[RELz] The Ayleid Steps

Post » Fri May 27, 2011 4:18 am

The Ayleid Steps
...now you know what those Welkynd stones are for!

Version 2.6.1, september 27, 2009

..... Vast teleportation network across Cyrodiil with over 800 Steps
..... 42 new dungeons with 91 levels in all for you to find and explore
..... Two quests with lots of exploring, searching and puzzles to solve
..... Ayleid Meteoric Iron Weaponry by MadCat221 & RDJeke
..... Self-adjusting compatibility with Unique-Landscapes- and Better-Cities plugins.

Download 2.6.1 http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16316 (TesNexus)...
...or http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=4203 (Planet)...

CHANGELOG release 2.6.1
---------------------------------------------
* Added a Cobl options submenu (in Player inventory) for NPCs stepping behavior.
* Added some 35 vanilla NPCs to the pool of steppers for more variety.
* Fixed some construction problems in one of the Lost Dungeons.

CHANGELOG release 2.6
---------------------------------------------
* Checked compatibility with the new UL-Blackwood Forest mod; two conflicts resolved.
* Tweaked the Intro quest to be clearer and simpler.
* Altered script on book The Ayleid Steps to avoid glitch maybe caused by Cobl: the book must be found and read on picking it up, before you can buy it anywhere.
* Edited text in a certain message to provide player with clearer clues to the location of the Network activator room.
* The Ayleid Clutter incorporated in Cobl 1.71 and up, can now be found in the Lost (Ayleid) Dungeons.
* Added 1 Lost Dungeon with 2 levels. There are now 42 Dungeons.

CHANGELOG, cumulative, since release 2.5
---------------------------------------------
* Scripted a Step adjustment for (Better Cities) Cheydinhal.
* Scripted Step adjustments for (Open Cities) Bartholm.
* More fixes for the scripts controlling NPC stepping activity.
* Changed some scripts to avoid possible conflicts with Knights of the Nine plugin.
* NPCs will not be stepping during the final Main Quest chapters (Camoran and Temple episodes).

Readme excerpt:
INTRODUCTION:
--------------------
As long as anyone can remember, hundreds of ancient Ayleid stones sit in Cyrodill's wilderness and in Ayleid structures such as ruins and wells. What almost nobody knows however, is what these so-called Steps are supposed to do. Doing the intro Quest, you find out that this network of stones is in fact a teleporting system. Each time you want to teleport, you have to energize the Step with a Welkynd stone.
You can teleport directly into Ayleid ruins, to Ayleid wells, and to lots of locations that the Ayleids once considered important. But you have to prepare yourself: many Steps are defective and will refuse to work, or beam you to random locations. You can land in someone's basemant, in government buildings, in caves in the middle of a bunch of goblins, and in very remote and unusual places. Or you can discover sunken ruins, hitherto unknown to man, where lots of treasure and enemies await you. There's a new home to be found, too - it's not pretty, but it has a bedroll, a private Stepstone (no doors) and many safe containers (and a waste bin).

This mod adds many circular/cilindrical stones to the landscape and to many indoor cells, but chances are you can play a long time before encountering some. Many are well hidden, or partly buried or overgrown.
To start the intro quest you have to try to activate one Stepstone, and read a book on the topic. During the quest you have to visit a rather hairy location, so OOO-players can hardly do this before level 12-18. There are no quest markers in your compass - you have to examine, read and think a bit, and search a lot. When you can actually use the Steps, the quest is not over before you find a certain location mentioned in the clues. But after that, you can imagine your own neverending quest: try to map the Network, search for those VERY hard to find lost ruins, and of course hunt for Welkynd stones. (Please refer to the paragraphs at the bottom of this file for more info on the quests. )
The mod aims to be lore- and immersiveness-friendly. There's no new spoken dialogue, just 4 books, a letter, a few new interior locations, a vast network of Steps - and over 40 new dungeons.

This plugin intends to offer a reason to keep on exploring and adventuring for experienced characters, i.e. those that have completed all default game quests and have attained a level over 20-30. Playing the Ayleid Steps with FCOM, or OOO and MMM, or other overhaul mods is highly recommended!

REQUIREMENTS:
-------------------
* Vanilla Oblivion with the latest official patch 1.2.416.
* OBSE (Oblivion Script Extender) version 16 or newer.
* Cobl (Common Oblivion Library) version 1.71 or newer, find it here: http://wrye.ufrealms.net/Cobl.html. For use with this mod, you merely have to install "Cobl Main.esm" and the Meshes, Sound and Textures folders from "Cobl Core", and activate "Cobl Main.esm").



