[RELz] Open Cities Reborn

[Arthmoor]

Open Cities Reborn takes the concept of Open Cities and steps it up to the next level. The project redesigns each city covered by the original Open Cities in such a way that would make more sense strategically. The castles become a more central focus of each city's layout, with housing, commerce, and the cathedrals spread out around them in more distinct ways. When possible, concept art provided by Bethesda was followed as closely as space restrictions would allow. Where none was provided or where it was not practical to follow, creative license was used instead. City walls in several cities have been modified to suit the location. For example, Bruma now uses wooden palisades, Cheydinhal has lower brick walls that reflect Dunmer influence, and the city part of Bravil has no walls at all instead relying on their island nature. This has the added bonus that each city is now more visible as you approach. Rather than large imposing walls that block the entire view, you can see buildings on the other side along with most of the trees and bushes.

To avoid any serious compatibility issues, and because lore calls for it to remain fortified, Kvatch is not touched in any way.

The Imperial City will also remain in the layout it now has since strategically speaking, it's already built the way it should be. Although there is room in the concept art for some somewhat radical adjustments to be made. That may or may not come at a later time.
 
Open Cities: New Sheoth
 
"Cat's out of the bag! Why do people put cats in bags? Cats hate bags." - Lord Sheogorath

Continuing in the tradition, if it could be called that, of Open Cities, I bring you Open Cities: New Sheoth. The first, last, best, and worst, Open Cities mod for the Shivering Isles. Madness has never been so much fun!

The twin cities of Bliss and Crucible have been transferred from their own individual worldspaces out into the SEWorld worldspace, which is SI's equivalent of being in the Tamriel worldspace. Though it may seem somewhat silly given the small size of both cities, the results are still pretty good. Everything blends in with the immediate surroundings of the cities so if you didn't know any better.....

As with other Open Cities mods I feel this adds greater realism to the cities by not having to transition from one outdoor worldspace into another. It may seem silly but give it a shot. It really does enhance the gameplay by quite a bit.

I would like to give a big thank you shout out to Sjors_Boomscors, without him this project would have died on the table a long time ago without every really having a chance. It was because of his help in getting some critical model work done that I was able to proceed even after he moved on to other things.

The New Sheoth module obviously requires Shivering Isles.

Since New Sheoth is a fortified city on purpose, it will remain intact as-is and is only being included here for convenience.

My Patreon Page: https://www.patreon.com/arthmoor

Downloads

AFK Mods
TES Alliance

For those who want accurate maps:
Dynamic Map has a correct overlay for Leyawiin, and will soon have one for Anvil as well.
Elven Map Compilations includes the correct Leyawiin.

Screenshots are available at Nexus. 30 links is a bit much to muster up

To get the most out of these changes, it is highly recommended to download Animated Window Lighting System and Chimneys. This is the evolution of Texian's Window Lighting System and is fully compatible with Open Cities Reborn.

To go with that, and provide LOD for all the new goodies, I also recommend: Really AEVWD. Just be aware that there's a bit of a performance hit in activating all the extra LOD that Open Cities will provide that's directly proportional to the power of your PC, and how many other mods you have installed.

Installation Requirements

Official Oblivion patch version 1.2.406.
Shivering Isles patch 1.2.0.416 required for the New Sheoth module.
Bartholm 7.0+ is required to use the open cities version of that city.
Blood & Mud is required for the open version of Ryan's Blood & Mud.

The Quick Install

Ok, for those of you who want to just jump right in, Open Cities Reborn is packaged as a BAIN archive for easy setup. That was probably somewhat obvious though

First: Make sure BAIN is set to allow OBSE plugins to be installed. You will need to be using Bash 291 or higher for this. Right click the "Package" column header, then find "Enable installation of OBSE plugins" and make sure it's checkmarked.

00 Core - All files here are required. This folder contains the necessary OBSE plugin file as well.

01 Blood & Mud Version - Use this if you wish to alter Bravil to fit in with the Blood & Mud version. This requires Ryan's Blood & Mud in order to work.

