Mesogea: A quick Introduction

Mesogea is a huge group made Modification for Oblivion TESIV. I have created a huge, original world with lore, history, languages and storyline. Thousands of original meshes and textures and hundreds of third party custom meshes are included now in the Mod that is available for download. We need people to help, to stake their claims in Mesogea and to add content. You can create anything from a single NPC, a farm, village, town, fortress, garrison, City, tomb, cavern, cave, mines and so on. All you need is the Mod, Oblivion the Game, the Construction Set and your imagination. http://mesogea.spruz.com/


Mesogea: Quick Links (read on for a more detailed description)

http://www.youtube.com/user/Valisarius#p/a/u/0/42TVnjGZ77U

http://www.youtube.com/user/Valisarius

http://mesogea.spruz.com/

What is Mesogea

Mesogea, "the land between" is a fantasy period of Earth History, set long before the earliest classical civilisations in a mythical time between Ice Ages. Primarily mankind was bred as slaves by the Vandur, a race much more ancient than our own. As one great Ice Age descended, the Vandur withdrew beneath the earth, locating their cities in volcanic regions where they maintained their dominance, ruling without pity or remorse. A small number of human tribes remained upon the surface, eking out an existence over thousands of years, surviving the bitter cold until at last the Ice Age passed. By then the Vandur were barely a legend and Men spread across the World, forming tribes, nations, Kingdoms and Empires, enamoured of petty wars and politics, fighting between themselves as often as against the wild and the elements. A freedom squandered? or a freedom to grow and to learn? Mankind was learning to civilise.

Then the Vandur emerged. First striking against the North, they drove vast armies to conquer and destroy, putting Men under the yoke and the whip. As nation after nation succumbed, one people held out. The Naryada, in their own tongue the Sheahlyn, were descendents of the first civilisation of Mankind and the Durya - a few of the Vandur that rebelled against their own kind. From their islands in the NorthWest of Mesogea the Naryada, aided by the few surviving Durya, fought an endless war of defeat with few victories and little hope of holding out against the Vandur.

Far to the South and across the Middle Sea, the Holorian people rise from tribal chaos to an Imperial Power, sending their powerful military and trading navies across the sea to Mesogea, settling first along the southwest shores then advancing inland. Over many centuries the Holorian Empired waxed, until it split into two, an Eastern and Western Empire, each ruled by its distinct Emperor, or Amagius in the Holorian tongue. In southern Mesogea, the Holorian Western Empire survives despite constant pressure and assault from the Karithian desert and desert fringe peoples, to the East by the vast tribes of Doraea and to the north are sevvered from the Naryada by an enormous expanse of wild and barbarian lands.

Yet across these lands the Vandur are extending their power and gradually, slowly, with inexorable might, turning their remorseless and imeasurably cruel minds to the ruin of the growing power of the Holorians. For in the Holorians and the Naryada, should they combine, may reside the last hope of humanity to withstand the Vandur and ensure the existence of the human race.

Do you have website?

http://mesogea.org

Visit the Offical Website for up to date news, photos, video, literature, chat, historical snippets and studies of Mesogea and of course the dedicated forum.

Mesogea Video

Mesogea has a dedicated YouTube channel that can be visited http://www.youtube.com/user/Valisarius

Photos and Still Images

Although there are a great number of Photos and Images posted at the website, Mesogea.org, you can also visit this site and see all of the official photos.

http://s992.photobucket.com/home/valisarius?action=firstLogin

What Stage is this Mod at?

How to stake a claim and make your own impact on Mesogea

http://mesogea.spruz.com/forums/

Mesogea is a work in progress. It is one absolutely enormous undertaking, the largest landmass of any mod for TESIV and highly likely one of the biggest alternate worlds for any platform wher continuous, seamless travel is possible.

Landmass Complete
Flora/Geology Complete
Cities In progress
Architecture More than a thousand new meshes of all descriptions and growing!
Texture A huge quantity of custom textures.
NPC's In progress
Music Newgrounds provides all of the music. Looking for a custom music maker however.
Quests In progress


Downloads:

There are several locations to download Mesogea.
The current version is 3.0 as of 22nd July 2010.

Visit the Forum at Mesogea.org for a full download list: http://mesogea.spruz.com/forums/?page=post&id=5B756D23-500E-46C1-943C-63BFE1D83B10&fid=27194233-99B5-4007-936E-5DBAFA62D48C

How to get to Mesogea from Oblivion, the Game.

Start your game OBLIVION.
In the menu you must check the following.

