If you have no idea what this mod is then scroll down to [RELZ] RELEASED VERSION OF SHEZRIE'S TOWNS


[RELZ] THE LAKEWOOD EXPANSION


This is the newest expansion to the mod. Lakewood Village has been overhauled. I uploaded the ESP separately, this is because it took 4 hours to upload the main files and it is much easier to make any necessary fixes and upload just the ESP, rather then the whole file. Here are the changes:

*The town has been retextured.

*An Inn - You can rent a room for yourself, or a room for your companions. Even a room for yourself and another room for your companion.

*Bakery - self explanatory really.

*The Tavern has had a heck of an overhaul. It is now full of folks, with musicians, music and dancers.At it's full time of day it can have up to 14 NPCs in there. Which may affect FPS, although I run a medium machine and have no problem.

The tavern is definitely the most atmospheric I have built and the only tavern where I felt I got the atmosphere and character I wanted for so long in a tavern.

*Guards - Lakewood now has guards. They are currently in regular armor. They were going to get new armor, unfortunately the person making it has not been online.

*Willow Hall - This is the largest player home in the town. There are two versions of it. One is the original Willow Hall and the other is revamped version.

The new version is an exterior home like Seaview House in Haven Bay. The windows are openable and there are views over the town and lake. To buy either house talk to Darla in the Tavern and then go to Tamrin in the General Store.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d0olrn_CN0.

*Lakewood Cottage - there are five different colour schemes for this house. You can choose which one you want when you buy the house.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=237e0KELQQE&feature=related to see the different schemes. This is important as you have only one chance to buy which house you want, so you need to know which house before you buy it.

Talk to Levitaus Pompious in the Bakery to buy the house.

*The Quest - This is a short quest. I got burn't out and cut it short. Things you need to know are...

- You start the quest by talking to Old Tomas. It will come up in his random dialog, when he talks about 'Reban'.

- There are many specially chosen sound effects and music for the quest and mod in general. I you want to get the full effect play with your ingame music off so you can hear them.

- 'Lukren' is pronounced 'Luke-wren' Sorry for his voice acting. I did it and then altered my female voice into his. I hope to replace it with much better voice acting.

- Yes you can return to the 'location' and yes you can buy drinks from the barkeeper.

- There is an issue with 'ghosting'. Some doors take on the ghost effect after the quest. This is temporary, I haven't overwritten any vanilla doors. This is some strange game quirk and should be gone when the cell reloads.

*Dialog - There is lots of new dialog, a heck of a lot. I took a different approach to dialog and tried using the random system. So it works like this:

Each NPC in the town (except the two street merchants and the 2 musicians), has an opening line and then it goes to a random list of dialog that is exclusively theirs. Each NPC has 5-10 conversations in their random dialog. These incorporate life stories or general stories and can be quite long...okay for very long....okay so they do waffle on rather a lot, but they have some interesting things to say.

In an effort to make it more personal, dialog can reflect...

- What house you own.
- Whether your clothes are suitable for the location.
- An item you are carrying.
- What six you are.
- What race you are. (not many of these though)

Overall there is approx 300 lines of dialog. I should probably count that though. That is just a rough estimate.

You may find lines repeated in an NPCs random dialog, which can frustrate a wee bit. But hopefully this system works well in creating slightly more dynamic NPCs in the town. I would be interested to hear your views on it after checking it out. Keep pressing NPCs for info, you may be surprised what you hear next. Also you may think you have heard it all only to hear something completely new.

Anyway, that is all I can remember for now. I will add anything else that comes to me. meantime...

Other updates:

Seaview House in Haven Bay has been revamped with far more realistic views and environmental sounds. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v9UUYYSmtw
Small fixes in Pell's Gate Gallery Quest
Mayor Edmon from Pell's Gate is now voiced.



[RELZ] RELEASED VERSION OF SHEZRIE'S TOWNS


In this mod there are five towns....