Pick only one file from the 01 folders. Do not use them both!

10 Outer Districts - If you want the Prison and Arcane University opened as well, install this folder's contents.

20 New Sheoth - If you have Shivering Isles, this will turn Bliss and Crucible into open cities.

30 Bartholm - If you have J.Sera's Bartholm 7.0+, you can elect to have the city opened with this.

Landscape LOD compatibility:

Pick one of the combinations in the 40 folders based on which combinations of mods you're using. If you don't have any of the specified mods, do not use the 40 folders.

Pick another one of the combinations in the 50 folders based on the combination of mods you're using. If you don't have any of them installed, do not use anything from the 50 folders.

Activate the rest of the files and you're off and running.

For those of you who want a bit more detail for installations, or prefer manually installing, read on:

Installation - Switching From Open Cities Classic

You will need to first remove *ALL* files associated with Open Cities Classic in order to use these new layouts and perform a clean save, including the ESM file. It does not matter which version of OCC you are using, failure to follow this procedure properly will result in major anomalies. If I hear about seeing braziers where guards are trying to stand, and tales of Ayleid ruin towers where a building should be, I'll know you didn't do this right.

The procedure is as follows:

* Load your game, and move to a location away from any of the cities. Don't use an interior attached to a city for this. Save and exit the game.
* Deactivate any patches you installed for other mods first. Load your game, then save in a new slot and exit the game.
* Remove the patch ESPs from your Data folder. Keep them somewhere safe if you want, but they need to be out of the way.
* Deactivate the city plugins, and the ESM file. Load the save you just made and save again in another new slot.
* Uninstall Open Cities Classic from the game, either manually or by using BAIN. Make sure the plugin files are gone once you do this.
* Rebuild your Bashed Patch if you have one, as it is possible it may have pulled records from the plugins.

Once you've done that, proceed with normal installation as outlined below.

Installation - New or Existing Game, First Time User

Main Components:

* As a precaution, backup your saved games. You never know.
* Unpack the files from the archive into a new folder. Don't just blindly dump into your Data folder. It won't work.
* Just in case, if installing to an existing save, make sure you are not standing outdoors in a city.
* Copy everything from the "00 Core" folder into your Data folder now.
* Copy one of the ESPs from a 01 folder, but DO NOT USE BOTH.

LOD Compatibility:

There are 7 folders that start with "40". The naming on these should be self explanatory. Choose the LOD files that match most closely with the mods you are currently using.
This is not strictly necessary but landscape LOD will look wrong if you don't use one.

There are also 7 more folders that start with "50". The naming on these should be self explanatory. Choose the LOD files that match most closely with the mods you are currently using.
This is not strictly necessary but landscape LOD will look wrong if you don't use one.

Optional Components:

* If you want the IC Outer Districts, you need to copy everything from the "10 Outter Districts" folder into your Data folder now.
* If you want New Sheoth, copy everything from the "20 New Sheoth" folder into your Data folder now.
* If you want Bartholm to be open, copy the ESP file from the "30 Bartholm" folder into your Data folder now. Make sure you already have Bartholm 7.0 installed first.

At this point you should be ready to activate the plugins. You should consult the load order section for tips, or just use BOSS to take care of that for you.

* Install any needed compatibility patches.
* Rebuild your Bashed Patch if you have one. It's possible it may need to pull records from the plugins you're using now.

When you get done, it is highly recommended that you update your LOD using tes4lodgen if you are using RAEVWD so that the rearranged city layouts will be correct from a distance.

Once the game loads, you need to allow 24 game hours to pass for AI to fully update in each city.

Once the main mod is settled, you need to upgrade any patches you are using for other mods.
 

Uninstalling Open Cities Reborn

Oh, now why would you want to go and do a thing like that?

