Nice looking villages. Although, being natural amphibian, I assume Argonians is also able to settle or live underwater. Is it possible that, perhaps, you will create unique "underwater huts" ? Just curious.

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the update Phitt. :thumbsup:

Thanks :foodndrink:

I would agree with you were the mod it conflicted with a small one, but KOTN is an official plugin. KOTN is huge, highly popular and I paid money for it, so if I have to choose between it and a small free mod I downloaded, KOTN is going to win. So while I agree that modmakers shouldn't have to account for and patch every mod on the planet (that way lies madness), they should at least do so for the official mods and the most popular free ones like the Unique Landscapes.

[edit] Also, thank you for patching for KOTN Phitt. I'm downloading your mod now, plan to visit the village soon.

It's not a conflict with the whole KOTN but only with one Fort introduced by this mod, and how many forts we have in Cyrodiil? countless... The best idea should be to make a patch to displace the fort itself to a safer location.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't see the problem now that Mudwater and KotN are patched. Granted I'm still putting together my next game and have yet to visit the location, but it seems to me that at worse we are talking about some kind of strictly aesthetic preference. The fort is after all an abandoned fort. So why is it problematic/unrealistic/whatever that the Argonians decided to build a village right next to the fort?

I agree that is should not be a problem to have a village next to a fort, in fact, another reason to have a village there. But one practical problem is that the conjurers and other evil NPCs that spawn at the fort will get into fights with the villagers and may even kill them...

That is indeed the only problem, but it is a problem. The villagers are essential at first (and thus can't die), but once you've finished their quests they will be set unessential one by one. The conjurers are so close to the village that they often attack the villagers. Argonians are very good at fleeing fortunately as they have an invisibility greater power. But it can still happen that one of them is killed by conjurer. I'm not sure how yet, but maybe I can make them ignore the Argonians somehow without touching KotN. Unfortunately the conjurer spawns also spawn other creatures sometimes (like Atronachs for example - at least in my game).



While I completely agree that mods should be compatible with official DLC's if possible (especially KotN, which is the only DLC worth playing really) I don't think that KotN is huge while my mod is small. KotN is basically 'Fight through one generic dungeon, then through another one and another one and then kill the boss'. It's pretty easy to make a quest like that. It takes ages for the player to complete the quest, but is it really that much fun? Don't know. I decided not to do that. Then add a mystical 'save the world from the uber villain' story (I didn't even need to think about not doing that) and people think it's a huge mod.

I spent four month making Mudwater and it has a lot more unique content than KotN. Two of the quests took quite some time to make and I could have made about twenty generic dungeons with an artifact at the end of each in the same time. It makes me a bit sad when I see that people don't recognize the amount of detail put into a mod and only count the hours it takes them to complete it (and possibly look at the 'size' of the story, save the world vs help someone with a small, unimportant task). In that regard KotN definitely wins, no question. I'm not saying that Mudwater is larger or better than KotN, but the huge vs small comparison is quite unfair imo (at least from a mod makers point of view) so I had to say this.

That is indeed the only problem, but it is a problem. The villagers are essential at first (and thus can't die), but once you've finished their quests they will be set unessential one by one. The conjurers are so close to the village that they often attack the villagers. Argonians are very good at fleeing fortunately as they have an invisibility greater power. But it can still happen that one of them is killed by conjurer. I'm not sure how yet, but maybe I can make them ignore the Argonians somehow without touching KotN. Unfortunately the conjurer spawns also spawn other creatures sometimes (like Atronachs for example - at least in my game).



While I completely agree that mods should be compatible with official DLC's if possible (especially KotN, which is the only DLC worth playing really) I don't think that KotN is huge while my mod is small. KotN is basically 'Fight through one generic dungeon, then through another one and another one and then kill the boss'. It's pretty easy to make a quest like that. It takes ages for the player to complete the quest, but is it really that much fun? Don't know. I decided not to do that. Then add a mystical 'save the world from the uber villain' story (I didn't even need to think about not doing that) and people think it's a huge mod.

I spent four months making Mudwater and it has a lot more unique content than KotN. Two of the quests took quite some time to make and I could have made about twenty generic dungeons with an artifact at the end of each in the same time. It makes me a bit sad when I see that people don't recognize the amount of detail put into a mod and only count the hours it takes them to complete it (and possibly look at the 'size' of the story, save the world vs help someone with a small, unimportant task). In that regard KotN definitely wins, no question. I'm not saying that Mudwater is larger or better than KotN, but the huge vs small comparison is a bit unfair imo (at least from a mod makers point of view) so I had to say this.

I'm just guessing here, but maybe some trigger zone or subspace type item (or simple activator that works within the radius, I think you get the point) that would turn the bad guys away by calming them, making them flee, killing them or whatever?
Or doing the same or something different by a script on your villagers?

That small, free download was created with months of hard work by someone who is not getting paid for it and released it to the public out of the kindness of their heart. They don't get paid by the download and they don't have to 'account' for anything, period. They don't have to release anything at all, they are not here to serve downloaders. Sorry, I know you don't mean to offend, but your statement smacked of a lack of appreciation for a free gift and came across with a sense of entitlement.

