Statement of Vision

[Sload]

I'm posting this in this forum so that we can limit the discussion to Lead and Senior Developers.

We should make a public statement about Tamriel Rebuilt's long-term vision which will go along with announcing changes to Almalexia. Its necessary I think.

lets start by listing statements we think are accurate statements about our long-term vision

[Swiftoak]

I guess it's a bit arrogant to say this, but the scope of our project is more about completing Morrowind, not say a mod that runs on top of it.

We're building Morrowind, and that means we can "retcon" (lack of a better word) and change shit as we like, provided it's faithful/tasteful to the spirit of the original game to a certain degree. It also means we have to treat the world in a singular fashion, not work around certain parts of it simply because it's "vanilla".

It's like if Beth had made Whiterun Hold "Skyrim", then later released the other holds as a mod/expansion that couldn't touch Whiterun becasue of "conflicts". The same logic applies to our old way of avoiding Vanilla content becasue it "messes with people's canon" or "introduces mod conflicts". It wouldn't be Skyrim, it would be "Whiterun" and "everrything else" and it would be shit both in terms of a game and as a story.

I mean other mods change shit, why can't we? At some point we should strive to become the base game, because I believe we can come up with something awesome. Many aspects of our TC will eventaully surpass the original content, and address many flaws within. So basically, trust us peepz, we know what we're doing (well I hope so anyways). Being upfront about this might cause some initial controversy, but many popular mods have already been willing to keep TR in mind, so it might actually promote compatibility (im talking in the long term).

Someone find a better, shorter, less snootier, more concise way of saying that, since it's more a rant than a helpful statement. (sorry)

[rot]

A necessary off-topic: please remember that until such a time as the game gets close to completion, TR releases ARE mods. That's the only reason they're *played* instead of just being *looked at*.

[Swiftoak]

Okay I had some time to mull over this. Here are some concise, bullet-pointed statements that might be more helpful in defining our goals than my rambling above. The points higher up on the list should be seen as more important than the ones lower on the list, which sort of get into details.

• Our long-term vision is to realize the completion of Morrowind's gameworld and narrative, had Bethesda Softworks carried through their original plans to include the entire province.
• Realizing this requires us to treat Morrowind as a single gameworld, rather than something that simply adds on/expands what is there, without touching that original content. We compartmentalize the gameworld into artificially-separated parts if we avoid touching the original game. [sidenote: this is something we also risk if we plan around "releases" rather than the gameworld as a whole.]
• We consider this artificial separation to be moddy, and immersion-breaking. It also hinders the game's narrative by adding a cheap artificial divide between Vanilla content and our new content. Morrowind should be about Morrowind, and its story is indivisible and should be treated as a single component. [wording could be better here]
• We, along with many others, believe there are certain shortcomings in many aspects of the original game on many levels, and feel that integrating our content with "vanilla" will allow us to expand and address these shortcomings. While differences in visions are an inevitable, we hope to earn the trust of the community to solve these problems in a way that is faithful to the vision of the original game.
• In the past, many content authors have been willing to make themselves compatible with TR. Being forthcoming with our intentions will hopefully encourage cross-collaboration between content authors. It is a reality that many mods conflict, but perhaps one day our content will seamlessly fit and become the standard for mod content to be developed upon.
• The simple reality is that Tamriel Rebuilt is evolving to become a project that is more akin to making a game, rather than a mod meant to be played on top of the existing game as a separate entity. While this might not be the status quo, it is important that we keep this goal in mind, as it affects how we plan content in the future, as well as how we will eventually have to rework our older/existing content to fit this vision.
• In game development, constant revisions are a brutal reality. Sometimes it may be necessary for us to remove content, due to the fact that our project's scope is so tremendous, combined with the issue that much of our earlier work suffered from poor planning, or no planning at all (a lot of us were not as knowledgeable/experienced in the past). We've developed our standards to a point where we are confident no further revisions will need to be made after this from a quality standpoint.

[Aeven]

These points seem fine to me.

[Yeti]

I agree with Swiftoak's points, as long as we avoid sounding pretentious when wording our updated mission statement. Although I'm certainly not saying Swiftoak's posts sound that way, we need to be careful nonetheless, or people will think we have an ego even larger than Almalexia's:

"The death of vanilla Morrowind will end this prophecy and unite all Morrowind fans again under one mod, one faith, one rule by our divine project. The puppet Morrowind overhaul mods will lay down their arms and bow to our will. Those who do not yield will be destroyed."

[Swiftoak]

Three more (possibly more controversial points). Might be just different ways of saying the above.

• Tamriel Rebuilt retains the right to take creative liberties regarding art and story direction of the game (including existing "Vanilla" content), in order to present the best realization of Morrowind possible. While this might be problematic (conflicting with others' visions of the world), the open nature of Tamriel's mythos means many different interpretations of the world can/should co-exist. We remain true to our belief that we can make these changes and improve on the original content, while staying true to the game's original vision.
• During the course of game development, such revisions are common internally. Even Bethesda has been known to alter/contradict previous interpretations of their worlds. From a development perspective, we must treat the original game as an incomplete product, rather than a finished product we simply add onto. We are aiming to complete Morrowind, not add to it. There is a difference, and we cannot achieve this by not making any consideration towards revising existing content.
• We intend to be the platform in which all future TES3 content is based on.

I think our next steps are to wait for feedback, then find some way to consolidate all these statements into something fluid and easy to read.

[Yeti]

I agree with those points, though I'll probably be conservative as hell when we get around to reinterpreting vanilla content.

We should also make it clear that we'll be open to public feedback throughout this process. In other words, the Morrowind community has its say when we decide our vision of the game.

[Haplo]

I think if we include the latest bullet point (even if we view it as true), it might piss off a lot of people/make us sound arrogant. We lose nothing by not including and we gain nothing by including it. If it comes up in conversation (later posts about the topic) on the ESF we can mention it then (in a conversational tone), but when we're stating things so matter-of-factly, I'd rather we not say such a thing.

[Sload]

For more than a decade, Tamriel Rebuilt has been a project dedicated to extending and expanding the game world of Morrowind in a manner which is consistent with the themes, tones, and backstory of the original game - as we have said, "as Bethesda would have done it." As a fan project which has grown, changed and learned as it went through the process of developing this content, our understanding of what this means has evolved over the years.

Once, there was a time when Tamriel Rebuilt interpreted our self-imposed mandate to mean including every town in Arena, under their so wonderfully inspired names such as "Reich Parkeep," "Karththor Dale" (double th in the original)., and "Green Heights." Once there was a time when Tamriel Rebuilt interpreted our mandate to mean we couldn't raise land higher than Red Mountain (because it is alleged to be the second highest mountain in Tamriel), that we couldn't use ash or Sixth House or ancient stronghold assets on the Mainland (because of some throwaway lines of dialog), and so on.

What we've realized, though, is that our commitment to creating this game world "as Bethesda would have done it" requires something much more than scouring every line in every book and dialog topic for tiny statements that we could blow up into strict edicts of fact. What it required was a commitment to the high calibre of storytelling, worldbuilding, and art that makes Morrowind the game that all of us love, so long after its release. Moreover, we have discovered that some aspects of the original content are actually very limiting on our ability to achieve our goal, and that we must sacrifice strict adherence to the literal content of Morrowind to maintain the integrity of our commitment to the themes, narratives, and lore of Morrowind.

These are mainly aspects of the game which have their origin in its limitations. Surely no one believes that if Morrowind were set in all of Morrowind and not only Vvardenfell, it would have one version of each faction on Vvardenfell and another version off. The quarantine, similarly, is a small line of dialog in order to justify the player's inability to leave the island, not some integral narrative element that makes the game what it is. In time, Tamriel Rebuilt will make these small changes for the sake of the final content.

All of that said, we wish to summarize our intentions as follows:

• We intend to avoid conflict with other mods whenever possible, and we do not intend to remove original content without replacing it. This policy is important to us, we do not want to discourage people from downloading and using Tamriel Rebuilt.
• Mournhold as depicted in Tribunal will not be a part of Tamriel Rebuilt's final product. We intend to re-implement its content in time in the main world space, but not in an identical arrangement to its depiction in Tribunal. While Tribunal functioned as a stand-alone worldspace, it does not meet the needs of our project.
• We have found a way to disable the DB attack script that creates no load error incompatibility with any other mod or save game. This will be enabled in the first release of TR_Mainland.esm to contain Almalexia. Any character which has already been attacked by the Dark Brotherhood will still be able to access Tribunal's Mournhold and a plug-in will be distributed with the release that re-enables the Dark Brotherhood attacks script.
• Over time, similar policies which change vanilla and increase incompatibility with other mods will be announced. While Tamriel Rebuilt does not enjoy being incompatible with other mods, please recognize that Tamriel Rebuilt is the most extensive modification to the world space that exists for Morrowind and it cannot be universally compatible with all modifications.

We have one last point. Over the years, Tamriel Rebuilt has changed, but so too has the larger modding community. There was a time that Tamriel Rebuilt could not be discussed on the official forums because of flame wars initiated by people who had nothing better to do than to tear down a hobbyist project because its goals were unrealistic. Now, Tamriel Rebuilt is widely recognized as one of the most important mods that exists for Morrowind. Please continue to put your trust in us as we attempt to steer our project toward even greater things.

first draft please improve

[Swiftoak]

I like this, though I would probably throw in a quick statement (a 1-2 sentences at most) explaining how it's important to treat the province as a single gameworld, vs artificially seperating vanilla and TR content, and why the latter is problematic.

[Yeti]

How's this for a second draft?

For more than a decade, Tamriel Rebuilt has been a project dedicated to extending and expanding the game world of Morrowind in a manner consistent with the themes, tones, and back story of the original game - as we have often said, "as Bethesda would have done it." As a fan project which has grown, changed, and learned as it has gone through the process of developing this content, our understanding of what this means has evolved over the years.

Once, there was a time when Tamriel Rebuilt interpreted our self-imposed mandate to mean including every town in Arena, under such wonderfully inspired names as "Reich Parkeep," "Karththor Dale" (double th in the original) and "Green Heights." Once there was a time when Tamriel Rebuilt interpreted our mandate to mean we couldn't raise land higher than Red Mountain (because it is alleged to be the second highest mountain in Tamriel), that we couldn't use ash or Sixth House or ancient stronghold assets on the Mainland (because of some throwaway lines of dialogue), and so on.

What we've realized, though, is that our commitment to creating this game world "as Bethesda would have done it" requires something much more than scouring every line in every book and dialog topic for tiny statements that we could blow up into strict edicts of fact. What it requires is a commitment to the high caliber of storytelling, world-building, and art that makes Morrowind the game we all love so long after its release. Moreover, we have discovered that some aspects of the original content are actually very limiting on our ability to achieve our goal, and that we must sacrifice strict adherence to the literal content of Morrowind to maintain the integrity of our commitment to the themes, narratives, and lore of Morrowind.

These are mainly aspects of the game which have their origin in its limitations. Surely no one believes that if Morrowind were set in all of Morrowind and not only Vvardenfell, it would have one version of each faction on Vvardenfell and another version off of the island. The quarantine, similarly, is a small line of dialogue in order to justify the player's inability to leave the island, not some integral narrative element that makes the game what it is. In time, Tamriel Rebuilt will make these small changes for the sake of a better final product.

We believe it is vital to treat the province of Morrowind as a single gameworld, a vision that requires the integration of vanilla content. To do otherwise means artificially separating vanilla content from our lands and thus breaking the illusion that Morrowind exists as a single unified fantasy experience. For example, keeping the content of Tribunal separate from the larger city of Almalexia constrains our ability to portray it as the cultural center of House Indoril. What sense does it make for the heart of Great House Indoril's city, the Mournhold of Tribunal, to have not one single member of House Indoril walking its streets, and instead house dozens of outlanders? To fully take advantage of Morrowind as a storytelling and world-building platform, we feel we must modify Bethesda's original material to fit alongside our own. There must be one Morrowind, not "Vvardenfell, Mournhold, and everything else."

All of that said, we wish to summarize our intentions as follows:

• We intend to avoid conflict with other mods whenever possible, and we do not intend to remove original content without replacing it. This policy is important to us, as we do not want to discourage people from downloading and using Tamriel Rebuilt.
• Mournhold as depicted in Tribunal will not be a part of Tamriel Rebuilt's final product. We intend to re-implement its content in time in the main world space, but not in an identical arrangement to its depiction in Tribunal. While Tribunal functioned as a stand-alone world space, it does not meet the needs of our project.
• We have found a way to disable the Dark Brotherhood attack script without creating load error incompatibility with any other mod or save game. We will enable this in the first release of TR_Mainland.esm to contain Almalexia. Any character which has already been attacked by the Dark Brotherhood will still be able to access Tribunal's Mournhold, and a plug-in will be distributed with the release that re-enables the Dark Brotherhood attacks script.
• Over time, similar policies which change vanilla and increase incompatibility with other mods will be announced. While Tamriel Rebuilt does not enjoy being incompatible with other mods, please recognize that Tamriel Rebuilt is the most extensive modification to the world space that exists for Morrowind and it cannot be universally compatible with all modifications.

We have one last point. Over the years, Tamriel Rebuilt has changed, but so too has the larger modding community. There was a time that Tamriel Rebuilt could not be discussed on the official forums because of flame wars initiated by people who had nothing better to do than to tear down a hobbyist project because its goals were unrealistic. Now, Tamriel Rebuilt is widely recognized as one of the most important mods that exists for Morrowind. Please continue to put your trust in us as we attempt to steer our project toward even greater things.

[Aeven]

That seems great, Yeti!

[Sload]

Looks great Yeti, I think someone should post in on the front page and in the official forum thread. Just make sure to italicize all instances of "Morrowind" that refer to the game (and not those that refer to the fictional country). The same thing with "Tribunal;" this helps to avoid ambiguity.

EDIT: Add to the bullet point about the attack script "Eventually, TR will stop distributing this "opt-in" plugin, but not until we are satisfied that the content from Tribunal has been reimplemented."

[Aeven]

I think this warrants a new forum thread on the official forums though.

[Swiftoak]

Yes, also.

We understand some might be put off by the fact we've been redoing things alot, though in truth, internal revisions are often necessary in the process of game development. Our project spans many generations, and alot of our older content was not made with proper planning. Thus it's often necessary to rework these areas to match our current visions and standards, to ensure consistency and a better product. Our planning has reached the point where any redo of our older content will be our last, and that all new content will be made to comply with our visions and standards. Moving forward, from now on, we aim to do this in a responsible manner.

[Swiftoak]

Final Draft (Italicized things). Ready for post.

For more than a decade, Tamriel Rebuilt has been a project dedicated to extending and expanding the game world of Morrowind in a manner consistent with the themes, tones, and back story of the original game - as we have often said, "as Bethesda would have done it." As a fan project which has grown, changed, and learned as it has gone through the process of developing this content, our understanding of what this means has evolved over the years.

Once, there was a time when Tamriel Rebuilt interpreted our self-imposed mandate to mean including every town in Arena, under such wonderfully inspired names as "Reich Parkeep," "Karththor Dale" (double th in the original) and "Green Heights." Once there was a time when Tamriel Rebuilt interpreted our mandate to mean we couldn't raise land higher than Red Mountain (because it is alleged to be the second highest mountain in Tamriel), that we couldn't use ash or Sixth House or ancient stronghold assets on the Mainland (because of some throwaway lines of dialogue), and so on.

What we've realized, though, is that our commitment to creating this game world "as Bethesda would have done it" requires something much more than scouring every line in every book and dialog topic for tiny statements that we could blow up into strict edicts of fact. What it requires is a commitment to the high caliber of storytelling, world-building, and art that makes Morrowind the game we all love so long after its release. Moreover, we have discovered that some aspects of the original content are actually very limiting on our ability to achieve our goal, and that we must sacrifice strict adherence to the literal content of Morrowind to maintain the integrity of our commitment to the themes, narratives, and lore of Morrowind.

These are mainly aspects of the game which have their origin in its limitations. Surely no one believes that if Morrowind were set in all of Morrowind and not only Vvardenfell, it would have one version of each faction on Vvardenfell and another version off of the island. The quarantine, similarly, is a small line of dialogue in order to justify the player's inability to leave the island, not some integral narrative element that makes the game what it is. In time, Tamriel Rebuilt will make these small changes for the sake of a better final product.

We believe it is vital to treat the province of Morrowind as a single gameworld, a vision that requires the integration of vanilla content. To do otherwise means artificially separating vanilla content from our lands and thus breaking the illusion that Morrowind exists as a single unified fantasy experience. For example, keeping the content of Tribunal separate from the larger city of Almalexia constrains our ability to portray it as the cultural center of House Indoril. What sense does it make for the heart of Great House Indoril's city, the Mournhold of Tribunal, to have not one single member of House Indoril walking its streets, and instead house dozens of outlanders? To fully take advantage of Morrowind as a storytelling and world-building platform, we feel we must modify Bethesda's original material to fit alongside our own. There must be one Morrowind, not "Vvardenfell, Mournhold, and everything else."

All of that said, we wish to summarize our intentions as follows:

• We intend to avoid conflict with other mods whenever possible, and we do not intend to remove original content without replacing it. This policy is important to us, as we do not want to discourage people from downloading and using Tamriel Rebuilt.
• Mournhold as depicted in Tribunal will not be a part of Tamriel Rebuilt's final product. We intend to re-implement its content in time in the main world space, but not in an identical arrangement to its depiction in Tribunal. While Tribunal functioned as a stand-alone world space, it does not meet the needs of our project.
• We have found a way to disable the Dark Brotherhood attack script without creating load error incompatibility with any other mod or save game. We will enable this in the first release of TR_Mainland.esm to contain Almalexia. Any character which has already been attacked by the Dark Brotherhood will still be able to access Tribunal's Mournhold, and a plug-in will be distributed with the release that re-enables the Dark Brotherhood attacks script.
• Over time, similar policies which change vanilla and increase incompatibility with other mods will be announced. While Tamriel Rebuilt does not enjoy being incompatible with other mods, please recognize that Tamriel Rebuilt is the most extensive modification to the world space that exists for Morrowind and it cannot be universally compatible with all modifications.

We have one last point. Over the years, Tamriel Rebuilt has changed, but so too has the larger modding community. There was a time that Tamriel Rebuilt could not be discussed on the official forums because of flame wars initiated by people who had nothing better to do than to tear down a hobbyist project because its goals were unrealistic. Now, Tamriel Rebuilt is widely recognized as one of the most important mods that exists for Morrowind. Please continue to put your trust in us as we attempt to steer our project toward even greater things.