Currently Teyn serves as a mirror to Vvardenfell's Seyda Neen. Charger, Vern, Cicero, and slepana argue that the town serves no narrative purpose not already fulfilled by Seyda Neen and that it provides a bad first impression of TR.
Concerns
- Why is there a C&E office in Teyn? There is one in OE already
- Seyda Neen should lead to larger places like Balmora and Vivec, as such it should connect to Andothren
- The inner sea coastline needs signs of habitation, removing Teyn is therefore bad
- Teyn should be more than a Seyda Neen copy
Cicero proposed making Teyn into a farmer's market akin to Suran.
Ragox and slepana want to have a trader.
Vern wants to remove the docks and replace the travel connection with a Silt Strider or Guar cart.
Gnomey wants the fort to have a port.
Current travel connections
And slepana ended the topic with a nice quote so there we go.
Personally, I'd just love for Teyn to be a unique small town, not a copy of SN and/or have the option to go to Andothren. I feel like this option is getting kinda ignored by both parties at this point
Small towns can be interesting and impressive in their own way, without being big and loud
It can still be a good impression if it's different
I just don't see the value in literally mirroring Seyda Neen
Get arguing ahead of a possible meeting.
2015-09-28 20:13
2 years 7 months ago
This misses the point. Seyda Neen is currently connected via boat to other Imperial or nearby coastal cities in need of regular patrolling: Teyn, Ebonheart, Hla Oad, Rhanim. Firemoth is in the way in the east and if this connection is cut, there's a giant hole in the travel and patrolling networks.
The connection to larger places are the vanilla travel lines via Silt Strider, isolated to Vvardenfell. And those go to Dunmer cities only, which are by their nature bigger than the few Imperial holdings on Vvardenfell. Differentiating between the Dunmer Silt Strider travels and the Imperial-to-neutral boat travels are, I think, one of the strengths of the travel network, not a detriment.
Better question: why is there one in Seyda Neen, starting-town gameplay reasons aside?
Vvardenfell has been opened to settlement for 13 years. It stands to reason that Teyn acted as a protected port for the cutters (which would always take second precedence to the bigger ships of the Imperial Navy in OE). It is also halfway between Old Ebonheart and the Firemoth archipelago, the other big port.
If there is to be any griping about the duplicate C&E offices, let the people in the Teyn C&E office reside near boarded doors and lamenting that half their number are now in Seyda Neen, suffering from swamp fever.
Agreed.
Not sure how adding a trader (mainland Arille?) or turning Teyn ionto a superfluous settlement like Suran will help with this. If you have to play with the mirror connection, embrace it. Seyda Neen, and all Vvardenfell settlements, are a disruption to the status quo which saw Teyn grow as it did. Seyda Neen should not slot into the world nicely as if it had always been there.
2015-12-18 05:16
4 years 5 months ago
Here's an idea to (a) push players from SN directly to Andothren and (b) not modify anything about Teyn. Let's add an NPC in SN (in the travel plug-in) with a small fishing boat in SN, easier to get to than the big boat behind the C&E office. He has a small quest that involves a one-time free transport to Andothren (maybe he has to sell fish there), and once the player does it, he's forevermore in Andothren. Thoughts?
2014-01-02 23:58
1 month 1 week ago
I tend to agree that Teyn is a little too much of a Seyda Neen homage right now, but I don't quite think changes need to be as large as suggested. Simply replacing the Census&Excise office with a coast guard patrol base (that is, possibly, explicitly more tied to the nearby fort) would be quite enough for me. Turn Teyn into the fort's port, with a small village that naturally sprang up around it. Expand the docks to host a coast guard vessel. Hang some coast guard / navy flags around the place, and replace some of its guards with the more sailory-types.
2018-08-13 09:52
14 hours 45 min ago
I want to adress this coast guard point at the start since I been mulling on it since Gnomey voiced the suggestion, in the context of morrowind they are an arm of the census office and have an explicit job hunting smugglers so them not being attached to an office doesnt make sense by default but more over two more issues emerge this is the only stretch of coast apprently subject to such overwhelming scrutiny( theres no coast guard anywhere east of Ebonheart or West of Firemoth but five in close proximity) and the region doesnt really justify it either its all bluffs and cliffs not coves or lagoons that encourage smugglers.
