Hello there.
Since I currently can't run Better Cities or other performance-hungry mods, many locations in my game now look like they do in vanilla that had a very different look before. In this case, the Arcane University is the current thorn in my side. It is really bland and the design doesn't really make sense, and it has no resemblance of a university whatsoever.
Additionally, I've always wanted to connect the interiors of the Arcane University with corridors, stairs and rooms, in order to create a very big labyrinthine structure.

A couple of days ago I made a dummy cell with all IC buildings in it and began puzzling out a possible new outlay of buildings. Eventually, I settled on this:
http://img263.imageshack.us/i/au3q.jpg/
http://img13.imageshack.us/i/au2j.jpg/
http://img717.imageshack.us/i/au1y.jpg/

Question is - would people be interested in a mod like this? Or are people already oversaturated with mods that enhance the Arcane University? Or are you simply more interested in a less "urban" Arcane University and prefer e.g. ImperREAL's Arcane University, which focuses on natural beauty like flowers and magical lights? (Because there won't be enough space for many flowers in my design... there's only one area that will serve as the gardens, even though I might add a greenhouse somewhere in the main structure.)
If I want to release it, there's still a lot of stuff I need to do, so I thought I might as well get some feedback already. I still need to do the interiors, and I might be a bit more careless if I knew that I'd only have to satisfy myself.

There's also the question of how the old interiors will be arranged in this structure. This is a topic where I could really need some feedback/help.
As you can see, in front of the main entrance to the AU district there is a plaza that is separated from the rest. There are two entrances there, and the one closer to the orrery is where the Arch Mage's Lobby would be (so that it remains as accessible as it was in vanilla). For the other interiors, there are many many possibilities. Should they have an entrance from the exterior, or should they be hidden somewhere in the interiors? I think it would make sense to place the Alchemy Center, Spellmaking Center, Enchanting Center and the Mystic Archives somewhere inside the main tower structure, but that would mean worse accessibility. The Arch Mage's Council and Chambers are of course at the top of the central tower, but where are the Mage Quarters, the Practice Rooms, the auditories, what happens to all the "upper levels" of the different interiors (which mostly didn't serve any purpose, I think)? And how should should the main structure in the middle be arranged - what should be on the third floor, what should be on the ground floor and what in the basemant? What would you like to see when you enter that building?

Well, I'm just one fanatical user of mods, but...

I love mods of this kind. Those that alter places so's to be more as I imagine they ought. I know everyone sees things differently there, but to me, there are certain things that make sense, for particular areas. Hence, I'm also interested in those IC shop modifications currently being discussed in another thread. And Losing My Religion... etc.

Anyway, It'd be great to see an AU overhaul, yes!

Sorry, no ideas what should go where at this stage, but if I think of anything, I'll post it here.

I have to say that your layout looks really good! The original Arcane University never seemed particularly "Arcane" to me, and your version looks much better. As for interiors, I think you should make them as immersive as possible - I would put the Spell making, Enchanting and Mystic Archives inside the main building, but the Alchemy building outside near it's garden. As for mages quaters, I think they should probably be towards the outskirts as should the practice rooms (you wouldn't want a student miscasting and causing a large explosion inside the main building! :laugh: ).With the interiors, I don't think you should be too worried about making them like vanilla, for example the upstairs rooms: as long as you keep a second room that has the same purpose as the upper room in the original then you don't lose any functionality. Also, you have an opportunity to really expand upon, and improve, the interiors and character of each department - for example, the Mystic Archives for me were always a huge disappointment, as they were just two small rooms of books. You could make them much more "mystic" by moving them to the basemants, and making them huge, labyrinthine and slightly bending the laws of physics! Think like the library of the Unseen University in the Discworld novels - you could even have a quest where you have to find and rescue someone from the Archives, where they have gone missing! The Enchantment place could have enchanted constructs wandering around, and mannequins with enchanted armour, whereas the spell making one could have an Ayleid well in it and other magical things.

Other ideas for interiors:
Departments for each of the schools of magic, lecture halls, Ayleid research centre, "High Energy Experimental Magic Building" - another Terry Pratchett reference, offices for senior academics, places for students, labyrinthine and lost basemants.

Essentially, don't be afraid to completely overhaul the Arcane University. There are several aesthetic-only mods that improve the AU, but few that seek to completely change and improve it, adding new functionality and stuff.

Also, don't forget to make it compatible with Midas Magic

I think your design looks fantastic. It's quite functional looking while also being necessarily chaotic and hard to navigate; exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from any university.

Well, I'm using ImpeREAL, Origin of the Mages Guild, and Midas Magic, all of which alter the university - if you could support these either directly or with patches, I'd be interested!

I really think you are on to something here. While I like some of the changes made to the AU by better cities, it retains the standard layout. As you said in your post, that layout never seemed right to me. I agree with a lot of the ideas that The Filthy Spaniard proposed.....most obviously to me......where are all the summons? You know you would have students summoning all the time. I would imagine that there would be a lot of mischief surrounding each of the magic schools.....it is not hard to picture many a prank being pulled through the use of invisibility or telekenisis......maybe some students trying to make time with coeds by using Alluring Gaze or such. My two cents worth would be that the university would need to have at least one Ayleid well for students born under the sign of the Atronach to recharge at while practicing. And personally, it would be cool if the buildings were lit using power from a large Ayleid well.....maybe you could find it while exploring the basemant areas.

I'd definitely check it out. I'm currently using http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9711, which is great except for the wild landscape edit outside the walls. Just keep in mind, as Spaniard said, that if you're going to move everything inside, you should ensure that the commonly-accessed areas (the Archives, Lustatorium, etc.) are fairly easy to find. Choices and Consequences, for example, requires the player make regular contact with some or all of those folks to advance.