I finally got a moment to check this gem of a mod out and it is pretty amazing. Exactly what I thought an argonian settlement would be like, a scattering of homes over swampy waters, connected with walkways, just lovely. I loved the sound effects, they really add to the swampy atmosphere. The wind chimes are lovely as are the fishing nets. That is what I love about your work, it is so beautifully detailed and finished off, from the metal pieces attaching the fishing nets to the posts, to the detail on the knots holding the bones on the dreamcatcher, and the differing shades of textures on the chimes of the windchimes. All those small details that make a huge difference and really look professional.

The village itself is fawless as far as I can see. I don't run any of the mods listed as conflicting so I had no conflicts whatsoever. I think at this point, considering Oblivion has been out for five years there is not a scrap of land that won't conflict with something else. I haven't had a chance to do much with the quests so far, but am looking forward to doing them as they are first on my list after I finally release my own mod. Overall, thanks for what is so far an amazing mod made with Phitt quality, that is staying in my load order. If you are inspired and have the time, I too will add my voice to those who would love a player home there.

Aw shucks Phitt, I didn't mean to offend you (or Meek). I hadn't realized that you put so much time and effort into making this mod, and I really wasn't trying to imply that is was small or unworthy, compared to KOTN or othewise. I wasn't trying to judge the content of the mod at all actually (I haven't gotten to visit the village yet, still reinstalling my game after buying a new computer) I was trying, poorly it seems, to say only this: I payed good money for KOTN, I had fun playing it, and I got a bunch of cool stuff from it. I'm not going to give it up to try a mod that conflicts with it, no matter how unique or interesting the village might be, no offense to the modmaker. Of course, it turns out that Mudwater is only slightly incompatible, so it's a moot point and I'm going to install it anyway. Thank you very much.

@Meek - I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you. Yes, modders work for free and provide a valuable service to the community, and since they aren't paid they don't have to hold themselves accountable to those that download their mods. But I do think they are accountable to Bethesda. Bethesda created Oblivion, and without them we wouldn't have a game to mod. So I think mod-makers have a duty to them to make their mods compatible with all official dlc, or create patches if an incompatibility is discovered later. Forcing downloaders to choose between their mod and Bethesda's official mods, in a sense saying that your mod is better than theirs (intentional or not), and possibly even causing them to lose sales on those dlc, don't you think that would be pretty disrespectful?

To be honest, not in the least bit disrespectful. Modders have no obligation to Bethesda, just as Bethesda has no obligation to modders. In fact modders have no obligations at all and certainly no duty to anyone. If they were being paid then yes, but they are not and are not obligated to release anything at all. They are in no way saying their mod is better then Bethesda's DLCs by conflicting with those DLCs. Most modders don't even know until release that their mod conflicts with X mod or X DLC as they may not even have the conflicting DLC or mod. I have all the DLCs myself, but I haven't loaded them for years. I have no idea if any of my mods conflict with them or not.

All mods are a choice to download or not and at some point downloaders will have to choose one mod in favour over another because of conflicts. Which mods or DLCs is pretty irrelevant in the scheme of things and won't make any difference to sales of Bethesda's DLCs. Especially as people have the option of disabling one mod with one click while playing the conflicting mod then disabling the conflicting mod and reenabling the original mod. So they can have the best of all worlds without loosing anything.

But the reality remains, if a mod comes out that conflicts with a DLC and therefore you refuse to play that amazing mod because you paid money for your DLC...well you are the only one missing out. It doesn't affect Bethesda as you already own your DLC, it doesn't affect the modder.....just you. You are not doing yourself any favours with that stance on things, just missing out on all the fun. :shrug:

Anyway, I don't want to sway Phitt's relz thread into off topic. So we will have to agree to disagree.

In this case, it is. I'll go even further and say: in most cases it is. Bethesda is not known for producing interesting mods. That was true with Morrowind and even more true with Oblivion.




No. Absolutely not. Respect does not enter into it. Bethesda is a business enterprise. They are contractually obligated to provide a product...which they did. I am contractually obligated to pay for that product...which I did. As long as I abide by the terms of Bethesda's EULA I am demonstrating as much respect for Bethesda and their products as anyone, including Bethesda, could ask for.

I do not have a personal relationship with Bethesda Softworks and neither do you. We have a business relationship. Feelings do not enter into it. If they did, I would be hurt by the disrespect Bethesda has shown me by not caring enough about their own product to patch all of the remaining bugs in the software I paid for four and a half years ago.

I was thinking, how hard would it be to make a KotN patch that moves the fort (and the spawn points) a bit further to the east? I know that if I had any skills in landscape editing/patching, I would do so myself.

Mudwater looks like a definite must-have when I start playing again, but I don't want to give up KotN either. And one of the things I liked about seeking out this fort during the KotN quest in the first place, was that I had to travel through so much new territory, deep in the woods where I felt kind of lost. Moving the fort a bit further east (where at least I don't have any mods I know about) would just increase this feeling, instead of slightly decreasing it due to having a friendly village nearby.