COMPATIBILITY:
-------------------------------
UNIQUE LANDSCAPES & BETTER CITIES:
The mod detects which (if any) Unique-Landscape-mods or Better Cities IC mods are activated, and adjusts certain Stepstone positions accordingly. It does this once after each savegame loading (and at the start of a new game). Note that this will ONLY work if you have not altered the original .esp filenames! If the mod cannot find a plugin, the Steps in the area will be reset to their default position. So no more displacements after you change your plugin load order. How Oblivion stores the Steps positions in its savegames is of no importance at all, since the adjusting is repeated with every game loading.
If you have all UL-mods merged into one .esp file, then rename that file to "xulAll.esp" to make the adjustment script recognize it.
Better Cities, Open Cities and Open Better Cities (non-IC modules): compatible in so far that there are no Steps in exterior town cells, so no conflicts.
Other mods that The Ayleid Steps can adjust to, are listed under "Reference".

OTHER PLUGINS:
The mod is built with only Vanilla Oblivion, aforementioned official patch, OBSE 16 and Cobl 1.71. It is playtested with UOP, FCOM (OOO, MMM, Francesco's, WarCry), the UL and BC mods and many smaller mods activated; so far no severe conflicts were found.
This mod may conflict with other plugins that:
- alter the vanilla landscape (House and village mods for example)
- alter vanilla interiors, change architectural layout, move furniture, etc.
- alter availability and/or prices of Welkyndstones. (To be sure, load after such mods).
If you teleport somewhere and don't see a Stepstone where there should be one, an other mod may have buried it. As a consequence you can't use it. This is not necessarily a problem - there are so many Steps in the world that you can easily do without some.
The mod is tested with the Valeria Caresse companion; there were no issues so far. Every companion that can teleport to the player should work.

ISSUES & KNOWN CONFLICTS:
---------------------------------------------
* Some users reported getting stuck when trying to reach a particular Stepstone near the invisible borders of the game. The scripts were corrected for this one. In case you find another problem Step, you can correct it by editing this line in your Oblivion.ini file: "bBorderRegionsEnabled=1". Change the 1 to a 0, and save the file.
* Playing with MMM, you may encounter bands of adventurers in the Lost Dungeons. If you find this immersion-breaking, use the MMM-provided "Mart's Monster Mod - No Adventurers.esp" to prevent them spawning in dungeons.
* Should stepping activity of NPCs cause problems, it can be altered with the (Cobl) Options menu in your inventory. Look for the "Ayleid Steps - NPCs behavior" option. You can determine if NPCs will go teleporting, and if they should be set to essential when they do so, to protect them.




I'd like to receive any constructive criticism, error and glitch reports and any other feedback.
Thank you, and happy Stepping :-).

THANKS:
-----------
* to the OBSE programmers for their nifty script extender.
* to MadCat221 (madcat221@gmail.com), RDjeke (rdjeke@gmail.com) and Sotobrastos for the Ayleid Meteoric Iron Weapons.
* to Meo, Cryptic_Rain and Vacuity for the Ayleid Clutter objects.
* to Wrye and anyone who contributed, for Common Oblivion Library (Cobl).
* to several people in the gamesas and TesNexus forum threads or sending e-mails, for suggestions that helped improve the mod - notably Skyranger for the Hubs concept, Shadowborn for pointing out conflicts and script bugs, WalkerInShadows for bughunting and Wrye for several constructive criticisms.



Screenshots:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-3-1206987532.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-2-1206987532.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-1-1206987532.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-4-1206987532.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-5-1206987533.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-3-1207071127.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-4-1207071128.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-5-1207071128.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-2-1212744092.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-4-1212744092.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-1-1217585755.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-1-1217586330.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-1-1217586377.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-1-1223034725.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-2-1223034725.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-5-1223034726.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-4-1223034726.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-3-1223034725.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-1-1223034835.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-2-1223034835.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-4-1223034835.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-1-1223034867.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-3-1223034835.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16316-1-1233218989.jpg

Here is the http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=962480 thread (versions 2.4-2.5.3).
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Emily Graham
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 8:10 am

TAS 2.6 is released, so I figured a new thread would be fitting. Notes on the new version:

* This version NEEDS the Common Oblivion Library (Cobl) 1.71 or newer.
* Re-checked compatibility with latest versions of all UL mods and several other landscape-altering mods. (Version numbers are listed in the "Reference" section in the Readme file.) No problems found.
* As the book must be read to start the intro quest, you cannot buy it anywhere before you have actually read it on picking it up. Probably due to a conflict wit Cobl, the quest often refused to kick in when reading the book in your inventory.
* Tweaks to Intro quest: the 'Vahtacen questline' is abandoned; the Player is not forced to pickpocket to get the key; the Key will not be marked as stolen.
* Distribution of the beautiful Ayleid Clutter is roughly in accordance with Vacuity's mod Ayleid Loot Extension (ALEX 2.0, highly recommended) for the vanilla ruins. As might be expected, the Lost Dungeons have slightly more clutter containers than the vanilla ruins.