LAKEWOOD VILLAGE - This is the town that has been revamped.
----------------

A 19 building town near Mackamentain. There is an inn, a tavern, a bakery, a general store and 7 buyable player houses. This town has one short quest. There is loads of new dialog for every NPC in the town.

RAVENVIEW VILLAGE
-----------------

This town has 14 buildings with an inn, a general store and two towns. There are two player houses, one buyable and one obtained through quest. No new dialog in this town.

WOODLAND VILLAGE
----------------

This town has 27 buildings with an inn, a clothes store, an armor store, a bakery, a town hall and a buyable player home. One quest and other areas to explore. No new dialog in this town.

HAVEN BAY
---------

This small town is located in Valenwood, it contains a shop, an inn (with music, musicians and dancers), street merchants and a very unique buyable player home. No new dialog in this town.

PELL'S GATE
-----------

This is the largest town in this mod and has the most to do and see. This is a town created for thieves with enterable windows, hidden safes, stealable paintings, openable chests, dark alleys. You will have to search carefully though as Pell's Gate residents hide their valuables
carefully.
In the town there is...

A Town Hall
A Gallery
4 buyable player homes (3 apartments and a town house)
A clothing Store
An Armor Store
A Book Store
A General Store
Alchemy Shop
A Fence
Street merchants that close up at night.
A posh Hotel
Two further inns
A completely new custom creature
New dialog for almost every NPC
Some voiced dialog.
Lots of new meshes.
Houses with exterior views.
Named streets.
Music in taverns.
Much to explore and uncover.
Every NPC house in Pell's Gate is decorated uniquely.
Six quests.


http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35908

Epic stuff! Really like the color customizing! :thumbsup:

Thanks Darkrider.

Hmm..well I thought maybe if I start a wip it would motivate me, but I have decided that I have had enough and have run out of enthusiasm and steam. There just is not the interest anymore to justify or motivate and I feel I am wasting my time going the extra mile for a non existant audiance. I am going to release what I have done so far for the Lakewood Expansion and then move onto playing some other games before Skyrim comes out.

See you all in Skyrim. Just three months to go.

Sounds like you have places described as villages that are bigger than 7 of the 8 towns in Oblivion.

I am definitely going to download this again...once the new version is complete.AND I have regained interest in playing Oblivion. Right now, my mind is on SKYRIM and DIABLO III.

Amazing mods like this are what keep me coming back to Oblivion, keep up the good work.

I wouldn't say there's a non-existent audience. I guess people like me who appreciate good village mods were just never that numerous to begin with.

Neither would I. We are just quiet I guess. Heavy activity only tends to occur when there are problems to address anyway. :hubbahubba:

16,200 downloads and a hundred endorsemants is a nonexistent audience? :confused:

I think you should give yourself more credit, your work is truly fantastic.

Just found about your mod today, still need a couple of hours for endorsemant.
2 questions

• Is the Fixed MJY Textures 1.1 patch already included in ShezriesTownsMaster 1.2 ?
  
  
• Are you still working on a patch for Lost Spires or does Arthmoor patch fixes everything ?

Yes. they are all towns. All with as many or more buildings then the vanilla cities. I kept the 'villages' names as it is more charming, I think.



I think that is the case with a lot of people. I honestly thought that the Skyrim announcement would bring people flocking back to Oblivion, like when Oblivion was announced and people returned in droves to Morrowind.

But I guess it has just been too long and people have played the game to death. The forums here are sooo quiet, my own forum is about dead. Head to the Skyrim section and see the 100 people on at any given time. I guess the majority just aren't interested in replaying Oblivion before Skyrim. :shrug:



Thank you! That is very kind of you.



Thanks. I think you are right about that. It is a sad and surprising fact that town and village mods just are not very popular additions. Which surprises me no end as I would have expected detailed new locations would be one of the most popular additions. Seems to be logical given that new locations add the most content and realistically add the most to the game world, barring texture and overhaul mods of course.



Thanks, I really appreciate it. And I really appreciate the really nice comments people have made and the time they took to endorse and compliment.