Oblivion.esm x
DLCShiveringIsles x
Hiboriamain.esm x (hiboriamain is the working title of the landmass of southern Mesogea)

If you have the alternative plugin for the http://mesogea.org/mesogeamap.rar then also check that.

If you are using the Real Earth sky mod. Then ensure it is downloaded from http://www.mesogea.org/MesogeaSky.rar and installed.

Once you have entered the game world of TESIV. Press the tilde key " ` "
This opens the console commands. Now type "cow hiboria 0,0" this will centre you in a cell 0,0 of hiboria. You can adjust the x,y locations anywhere between 200 and -200.

As the Mod develops we will add a unique entry to Mesogea where you can design a new character and begin a new life in Mesogea.

What can I do in Mesogea?

At the moment you have two options:

Tourism. Travel the world, get to see it, from the vast Karithian deserts, the varied mountainous regions throughout the world, the expanse of the Doraean plains, the great forest of Larandor, hundreds of islands, river valleys, forests, coasts, woodlands, scrub, wastes, ice plains and so forth. You could literally spend weeks wandering around the place and still only see a small portion of it all. You can visit the city of Illusidum. Be carefull as it is a building site! Work is progressing on the various districts but you can wander the Agaria slums and the adjoing port and walk the canols and Palace districts. You can climb the tomb lined mountain path of the Capranecurum and see where the Emperors and other dignitaries of the Western Holoian Empire are entombed. You can visit Turum and Lindon garrisons, travel south to Ventara a city on the River Efail across from the Karithian deserts, go north and through the Straska pass to the site of Byrgo Castle, then further north to Hazelgate and then go east and take a pint at the Three Mile Oak Tavern. Or go further north and see where the Vardensara gate is being worked on.

Modding: Or you can join the Mesogea team and expand your horizons way beyond what can be offered almost anywhere else. Sick and tired of the cramped real estate of Cyrodiil? Dont want to put yet another cave half a mile outside the Imperial City and wonder how on earth goblins could get away with what they do within spitting distance of the city walls? Well, dont! Come over to Mesogea, where going on an adventure means REAL travel and the scenery changes dramatically, not just the trees and rocks.

Credits:


This is an enormous work and various items have been scrounged from around Nexus and other sites over the years.

I have kept a list of credits as best I could but if you come across something in the mod that is not credited here, contact me with details and I will add it to the list.

RabbitFly - Mythology armour and weapons
Fox - Greek Hero Armors and Weapons
Iliana - numerous animals, creatures and all manner of content.
Darkness Eternal - loads of buildings and other content. From the DUNE mod.
Prometheus - desert content - also DUNE.
Truant - the guy just keeps on working and working on Mesogea. Many thanks T.
Meo - settlement resources.
Armour of Hades - übersetzer: Wozee (Wozee@Renegade-Arts.de)
Mr Siika for numerous articles, creatures, items etc.
Cow1787 (Nordic pallisade)
# Alasdair's Nordic Tomb Resource
Mr Siika Dwarven architecture resource
rabbbit fly and tonkiesama Kilts
Lunars farm houses (modified distant files by theKarithian
Real World sky by gloomfrost

And if there is anyone at all I missed, please let me know and I can add them to the list.

Finally, get involved. Mesogea will rise or fall entirely dependant upon the interest it gets from this community. If you didnt join in, you cant complain if it fades away.

Well, welcome to the next thread in the series. Mesogea version 3.0 is now available as follows:

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=6243

http://www.mesogea.org/MesogeaMain.rar
http://www.mesogea.org/Data.rar

http://www.invision.tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/554-mesogea/

OPTIONAL FILES:

Real Sky for Mesogea ( a stripped down version of the excellent Real Night Sky by Gloomfrost) http://www.mesogea.org/MesogeaSky.rar

Mesogea World Map (MUST go last in your load order, ie. loaded after all other esp.esm loads) http://www.mesogea.org/mesogeamap.rar


So what am I doing right now after these enormous uploads? Well firstly there is getting all of the other files online. Ive added the map and sky to my own server, but the other sites are being sorted out as soon as possible, right now actually.
I am working on a longer intro movie and also a modding tutorial video for the whole mod, so that those who want to mod it can watch it and understand how the mod works and what meshes to use, where and so forth.

Then I am off to Farnborough, then Glastonbury for a week. Thats supposed to be a break!

Looks amazing! Can't wait to explore the places and maybe add something of my own. Hopefully this mod gets more feedback and appreciation it deserves!

Just a well deserved bump for the preliminary release thread.

