Region Planning

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The map includes cell region changes in comparison to Seneca’s, so it’s not finished as of yet and awaiting feedback on that front. I didn’t pretty it up or update the legend because a few cell swaps were discussed on IRC yesterday and I don’t want to formalize it without running it through the forums and a meeting first.

I would agree with Mephalan Vales over Mephaliad, but as with everything YMMV. I think that was one of those that sort of happened.

Yad Orethan – what does it mean?

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Ald Orethan? Mephalod?

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I don’t mind Alt Orethan too much, because it’s been established that ‘Alt’ is an elvish word for ‘high’ or ‘cultured’ which makes sense for the region. I know the Dunmer & Altmer languages are very different, but I’d imagine that they’re related at least in the way Indo-European languages are, and I imagine the name for that region dates back to the time of the Chimer anyway. Anyway, I like the way the names sounds also.

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Atrayonis

Yad Orethan – what does it mean?

Whatever we want? Whether a name sounds cool is more important than it having some prexisting meaning in a fictional language.

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Right, so fresh off today‘s meeting:

Mephaliad => Mephalan Vales
Alt Orethan will keep its name.

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Basically Yad Orethan was deemed to not be much of a change. I’m personally unhappy with Alt Orethan/Lan Orethan – in general ___ Orethan names – but am not really in favour of dragging out discussion on those any longer, as at this point I doubt worthwhile alternatives will appear by forcing it, and it’s better to wait until a really good idea comes along and then whoever is really attached to changing the names (ie. me) can deal with the mess of doing so themselves.

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Guys, you can make your own mod to change region names if that’s so problematic for you, there are much more pressing things that need to be worked on and otherwise we’ll never get final names for anything because there’s always somebody who’s not completely satisfied.

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Well, finalizing the regions to a near-immutable degree is extremely important, for three reasons (aside from reevaluating the region characteristica, which was a bonus):

  1. The region initials are used in Tamriel_Data for flora and region-specific assets, and having to shift those around in the future will be massive, pointless work.
  2. This entire thing got started because Seneca wasn’t aware that we had an Uld Vraech version, since he went by the mod files and we had no planning map that actually reflected the mod (he was creating it at the time). Worsas at the same time thought we had deleted it because it was in Swiftoak’s maps. Conclusively, if it’s not in the files or undocumented, then we don’t know about it. Consensus is only good so long as the people who are agreeing are still around, and we just plain can’t rely on the lead people being around forever.
  3. Due to the compression, regions are microclimates with all that it entails.

So, I’d much rather squabble about it now than when it’s in the files. The time window for it is closing rapidly, since I plan on putting the new regions into TR1609 along with a shift to the new data structure.

Incidentally, the Old Ebonheart region is still around (for its unique sounds). I just noticed that I plastered it over, that was an oversight in the map, not intentional.

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The Redoran town of Soluthis should have its own micro-region, not unlike OE, preferably with all fog/overcast weather. The town is underneath the mountain, so we can’t have rain or snow there.

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Is that really a problem? MCP already has a patch for collission-detecting rain and snow, so it wouldn’t actually rain through the rock.
And OpenMW probably won’t have that issue anyway.

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Well, not everyone can/does play with the collision detection for rain and snow. I wouldn’t be opposed to having that be a distinct region just for weather.

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Yes, if there's a potential issue that we've created then we should be the ones addressing it. The micro-region is such an easy solution.

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Guys, as much as I love foggy weather in Morrowind, I would suggets trying to keep the probability of it to a near minimum. Fog is a very good atmosphere builder, but it does have the down-side of taking the player out of the world a bit, as subtle design characteristics and details are missed easily when it’s harder to see them than it should really be.

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I don’t agree with fixing a technical shortcoming of the Morrowind exe when better alternatives exist (and are, in fact, recommended for new players), but I see the reasoning so I’m inclined to keep it in.

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Unless I’m missing something, adding or removing microregions shouldn’t be an issue unless we create specific assets for that microregion, and I can’t see us creating all too many (or really any) unique assets for microregions. Not to mention that microregions are a lot easier to retroactively adjust anyway due to being so small.

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Alright, attached an ods with the old and new regions/region changes, as well as two images as preview.

Thoughts?

(Edit: noticed I have “Thirr Valley” in there by oversight– it’s of course going to be “Thirr Valley Region”)

AttachmentSizeDate
File regions.ods17.97 KB2016-08-10 20:52
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The first tabel says 100% snow in the red mountain region, why exactly? cheeky

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It’s actually “100% Blight”, but the numbers are right-aligned.

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Yeah, only just saw it cheeky, although it would be easier to read if there were lines seperating the numbers.

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Did we ever decide that “Salt Marsh” and “Mudflats” are actual region names?

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...you can just open the ods, you know.

And Salt Marsh and Mudflats were decided in, yes, by nobody disagreeing when they came up in that first meeting.

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I’m really glad none of our regions have the Blizzard weather option, those always annoy the heck out of me.

Maybe Uld Vraech shouldn’t have the Rain/Thunder at all, but only Snow, though? Like 30 chance of Snow (and the rest would be divided between Clear, Overcast, whathaveyou)? I think normal rain would appear a bit strange (strange as in “is the game bugging?”) in such a snowy region.

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ID/Name Clear Cloudy Foggy Overcast Rain Thunder Ash Blight Snow Blizzard
Uld Vraeth Region 25 20 5 20 0 0 0 0 30 0

Good point. Now that it’s actually a distinct region, it should have more distinct patterns. How about this?
 

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Well, that is just what we called them— it’s rather like naming a region “forest” though. It’s a type of landscape, not a regional name.

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I quite like the plain descriptive names as a balance to the more inventive placenames in other regions. The vanilla game also has this sort of balance with regions like Grazelands and Red Mountain. It also doesn’t preclude us having more ‘Dres-y’ names for the regions in dialogue, but some respite from alien-sounding names helps the regions stand out.

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Yeah, basically we went the Grazelands/Ashlands route with those two. Not precluding them from having a fancier name, but I don’t think they’re really show-stopper regions or should be; they all are mostly uninhabited, probably don’t have a rich history of permanent habitation either, and are mostly out-of-the-way wilderness type regions. Unassuming as Morrowind regions go, however nice they will hopefully end up looking and playing. I think straightforward names work for them.

As for the weather types, I’ll probably have to leave that for ‘tomorrow’.

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Ok, I’ve finally put together a list of suggested adjustments. I left out TR_Mainland as those regions look mostly fine, and any changes I would suggest (especially for Sundered Scar) would be with the distant rework in mind, and as such would probably better be left to later as well. I tried to orient the weather a bit on the vanilla regions, and included them in the list for comparison. Otherwise, I though I’d spare you all the long post this time and added notes to the table instead:

Edit: corrected a value.

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Seems well-reasoned to me, as usual.

I’ll give this a shot today and also move the topic to Implementation.

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All region data has been added to /claims/tamriel-data-1609.

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