Mod Promotion and feasability check

[john44]

Hi I was wondering if you guys might want to do some You Tube Videos like Galladriel did. I think it would help promote your mod like it did hers and it would show everyone your progress. Finally I think you are probably going to have the same problem she did if your mod looks too much like Morrowind. I don't think Bethasda will allow a mod that competes with the original Morrowind game so you might as well find out now.

[cire992]

They have permission from Bethesda to convert the heightmap. Bethesda shot down Galadrielle's morroblivion because it was converting the entire game. This mod is using Silgrad's handmade assets to create Vvardenfell...
As for making videos for promotion... I don't know what they'd be about. The project has a heightmap, and not much else. Kind of pitiful after two years, I know.

[Efcaz]

what if there was no promoting intil the project was nearly
(or compleaty) finished that would mean the people on the outside wouldnt know about it and wouldnt send 10000000000s of emails telling us to finish it, giving us the freedom not to rush it but to take are time with it and care for it just like a baby (or a newly made charater). also if we remove the pressure we will be a lot more calm and beining calm helps most people think (of quest ideas)

[Hidden]

I doubt even one person sent an e-mail asking the team to hurry up or even asking when it's going to be finished. The worst thing a team can do is to not promote their project.

[Alasdair]

Who at Bethesda gave you guys permission to use the morrowind heightmap? Just curious.

[cire992]

I don't know, ask Lightwave.
Promoting this mod is like flossing a dead horse, I hate to say it, but TESIV: Vvardenfell is pretty much dead now. Dave and I are both off doing personal projects now. Sandor dropped out a couple of weeks ago, he just couldn't balance us and Silgrad at the same time. Our leader, InsanitySorrow, hasn't even been online in so long that he doesn't seem to be aware that his project is dying. At this point, Lightwave is the only core member who still seems to be active, so he's the man to ask about anything.

[InsanitySorrow]

Hey guys, sorry about not being online, been really busy lately. Anyway I am not sure who gave us permission search the VV threads, Ku got permission on the teams behalf. Also Dave_91 should be online as well but I think he is still bus, I will have to check.

By the way TESIV: Vvardenfell is not dead, people just have real lives do deal with aswell, I think its time to start re-thinking our strategy. Also promoting is a good idea, but we need a bit more done.

[Lightwave]

It's all in the TESPort-Discussion thread.

Inside the core there's been some requests to drop back to a 1x scale heightmap owing to the ambitious scale of the project.

The last intention was to use mod-files similar to the ones I used to generate the shots in this thread - a combination of our 2x heightmap, TESPort converted NPCs and Galadrielle's converted placement data and Galadrielle's converted NIFs. This was done in September 2007, and the decision reached in a poll at the end of last year was to use this content with interior cells as placeholders and gradually replace the meshes with new ones.

Since Bethesda seem upset with the Morroblivion team that are using Galadrielle's content converter to re-use most of the TES3 resources in TES4, this means replacing the TES3 content is now an absolute requirement. We cannot use the interiors because no substitute meshes will line up the same. All we can do is recreate the towns with new meshes and swap wilderness mesh models, such as rocks, mushrooms, trees - this will instantly swap the TES3 meshes for TES4 meshes.

Lack of a full set of replacement tilesets and no sharing of resources with other projects (such as Hunger/PostalDude and Phitt's Sheogorad) also holds us back.

Since there seems no clear direction on 1x or 2x, I'm about to re-release the 1x files anyway, similar to the September 1x files. This is a completely visitable world just like in the screenshots and will be available before the end of this week (got some busy nights in the meantime or I'd be uploading it tonight). It uses Galadrielle's NIF converter for the TES4 placeholder meshes and we will need to start replacing those models and working out which ones we don't have yet.

For TES4:Vvardenfell I'm involved more with the technical aspects of trying to speed the work along, especially when it lags under the sheer scale of work required, much less with the lore and plot of this mod. The website suffers from being nearly 2 years old and not showing much of the work in between and I guess it lacks specific intermediate goals, such as whether to region generate the wilderness content or not, or a full list of settlements/ruins/caves/tombs we need to target and what the priority target list is. By presenting the conversion with the converted NIF content it is the closest I can get to a believable world using automated methods and which will hopefully inspire people to start re-modding areas, rather than trying to mod entirely without reference and from scratch in the current empty landscape.

I'm totally open on the idea of sharing resources, but many of those resources (meshes, textures) are not my permission to share so it's not as simple as, for example, asking Phitt if we can borrow some of his Sheogorad wilderness and/or Dwemer ruin models and in turn letting him use Silgrad Tower resources, which the ST team own. But if we're still suffering after I re-release the 1x files with the placed content then I feel we really must be talking about opening up as much as sharing as permissible with the other Vvardenfell projects, or there'll be no future in this TES4:Vvardenfell. Once I release the new files (which Sandor should probably combine with the ESM) I think we should set a date on evaluating our progress, such as 2 months. If we haven't replaced most of the wilderness meshes (trees, rocks, fauna, mushrooms etc) then we must start sharing - personally I'm for that idea already, but I respect that others in ST might not be ... we should discuss the implications of this when the time comes.

Lightwave

[cire992]

Originally posted by InsanitySorrow
By the way TESIV: Vvardenfell is not dead, people just have real lives do deal with aswell, I think its time to start re-thinking our strategy. Also promoting is a good idea, but we need a bit more done.

Having a real life is the number one cause of death for for fan-made mod projects, so I don't see the logic behind your statement.
Good to hear from you though, I wouldn't want to see this mod die. But you should really start looking for a new team, you and Lightwave are the only ones left in the core who haven't dropped out at this point. I quit last week, and from what he's told me, Dave has too. You're on your own, don't blow it.

[InsanitySorrow]

I will see if dave has quit, but i cannot do this on my own, might be a good idea to recruit a new team and new leaders. I am really pressured for time and have not been modding for a while.