Can't wait to check it out! I still only have the Data File. I've got to try to DL the land mass again. No problem on your end or the links you provided, just people are playing heavy online gaming on the local network tonight, will set it to DL when I go to bed later.

Looking forward to checking it out tomorrow, hopefully!

And finally the latest trailer: I enjoyed filming this and I hope people like it. It contains some of the locations that you can visit in Mesogea as it stands at version 3.0. There are a few other locations too, but they didnt quite fit with the theme of the movie.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Valisarius#p/a/u/0/42TVnjGZ77U



Next: A modders guide, how to Mod in Mesogea. A Video tutorial.

Edit: I have just updated Planet Elder Scrolls, TESalliance and Mesogea.org to house all of the necessary and optional files such as an ingame map and real night sky.

For anyone having probs with the downloads, there are now several mirrors added so you have a choice of many. Look in post Number 1 and you'll find everything you need. Or go to the forums at Mesogea.org and look under news.

For anyone who hasnt seen the trailer yet: http://www.youtube.com/user/Valisarius#p/a/u/0/42TVnjGZ77U

Staggering scope, breathtaking landscape detail. Grand new architectural pieces, placed with great care. Beautiful vistas - endless, inspiring natural wonders. And that was from my last visit - around a year ago! I've since moved to a new HDD and so am downloading this mammoth wonder again.

I won't say this is the sort of scale that should have been implemented in the original game, because that would be silly of me. But yep...

The trailer, while well done, simply cannot do this place justice. But it comes pretty close.

It's simply astounding.

Thanks Grond. As usual I was beginning to think I had once more wasted my time. Its quite weird the sheer amount of work that has gone into this and that I keep ploughing into it for what appears barely any passing notice. I am sure I will keep working on this and that eventually people will take notice and make some comment now and again. Thanks for taking the time to say something about the mod.

Seems the Elder Scrolls community has died down some nowadays. I do indeed appreciate the spectacular effort you have made here and am definitely going to try this out when I get a better computer. My current one can't hold it's own with many of today's games. All I can say is that this has really fired me up again and making me willing to enter Oblivion once more. Thank your for your hard work. God I love this community.

I can imagine how you must feel sometimes. There were many times that I was trying to work on a mod or something back when I tinkered around with Morrowind's CS. Sometimes I'd post requests for help or info or something and not get too many responses. I ended up giving up on more than one mod idea b/c I couldn't get the necessary resources to make it the way I wanted to. I did put some work into them, but nothing on the scale of what you have done with Mesogea.

The mod community can seem kinda hit or miss sometimes; if you don't do things a certain way or come off as inexperienced, or hold your mouth the wrong way or who knows what, you may feel like people are ignoring your work. Also, the sheer number of threads that pour through the Oblivion mod forums can drown a new thread quickly, and then, of course, too-frequent bumps can be sometimes met with mild hostility or warnings from moderators. So it's kind of a conundrum.

I guess as an artist you have to create for yourself first, and then if you eventually share with other people and they like your work, then all the better. That's the way I write music, rather than trying to write music specifically of a style for other people to like it.

Hopefully as more people discover it, you will have more people willing to help. I will do my best to add what I can. I have some ideas of my own that I'd like to create and the canvas you have provided seems like a good medium.

BTW - I like the new video; breathtaking scenery and landscapes, and I like the open town design! I will try again this afternoon to DL the main land file (the big one). I've got to run for now.

Cheers! And keep up the great work!

I think I might know one reason for the lack of support. Over at your forum you say: Forgive me if this is out of bounds ( cross forum stuff ) but for the sake of stirring up some interest, I want to post it here. I think this restriction might be partly responsible for the lack of excitement. I've been away for a while, so these details might have been discussed in earlier threads. I think I'll ask them anyway.

What are the rules for modding Mesogea?

Can I build a town using vanilla sets? If I want to stake a claim in Mesogea, what are the sets I can put into the world?
Can I have a quest using vanilla creatures and monsters?
Can I use my own imagination to make my own mini lore within your universe?

I'm more than willing to play by Mesogea's rules, but I'm unsure what they are. And more importantly, I think true modders ( those who release, I mean ) are a little confused as well.

In order to garner interest, you might need a more specific set of instructions. Something more to hook them in...I like the freedom of the huge land, but the canon is a bit daunting...I don't know it at all.

I write this with great respect for your labor so far, of course.

Thanks for the replies. I have been away for nearly a week and to find just two replies here is astounding. Still, I am not giving up even if the whole thing is for me alone.