But, since this isn't going to be for everyone, and you may decide you don't like what it does, the following procedure needs to be followed to remove the mod:

* Load your game, and move to a location away from any of the cities. Don't use an interior attached to a city for this. Save and exit the game.
* Deactivate any patches you installed for other mods first. Load your game, then save in a new slot and exit the game.
* Remove the patch ESPs from your Data folder.
* Deactivate the city plugins, and the ESM file. Load the save you just made and save again in another new slot.
* Uninstall Open Cities Reborn from the game, either manually or by using BAIN. Make sure the plugin files are gone once you do this.
* Rebuild your Bashed Patch if you have one, as it is possible it may have pulled records from the plugins.
* Regenerate your LOD so the proper visuals are restored.

You will need to allow 24 game hours to pass for AI to recover.

Load Order

Open Cities Reborn is stable and has given plenty of people trouble-free play. But it is still wise and proper to observe some load order placement to get the best experience possible out of it, as well as avoiding any potential conflicts that might result in crashes.

I would strongly recommend the use of LOOT to manage your load order. All of the Open Cities Reborn files and patches should be supported by the current version. If you prefer to manage by hand, read on

First off, it's best if the cities you're going to use are all set to load late in your order. The later the better, but it's not always possible ( or best ) to load right before your bashed patch if you have one. The main reason for this is because OCR makes major alterations to both landscape and path grids. Both of these types of records are winner-take-all, and anything loading later that alters the same records will severely distort your pretty new cities. Or send your NPCs to their deaths. Neither of which is fun.

Weather mods such as All Natural, Natural Interiors, Weather Inside, or any other mod altering interior cell climate/weather behavior need to be tagged with an appropriate Wrye Bash tag and the data imported into your Bashed Patch. This is usually accomplished with the C.Climate tag. If in doubt, ask. Someone should be able to provide an answer. Manually moving files like this too far down in your load order can cause other unrelated problems to occur.

Open Cities Reborn should load *AFTER* any of the Unique Landscapes mods. Landscaping and path grids near the cities will need to take priority. If conflicts such as land tears remain, these will need to be corrected with ESP patches. Please report any such conditions with a full accounting of your load order so they can be investigated.

Open Cities Reborn needs to load after Knights of the Nine, and any patches affecting it such as the UODP and SM Plugins Refurbished.

Strictly speaking, overhauls such as OOO, MMM, Frans, and by extension FCOM should not be load order dependent with Open Cities Reborn. Usually these overhauls will load well before Open Cities Reborn anyway due to their own requirements.

Open Cities Reborn should be loaded after any mods which make changes to the following quests:

Nocturnal's daedric artifact quest.
Dark Brotherhood quest "A Knife in the Dark"
Dark Brotherhood quest "Affairs of a Wizard"
Dark Brotherhood quest "A Kiss Before Dying"
Dark Brotherhood quest "Following a Lead"
Dark Brotherhood quest "Whispers of Death"
Mages Guild quest "A Plot Revealed"
Main Quest "Defense of Bruma"
Side quest "Caught in the Hunt"
Side quest "A Brotherhood Betrayed"
Side quest "A Brush with Death"
Side quest "Paranoia"
Thieves Guild quest "Lost Histories"

The reason for this is because these quests have targets within the cities that needed to be changed or they would be pointing to the wrong worldspaces, leading to confusion even though the quests themselves would not be broken.

Credits

Texian & Godhugh for the original groundwork on the Open Cities mods. A hell of a lot of work went into that and I've only built upon it.
Sjors Boomscors for providing optimized and corrected meshes for the Outer Districts module.
Ryan, for allowing an open version of Bravil Blood & Mud to be created.
J. Sera for allowing me to produce an Open Cities extension for Bartholm.
Fearrabbit for providing the retexture and LOD for the new lighthouse in Leyawiin. (https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/18575)
Vorians and Ismelda for being cooperative on sharing compatibility tricks we can both use in each other's mods.
Firespark for the flags flying over each city's castle. (https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/29047)
Ceano and AxlRocks for the clean version of the Ayleid statue in Chorrol. (https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/28132)
Vacuity - various leaf generators used in cities. (https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/35590)
Da Mage and throttlekitty, the water mesh used in the fountain in Chorrol. (https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/18905)
Mr. Siika, for the pigs used in Chorrol. (https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/14265)
Hanaisse, for the new wall set in Chorrol.
Liu Pingguo, for the apple trees in Chorrol.
Phitt - Dagon Fel wall models and textures used in Cheydinhal. From the Sheogorad mod. Check it out, well worth it! (https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/37329)
Spoons aka Trizt - Gallows model. (https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/14563)
Sigurd Stormhand - Castleworks - Gates & Bridges. With minor alterations in the meshes for texture paths.

