Okay, I'll sixth it AND THAT'S FINAL (and it also means I get the last word...hahahaha!). However, I do so with reservations which have already been shrewdly pointed out by Andruck.

FAO onra - Thanks for the viewpoints! When I came to the project, the map was a little screwy so I tried to make sure that the general outline could segue neatly enough with Cyrodiil's boundary. There's a little gulley that runs between the two countries and I'm hoping to create a mock-up of that along with the Cyrodiil side that you cannot enter due to a boundary. However, I left the Cyrodiil side unmodded because I was unsure about the whole idea of merging with the main WS. I might hold off on plans to develop it for a while just in case....

When are you planning to release the beta? A few more months, or a year?

The release shall come...when it will come.

Good enough for me

Just a quick buzz to say that I've finished the quicksand script entirely, and it all seems to be working swish! I'll finish that way of getting out that we mentioned, then I'll send you an example esp with the scripts all set up for use.

Checked out the latest trailers, looking REALLY awesome!!

Sweet! Thanks to both yourself and GDA as well!

Any new news on Argonia?

Funny you should ask that as I've just finished cluttering the lower half of Soulrest after llamaranger finished the exterior models. If he can finish the interiors then expect a much more impressive upper half with some really imaginative models. However, we could still use some help with the interiors so that I can concentrate on trying to finish the beta. In the meantime, here are some teasers of what's to come: http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Ibsen3/Soulrest05.jpg , http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Ibsen3/Soulrest12.jpg , http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Ibsen3/Soulrest16.jpg & http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Ibsen3/Soulrest21.jpg . Soulrest is our most southerly settlement in the beta and a major port for Black Marsh. Until now, we only had the beach and docklands area complete but, apart from the interiors, lots of progress has been made inside the city now as well. Of all the cities, it most closely resembles something from Elsweyr due to its location and you're likely to find a small amount of marsh cats (a relative of the Lilmoth) living here. We have the Lilmoth and Marsh Cats ready to go...

Will the city of Lilmoth be in this?

Woohooww, that architecture looks really cool. :foodndrink: :goodjob: I'm really looking forward to this mod.

Funny, I've sort of imagined southern Argonia like this!

Eventually, yes but not in the beta. I now need to get the mangrove region set up along the southern coast just east of here...

Anything for me to do Ibsen?

This looks good. It will be so fun to finally be able to walk straight from southern Elswyr through Leyawiin and into the Black Marshes.

Isn't this mod in a separate worldspace?

Last time I checked, yeah.

I think he means by combining this with the likes of an Elsweyr mod. That shouldn't prove impossible, providing there are no modding clashes.



Absolutely, Phinius! You would be very welcome back again since you were instrumental with Gideon. I'll send you a PM.

I'm not sure I like what I see here.

I am only going off the pics you guys are providing, but... Meh.

Gideon is built with what archt style? Cheydinhal?
Was the prison city built by Empire dweling Dunmer?
It looks rich to me. I know you opted for a RL Vegas style blackmarket feel. but it looks Prissy, Preppy, Gleeful and happy.
Considering what Gideon is by Cannon lore. Just no. Change the style to the more appropriate Leyawiin/Bravil please. Regional it will fit, andt the textures are more earthy, more gritty.

Why are you using those particular street lanterns? I know they look cool. but they seem more city to me then slummed settlement.
open pit fires would be fit better. or torches set int he ground. Maybe a unique mesh, any permanent fire in should have some type of roof or cover to keep away the constant rain.
As they are those lanterns would never stay lit.

Rockguard......
Please. Why Cyrodil towers? the regular Castle towers would(should) have been fine.
In the pic I see this tiled stair. Why would the empire build a tower with an entrance they had to rock climb to access?

There is more. but I don;t want to start getting picky.
If I sound critical, good. Someone has to point out the obvious. Nothing in Blackmarsh should look like a place anyone would want to live. Not even the cozy Argonian villages. It should look wet, filthy and poor. Dirt poor.
So poor you would feel bad for the NPCs your placing there. Lose the mismatched meshes. Replace with filthy looking architecture built to withstand perpetual flooding and constant rain. And this mod will not just look cool. it will be truly polished and professional

This mod seems to be coming along nicely. I wish you luck and hope you continue with this.

