Silgrad Tower Version 3.0 beta [RLZ]

[sandor]

A taste of Morrowind - Silgrad Tower v3.0

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The Elder Scrolls IV - Oblivion
Silgrad Tower: From The Ashes - Release v3.0 Beta
Original Release Date - December 12th 2010
Updated RLZ: October 30th 2011
created by the Silgrad Tower team
Forum
Former BSF thread.
BSF thread
For additional info please check our TESNexus account. --> v4.0
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Download the release version 3.0 beta files (please install the files from the 5 links into your Oblivion data folder):


Silgrad Tower 3.0 ESM/ESP Version 2 (ESP/ESM Pair)

Silgrad_Tower_v3.0_RLZ.7z (In Game Assets)

Silgrad_Tower - Assets2.bsa

Silgrad_Tower - Misc.7z (LOD and In Game Map)

Silgrad_Tower - Voices.7z. (Voicework)

If you want to rate our mod please check our TES NEXUS account. --> v4.0


Please report bugs in this thread.

Silgrad Tower version 3.0.
Silgrad Tower is the largest Oblivion mod ever made ((region) maps). The size of the world is over 9 times that of Oblivion. Set east of Cyrodiil in mainland Morrowind, Silgrad Tower draws much inspiration from The Elder Scrolls 3.

The Silgrad Tower team is proud to present our Silgrad Tower v3.0 mod. With it, we hope to give players hours of entertainment as well as an impression of what our full, future release will be like. A lot of us in the team pooled together to work on the v3.0 release and we feel it represents the best of our work, ranging from quests and AI to voice work and models.

There are over 800 interior cells.

In the download you'll find a spoiler list with quest locations.
You don't have to use the list but it could help you in finding interesting locations and give you any hints you might need should you find yourself lost or unsure of what to do.


A Brief History of The Silgrad Tower Team:
The Silgrad Tower project first began in 2002. The team created a mod for Morrowind on which our Oblivion version is based heavily upon. In 3 years of work the team crafted a vibrant living world that truly lived up to the bar that Bethesda set with their game. If you are interested please visit our TES3 Forum.

The initial ideas for our Oblivion mod came in 2004 when Bethesda announced The Elder Scrolls 4. Work began even before the games release, with models being created, and texture being drawn. The actual modding process of the mods development began soon after Oblivions release. Over the past four years we have progressed to a stage where the mod is at a satisfactory state and we are very close to having one of our larger cities, Soluthis, fully completed. Completed towns/cities: Steadhelm, Ebbedin and Ald Nium.


Beta version.
The Silgrad Tower v3.0 mod is in the Beta stage of development, so it is still only a work-in-progress, however enough has been made for an enjoyable playing experience, as the entire landmass has been created, most of the interiors have been completed and there are many fully playable quests ready and waiting for any adventurous player to find and complete. But, since it is far from a final release, there is still very much work to be done, for example in Silgrad City itself and the wilderness and its dungeons and, as always, in the voice acting department.


Silgrad City (WiP).
Silgrad City Riverside District has two sections Southeast and Northwest. There are an assortment of shops within each section. The shops sell everything from food and potions to weapons. There are also a number of pubs in the area. The Hlaalu guard patrols here so be on your best behavior.

The Riverside District is located within the outer protective walls and surrounded by the Riverside Pathway. The Pathway is a garden style area which gives one access to other districts in the city.


Forgotten Garden (over 8000 downloads, December 2010).
As you may know we released a teaser mod over a year ago (it's part of the v3.0 release). "The Forgotten Garden" offers new lands to explore, several fully voiced, unique characters and hundreds of new, handmade models. You'll get to explore new dungeons and work your way through new quests, and may even find yourself the owner of an estate with plenty of storage capabilities. Once you enter Morrowind, you'll notice many differences from Cyrodiil... pay keen attention to the rumors to learn the lay of this new land. It's part of our Silgrad Tower v3.0 release.


Voice Samples:
These videos may have some echo created when making the samples. The echo is not heard in game.
Conversation with Ra'Vandra
Conversation with Ridam Uvirith
Conversation with Augurio


Videos:
Silgrad Tower: The Forgotten Garden


Premise to the Forgotten Garden also available as a separate download
Long ago, Dark Elves belonging to Great House Redoran settled on a peaceful, green island that would one day become the most beautiful garden in all of Morrowind. On that island grew mysterious and exotic plants, unlike any others that dotted the vast and diverse landscapes of Tamriel. However, Redoran is a warrior society, not a society of gardeners, and they eventually left the island in search of land suitable for sustaining war. The garden was all but a forgotten legend just a few years later.

