Giskard and False Accusations

[Sigurð Stormhand]

Sorry Dallen, not buying it. Castles take 20-40 years to build properly, I would be surprised if it was even rebuilt by Titus Meade's Empire, why bother after all? the answer to that is that it would be a headache to leave it abandoned because bandits would probably move in, best strategic solution would be a legion fortress. As to Dagon, well he was after Martin, wasn't he. As an unrelated aside, was anyone else dissapointed with the other castle's sameness after Kvatch's individuality?

[Arthmoor]

I was sorely disappointed with every city's sameness, as I'm sure observers of OC Reborn can attest :) Though that doesn't really address the castles, just the cities themselves. Skingrad was the only one we got that was truly as individualistic as Kvatch. Even though I despise trying to work with Skingrad castle pieces.

[Dallen68]

i was kinda disappointed w/ the sameness.

[Dallen68]

BTW, the thing between Sigurd and me is a perfect example of an "honest disagreement". See how we don't have to troll each other, or flame each other, or call each other liars?

[Conner]

:lol: Well, trying to catch up after a day of heavy posting on here usually means a really long post from me, but this time I can't really see what I can productively add to this day's exchanges, it's all been covered well from both sides.

[Hana]

@Dallen; 1. You need to register and log in properly :P 2. You took away most of the fun without the flaming/trolling! :lol: 3. You should see Samson and Dwip go at it. Epic. And yes, we're quite aware of Samson's distaste for the sameness of cities/castles/walls/etc. Personally, I think every city has it's own little uniqueness.

[Dallen68]

@hanaisse 1. I "did" and i never got my confirmation e-mail 2.That's not my fault 3.Huh?

[Conner]

@Dallen: 1. Gratz, hopefully it'll show up soon then. (You did check your spam folder for it too, right?) 2. :chuckle: 3. You just haven't been here long enough yet nor participated in the right threads. Eventually you'll see it though, I'm sure. ;)

[Orisha]

Castles in Oblivion are really more like dungeons, they have no windows and the interiors bear no relationship to the exterior world. The real shame is it could all have been done so much better, if they'd just put spral staircases in the corner towers and used the massive headroom in most of the castles that is just ignored. Morrowind was a lot better in that regard, though still less than perfect.

[Sigurð Stormhand]

Arg! wasn't signed in again.

[Vorians]

[quote=Sigurd]Also, I believe he but mines inside the walls of Chorrol, which makes no sense because A: you shouldn't do that sort of thing really and B: I thought the point was all (most) of the Cyrorylic mines were tapped out.[/quote] Well we'd been going to add a mine within the city walls of Chorrol in Better Cities, but didn't get around to it. Then CUO Chorrol came out with two mines of its own, and since Giskard has been claiming (lying) that we rip off his mods, that rather put me off adding our own mine in the city. [quote=Samson]I don't see how he could have had access to the necessary information from Infernal City 2 years before the book's release[/quote] He didn't. Giskard only started adding "4th era" content to his mods after the book [i]Infernal City[/i] was published. Only from OMG v7.0 did he add in this content relating to the book, and legalising necromancy.

[Orisha]

[quote=Vorians]Well we'd been going to add a mine within the city walls of Chorrol in Better Cities, but didn't get around to it. Then CUO Chorrol came out with two mines of its own, and since Giskard has been claiming (lying) that we rip off his mods, that rather put me off adding our own mine in the city. [/quote] There's a "Derelict" mine outside the city walls though, that tells me (coming from the South west) that whatever they were mining was no longer worth it. The problem, as has been noted, is that the seperate-world cities make the transition too concrete, inside a city isn't appropriate for a lot of things, but put it outside the walls and a lot of players might not see it as part of the city. Concerns like this are why nothing I am currently working on (some of which I should really finish) is anywhere near that complex.

[Dallen68]

The castles are kind of ... disappointing, but then I guess Beth figured you wouldn't be spending a lot of time there. :biggrin: The pubs and the houses (where you do spend some time), could have been better. I mean, yes there is a thing in all natural that you can turn on to have weather noises and that, and change the lighting. Only sometimes the weather inside isn't the weather outside. This happens when leaving/entering the cities to.