@ khalvin8 - You're entitled to your opinion; we're also entitled to our own. We're doing the best we can, for people who aren't paid for their work. We want to have fun making this mod - this mod is a hobby, and a hobby only for us. If you don't like what you see, no one is going to force you to play our mod. Though we are trying to please as many people as possible (sticking to lore as best we can,etc) - we are not obliged to please anyone. :rolleyes:

@ DANTE20XX - Thank you for your support

Koniption

Y'know, he's just pointing out the things that could be improved. This critique is only useful in making the mod, as I do agree with it. Not that you guys aren't doing a terrific job, I'm just agreeing with the points that could be improved.

I understand that he was pointing out what could be improved, but he could have dropped the hint of attitude I very much sensed in the way he wrote some of his sentences:

Example-
"Rockguard......
Please. Why Cyrodil towers? [...]"

I know that Blackmarsh should be darker, grittier, and gloomier...but we're too far into the mod to do anything substantially about it now (it will at least have to wait until after the Beta). Maybe later we can "dirtify" the models and landscapes, but with the modder's resources we have found to work with, the limited amount of custom models that can be made in any given amount of time realistically, and some limited aspects of the game engine and how it handles lighting - it's hard enough making the game look eerie a lot of times, even in places where you want it to be that way.

Ibsen and his landscape/interior helpers are doing what they can, as they individually know how. Talent is not always equal among folks. Ibsen knows about Blackmarsh being a dark and dangerous place, and I'm sure he's been trying to keep this in mind as he and the others landscape. Others have also mentioned that our mod does not look very "dangerous" looking and could be made more gloomy, and we acknowledged their opinion and observations. But if one wants to make their opinion in a curt way, expect the same in reply at times.

Koniption

It fills me with joy to see that there are so many talented modders which can perform feats which not even Bethesda would have imagined to be possible. Best of lucks to you all!

**sigh** This is why I hate having a promotional thread and would prefer to mod in peace. There may not be any malice intended here but when remarks are made in this tone, it forces the modder to defend themselves when they have better things to do e.g. RL work and modding. I have to agree with Koniption. Your tone is highly provocative and, worse, is riddled with inconsistencies.

To clarify, usually constructive criticism sounds more constructive than critical. The likes of Phinius_Master wasn't happy with some stuff earlier so he offered some constructive suggestions on this thread and even helped out. Lady_Nerevar of the Tamriel Rebuilt project often drops by. She doesn't contribute but her constructive criticism is hugely valued, as is her knowledge and understanding of lore.

These, however, are a series of quite unrelated negative points without noticing anything positive...and most of our feedback IS positive, as you can see. Added to that is the golden rule of modding promotions: to never show your best modding too early. This is something fully endorsed by the likes of the much-admired Oblivion Real Estate team. Consequently, the screenshots we have in the original post are deliberately old in order to give you a taster of what's to come and to inspire discussion.

So, to defend, let me start by saying that Koniption is indeed absolutely correct in pointing out the lighting system of the game engine itself which favours beauty over atmosphere. This is something that Lady_Nerevar pointed out a long time ago and that we worked on extensively but it's very difficult from a technical point of view. However, what you're missing is that a noob modder would jump you straight into a scary, dog-rough Black Marsh and leave you with region after boring, uninspired, unchanging region of it. The Western Black Marsh which will form our beta is the area influenced by the Empire and by Dunmer invasions. Therefore, this progressively introduces you to Argonian culture and its landscapes which IS INEVITABLY influenced by Imperial and Dunmer culture (and architecture)! Lore is quite specific in pointing out that Gideon is "a thoroughly Imperialized city" as stated here: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:The_Argonian_Account,_Book_3 . Given the rather recent slave trade carried out by the Dunmer and the renowned oppression of Argonians by the Dunmer, it would also make absolute sense that the architecture has a Dunmer flavour too...

