My Silgrad Tower v2.5 impression...

[Lord Grievous]

I recently downloaded and installed the v2.5 mod, and I'm quite impressed with what you've done so far, but I also wanted to make some suggestions and ask some questions, so here goes:

* I've heard that you're keeping the high quality textures and maybe even some higher poly models untill the final release, I understand that this reduces the filesize of the beta, but it might be a good idea to include the high resolution textures in one of the next releases. I see these good looking screenshots, but when I play the mod I get these lower quality ones.
That and the fact that these bland textures (I'm only talking about the exterior textures, the interior ones look splendid) don't do the detailed models justice

* What are those low poly stone mushrooms supposed to be? They look out of place amongst the organic mushrooms.

* Maybe it would be better if those two walled cities were in their own worldspace, because right now there are no gates to those cities so everything inside the walls is loaded along with the exterior which causes a lot of lag. And just for comparison, I can run Oblivion with Quarl's Texture Pack 3 with all the graphics settings to their highest, the only thing I disabled is grass shadows, so it's not that my pc can't handle.

* There is one thing that has bothered me that shows up on every screenshot of the exteriors, and that is the fact that Morrowind-style architecture and Oblivion's default West-European Medieval graphics don't really match.
Remember, Morrowind plays out in this exotic land with vulcanic rocks and either very dark and ominous weather or very bright weather, the temperate climate in Oblivion makes the Morrowind buildings look out of place. Maybe you can change the skybox to a more exotic one, or even use the ones from Shivering Isles, those look pretty exotic.
The point is that the interiors of your buildings really look like their Morrowind counterparts, but the exteriors look too light coloured like the colours have faded in the sun, Morrowind featured a much darker pallete than Oblivion has.

* Will you eventually replace the default Oblivion trees and wildlive that you use now, to Morrowind's exotic plants and animals?

* How about the soundtrack, will you include some remastered Morrowind ones?

Thanks for making this mod!

[kingevil]

Originally posted by Lord Grievous
I recently downloaded and installed the v2.5 mod, and I'm quite impressed with what you've done so far, but I also wanted to make some suggestions and ask some questions, so here goes:

* I've heard that you're keeping the high quality textures and maybe even some higher poly models untill the final release, I understand that this reduces the filesize of the beta, but it might be a good idea to include the high resolution textures in one of the next releases. I see these good looking screenshots, but when I play the mod I get these lower quality ones.
That and the fact that these bland textures (I'm only talking about the exterior textures, the interior ones look splendid) don't do the detailed models justice

The model were high poly and the textures high res in the public releases first. Then someone tried to steal our stuff and claim he made it. That4s why public versions now are low poly. That, and to encourage more people to help us with the modding

* What are those low poly stone mushrooms supposed to be? They look out of place amongst the organic mushrooms.

they look a lot better in private version, very high detailed and organic looking. See Question 1.

* Maybe it would be better if those two walled cities were in their own worldspace, because right now there are no gates to those cities so everything inside the walls is loaded along with the exterior which causes a lot of lag. And just for comparison, I can run Oblivion with Quarl's Texture Pack 3 with all the graphics settings to their highest, the only thing I disabled is grass shadows, so it's not that my pc can't handle.

They were. But since we are going to have some spells like levitate and incarane flight in our mod, This would give problems

* There is one thing that has bothered me that shows up on every screenshot of the exteriors, and that is the fact that Morrowind-style architecture and Oblivion's default West-European Medieval graphics don't really match.
Remember, Morrowind plays out in this exotic land with vulcanic rocks and either very dark and ominous weather or very bright weather, the temperate climate in Oblivion makes the Morrowind buildings look out of place. Maybe you can change the skybox to a more exotic one, or even use the ones from Shivering Isles, those look pretty exotic.
The point is that the interiors of your buildings really look like their Morrowind counterparts, but the exteriors look too light coloured like the colours have faded in the sun, Morrowind featured a much darker pallete than Oblivion has.

I assume we will have custom weather , at leat deepen moor is going to have custom weather

* Will you eventually replace the default Oblivion trees and wildlive that you use now, to Morrowind's exotic plants and animals?

Part of ST will be exotic. another part will be like the default. Keep in mind that the landmass of ST is on the mainland and not on the vvardenfell island. It also is very close to the skyrim border, so of course its less exotic then VVArdenfell.

* How about the soundtrack, will you include some remastered Morrowind ones?

We cant use the morrowind sound, thats illegal. We do, however have our own composers, so we will have custom music.

Thanks for making this mod!

Thats all the info I can give you. I think everything i just said was correct, but Razorwing will have more info.

[Razorwing]

Our mod does look a lot better in the private version than in the public version. There's little to no difference when it comes to textures though, it's the meshes that differ. If you notice low-quality textures, and there are a few of those, they're placeholders from Morrowind retexture packs that we have yet to replace with custom high-quality ones.

