Tamriel Rebuilt

Not as such. Swiftoak is in favour of renaming 'New' Ebonheart, and for rather good reasons; Ebonheart was supposed to be a city on the mainland, but, after Bethesda decided to cut out the mainland and only create Vvardenfell, they shoe-horned it in as a sort of odd ducal seat non-settlement. As TR is creating the mainland, and with it 'Old' Ebonheart, 'New' Ebonheart has lost its reason to exist, and certainly its reason to be called Ebonheart.

TR created a narrative in which 'New' Ebonheart was a settlement established on Vvardenfell as soon as it was opened up for settlement, but that has always struck me -- and apparently Swiftoak -- as rather weak, as we ended up making 'Old' Ebonheart far more impressive than 'New' Ebonheart, so the latter in no way serves as a replacement for the former. Sort of as though Germany were to build a port, a factory and a government building on the North Sea and then call it New Hamburg.

That being said, most active developers don't seem especially in favour of renaming 'New' Ebonheart, and I simply don't feel strongly enough about it to care either way. I [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=327131]recently tossed up[/url] a suggestion that could make the existence of the two Ebonhearts at least a little less silly, in which they are actually just one settlement that pretty much expanded in an unconventional way because magic. Not sure if we're going with it, but it is an idea.

Gnomey wrote:Sort of as though Germany were to build a port, a factory and a government building on the North Sea and then call it New Hamburg.

It's not like such things didn't happen. The Dutch founded New Amsterdam that later became New York when the Englishmen took over.

Ok.
In UESP this city called "Castle Ebonheart"
I'm not against the renaming, but without them I think everything is quite clear.

The context of names like New York and New Amsterdam and New Jersey and London, Ontario and such is completely different. They're an ocean apart from the original locations, and were generally named by colonists and other emigrants more or less out of nostalgia, or a desire to figuratively reestablish their homelands in unfamiliar and untamed lands. 'New' Ebonheart is across a narrow sea from Old Ebonheart; you won't find a 'New Amsterdam' on the southern coast of England.
And that's all aside from the fact that just because something can happen in reality doesn't necessarily mean it should be reflected in a videogame; reality is often stranger than fiction, and simply grabbing real-world ideas and inserting them into a fictional world without justification will tend to lead to a very inconsistent setting.

And in reply to Biboran, just to be clear we are not currently planning to rename Ebonheart. That being said, while I missed the fact that 'New' Ebonheart is often referred to as 'Castle Ebonheart', that doesn't really help to clarify matters, as TR went and gave Old Ebonheart a castle as well. We call it 'Old Ebonheart Castle' instead, but that just ties back to the clumsy 'Old Ebonheart'/(New) Ebonheart naming convention.

I very liked version Ebonheart-on-Vvardenfell. Sounds good and quite realistic. Even we have Rostov and Rostov-on-Don.

Judging from the [url=http://uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Third_Era]third era timeline[/url], it's possible that New Ebonheart was founded after Vvardenfell became open to general settlement, sometime after the events of Daggerfall. They could have decided, for whatever reason, that having the Imperial seat closer to Vivec than Almalexia was a better choice. Maybe they thought that having their offices there was better to monitor the expansion in the area.

From the viewpoint of lore may be in Vivec Dres and Indoril quarters?

The Indoril are probably happy in their castle-estates and/or Almalexia, and I don't see the xenophobic Dres leaving their lands. Though that does raise the question of why a Telvanni canton exists.

I also find it strange that hermits Televanni have a quarter, but main political and religion house Indoril not.

In Vivec, I think we can assume that Dres and Indoril don't have cantons simply because they don't have territory on Vvardenfell.

Due to the Telvanni policy on Vvardenfell, its members act a lot more aggressive and proactive than they would otherwise tend to. The canton was probably established to protect their expansionist interests. Keep in mind that a council of all the Houses in Vvardenfell district convenes in Ebonheart, and the Telvanni apparently bother to send someone there.
Neither the Indoril nor the Dres would have much to gain from a canton, as they have no land on Vvardenfell. One could also argue that the Temple canton already is the Indoril canton, given the number of Indoril serving as ordinators and other temple officials.

Thanks ihavefivehat and Gnomey, this is logical now.

1. Is Almalexia going to be in the next release?

2. When Almalexia is released, am I right in saying you'll just be able to walk in and out of Mournhold using those currently-unusable doors?