Open Cities users everywhere, for being patient enough to put up with my bumbling efforts to get things right. Maybe one day I finally will

Disclaimer

This mod is not made, guaranteed, or supported by Microsoft, Zenimax, Bethesda Game Studios, or any of their affiliates.

Troubleshooting Problems

If you have a problem with an Open Cities mod and wish to report it, I'd appreciate as much information as possible, preferably in the form of a screenshot with console data showing if it's something that can be screened. The FormID of the affected object would help greatly to narrow down any problems that might result. Post this information along with your load order. Reports with less than detailed information may result in delays in getting it fixed, or result in being ignored entirely. It helps everyone to provide details. I am especially interested in verifiable conflicts, as I wish for Open Cities to be as conflict-free as is humanly possible given the circumstances. If the situation requires a patch, I can only work something out if I know what to look for.

I have Knights of the Nine but I can't find the Prophet!

He's there, just not where he should be. You need the patch for Knights of the Nine.

I loaded the game while near a city gate and saw it vanish in front of me, what's wrong?

Nothing. This is expected. With OCR 0.8.1 and higher, the OBSE plugin that comes with the mod will move the doors to the cities out of position each time the game is loaded. This was done to get around an engine bug which has plagued Open Cities for ages. Doors would get moved, then snap back if you reloaded without exiting to the desktop first. That should no longer happen, but as a consequence, if you saved within visual range of one of the vanilla city load doors, you will see it disappear very shortly after the game loads and the scripts have had a chance to kick in.

Ok, but I tried to walk past where the door was and something invisible is blocking me now.

This is also normal and expected, and unfortunately a side effect of the method being used to suppress the doors now. You'll need to leave the area and get far enough away for that gate to switch out to LOD view instead of close up, or enter a nearby interior and exit again. Then you'll be able to return and the obstruction will be gone. Cities are usually large enough that you should be able to use another gate instead if you REALLY don't want to leave the area. Also, not every city in OCR has gates that will obstruct your path, you might simply be able to go around it and continue on your way.

There is a second chapel and cloister in Anvil hovering over the water.

Update the Unofficial Oblivion Patch to version 3.41 or above.

The game crashes while doing character generation.

Update "Knights - Unofficial Patch.esp" with the new version from the Unofficial Oblivion DLC Patches v16 or above.

There is a floating rock next to the Anvil Castle bridge.

It belongs to the Thieves' Den DLC. Update your "DLCThievesDen - Unofficial Patch.esp" with the new version from the UODP v16 or above.

But there are MORE ROCKS floating there!!!

You probably use TIE. Update to version 1.36 or higher to resolve the rest of the rogue rocks and other items in the harbor.

TIE NPCs are not visiting the cities.

Update to TIE 1.36 or higher.

Tamriel Travelers NPCs don't visit the cities.

AI support in TT is pending an update from Corepc. In the meantime, the NPCs will be unavailable on the days they should be visiting the cities. They resume their normal schedules in the wilderness afterward.

In "Big Business", Bauggi goes to Anvil and then vanishes.

He has an AI pack set to send him to Anvil, possibly just for the realism effect. He does nothing once there though, so fixing it isn't important. Just wait for him to come back out and return to your farm.

Locations of AI Doors

The AI doors are entry ways into the closed wordspaces should it become necessary. Not everything that is placed in a city by a mod is worth the time it takes to create a patch. Mods that drop items for a one-time pickup are a good example of this. It's much easier to just go through the door, get what you need, then exit the city as normal.

