Living Cities : IV

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 5:42 am

I've reached the point in my blog where I'd like to discuss mods that expand the population of Cyrodiil's various cities, but I've been having some issues with all the ones I thought I was going to talk about! Firefly's Extended Cities adds a good amount to all the cities, but the people move about it masses too often, producing an unnatural and rather disturbing result. Crowded Cities seems to be giving me crashes whenever I try to fast travel to a city. And I'd like to choose one that has optional compatibility with OCR if I decide to eventually discuss that mod later in the blog. I'm thinking that the best way of adding to the population would be to get lots of mods that add smaller amounts of people, but I'm not really sure where to begin looking. So far I've made a note of Jadrax's Apartment and Moth Priest mods, but obviously those only affect the Imperial City. Does anybody have any other suggestions? Can my issues with Crowded Cities be fixed? Thanks for your help.

And here's my current load order:

Spoiler

Oblivion.esm
All Natural Base.esm
TamrielTravellers.esm
TNR ALL RACES FINAL.esp
Unofficial Oblivion Patch.esp
UOP Vampire Aging & Face Fix.esp
Oblivion Citadel Door Fix.esp
DLCShiveringIsles.esp
Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch.esp
SM Plugin Refurbish - SI.esp
MOBS SI.esp
MOBS SI Optional Combat Settings.esp
Natural_Habitat_by_Max_Tael.esp
All Natural.esp
All Natural - SI.esp
All Natural - Real Lights.esp
WindowLightingSystem.esp
AliveWaters.esp
AliveWaters - Koi Addon.esp
AliveWaters - Slaughterfish Addon.esp
Corpse Equip Automatic.esp
Willful Resistance.esp
Enhanced Economy.esp
Crowded Cities 15.esp
Crowded Roads Revisited_ChorrolCheydinhal_5.esp
Crowded Roads Revisited_GoldRoad_5.esp
Crowded Roads Revisited_GreenRoad_5.esp
Crowded Roads Revisited_YellowRoad_5.esp
Immersive Travelers.esp
PTRoamingNPCs.esp
DarNifiedUI Config Addon.esp
Map Marker Overhaul.esp
Map Marker Overhaul - SI additions.esp
Creatures Alive v1.3.esp
Zombie Diversity.esp
TamrielTravellers.esp
kuerteeWanderingEncounters.esp
Skeleton Diversity.esp
JADICMothPriests.esp
JADImperialApartments01Temple.esp
JADImperialApartments02Temple.esp
JADImperialApartments03Temple.esp
VOILA.esp
VOILA - Soldiers of Empire.esp
Knights.esp
Dungeon Actors Have Torches 1.6 DT.esp
Exterior Actors Have Torches 1.32 DT.esp
Enhanced Vegetation [125%].esp
talkwithyourhands2.esp
Enhanced Economy - House prices.esp
Fizzle.esp
SM Combat Hide.esp
Deadlier Traps.esp
Combat Behavior 2.11b.esp
kuerteeAttributeAndSkillBasedDamageModifiers.esp
Duke Patricks - Near Miss Magic And Arrows Alert The Target.esp
Duke Patricks - Actors Can Miss Now.esp
QTdof.esp
Bashed Patch, 0.esp
OBGE - Liquid Water.esp

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 10:04 am

There's a copy of Crowded Cities that prettyfly converted for OCR: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36736

Not sure why the original mod would cause fast travel crashes though.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:09 pm

I recently installed the original Crowded Cities for a friend and he wasn't having any issues with fast travel crashes, so...yeah, can't really be of too much help.

Internally things seemed to be pretty sound when I was fixing it up for ORC.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 4:55 am

Well, upon reloading the game, it seems to be working fine. Even the highest spawn rate doesn't really seem to make the cities as busy as I would like, though. Does anybody have any suggestions for more mods that add life to the cities. It doesn't necessarily have to be NPCs, either.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:02 am

I don't know personally I've never really cared much for "crowd mods" Oblivion already has dozens of NPCs with the personality of a sack full of bricks and most of those mods just add more. I really keep wishing there was one that gave the new NPCs each their own unique schedule with animations, interactions, and believability.... Also a few lines of unique dialogue for some wouldn't hurt either.
For me the lifeless, boring, brain dead NPCs with little more to say than generic "rumors" in vanilla Oblivion were very immersion breaking, and adding more just makes that worse.