UPGRADING AN OLDER VERSION:
Only if you started the Intro Quest with a previous version of this mod (anything before 2.6) and have not yet activated the Steps Network, you should make a clean save and start the Intro Quest from scratch. (Clean Save: de-activate TAS in your game launcher, start Oblivion, load your last Savegame ignoring the complaints about missing content, save to a new Savegame and exit Oblivion; then activate TAS, start Oblivion, load your last Savegame.)

Finally, credits to Wrye for the phrase 'The Russian Roulette of Cyrodiil' :).
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lucile
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 11:41 am

* Tweaks to Intro quest: the 'Vahtacen questline' is abandoned; the Player is not forced to pickpocket to get the key; the Key will not be marked as stolen.
abuganza!
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Philip Lyon
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 2:52 pm

Thanks Ervvyn

I was a little afraid that you had stopped working on this mod for a while, so I'm really happy to see that you're back working on it (if you ever took a break). I didn't get too far in the quest with my previous character (though I had activated the network and found one Lost Dungeoun), but I really liked what I experienced there. I am now on level 1 with a new character so I look forward to starting the quesline again. :foodndrink:
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Beast Attire
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 7:54 am

adore this mod, always have to will myself from taking steps when I randomly encounter them while in the middle of doing something. Will update as soon as tesnexus is back!
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nath
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 7:30 am

Awesome news, thanks!
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Lucie H
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 3:39 pm

Excellent! I'm looking forward to jumping again :)
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Laura Richards
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 3:18 pm

* Distribution of Vacuity's beautiful Ayleid Clutter is roughly in accordance with Vac's mod Ayleid Loot Extension (ALEX 2.0, highly recommended) for the vanilla ruins. As might be expected, the Lost Dungeons have slightly more clutter containers than the vanilla ruins.

Particularly awesome upgrade! I didn't expect this...
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phillip crookes
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 9:15 am

Hi there,

I recently downloaded Ayleid Steps (in the last week or so) and my COBL version I'm not sure of but I think its 1.66+. I found the book "Ayleid Steps" in First Edition but after I read it no quest activated. Do I need to get the book by another means for the intro quest to work? Its not clear to me from the readme or your above post.

Thanks for the help, congrats on the new version and I'm really looking forward to getting this mod running correctly.
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Luna Lovegood
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 4:58 pm

TAS 2.6 is released, so I figured a new thread would be fitting.

And there was much celebrating. :celebration: Thanks for tweaking the intro quest - I never liked the "join the guild or steal the key" thing. Too bad I activated the network last week with my new PC... :P

Hi there,

I recently downloaded Ayleid Steps (in the last week or so) and my COBL version I'm not sure of but I think its 1.66+. I found the book "Ayleid Steps" in First Edition but after I read it no quest activated. Do I need to get the book by another means for the intro quest to work? Its not clear to me from the readme or your above post.

Thanks for the help, congrats on the new version and I'm really looking forward to getting this mod running correctly.

That's an issue that's been noted before - you have to physically drop the book, THEN read it to activate the quest. Of course, if you're using TAS 2.6, you'll need to upgrade COBL. :)
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xx_Jess_xx
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 6:41 pm

Thanks WalkerInShadows, I will give that a try!
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Rachel Briere
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 11:32 am

It's a good day indeed when one of the best gets even better.

My favorite Oblivion dungeons have always been the Ayleid ruins and this mods addition to their number is a real plus for me. I've at this point visited about a half dozen of the new ones and can report that they are not only new but extremely well designed.

Thanks Ervvyn.

And for anyone who may not have tried this mod yet ............ You are missing out on a true masterpiece (in my not so humble opinion).
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Romy Welsch
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 5:13 pm

I have been slowly working my way through the mages guild to to start the quest, and I am really looking forward to it :D Out of curiosity, has any even attempted to fully catalog all of the steps?
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Victoria Bartel
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 5:50 am

I recently downloaded Ayleid Steps (in the last week or so) and my COBL version I'm not sure of but I think its 1.66+. I found the book "Ayleid Steps" in First Edition but after I read it no quest activated. Do I need to get the book by another means for the intro quest to work? Its not clear to me from the readme or your above post.
Thanks for the help, congrats on the new version and I'm really looking forward to getting this mod running correctly.

First update your Cobl to 1.71. Restart with a clean save as described in post #2.
Find any Step and try to activate it. Then read the book. The 1st Edition will not sell them before you have read one by picking it up, so you have to find one somewhere else. All mages guilds except Bruma have it lying around somewhere. (Bruma MG's book is being read and kept by Narina Carvain). Some visitor in the Foaming Flask inn has left his copy there. That should get you started.
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brenden casey
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 8:48 am

The 1st Edition will not sell them before you have read one by picking it up


Strange, because I definitely got it from First Edition although I had already tried to activate a Step by then.

