[StunnaLiike FiiFii]

ModTown 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwfhER5yTqk

http://darkelfmodding.com/forum/index.php

http://imgur.com/a/NLdfH#1

Description:

In 2004 a group of modders came together to do something that had never been done before, and has rarely been done since. They came from all walks of life, each skilled in a different area of expertise, and together they built a monument to a modding community for a game they all loved. Like a time capsule from a different era, they captured the essence of Morrowind modding as it was in 2004 and immortalized their names across the span of modding history.

The mod that group created, as some of you may know, is http://mw.modhistory.com/download-44-12375, and it has been the basis for countless projects ever since, some have succeeded but most have failed. Today, in 2015, we aim to make a new success story for the ModTown concept and the Morrowind Modding Community, we're creating ModTown 2015 and we want everyone to participate.

This is a project that we've been working on in secret for the past couple of months, and I'm pleased to finally announce it to the public and start getting everyone involved in making a new ModTown for the history books!

Now there may be some who may question why a new ModTown is so important for the community, so I'll explain as best I can. A ModTown is a celebration of modding, it allows modders of all kinds to come together and celebrate their collective accomplishments, unleashing their creativity, and building a unique experience to share with others. But ModTown is more than that, it's a celebration of the community, of what we've achieved and what we'll achieve in the future, it's a monument to our collective creativity, an epic tale of what we can build when we all collaborate and work together, and it's a time capsule, so that future generations of modders will look back and see a community that was thriving, that 13 years after Morrowind's release was still going strong and doing amazing things.

We have a lot to celebrate here in the Morrowind Modding Community, so let's make ModTown 2015 a reality and come together to build something beautiful that'll stand the test of time!

Features:

• A large community where modders and non-modders alike can have their avatars and a sizable island beautifully created by Melchior
• A fully fleshed-out main quest involving the primary power in ModTown, the Community Consortium faction. The player will go through some 16~20 quests, interacting with the modders of ModTown and their often peculiar and eccentric ways that occasionally make trouble for their NPC neighbors.
• Branching Choices - Our main quest involves the ultimate expansion of ModTown, and the decisions the player makes will define ModTown's landscape.
• An in-game newspaper that tracks the progress of the player as they complete quests and help out modders in Modtown.
• Numerous side quests and other activities for the player to partake in.
• 10~15 new dungeons to delve and explore
• A city built on the foundations of creativity and collaboration with tons of stuff to check out
• Plus anything else we can come up with!

How it Works:

There's a ton of stuff that goes into a ModTown, from quests to dungeons to NPCs and creative writing, there's something for nearly everyone of any skill level to do and make their mark on ModTown.

To organize all of this, we've setup our own forums where we'll be handling claims, and again, anyone can submit claims to be included in ModTown! There's a separate forum board for each type of claim with guidelines to help keep everything organize.

Perhaps the most recognizable aspect of a ModTown is, naturally, the modder plots, and Melchior has provided us with a landmass and town layout that includes 28 in-town plots and 9 out-of-town plots that anyone can claim. These are, naturally, first-come, first-serve! If there's enough demand, we can always add more plots pretty quickly. Once you've claimed your plot, you're free to do with it as you wish, use any architectural style you desire, and provide as unique a home for your Modder Avatar as you want.

Of course we have tons of non-modder plot claims as well, including dozens of public buildings such as NPC homes, shops, taverns, and special structures like the Imperial Embassy and Guild Halls that need to be built. Anyone is free to claim one of these and build them at their leisure (though our goal is to get ModTown 2015 out by the end of December).

We also have a writing department where anyone is free to submit flavor text, books, NPCs, newspapers (because we have an in-game newspaper planned), dialogue, and any other documents. If you're not much into modding, submitting NPCs or documents is a great and easy way to help out!

Naturally, we also have a questing department, where people can submit quest ideas, quest designs, or go ahead and start implementing quests right away if they so desire. And of course, ModTown 2015 has a 16~20 quest long Main Quest series involving the island's dominant faction, the Community Consortium, and these quests are designed in a modular fashion so that a wide array of modders can make the quests in this series.

Finally, we have a dungeon department, because everyone loves dungeons. Here anyone can submit dungeons to be included in ModTown, and we'll take any and all types of dungeons. Melchior will be in charge for actually building the exterior locations of each dungeon, but each modder has full control of what goes into the interiors naturally.

Anyway, you can find out a lot more about our plans for ModTown, including our designs for the main quest and many other exciting features for the player to see and do over on our official forums, and you should absolutely feel free to chime in with your own thoughts and ideas to help make the best mod possible!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll all take the time and help contribute to make ModTown 2015 a reality! Think of what we can accomplish if we all work together, and this is only the beginning to hopefully many more community collaborative projects in the future!

[Samantha hulme]

This sounds fun!

I didn't know that site existed. Anyway, I've registered now

[Charlotte Lloyd-Jones]

So this is what MelchiorDahrk was hinting at in the Show Us What You're Working on thread, looks promising. I say that because I remember at least three attempts at creating another ModTown since the 2006 version (which I kinda participated in), but never got very far.

I think I may join up and see what damage I can do this time....

But seriously, I really hope that it gets completed this time, and with a good start such as you've got, I'm sure it will.

[Robert Jr]

Do we have to do quest claims seperately, or can I freely add what ever quests I want to my own plot once I've claimed it?

EDIT: Am I right in assuming MWSE stuff is not allowed?

[Petr Jordy Zugar]

OOO! Yay! I really enjoyed the nostalgia effect of exploring the 2004 modtown, I was hoping something like this would happen!