Anvil: Next to the abandoned house in the southeast corner of the city.
Bravil: In the garden area immediately outside the castle in the NW corner.
Bruma: A small snow rock in the castle courtyard area, in the northeast corner.
Cheydinhal: In the castle area between the well and the guard barracks tower, along the wall.
Chorrol: On the back side of the castle, directly south of the guard tower.
Leyawiin: In the castle area, along the wall near the guard barracks.
Skingrad: Near the horse statue on the north side, between the red tree and the archery targets.
SKingrad Castle Courtyard: Tucked against the wall immediately to the right as you come through the gate.
New Sheoth - Bliss: Small rock cluster next to the entry to Sheogorath's Palace, right in front of the barrel.
New Sheoth - Crucible: At the bottom of the stairs to the palace, on the ledge next to the sewer grate.
Bartholm: Along the south city wall, directly behind Rufus' house.
Arcane University: On the west side, along the wall, right across from the well.
Prison District: Also on the west side, next to the wall, to the left of the practice target.

Use of the AI doors to reach the closed worldspaces may present some problems with the differences in landscape height. Objectives may be buried or floating overhead. In cases like this, use the console to turn off collision long enough to get there.

Performance and FPS

Rumors continue to persist about Open Cities being an FPS killer. In and of itself, Open Cities will not represent a significant hit to your gaming performance. If you are playing the stock game, with stock graphics, go run around near the Imperial City, then around Chorrol. Measure the performance you get. Add Open Cities, and perform the same test again. The Imperial City will remain unchanged, and your trip around Chorrol will see a minimal impact of 3-5 frames. In other words, if your system is low end, it'll still feel low end after installing Open Cities. If you have a midrange to high end system, installing Open Cities will not be a noticeable drain on your resources.

The problem most people have is that they're not playing in a stock configuration. They load up a bunch of graphical enchancers ( guilty as charged! ) and a ton of graphically heavy mods, all at the same time. So suddenly trips around the Imperial City are a bit sluggish, and that trip around Chorrol is bogging things down. In the process of adding mods, they not only activated huge memory sinks like QTP3, but also activated a large set of LOD mods, FCOM, 18 quest mods, a lighting overhaul, a weather overhaul, and higher quality sound files. So when the game slows down, it takes all of two seconds of "OC is an FPS killer" and people believe it, because, by coincidence, removing it results in what they think is smoother play. However, removing any one of the other elements would have done the same. Bog the system down with enough stuff, it will buckle. There are tradeoffs to be had. I am aware of how this may sound, but in the grand scheme of things, Open Cities is not the FPS killer everyone says it is. Do yourself a favor and be objective enough to try it first and see for yourself before believing some random forum poster. The vast majority of the negative attention was from 2006. We're entering 2009. The mod has been trimmed and polished a lot since then. Systems have also evolved considerably at the same time.

That said, there may be some additional load placed on your game if you install the new Outer Districts module. Sjors has provided me with some updated collision optimized meshes to use for the large walls and towers that enclose the two districts. Without them, there was significant lag while in the Arcane University and slight lag while in the Prison. After the optimized meshes were installed and tested, the lag is all but gone and it's about as smooth for me as it is to be in the closed versions of these districts. That does not mean however that your experience will be the same. These districts are made up of large high detail meshes. A low end machine struggling with the Imperial City in general is going to have trouble here as well. Midrange PCs may see some significant additional lag. Higher end PCs should notice little if any difference, but this will depend greatly on both your CPU and GPU. Visible images tax the GPU. Collision meshes tax the CPU due to the Havok physics involved. Be prepared for some tradeoffs. The Imperial City has always been and will likely continue to be a resource hog whether or not you fling them open to the world.

[Arthmoor]

So I've moved the Fighters Guild to somewhere with more space. They have 3 archery targets there now instead of two, a pair of outdoor practice dummies, a pen with tame boars, and another cage with tame wolves. The function of which I'm leaving up to the player's imagination, for the purposes of OCR it's decorative. There are also now several plots of crops in the northwest, along with a good sized sheep pen. All sounds wonderful, yes?

