DOWNLOAD HERE:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34245



Introduction:
This mod in his current state (version 0.11) is more a bunch of little fixes and add-ons for Shivering Isles rather than complete overhaul. But even at this state you can notice that the Isles have changed a bit, and these changes may prove themselves quite surprising in some cases. Be ready for finding something that you haven't encountered before!

Most notable changes (be ready to find much more than those):
* Amber and Madness equipments were expanded and fixed; mostly for weaponry, which is now complete and doesn't lack any weapon type found in sets from vanilla Oblivion.

* As above, weaponry of Golden Saints and Dark Seducers was expanded too.

* You can now turn Vitharn Keep into your personal estate, and get there your own smith to forge weapons and armor from Obelisk Shards, found in e.g. bodies of Knights of Order.

* All clothing and armors that were present in vanilla SI but were unavailable (either always or in result of your choices) can be now obtained during the progress in SI's main questline. You can find them in Sheogorath's Palace, among other trophies from your journey.

* All bosses from SI's main questline have turned stronger (including first Gatekeeper, so you may need to get higher levels before being able to even enter the Isles). Now they're more challenging than before.

* Zealots and Heretics will be summoning bound gear now, making them more difficult in combat.

* Aureals and Mazkens will have much better appearance now (no more ugly faces) and their disposition towards you will be updating properly with your progress in SI's main questline.

* After completing the main quest, you will be able to summon portals to take you from and into Shivering Isles (based on Wrye Shivering).

* All areas that were inaccessible during the main quest, after completing it will turn available and free to explore. It includes also Pinnacle Rock and Brellach, strongholds of Aureal and Mazken.


(Complete description in link above.)

I likes the sound of this, the Isles were in need of a good overhaul anyway IMO. I'll be watching this one closely

Yay! Glad to see it finally up! I'll be cheering for the mod

Just a quick question, RBP (Race Balancing Project) i think effects aureal and mazken, as well as making them playable. What would happen if I ran both mods together?

sounds great :celebration:

With the Zealots and Heretics, are they summoning normal bound armor? if so, is there any way to make them summon maddness/amber istead?

Presumably, changes from mod loaded later will overwrite changes from earlier. Note that modification year is set by default to 2032, so my mod will overwrite most of the mods that changes the same things as mine.

If RBP is loaded later, then it's quite possible that it may cause odd errors with body texture (as I set Mazken and Aureal to use Exnem's textures and meshes).


No, they're using custom bound armors, just like Mythic Dawn members do.

Good to see the release, Zu. I've been looking forward to the Amber/Madness weapon expansion for a while, now. All of the extra bonuses in this make the release even better. Thanks!

Excellent project. I've wanted an overhaul somewhat like OOO for Shivering Isles since I played SI for the first time. Which brings me to my first question:



What's your plans for the complete overhaul?

Also, I wonder how this would work with MMM SI?

Anyway, many thanks for the release! I'll check it out immediately - and am looking forward to updates as well. :foodndrink:

Well, if I'm going to keep expanding my mod, then this is what I would like to include (but don't know does I'll be able or have enough willingness for this):

- New creatures (to expand the variety of mad beings living in the Isles, currently they're very repeatable; I can add some of the creatures already created by others, but I also wanted to add some created specifically for this purpose, and this is rather beyond my abilities);
- New dungeons (there's just too low places to explore, and I really would like to have twice as much; it's extreme lot of work though, and I have no talent in creating completely new locations, so unless someone can help me with it, it will probably remain in TO DO list forever);
- New quests (lets be honest, the current amount of quests from SI is rather low, and too much of them are just "bring me this, this and this/kill those guys"; but once again, I have no talent in inventing good quests, so someone must help me here);
- Some new factions to join (similarly as above);

As you can see, most of those things that I would like to include is beyond my abilities, so further expanding would require creating some team for this project (and I don't feel myself in the role of leader, I must note). I've made things that I was actually able to do, others may require something more than my humble abilities.


No idea, never tested it. But since my mod doesn't change leveled lists yet (only some vanilla creatures), I assume that it would work fine.

As that's what MMM SI mainly focuses on, i.e. new creatures, varieties, behavior etc. it might perhaps be redundant for an SI overhaul to do the same. They should be possible to integrate rather nicely I guess, much as MMM and OOO.



I'm with you. You seem already to have upped the challenge regarding the quest lines, which sounds excellent. Coming from OOO, combat in SI is very humdrum IMO - you can basically breeze through everything, from the Gatekeeper and onwards. Personally I think it sounds perfect to focus primarily on that - which you already are.