3. Will Indoril be joinable in the next release?

1. No.
2. Not quite; we'll be bypassing Tribunal's content (Tribunal content is almost all partitioned off in individual interior cells, so it can be isolated without causing conflicts) and remaking Mournhold in the exterior, likely with heavy adjustments.
3. Probably not.

I love the work that has been done on this project so far, and I have to say, the closer it gets to full releases of Old Ebonheart and Redoran lands and Uld Vraech, the more excited I get. I do have a few questions that may have been answered elsewhere. I apologize if they have been.

1. First, the unification of the Vvardenfell and mainland factions. I believe the current plan was to no longer use the Mainland House Hlaalu/Redoran/Telvanni factions and instead just make them continuous with the "normal" factions from the vanilla game. Since the main release essentially has only Telvanni and Indoril holdings, are you going to start "merging" the factions once Hlaalu lands start appearing in the main release so that there is only one faction for each house (the vanilla one)? Or is this going to happen down the road once things are more finalized?

2. For the Imperial factions, I saw something about them getting separate versions for each district (Velothis, Telvannis, etc.), allowing the player to become head of each respective district, and was wondering if that was still the case and if any more decisions had been made in that area? I also got the impression that there would be an "elite tier" version of the factions for the entire province above the district factions that would allow the player to become the head of all of Morrowind for say, the Fighter's Guild. I was curious if that was even remotely correct.

3. If the idea is to now make Vvardenfell and vanilla content more seamless, then will there be separate Indoril and Dres Hortator quests, as well as Armun (and any other) Nerevarine quests added on to the fourth and fifth trials part of the main quest?

4. The Hortator and Nerevarine quests often struck me from a gameplay perspective as incentive to explore the rest of the island in the base game. It gives you a goal during exploration other than pure curiosity (find the council members). Have you thought of adding to the existing Hlaalu/Redoran/Telvanni Hortator quests, and have the player get more votes from council members on the mainland to provide the same incentive throughout your content? You could have the player travel to major cities such as Port Telvannis and Narsis, as well as smaller areas like Tel Ouada, the Oran Plantation, and Kartur to get votes. That would make the Hortator quests rather long, but I think it would be worth it as it provides other opportunities to meet characters and for quests to get the council votes.

5. In the alpha file, some places such as Bodrem and even as far north as Verarchen have interiors and NPCs. I know the Thirr River Valley, Old Ebonheart, and Andothren are priorities, but have any other smaller places seen progress like that since the last alpha release?

6. Is it correct that the Tribunal main quest will essentially be an extension/sequel to the Morrowind main quest? (with all the misc. and side quests showing up in Almalexia from the start?)

7. Will all Tribunal content try to be repurposed in the TR Almalexia? And will you still have Gedna Relvel and will she still be bug-tastically powerful?

8. I like the look and feel of Sotha Sil's Clockwork City, but having expected a, well, city, I was very underwhelmed by the relatively linear nature of the area, even compared to the Mournhold sewers. Have there been any discussions to maybe expand on it, and make it more... city-like? Not Kemel-Ze sized or anything, just more of it.

9. Speaking of... Has Kemel-Ze been finished and made fully accessible?

10. I don't remember why, but at one point I ended up swimming from the Peninsula of Veloth southwest toward the main coast, and I noticed that the sea floor that has been worked on ends fairly soon from the coast. Its not important or anything, I was just wondering if to be expanded any further east from the Nedothril Coast and Telvannis or north of Sheogorad and Uld Vraech?

11. Do you keep demographics data for the entirety of the mainland similar to the demographics data UESP has for each game? If so, I was curious what the percentages of each race is currently.

12. This is probably not really the right place for this one, but the MCP had the function to extend the map to show the entirety of Morrowind for TR in the pause menu. With other province mods being worked on, is there a way to once more extend the map so that I could see all of Tamriel for instance? (if it were created in game) As well as multi level zoom to see it all at once?

My guess is that some of these were probably answered elsewhere and I missed them. Sorry if that's the case.

Jet133 wrote:12. This is probably not really the right place for this one, but the MCP had the function to extend the map to show the entirety of Morrowind for TR in the pause menu. With other province mods being worked on, is there a way to once more extend the map so that I could see all of Tamriel for instance? (if it were created in game) As well as multi level zoom to see it all at once?

Hrnchamd has answered that one - no, not via MCP there won't be.

That being said, OpenMW intends to have all-created-Tamriel functionality, as I understand it.