Anyway, the mod looks great and I look forward to go visiting Mudwater :goodjob:

I'm going to politely back out of this argument so as not to derail the thread anymore.

About the fort, there are only two conjurers outside of it, and one of them is non-respawning. How much of a threat are they to the villagers, really? If it's that bad, maybe you could just add some code to the esp that detects whether KOTN is present and if so, disable those two conjurers so they never spawn? They're not important to the quest or anything, and it'd probably be easier to do than moving the whole fort.

Thanks for the nice comments (and the backup :blush:).

Jupiah, I know you didn't want to be disrespectful or 'insult' my mod. It's just the 'huge vs small' comparison that upset me a bit. And while I don't agree on some points you brought up I don't want to deepen the discussion.



I have to admit that I don't know a lot about esp patching either, never did it myself. I know the basic idea behind it, but that's it. I imagine that moving the whole fort would possibly cause more trouble than it's worth. I understand what you're trying to say about the remote location of the fort, but I fear I can't help it now. The fort doesn't look that bad outside the village and I think I got the conjurer problem solved...



...because that is more or less what I do. I put a large trigzone where the fort in KotN is. The trig zone kills and disables any hostile creatures or actors, then disables itself (to save performance). On cell reset it gets enabled again for 50 frames so newly spawned enemies will be killed and disabled instantly. This worked very well during my test runs, no conjurers at the fort (and my test messages confirmed that they got killed and disabled). I think this is as good as it can get. I know that I would have been easier with OBSE to achieve this, but I didn't want to make the mod depend on it just for one feature (even though I have to admit that Elys Silent Voice is needed anyway, so it wouldn't really matter - guess I'm a bit schizophrenic ).

Finally the villagers will be able to live in peace, KotN or not. Will upload later today.

Great work!

I've got all the ULs, but tend to stay away from village mods as they don't often seem to add much to the game other than cluttering up the landscape - but this one adds some lovely diversity to the game!

Atmosphere is great, and the quests (a couple of which I haven't played through yet) add some nice storytelling that actually means something to the village and the villagers, rather than just a random load of pointless quests.

One thing I did notice is that Lost Spires adds a Primeval Hollow on the outskirts of the village not too far from the Old Mine, and the tree sprite ended up chasing one of the villagers past Fort Bulwark where it was joined by a conjurer in chasing the villager off into the distance! She still hasn't returned to the village, but I assume she'll find her way back eventually.

Updated to v1.2, conjurers or other enemies around Fort Bulwark (if you have KotN loaded) will now be gone so the villagers can live in peace.



Normally the villagers should not stray so far off the village to get in contact with creatures around Primeval Hollow (have Lost Spires loaded as well). Only during the quest involving the old mine you have to pay a bit attention. I have taken care of the conjurers around Fort Bulwark in v1.2 by removing them.

Ah, that's great - thanks.

By the way, I love the irony of the old fort Bulwark being so close to the settlement - these are proud argonians who probably picked this area on purpose as it's so close to an imperial building that they could say "hah! I'n not using your imperial structure - our huts are just as good!"

Well there are practical reasons not to use the fort, such as it being filled with traps. The conjurers have only set up temporary residence to try and get to a powerful relic that is hidden away there. For that reason, it's kind of silly that conjurers and daedra would hang around outside anyway, unless they're just going out for a smoke break or to make a run for minotaur burgers for the rest of the coven. The only weird thing that remains about having a fort right there would be that no one in the village seems to be acknowledging that it's there. Given how limited the dialog and depth of characters in Oblivion is though (due mostly to limitation of the system and voice acting), even that is not too inconsistent with the rest of the game.

I love the mudcrab which holds a beer bottle

Did you envisage to add other quests to the mod thereafter? To increase the village? To add a hut for the player?
To add objects/creatures? (in water where is the village for example)
:drool:

Uploaded a trailer for the mod. There are some spoilers in the video, so if you don't want to see any spoilers don't watch the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXf3xGIK-9w



Lol...that's good to hear.

I could add some dialogue concerning the fort, but since it wouldn't make sense for players who don't have KotN loaded it would again require OBSE or esp patching to make sure that it only shows up if KotN is loaded. A bit too much work for a tiny bit of additional immersion.



The only thing I'd like to add in the future is a player owned home that gets slowly built in MW style. And probably a small quest coming with it. The water around the village is pretty shallow (and there isn't much space left anyway) so I won't do anything 'watery' regarding Argonians there. Oblivion AI acts funny in water anyway so it would only lead to bugs and problems with the Argonians running into things or getting stuck. I fear a village built on top of water is as 'Argonian' as it can get. At least they can take a bath from time to time.

I can picture that... You meet one of Argonians who says that he has always some strange sensations after he eats a meal spiced with certain mushrooms. And thinks that there's a fort nearby, but have no idea whether it is real or not quite so... Such way he just fits in both scenarios and should make all players content because you can't be certain whether he's serious or delusional... ;] Well, you may want to even expand his role, as he has some potential - you know, just like the local version of M'iaq ;]