Me too, though I will say that MMM is a fairly popular mod, and you really need to take that into consideration. Try to test and make a compatible version if you can. Good luck :goodjob:

Cool,

Will have to check it out for sure.

I think that they don't make Aureal or Mazken playable I think that they just make races that are like Aureal and Mazken so you have nothing to worry about

But Cobl Races makes Aureal and Mazken playable, so I guess that means that ZuTheSkunk's Shivering Isles Overhaul is incompatible with Cobl Races?

No I think they "Created" Aureal and Mazken that are exactly like SI's Aureal and Mazken
It should be compatible

Ah, thanks. Nice, I was a bit worried there.

This was my main concern with this - but I'm confused - what is the difference between a mod that creates races like the original and one that makes the original playable.

and why is it incompatible with mods that make them playable?

One race is considered in CS as one "entry" on the list. You can duplicate some entry and edit the duplicated one, leaving original one unchanged. Or you can edit directly the original one. None of NPCs using original race will use duplicated one unless you'll set them to, and changes made to original race will apply to all those NPCs.


Because it edits original race, overwriting any other changes made to it. In fact it's incompatible with every mod that changes that race, not only those making it playable.

I'm pretty sure COBL didn't use the existing races thats probably the same with RBC

Cobl has custom made races that are similar and called mazken and aureal but they are not playable SI versions of them.

Thats what I was talking about, thank you for confirming it

Heh, my char and her companion Vilja were killed two times in a row when fighting their very first enemy in SI with this overhaul loaded - and it was one single Zealot Proselytizer. Ouch! Their summoned armor has turned them from cannon fodder to enemies to be reckoned with I'd say. Anyway, I think I'm going to like this. :thumbsup:

I'm loading Zu's overhaul after MMM SI, like:

Mart's Monster Mod - Shivering Isles.esp
ZUAmberMadnessOverhaul.esp

Importing Graphics and Scripts to the Bashed Patch from MMM SI (well, it already has those tags). We'll see how it goes.

EDIT: In fact, the Zealots might be too hard perhaps. Facing a single one turns into something of a boss battle. But I'm not going to complain about the upped difficulty - it's just what I have been looking for. :toughninja:

Hmm. If other people will confirm that, then I can decrease their power a bit in some newer version. Thanks for info, it seems that my Khajiit females are too powerful to consider those guys as serious threat...

Dispel should be quite effective I guess - but I forgot about that. Anyway, they woke me up from the SI slumber more than anything I guess - suddenly you have to be a bit careful when exploring around, which is very nice.

EDIT: It would be a nice touch if they summoned Madness Armor instead of Daedric, but that is perhaps difficult to set up - or a bad idea from a lore perspective perhaps. Or simply a bad idea.

Well, Arkngt, I don't see the harm in having them have Madness Armor - it could be slightly retextured, but I'd like to see it, myself. Personally, I find Madness Armor more intimidating than Daedric! Maybe Heretics could summon a retextured version of Amber Armor?

Anyhow, I had another thought. Since Heretics are supporters of Sheogorath, would it be possible to make them passive once you finish the SI main quest? Zealots would still be hostile, though, since they hate Sheogorath. Just a thought.

I've specifically decided to use recoloured McMuffin's Daedric Armor, since the Madness armor was already used for Fanatics, who were a completely different faction, as far as I can tell. Plus, personally I think that this armor better suits Zealots.


Whoops! I'm afraid not. Because it's not a spell, but a scripted thing (I've been unable to make those guys using the spell properly, regardless of efforts), and I've forgot to include Dispel. Oh well, I'll fix that in newer version.

But! The Silence spell is included, as long as you'll cast it before Zealot starts combat.


Hmm. First, you've mixed up those two factions - Heretics believe that Sheogorath is just a man who needs to be overthrown, so they definitely should stay hostile. Zealots, for the other hand, believe that Sheogorath is a living god and the avatar of Arden-Sul, so if any of those should turn passive once the main quest is completed, then it should be Zealots. And yes, this might be quite logical for them to not attack the god that they pray, but... think about it. What, if they're so completely focused on their pointless rituals and rules, so fanatical, so blind on everything around them, so mad after all those years of living in the Isles and breathing its mad aura and spores of demented trees, that they're unable to recognise Sheogorath, seeing only a strange guy in multicoloured suit who is not a member of their faction and therefore must be eliminated? It's also possible...