Well, here's the problem. Now that the FG is no longer located in the upper class quarter, there's a hole that needs filling there. Another upper class something is all that makes sense, but that means using a duplicate structure. There was even space enough to give the Mages Guild a small plot for their stock of Oblivion plants. Plus, there's STILL at least one full cell of empty unused space between the back of the FG and the edge of the farming area. That's an awful lot of space to leave neglected. Apparently Chorrol is way larger than it ever needed to be. I've even got the two patch buildings still on the map to reserve their space.

The 1,000 word picture.

There's got to be something more that could go there that isn't too outlandish? Surely filling it in with rocks and trees would be lame? That's about all I can come up with right now. Perhaps go with the cow and pig pens to fill in some more? I'm trying to be mindful of the fact that extra stuff will impact performance if it gets out of hand.

[Hana]

Hmm, it all looks good placement-wise, except for one thing. This is just my opinion though.The chapel looks out of place somehow. If it was maybe turned 90 degrees and facing toward the castle and the city it might make more sense to me rather than having to turn down a street to enter it. You could then move the graveyard beside it (pretty much where the back of the chapel is now) and fill in the NW corner with your farms and such.That'll cover up half the open space in the SW corner. You could always push the FG back into the corner. And a fountain would be pretty up in the upper class space.

[Conner]

I agree that everything you've got there looks pretty good, but I'm not sure what to suggest for the upper class hole, I like Hana's suggestions except that I thought there was already a fountain in the center of that cul-de-sac, if not, then Hana's suggestion for that one certainly sounds good too.

[Hana]

Just a curious question because I know how much you love Immersive Interiors.Who will be making an OCR version? You or SomeWelshGuy?(That's one of the reasons I haven't bothered with it yet, I know the view doesn't fit my world)

[Arthmoor]

I've already had it suggested that moving Motierre's house over to the empty spot would work, leaving the empty space that forms behind the castle. Strategic sense and all.

 

Someone suggested a Kvatch refugee area, which sounds like a nifty idea, but obviously only after the player gets that quest started officially.

 

I suppose I can turn the chapel, it just seemed out of place to me when I did that initially, but who knows, things developed elsewhere since then and it might work better. It would also allow moving that house next to it somewhere else and allow it to help fill in space better rather than being awkward where it's at now. The graveyard isn't moving though. It'll be fine where it's at, and maybe even suggest that the caretaker lives in the house that would fit between it and the chapel.

 

A fountain would be nice, but vanilla hasn't got one, and I've never seen a decent one outside of SI, and I don't want OCR becoming SI-dependent outside of OCNS. Besides, Conner correctly points out the city has one. The big statue in the market area. According to one of the in-game lore books, that's a fountain. So I stuffed a water circle in it and called it a day.

 

As for an OCR patch for Immersive Interiors, SomeWelshGuy says he'll do it when the main mod is done. Give him time, he'll get it. He's working on Cheydinhal now. It would be nice of course to have OCR Cheydinhal done and waiting, but I need wall resources and so far nothing is forthcoming. I think it would be supremely lame to oversize the normal stone wall bits and use those with a recycled texture, but hey, if no other option presents itself. Unless I can get Phitt to let me use his walls from Sheogorad. The Dagon Fel walls would be perfect.

[Conner]

Ooo, I got one right! :biggrin:Sounds like you've found your solutions already and they sound like good ones to me, particularly the caretaker's shack/home in the extra space adjacent to the graveyard and the refugee camp once that quest has begun.

[Hana]

Well, it's not really a fountain Just a giant bird bath. A fountain would be like Talos Plaza with LtPD. But if you've filled that area, that's fair enough.And what about those of us who have finished the Kvatch quest? Will those people/houses (tents?) still remain? Would that make sense? I like the idea of the caretaker having a small house by the chapel.

[Arthmoor]

The refugee camp would enable itself at any point after the Kvatch siege quest is done. I'll probably stage check it at the point where you're inside the chapel so that you won't be in Chorrol when it comes up. I'd send a few to Anvil too if I'd left the space for such a thing to happen.