[Sigurð Stormhand]

[size=4]ARG!!![/size]

[Conner]

[quote=Sigurd, while in disguise as an anonymous poster,]The real shame is it could all have been done so much better, if they'd just put spral staircases in the corner towers and used the massive headroom in most of the castles that is just ignored. Morrowind was a lot better in that regard, though still less than perfect.[/quote] I agree that there were plenty of little easy things they could've done to significantly improve the castles, but having never played Morrowind, I've no point of reference for comparison. :shrug: [quote=Sigurd]Arg! wasn't signed in again.[/quote] I'm not sure what I'm doing differently than you, but I just stay signed in generally and only have to relogin once in a blue moon here. [quote=Vorians]Well we'd been going to add a mine within the city walls of Chorrol in Better Cities, but didn't get around to it. Then CUO Chorrol came out with two mines of its own, and since Giskard has been claiming (lying) that we rip off his mods, that rather put me off adding our own mine in the city.[/quote] Makes you wonder if someone had mentioned the notion to him from y'all's planning stages, especially in light of the fact that earlier we were reaching a consensus that he seems to do a lot of projecting of personal issues and such... [quote=While masquerading as some anonymous poster again, Sigurd]the seperate-world cities make the transition too concrete[/quote] Hence one of the advantages of Open Cities. On the other hand, I don't use OC myself because I don't mind the loading time to transition into/out of a city because it gives me a brief break in my game to light a cigarette or drink some more coffee. ;) [quote=Dallen]Only sometimes the weather inside isn't the weather outside. This happens when leaving/entering the cities to.[/quote] That's the flash storms that start just as you enter/leave the building/city, right? :lol:

[Dwip]

Because, he said, appearing at the mention of his name, there's just not enough [url=http://www.iguanadons.net/Read-the-Readmes-People-361.html#comment-5617]random architectural commentary[/url] that goes on on this blog. [url=http://www.iguanadons.net/Read-the-Readmes-People-361.html#comment-5836]not at all[/url]. Which is to say that my main problem with the castles isn't so much their style as the fact they're bloody well empty. With the exception of Skingrad, most of them could stand to have a bunch of nobles standing around Being At Court. Also, castle retextures are time consuming to an epic degree. One of these days, I should probably finish up and release that one I did, although where exactly you'd use priory stone for walls I have no idea.

[Dallen68]

[quote Dwip] Which is to say that my main problem with the castles isn't so much their style as the fact they're bloody well empty. With the exception of Skingrad, most of them could stand to have a bunch of nobles standing around Being At Court [/quote] Yea, they could. Most of them have a body guard, and that's about it. I mean the one in Chorral has a staff, but thats quest related, so it doesn't really count, does it?

[Dwip]

Actually they all seem to have a staff that I can recall, and usually 4-5 NPCs at that, it's just that you so very rarely see them. Gak. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'll want to sit down and write a mod to fix it. As if I didn't have enough going already.

[Conner]

One day Dwip will learn to just say no to new projects that he's already too swamped to undertake. :P On the other hand, I'd certainly agree that most of the castle's in-game could definitely benefit from having a court in session at least parts of the day/night and most of the year. But, if we're going to mod in that much realism, we'll also need to add the standard court intrigue and gossip and ... you know, while we're on the subject of things missing from castle's in the game.. I'll grant the roman models have dungeons/prisons, but the Nordic and medieval ones should probably have a head on a pike or two now and then when you visit, shouldn't they? Oh, and, Dallen, it's quote=name, the name can hav spaces or punctuation or what have you, but that equals sign is mandatory just like the brackets at either end of the tag itself. ;)

[Sigurð Stormhand]

I think the castles could do with a radical, and more logical redesign before anything else. I've actually done this with Battlehorn Castle, which is much easier because the Keep is a realistic size. That reminds me, I need to message someone about permissions and start a wipz thread (note to self, stop being lazy).

[Dwip]

I'm trying, but the problem is that I get the idea, tell myself no, then spend all night thinking it through because I don't really want to tackle the really hard scripting problem I have or whatever. Vicious cycle. So we'll see. If I did it, it would probably be more of a joint thing. And you're probably right, Sigurd, although for myself I've had enough of building cluttering and construction to last me a while. Since I was just pondering Battlehorn mods over in the other thread, however, I express interest in what you're doing.

[Conner]

@Sigurd: Maybe if the various castles in the game were each of a different size and general design the rest would have been easier for Bethesda to begin with (god only knows there were plenty of historical variations in castle design to fall back on), but at this point one has to work with what they've given us to work with. @Dwip: I hear you, I get the same way with certain things too. You try to not think about it and find yourself tossing in bed because the ideas just won't go away. Especially when you've got other projects that you're really trying to avoid facing anyway. :lol:

[Hana]

[quote=Dwip]I'm trying, but the problem is that I get the idea, tell myself no, then spend all night thinking it through because I don't really want to tackle the really hard scripting problem I have or whatever. Vicious cycle. [/quote] This....sounds..so familiar... (except the scripting part). On another note, there's really no point adding NPC's to stand around castles for no reason (not quest related). I'd rather only see guards if that was the case.

[Dwip]

Even just to add some flavor, huh? Be a pretty fertile atmosphere for a ton of mini-quests, though.

[Conner]

I have to disagree, Hanaisse. That's a bit like saying don't bother putting any NPCs in town who aren't shopkeeps or quest related because they're not useful anyway. Within the castle there should be regular folk doing regular court things just like there are regular folk in the towns/cities doing regular town/city things. Yes, it certainly would, Dwip.