Almalexia

[blackbird]

We have a bit of an issue. Aeven is working on rearranging Almalexia. He is currently discussing putting an arena in the middle of one of the cells, which I think is an all-around bad idea. For one, it would pretty much have to be underground which I think everyone agreed a long time ago was a bad idea and we weren't going to do it. Secondly, the Indoril are supposed to be super religious. While you can have religion and arenas, my point is that we don't really have anything that specifies them as so religious in Almalexia. Sure, we have that Basilica of Almalexia's Grace or w/e it ended up being called, but for such a religious group of people, there should be little altars all around the town. So I'm in favor of placing altar constructs in the empty areas that need something. What does everyone think?

A secondary problem is that The Greatness is somehow a TR Modder. Apparently he has some technical skill (which he has yet to show. Has he claimed anything?), but he's a complete idiot about everything else, and he's a jerk about it here and on the ESF too, which is bad since he's wrong. Someone should politely tell him to go read everything in our lore forum and all the works posted on TIL before he speaks on those subjects again, I think.

As I have said in the m3a6 thread, a library or even a museum (about the tribunal and dunmer?) could be a good idea. [repeat mode] There aren't much good alternatives for culture. An arena wouldn't probably work (unless we have the right statics) and a theatre isn't that good either. [repeat mode/] What does Adanorcil thinks about the theatre? Would he have suggested this? Edit: probably not, as he is against the arena idea in the other thread.

[Tyrion]

Reading that just gave me a headache. I don't even know what to say beyond give Almalexia to somebody else because Aeven's vision for the city kind of sounds retarded. There already is a theater in Mournhold, why do we need to copy that? It's not something that you can really pull off with the Morrowind game engine. A museum would be boring and pointless, there's already one in Mournhold (sorta) and whatever cultural artifacts the Dunmer had they would probably display in some sort of a religious or political context. In other words, they'd be in a temple as part of a shrine or something. I like Haplo's idea of placing outdoor shrines. It would certainly liven the streets up, and would theoretically give people a reason for being out and about. Almalexia is supposed to be somewhat of a pilgrims city to begin with, along with Vivec, and hopefully that would fix the dead aspect you felt while being outside in Vivec.

[Adanorcil]

The arena was an idea of his, which was brought up in the thread and turned down. That's the end of that. Ideas are there to be discussed. From what I've seen of Aeven's work on Almalexia, he's displayed judgment and tastefulness; so I have faith in skills.

Reading that just gave me a headache. I don't even know what to say beyond give Almalexia to somebody else because Aeven's vision for the city kind of sounds retarded. There already is a theater in Mournhold, why do we need to copy that?

The theater wasn't proposed by Aeven; it already exists. For further explanation, read my post in the actual thread.


Haplo, your idea strikes me as acceptable, but the shrines should obviously be placed with care and moderation. But we already discussed these things in the appropriate thread. I suppose I don't really see a point to this one.


I don't know The Greatness at all, so I can't judge there.

[Tyrion]

The theater wasn't proposed by Aeven; it already exists. For further explanation, read my post in the actual thread.

I thought so, and I didn't specify that it was Aeven's idea, but I was too hasty to post. I just get the feeling that you know, we're going to end up with a finished product that is not so good because it incorporated too many ideas that seem good but don't work out in-game. I thought Almalexia was fine a year ago, why do we have to keep tacking things onto it?

On a sidenote, I'm really tired and cranky today (woke up at 6am for classes, haven't been able to eat solid foods in over 48 hours) so please don't listen to what I say.

[Haplo]

For the most part, it's rearranging things to make sense. Certain administrative buildings are in the middle of residential districts, and whatnot. But rearranging will leave some empty spaces that need to be filled with stuff that was once occupied by a thousand statues.

[Tyrion]

Something that adds character and life to the streets. The idea of shrines is nice... but I can't really come up with any ideas off the top of my head. Basically what would get the PC interested in the street?

[Haplo]

The PC is going to be traveling the streets regardless, so there will be plenty of exposure. It's what would get the people who live there interested in being out on the streets that we need to worry about.

[Tyrion]

Yes, but the streets should hold some attraction for the PC. They should be interesting and enjoyable to walk through.

[Nemon]

A secondary problem is that The Greatness is somehow a TR Modder. Apparently he has some technical skill (which he has yet to show. Has he claimed anything?