Let me think.... uhhhh maybe add let the people drink? Is that mod outdated or buggy or anything?

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:46 am

I don't know personally I've never really cared much for "crowd mods" Oblivion already has dozens of NPCs with the personality of a sack full of bricks and most of those mods just add more. I really keep wishing there was one that gave the new NPCs each their own unique schedule with animations, interactions, and believability.... Also a few lines of unique dialogue for some wouldn't hurt either.
For me the lifeless, boring, brain dead NPCs with little more to say than generic "rumors" in vanilla Oblivion were very immersion breaking, and adding more just makes that worse.

Let me think.... uhhhh maybe add let the people drink? Is that mod outdated or buggy or anything?

I think it's pretty obvious that most people would prefer more unique NPCs, but a large-scale mod that does something that is kind of unlikely. I like adding NPCs just to see them around, and it doesn't break immersion if you don't go out of your way to communicate with them. It's just like strangers in real life; you would never go up to a random person unless you had a reason to. These mods kind of rely on that mentality.

However, if there are a few little mods that do what you're describing, combining them would have a much more pleasant result than using any one of the crowd mods.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:48 am

My main gripe with Crowded Cities is that NPC's spawn in front of your eyes, i.e. the PC walks down a city street and suddenly a bunch of Crowded Cities NPCs magically spawns out from nowhere.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 4:07 pm

Magical mult-spawn could be reduced by moving the spawn points indoors, or spreading things out across the cities and behind buildings etc.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:20 am

My rig doesn't like lots of extra NPCs so I don't currently have anything that specifically adds them. I do have some mods that add a few NPCs, a bit of extra colour without excessive load:
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=29333
http://www.fileplanet.com/216598/210000/fileinfo/The-Elder-Scrolls-IV:-Oblivion---Giskards--Cyrodiil-Upgrade-Mod-Pack (Mages wandering about the IC)
http://theelderscrolls.info/?go=dlfile&fileid=349
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5276
http://www.slofslair.co.uk/content/mods/slofs_dogs.7z
http://www.fileplanet.com/216598/210000/fileinfo/The-Elder-Scrolls-IV:-Oblivion---Giskards--Cyrodiil-Upgrade-Mod-Pack (Refugees with stories to tell)

Something more along the lines of Crowded Cities:
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11351 (I no longer use this but it's quite nice)

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 7:27 am

I use Extended Imperial City for the IC, which works great for me, though that may be part of Firefly's Extended Cities (and I'll note that unlike other extended cities I've used, this one does not seem to have particularly noticeable problems with NPCs moving irrationally in groups).

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 7:06 am

I think it's pretty obvious that most people would prefer more unique NPCs, but a large-scale mod that does something that is kind of unlikely. I like adding NPCs just to see them around, and it doesn't break immersion if you don't go out of your way to communicate with them. It's just like strangers in real life; you would never go up to a random person unless you had a reason to. These mods kind of rely on that mentality.

However, if there are a few little mods that do what you're describing, combining them would have a much more pleasant result than using any one of the crowd mods.

I find that between the "generic" NPCs added by Better Cities, and those added by quest mods--in particular Kragenirs (which in fact does also help make some vanilla NPCs less generic), Integration, and AFK_Weye--my cities have the level of vitality that I like. But yes, this is to some degree a matter of personal preference, and also what a given computing rig can handle.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 5:57 am

@wetblanket: I might look into "Better Inns and Home Owners" and Slof's Dogs, but the other ones add a bit too much unrelated stuff for them to fall under this blog post I'm trying to make. City Life would be fine if I didn't add children (they seem a bit too out of place to me). Also, I can't seem to get the guards to ignore the cats from "Cats and Rats," despite what it says in the mod description. Do you have the same problem?

@prettyfly: Another thing I didn't enjoy from the Extended mods was the addition of poorly added characters from previous games (i.e. Fargoth). However, just removing that wouldn't be enough to use it, though, since I still have the issue of all the NPCs moving around together.

Quest mods will be addressed in my blog in posts in the future. Right now I would rather just add more realistic commoners and such to the cities. Should I just try to edit Crowded Cities to my liking instead of trying to compile a bunch of little mods? Would somebody be willing to make compatibility with OCR if I did?

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:57 pm

...I can't seem to get the guards to ignore the cats from "Cats and Rats," despite what it says in the mod description. Do you have the same problem?...