Anyway I'll get the latest COBL and your latest version.

Can't wait to try after reading the ringing endorsemant in Post#12!

Thanks Ervvyn.
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A Lo RIkIton'ton
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 6:40 pm

I have been slowly working my way through the mages guild to to start the quest, and I am really looking forward to it :D Out of curiosity, has any even attempted to fully catalog all of the steps?

:biglaugh: No - it's impossible, since most of them are completely random.
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Emma Copeland
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 3:38 pm

woop just found my way into another lost cave, love them!
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Mason Nevitt
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 6:21 pm

And for anyone who may not have tried this mod yet ............ You are missing out on a true masterpiece (in my not so humble opinion).

I have to admit that I've hardly played Oblivion since I first started making mods well over a year ago, but from the point of view of concept and design this mod is easily the best Oblivion mod I know of for the experience of exploring. Truly a mod that adds immensely to the game.

As an aside, while I'm flattered that the ayleid clutter is being referred to as "mine", the original meshes and tectures were made by Meo and released as a modders' resource. I pyffied the meshes, and designed a more lore-friendly (I hope) system of names and values. So the visual design and meshes are not mine. Kudos has to be given to Meo for her/his original work and I also drew from Cryptic_Rain's alternate take on Meo's resource. It gets confusing when you're talking about a remake of a remake, I guess.

Congrats on the release, Ervvyn! I hope you enjoyed hiding the loot!

Vac
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Laura Richards
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 3:40 pm

... the original meshes and tectures were made by Meo and released as a modders' resource. I pyffied the meshes, and designed a more lore-friendly (I hope) system of names and values. So the visual design and meshes are not mine. Kudos has to be given to Meo for her/his original work and I also drew from Cryptic_Rain's alternate take on Meo's resource. It gets confusing when you're talking about a remake of a remake, I guess.

Thanks, sorry for not having informed myself thoroughly on this. Will correct that in the next releases Readme. :hehe:
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Charlotte Henderson
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 10:09 am

Congratulations on the new release :)
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Roisan Sweeney
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 1:22 pm

Love this mod and have played it often, but I am missing the meshes for the unique weapons in this version,2.6. I first loaded it with obmm and got the big yellow exclamation marks. Rechecked all the files and everything was there. Uninstalled it, redownloaded the file and installed it manually and still yellow marks. Never had this problem in the past. Have all the required mods and everything else is up to date. Any help is greatly appreciated. Everything else seems to work fine with the mod. Numbrs
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Richus Dude
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 7:09 am

Have all the required mods and everything else is up to date.

Does this include http://wrye.ufrealms.net/Cobl.html? Note the version number, it's required for TAS 2.6. For use with this mod, you merely have to install "Cobl Main.esm" and activate it, and copy the Meshes, Sound and Textures folders from "Cobl Core" folder to your \Oblivion\Data folder, overwriting existing data. That's the only possible cause I can think up.
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Kim Kay
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 10:39 am

Yes I have COBL 1.71 installed. Like I said all my mods are up to date, I check for updates constantly. The only mod I can think of that might affect Steps is Armamenterium Complete, but according to its auther it should not bother any other mods. I can play it with this problem but I would rather not. Numbrs, and thanks for the help.
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sally R
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 5:45 pm

...that might affect Steps is Armamenterium Complete, ...

I don't think so. I have tried to reproduce your phenomenon by reinstalling the Cobl resources after having removed my existing files; everything looks OK in my game. The only way for me to get the exclamation marks, is having the meshes displaced in, say, ...\Oblivion\Data\Meshes\Meteoric, instead of ...\Oblivion\Data\meshes\weapons\Meteoric. I am out of ideas on what could otherwise be wrong, considering nobody else has reported this behaviour so far. I'm sorry. :( If you find out what is causing this, I'd like to know.
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Dina Boudreau
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 10:57 am

I don't think so. I have tried to reproduce your phenomenon by reinstalling the Cobl resources after having removed my existing files; everything looks OK in my game. The only way for me to get the exclamation marks, is having the meshes displaced in, say, ...\Oblivion\Data\Meshes\Meteoric, instead of ...\Oblivion\Data\meshes\weapons\Meteoric. I am out of ideas on what could otherwise be wrong, considering nobody else has reported this behaviour so far. I'm sorry. :( If you find out what is causing this, I'd like to know.


Is that the actual file that should be there"oblivion\data\meshes\weapons\meteoric" I have no such file under weapons. That would explain a lot.
I do have it under Textures
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Dylan Markese
 
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