A few decades ago Lord Tadanil Balothan of the Redoran Council rediscovered the island, along with all of its natural mysteries. He founded a settlement, and named it The Forgotten Garden. Under his leadership the settlement returned the island to its former glory. Settlers, and even some guilds, are hearing word about the many wonders that surround this garden.

However, the Garden is facing a threat. With Lord Tadanil's recent passing, local bandits are on the rise. Rumours are spreading that the settlement will soon fall to ruins, with the garden left to quietly waste away...


How to install Silgrad Tower v3.0.
Extract the contents of the downloaded archive to your Oblivion\Data folder. Then start Oblivion, tick Oblivion.esm and Silgrad_Tower.esm and Silgrad_Tower.esp, and you can start playing the mod. You'll get a journal entry shortly afterwards. Follow the clues in the entry to begin your journey. NOTE: The transportation spell only works outside city walls and when you're not in combat.

The esm/esp pair is load order independent.


To uninstall, simply delete the following files from your Oblivion\Data folder:
Silgrad_Tower.esm
Silgrad_Tower.esp
Silgrad_Tower.bsa
Silgrad_Tower - Misc.bsa
Silgrad_Tower - Voices.bsa

Also open the Oblivion\Data\Music folder and delete the Silgrad folder.


Known issues
A medium to high-end computer is recommended.

Some players reported a problem with the teleport spell, cause unknown.
If so, please use the console and type "coc w0".

If you use the Knights of the Nine add-on you'll hear a few rumors from it within ST worldspaces. All other rumors from the game have been disabled while you are in ST worldspaces. Rumors from Oblivion and other mods will still be heard outside of ST worldspaces. Since our mod does not alter anything related to Oblivion there should be no other compatibility issues.

The outer height map quads are WiP (Velothi mountains, not generated), the same applies to the Ferry system, the road to Morrowind including the seamless transition, Silgrad city South and Veranis Hall. If you see a Map marker location with a WiP extension, it means that the interior isn't finished or only the entrance can be visited.The in-game map is WiP.


Interested in joining the team?
Terrific! Check out our introduction for more information on how to join. The process isn't very formal, highlighted by the part in the introduction that half-jokingly says "Claim first, ask questions later." It's not as chaotic as that might imply, but it's true that we sort out most things by talking about them. Plus there's no substitute for personal experience. I'm sure you could stare yourself blind at our claim threads and still not get as good an impression of what one of our overall mod's cities is like as you could by checking it out in the Construction Set to see how it hangs together.

We're always excited to greet new members, so check out the article and then head on over to our forum so we can get to know you!

FAQ
1. When will Silgrad Tower be finished?
We don't have a deadline we're working against, preferring instead to maintain a healthy level of fun by modding at our own pace and often doing jobs on the side within our mod that might not count towards our goals for release, but are just plain fun to do. We'll release when the regions are generated, our cities have reached a highly playable state and there are roads connecting our towns and larger villages. Naturally we will continue working after we've released, and add more and more content to our mod throughout Oblivion's lifespan.

Please check our forum for news of our full release, also for posting bugs, Silgrad Tower v3.0 [WIP].

2. Why don't you just use TES3 models?
It's illegal to distribute Bethesda's models and other assets, meaning that if we ripped TES3 models we would be regarded as an illegal mod and couldn't operate on ESF and other crucial places. We're in it for the long haul, and some of us are already looking forward to an eventual fifth Elder Scrolls game which makes it even more important that we have a firm platform to stand on that doesn't compromise Bethesda's copyrights in any way. Besides that consideration the models in TES3 were highly optimized, to make them run on a mid-range computer in 2002, and would have needed extensive work on them just to bring them up to technical par with what you'd expect from Oblivion. For an experienced modeller, editing an old model in that way and making it look good is usually more work than creating it from scratch.

3. Are you modding Vvardenfell?
No, we are modding a region of the Morrowind Province's mainland situated west of Vvardenfell. This release is a preview of that work.

4. Will you make the whole Morrowind Province?
Perhaps we will expand our landmass in the future as the existing region gets completed, but modding the whole Morrowind Province is not our goal. Our goal is to make the part that we DO mod the best we possibly can.

5. What does the term "Dunmer" mean?
"Dunmer" is the name dark elves prefer to call themselves. The term "dark elf" is an Imperial invention.

6. What does the term "Redoran" mean?
To say it succinctly, it is a political power in the Morrowind Province who controls the western-most sliver of the Province.

