2 Ideas for Morrowind

[Nomadic1]

I have two ideas for Morrowind... (I know, long post)

A Map 3 or 4 Desert:
One thing that has always bugged me, in a way, is the continued rehashing of the same old Vvardenfell textures and objects in the same way again and again and again and again. Cliff meshes and fancy new uses for meshes can only breathe so much new life into the old tired sets. I have noticed in a TR thread or at the ESF that a few (very few, granted) players have the same opinion. So why not do something completely different?

A desert is perfect for that. I mean we already have desert plants, like Cacti and Trama Roots, which haven't gotten much use and changing the textures on the rocks can't be that difficult, surely? (correct me if I'm wrong. It is just that TR has added the AI and GL textures to the WG rocks so I'm assuming it is realistically doable). All we would really need are new textures for both landscaping and the rocks. The Ashland trees could work there too (giving relief to the much used AI-WG-GL flora) and few AL trees with leaves added would finish the flora off beautifully.

The last thing we would need is a really crappy area to put the desert in (scrapping good work is depressing). Luckily TR has enough of those, such as parts of central Map 4 or pretty much the entire eastern coast of Map 3.

Rathra Must Die
Bear with me if I have details wrong. The claim threads on this I read ages ago so I don't know how things have changed or my memory has fucked

Alright, so the PC has quested through the ranks of House Telvanni and now Mistress Rathra is implementing the greatest part of her master plan (the PC in a psycho suit set out on Firewatch). Here the PC has a choice - to either go through with this or to take Mithras' advice and sabotage it. If the PC goes through with it, everything is fine and dandy. But if the PC screws it up, Rathra works out it was him and now the Telvanni attack the PC.

Well that sucks arse for two reasons. The PC is a super-awesome Telvanni by now, and all rank-and-file Telvanni would be too scared shitless of the PC to attack them. The PC also might have done this on their conscience, Mithras' advice or because they don't Rathra. This ending to the story sucks so here is how I reckon things could go:

Rathra should declare the PC her enemy, and she declares she will ruin him/her (maybe even attack the PC). PC either kills Rathra then and there, or receives advice from Mithras that killing her is the only viable option the PC has.

But with her dead, the Telvanni council is short a member. Suddenly a world of intrigue and backstabbing is going to break forth. The councillors would all see the chance to alter the balance of power in the Parliament of Bugs to their favour if someone of their alignment obtained the now-vacant seat. Faruna might also want her position in the council back.

I would leave quest ideas of this outcome to other people, but quest writers could have orgasms thinking of the possibilities as the game board completely changes unexpectedly and that nobody has warning to scheme properly.

[Tyrion]

Aren't the Ashlands basically volcanic desert?

[Harke the Apostle]

^ A [url=http://www.jordibusque.com/Index/Stories/SaltUyuni/SaltUyuni_01.html]salar[/url] would go nicely with the ashland textures and the cactusses.

Btw, shouldn't there be jungle stuff for the Argon Jungle?

[theviking]

You can kill Rathra everytime you like it, but I wouldn't advise you to do so. The reason is that Rathra plays a large role in almost all High-Telvanni quests. (also in map2) Also there is never a fight from councillor against councillor, they are both too powerful, so they use subordinates to do their dirty jobs. Technically you can kill everyone in the council, but that makes it hard to make a quest dependant on it.

[Lud]

1)Good thinking, if you can think of a way of combining elements to create a semi-unique landscape I'd like to hear it. (Salt-flat type things could be cool)

2)Nomadic, I think you either misunderstood the end of the MQ or happened to be working off an outdated version. Rathra doesn't know that you've double-crossed her when you sabotage the ritual. She's not all-knowing, and her hubris by the end allows Mithras and the PC to turn against her and take her down a peg. The ritual fails, but the blame ends up on somebody else. That said, this ending means that Rathra thinks that you're somewhat incompetent, but not treacherous.
Also, as Viking said, killing Rathra would screw up loads of other plotlines.