I find they leave the cats alone 95% of the time which is good enough for me. After all, not everybody likes cats and some despise them. The occasional misfit livens things up

Another possible: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13670. No idea if it's any good, I'm about to play test it now.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 7:27 am

@prettyfly: Another thing I didn't enjoy from the Extended mods was the addition of poorly added characters from previous games (i.e. Fargoth). However, just removing that wouldn't be enough to use it, though, since I still have the issue of all the NPCs moving around together.

Ahh...you see, I wouldn't notice that because I haven't played any of the other games.

Should I just try to edit Crowded Cities to my liking instead of trying to compile a bunch of little mods? Would somebody be willing to make compatibility with OCR if I did?

I'd be happy to put some more work into the ORC version of crowded cities, because I agree that it doesn't really add many realistic commoners to the cities. But since I haven't used vanilla cities for yonks I'm not going to be doing anything with the original version.

I find they leave the cats alone 95% of the time which is good enough for me. After all, not everybody likes cats and some despise them

That mod has always caused weird stability issues for me.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 9:03 am

Also, I can't seem to get the guards to ignore the cats from "Cats and Rats," despite what it says in the mod description.

What Version are you using

Make sure you are using http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/840691-relz-bgs-misc-mod-collection

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 7:46 am

Right, I've gone back to Crowded Cities for Open Cities Reborn and...

Fixed up the item leveled lists so NPC's don't spawn with anything higher than silver
Added a heap of vanilla clothes to the clothing lists that had been previously cleared
Went through the various NPC's and edited the faces of a good number of them so that they didn't have the same face.
Added commoners to the daytime leveled lists; most of the NPC's that spawn during the day should be commoners
Moved two spawn points out of buildings in Cheydihal, although they were probably spawning outside the buildings anyway.

The internal leveled lists have been created in an extremely illogical fashion. All the different leveled lists for the types of clothing; shoes, shirt, pants etc are all combined into the same leveled list which has been added eight times to each NPC's inventory. Rather stupid and can only really be fixed by completely redoing the entire job, which would be tedious and time consuming.

The NPC's spawning in front of peoples eyes (well, out of the field of view, but when you turn your head but around...) is due to the sort of enable/disable script that the mod runs so it can have a set of day and night NPCs that spawn. I haven't studied the enable/disable scipts in any real detail yet; however, I'm going to see what I can do to improve this. Making the NPC's spawn inside buildings wouldn't work though as I'd basically have to overhaul the entire mod to get the AI to work right. A lot of work for not much gain.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:34 pm

Right, I've gone back to Crowded Cities for Open Cities Reborn and...

Fixed up the item leveled lists so NPC's don't spawn with anything higher than silver
Added a heap of vanilla clothes to the clothing lists that had been previously cleared
Went through the various NPC's and edited the faces of a good number of them so that they didn't have the same face.
Added commoners to the daytime leveled lists; most of the NPC's that spawn during the day should be commoners
Moved two spawn points out of buildings in Cheydihal, although they were probably spawning outside the buildings anyway.

The internal leveled lists have been created in an extremely illogical fashion. All the different leveled lists for the types of clothing; shoes, shirt, pants etc are all combined into the same leveled list which has been added eight times to each NPC's inventory. Rather stupid and can only really be fixed by completely redoing the entire job, which would be tedious and time consuming.

The NPC's spawning in front of peoples eyes (well, out of the field of view, but when you turn your head but around...) is due to the sort of enable/disable script that the mod runs so it can have a set of day and night NPCs that spawn. I haven't studied the enable/disable scipts in any real detail yet; however, I'm going to see what I can do to improve this. Making the NPC's spawn inside buildings wouldn't work though as I'd basically have to overhaul the entire mod to get the AI to work right. A lot of work for not much gain.

I've only tried it out briefly as I found the spawning immersion breaking and also that they just stand still in the middle of the streets doing absolutely nothing. Couldn't they just have a wander package (or what it is called) added, much as for example Vilja has when telling her to wait somewhere - she walks about a bit and doesn't just stand guard?

I'll try out Extended Imperial City for the IC now so thanks for the tip on that (noted that it needs to be cleaned btw). The Beggar mod seems interesting as well.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:45 am

I've only tried it out briefly as I found the spawning immersion breaking and also that they just stand still in the middle of the streets doing absolutely nothing. Couldn't they just have a wander package (or what it is called) added, much as for example Vilja has when telling her to wait somewhere - she walks about a bit and doesn't just stand guard?