[Isaiah Burdeau]

And I still managed to get the Lyithdonea alpha out despite creating this landmass. Sometimes I amaze my own self!

I'm so excited for this project! I'll have to get started on my own claim soon now that Lyithdonea is out. Thanks for leading the charge on this, Darkelfguy.

@greatness. We've tried to be as unrestrictive as possible so Modders can fully utilize their creativity. It's tricky if we require players to use an external program to play the main mod though... Maybe we could have an optional MWSE version. We could discuss that further on the forums though.

[Haley Merkley]

Haha, aye, the websites actually been around since February, but I never did get around to advertising the fact that we had a website, so I don't think a lot of people knew about it. Which is why it was the perfect place to start planning ModTown 2015 in secret!

Aye, a large part of the reason why we kept this project under wraps for so long is because I believe a major reason why so many ModTowns fail is due to poor organizational management and planning before making an official announcement. This time around, we spent nearly two months getting all of the major planning out ahead of time, forcing Melchior to build another landmass, and getting the major elements for the main quest as well as some of the interiors into place.

You may even recognize some of the interiors that we've thrown into ModTown 2015, because they're actually recycled interiors from the ill-fated ModTown 2011 project. Always thought waste not, want not was a good policy for interiors, we really should use interior recycling more in the community, heaven knows how many interiors go unused in dead projects out there...

Anyway, I certainly hope you'll join in! Our plan is to get everything finished by the end of December, so we have a bit more lee-way than ModTown 2006's 24-hour limit.

Oh no, you can add quests to your own plot claim without doing separate quest claims. That's just for faction quests and miscellaneous quests about town that aren't associated with any modder plots.

I'd have to agree with Melchior and say we probably don't want to require an external program for our main mod file, particularly with OpenMW 1.0 on the horizon (since MWSE doesn't work with OpenMW). A separate version might be possible though.

Aye, and only a month late from the original six-month deadline!

But seriously, great job on both Lyithdonea and the ModTown landmass!

[Joe Bonney]

Sounds like a lot of fun. I'm definitely keeping track of this. Maybe I'll even make my own humble contribution. Thanks again for your service to the Morrowind community, Darkelfguy. Keep it up!

[Elina]

Dumb question, but how and where would you pull together those types of resources - the dead projects out there? It'd be kind of interesting to see what's out there that could be recycled, but it seems like it'd be hard to assemble them in one place where everyone/anyone could view and use them.

I hope you all can agree what to do about MWSE mods. It seems like the envelope of what MWSE can accomplish has expanded considerably fairly recently. I just hope you don't let an impending release of OpenMW skew how you approach mods that go into this project; I don't remember OpenMW setting any firm date yet when a ver 1.0 will be released. From your explanation, it seems that the decision has already been made, even if only tacitly, that your mod will be used primarily with OpenMW or secondarily on a vanilla MW installation.

[Umpyre Records]

Well I think darkelfguy has to possess the largest repository of those interiors, lol. I'm using bunches of his interiors in Lyithdonea that he graciously gave me. Some more are being used in ModTown. We've talked about how we could try to pull other ones together into a community resource but that hasn't happened yet. Maybe after ModTown.

[Inol Wakhid]

It's just an idea I've been toying with for about a year now. Most modders have dozens of dead projects scattered along their hard-drives, and most of them will never see the light of day. It would be much more beneficial if we could collect the interiors from those dead projects into some form of interior resource repository to recycle and use in other projects. Many massive mods, like Melchior's Lyithdonea, run into the problem of never having enough interiors, so having readily available already-built interiors at hand to put into those projects could really help quicken their development cycle. Abandoned mod projects like Iredior Conspircies could also benefit, as the primary reason why that project was abandoned so close to completion had to do with a lack of interior resources. Recycling interiors could help resurrect many a nearly-finished massive project like Iredior or Elskjiver.

Of course there's plenty of logistical problems with such a repository that would need to be figured out, and I've been meaning to approach Fliggerty about the possibility of hosting one, but as Melchior said, that's really something we should focus on after ModTown, one thing at a time and all that.

I think you're misconstruing what I meant about OpenMW. We aren't building ModTown 2015 to use OpenMW, ModTown 2015 is being built with a vanilla Morrowind install in mind. That said, regular Morrowind mods are automatically compatible with OpenMW, whereas MWSE mods cannot be used with OpenMW. Given that a major part of ModTown is to have staying power, where people can play the mod for years and years to come, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to tact on MWSE dependency when even conservative estimates suggest OpenMW 1.0 will be released by the end of 2016 (this comes primarily from talking with the OpenMW developers).

We might make an optional addon to ModTown 2015 for modders who want to use MWSE, but the main ModTown file should probably remain vanilla Morrowind in order to be playable by the largest install base.

[Catherine Harte]

Just a thought about Darkelfguy's comment on 'recycling' interiors from other projects- I can't remember when or who was behind it, but at one time someone tried to collect unfinished mods that could be stored on a shared webpage so other people could download them and finish them, or pick them apart for use in their own mods. I thought it was a brilliant idea and had multiple unfinished projects that I was willing to donate, never happened though.

As for the subject of this thread, I'm doing some free-thinking about what I might do before I commit, mainly do I want to start from scratch or take on structure that needs to be filled....

[Setal Vara]

I have a question, and here just seems the easiest place to ask it. Just what is the policy on using resources from other people? As I think that I am going to be doing a good bit of that...

Edit: Ooo, I just had an idea, that I think would be cool, and a great way to show respect to the people who made the resources I am using, in the mod itself, I'd have my npcs or notes and books, that talk about who made this and who textured that, for anything I got out of a resource.