Also, there should be some way for non-mages to break in, a la http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18751, just in case you need to get in there for a quest.

I hope I don't cause offence, but I'm about to be a bit critical.

I think the idea is great in theory, but I'm concerned about the exterior architecture. The problem I have is that I dislike seeing modded buildings that are clearly bits of existing architecture squiged together. For example I hate seeing two mismatched walls intersected where the stonework is out of line. Much as I love Better Cities I wish the whole upper level market district thing didn't exist, despite the huge amount of work and talent applied to the mod, the upper level additions are not good enough for my (hyper critical) eye. I fully appreciate how difficult it is to make mods, and how much harder again it is to make new architecture or adapt existing architecture, but for me, I want it to look visually perfect. I've even found things I don't like in Mr Silka/Centurion's Seaview Castle!

What all this is leading up to, is that I would love a modded AU, but only if it looked really good externally, and I doubt that the limited architectural pieces you have to work with would make that possible. However, maybe I'm doing you a disservice.

On a more positive note, and leading on from the above, how about stealing from real life and making the Mystic archives like the Old British Library Reading Room. See http://www.britishmuseum.org/the_museum/history_and_the_building/reading_room.aspx for some pictures. Basically it was a large free standing drum shaped building with a domed roof, just like the Imperial Palace/base of the White Gold Tower. You could use the Imperial Palace piece as a free standing structure in the middle of the AU courtyard, with the library under the dome inside, and other lower levels filled with a warren of study rooms, offices, labs store rooms. how about including a refectory and kitchens.

Anyway. Hope I havn't upset anyone. I do appreciate how difficult it is to make mods, and i love using them despite the minor niggles/imperfections.

Well generally speaking it won't be a problem to add support for a mod that adds a new interior to the Arcane University, like Midas Magic or Origin of the Mages Guild. I probably won't be needing all of the doors I have, so I can save some of them for those mods, just like Better Cities did it.
ImpeREAL's AU will of course be incompatible.

Thank you for your input so far, I'm glad that some people are interested.
I'll do my best to keep the interiors easily accessible. From my current designs of the corridors, I guess there will be many shortcuts once you know where everything is.
About breaking into the Arcane University: I could place a door inside the lobby that isn't magically kept shut for non-members, so that you can pick it as usual. The fun thing would be that once you're inside, everything will be much more difficult. Before, you could directly walk to the building you wanted to rob; now you'll have to enter the main building and find the place first, all the while avoiding any Mages Guild members.

S'lider: Don't worry, I'm not offended. However, if you could actually walk around my current exterior, you'd notice that you can't really see mismatched buildings. The only building that even has another building on top of it is the main building in the center, and those second level buildings were chosen in a way that you only see the upper half of them when you look up.

Wow. This looks very good. Keep us posted!

I for one am VERY interested.

I love screenshots 2 and 3.

I for one agree with those who propose an overhaul of the AU. Might as well do something different to make your mod different while you're at it, eh?

I remember Gangsta Wolf was working on an Imperial University project. Perhaps, like previous suggestions, you add what Wolf did: extra rooms, training areas, etc. etc. I for one would love to see a hands on lecture or maybe a weekly trip to some place of magical importance.

But, those are just suggestions.

Good luck,

Kroot

I always thought the AU should be more magical and seem really out of place. I kinda think that a really cool idea would to have something that resembles the burrow from Harry Potter where they just kinda kept expanding up and up and its all kinda cobbled together (except with IC houses)

Just my two septims...

EDIT: I guess thats kinda what you did already. I just think it needs to be more random and cluttered like they kept expanding rapidly as more people came to join the university, but they had limited space.

Well, what I don't want to do is add a whole lot of clutter, because then I can't play it anymore. I'd rather try to distribute my clutter in a way that makes it look like there was a lot of it there, even though there isn't (if anyone remembers Morrowind, I think they did that to perfection in that game - almost no clutter, yet everything seemed cluttered enough somehow!).
I'm aiming to keep about the same amount of clutter as in the vanilla exterior - however, since I have much less space for that clutter (due to more buildings), it will look like it was more cluttered than before.

Anyway, cluttering is something I'll do at a much later stage - it's more important right now to get the basic layout done, and that's what I've been working at today. One (temporary) result is this:
http://img689.imageshack.us/f/augrundriss.jpg/
If you rotate it counter-clockwise until the angular part of the entry hall faces upwards (in your head, I mean), you can see that it fits the main building pretty well, which has a square shape on ground level. The extension to the right connects the main building with the building which houses the orrery and the lobby (not in the picture).
And... well, this is what I plan to do with the main building! I'll be using the basemant set of the Imperial City and connect it with regular IC interiors where the red areas are (I will later retexture the basemant tileset to make it look more like what you'd expect from the AU). This gives me a lot of freedom and allows me to realize the "labyrinthine" aspect mentioned in the thread title. (It works, doesn't it?)

Anyway, just posting this in case anyone has any comments on the distribution of the interiors... the Mystic Archives will probably be found in the basemant, which can be accessed from the spiral staircase in the middle and will use either the tileset from the Imperial Dungeon or the tileset from the Imperial Subterrane, probably retextured.
Departments for each magical school won't be happening - it's just too much effort, and I'm not really fond of all this divying up that's already going on in the Mages Guild. ("Wizard, if thou wantest to study Illusion, thou shalst travel to Bravil!") Departments for different kinds of research, however, I quite like that! It's also cool because those don't really belong into the main building and thus are perfect for all the separate buildings. What do we have here: Dwemer Research, Ayleid Research, Research of Oblivion and its Daedra. Any more?

I have an old abandoned project that aimed to expand the arcane university, and it includes just that. If you'd like you could use the rooms to fill out extra towers or something.

That would be great.

This looks super-fantastic! :laugh: