In case I can’t make it to this saturdays meeting I’ll post some thoughts.

First, I do not think that small mini-regions are a thing we should just avoid. They can be pretty great. An example of this is Old Ebonheart. It is its own region, just four cells in size, but the region sound effects really help create a unique atmosphere. This is something we could and should do more. I’m unsure whether the weather changes are that bad an issue: weather does change sometimes rather bizarrely in the game anyway. If it is indeed a problem it can be avoided by making sure there’s something that blocks the player from just running straight from cell to cell, and making the cell borders concur with natural borders.

Small regions adds to the sense of exploration. A new region name pops up and the player goes “oh, I’ve never been here before; wonder what this place is”. Region names can be a great part of the game’s storytelling. For example there’s the smallish valley with an Ashlander camp and a dying little creek running through it which acts as the buffer zone between Armun Ashlands and the Thirr River – visually unlike neither of them. Now let’s say that instead of having it be part of one of the two regions we give it its own name. Instead of “Middle Thirr Region” or “Armun Ashlands Region” the player is noted they’re in “Sul-Amuhn Witherway Region”. The player is prompted to explore, find out more about this particular area, rather than continue their way to the next region.

I was very fond of Uld Vraech as a region, and I am hoping to see it return. Making the whole northwestern part of Morrowind just “Northern Velothi Mountains Region” seems rather bland to me. It is also a bit misleading since much of the region would not actually be geographically part of the Velothi Mountains: there’s the coast and the lakes and everything. Gnomey’s suggestions seem good (though, honestly, I wish we could have had the coast near Baan Malur named “Blacklight Shores Region” – my inner twelve-year-old thinks Blacklight sounds edgy as hell).

I will also be opposed to having the Thirr region we currently have named Middle Thirr Region. Even if the region around Lake Andaram was named Upper Thirr, I’m still not convinced. Why would anyone call that part of the river “Middle” when it’s not – the lore explanation we have for it, IMHO, doesn’t make it seem any less weirder for the player or for the in-game characters. I mean, it’s not like people from the English Midlands call it Lake Harrison because the area used to be under water. I don’t see why we couldn’t have a “Lower Thirr Region” (if we go with the dichotomy) or a “Thirr River Region”.

As for the southern regions of Morrowind, I have no strong opinions about them right now. In the future I probably will. But I will say that I will be forever and ever until creation’s last breath against calling Tear anything other than Tear.

The real-life precedence is not actual precedence though, is it? Middle Rhine is actually middle Rhine. The Middle Thirr we have is actually Lower Thirr.

I could live with Lower and Upper Thirr regions.

Also, doesn't deciding the region names now go against the bottom-up design philosophy we're trying to embrace.

Thirr Delta?

If there’s not going to be a Lower Thirr region, I agree Middle Thirr sounds weird.

Almas Thirr or Thirr River would probably be fine.

Fuck me, I just realized I've been wrong the whole time. Middle Thirr is actually Middle Thirr -- like Atrayonis has been saying. The lower bit is indeed the Askkaedh (spelling..?) Coast. Apologies.

Middle Thirr is fine.

Thiss region, not to be confused with Thaat region. (Sorry, impulse was too strong to resist...)

Kanit = Kanet? The gold flowers? Named for all the Gold Kanet that grows up there perhaps?

In case I haven’t already made the point, putting my more extreme suggestions for Telvannis’ regions aside, I’m very much of the opinion that TR’s ocean regions should just be removed entirely. They tend to pointlessly restrict other regions to justify themselves, which is more obvious with the Inner Sea region. Mechanically, I think the generic ‘Wilderness’ region better serves their purpose, as it doesn’t end two or three or ten cells off the coast but keeps going, and as effectively its sole purpose has only ever been to describe the continuous ocean barrier surrounding the landmass. If we want the coastline to have particular weather patterns, I think we’d be better served with specific coastal regions. (They wouldn’t need to have their own asset kit; just look at Sheogorad).

But yeah, aside from that I obviously think Telvannis will require extensive work to meet its potential, with an emphasis on interesting and varied regions, so most of my suggestions will diverge wildly from the status quo.

Edit: though another less divergent point I could make: I do think we could extend the concept of the Valley of Mephala (at least as far as its weather – constantly wreathed in fog – is concerned) to the whole Mephalain Mountains region and remove it as a distinct in-game mini-region. This could admittedly undermine the exceptionalism of the valley, but I think in this case making the Mephalain Mountains region as a whole more interesting takes precedence. If we want to keep the one valley unique, I think focusing on its appearance will be enough, and would also be more consistent with vanilla Vvardenfell, which has many notable landmarks of varying levels (admittedly often not well executed, but the Caldera Ebony Mine comes to mind) but only one (Red Mountain) with its own region and weather pattern.

That’s pretty good. Aanthirin Region is good. God, finally the debate over what to call the region is over. 

In case it was discussed: are we still calling the green region north of Roth Roryn Asskaedh Coast [Region]? Or something else?

Also, when these are updated we should keep to the vanilla way of naming regions, ie. instead of “Roth Roryn” we have “Roth Roryn Region”.

(I should really start attending these meetings once again; my apologies that I haven’t for quite some time)

I did not nod!  I frankly think we should just extend the vanilla Ascadian Isles region to cover the Asskaedh coast, as we decided to do away with silly arbitrary divisions between Vvardenfell and the Mainland years ago and there is no worthwhile visual difference between the two regions to warrant them being separate as far as I can see. (There are the ugly cliffs, but those are only at the edge of the region, so different borders to the same region). If we do keep the region, I think we should go with a simpler name like Askaad, but I really don’t think it’s worth keeping as a distinct region in its current form, and if we do want a distinct region there I think we should actually make it look distinct.

And yeah, I’m all for keeping to vanilla conventions, personally. I do remember someone wanting to move away from them, but they can feel free to come back and argue the point themselves.

I think that saying the weather will go haywire is bit of an overstatement. Yes, when crossing region borders the weather sometimes changes. But I wouldn't worry about thin regions too much.

On Asskaedh Coast: I don't think the division here is silly or an arbitrary one. From an in-game perspective, I would imagine that when the player crossed the Inner Sea they would await that the region's name also changed to something new to signal them they've found something new. The Coast, I think, doesn't need to look any different. It's pastoral and quite normal-looking, telling the player that this area is low level and safe. It's fine as it is.

Ascadian Coast / Asskaedh Coast, either one is fine by me.

The legend still has old region names, but the names on the map are 10/10.

That's it, IMO.

Could we change Alt Orethn to Yad Orethan? Alt is a button on my keyboard, not a region in Morrowind.