And I think that by referring to it as a 'prison city', you're getting mixed up between Gideon and Blackrose. Blackrose IS a prison city. Gideon is not, although various sources mention 'Castle Giovesse' as having been turned into a prison...which is how it will be here also. You can't see the Castle in any of those pics.

I don't quite understand where the other bizarre remark comes from: "It looks rich to me. I know you opted for a RL Vegas style blackmarket feel. but it looks Prissy, Preppy, Gleeful and happy." but I can at least put some of this down to the fact that we haven't updated our screenshots of Gideon for a very long time. However, you seem to have conveniently missed the fact that I had clearly written: "We now have some more suitable buildings for this city than those shown." Nevertheless, the following are more or less random shots of the city as it is now in the early evening of game-time: http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Ibsen3/Gideon01.jpg , http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Ibsen3/Gideon02-2.jpg , http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Ibsen3/Gideon03.jpg , http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Ibsen3/Gideon04.jpg , http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Ibsen3/Gideon05.jpg , http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Ibsen3/Gideon06-2.jpg & http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Ibsen3/Gideon07.jpg . I deliberately chose the beginning of the carnival in the town centre because it's the most upmarket part...but even that could not be described as 'prissy and gleeful'. Nor, I think, did the original shots but you chose to describe it as such which was an exaggeration...and very impolite in the circumstances.

Good point about the lanterns (seriously!) but usually people say, "I think you should change those street lanterns because of the constant rain that I would expect to see" and then I'll think, "yeah, that's something we can look into" rather than have to respond to, "why are you using those lanterns?" Believe me, mere lanterns are nothing our guys can't handle but a suggestion as to which vanilla ones to use would at least be useful in the meantime as we're slogging away without pay for other people's benefit. Behind these rhetorical questions that you're so fond of is the assumed sub-text of "are you thick or something?"

Why the Cyrodiil towers, you ask? Well, Rock Guard supplies Gideon with resources and is close to the Cyrodiil border. The general consensus is that remnants of the Empire would still remain from their efforts in trying to consolidate their claim on the land. What you see are the last bastions of that effort before you enter the mainland where they could hang on to nothing against Argonian resistance. Fort Swampmoth was the most abiding of such structures and will be found a little further west but it is a military structure designed to help the Imperials hold out under attack.

Your sentence, "Why would the empire build a tower with an entrance they had to rock climb to access?" with respect to the picture of RockGuard does not make any sense at all. There is a STAIRWAY to the tower. Where do you get idea of climbing a rock from? The tower is built on a rock to provide more stability in the unstable swamplands and to offer a good vantage point over a flat land that is very difficult to negotiate for invading armies. After slavery was abolished, RockGuard is now a relatively peaceful farming community with a small Imperial presence.

I think it's a bit too late to avoid 'wanting to sound picky' and what to you may be obvious is actually a complete lack of understanding of what we're trying to achieve here. Your comments on the slums sound extremely naive. Not ALL of Black Marsh would be "so poor you would feel bad for the NPCs you're placing there." It is, after all, the HOME of the Argonians. Even the filthiest swamps often bear evidence of beautiful indigenous architecture. Cambodia, for instance, is not a 'clean' place but have you seen Angkor Wat? Nor are Mexico's wild places 'clean' but are you telling me that the Mayans did not give evidence of wealth and beauty? Do you claim to know more about the Argonians than the lore suggests and on which this mod is based?

However, I CAN read between the lines that you're passionate about how Black Marsh should look and would love to see what you might make of the 'darker' and 'grittier' areas that you clearly crave so much and I guess that at least you say you're only going on the pictures you see but you clearly haven't read the remarks nor spotted that these are just early 'tasters' of a beta that includes the WESTERN (and Imperialised) side of Argonia. What a boring mod it would be to have everything and everyone looking 'dog poor'!!!

So yes, you do sound critical....and your tone IS offensive. Please go ahead and do some modding, get your lore right, look carefully and enquire with patience and tact before talking about professionalism. You've gone on a rant here but I admire what might well be creative passion nevertheless.

@ Others - ....I guess I'd better update the links in the OP....ho hum! And work tomorrow too! Thanks to magirock and DANTE20XX for your support. And remember, constructive criticism IS welcome!