I presume one of your quotation boxes above is a spoiler?. Oh well, nothing ruined, I was not having any luck trying to find it anyway. Had this installed since release, four people playing the game here and not one found anything to start the quests. They keep asking but before now had no clue. Is the location actually given a clue to find it somewhere?.

Not complaining either, can appreciate the reasons given why elements of this are elusive, just chipping in with another 'no one could find how to start it here' vote.

I am sure the mod is excellent, but so far its just been taking up hard drive space.

Hmm. How about near Fort Uresek?
It's close, fits in with the back story.
Even more so if one has "New Roads and Bridges" as well, as that puts a bridge to the IC isle nearby.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16316 is available.
I am very happy to announce that all in-game texts --dialogs, quest stages, books and notes-- have undergone thorough proofreading and editing. My sincere thanks to Qbit for volunteering to tackle the first 5 quests and their books, and to Ed Waldorph who offered to do the same for the remaining 8 quests and their books and notes!

Only if you had the mod installed but not yet played to the stage where you take the Ayleid key in the Introduction quest, please make a clean save before installing this version, to avoid possible problems with the dead Mages Guild Messenger.

As always, sincere thanks for this. I've managed to do a little playing in the last couple of months and have activated the network (ooh!). Someday I'll manage to play more. I am sure. Surely.

Right?

Vac

Thanks for answering ! It is a shame I didn't see this earlier (before 3.3.1) - so I can clarify a couple of points (SPOILERS !)

Yes this could be the main problem - cause someone installing this mod installs it for the Net. I can understand your point of view (stumble upon it or not) but not for the start quest. After all one cannot have an esp sitting there for nothing. And please take into account my other remarks, I am not in my middle teen levels I am level 46, and I only fast travel. And believe me many people will be installing the mod just to bring new life to their (dying) game. I love quests (there are very few really well made, see below) but the main appeal of your mod (and all the hard work I guess) is the net and the lost dungeons.
The stumble upon the quest logic is one of the things I really liked in OOO, but still OOO was adding many more things to the game and anyway there were many many chances to stumble upon the OOO quests. Many notes on the walls, many dungeons with bosses, many camps etc
As to the solutions proposed : I disagree - for me wellspring cave is as unlikely as anything else. The solution is to use the hints in the books. Spread some notes in the halls - talking about the expedition in Vahtacen. And/or take into account the possible status of the player as a mages guild member - so once the PC reads the book and tries to activate a stone : a) if he is the archmage he asks raminus for a report, b ) if a higher ranked mage he "remembers" about an expedition organized some time ago, etc (taking into account the player status in the game world is a very straightforward, simple and powerful way to make the game immersive - and it is overlooked by 99% of the mods I played, including vanilla). Then player must go to vahtacen to see what happened to the expedition (or if the archmage he does not have to bother and just receives the key). Or something more plausible really, see below. Then he must solve a puzzle - where is the room ? This can be made into a nice side quest (as it is it is a matter of "oh well, alt-tab to spoilers.txt"). Unfortunately I do not have any time otherwise I would be happy to produce a couple of notes and scripts to that end. As a final note (see your reply) I didn't mean to say that there must be notes/journals in the halls but rather that it would be a nice way to start the quest. And yes, the mages guild are archivists - so the mystic archives could be a nice start (Valera Migrane II).
A good quest : I am rather strict about this. For me in a good quest all details matter. I know this is not a point for others- however details like a dead messenger not eaten up by the wild beasts (since that was some time ago - which I didn't know) annoy me. Let it be so, the messenger dies : nobody looks for him ? What about the members of the expedition ? On a related note, why is that journal in the activator room ? Yes I know it can fall from someone's pocket but you can see this is not really satisfactory. Don't worry lol - most quests in oblivion are like that (apart from the fetch-me-my-ring-for-20-gold kind). Still this mod is a brilliant idea and it would be nice to have a clever, no plot holes, story behind it (I don't know about the later ones, they may be great !). For some people quests are just a pretext for hack and slash - and some say : well, it is a fantasy world. But this is not my point of view - yes it is fantasy - meaning there is magicka etc but still there are rules, or rather by having rules one can create something different than hack slash loot rinse repeat.

I have to add here that I teleport frantically - have discovered two ruins and enjoyed them a lot

Cure for a dying game: revive it. Install new mods and start anew.


Thank you very much for your suggestions. Noted.


There is no clue suggesting how long that dead messenger was there. Could be days, could be hours.


It will make sense when you have completed the final quest and read a certain book.


Please kind sir/lady, I beg you, try to complete all the quests and then tell me your opinion on the story and hand me a list of plot holes. I'd highly appreciate that.
Again, thanks for the input.