[Sload]

We could do with an ashland across Map 4 seeing as how we practically never use ashland or molag amur shit. its ridiculous.

[Lud]

Yeah, more ashland would be nice too.

I propose we designate a few areas that currently have crappy exteriors as ashlands and remake them as such.

We have a few new pieces of flora in TR already; these could be combined with textures taken from one of the million-odd community texture packs to create a new terrain type.

[Nomadic1]

Re 1: The idea of the suggestion was to avoid reusing the same textures from Vvardenfell. Adding more ashlands and molag amur type places would be good, though. But WG-AI-GL has appeared far too often IMO and the idea of a desert (either full-blown sandy/salt-flats/stony or just very arid but still with life) was one way to make an entire region different.

I also suggested 2 places where little good modding would be deleted. When I was looking at Map 3 yesterday, 3-20 Sailen Vulgate, 3-4, 3-43, 3-27, 3-32 and 3-33 and the coast of the Bosmora claim weren't that good IMO, so those claims are an entire region that could be ashlands or something different.

Re 2: I put in a disclaimer on the idea concernng my faulty or unupdated memory. I mean it was ages ago that I saw the last developments of the Map 1 Telvanni. Disregard.

[Thrignar Fraxix]

I don't like the idea of a flat out pale HF style desert, it isn't very MW-y. As for the increased ashlandification of maps 4 and 5, I am in favor of this.

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

Not too much, though. The Velothi Mountains rock awesomely, and shouldn't be sacrificed. I'd also point out that Morrowind (the game) appeared to retcon the ashy-ness of Morrowind, with most of it being confined to Vvard. It'd be weird having too many ashy patches on the mainland when the majority of the coast of Vv. is ash-free.

[Sload]

The only question we have right now is:

Can rivers run through ashlands?

[Nanu]

Since when has science stood in the way of awesome landscapes for TR? We have an entire river that changes direction and another that runs uphill. Plus, I could think of all sorts of nifty ideas as to why rivers could run through one.

[Haplo]

There's a river right next to a foyada in Vvardenfell so yeah prolly.

[Sload]

The question is just whether you think it will look ugly.

[Haplo]

I think since water is blue, and Ashlands are a dark grey/bluish hue, they would compliment each other and go quite well together. Check the area north of Red Mountain(like the coast) to see, I guess.

[Nomadic1]

Rivers can run through ashland type places. Look at Marandus on Vvardenfell where the road bends northwards to those two places Ranis Ahtrys sends you. It looks good (and is one of my favourite places, aesthetically).

I keep thinking about the Retothril Coast. Half of it is fairly empty and the other half will need to be redone from scratch so its perfect for something, at least.

I also don't want to drop the idea for a whole new region texture set to give some variety, moreso than adding ashlands would.

[Sload]

How would you feel about a new texture set for the Deshaan plains region? That's what I was thinking personally. Not a desert set but a new kind of plains.

[Nomadic1]

It would be kick-arse.

[Lady Nerevar]

kick ass indeed. there are hundreds of texture packs to pull from already, so we woudnt even have to make anything ourselves (unless we want to)

[Thrignar Fraxix]

why the hell would we use a texture pack? I personally think that would be a little bit wierd if I was already using the pack to enter an area that looks no different from some other region.

[Lady Nerevar]

because there are some really nice textures in some of them (mind you, i think most textures in them are quite crap). take one texture from one pack, another from a second pack, and so on and so forth until you have a cohesive region. small changes like saturation or overlaping textures also get it looking unique. either way, i dont think people will care if they see a texture that appears in another region if they are using a texture pack.

[Nemon]

Well... a flat like desert would actually look really cool if people use the Morrowind Graphics Expander to create distant landscape... Think about seeing a laaarge deserty area with distant mountains

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

Why not make our own? Regions only take a couple (eight or so) simple textures (I could well be wrong), and it'd be more proffesional. (maybe)

And also, we'd be able to make something that fits our artistic vision, not something that suits someone else's 'Bright/Dark/Crazy/Uber-realistic/Super-Hi-Res' vision.