Anyway to answer your questions I am making a simple HOW TO MOD IN MESOGEA tutorial for youtube and a simple instruction book. The short and easy answer to what can I put in Mesogea is anything. Nothing Medieval is the main guide. I will post a bit more later tonight as I have a meeting to go to.

I agree, some some guidelines would be helpful, as there is little info on races and cultures, etc. and guidelines for what is expected from towns and cities. People could end up with wildly different perspectives on cultures and designs that don't mesh together well in-game.

Also, can you tell me what the sizes for the main files should be? I keep having trouble with my local connection or something here when I am getting the big files and I can't tell if I got the whole thing or not.
I have: 1 Data.rar which is 119MB
and MesogeaMain at 873MB

I thought that second file was supposed to be over 900MB, so I'm thinking the transfer didn't complete... the packed size for hiboriamain.esm is 976MB which could be corrupted.

MesogeaData 642MB - packed
MesogeaMain (this contains a single file called hiboriamain.esm) 976MB -packed.

Sorry I couldnt post more detail last night, had to rush out.

I will get on with making the how to mod mesogea film today, hopefully should be able to finish it in one sitting.

Quick update. Half the tutorial is complete. I have done it as a walk through of various locations, covering architecture NPC's and clutter etc as I go, as well as some explanation of the races and how they fit in together.

I am working on the tutorial again today and will have part 1 uploaded by the end of the day. Is there anything particularly people want to be in this tutorial?

Thanks for your work on this. I'm sure more people will notice it as more playable content is created for Mesogea.

I can't speak for everyone, but I'll venture a guess: I don't know if it's possible to capture the world's "feel" in a tutorial. I guess that's what's elusive for me. We've got Oblivion's medieval-style fantasy on the brain, and need something that conveys the "mood" or setting of what you are looking for modders to create. I have some ideas, but they are old school D&D style adventures - I am trying to fight that medieval mindset to come up with something more original in an ancient times setting.

Would it be possible, or have you already done, some short sample quests or npc interactions just to give an example of how the world should feel to the player? Also, more info on relations between races of men would be invaluable.

I'm still a bit sketchy on the Vandur and how they are going to fit in to the game world. I know that many of the races are still open to design. I guess that's going to be an obstacle to someone who just wants to design a living town. I guess that's where we should start. More development will have to be done on a race or races before the culture and settlements can really be brought to life. I will get on your web page and post more of what I'm looking for in an area to develop.

I got frustrated with the DLs (not your fault, it is a local network stability/bandwidth problem on my end), since I got 800 of the 976 MB file. *sigh* I will try again this afternoon. After looking at some more screenshots of the cities, I am again blow away by the simple beauty of the ancient world styled architectural designs. After looking at areas like Tebella and Ventara (and Illusidum is still amazing), I am already starting to get more of a feel for the world, so all that's missing is more info on its people.

It just dawned on me, that we also need a running beastiary for Mesogea, perhaps a Forum topic on the Mesogea forums for discussion of what beasts and "monsters" should be in.

I think youre right, we need more history, relations between races, quests and a bestiary as a guide. Probably the best place for that might be the forums. I am uploading the first tutorial, complete with my irritating Yorkshire voice. I've tried to cover as much details as possible so there will probably be well over an hour of detailed tutorial over a number of videos.

Yes! I think I finally managed to get the whole files, uncorrupted and complete! I got them from your dedicated server and I downloaded them during the wee hours when not too many people would be using the local net. It was probably a local bandwidth issue. Now I have the task of figuring out how to divide my Oblivion install to create a dedicated environ for Mesogea. I want to have nothing interfering with my creative impulses!

Most of the planning discussions I'll post on the Mesogea forums, but just wanted to give a needed bump here!

Alot of my inspiration for modding this is going to be from a mixture of Robert E Howards Hyborian Age and Fritz Leiber's Lankmar and obviously (where would I be without it) Michael Moorcock's Stormbringer saga for a little Dark fantasy flavor! Anyone who comes to my towns better watch their backs, this ain't gonna be yo' momma's Cyrodiil!

I feel like this world could have a more Sword and Sorcery feel to it versus high fantasy, an ancient and mysterious time, where people have bigger things to worry about (like survival!) than how ugly a goblin is or how disgusting mudcrabs are!

It should help get more modders onboard to do quests and towns and stuff like that once the wiki gets developed so we can have more of a backdrop as far as beasts and peoples and cultures of Mesogea.

But anyone who wants to get in on the early discussions and be part of the early phases to help shape some of these things, should register at the Mesogea forums now!