What I don't understand, what I don't get, is how a house mod, or a new armor, or even a companion mod (all derserved kudos to those), uploaded only a few months ago that the author states took a certain number of days to make has almost twice the endorsemants/downloads/user posted pictures then five towns, one of which has 30 buildings and a completely dialogued population with numerous quests/things that have literally never even been done in Oblivion before. That took three years to make. I think after five years this is finally bugging me.

Skimpy armors and jiggly body parts are of course in an untouchable league of their own, everyone accepts that.

I know, don't be looking at download numbers or endorsemants. Endorsemants are not important, neither is download numbers. Until you realise that something doesn't add up there. And I usually don't take notice, I mod for the sheer love of it but even my previously undampable enthusiasm has finally waned in the face of no interest.

My wips die, my relzs go poof and I can't get the feedback I need to know if I even implemented the quests or dialog okay. The download numbers are respectable but onIy one user ever felt inspired to upload an image in the user images section. Clearly I went wrong somewhere, maybe I needed to add more jiggly body parts and skimpy armors. :confused:

My apologies I didn't mean to be dramatic and there is nothing anyone can do. I guess I am just saying what I have been holding in for the last three or more years, a bit of a frustration. I really appreciate what everyone has said. I am going to release the Lakewood update, I cut the quest short so that I can get it released as soon as possible.

I am sure Skyrim will have renewed interest. I look forward to it.

Anyway I was keeping this thread open to announce the relz and then close it.



Arthmoor very kindly created a patch for the Lost Spires, it is located http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34010.

You do need the MJY fixed textures.

You would figure, and my own download numbers, comments, and endorsemants also bear out the fact that lots of people just don't care about village and town mods. Even to the extent that not a lot of people cared about the cities themselves being in closed worldspaces.

It seems that graphic mods are where people look most. RAEVWD has the largest download count of anything I've uploaded. Only the UOP Supplementals exceed it on comments and endorsemants.

I still like making towns/villages though, so that's where I'll continue to focus most of my efforts. I have no doubt there will still be plenty of room in Skyrim for them too.

I think part of the reason for this is the player's motivation for playing the game. Some people, like me, and obviously you, play Oblivion to roleplay. We want to visit fantastic locations, meet believable and interesting npcs, learn about the deep and internally consistent lore, experience the gripping story. For us, mods that adds quests, npcs and towns are the most highly valued. We treat the game like an interactive book. The game isn't about us, it's about the world the developers have created.

Other people prefer to treat the game as a power fantasy. They play Oblivion to feel like a badass. Quests are just an excuse to go kill monsters, and npcs only exist to rescued, killed, look pretty, buy their crap or praise them. To those kinds of players, the only mods worth downloading are ones that make them prettier, cooler, and more powerful. Cool houses show off their status and give them someplace to drop off all their loot (and collecting lots of houses is another way to show off their power), new weapons and armor obviously directly make them stronger and collecting them is cool, and a sixy companion that follows all your orders ... well, I'll sure you can see the power fantasy inherent in that. To those players, the world revolves entirely around them, and a town mod is unnecessary unless it can somehow stroke their ego.

The sad truth is that we're simply outnumbered, mate.


I don't doubt that you'd get lots more downloads and endorsemants if you did that, but I feel confident that you wouldn't be any happier when you saw the contents of all the new screen shots and comments getting uploaded.

What you do is art, you don't have to pander to the lowest common denominator.

Just want to say that I stand proudly with the minority who see innovation, complexity, the need for thought, and challenge... in a well crafted and polished mod... as a necessary part of their entertainment package.

Using movies as an anology (I'm a long time film fanatic). I just recently watched The Night Of The Hunter -Charles Laughton- for the third or forth time. It's reported Laughton was devastated by the films lack of success at the time, and he never directed another. I'll not be watching Transformers: Dark Of The Moon even once.

