Project Solstheim is all in for the idea. Would be great if several "new lands" mods would work well together without conflict. A very simple thing to start with would be prefix naming for all added objects during production.

Example: All Project Solstheim objects would have a "PrSo" prefix before the object name to avoid conflict with other mods. So that two mods can have a "silver sword" without them conflicting because of ID name.

PrSo_Silver_Sword.

A prefix ID system could also be discussed?

An excellent suggestion, Cainine. That would be critical to get right early.

That should be one of the things which the forum Lady N is setting up would be really useful for.

Edit:

Although there is the question of what to do with resources which are shared across mods - we would want to avoid doubling up entries in the CS and cluttering the ESM files if possible.

In the meantime, I'm curious to know how you are planning to take into account the changes to Solstheim since TES4? Have you read Lord of Souls?

Cainine is right - most of us do this anyway, but it's ad-hoc and local so could easily conflict. A central register would be really good - just a simple "bagsy" thread on the shared site. And just thinking about it, Lady N, are you sure you like "PMS-group" ??

Perhaps we could set up a collaboration site where all the ID's are listed as Morcroft suggested. And hopefully get the site pinned to a topic in the modding section.

No criticism. I am looking at L3dt now, and trying a few tutorials. It looks stronger than the heightmap editor. This is probably an area where a wiki and combined location will pay dividends. We are likely to find others interested in heightmapping coming along and troubleshooting and learning from each other will speed things up and make better maps.

I can write a tutorial on heightmapping in L3DT for Skyrim, with my experiences of the last months.

I think that would be a very good idea - there are lots of people in the community who would benefit from your experience.

A heightmaping tutorial would be very useful. I also think a sample design document is a must, since this essential step is often overlooked by mods and would save everyone a lot of work down the line. I can try and put one together during the week, though I don't know when it will be done (finals, and all that). Besides that, a list of available and needed modder's resources that can benefit the community at large. Anything else not project specific that we'd like to see at launch?

Unique ID's for projects are indeed a must. Every team I've worked with had them by default, so I didn't even think of not having them Listing them on the wiki to make sure they don't overlap is likewise a good idea.

Is everyone fine with Beyond Skyrim (beyondskyrim.daryam.com) as the name of the wiki/forum/support group?

Anyone have any preferences for wiki software? Right now I'm thinking MediaWiki, which is used to run all the wikipedia sites and uesp, among many others.

That would be an excellent idea. I am just looking at some in Youtube but they're not geared for the TES heightmap issues. One thing that immediately strikes me is its impossible to work out the size of the map in L3dt to the import size for the game. Importing a huge heightmap the size of MERP or Mesogea would crash the editor owing to the quad numbers used for the entire map. Sounds like youve figured much of it out already. I'll start a new thread if thats ok and try to pick your brains a bit.

Beyond Skyrim sounds good and that wiki is probably the better of many.

I created another thread just to help me (and hopefully others) get to grips with L3dt

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1294549-l3dt-as-a-heightmap-tool/

I put a tool link in there too.

Might be good to have a "research" thread / section on Beyond Skyrim - there's a lot we need to know: are there problems with large heightmaps; how do trees work etc.

Hang on - "BS" - are we sure?

Double entendre, I like it

[edit] Unless someone voices objections, I will create the wiki this evening, under the title Beyond Skyrim and the url beyondskyrim.daryam.com. I'll make a new thread at that time too, unless we hit 200 posts first.

Well, I don't mind but we need to be ready for the inevitable abbreviation of whatever name we pick!

I was hoping someone would suggest Occupy: Tamriel as a name...

Sounds fine to me.


Hi Haplo! How are things going over at TR these days?

I think this cooperation is a great idea.

And I'm fine with Beyond Skyrim, too.

Wow, this has really moved along since I last posted!

Glad to see everyone's been chatting about the pros and cons. I've said enough already, and plenty of others have voiced their opinions for and against a single worldspace. As I said, I'm not attempting to force anyone's modding approach, and since I haven't a clue how much work is involved in creating a mod so huge, I don't want to come across as an 'adviser' or anything. All my views come from a player's point of view

I hope this wiki takes off and becomes a valuable resource to mods beyond Skyrim, whether they use Onra's Heightmaps or not. I'll contribute as much as possible

Agreed the above.

Wiki and discussion forum sound good. Good of Lady N to offer space. DC is moving to a better server, it'll be done within a few days, but it's not very appropriate to set up a wiki on the current server so if Lady N can do it now, that's good.

We currently host Black Marsh, Elsweyr and Archipelago (planned three-parts set in High Rock, Valenwood and Summerset, if I remember correctly) and we've more than enough space and bandwidth to take on a few more, and though we're not focused solely on province expansion mods, a lot of our people have been working on them for the past few years so there's a lot of experience there.

Can't wait for the CK to come out now.

- Xae

Occupy: Tamriel!

Good to see that we decided on the site. What else can we do before the CK is out?

erm.. gather information?

Seconded. We need to compile every relevant detail from in-game about the areas we intend to work on. That's quite a big job in itself.

Heightmapping in a third party application, like L3DT. Make a sketch of this heightmap to rule them all, so every team can comment on it and make changes so it is to their liking.

This would also require integrating the work which has already been done by Elsweyr.

perhaps having some sorta pre-set section of each page about certian things that we know to be100% "true lore" from ingame sources would be good?
or we could add timelines for each province at the bottom of each page, pretty useful thing to have.