I don't know, but he seems to have a good knowledge about scripting.

[Nanu]

A secondary problem is that The Greatness is somehow a TR Modder. Apparently he has some technical skill (which he has yet to show. Has he claimed anything?

I don't know, but he seems to have a good knowledge about scripting.

He was promoted for quests. Recommended by Why, seconded by BC, and I'm pretty sure you gave him the permissions, Haplo.

He's a jerk, yes. I don't know much else about him.

On topic, though: I'm totally with Adan on this one. Aeven does good work.

[Sload]

if almalexia is still organized in a string of cell-sized square shapes like its an 8-bit JRPG from 1989 youre just shifting the deck chairs and not fixing anything

[Tyrion]

Here are a few things:

1. The giant white pavilion thing is way too ornate and large for whatever it looks like its being used for.

2. Many pieces are ill fitting and awkward (take a look at the stairs outside the Great House Embassy tower-thing) although I assume perhaps this has to do with the fact that its still a rough Aeven is working on.

3. The TR_ex_ind_bridge03 should not be allowed to exist anywhere. It needs to be replaced with a bridge that doesn't suck, and any instances of it anywhere else also need to replaced. I don't think it does, but just in case.

4. There is too much blank space which makes parts of the city seem bland and uninteresting. Reminds me a bit of Daggerfall if anything. I think this has been brought up already though, since it was discussed on how to add things to enliven the streets. I think some portions of the city, like Velothril Avenue, could seriouisly benefit from some improved landscaping or something to make it more interesting to walk through. I assume though, again, that since this is a WIP Aeven is working on it.

edit: Also, bear baiting pits.

[blackbird]

Sload, you may always upload a WIP or an esp file with your suggestions. Why not creating Almalexia city from scratch and uplaod the finished file?
I believe you want to make it organic, but I can't call Mournhold organic either (a bit due the lack of a new exterior cell).
BTW: did Mehrunes Dagon destroy Mournhold alone or Mournhold and Almalexia?

[Haplo]

words

1. Giant white pavilion thing?

2. That's a problem that is fixed by putting the embassy in a sensible location

3. No comments

4. Obviously I agree, that's what the 'work' is trying to fix.

[Nomadic1]

if almalexia is still organized in a string of cell-sized square shapes like its an 8-bit JRPG from 1989 youre just shifting the deck chairs and not fixing anything

Hear hear. I've always thought that Almalexia was an ugly round peg in an ugly square hole. Can't say I see it ever being changed though.

[Tyrion]

It can be made to look awesome without a complete redo. It just needs some tlc.

[Haplo]

Aeven has "finished" his work on the city. If a few people could run through and give their opinions, I'll give it a final review and then it can be prepared for NPCing.

[Bloodthirsty Crustacean]

Scripting issue: in some places there are 'dead trees' without live tree doubles. So there won't be trees in those places until the Ashstorm's on.

Otherwise, things look more or less as they ever have done. A couple new pretty preaching places, and the new Guildhalls, but I think I'd have to have the differences pointed out to me. And there's still that ugly road out the north side.

Like Old Ebonheart, it doesn't necessarily scream 'amazing' (except through size) or speak much to Morrowind culture, but unless we want to go through a Necrom-esque process there's not much room to do anything.

[Nemon]

(...)Like Old Ebonheart, it doesn't necessarily scream 'amazing' (...)

A wild Nemon appears!

It will get there in time...
And I will have a look at Almalexia as well.

[Thrignar Fraxix]

Necrom-esque process

please nothing this intense. I want to see almalexia released before 2013

[Haplo]

Necrom-esque process

please nothing this intense. I want to see almalexia released before 2013

Before 2012 please.

[Andres Indoril]

So will anything be done to Almalexia? TheGreatness was all on about how he wants to put up some shots of it or something like that on IRC. It would be nice to know if it will be made a worthy capital or not.

[Nemon]

I'd like to have a jab at it, but I think Cathartis was supposed to provide me with a list of ints to keep. Ooor?

[Katze]

Where did this list idea come from?

I mean, I can do if you need such a thing, but I don't have anything to hand right now.

Do we have a concept of how we want New Almalexia to look yet?

Also if at all possible I think it'd be awesome if we integrated Mournhold into the exterior properly. Most of the quests and such are in interiors anyway, so most of the work would probably be relocating the doormarkers and possibly rejigging some scripts.