I wouldn't dismiss Transformers so quickly though. It may seem superficial from the advertising, but it's definitely better than all that. FAR better than most of the junk Hollywood is putting out these days. You want a good movie that requires thought and attention? Shutter Island. Insanely awesome. On par with Inception easily.

Also, what Jupiah said. It appears the sad fact is that most gamers these days have no appreciation for the deeper aspects of the games they're playing. Unfortunately it seems Bethesda has begun to target those gamers more directly than they have before. I sure hope I'm wrong about that though.

I was waiting for this mod for quite some time.. Its great that a few days after I return to play Oblivion it is released... thanks a lot. Can′t wait to explore : )

I dunno, I did like the first Transformers movie, it was silly and overly dramatic, but a good action flick with a decent if cliched story. But I hated the second movie. The plot was disjointed and ridiculous, and 99% of the cast had no personality or worse, their personality was annoying as heck. Only like 4 characters actually contributed to the plot.Easily more than half the movie could have been cut without affecting the story at all. It was mostly just mindless, chaotic, not particularly well-choreographed action occasionally interrupted by terrible attempts at comedy. Pandering to the lowest common denominator totally ruined that franchise. I won't ever watch the third one.

Meek,

I add all the good villages and or city mods I can find. Vanilla Oblivion is a little empty to my way of thinking. Yours, Arthmoors, BC, and several others whose names I forget but are well known all get added to "my" oblivion.

Your work is extremely appreciated.

Off topic:
I recommend everyone go see the new Transformers movie. It is an excellent parody (I think that is the word I'm looking for) of America. With some very slickly understated, almost to the point of not being visible, mockery of the government and the military establishment (while, on the other hand, doing a very good job of showing the actual soldiers doing their best to get a bad job done, so kudos to Mike Bay for showing the grunts in the field in a good light). I can't believe they got away with making the movie. That said, it is apparent that most movie goers did not get the punch line. Which just adds to the parody, I guess.

Tarl

Personally I really like added villages. But admit I didn't really think about it that much until downloading one or two, only then realising how much "bigger" (more in terms of scope than physical size) they make the game world feel.

But what I really want is more game content, more to do, not just see in passing. That is what I like about Shezrie's and Arthmoor's; they are there for a reason, and the player has a real reason to go there.

While I do download any Town and Village mods I can find, for the reasons that Meek stated in an above post, I think I may understand why some people may not download some of them. I became away of this with Phitt's Mudwater. There were so many mods affecting that area and that put some people off when it came to getting the mod. Cyrodiil is getting crowded because there's a lot of town mods. I wasn't sure about getting Pell's Gate at first because it seemed too large for the tiny scale of Cyrodiil. If towns could be available in other provinces, even if just outside the border, it would make things less crowded, not as much need for compatibility patches, and people would have reasons to explore. I really loved the fact that Haven Bay was in Valenwood, it was nice leaving the confines of the map in search of this new village hidden away beyond the borders.

(Shutter Island is amazing. I prefer it over Inception, even)

Well I generally try to build in out of the way spots, but not TOO out of the way, because if you do that nobody ever sees the place. Making stuff in over the border locations without much else around them doesn't usually go over that well. Obviously not every spot I find will be free and clear, especially with the big one I'm working on now. I think everyone concedes that Cyrodiil is full.

The main issue with modding over the borders is that without some sort of basics to build on, you'll be passing through a lot of boring territory to get there. Much of which won't even have monsters. Some of which isn't even complete enough to have trees or even proper landscape for the region. Which isn't really Bethesda's fault since they didn't intend for you to go there.

And yet all of cyrodiil is available to mod on thanks to Onra's heightmaps - yet project after project falls by the wayside with it.

Why? I think it is because mod makers would rather focus on their version of the main game and care not about an expanded fully populated continent. Plus they are more committed to their mod getting used without users having to use the heightmaps.

So there is an entire continent to use - and it sits empty while still more is added to the overpopulated areas.