Jet133 wrote:Snip

Disclaimer: I'm not a developer myself, just someone who's been lurking here for some time.

1. It'll happen eventually, but I don't expect any CS work to be done on that front before the landmass is finished.

2. The plan so far seems to be to let you become the head of a district's guild by completing that district's specific questline. You can then advance to becoming head of the province's guild, though the exact method for this is still uncertain.

3. Any changes to be made to the Main Quest are still up in the air, though adding extra Hortator questlines seems possible. Adding extra ashlander quests would also be possible, though there might be lore reasons to limit the Main Quest to the four Vanilla camps.

4. Current plans for the Great House merge seem to include overhauling the councils to include members from all of Morrowind, not just Vvardenfell. The main quest might be changed to reflect this, though again, no specific plans have been made.

5. Not to my knowledge, but I'm not a dev myself, so there might be progress I'm not aware of.

6+7. The TR hivemind seems to be in favor of this approach, but as this concerns Almalexia, there are no solid plans yet.

8. The concensus seems to be that development efforts could be spent more productively on other areas.

9. Development of any content in Telvannis lands has been put on hold for now, and that includes Kemel-Ze.

10+11. I have no idea.

11. If referring to [url=http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Demographics]this[/url] demographics chart of Vvardenfell settlements, no such thing yet exists for the Maindland, but shouldn't be too hard to extract from the data files. That said, I'd also find it interesting to have such an overview, possibly even per House district. - However, at this point it wouldn't be accurate at all since a lot of NPCing is yet to be done.

Gnomey wrote:1. No.
2. Not quite; we'll be bypassing Tribunal's content (Tribunal content is almost all partitioned off in individual interior cells, so it can be isolated without causing conflicts) and remaking Mournhold in the exterior, likely with heavy adjustments.
3. Probably not.

So there's going to be two Mournholds? That seems...strange. I'm no expert with the CS, but was it decided that linking Tribunal to the Mainland would be too hard?

Thanks for the Indoril thing. I was putting off joining a house on my current save in case of Indoril, but if not, then I may as well join Hlaalu. Uncle Crassius awaits me.

Howling_Snail wrote: So there's going to be two Mournholds? That seems...strange. I'm no expert with the CS, but was it decided that linking Tribunal to the Mainland would be too hard?

Technically there will be two Mournholds, but you'll only be able to access the TR version. The person who teleports you to vanilla mournhold simply won't do so anymore. Vanilla Mournhold will be left untouched to prevent serious conflicts with other mods, while all of its content will be recreated in TR's Mournhold/Almalexia.

More technical explanation on how this works: within the game's logic, Vanilla mournhold is an interior cell (this is why it's not visible on the vanilla world map). Because of this, it's really easy to isolate it from the rest of the game.

In the next release will be the new alpha-lands?

Sorry - no new land in the next release.

Okay

Theminimanx wrote:

Howling_Snail wrote: So there's going to be two Mournholds? That seems...strange. I'm no expert with the CS, but was it decided that linking Tribunal to the Mainland would be too hard?

Technically there will be two Mournholds, but you'll only be able to access the TR version. The person who teleports you to vanilla mournhold simply won't do so anymore. Vanilla Mournhold will be left untouched to prevent serious conflicts with other mods, while all of its content will be recreated in TR's Mournhold/Almalexia.

More technical explanation on how this works: within the game's logic, Vanilla mournhold is an interior cell (this is why it's not visible on the vanilla world map). Because of this, it's really easy to isolate it from the rest of the game.

Is that not going to break every existing mod that uses Mournhold's 5 "exterior" cells? (I assume the "proper" interiors wouldn't be affected, aside from having their doors re-wired)

Also, what exactly is going to be in the next release then?

Well, obviously those mods won't have any effect on TR's Almalexia, but having them installed also won't break any quests/result in floating objects/etc. The same goes for the 'proper' interiors. They'll be completely untouched and/or recreated from scratch.

The main benefit of this is that mods that are useful for Vvardenfell but require Tribunal installed will still work on Vvardenfell. The unofficial patch is a great example of this.

As far as Mournhold is concerned, as Theminimanx said we won't actually touch Tribunal content other than to stop the player from being able to access it. It is possible even that change will only be made via an optional plugin.

Jet133 wrote:1. First, the unification of the Vvardenfell and mainland factions. [...]

