even more. combined with vanilla tiles and retextures, we can pull together quite an impressive ruin (like Kemel Ze :liplick: ). Combine it with the Archeologist guild which was planned around that area and you have a fully stand-alone mod.

comments on this and in general are appreciated from all

Fang Lair...cool...I can remember that name from Arena.

I think releasing Strohs M'Kai next would be good, but not Fang Lair or Drangonstar, since they are on the mainland, and that way you can build those when you get to them. But Strohs M'Kai, as well asthe other islands, would be easy to do, cuz they're so small, plus they can be accessible from boat by Rihad or Taneth. If we can wow the players with the island, then we can get some good team members. Just my thoughts.

Easy solution to your problem, 4 Greyhounds. Dragonstar is a walled city, Fang lair can just be an interior, possibly. If you're not familiar with how you got to Mournhold in the Morrowind expansion Tribunal, a mage teleported you in, and the city gates were barred.

Couldn't you just use Phitt's Dwemmer tileset? I know its not as original, but I bet Phitt could model more unique and important things for you. Plus I doubt anyone would complain about Phitt's set (I've worked with it myself and its incredibly versatile and interesting).

thats what the " " smily was for. i cant imagine how tired phitt must be of the dwemer, so i thought it would be kinda funny to suggest he moddel some more dwemer stuff. apparently the joke got lost somewhere in the tubes. yea, phitt's morrowind dwemer set is freaking wonderful, and would be perfect, especially when combined with his rich dwemer tileset. add retextures and additional custom models and a fully rourken-looking dwemer set is assured.

Oh, right Cath, of course. Must have spaced out somewhere there. . I wasn't thinking about the barred city gates.

what does rourken looking dwemer architecture look like exactly? lol

That's yet to be decided. Probably somewhat similar the Dwemer ruins found on Stros M'kai in the game Redguard.

the rourken set is more ornate and features stone more heavily than the morrowind set. http://www.imperial-library.info/tsorg/part03image21.jpg is the http://www.imperial-library.info/tsorg/part03image29.jpg http://www.imperial-library.info/tsorg/part03image38.jpg.

there are 3 major ruins in hammerfell: the stros m'kai ruin, volenfell (near Gilane), and Fang Lair.

ahhh, you know I completely forgot about Redguard! Cool!

It seems that this is where the Orrery comes from, the one from Redguard looks just like the one in Oblivion. If I made a tileset I would probably go for the Orrery in Oblivion look.

So... I just read that the project's more or less dead.
However, some people seem to be still working on this. Hence my question... is there any chance of a Stros M'kai mod? I was always very interested in that island, and since Phitt is soon going to release his work to the public, you'd basically have all the resources needed, right?

And I don't know where exactly you're lacking manpower, but at least for a small project like that, I could imagine doing some "freelance work" once in a while. For example, retexturing Phitt's Dwemer architecture to be more "Rourken Style" (i.e. more colorful, as I understand it), or retexturing one of the oriental city architecture sets to be a little more unique. Stuff like that.

edit: Okay and NOW I've just read that I'm apparently a little behind on the news. Well anyway, if the new focus is to make a smaller world, where a lot of small contributions will already help a great deal, I could imagine being one of those small contributors. I can do things like http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=28487 to your architecture, or something like http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=28492 to your misc items (provided I can get some base textures to work with, but so far connary has never let me down).

Can you post a map of where you are currently working and planing to mod?
Will you redo the landscape of the vanilla oblivion?

Where are some good places to get Lore for the Hammerfell region for architecture ideas?
want to see what i would picture it as

Perhaps all work completed thus far, or at least a majority of the work, on Hammerfell should just be turned into a resource so that future modders could take up the quest and complete Hammerfell. And then the Oblivion society at large will be pleased...

Fearabbit: Stros M'kai is a pretty good possibility. Goldmoor is priority number 1, but if we want to continue work on hammerfell after its released, an isolated island city would be a logical step.

kogocola: here is http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/?p=forum/showmap&map=8. Over all, its about 400 cells worth of completed landscape. the rest of the map is blank, but still quite fun to run around in. We will not touch Cyrodiil landscape, with the exception of the http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/?p=forum/showmap&map=9.

The best place for Hammerfell lore is the http://www.imperial-library.info/ and the http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=114.

richard: at the moment i am intent on releasing goldmoor. it WILL be released in a playable form, and at least in part as moders resource. The amount of resources we will leave the community remains to be decided. on one hand, i do want to see this thing finished and given to the community. on the other, im not sure i want to see people using models that it took us years to acquire without giving us anything back.

how about a barter system for release of the resources? by which i mean, if you want to use some resources (and depending on how much) you need to give something to the Hammerfell project, whether it be finishing some interiors, landscaping, quests, etc. This way the community will gain access to the resources and Hammerfell will be in a constant state of forward progress.
Just an idea

I really think that if you do this the way Iliana has done with Elsweyr, you would acquire a bunch of people wanting to further work on this - just look at how far Elsweyr has come, now besides Iliana doing updates to it (which is what I think could be done with THIS - updates, while a playable landmass is released), you got reaper doing the manor in there, now you got a team that is starting on the town of Rimmen, as well as a couple of other projects in the works. Quests can be gradually added via updates... So can new features. I believe that a goal should be to put this out there so that it's playable and people can experience what already has been done, instead of the excitement killer that is vaporware.

Just a couple of suggestions. Please do not take offense.

it is my hope that once it is released people will flock to this just like they have to Elsweyr. however, i cannot release it until i feel it is a solid product, and for now there still remains much to be done (merging files and sorting through grass rendering issues, primarily).

[edit] if anyone know anything about cleaning/merging mods, please tell me. my TES4Edit looks like a chistmass tree and i have no idea what it all means.

Certainly...

While just a playable landmass, it should be a relatively quality, STABLE landmass. I wish you the best of luck...

i've finished up fixing 300some cells of Goldmoor, and have renamed them all so that they are ready for merging and dialog creation. atm im linking worldspaces and adding even more detail. i'll try to get some screenshots up soon.

Just a little new year's update