Point taken :tops:

Someone found an issue with the Lost Varlavale dungeon. Its entrance Step and map marker are in cell 0,3 which seems to cause a problem because it is (near) the default wilderness cell where the player marker on the map goes when you are in an uncharted area. When you are in Varlavale and look at the world map, the mapmarker is invisible and the game may crash.
This Stepstone will be moved to another cell in the next version. Until then, if you find the dungeon, make some extra savegames and resist the urge to check your world map.

So that's why I kept crashing there. I thought it was just a problem I had that was unrelated (sometimes my game crashes when I check the map for some reason... I still haven't figured out why.)

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16316 is available.



Bosses: non-respawning NPCs that guard loot-heavy area's in the dungeon and/or are equipped with nice items. They have minimum levels set (varying between 14 to 26). They are found on the deeper levels or in a remote part of the dungeon, so when you're no match for them you can leave them alone to return later. Since I'm a lousy fighter myself I have no idea how easy or how tough they really are. Your opinion is highly appreciated. My aim is to put bosses in about 20-30 of the lost dungeons. :disco:

i use the steps alot but after a while my game crashes :S always when I activate a step it crashes

Thanks a lot for the update Ervvin :foodndrink:

Memory overload. It occurs to me too "after a while", but how long that while is depends on your hardware and your mods setup. I can do sequences of around 50-60 teleports before my game crashes. Others have complained they cannot do about 8 teleports before CTDs occur. Especially if you visit many exterior locations in different regions in a short stretch of time, and despite the fact that the mod forces a cellbuffer purge with each teleport. My rig specs are moderate at best, and my mods setup includes FCOM and all ULs, but no graphics enhancers or other big quest mods.
There is no ultimate solution, sorry. More memory, bigger videocard, faster CPU on the hardware side and Streamline and reassessing your mods collection on the software side. There are some good threads about memory management in this forum, too.

okay thanks anyway
i feel sorry but i had to disable your mod after 2 teleports i would crash (but my computer isnt that bad at all)

Greetings Ervvyn,

First off, thanks so much for this mod. I am still discovering it (my PC is still in the dev stages... level 19 right now), and have really just read the book and tried to activate a step so far. I look forward to unfolding the rest of the story as I go along.

I installed this mod back in early April, before v3.3.2 was released (I have v3.3.16). I see the update on the Nexus for those that are upgrading from 3.3.1 and above. My question is, since I have technically already started the first quest, do I need to do anything other than just install the update? The readme for the update refers to unpacking resources, but it seems this is in reference to even older installs than mine (v2.6 and lower). It also mentions making a clean save, but only if certain conditions apply. That doesn't seem to be the situation in my case, though making a clean save is asking very little of mod users IMHO! Probably not a bad idea in most cases anyway.

Sorry if this is overly nit-picky, and especially if these questions are addressed in the files or in this thread and I just missed them (always a possibility... I tend to miss things that are right in front of me on a disturbingly regular basis).

Thanks in advance!
veg

You can upgrade 3.3.1 by replacing the .esp file. No clean save needed.

Thanks very much! Looking forward to unfolding this story...

The Ayleid Step a short distance to the west of Roland Jenseric's cabin is up high in the air... almost level with the roof of the open stable right next to it.

I do have Unique Landscapes installed but I don't think it makes that much of a difference. :blink:

If you have UL-Rolling Hills installed, its filename should be (exactly) one of these:
"xulRollingHills_EV.esp"
"Unique Landscapes - Rolling Hills DV.esp"
"Unique Landscapes - Rolling Hills DV - ohne Weizen.esp".
Can you confirm this?

What about "xulRollingHills_EV_withoutWheat.esp"?

Every now and then around the Talos Bridge, I get the message "Nothing happens.". I used a script dumper and tracked that text to several step scripts from this mod. However if I read the conditions right that message happens when someone activates a step before the network is activated. The character seeing these messages has never attempted to use the steps yet so should this even be happening? I have to assume NPCs somewhere nearby are trying to activate them.

That's the one I have installed.



I found cases where I'd get the key for one of the houses, unlock the door to go inside - and there were one or two NPCs already inside! :glare:

I didn't realize what was going on until I used a step and saw a NPC appear next to me.

In the end I ended up turning that part off.

Doh, I didn't even know it existed. Thank you, noted for next version.


If that is really what is going on, I find it hilarious. True, the stepstone scripts do not check who activates them, so it seems possible, but why would NPCs try to do that? The NPCs that are supposed to teleport around in the later quest stages are marker-moved by the scripts, and never tasked to activate the Steps.


They are harmless. If you leave them alone for a few minutes, or at least literally turn your back on them, they'll disappear. Should I adjust the script to prevent them popping up in your homes?

If you can, sure.

Noted.
Going to open a http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1091510-relz-the-ayleids-steps-3-thread-2/. Mods, can we have this closed, please? Thank you.