It will probably happen when we start implementing the Hlaalu questline, but we won't do everything at once, and different Houses will be merged to differing degrees. Note that, for us to implement the Hlaalu questline, about a third of Map 6 will need to be finished first. Alternatively we may choose to get House Redoran done first, but that will also take a while.

Jet133 wrote:2. For the Imperial factions, [...]

Unlike the old Vvardenfell and Mainland branch ideas, the Imperial Guilds will technically be a single faction; you only join any guild once, and are then able to do quests for that guild anywhere on Morrowind. However, internally they will be divided into branches following Imperial administrative district lines.
This means that each district branch has a leader, and the player, probably only by doing quests within that branch, will be able to rise in the ranks until he becomes the leader of a branch himself. However, while the player will be able to complete the questlines for each branch, he only becomes the leader of one, naturally the first in which he's promoted to that rank. This is because it would be silly for the player to lead each individual branch; it will probably make no real difference which branch the player chooses to lead.
Above the branch leader ranks will probably only be one rank, namely guild leader of the whole province. The player will likely have to complete several, though not necessarily all, branch questlines to reach that rank.

Jet133 wrote:3. If the idea is to now make Vvardenfell and vanilla content more seamless, then will there be separate Indoril and Dres Hortator quests, as well as Armun (and any other) Nerevarine quests added on to the fourth and fifth trials part of the main quest?

This is possible, but unclear. We have not reached any decision on the matter, and it will probably be a while before we can plan changes to the mainquest in earnest.

Jet133 wrote:4. The Hortator and Nerevarine quests often struck me from a gameplay perspective as incentive to explore the rest of the island in the base game. [...]

As Theminimanx pointed out, the councils will be merged, so the player will likely have to go to the mainland to get votes. As I mentioned above, though, different Houses will be merged to differing degrees. The current plans for House Redoran put its most important members in Ald-ruhn, so there's a chance the player won't need to go to the mainland for House Redoran. In the case of House Hlaalu, however, the current plan seems to be for most of the council to be on the mainland.
This has indeed not really been discussed, however, along with the rest of the mainquest.

Jet133 wrote:5. In the alpha file, some places such as Bodrem and even as far north as Verarchen have interiors and NPCs. I know the Thirr River Valley, Old Ebonheart, and Andothren are priorities, but have any other smaller places seen progress like that since the last alpha release?

Not such progress, no. That work was the result of detailing claims which were much like the current sections, and were superseded by sectional planning. There are three claimed exteriors in Uld Vraech, but they haven't seen much progress. All other work has been in the sections and TR_Mainland.

Jet133 wrote:6. Is it correct that the Tribunal main quest will essentially be an extension/sequel to the Morrowind main quest?

This seems to be the plan at the moment, though it may still change.

Jet133 wrote:7. Will all Tribunal content try to be repurposed in the TR Almalexia? And will you still have Gedna Relvel and will she still be bug-tastically powerful?

This is unclear; It is possible. When the topic came up before, it seemed that each member had a silly quest or interaction they wanted to see die and another they wanted to see kept. As all of that content will still exist unharmed in Bethesda's Mournhold, though, and we'll be manually recreating anything we want kept, it is quite likely that we will tweak stuff along the way. No idea if that would carry over to Gedna, if we keep her.

Jet133 wrote:8. I like the look and feel of Sotha Sil's Clockwork City, but having expected a, well, city, I was very underwhelmed by the relatively linear nature of the area, even compared to the Mournhold sewers. Have there been any discussions to maybe expand on it, and make it more... city-like? Not Kemel-Ze sized or anything, just more of it.

As Theminimanx said, the current consensus appears to be against making such changes. As I understand it there is already a fairly popular mod that extends the city.

Jet133 wrote:10. I don't remember why, but at one point I ended up swimming from the Peninsula of Veloth southwest toward the main coast, and I noticed that the sea floor that has been worked on ends fairly soon from the coast. Its not important or anything, I was just wondering if to be expanded any further east from the Nedothril Coast and Telvannis or north of Sheogorad and Uld Vraech?

It's possible; it hasn't really come up before. That being said, I rather doubt it. I'm not sure if anyone is interested enough in the seafloor to make extending it a priority, and I certainly doubt you'll see much work in that direction while the landmass still needs to be created. Most players (and indeed modders) are more interested in dry land, which tends to provide better gameplay in Morrowind, so we are focusing our attention there.

Jet133 wrote:11. Do you keep demographics data for the entirety of the mainland similar to the demographics data UESP has for each game? If so, I was curious what the percentages of each race is currently.