Well, they've got wander packages and I haven't ever noticed that problem, but then I've noticed NPC's acting pretty inconsistently with their wander packages before so it doesn't surprise me that you might be having problems. Perhaps I need to bump up their energy levels or whatever.

I'll try out Extended Imperial City for the IC now so thanks for the tip on that (noted that it needs to be cleaned btw).

True. I think I got that one when I was cleaning my own mods though. There are standalone options for Skingrad and Chorrol as well, though those seem to have much more conspicuous problems in the form that Matthew mentioned earlier, as well as NPC's standing around doing nothing.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:39 pm

Right, I've gone back to Crowded Cities for Open Cities Reborn and...

Fixed up the item leveled lists so NPC's don't spawn with anything higher than silver
Added a heap of vanilla clothes to the clothing lists that had been previously cleared
Went through the various NPC's and edited the faces of a good number of them so that they didn't have the same face.
Added commoners to the daytime leveled lists; most of the NPC's that spawn during the day should be commoners
Moved two spawn points out of buildings in Cheydihal, although they were probably spawning outside the buildings anyway.

I'll test this for you in my game once I get around to installing OCR. I moved the spawn points around in the IC Market District so none of the spawning would take place in the player's sight, and the results are pretty favorable. It also spreads people out a bit, which is nice. Combining that with your tweaks to the lists and faces would probably result in a much more immersive mod. Would there be any way to merge your lists with my edits, or would I just have to start over?

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 4:54 am

Um...because I've never touched merging before, I've got no idea. Clearing out the edits tot he Tamriel worldspace and creating a new set of spawn points within the vanilla cities wouldn't be a big job though. Also, I've put a bunch of extra conditions into the script ensuring that the NPC's will only spawn if you are a reasonable distance from them or within an interior, which seems to work quite nicely.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:08 am

Um...because I've never touched merging before, I've got no idea. Clearing out the edits tot he Tamriel worldspace and creating a new set of spawn points within the vanilla cities wouldn't be a big job though. Also, I've put a bunch of extra conditions into the script ensuring that the NPC's will only spawn if you are a reasonable distance from them or within an interior, which seems to work quite nicely.

Editing the script sounds like a much more time efficient option than moving all the spawn point by hand like I've been doing. And you're just doing this for the OCR version, or could I persuade you to do both? I'm sure quite a few people would be interested in an improvement to this mod as well.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 10:02 am

I suppose I could. I'm a little bit busy at the moment so it probably won't be ready for a week or so though.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 7:13 am

I suppose I could. I'm a little bit busy at the moment so it probably won't be ready for a week or so though.

That would be great. I might try to continue with moving the spawn points by hand in the meantime.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:00 pm

This doesn't really fit with the sort of mods you've been talking about, but does make most cities seem a bit more alive. I recently came across the small mod http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/search.php which, as the name implies, does nothing more than improve the sound of bells within cities as well as enable them to be heard for some distance outside cities. It's a solid contribution, though like Rainbows in Tamriel something you'll experience only occasionally. It might be best merged with other like mods, if that's possible. Still, if one has an esp slot to spare it's worth a look-see, or rather a listen.

-Decrepit-

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 9:02 am

My rig doesn't like lots of extra NPCs so I don't currently have anything that specifically adds them. I do have some mods that add a few NPCs, a bit of extra colour without excessive load:
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=29333
http://www.fileplanet.com/216598/210000/fileinfo/The-Elder-Scrolls-IV:-Oblivion---Giskards--Cyrodiil-Upgrade-Mod-Pack (Mages wandering about the IC)
http://theelderscrolls.info/?go=dlfile&fileid=349
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5276
http://www.slofslair.co.uk/content/mods/slofs_dogs.7z
http://www.fileplanet.com/216598/210000/fileinfo/The-Elder-Scrolls-IV:-Oblivion---Giskards--Cyrodiil-Upgrade-Mod-Pack (Refugees with stories to tell)

Something more along the lines of Crowded Cities:
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11351 (I no longer use this but it's quite nice)

I used Modem's City Life before because I always thought it weird there were no children in the game at all. Is everyone in Tamerial infertile?

Anyways, I had issues with it when paired with MMM. The guards were naked. I don't think I ever tried to correct it though, so it might be something that's fixable. I just uninstalled City Life instead, cause Oblivion without MMM isn't right.