 

What else would I do with them? As far as game lore is concerned, Kvatch is burnt and gone so there's no reason for anyone to want to go back.

[Hana]

Well, I kinda meant, at the beginning they'd be pretty much refugees, in tents with next to nothing. It's not like they would have houses right away but maybe later they would and basically be Chorrol citizens from then on. Is that something you could do with stage check?

[Arthmoor]

Sure, that could be done. Not a bad idea really, but it means some rearranging would be needed so that when/if they become houses they'd blend in better than sticking out like sore thumbs in the SW corner of the city. The lowerclass area would probably be most fitting, and still has space enough to be tweaked with the chapel rotated into a better spot.

[Conner]

That'd be pretty cool, but unless we're talking some serious shantytown residences, it's going to take a long time to transform from tents and other temporary shelters to actual houses just from the construction time factor. We are talking hand built after all.

[Dwip]

A couple brief typing-on-Sarah's-annoying-laptop thoughts:- The word Chorrol somewhere near the top of that first post on Chorrol might have helped. Just saying.- Me, I'd stick another house in that hole in the upper class area, but that's just me. Alternately, some kind of formal garden ala Weye, just for kicks.- Depending on how you move the chapel, you could probably stick in one of those not-really-a-cloister columned things like in Anvil. Those are cool.- On the Kvatch refugees thing, if you're working with the actual real refugees from the camp, Kvatch Rebuilt will get angry with you, remember. Too, this seems like more of an idea for Skingrad than Chorrol, which is kind of a slog for refugees unless you do the west roads thing. OTOH, it is a cool idea. And I don't know that I have a better one.Unlike touchpads. Touchpads are not a cool idea.

[Conner]

Oh, are you back in DC again or is Sarah back in your area? (Sorry, not really my business, just curious)"one of those not-really-a-cloister columned things like in Anvil" ?? :huh:I would think that there were enough refugees from Kvatch that they might not have all assailed the same town begging for refuge anyway, no?No, touchpads are a really cool concept, they just don't work out to be nearly as cool in practice. (Have you had the pleasure of using one on your phone yet, makes the one on laptops seem tame...) :headbang:

[Dwip]

Yeah, in DC again for the weekend. Apparently forgot to say anything to anyone.Cloisters - you know that thing with the columns on the other side of the street from the chapel in Anvil?Refugees - Yeah, but Anvil and Skingrad are a lot less of a pain to get to.Touchpads - I guess I'll be finding out about the phone thing RSN, and more on that later, but no, laptop touchpads are the devil.

[Arthmoor]

Anvil and Skingrad also don't have space to hold them within the city. Chorrol does, and it's basically what I have to work with at this point. No space for a cloister either, that's going to get swallowed up by the refugee camp. Good thing you guys made that nice new tent model so I don't need to futz with interiors on tents, just on any potential houses the new folks end up with.

 

I wasn't really planning to move the vanilla guys from Kvatch proper into Chorrol. Since when does Bethesda get to monopolize how many survivors there were and where they all went?

[Conner]

@Dwip:

 

Well, I guess that explains how quiet you've been the last day or two. It's made it considerably easier to pull back ahead on post count.

 

Do say "Hi" to Sarah for us.

 

Hmm, it's been awhile, I may have to go visit Anvil to refresh my memory, though I'm sure Samson needs no such effort to know just what you're talking about.

 

Hmm, now that's a consideration. If we were talking real life real world, it'd be quite plausible for the leader of either of those cities to have instructed the guards once (s)he'd heard how severe the problem in Kvatch was and had an idea how many refugees were on the way to turn away further refugees after X had passed the gates because of space and resource limitations (particularly foodstuffs), but in game lore, I have no idea what we're looking at here. If that were the case, then when you went to visit either of those cities (particularly the first time) the guards would likely want to know what you business was, how long you intended to stay, and whence you came before they'd admit you.

