Quarantine

[Tyrion]

Who gave us the boat if not Bethesda El Scum?

Am I horrible with sarcasm?

[El Scumbago]

Am I horrible with sarcasm?

With jokes is more like it!8)

Kidding of course

[Tyrion]

I feel releived and stupid

but my point remains

Beth didn't exactly follow the quarentine to the letter. We can start coming up with excuses and exceptions to this rule but that always ends up in some sort of a complicated unbelievable mess. Personally I think quarentine should mean "restricted access" or "authorized personnel only" instead of "keep out" or "keep out or get the blight and die"

I honestly don't know why its so big of a deal anyway. Even if we dont put in fast travel its beyond easy to add it yourself.

[Jedak]

1. I don't know how to add fast travel and
2. I think that its more like a 'I advise you to stay out, because you might get the blight, but if you want to come go ahead' and 'If you want to leave then you better not have the blight and if you do then stay... or else ' type of thing.

[adamantum]

I don't know if it is logical to allow blight-diseased ones to wander arround. Hey, maybe IF you are blighted or corpus-diseased, then you wouldn't be allowed to travel away from Vvardenfell. Otherwise, you could just get a boat.

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

I'd say, make travel availiable (in a 'third-party' (made by us) mod bundled with the main package) from Seyda Neen C&E office. Once CharGen's been done, player can get travel from the docks there once they've acquired some papers from someone certifying their right to travel. These papers can only be granted if the player is not blighted/corprused/diseased, and are used up once travel is complete.

It'd be a work of five seconds, and would allow travel to reasonable ports (I suggest the the other C&Es: currently Bal Oyra and Firewatch, and presumably Darconis and Old Ebonheart forthcoming?)

No lore problems, and completely optional. Voila.

[IAMTHEEMPEROR]

There is the need for the player to go back and forth. The player can't advance all the way in the thieve's guild if he can't get back, so the need to get around the quarantine is a must.

I think we can settle with:
Boats that require inspection
Smugglers who don't
Mage transport
Maybe a temple service for pilgrims
Somehow breaking out of Mournhold into the rest of Almalexia (could be a hole was blasted in the wall after the fabricants appear)

That is plenty of ways to get back and forth. Don't think we need any more.

[Kenzivon]

A transport from Raven Rock when you've built it could also work.
The colony got supplies from the mainland and they also sent the ebony there. So getting a place on one of those ebony transoprts wouldn't be all that hard, especially not if you're the factor.. and who there knows you're from vvardenfell and not from the mainland?

[Tyrion]

1. Allow strict transportation using boats between Vvardenfell and the mainland. By strict I mean you'll need papers and must be healthy. This goes along with what crusty said a few posts up.

2. If we want smugglers than they'll have to stay outside of settlements. Basically you go from one smugglers cove to another. Personally I think it takes you too far outside of settled areas to be feasible as fast travel. That and smugglers have pretty much been a hostile bunch so there's no gaurantee a player wouldnt accidentally kill them without realizing who they actually were.

3. I hate to say it but opening the gates of Symmachus screws with too much stuff thats already in Tribunal. Remember the inner city was supposed to be sealed and when Almalexia says sealed she means sealed.

4. New mages guild teleportation, or just any random ass mage who can teleport you to the mainland.

Thats that. You can have either legitimate shipping, illegitimate shipping, or teleportation. One and three are our best options I think if we're willing to insert little things into the vanilla game. We did that with Stirk and all in all I think it'll make it feel as though its one big game, not just Beth's game and a mod. It'll feel more tied together, it will have more feng shui.

As for Mournhold, a huge imposing sacred city, home to a mad goddess, and that you can't actually get into adds a level of mystery to the game. Opening the gates after the main quest is finished would be nice, but its not for me to say if thats tampering with the vanilla game or not.

Those I think, are going to be our best choices.

[Jedak]

We should definately open the gates to almalexia and mounhold once the tribunal quest is done. Helseth would order it, anyway, once the mad goddess was gone.

[Hemitheon]

How bout this one. Replace Fargoth's crappy ring with a teleportation ring which can take you to one major city in each map. so Firewatch, Darconis, Almalexia, Kragenmoor??, Blacklight, Narsis. Or make the ring a reward from Vivec or the Duke of Vvardenfell for defeating Dagoth Ur/ending the blight. Else, the player has to swim. I say if we're gonna add transportation, then we need to restrain ourselves. We need to focus on a minimal change not a huge one.

[Thrignar Fraxix]

I say if we're gonna add transportation, then we need to restrain ourselves. We need to focus on a minimal change not a huge one.

Replace Fargoth's crappy ring with a teleportation ring which can take you to one major city in each map. so Firewatch, Darconis, Almalexia, Kragenmoor??, Blacklight, Narsis. Or make the ring a reward from Vivec or the Duke of Vvardenfell for defeating Dagoth Ur/ending the blight.

I find these two quotes rather amusing when pasted this way.

Else, the player has to swim.

I like this idea best. Although opening the gates of symachus (SP?) after the tribunal quest is over is tolerable in my mind. (open as in you can use them, not making MH an open air city.)

[Tyrion]

Using a boat makes it feel as though there's really some distance between Vvardenfell and the mainland. Swimming messes with that illusion.

Like I said, feng shui

[Gnomey]

Using a boat makes it feel as though there's really some distance between Vvardenfell and the mainland. Swimming messes with that illusion.

Like I said, feng shui

Come now, why are you against Nerevar adding to his titles:

He killed Dagoth Ur, put an end to the Living Gods, became the Hortator, is the guildmaster of every faction in Morrowind, built the colony on Ravens rock, got involved in the Bloodmoon prophecies, and, he swam across the Inner Sea!