Totally agree, an excellent post. Just a quick link here to some of the fantastic photos people have been taking in game.
http://mesogea.spruz.com/photos.htm

And a link to the Wiki in progress. There is barely a scrap of content yet as its taken me most of the day to find a decent wiki after many trials and errors elsewhere I settled on here: http://mesogea.wetpaint.com/

I am going to update a part of the wiki on a daily basis and anyone getting involved in Mesogea is welcome to add their own bits to the mix.

You could add some of the History and place descriptions that you already have on the Mesogea board. You forgot to mention there currently isn't a whole lot to look at on the wiki! (at least not at the time of this post)

Yep I know. The wiki is somewhat bare. I have added three entries this morning as well as a load of updates to the forum. Ive begun to transfer stuff to the Wiki so will use the special feature as an occasional link to something interesting on the wiki.

The Astaroth idea is really taking shape. I am going to start some work on another settlement soon, maybe a village or a port. I fancy doing Corrus Deborum, its on the other side of the Empire from Astaroth. I love the idea of ships coming and going so hopefully we can enlist some help on that one. I am working on some ship models too, some galley types.

Just a note to the community here, the mod is available for download and there are settlements taking shape. We are in need of the following:

1. Someone to work on a simple script for ships coming and going from ports and maybe even moving along rivers etc.
2. Dialogue and NPC makers.
3.Small settlements, taverns, villages and so on. Everything you need is in the mod.

And lots more stuff to do. Exciting times ahead...

I would also venture to say that we could use some modellers, for architecture, creatures, etc. I know much of what's needed is already in the Data file, but we could always use more. As the beastiary takes shape, some of the available creatures could possibly do with a makeover, for example, I'd like to see Dire Wolves, which could look something like that wolf in "300", huge, gangly and menacing! They reportedly went extinct about 10,000 years ago (so around 8,000 BC) and could possibly still be around at this time.

But that's about as scientific as I will get, as it's been pointed out, it's not the goal to make a "historically accurate" mod by any means, simply a fantasy bygone era: Translation "Dire wolves and other such creatures could definitely be around and open to a little free interpretation!"

Nice start on the wiki! I see you added alot of locations and other things. Where do you want to start discussions on creatures? For the sake of keeping the info centralized, you want to start a new topic Category on the Mesogea forums for this? I made an account for the wiki, but I don't know if you want people to start adding creatures there without some sort of discussion on them. A new category of "General Discussion" where we can create new Topics for Wild Beasts, Armor, Weapons, Political Relations, etc. would be sufficient.

I made two separate Oblivion installations (2 folders, really) so I can rename them for Playing, and testing, respectively. I made a fresh new install with just Oblivion, and the DLC KOTN and Shivering Isles. I've got to check the patch version, and patch if necessary, then I should have a "Clean" Oblivion install I can use only for Mesogea and any resources used for it. By renaming the folders "PlayOblivion" and "CSOblivion" respectively to "Oblivion" depending on which one I want to use, I should be able to keep them separate. It will be a bit trickier on Vista, b/c I'll have to change those hidden local/roaming folders info as well (the stuff under "C:\Users\...\AppData\Local\Oblivion". It should be doable, though.

EDIT - BTW, I learned that 2 Oblivion folder trick by doing a google search on "multiple Oblivion install" so I can't claim credit for coming up with it. I'm sure many modders do something similar or use Wyre Bash for separate mod sets. I prefer the switching folder thing though, as it "feels" cleaner (the modding Data folder is actually kept separate from anything else). You can make batch files to do this automagically, but I will stick to manually renaming stuff for now; that way I know exactly where stuff is going.

I'll add another section to the forum where we can discuss creatures, beasts and all the other stuff you suggested etc then once we have thrashed each one out we can add them into the wiki.

I am going to do the double install so I can run MERP as well.

I have just started work on Corrus Deborium, (Port Deboran) which will have an extensive waterfront and a Navy dock area across the River Arum.

Anyone else want to make claims, villages, towns etc then please join in.

We could do with a modellers help of course and certainly someone to give us a hand getting ships in and out of port under their own sails, basically if the player wants to take ship somewhere then the ship wont just wait around but will pull out of port on schedule. If youre on it, well done, if not, tough and wait for the next one.

A quick request if anyone has the skill.

We need a few buildings to be visible when distant. The boardwalk dock items and anvil lower and middle class buildings. If anyone has the skill and time to strip these assets down to bare minimum for them to be visible when distant then that would be a great help. Also the same buildings (anvil lower and middle class) to make them look overgrown and slightly ruined for a city where such buildings have been let to rot and slime, though still habitable.