We do not, but it's certainly worth considering. There was an old thread pointing out that we tended to create male-heavy populations, but I think we've gotten somewhat better, and are certainly paying more attention to race distribution. (From what I have seen of Indoril content, for instance, there seem to be about as many outlanders in Indoril lands as anywhere else, which we are changing).

Your timing is rather good on these questions, by the way. A lot of this was extensively -- though generally not conclusively -- discussed on Saturday.

Excuse me for this blatantly short message. I wrote a longer, and more eloquent one recently, but accidentally deleted it, because I am a newbie here. I have been following Tamriel Rebuilt for about three; maybe four; months now, and I would like to help. I am short on free time, and my modding skills are not up to par, but I would love to help this project progress, while still maintaining a professional level of content.
I could obviously help by making quest suggestions/concepts, or new game concepts, items, creatures, etc. But I love Morrowind, and I have honestly fallen in love with this mod too. I would like to help offer help, by searching for mods (with the mod creator's permission of course) with assets which could be used in Tamriel Rebuilt (like taking a creature model from a 'more creatures' mod). I would go searching for mods that look appropriate, and at the level of quality which Tamriel Rebuilt demands as requested by the developers here. None of the assets would have to be used if they were found to not be desirable. As well this would bring more outside attention to the beautiful work all of you have been doing here for years, and quite possibly bring in some more talented modders who otherwise would not have considered joining and contributing to Tamriel Rebuilt.
Whether or not you decide that I would be of any use in this way, I thank you for taking time to read my post and responding to it.
~aRenfrow

In the near future there will be any news? Want to know what you had to do and what you will do next.

Hello Tamriel Rebuilt community! Long time fan of this project (Yet I haven't posted anything until now). Rather than combing through the archives and looking around, I decided to ask my question directly. I was simply wondering if there was any book made or currently being made that gives a detailed description of the province of Morrowind. I was browsing through the forums, as one does, and I thought of how useful a book detailing the Gordian Knot that is the lore and politics of Morrowind. Anyhow, my question is is there a book mirroring my description planned or currently being developped? Thank you!

Hm. I missed some posts here. I suppose it's better to reply late than never.

@n1n2n34: There is no book currently, no, and if there were it would probably be outdated. At the moment our vision of Morrowind hasn't quite been bolted down and there's still a lot of room for interpretation. We are starting to tighten the bolts a little in places, but it will probably be a while before we have anything solid enough to write a book on Morrowind as a whole.
As to whether there would be such a book in future, I'm not sure. Generally, books present snippets of the world of TES -- and Morrowind in particular -- from a specific viewpoint. (That of the author). Their role is mostly to supplement and fill out the lore presented by more direct means, such as dialogue. The approach is specifically to avoid a tidy summary of the world and instead fill it with contradictions and alternate perspectives, thereby making the world seem larger and of greater depth. The player isn't supposed to explore Morrowind by reading one book, but instead by playing the game. It's no coincidence that neither Pocket Guide to the Empire can be found in any TES game.
If we did want to write a detailed description of the province, as such, I'd advocate following the PGE route and not including it in-game, but rather as a supplemental text.

@Biboran: the [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24486]Skype Meeting Summaries[/url] thread used to be in a developer-only sub-forum -- one of the last ones which we have now cleared out. It probably provides the best means of following the project at the moment.

@aRenfrow: thank you for the offer, but while we have included modders' resources in the project in the past, I think we used the wrong approach. Before, any resources of good technical quality that were not out of place in Morrowind were included, more or less. This led to a lot of good models, but often ones we didn't really need in the first place, or that added little to the world.
If we want to continue including the work of modders outside of the project, I think a better approach would be to first figure out what models we're lacking and then look to see if there are any resources that fit that description.

I know the Telvanni island will be redone, but why big long Island at east is missing in current version?

I'm afraid I don't know which island you mean; all seem to be accounted for in the file I have.

Oh sorry this map is not official [url]http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130529095913/elderscrolls/ru/images/6/62/%D0%9C%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B4_%28%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%82%D0%B0%29.jpg[/url]
Confused, i think this island was on some of official maps

Ah, at least judging from the [url=http://www.imperial-library.info/content/maps-morrowind]Imperial[/url] [url=http://www.imperial-library.info/content/maps-tamriel]Library[/url] that island doesn't appear to exist on any official maps; it appears to be a fan addition.