Seriously though, I think that there should be one method, and that method should not include messing with a Vanilla quest! Fargoth's ring is holy, untouchable. Anyway, the guards leaving a ring like that lying around in a barrel isn't very convincing, nor (to me) is it realistic that such a ring was ever made, (why only those cities?), or was ever given to anyone by Vivec if it was made. (Wraithguard aside, he doesn't strike me as someone who collects and gives away powerful artifacts. Or at least he doesn't give them away).

I still think that there should be at least one other way, accessable to any player. Anything. It could even be like that quest in oblivion, where you are hauled off in a ship and have to swim back. You could march into the Fair Helas (sp?), see a group of people standing around you, hear the words "You N'wah!" and "you filthy S'wit", see a dunmer smash his club onto your skull, get blacked out and find yourself dressed as a slave in a smugglers den somewhere in the mainland with a chest lying around somewhere filled with your gear for all I care. The player should have some easily accessable and fast way to get to the mainland. It doesn't matter how he gets back, people are willing enough to bring the player back to Vvardenfell, it's getting there that's needed.

Personally, I suggest either my idea just above, (I'm beginning to like it ), or have a ship by Seyda Neen with a bribeable guard/with the possibility of going on there after getting a "health certificate", or have it be some not quite honest people who operate a ship in the godforsaken area of the Azura's coast, where security is thin enough for them to get away with it. I don't like the idea of the third party mod. If we feel the need for the player to be able to go to the mainland without swimming, we should put it into the mod, IMHO.

You can't say that it is against lore to allow travel. Whether it was a mistake or not, Fast Eddie, a guar herder, a tax collector, Vodinius Nuccius and (maybe) a few other people have mentioned going to the mainland. Unless Developers said that these were all mistakes, (which for all I know might be possible), it is lore that anyone can go to the mainland during the quarentine. What they need to do to get there is what we need to find out, but we can say that they can get there.

Edit: I wonder what's with me and long posts today. Anyway, I hope I don't come off as being grumpy or anything.

[Tyrion]

I don'y know whether or not adding a quest to vanilla Morrowind is too intrusive. It sounds cool but would the all powerful Nerevarine really let himself be clubbed senseless and dragged across the narrow sea?

That aside lets just make an analogy so everyone understand whats going on. Vvardenfell is a bit like a war-zone unstable country in our world. Doesnt mean people don't go there but there are restrictions so not alot of people can go there at will. Vvardenfell isnt exactly a war-zone but with Dagoth Ur and the blight... well you get the picture. What we want is to allow the player freedome of movement while at the same time creating a feeling that Vvardenfell is isolated and cut off by the quarentine. Imposing legal restrictions on travel works, and having people go outside the law to move about works too its just that there's going to be less incentive to find these people if you can just hop on a boat at Sadrith Mora.

Then again maybe thats how we obtain the feeling I spoke of earlier. I just found that I contradicted myself up there.

[Haplo]

Smugglers and pirates rule. That much is apparent by our choice of provinces for Oblivion. Sure, have town guards set up blockades of their ports, have whats left of the legion set up roadblocks on the major roads outside of port cities to 'check' for infected people. That would be awesome. But you have to make sure there are ways to get around. Hard ways and easy ways, whether it's someone at the port willing to smuggle you through the checkpoints in a guar cart, or just a hidden path that literally takes you around the guards.

Actually I like that guar cart idea. Someone do that for Old Ebonheart. Don't let me forget to assign one of you unlucky lackeys to that job, k?

[Gnomey]

I don'y know whether or not adding a quest to vanilla Morrowind is too intrusive. It sounds cool but would the all powerful Nerevarine really let himself be clubbed senseless and dragged across the narrow sea?

You're probably right, though only the clubbing part takes place in Morrowind. And as for the Nerevarine being knocked unconscious, it depends on where you hit. You could say that the dunmer happened to aim a surprisingly hard his right onto the temples, and that that stunned the player long enough to get him tied up. Anyway, I think I heard of a lot of mentions of scripted blackouts etc. in questing, or similar things. No matter what the level, it should remain a challenge.

Of course, the main weakpoint is if the player decides to go back and forth between Vvardenfell and the mainland. Will he always walk into the Fair Helas, always find the people, always get clubbed in just the right spot... that would be pretty stupid. I wasn't serious when I wrote it and, though I do like the idea, it won't work.

[Tyrion]

It might be worth it just to listen to the clubbing sound bite.

[Jedak]

The inner sea acctually seems a lot bigger ingame than I thought, since swimming is so slow.

I've got a problem with frappyr and I cant go beyond the 'southern border'. Can I post it here?

[El Scumbago]

Better make a new thread either here or in the Lounge.

[Kovacius]

It might be a good balance to have an "official" channel of transportation and several "illicit" ones. "Approved" travel would require either a permit or sufficient rank in an Imperial organization, and could be based out of either Seyda Neen C&E Bureau or from Ebonhart. You could also have an "illicit" channel through the Thieves' Guild, where you could arrange "smuggled" passage for a high enough price, regardless of your affiliations or status.

The Mages' Guild could also provide teleportation services for ranking members, where a permit would be "preferred", or at a higher price for those non-members who have the "official" pass or travel permit. Another means of arranging regular passage via either boat or Guild guide, working as a "buyer" for a trader, could be added as a small quest.

None of these should interfere or conflict with either the existing quests or the current "intent" of the blockade.

[Jedak]

I will when I give up trying, thanks scummy.