The presence of the port/coast guard are this self fuffiling loop that only makes sense when its compartmentalised down not apricated in the greater whole, which is kind of a beautiful metaphor for how people have been viewing Teyn itself, a lot of self fufling arguments to justify it exsitence that ignore the greater whole. Namely, Teyn isnt just a happy little coast town, its the ordained introduction to TR and all the defences for it ignore that fact.
Seyda Neen was setting up a frontier region, a bunch of colonies amidst a hostile region, Teyn sets up.... nothing, it says nothing about the rest of the mainland since it is the exception to so many of our rules, the mainland wasnt colonised due to the exisiting settlments, the coast guards presence is just a nod to vanilla not what is going on in the bluffs, fort ancilus is good but its focus is all down south not along the coast and so on and so forth. On the reverse is Andothren which does show a lot of mainlands focus's, an old city undergone change, outlanders living under house rule, more establihsed politics rather than the looser rabble on vvardenfell ect.
Apoapse's suggestion is likely the best option for all involved, but I am still worried by the blind-spot here all the same.
"Forum sigantures suck" - a great man
2020-03-21 19:43
1 year 5 months ago
I suppose I should post this here because it might've gotten lost on Discord. One of my concerns as a new TR player was that I didn't want to start my mainland adventure in a city. I don't like being overwhelmed and prefer to ease into the experience. Personally I wouldn't care which place you start, but I will say that the big cities would have too much going on at once for my own comfort. In addition, we cannot avoid talking about lag. It is an issue in modded cities, and something the player has to accept when playing TR (at least at this stage in development, who knows what will happen with OpenMW in the future). However, does it really need to be the first thing they experience?
I can't argue against there being potentially better introductions to the mainland than Teyn. However I will say that I enjoy the premise of Teyn (power-hungry Kathellomar up the hill, some basic archeology, creepy lighthouse keeper with arts & crafts ambitions, a number of small but interesting dungeons around, a fun quest pretending to be someone's spouse, the secret of that ring everyone's talking about, the merchant with the confiscated goods). Some of these quests are unfinished or need polishing, but it was nice to ease into TR content there before getting lost in the bigger cities.
2015-12-18 05:16
4 years 5 months ago
I mean, I have no particular attachment to Andothren, although I personally only really experience lag in Old Ebonheart. We could pull the same fisherman-in-SN trick to lead the player to any coastal city in the mainland -- realistically, I don't think people would check the boat behind the C&E office in SN anyways.
2018-08-13 09:52
14 hours 45 min ago
Andothren is the closest major port and is a hub for travel and guilds which makes it ideal for places to send new comers to get lost in, rather than Teyn which is as noted more or less self contained and doesnt offer much incentive to really go far. (Minor exception for that might fort ancilyus but the player still needs to go to Vfell to join the legion)
The only other alternative is OE, which as noted is an even bigger city and has performance issues to boot.
"Forum sigantures suck" - a great man
2020-03-21 19:43
1 year 5 months ago
If it's imperative that the player starts in a big city, then yes, Andothren is perfect. But since you've brought up the need to make a good impression on first-time TR players, I'd again like to stress it might be too much. It's more dense than any mainland city, which does make for great content--I'm just wondering how great it would really be to start in the middle of it rather than work your way in from the edges at your own pace. I suppose the player would soon enough find their way to the local guilds and taverns, so there would certainly be no shortage of quests. If impressing the player is all that matters, Andothren is definitely the place.
2018-08-13 09:52
14 hours 45 min ago
As must apprently be repeated, quiet and on the edges is not representative of the mainland, it is represtative of Vvardenfell the place first time players are apparently jumping to avoid. The first place a player should encounter in TR is something that sets them up for the rest of TR, which Teyn doest.
"Forum sigantures suck" - a great man
2020-03-21 19:43
1 year 5 months ago
Sounds good, Vern.
2016-01-25 21:01
2 hours 15 min ago
Not gonna lie this phrase right here makes it seem like it is stupid to discuss this even though there are valid concerns.
but yes, I am on board with what Vern is proposing of trying to get the player to Andothren would be the gateway into the mainland. It's exactly like going to Balmora, and that's not an issue, that is the natural introduction to guilds, which, Andothren also has said guilds.
I take my time and explore too. Which is why I hang around the bittercoast for the first couple of levels before moving on to a settlement. Which is what this region was designed for. Why if I do that would I want to go to a place on the mainland which is even more low level?
Having to go to a large settlement is a non issue as you do get some time. And, it's optional to begin with anyways. You have to take transport or swim across the sea.