Outside main TR: Concept travel

Post by **Anonytroll** » Fri Aug 28, 2015 5:34 pm

One thing that TR generates more than actual edits these days is concepts.

One that stands out the most in my mind is the concept related to the new travel routes - new because up until now, TR has not edited the mainland.

A plugin could be created which would implement this concept travel routes, with dummy cells where none yet exist. This would also serve as a good idea to test drive how the new travel works with the current TR mainland and if those new routes should be part of the next release (as far as they are applicable).

Thoughts?

Post by **Anonytroll** » Sat Aug 29, 2015 7:26 pm

Something that came in today's Skype meeting: the Mages Guild Guides do form some sort of network where one hub connects to the other hubs and to the less locations - basically the hub for Vvardenfell is in Vivec, which would then connect to the hubs all over the province.

Post by **Gnomey** » Sat Aug 29, 2015 8:35 pm

The Mages Guild guild guide system has been discussed [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24852]here[/url]. More broadly as far as fast travel is concerned, for the time being I'm mostly in favour of the connections shown in this old Swiftoak map, with the obvious adjustments for Swiftoak strangeness. Naturally as far as our final routes are concerned, we lack a lot of data; some settlements might be scrapped, others might be added, etc., but I don't think that's too important for the matter at hand.
I do think an external plugin might be a good way to test travel route ideas, and perhaps also get people used to changes to Vvardenfell long before we make any final edits.

Post by **Anonytroll** » Thu Oct 29, 2015 8:42 am

Okay, first version is attached.

This is what's been done so far (click for full sized image):
[url=http://i.imgur.com/fQ5ih3Y.jpg][img]http://i.imgur.com/kdnGaTB.jpg[/img][/url]

At this point I've refrained from adding settlements not actually on the map but only in Swiftoak's concept. I'm not sure if those are supposed to be there or not.

Also I kept the Mages Guild out of Seitur. Is that town supposed to grow later on? It's five velothi huts right now.

Finally, those striders in Tel Branora, Almas Thirr, Meralag, Rhanim (especially Rhanim! Shouldn't this strider be in Kogomar instead?) should be looked at for better placements.

Ragox · Post by **Ragox** » Thu Oct 29, 2015 10:41 am

This is amazing Anonytroll, I'll have to install and try this out as soon as I get home from work.
I'm sure that was quite challenging to get figured out and done.
Anyways, this is really a dream come true for me personally

Post by **Anonytroll** » Thu Oct 29, 2015 6:49 pm

No pressure, eh?

I hope you are not disappointed with all the dinky interiors, sloppy exteriors, and npcs. It's a proof of concept at this point.

From what I've seen, if the placement of the River Strider at Tel Branora can be done better we could probably add the travel revamps from eastern Dagon Fel down to Tel Branora into TR_Mainland for 1512.

Post by **Gnomey** » Thu Oct 29, 2015 8:52 pm

A short reply to your points in this thread, without having looked at the file:

As far as settlements on Swiftoak's map but not in-game, yeah, probably best to leave off of them for now.

The Mages Guild location at Seitur was a stand-in for the [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24693]Tier II Velothi settlement[/url] which will probably be added to the east coast. At the moment, it looks like it will actually be located roughly at the site of Enamor Dayn, replacing that hamlet as well as nearby Bosmora in function. So you could put the guild guide at Enamor Dayn, or at Bosmora, or some random spot, or just leave it out.

Kogomar would work better than Rhanim, now that you mention it.

Finally, as discussed in a recent Skype meeting, Riverstriders will probably be removed from Telvannis, (they'll instead be used in Dres lands with an updated model), and they'll just use ships. There's no real need to bother about that now, though.

klep · Post by **klep** » Fri Oct 30, 2015 8:24 am

Not much time to look into the actual locations on the map and give feedback but it's great to see this taking shape!

Post by **Anonytroll** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 7:35 am

Hm, if those River Striders get removed from Telvanni lands (which is actually good, because placing them is a pita in existing maps), then Tel Branora has a problem - too many boat routes.

I'd think of scrapping the link to Helnim then. How's that?
With a decision on that plus the Silt Strider switched to Kogomar I'd get a v2 done this week still.

Post by **Gnomey** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 1:28 pm

Yeah, the Helnim link is a good one to remove for Tel Branora. I'm actually surprised that's the only travel link which will have too many connections after the merge.
Merging the two travel types also allows you to connect the Inner Sea network with the east coast network.

Post by **Anonytroll** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 6:46 pm

That's because as many travel lines have been deleted as have been added and Sadrith Mora sort of cheats by having it divided into Sadrith Mora proper and Wolverine Hall.

I'm totally lobbying for Almalexia actually making use of its two Silt Striders and it being a mini-Paris as traffic goes.

Attached is v2. The new travel lines are as follows (I left the river striders in Telvannis alone for now and only now realize I should have used layers in the image file).

[url=http://i.imgur.com/USWjbpn.jpg][img]http://i.imgur.com/JuRL8k6.jpg[/img][/url]

st.Veloth, The Repenting · Sat Oct 31, 2015 7:02 pm

what's that small island near the bottom connected to everything?
and wouldn't there be telvanni portal services connected to tear?
(for slave trade)

RyanS · Post by **RyanS** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 7:10 pm

st.Veloth, The Repenting wrote:what's that small island near the bottom connected to everything?
and wouldn't there be telvanni portal services connected to tear?
(for slave trade)

That island is Narsis, the Hlaalu capital.

As for your second question, no development has yet been made on Tear, so creating any travel services at its location wouldn't make sense.

Post by **Gnomey** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 2:45 am

Ah, right. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the Sadrith Mora/Wolverine Hall division. But I don't see too much point in fussing over that for now; it's not like these travel routes are final. I think they're serving their purpose pretty well of pointing out what works and what doesn't.

I would agree with you about Almalexia, except I'm not sure if it will have enough settlements directly around it to warrant a second siltstrider. It only has three links at the moment.

As for a travel connection between Telvannis and Tear, I'd avoid a direct connection; the travel route would be very long, and would just make the world seem smaller as the player can jump right from Telvannis in the northeast to Tear in the southeast. The ship network should naturally extend all the way down to Tear, and then taken together the network would indicate trade along Morrowind's eastern coast. It's the same way we don't have a direct connection by ship between Almas Thirr and Narsis.

Ragox · Post by **Ragox** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 9:46 am

After testing this out quite a bit I'm as happy as I expected to be with this. Our lands no longer feel for me as if they are located somewhere completely else and the experience is very natural. It's so immersive for me to be able to simply take a ship from Ebonheart to Old Ebonheart for example.

Dragon32 · Post by **Dragon32** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 11:07 am

Anonytroll wrote:Hm, if those River Striders get removed from Telvanni lands (which is actually good, because placing them is a pita in existing maps), then Tel Branora has a problem - too many boat routes.
<snip>

Not sure if the "too many boat routes" there is a comment about the aesthetics or an engine limitation. If it's the latter then it's possible to use the Enchanted Editor to add more than five.

Afraid I haven't checked the plugin to see if you're already aware of this... Whoops if you are

st.Veloth, The Repenting · Sun Nov 01, 2015 4:25 pm

but that means that hlaalu have more territory than house redoran...
and that house redoran is confined to snow and mountains...
does that make any sense?

Post by **Gnomey** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 5:35 pm

House Redoran will not be confined to snow and mountains; the Grey Meadow is a region in the middle of Redoran territory which contains neither snow nor mountains, Redoran control a chunk of Roth Roryn which is an arid canyon landscape, and the region to the south of the Grey Meadow may also be adjusted. The region around Baan Malur, while too Solstheim-y for my tastes, also contains no snow and hardly any mountains, and it might also be adjusted to give more of a Morrowind feel. Also, it's worth remembering that House Redoran controls a large chunk if not the majority of Vvardenfell. All things considered, probably only about a third of Redoran territory will have snow or mountains. (Well, Vvardenfell is pretty mountainous, so maybe make that a half).
Hlaalu might have more territory than House Redoran, however, (though to me the territory looks roughly equal or even a bit smaller), and yes, that would make sense. House Redoran is the weakest House which has had its share of difficulties under Tribunal rule and has done much worse since the Armistice, while House Hlaalu is a conglomeration of minor Houses which have done well under Tribunal rule and considerably better after the Armistice and are now vying for the position of most powerful House in Morrowind.
Morrowind takes place at a time when Tribunal Morrowind is past its prime and is beginning to collapse. A loyal House like House Redoran flourishing with a bunch of land and a subversive House like House Hlaalu being consigned to a relatively small patch of land at the edge of Morrowind would send the wrong message to the player.

This is all pretty off-topic, though, and if we want to continue this thread of conversation I'd prefer if we did it in another thread like [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24943]this one[/url], where a lot of these points have already been discussed.

Returning on-topic, I personally think we should keep to the vanilla limit on travel destinations. While an arbitrary limitation, the maximum four destinations is pretty central to the logic with which all the travel routes -- certainly on Vvardenfell -- have been designed, and if we were to remove that rule I think we'd need to reconsider the whole travel network and redesign it in a way that makes sense for the new logic. Otherwise, there will be a lot of incongruities. (Why does Almalexia have more than four siltstrider destinations available when Vivec, which is also important, and has a lot of nearby settlements it should sensibly link to as well, only has the four destinations? ETc. etc.)
I don't think the limit is entirely arbitrary either, though. I think a low number of maximum destinations was chosen, strange as it may seem, for ease of use, but also immersion: players would not be bombarded with choice at any one travel node, rather being presented with an easily digestible selection of destinations, and would, without too much trouble, be able to plan out routes to get to more distant destinations. Players trying to get from Seyda Neen to Ald-ruhn can either go along the Bitter Coast to Gnisis and then back down inland to Ald-ruhn, or go up the Odai River to Balmora and then continue north to Ald-ruhn. (Though admittedly Ald-ruhn is one of the worst examples to pick, being divided from the western coast by a ridge). If the selection of destinations is too large, players will always be able to draw pretty much a straight line to any one destination, essentially transforming the travel network into a somewhat less convenient Oblivion-style fast-travel system.
I'd rather prefer alternatives like a second siltstrider, which maintains the logic of four destinations while presenting the player with more choice. That only really works for locations like Almalexia, though, and, as I said, may not even be necessary there.

abot · Post by **abot** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 11:36 pm

Anonytroll wrote:Hm, if those River Striders get removed from Telvanni lands (which is actually good, because placing them is a pita in existing maps)

oh joy

Post by **Gnomey** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 11:43 pm

Your mod frankly makes the decision a lot harder than it would otherwise be. That being said, I don't see a reason why the River Striders couldn't continue to exist in your mod after we remove them from Telvannis.

Post by **Anonytroll** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 5:44 am

abot wrote:oh joy

That was supposed to be a comment about adding those to cells like Tel Branora where the amount of rocks in the sea makes that a pretty unviable task. In existing cells that is not an issue so my comment wouldn't apply there.

Dragon32 wrote:Not sure if the "too many boat routes" there is a comment about the aesthetics or an engine limitation. If it's the latter then it's possible to use the Enchanted Editor to add more than five.

Afraid I haven't checked the plugin to see if you're already aware of this... Whoops if you are

Engine limitations. All philosophy aside - I'd be weary of relying on Enchanted Editor to overwrite this. It's likely that it will get overwritten once and if the NPC is ever edited again at least.

NathanJ · Post by **NathanJ** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 8:23 am

Why not do two NPC's shipping the PC over to places, like one only connected with the routes leading to the places north of tel branora, and another for the ones leading to the places south. That would maybe also give the feeling like the player is "changing trains" on his journey, you know

abot · Post by **abot** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 8:47 am

Gnomey wrote:I don't see a reason why the River Striders couldn't continue to exist in your mod after we remove them from Telvannis.

Hmm, let me see. Coherence with standard insta-travel offered by TR official service providers? This may be minor, after all mods change things.

Here is a big one: requirement to add new real-time travel to new boat/strider/flying guar/whatever routes you will use to replace the old river strider ones?

Technically I could mod all this, obviously. Heck, I could even finish Nemon's Almalexia myself in theory, and add gondoliers traveling under those Venice-like bridges before being dead...

In practice, this is probably not going to happen, too much time/effort/work required for something that could have to be scrapped again at the next TR restructure-frenzy.

So, let me wear my sad face if this is going to happen

Anonytroll wrote:That was supposed to be a comment about adding those to cells like Tel Branora where the amount of rocks in the sea makes that a pretty unviable task. In existing cells that is not an issue so my comment wouldn't apply there.

sorry, my bad, I was just trying to comment about removing them from already established routes

Post by **Anonytroll** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 5:46 pm

NathanJ wrote:Why not do two NPC's shipping the PC over to places, like one only connected with the routes leading to the places north of tel branora, and another for the ones leading to the places south. That would maybe also give the feeling like the player is "changing trains" on his journey, you know

In general, because Gnomey is right. Four travel locations is a constraint that requires thought to work with, so it makes it necessary to understand why and how people would travel where they travel. You can't be everywhere at once, after all.
In vanilla, that was only done in the worldspace once (in Khuul) and it was as disruptive as you think it of. As the goal of this plugin is to showcase how TR wants to be integrated into TESIII's Morrowind proper, I think starting off with an unncessary NPC in an existing location is a bad idea. It screams "I am not part of your game as the developers intended it, only use me if you want to break immersion".

abot wrote:sorry, my bad, I was just trying to comment about removing them from already established routes

Nono, when I read over what you quoted I understood exactly what you meant and how my original post comes across. It was a clarification, not a correction, the error was on my writing, not on your reading.

I'm not sure if I was at the Skype meetings for the River Strider discussion, but I would be sad to see them go down to the south. Having a south-to-Port Telvannis travel line of River Striders appeals to me and as I think TR doesn't have the luxury of reworking existing assets without a good reason anymore. So, keeping them around would reduce work all around and make Telvannis (and Dres lands, later on) sufficiently removed from the Empire-encroached Vvardenfell that all players are familiar with.

Yeti · Post by **Yeti** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 6:33 pm

I also don't see why we need to make Riverstriders exclusive to Dres lands and remove them from Telvannis.

Ironed Maidens · Post by **Ironed Maidens** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 2:38 am

It basically comes down to 'why would the Telvanni need them'. They are going to be repurposed in Dres as chattel vehicles, and they will look better in the underground cave system we have planned. Telvanni Lords don't need methods of transport, and they could care less enough about the people living beneath their towers to have them for their convenience. I'm sorry abot, I love you mod, I really do! But as you said, it is the nature of this project. Hopefully, in the future, not much else will change as we now have a solid structure of what we're going to do in the mod. But I am in favor of moving them down to Dres lands, with the Skyrenders no long being a fast travel option, but used solely for official Dres purposes.

abot · Post by **abot** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 10:34 am

But I am in favor of moving them down to Dres lands, with the Skyrenders no long being a fast travel option, but used solely for official Dres purposes.

Uhm, maybe I was not clear, just to clarify, I am fond of the new (animated/realistic sized for shallow rivers) strider that Arcimaestro Antares did for my mod, but the big work for my mod would be re-doing the route waypoints system, moving the river striders from NE to S would only mean more work re-doing real-time transport support for them, so this does not exactly help compared to simply scraping them. Anyway...

Ironed Maidens wrote:It basically comes down to 'why would the Telvanni need them'. They are going to be repurposed in Dres as chattel vehicles, and they will look better in the underground cave system we have planned. Telvanni Lords don't need methods of transport, and they could care less enough about the people living beneath their towers to have them for their convenience. I'm sorry abot, I love you mod, I really do! But as you said, it is the nature of this project. Hopefully, in the future, not much else will change as we now have a solid structure of what we're going to do in the mod.

Wait, this is news for me. Added to the already to-do surface work, an new underground cave system? Big enough to need a believable river strider river/lake transport network? Did I understand correctly?
Well, if this is the case, problem solved, this is the definite end to my dream of supporting real-time transport in all TR.

Ironed Maidens · Post by **Ironed Maidens** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 2:39 pm

From what I understand, the cave system will be built into the game world and it will not be that big. From Skype:

[10/14/2015 2:54:41 PM] Kenneth Mraz: so to start off, with the river strider idea. you said their bellies might be able to glow, elimiating the need for any lights in the subterranian network we're thinking of for the dres, right?
[10/14/2015 2:54:52 PM] Jo H: Yes.
[10/14/2015 2:55:39 PM] Jo H: But I think the glow should be subtle in some way; either a pattern or very faint.
[10/14/2015 2:55:59 PM] Jo H: Or of course both.
[10/14/2015 2:56:34 PM] Kenneth Mraz: so, the question being...how is the implimentation going to be of this network? like, is it going to be interior cells that link to the gameworld or is it going to be built into the exterior map?
[10/14/2015 2:56:54 PM] Jo H: Probably the former;
[10/14/2015 2:57:03 PM] Jo H: the links would probably be vast dark doors or something;
[10/14/2015 2:57:10 PM] Jo H: we'd have to think a little on that one.
[10/14/2015 2:58:12 PM] Kenneth Mraz: well thepoint being, to me, that if we're going that route...the entire network would have to be built and be explorable by the pc on foot
[10/14/2015 2:58:25 PM] Jo H: Yes.
[10/14/2015 2:58:46 PM] Kenneth Mraz: wooh
[10/14/2015 2:59:11 PM] Kenneth Mraz: ok, thats a lot of work, i'd suspect
[10/14/2015 2:59:16 PM] Jo H: I think to that end it would need to be fairly straightfoward in layout, though I do think we should properly detail the whole length.
[10/14/2015 2:59:45 PM] Jo H: It would mostly be a series of large, connected tunnels; not too many side rooms or anything.
[10/14/2015 3:00:05 PM] Jo H: It will be quite a lot of work, but, I think, manageable.
[10/14/2015 3:00:14 PM] Kenneth Mraz: it would have to be created in accordance to the land above, too
[10/14/2015 3:00:22 PM] Jo H: It will need to be planned out carefully, though, and probably made in sections.
[10/14/2015 3:00:28 PM] Jo H: Yes.
[10/14/2015 3:01:14 PM] Kenneth Mraz: so like keepign in mind any mountians or anything like that
[10/14/2015 3:01:30 PM] Kenneth Mraz: but it doessssss bring up a point to me, which is a new cave type. salt caves
[10/14/2015 3:01:53 PM] Jo H: Well, the basic image that I have in mind is that you have Lake Andaram.
[10/14/2015 3:02:10 PM] Jo H: Its banks slope up fairly sharply in the direction of Deshaan,
[10/14/2015 3:02:35 PM] Jo H: leading to a high crest which runs parallel to the lake.
[10/14/2015 3:02:55 PM] Jo H: From there, it slopes down very gently to the east and south; the Deshaan plains.
[10/14/2015 3:03:38 PM] Jo H: The tunnels would emerge on the steep side into Lake Andaram,
[10/14/2015 3:04:02 PM] Jo H: and the canals would extend under the plateau, but not all the way to the ocean.
[10/14/2015 3:04:18 PM] Jo H: Rather, there would probably be a belt of Dres plantations roughly parallel to the lake on the plains.
[10/14/2015 3:04:30 PM] Kenneth Mraz: would they drain into a large underwater lake?
[10/14/2015 3:04:40 PM] Jo H: No, into Lake Andaram.
[10/14/2015 3:05:07 PM] Jo H: So the actual subterranean portion would just be a series of rivers and tributaries.
[10/14/2015 3:05:22 PM] Kenneth Mraz: where would the waterways water source come from?
[10/14/2015 3:05:55 PM] Jo H: That's admittedly a good deal harder to say; on the one hand, it could just be groundwater,
[10/14/2015 3:06:07 PM] Jo H: but it's quite possible the tunnels actually are canals,
[10/14/2015 3:06:27 PM] Jo H: in other words the Dres dug them from Lake Andaram to under their plantations.
[10/14/2015 3:06:34 PM] Kenneth Mraz: i think the dres would have retrofitted the tunnels to be canalways
[10/14/2015 3:06:37 PM] Jo H: I'm not to eagre on that idea, though.
[10/14/2015 3:06:42 PM] Jo H: Yeah.
[10/14/2015 3:06:53 PM] Kenneth Mraz: like they were naturally there, then they discovered them, then built them up
[10/14/2015 3:07:08 PM] Jo H: Yeah, I do think that's the more viable direction to go.
[10/14/2015 3:08:00 PM] Kenneth Mraz: well here's what im thikng then
[10/14/2015 3:08:39 PM] Kenneth Mraz: these waterways would be the source of the groundwater for the salt marshes we're going to see in the deshaan
[10/14/2015 3:09:04 PM] Jo H: Right, I think that may have even been the original plan;
[10/14/2015 3:09:13 PM] Jo H: I'd need to read the old Dres concept threads again.
[10/14/2015 3:09:41 PM] Kenneth Mraz: so it would have some runn-off atributaries from this underground network that travel under the water and bubble up to the surface
[10/14/2015 3:09:51 PM] Kenneth Mraz: sorry, under the ground
[10/14/2015 3:10:13 PM] Jo H: Or, the Dres would have vast pumps.
[10/14/2015 3:10:31 PM] Jo H: (Depending on the design, that wouldn't be as crazy as it sounds;
[10/14/2015 3:10:46 PM] Jo H: the archimedes screw can be extended pretty conveniently, for instance)
[10/14/2015 3:11:33 PM] Kenneth Mraz: probaly working mainly on gravity/momentum
[10/14/2015 3:11:43 PM] Jo H: Yeah.
[10/14/2015 3:12:14 PM] Jo H: http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=22852&start=200
[10/14/2015 3:12:25 PM] Jo H: There's a bit of stuff here, but I still need to read it...
[10/14/2015 3:12:50 PM] Jo H: various waterscrews and waterwheels about a third of the way down the page.
[10/14/2015 3:14:52 PM] Jo H: http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=22852&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=240
[10/14/2015 3:15:05 PM] Jo H: About a third on the way down here Adanorcil writes about it,
[10/14/2015 3:15:13 PM] Jo H: more in the direction of chasms than tunnels.
[10/14/2015 3:15:23 PM] Kenneth Mraz: i think chasms and gravity would work best
[10/14/2015 3:15:30 PM] Kenneth Mraz: or it could be completly natural
[10/14/2015 3:16:02 PM] Kenneth Mraz: idk, something about seeing these waterwheels all over the deshaan doesnt rub well with me
[10/14/2015 3:16:15 PM] Jo H: Ah, agreed on that;
[10/14/2015 3:16:28 PM] Jo H: those were just realqorld concepts thrown out for inspiration.
[10/14/2015 3:17:01 PM] Jo H: I do think, though, that to a degree it might be a good direction; I don't see the Dres as the sort to learn to live with their surroundings.
[10/14/2015 3:17:07 PM] Jo H: THey learn to dominate their surroundings.
[10/14/2015 3:17:24 PM] Jo H: Going with a vaguely industrial look would be one way to show that.
[10/14/2015 3:17:44 PM] Jo H: It would admittedly mar the aesthetic of the Deshaan, but intentionally and, I think, to good effect.
[10/14/2015 3:17:49 PM] Jo H: But, again, just one idea.

So that's the idea for now. Like I said, I love your work, all of your mods are very good and you're a veteran in the modding community, obviously. But I think not going this route for the sake of one of your mods is pretty counter-intuitive. Of course, you can always keep the river striders there in your mod as well....

abot · Post by **abot** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 3:48 pm

I see this as the exact same problem of abandoning current Almalexia, valuing new fancy ideas (Dres like Drow? LOL) more than compatibility with what already done or realistic development timelines, the only difference is that this time what is involved is my personal hard work, instead of Nemon's or someone else.
To me, this is the classic last straw about modding for TR.
Good luck with your project, I hope to be still alive and kicking to play with it if/when it's done, but modding for it is something I don't feel like doing any more.

NathanJ · Post by **NathanJ** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 4:11 pm

Wait! I know, im new here and all that stuff, but in the time i have been here now I have seen that there are quite a few things that are slowing down the progress of this project - Theres a reason for this project being a whole decade old and still working on basic questions like "what is morrowind" and "what story are we going to tell". But I think its necessary to work on those things that are slowing down the progress, that is more important than the actual modding (at least for now). Thats also the reason why im doing those breakdowns for the IC - to deliver a strong, definite, lore-basis, on which quests can be made that survive future discussions about the possibilities given by the lore. I know you may think what the hell is this guy telling me, but hey, thats my opinion. would be cool if youre going to stay and help the project getting finished - by helping getting oil between TR's gear-wheels

Yeti · Post by **Yeti** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 5:11 pm

Why couldn't the regular Dunmer living in Telvanni lands obtain the riverstriders on their own? Surely, they don't need the Telvanni to provide them siltstriders, so what makes riverstriders any different? Telvanni lands should be super weird. Using regular boats would be too mundane.

NathanJ · Post by **NathanJ** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 5:59 pm

Yes, I agree with yeti that telvanni-lands have to feel weird. And the idea of an underground tunnel system is a good one. But one must admit that the river striders are looking simply looking gorgeous, and it would be a big loss for TR if it hadnt included those. So why not try to include both ideas, giving the telvanni-lands a really complex, inscrutable structure, with often more than one possibility to get to a certain place?

edit: Or sometimes more than one option. Lets say, a few routes are only reachable through tunnels and a few through striders - and some both

RyanS · Post by **RyanS** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 6:01 pm

Honestly this, "We're kickin river striders out because planning." is not a good excuse right now. And by that I mean saying that there's a 'better' plan is simply not a reasonable explanation. There are clearly still years ahead of us before we will get back to redoing the Telvanni lands, and by then people will either not care about this thread or will forget about it completely.

And personally, for the sake of keeping modders, such as abot, from leaving our project due to us screwing up his famous mod, and for the sake of how this will all turn out when development time comes, I am opposed to moving the river striders. To those who want to have them moved, there is definitely a much broader view of the situation than, "The telvanni lords wouldn't allow it." What if the striders were native to Telvanni lands? Would the lower class Telvanni really just let them roam around and do nothing?

We've got to look over this and figure out if there is a really GOOD reason to redo it or scrap it. So far I don't see a convincing one. We also must pay attention to the long term and short term consequences, and decide then if this is worth doing at all. Currently, I do not think the scrapping and moving of the river striders is worth carrying out. The action lacks good reason and has too many consequences.

Ironed Maidens wrote: I'm sorry abot, I love you mod, I really do! But as you said, it is the nature of this project.

We've got to change the nature of this project. It is shrinking our chances of success as well as harming our outside relations.

Post by **Gnomey** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 6:26 pm

Something to understand is that we're doing a lot of planning at this stage, but have not quite reached the stage of making clear decisions, with a few exceptions. (For travel routes, the most relevant one is: we will integrate our travel network with Vvardenfell's). And I fully understand any irritation that causes. It's an irritating situation. The travel routes are being planned out now, they have not been decided on. It will probably be a while before they practically can be; we still don't know how most of Morrowind will look. As they are being planned -- I'd personally argue in the ideal case -- a lot of ideas for how to implement travel routes will be discussed:
Do we want siltstriders to be a staple of Morrowind, found from Baan Malur to Tear to Tel Ouada, or would that make Morrowind more uniform than we want to make it, would it wear down the appeal and weirdness of the siltstrider? More forms of transport mean more variety for the player, but too many result in a cluttered mess. Where is the happy medium? The idea of removing river striders is not final. The idea of the canal network under Deshaan is in no way final.
Where I specifically see the use of this plugin is to transform the planning process into in-game reality without reaching a premature final decision; we can test out the ideas that have been thrown about and get an idea of how they work in practice.
What would help the planning process, and make sure we're able to reach as ideal a result as possible as soon as possible, is if people point out right away what they like and dislike about this plugin and the ideas being thrown about, and why. The intent of this thread is not to dictate 'here's how we're doing it', it's more in the direction of: 'here's what we've come up with so far, where do we go from here?' This thread has spawned such a discussion.

There's another purpose as well, though, as I see it: it means that we can provide a travel network with our mod now for people playing it, so that navigating our landmass is less of a pain, without prematurely starting to implement our final network in the main file. Because if we were to just go ahead and do the latter, we might end up changing our minds, and we'd end up with this situation again.
The real-time boat travel mod is not going to become incompatible with TR anytime soon. If we managed to render it incompatible anytime soon with our current project structure, that would mean we essentially have Morrowind planned out on a province, faction and regional level, which would frankly be fantastic. At that rate, we'd finish the project in no time, and people modding TR would for the most part be able to throw fears of future incompatibility out the window.
As it is, TR_Mainland is very stable.

To round off yet another lengthy post, I want to more-or-less reiterate some points that have mostly already been made in our [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24590]official statement of vision[/url] in my own words: we will be expanding our travel network to cover all of Morrowind. Of course. Whether we change Telvannis or not, eventually the real-time boat travel mod will need to be expanded to several times its current scope if it is to be kept consistent with TR's travel network. The fact that we will be integrating Vvardenfell into our travel network doesn't help in that regard.
Maintaining mod compatibility -- or preserving the work of TR developers -- is not our top priority. It is a priority, but not the top priority. Finishing the project as soon as possible is also not our top priority. If it were, we'd open up all exterior claims and interior claims, allow people to add quests and dialogue as desired, would patch the ensuing mess together and TR would be done. That's not far from how TR started out, and TR did actually 'complete' the majority of its landmass like that, years ago. We probably would have finished years ago if we kept to that, but we didn't. We decided we wanted quality and consistency and, by introducing and raising standards gradually over time, have ensured that the project is still unfinished, and less 'complete' than it had been in the past.
We are, however, flexible. (One might argue that's a major part of the problem). We're open to the opinions of modders and TR developers and will hear those opinions out. The difference -- I hope -- is that now we're less likely to act on those opinions impulsively, whether adopting or discarding them, but rather will try to keep those opinions in mind, will discuss them in the planning process, will complete the planning process and only then will act on it. (That's the ideal anyway; we are consciously making a big exception of the Thirr River Valley because we want to continue to do some CS work on the project rather than devoting ourselves to pure planning).
People lobbied to keep parts of Nemon's Mournhold, and, as a result, rather than starting completely from scratch the current plan is preserve the best bits and incorporate them into our new Mournhold. Again, that plan is not final, and maybe it will change; there's still a lot of work that needs to be done before we can properly implement Mournhold in the CS.
What's important is that we hear the opinions before we make the final decision, and that once we have made the final decision, as soon as we have made it, we clearly communicate it. To ensure that we hear the opinions before we make the final decision, we need to make sure that our planning is transparent and easy to follow. I can't say it is at the moment; we'd be doing better on transparency if we could find a quick and accurate way to communicate the contents of our Skype meetings, and as far as being easy to follow, this forum is still a mess, for one thing. Those are things we need to work on on our end.

Post by **Anonytroll** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 7:01 pm

One thing that TR generates more than actual edits these days is concepts.

Didn't know how true that was when I wrote the OP. I assumed the "let's toss out everything we've done before" teething phase was over.

It's at least good to hear that it's not decided yet. It seems a pretty dubious decision (particularly since I see Telvanni as too disorganised to actively enforce any such ban). I see why you wouldn't want to add River Striders to the Inner Sea (hell I don't, they can't even turn there properly thanks to all the monoliths), but the rest is hm. Also seriously, an underground network?
I know of underground rivers, but this would be really cavernous. We are talking about regular Rhines running under Morrowind, up to Mississippis. abot's comparison with the Underdark is pretty spot on - this just seems silly. And that's not even touching the mesh placement if that had to happen above ground.

Also, the spot of "travelling underground" seems like a sort of forced imitation of the Black Marsh worm travel from The Argonian Account. I can see why it is appealing, but it seems to me entirely misplaced and too impractical to consider.

Finally, I hope this is a considerable kick in the pants for everyone to come to the Skype meetings. Because that's where this stuff is actually decided on.

RyanS · Post by **RyanS** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 7:27 pm

Gnomey, It appears you've touched up on what you think I, and a few others, believe about the current system here at TR. It seems you think we are opposed to much of what is going on nowadays, or that we don't understand how things work here nowadays. The truth, I'm sure, is that the majority of us, if not all, agree and have almost always agreed with just about everything you said in your post.

Everything you brought up about the planning system, and how this particular decision is not final, is pretty much consistent with my beliefs. Would anyone here be trying to share their thoughts on this subject if a decision had already been made? Probably not. So clearly we all know nothing has been made absolute.

Also, I very much believe that we should keep with at least close to the amount of planning we have now. I am just convinced that the amount of content we redo is really quite ridiculous, and ends up pissing a lot of people off. And so, we should try to hold back on redoing so much content.

Also, don't get me wrong, I very much support the travel plugin that is the main topic of this thread. I am only opposed to moving the river striders away from Telvanni lands.

Edit: Reading over what I just wrote, my post(s) might appear to be a bit aggressive. Just to let you know, I'm not trying to come off like that, so hopefully people don't take them the wrong way. I still stand by what I've said, though.

Post by **Gnomey** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 9:28 pm

To follow one long post with another:

Why move the river striders? Nobody suggested that the Telvanni banned river striders; that's a misunderstanding. I feel as though there are a lot of misunderstanding here, really. While a lot of the results of that Skype meeting did make it into the Master Plan, only the results of the discussion were noted down as opposed to the reasoning, at least in part because the reasoning doesn't really belong in the Master Plan, which I now see is quite a bit of a blind spot.

The suggestion was that rivers striders are simply not native to Telvannis, instead being native to Dres lands. I'd ask the opposite: why would Telvanni ban ships from docking at their ports? They don't visit or care about the ports, much less use them.
Why would I expect there to be ships in Telvanni ports? According to current vague ideas floating around, the Telvanni, much like the Indoril, are only a specific part of the population of Telvannis. They live in towers and mind their own business. Below them, whether to their knowledge or not, live the Velothi; I think I used the metaphor 'like barnacles on a ship', or something to that effect. But they probably wouldn't travel much themselves; so far we've characterized the Velothi as generally being tied to their communities.
The Telvanni would not trade goods themselves; they're hardly so worldly. A variety of merchants and caravaners -- perhaps Telvanni retainers, perhaps not -- would do the trading for them. (That is to say the merchants would probably trade with Telvanni retainers whose job it is to ensure that their masters are provided for with everything they desire). Now as those merchants would potentially cross long distances transporting goods like saltrice and slaves from Deshaan to Telvannis and Telvanni bugmusk away from Telvannis, my association was ships. Mind that the big ships in Morrowind are almost certainly of native design, and for a long time -- whether there will be river striders in Telvannis or not -- I've wanted us to expand the selection of Dunmer ships, preferably going for more alien designs than the default ships.
If that sounds a bit like the river strider, I now realize it is. I think I haven't made the obvious connection of river striders = alien Dunmer ships until today because we've been handling river striders as their own travel network and probably also because the model is clunkily executed, as much as I like the design.

Additionally, I assume that there would be cross-provincial trade, even if there isn't a lot of it, that would go up and down Morrowind's east coast, and as for the Inner Sea, you have Firewatch, Wolverine Hall, debatably Helnim and arguably Kemel-Ze as Imperial ship destinations.
All of this makes me think there would be ships in Telvanni ports. Why shouldn't there be? And if there are ships, why can't the player travel with them? To me, the river strider networks that have been suggested so far just seems inconvenient. The mess of mashing river striders into the Inner Sea network probably didn't help in that regard.
Now I am starting to consider alternatives; either simply making river striders part of the ship network or altering the river strider network in a way that would make more sense to me. But frankly, I still prefer using them elsewhere instead, and either way that wouldn't in any way guarantee us leaving the Telvannis networks be.

Now what is the logic behind the subterranean network? As far as I can recall, nobody ever suggested making it a place where the Dres actually live, anymore than the Vivec Underworks and waterways are where the citizens of Vivec live. The idea was basically that the canals would form an Underworks for the Deshaan -- sometimes visible from the surface, sometimes not -- which would bring water to the Deshaan, as opposed to carrying it away. River striders would essentially be Dres gondolas.
The canals would play a central role in Dres -- and by extension Morrowind's -- economy, being necessary to support the saltrice fields which keep Morrowind fed and provide one of the province's chief exports. Building upon that idea, I think they're naturally well-suited to function as a travel network; they could provide a convenient way of not only bringing water to the Deshaan, but also bringing saltrice away, specifically to Lake Andaram. And if they can carry saltrice, they can carry other goods, like people. As a bonus, there's a good reason for the river strider network not to overlap with the ship network: normal ships would not be able to navigate the dark, narrow waterways.
I personally still think such a network -- if kept relatively utilitarian but well-designed -- would be well worth its while. I could write a whole other long post about the whys and possible hows of its implementation, and I almost certainly will sooner or later, but unless people really want to hear it I'd rather leave off it for now.

Now this is my opinion. What was discussed in the Skype meeting? Not the stuff in the log Ironed Maidens posted; that was from an after-meeting conversation I had with him in which I explained my ideas, which is perhaps not clear from the context.
As far as I recall, what came up in the meeting was the bit about Telvanni not being the ones who use the travel network, and so there was no real reason for them to have a special form of transportation, and that it might be a good idea to use the river striders in Dres lands instead, as the Sky Renders were judged better used otherwise, and we wanted Dres to have their own travel network, and as the specific idea of the subterranean canals had been floating around. Now there are good counterarguments that could have come up in the meeting, and I have thought of plenty counterarguments while writing this post, as well as counter-counterarguments. They didn't come up in the meeting, though, and as such weren't considered. That's one of the specific disadvantages of the Skype meetings; ideas are often not as well formulated as forum posts can be, and as I hope this post is. It's a large reason why I would like to see the Skype meeting discussions continue on the forums, as opposed to just being consigned to Skype -- again, faster and clearer summaries would really help there -- which is what is happening here.

Edit: I forgot:

RyanS wrote:Would anyone here be trying to share their thoughts on this subject if a decision had already been made? Probably not.

I did consider that might be the case with abot, and as a result was concerned that it may be the case with others who might read this thread as well, yes. Actually, rereading the thread, my impression has only been reinforced on both counts.

Actually, just to be on the safe side, I feel like I should also clarify that I certainly don't think the canal network should go under most of Deshaan, let alone beyond the Deshaan. Though I won't deny it would still me massive.

Ironed Maidens · Post by **Ironed Maidens** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 12:38 am

I think that the point of the matter is to not worry too much about it as any reworking on Telvannis is so far in the future that you'll probably forget all about this conversation by the time it comes. I was simply just stating an idea that we had that is probably for the better.

RyanS · Post by **RyanS** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 5:48 am

Ironed Maidens wrote:I think that the point of the matter is to not worry too much about it as any reworking on Telvannis is so far in the future that you'll probably forget all about this conversation by the time it comes. I was simply just stating an idea that we had that is probably for the better.

But we do have to worry about the situation now, as it appears to be ending the great support and relationship with a well known modder from outside TR's close community. And frankly, he has every right to find this proposed idea slightly offensive after all the work he went through to create his mods.

Gnomey wrote:Nobody suggested that the Telvanni banned river striders; that's a misunderstanding.

Yeah, it isn't a ban. It's more that the Telvanni lords would be too lazy and uncaring to bring in the river striders for their cities/strongholds. But in reality, the townsfolk could get the striders themselves.

On the topic of river striders in Deshaan, I actually support their inclusion there. Incorporation of the striders in Dres lands could show some close ties with the two great houses (That is if river striders will remain in Telvannis), and, well, House Dres, like House Telvanni, is really too weird to have boats as a main travel option.

EJRS · Post by **EJRS** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 7:14 am

But really, I find the River Strider far less weird than the Silt Strider, and in most - if not all - cases where the former is used, it could be replaced with the latter.
Silt Striders are perfectly capable of moving through shallow waters, such as rivers and along the coastline. That is one of the cool things about them. And one of the things that adds to their exotic feel: the Dunmer ride huge bugs that are capable of walking across water, rather than use the expected method of floating across it.
To me, there really doesn't seem to be much point in the inclusion of the River Strider. It just seems like something slapped on, something superficially weird that doesn't really fit and serve much function within the Dunmer world.
Also, the Silt Strider is such a signature creature of TES3, and I think that it looks a lot better to stick with them, giving the feel of a province-wide caravan network.

If people are bored with Silt Striders, I think there is a lot that can be done with fleshing out the culture around them: how they are caught, how they are prepared/lobotomized, how the culture of the caravaners work etc. Think Kipling's [url=http://www.authorama.com/jungle-book-11.html]'Toomai of the Elephants'[/url]. Especially in Telvannis: we know from lore than the best riding beasts are reared on Telvanni lands.