7. Can I use your models/textures in my mod?
The short answer is no. The longer answer is that if you want to use something *specific* then please contact The Imperial Dragon or Sandor (sandor@silgradmodding.org or TheImperialDragon@silgradmodding.org) because you might be allowed to use it. An example is Tarnsman, who was granted personal permission to use the ingredient meshes in his "Morrowind Ingredients" mod.

Breaking our right to exclusivitivity would be a copyright violation and only result in locked threads/deleted uploads for you and tighter privacy arrangements for us. Given that a lot of modellers share their work freely as modders' resources there's no apparant reason why anyone would want to take our stuff; the only reason one can think of is if they are pursuing the same ideas we are - that of recreating the Morrowind Province. They would be welcome to do so, because a little healthy competition is just a good thing, but to try and do so using our own models and textures against us is unfair.

If someone wants to use our assets we would like them to become part of the team instead. We have a history of giving a wide berth to modders who come to us and wants to work together with us on their own pet projects, and they enjoy substantial freedom in the framework of the Silgrad Tower team. Not to mention access to helpful team members whom holds expertise in a wide area of the realm of modding, and whom all work towards the same goal. That's what is so great about being in a team, there's always someone there who knows more than you do about something who can help you out when you get stuck, and you may know more about something than he does, and so everyone has a good time and gets to see their creative dreams fulfilled in our massive, sprawling lands. The writer of this very readme was in the same place a few years ago as any new modder in the team is. I'm still here, and having more fun than ever. Give our team a chance and I'm sure it will grow on you the same way it has on me.


Internal credits
The Core team, honorary members and everyone who participated.
Razorwing, TheImperialDragon and SACarrow for their models.
Razorwing for hosting Silgrad Tower on Silgrad.com.


External credits
Mr Siika for his resource packs e.g. cliffs, seagulls, chickens and fishing boat.
Kafeid for the Elegant Vests resource.
someone1074 for the capes & cloaks resource.
Ghogiel for the Bonemold armor, as well as Cryo and Shmbling_Horde for their Bonemold helmets.
Grimdeath, B3w4r3, Martigen, Syko Fox, Cryo, Mdogger, Xmarksthespot, Cryonaut, Orix, Renzeekin, and Grimenir for their Lore Creatures Expansion pack.
Prometheus for the statue set 'Prom' some of which adorn the Forgotten Garden.
Phitt for his help in greatly improving the FPS issue in the Forgotten Garden 2.0 beta release. Phitt for his Dwemer and Daedric tileset.
Ibsen's Ghost for his extensive voice-work.

Please check this link for a full and up-to-date list of credits.
If you're not on the list please contact us and we'll add you to the credits.

Special thanks to Koniption for her work on the lift, the Dres Scuttler the jellyfish; nick_op for his technical work on the LCE creatures and farm animals, and for animating the seagulls; and The Modax Jago for his work on the mesh and texture for the Kwama forager as well as nick_op for his skeleton, rigging, animations and SACarrow for his sounds and getting textures for two different UV maps working together as one on the Kwama forager. We would also like to thank Bethesda for making Oblivion, the makers and contributors of TES4Gecko for providing the ultimate modding tool, the makers of TES4Edit, TES4Files, and the makers of NifSkope for creating the perfect application for NIF-related work.


Contact
If you have questions regarding our mod, please post them on our forum and a team member will answer you promptly.


Most of all, we hope you enjoy the mod!

[sandor]

Updated the OP (new mirror).

[sandor]

I updated the OP (first link).

The esm/esp pair has been updated (new version) fixing a voiced dialogue issue. :check:

[AnImpatientFan]

I added a mirror for the fixed version. :check:

[sandor]

There is an issue with collision boxes around the Forgotten Garden which has been solved for the main (normal) esm, however the fix for the load independent esm/esp pair is more complicated. It's on my to do list.

For the time being, please use fast travel or coc.

[Casey]

Would you guys like an additional mirror from my website, http://www.caseymongillo.com ? I have no problem hosting all of them, without the Megaupload waiting times and ads =P

[AnImpatientFan]

Originally posted by Casey
Would you guys like an additional mirror from my website, http://www.caseymongillo.com ? I have no problem hosting all of them, without the Megaupload waiting times and ads =P

We will discuss it internally.
Thankyou for your offer though.

EDIT: I had a look... you did voice acting for Read Dead Redemption and TESIV... :worship:

[Casey]

... and Silgrad Tower

[AnImpatientFan]

Originally posted by Casey
... and Silgrad Tower

Yes, sure.
But that's not voice acting for a Tripe-A game title now is it...

[Casey]

Hey, it's a kick-ass mod! I'm stoked to be a part of it, just like any other game I work on, haha.