[Andres Indoril]

From what I have understood Mournhold might only be merged into the exterior in the special screw-vanilla add-on.

I think the most important part of the plan is to make the city feel a bit less square and it might be smart to make the river a river instead of a peculiar pond around Mournhold.

Of course, I haven't read the public Almalexia thread in a while, so I am not sure.

[Nemon]

I'd say we either do the screw vanilla now or don't do it. Our release pace is slow enough as it is, adding another chapter down the road makes no sense, at least to me that is. Emphasis on me.

My idea (the non screw vanilla one) is to raise the inner Mournhold section a little, and build a canal-esque Venice-inspired thing surrounding the circular Mournhold-island. It would require a complete retooling of Almalexia, and would require a very competent modder (me) to pull it through.

This would enable us to add proper docks as well.

[Andres Indoril]

Honestly, I support the plain screw-vanilla approach and support Nemon in this matter as well. Though I am not certain if this was even worth posting. It's not like my opinions matter.

[Katze]

Venice-like sounds awesome, especially if it means we can extend the lake a short way under the existing areas and have water tunnels underneath them for the gondoliers

Almalexia is kind-of lacking a poor district anyway, and houses built on stilts in the water makes sense for such things.

[Scamp]

So we are remaking Almalexia again? Cool cool, I vote for Nemon and his ideas.

[Katze]

I also think we should separate the area around Othrensis and Almalexia into two detailing claims, so that messing with one does not disturb work on the other. The Greatness is pretty much exclusively working on Othrensis right now anyway.

[Why]

Is there a reason for dragging Mournhold into our exterior besides wanting everything together in one exterior worldspace? I myself don't have much problems with the current Mournhold-Almalexia division, though I reckon having a few extra gates into Mournhold would be cool. I see no particular reason we'll have to do this, though I reckon it'll look cool.

I don't really see why the Mournhold wall would need to be raised, especially if we are gonna include the Vanilla stuff in our exterior anyway. The more we can see of Mournhold from Almalexia the better. (oh, you said in the non-vanillascrew file. Ok, but still, not too high please, keep them feeling connected.)

As for the Venice-esque stuff, cool.

If we are going to modify Almalexia in our esm AND make a separate esp in which we drag Mournhold out of its interior cell, I'd highly suggest making as little changes as possible via the esp. As in, our Almalexia should imo look the same without the additional esp as it would with Mournhold added to its center. This doesn't mean Almalexia has to stay the same though, by all means, go wild and make it awesome. I would like to see the specific cell names and rather strict cell divides remain intact (not in the Almalexia-is-made-of-squares way but in the this-place-is-enormous-so-we-need-a-coherent-form-of-fast-travel kind of way.)

edit: and yeah, I agree with Cat. NPCing-wise A6 is too big anyway, if you want to work on Almalexia please cut the city and surrounding cells you want to change out of A6 and make it a seperate claim, if possible.

[Katze]

Access gates into Godsreach and the Great Bazaar would actually be pretty sweet, and not too hard to implement, really.

[Why]

Access gates into Godsreach and the Great Bazaar would actually be pretty sweet, and not too hard to implement, really.

Exactly. But as I said, if we're gonna do that, I think they should be in the .esm regardless of whether they'll be functional or not - making two different versions of Almalexia is pointless, and having them would encourage people to use the .esp as well.

[Nemon]

I strongly suggest not tinkering with the vanilla stuff except adding a couple of gates.
Yes, I know MH originally looks kinda meh but still - I believe I can include the original city in a new revamped Almalexia.

[Tyrion]

While we're at it, half of Othrensis should probably be redone as well. The velothi bit doesn't look bad, but the indoril part looks really bad.

As per the discussion about redoing Almalexia though, I like what has been mentioned. The idea of incorporating water more naturally into the city will add a needed dimension to a largely flat and boring cityscape. Having water as streets also allows us to implement gondoliers like Vivec, so there can be a mode of moving players around such a fuckhuge exterior. Mournhold should obviously stay, but I think the connections we already have a enough.

If we can split this into two claims I could do the Othrensis half and that can get under NPCing as Nemon works on the Almalexia half.

[Katze]

I have no problems with Othrensis itself, it has a memorable design if you ask me. However, the surrounding countryside is pretty crappy and somewhat incongruous with the rest of the area.

Hasn't The Greatness already done much of the NPCing for Othrensis?

[Tyrion]

He did the velothi half, which, imo, looks better than the other half.

I think I brought this up in irc, but what I want to do is make the cliff bridges look better, and make the riverbank more distinct on the edge of town, as well as tackle the fountain in the plaza. I dont want to remove the town, or make any really radical changes, but the place certainly could stand some improvements.

[Scamp]

No...please keep Othrensis. I really like it. Maybe some bug fixes, but no big changes.

[Adanorcil]

Sooner or later, we are going to have to look at the issue of Almalexia. In TR's time-honored tradition, we generally begin doing this kind of thing too soon and too recklessly. Personally I would have preferred to delay this entire discussion until after the finalization of Sacred East, but in another time-honored tradition, the intention to suddenly start doing stuff tends to flare up here overnight. (And deflates equally quickly afterwards.) If people think it's time to have this discussion, let's do it then.

BUT. We have a choice this time. We can go about this two ways: the reset button or Necrom v2. By the reset button, I mean the nuke, zero, starting from scratch with nothing but a flat plane. We need to get rid of all the preconceptions concerning it. At some point, perhaps, there will bematerial (like interiors) that we can recover, but we should fit them in afterwards, and not build our design around them.

Alright, you say, let's do that. I'm gonna empty the whole place and try and see if I can come up with a nice design in the CS. Wrong. Almalexia is the Single. Most. Important. Place. in all of our mod. While I'm sure someone like Nemon could come up with something that looks very good, this is not the way we should go about it.

Here's what we are going to do:

1 ) First we are going to take a long hard think about Almalexia as the Single. Most. Important. Place. in all of our mod. That means we are going to have to think what it is like, what it is about and what it feels like. We will not yet be thinking about the practical implementation of the city in our mod. First, we want inspiration. CS work is taboo at this point. Ideally, we do a FCG for this, which I will explain in more detail below.*

2) After all this thinking work, we start considering how this inspiration can be converted into a physical lay-out for the city. First we come up with some preliminary designs, ideally still not actually in the CS. We also consider how Mournhold fits in, and how we make it accessible.

3) After we have agreed on a design, or a couple of possible designs, some experienced exterior modder tries to execute that design in the CS. We can still adjust it any time if practical impossibilities pop up.

4) The city gets detailed further, and the standard TR world-building cycle continues.



We have the skill to do this the right way, people. Let's do it.







* The Almalexia FCG, which is not an FCG

For lack of a better world, I will call this a Collaborative World-Building Effort. This will be held somewhere in a publicly accessible forum. The rules are similar to the FCG, but not exactly, and are as follows:

Some time in the near future, TR will begin building Almalexia, the capital city of Morrowind. This is a massive undertaking and we need everyone's help to make sure the city becomes every inch as magnificent as it is meant to be: full of life and meaning. You can participate in various ways:

- Make a picture of what Almalexia looks like. Draw a specific street, square, location, citizen, scene etc. Tell us what there is to see in Almalexia. Don't occupy yourself with drawing complete city lay-outs; this is not what we're after (unless said lay-out carries a very deliberate meaning somehow). Above all: make stuff up.

- Write a short piece of text (100-400 words) in which a denizen of/visitor to Almalexia describes the city (not necessarily in a direct way). Every piece should include at least one open reference. An open reference is a reference to an idea, person, location, event, etc. that a writer knows to be currently meaningless, so that someone else can elaborate upon it later. Above all: make stuff up.

Suggestions for people (feel free to make someone else up) are:

- Irapal-Du Ahhasibael, guar caravaner on his way back home along the Mamsu trail
- Hloros Indavel, pauper at Tadur Gate
- Serjo Indoril Serani Orophas, being carried through the street on a palanquin
- Rosphat Oresmis, Imperial diplomat
- Ulane Menaran, corkbulb seller at the floating market

In either case, you are free to (and encouraged) to build upon ideas introduced by other people. None of these ideas will necessarily be included in the actual mod, but all will contribute to the creative process. Rock away.

[Myzel]

A kind of collective brainstorm like that sounds like a fun experiment. Maybe a good thing to separate the place to put out ideas from the place to discuss them if we're going to put it in the public forums.