 

Regarding touchpads, I've had a Blackberry Storm II now for about a year (plus a month) and it's taken a long while to get used to the touchscreen interface and I still find it annoying at times, but it really is quite amazing what all it's capable of compared to most of the phones I had before it.

 

@Samson:

 

See, that's what I was thinking, space issues. On the other hand, like I said, for a city facing overcrowding conditions, the guards in both of those cities were rather non-challenging about new visitors...

 

Well, I'd imagine the lore would at least indicate how populace the city of Kvatch was prior to the invasion, but... yeah, where they all went to after would be dictated by a variety of conditions. Did this group have friends or relatives in a place the bulk of the group wasn't heading? Did someone already have business elsewhere anyway? Was word coming from further up the crowd that such and such a likely destination was turning away further refugees due to space restrictions? and so on.

 

On an unrelated note, Samson, might I offer the suggestion that QSFP needs to display the last few posts when editing a post in case there's something you're responding to or trying to quote from a post or post edit...

[Arthmoor]

Alright. Assuming nothing more comes along, I give you the 3rd and final (hopefully) layout:
 

 
Dogwood trees are playing standin roles for the eventual placement of apple trees in the SW corner. Since Bethesda was not kind enough to use the real apple trees Speedtree provides (yes, their library version DOES have them) these will do until such time as a suitable tree model is found.

The Kvatch refugees are in the spot north of the chapel. The tents will phase in after the player arrives to break the siege. The houses will come later, after I figure out a good spot in the progression to switch over to those.

Yes, since nobody commented, that IS a clean looking Ayleid statue in the upper class area. I like the result, so it'll be staying. The big muddy patch on the west wall is for the pigs. They were less hassle to deal with than cows and still provides some more sources for all the ham in the world.

So now it's on to interiors for the eventual refugee houses and then the oh so boring task of adjusting the north markers everywhere. I wonder if I should also update the Guide to Chorrol book

@Conner: According to the game lore, everyone in Kvatch is dead except for the group on the road at the bottom where they become a perpetual survivor's camp. My Vergayun village already broke that mold by having a Kvatch guard who fled the city during the attack who shows up there and is taken in by the locals. I see no reason why other scattered groups of people couldn't also have fled, and as I said, if I had space enough I'd probably drop a few more tents at least in Anvil and Skingrad. Actually, Anvil may have some space with some judicious rock shuffling. We'll see. Skingrad is rather cramped though, unless I use the road in between sections to slide a few in. Hmmm....

[Hana]

I'm digging it. Apple trees would be awesome, especially if you can eat the apples. The chapel looks much better turned now

[Conner]

I'm with Hana, that looks great.

 

As for lore discrepancies about the refugees/survivors, the small group that was on the road at the foot of the climb to Kvatch can't be all the survivors, after you meet them and close the rift, you go on to meet a bunch more who were taking refuge in the chapel, it's only logical that others must've escaped in the confusion as well.

[Dwip]

What they said. Turned chapel is WAY better, although I might have shifted it down a bit so it isn't running into that tower.

 

Also, since I can't tell if you sidewalked the area in front of the chapel steps or not, if you didn't, consider widening the street to let the entire front of the steps area be on street level instead of grass. Probably look better.

 

I'm going to have to start banning you from Ayleid statues.

 

Otherwise cool.

[Arthmoor]

But I like Ayleid statues. If the game came with more cool statues like that I wouldn't need to use those so much.

 

Ah yes, see, you caught the fact that I forgot to add the shrubs in front of the chapel. Yes, the sidewalks are gone there. Only place they remain is the upper class quarter. I can't really move the chapel south any further because there's a slope between it and the middle class quarter.

[Conner]

I take it then that the shrubs are being added as we speak?

[Arthmoor]

Yes, the shrubs are in now, and so is Hana's apple tree: http://img574.imageshack.us/img574/5131/appleorchard.jpg

[Conner]

Very nice apple orchard, even if it's a bit smallish for an orchard. Can one pick and eat the fruits directly off the trees? And, if you pick the apples, how long does it take before they grow back?