Chicken and egg problem really. One which wasn't resolved until very recently. So you can't really expect there to have been an explosion of material on those province maps yet. We're 5+ years into Oblivon's lifetime now, and with Skyrim on the horizon it's probably unrealistic to expect too many more large projects until well into next year once the dust settles and some of the Oblivion diehards trickle back. Much like happened with Morrowind.

If a similar heightmaps project gets launched within Skyrim's first year though, I'm sure you can expect much more favorable results.

Thanks everyone for the kind comments. I appreciate them.



Thank you! That is very true and you have explained it very well. I just have to make sure that I keep remembering that.


I just released the Lakewood Expansion. In summary....

This is the newest expansion to the mod. Lakewood Village has been overhauled. Here are the changes:

*The town has been retextured.

*An Inn - You can rent a room for yourself, or a room for your companions. Even a room for yourself and another room for your companion.

*Bakery - self explanatory really.

*The Tavern has had a heck of an overhaul. It is now full of folks, with musicians, music and dancers.At it's full time of day it can have up to 14 NPCs in there. Which may affect FPS, although I run a medium machine and have no problem.

The tavern is definitely the most atmospheric I have built and the only tavern where I felt I got the atmosphere and character I wanted for so long in a tavern.

*Guards - Lakewood now has guards. They are currently in regular armor. They were going to get new armor, unfortunately the person making it has not been online.

*Willow Hall - This is the largest player home in the town. There are two versions of it. One is the original Willow Hall and the other is revamped version.

The new version is an exterior home like Seaview House in Haven Bay. The windows are openable and there are views over the town and lake. To buy either house talk to Darla in the Tavern and then go to Tamrin in the General Store.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d0olrn_CN0

*Lakewood Cottage - there are five different colour schemes for this house. You can choose which one you want when you buy the house.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v9UUYYSmtw to see the different schemes. This is important as you have only one chance to buy which house you want, so you need to know which house before you buy it.

Talk to Levitaus Pompious in the Bakery to buy the house.

*The Quest - This is a short quest. I got burn't out and cut it short. Things you need to know are...

- You start the quest by talking to Old Tomas. It will come up in his random dialog, when he talks about 'Reban'.

- There are many specially chosen sound effects and music for the quest and mod in general. I you want to get the full effect play with your ingame music off so you can hear them.

- 'Lukren' is pronounced 'Luke-wren' Sorry for his voice acting. I did it and then altered my female voice into his. I hope to replace it with much better voice acting.

- Yes you can return to the 'location' and yes you can buy drinks from the barkeeper.

- There is an issue with 'ghosting'. Some doors take on the ghost effect after the quest. This is temporary, I haven't overwritten any vanilla doors. This is some strange game quirk and should be gone when the cell reloads.

*Dialog - There is lots of new dialog, a heck of a lot. I took a different approach to dialog and tried using the random system. So it works like this:

Each NPC in the town (except the two street merchants and the 2 musicians), has an opening line and then it goes to a random list of dialog that is exclusively theirs. Each NPC has 5-10 conversations in their random dialog. These incorporate life stories or general stories and can be quite long...okay, very long....okay, so they do waffle on rather a lot, but they have some interesting things to say.

In an effort to make it more personal, dialog can reflect...

- What house (from this mod) you own.
- Whether your clothes are suitable for the location.
- An item you are carrying.
- What six you are.
- What race you are. (not many of these though)

Overall there is approx 300 lines of dialog. I should probably count that though. That is just a rough estimate.

You may find lines repeated in an NPCs random dialog, which can frustrate a wee bit. But hopefully this system works well in creating slightly more dynamic NPCs in the town. I would be interested to hear your views on it after checking it out. Keep pressing NPCs for info, you may be surprised what you hear next. Also you may think you have heard it all only to hear something completely new.

Anyway, that is all I can remember for now. I will add anything else that comes to me. meantime...

In Haven Bay, Seaview House has been revamped. Much better views and vanilla ambiant environmental sound effects. The atmosphere is hugely improved.