The system gives us an extra layer of security from rogue modders who would like nothing more than to knick our stuff and make their own Morrowind mod, but it's also an incentive for certain players to take the step and become modders on the team. It's worked out pretty well for us from that viewpoint, and we need all modders we can get so I would favor the system even if that was the only reason for continuing it.

The mushrooms you saw are Emperor Parasols. I don't know if I'd call them stony myself but they're the only lowpoly mushrooms so it's got to be them. Like kingevil said they look great in the private version.

I still believe the FPS problems in certain areas of Soluthis - Reich Parkeep in particular - have to do with textures rather than that it is an open city. Either because there's too much texture data in one place for most video cards to handle, or because of the parallax effect which in many cases are useless, or both. I don't believe there are as many AI operations being carried out in the city as there is in any of the main game's cities (unfortunately, I might add). I will give it my full attention after I've finished Areya's Palace.

Not sure what you mean by us using default Oblivion trees? We use some, in the case of Soluthis they're remnants of our early days, but we have half a dozen types of custom trees already made for our regions. I'd love to see kagoutis, netches, scribs and the other critters from Morrowind back in action, but I can't say when that will happen. We don't have anyone in the team that knows how to create animated creatures, and given the lack of a full official exporter it's more of a chalenge than it should be.

The Oblivion engine is very limited in what it can do regarding music. You can't even get a particular track to play in the background without an elaborate script in every cell. We don't have any specific plans when it comes to music at the moment.

Thanks for your feedback and for sharing your opinions

[Lord Grievous]

Thanks for the replies

Edit 2007.09.12 13:06: Forgot to ask this one, will you also have Morrowind-style Daedric Shrines? Perhaps combined with the Oblivion system where you also have to make an offer?

The Daedric Shrines of Morrowind were more remote and forbidding than the quasi sanctioned ones in Cyrodiil. It really made you feel like you weren't supposed to be there, and if course the Daedra guarding these shrines made them feel more...well Daedric, especially compared to the ones in Oblivion with the friendly worshippers around.

It would be nice to have some of these Daedric Shrines in your mod, where you have to defeat the Daedric guardians and make an offering before you can get the quest.

Also, will you be using the Shivering Isles content in your mod? I mean, any Elder Scrolls fan will have this expansion anyway, so it's not like only a small percentage have it installed. And the mushrooms and skyboxes in particular would be of use to this mod.

[kingevil]

Yes, We will have shrines, I dunno about the offerings, but nice idea :goodjob:. And for as far as I know, We're not going to use SI content for as far as I know.

[Razorwing]

Personally I don't think the expansion has anything we need. I'm sure it has lots of nice things, just not things we need. We got plenty of mushrooms already

Morrowind-style Daedric shrines are one of the few big modelling jobs left for us to tackle. No-one's working on them at the moment and it's likely it will take a long time before we'll see shrines in our mod. Ultimately we'll have a few of them though.

[Lord Grievous]

That's good to hear, although I think someone on these forums has started on these Daedric Shrines, I saw some WIPs.

Also, I saw someone on this forum post ingame pics of Dwemer Ruins which already looked practically finished, and there is also someone who has already completed the Boiled Netch armour and Morag Thong armour sets, it would be great if they were also released as seperate downloads for use in vanilla Oblivion. Just like the Ordinator armour by Cryos and Spartan!

Again, thanks for the quick replies.

Edit 2007.09.13 13:04: Also, will the original weapon and armour sets as depicted in morrowind be included as well?

I'm refering to these:
http://www.uesp.net/morrow/hints/mormat.shtml
Or at least the Dwarven, Glass, Ebony and Daedric ones.

Will we also be able to have pole arms, like spears and halberds?
Thanks

[Ghogiel]

also note much of the 2.5 assets nif are missing a nibinaryextradata for the tangent space and vertex normals. this means the normal maps are doing bugger all. the textures look twice as detailed with the n maps actually working. especially under game lighting. the textures are actually in general about equal to OB in most sets.

[Razorwing]

The importance of updating tangent spaces is something that has eluded me so far. Thankyou so much for explaining it (elsewhere) to me Ghogiel. I'll be sure to update as speedily as I can, and am grateful for your assistance.

Lord Grievous:
- No one in our team is currently working on Daedric Shrine architecture and we don't have any assets from before that either.
- We do not have any Morrowind-style weapons and no-one in our team is currently working on any.
- We have a full complement of exterior Dwemer architecture, thanks to RideWithTheWind. We do not have any interior Dwemer architecture.
- We have boiled netch leather armor, morag tong armor, imperial legion armor, bonemold armor, dwemer armor, ordinator armor, custom retextures of town guard armor from the main game, and in addition to that a few other sets from the scene.

[Lord Grievous]

Thanks for the info :goodjob: