Having a quick scout around the bsa's after unpacking them there will be a lot of work to get the game anywhere near as flexible in terms of environment as Oblivion.

The limitations that become apparent are environmental. Skyrim is highly focussed, as expected, on the Skyrim environment. Where Oblivion covered various types of environment from swamp/marsh, thick forest, scrub, coastal and mountainous, Skyrim has none of the same.

Tree types are highly limited. Pine, aspen and a couple of others. Same for logs.
Flora, very limited
Rock types, perhaps not so much a concern as a retexture will change them to any environment and rocks arent difficult to mod.
Landscape textures, again not so troublesome, just take a bit of time.
Architecture. Oblivon and Morrowind cant be ported directly so much work to produce similar.
Creatures, time consuming to create and require a certain expertise.

Until these shortcomings are addressed the basic landscape for other lands cant be produced.
As soon as the CK emerges I will, fingers crossed that the CK can handle it, start work on a large heightmap.
I will do what I can, probably starting with the rocks, to reproduce other environments.

As lots of us will require these basic things, it might be an idea that we pool our efforts and make a massive push to produce the basic environment stuff we will all need very early on in our projects.

Well, in Morrowind's case, I think there's quite a bit of room for improvement....

I haven't read everything here. But I read something on a wiki on all Province mods. This would be great!

P.S. I'm might be doing a High Rock mod. Depends on the results of my friend's poll http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1291701-decide-on-a-setting/.

Bethesda has several dlcs planned for Skyrim. I'm curious to see if they release something exotic with a lot of unique resources. They did this with Bloodmoon for Morrowind, and Shivering Isles for Oblivion, so its quite possible.


I think Eldarie's style in Valenwood Improved would really suit a High Rock mod. So I'm not quite sure what your point is.

Fingers crossed for Pyandonea!

maybe for the fact that Bosmer do not built cities themselves? lorewise they do not chop wood or such, stone, they too clumsy to learn, so it wouldn't make sense using the meshes from the Imperial province? on the other hand lorewise cities in Valenwood weren't built by Bosmer, therefore we could in assume that imperial architectural would have been used for the coastal cities, but before Imperial presence there was the Aldmeri dominion.

The Bosmer capitol is a giant tree that walks up and down its coast with the seasons. They ride it and live inside it. They are not even supposed to be using wooden weapons - instead making everything from animal parts (leather armor - bone based weaponry). Their archetecture would seem to be the type that is in unison with the plant kingdom not using it. So villages outside or in trees - but not carved into the landscape. They are originally carnivores only - no wheat - no veggies.

I recall some of the lore text talking about Bosmer that were more city like though. Imperial and Altmer architecture would be by occupiers, but an argument could be made that the more civilized Bosmer would agree to dwell there.

After having read all that - Valenwood Improved seemed so off base to me.

This sounds like an amazing idea. I would be willing to do voice acting for anyone needing it (never was really sure how to implement it in Oblivion though, hopefully its easier with Skyrim).

i can't even begin to explain, really.

I think I did explain it above. But it is explained http://www.imperial-library.info/content/pocket-guide-empire-first-edition-aldmeri-dominion

But I think Iliana was speaking mostly of the resources that Valenwood Improved used - not the content of how the province was changed for that mod. I think.

If anybody has a plan for a province mod, I would like to offer my assistance as a Mapper/level/dungeon/city architect/designer. I could also try my hand a scripting(I'm going to college for programming).
I agree completely with the OP, in fact I was thinking of making a similar thread addressing leadership and organization in a big project like this. To often have I seen big mods with lots of potential fall off the map because of poor leadership and organization.
Poor organization has plagued me in the making of several mods for oblivion and morrowind. And even a module for Neverwinter Nights 2(That I actually got pretty far in the making of).
I can also write(stories, dialogues, characters etc).

I simply think that province mods are too big to be propperly maintained and sustained - even by a large team. The larger and more ambitious a project gets, the more the overall quality of the project seems to slip. I saw this countless times in Oblivion, and I fear that it's going to be repeated here. Not that I want to discourage anyone from trying - if you want to go for adding an entire province, then the whole forum community would be behind you. I just fear that such a project would fall into obscurity, as many of the Oblivion province mods tended to do.

Personally, I'd been thinking of creating a small island to the north of Morrowind. Through this, I'd be able to explore a number of lore related issuses - such as the Argonian invasion, the collapse of the Great Houses, the fall of the Guilds - without having to spread the content across an whole province.

didn't see your post.

i always imagined they would just use animal skin drapped over branches (surely they can use branches that have fallen down anyway, they're already dead?) or bones. TBH, i imagined tepees

there was some old imperial roads going through the province, but they're mostly forgotten. And i believe some of the lower cities might of had other races infuences, for trade (and pirating ? ) and imperialized Bosmer.

did Valenwood improved even have imga?

No it didn't have anything of the sort. It looked like Cyrodiil part 2 and all architecture was very imperial in nature. Not lore based much at all. No sign of Altmer invasion either.

Like most province mods it consisted of mostly landscaping and architecture. I don't think they ever got to doing much populating (very few but with no quests) and many interiors missing. I recall mostly it was the outer edges that were done - the center was just LOD. Haven't loaded the most recent version though.

And this is typical of a lot of province mods. Like Skyrim Improved which actually had a lot of the central landscaping done, but no LOD (last I checked).

Seeing this it is quick to get this share Zadama's sentiment. This is why I'm an advocate of the Tamriel Heightmap approach. Since most province mods don't move past land and architecture I'd say the closed team approach is mostly a fail. Those that did get further - I'd be interested in the order they got further along with. I'd think it would have to be like this:
1. Landcape/LOD for entire continent
2. Then break off into provinces with separate teams to make caves&dungeons, settlements, towns.
3. Then people and quests.
4. Then monsters and animals and harvestable plants.

-- the point being that it would take multiple teams and that after the total base (not final) landscape is done - it is left as an open project. Closed projects are proven to be not so successful.

If you want to see how the landscape of Valenwood ought to look - check out http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=38792. The supplemental work of Heightmaps.

While this may be more realistic the problem is it would then be very insular and since it would be so closed it would feel confining compared to the rest of the open world - especially if provinces or a total heightmap is later made.

I understand your reasoning Psy, and I can certainly agree to a point. That level of matching between provinces would be great, and would establish a standard. However, how to get past the first steps? I was one of the people who had problems with Onra's heightmaps for Oblivion due to lore issues, so I would not want to base my mod on it. Even if Onra (or whoever else) makes a perfectly lore correct heightmap this time around, it's still an ongoing process that would take a while to get done and then be updated and edited after (theoretically). So all the province teams would be stuck waiting on a huge endeavor of modding to even start, and then may be set back if the heightmap needs to be updated. On the other hand, it would provide a big first step for the teams, and hopefully get rid of the urge to have three teams for every province. So I'm conflicted.

Can we get back to the idea of a wiki for province mods (and huge land mods in general) for a second? A website listing all the teams, their goals, and progress; as well as resources (lore links, models, design doc templates) for the teams, request lists, and some sort of forum for cooperation and help would be a great idea I think. It'd allow potential modders to scope things out quickly, and would act as a support group to the teams (hopefully encouraging cooperation, cutting down on overlap and conflicts, etc.). It'd of course be more feasible once the CK is released and we find out who is really modding a province, rather than just talking about it, but the framework can be put in place now. Pending the cooperation of the authors, of course.

I'm not aware of lore issues (?) with his heightmaps but he did communicate to me that he was going to try for more lore based shape to the land. he also reported that fitting Cyrodiil onto Skyrim would result in Cyrodiil needing to be 1.3x larger than Oblivion has it, so that needs to be ironed out. Onra has proven, to me anyway, to be very open to feedback and suggestions and generally seems to be amiable. Further he has proven it can be done and I'm not sure the exact time it took to do the entire thing, but it did reach a final-esque like phase. Also I think there were serious reformatting of the plugin structures and dependencies et al. But then again a lot of that thinking has been now worked out. Provided there are not serious changes or barriers to expanded lands then it ought to be a shorter time of development. If there are serious barriers then each team would have to face that anyway in an open continent.

But yeah I guess that would be a bummer to wait for such a thing then be non-plussed about the result. Still my understanding of the heightmaps was that the resulting esp for each province could be altered to the mod makers desire - even the heightmap itself for that region

But what to do until then?
Well another thing that Onra's project had that was valuable was a collected set of resources in an esm format for mod added resources that can be used in those provinces. So we have a ton of stuff that could potentially be ported over from past province mod resources. Like I think Phitt did the Sheogorad resources - perhaps reskined with the Skyrim textures they would work - just a thought. The point being the collecting of resources.

Next the planning of things - working out what to make and where it goes. Plots, quests, dungeon design, etc. Alternate main quests - like a different one for each region that is optional.

Next - a wiki - including references to the Imperial Library - which itself will need updates with the new books.

.. so again I'm not trying to beat a horse or anything here - just trying to advocate for a different approach this time around. and Onra if you read this - hope I'm not overstepping any bounds. No offense meant.

It's all in the proportions. Onra decided to scale up the provinces to allow for more land. Because it had to fit around Cyrodiil, the map ended up very distorted, and the provinces ended up being scaled incorectly in relation to Cyrodiil. It was a gameplay versus lore debate, really, and I understand why Onra made the choice. It's good to hear that he's considering the other option this time around, though.

A shared esm is something I definitely oppose. It would cause unneeded clutter (by including resources that weren't actually used by mod X), homogenization (due to everyone using the same resources), and be an extra thing to download for the player. For the most part, Valenwood mod wouldn't benefit from the same resources as a Highrock mod. Putting together a list of resources isn't a bad idea, but bundling them all together and mandating their use is (imo, of course).

A lot of what was made for Oblivion was barely good enough for that engine, much less for Skyrim. There were some high quality resources that could be reused, but I think that, in the interests of quality over quantity, new resources would often be preferable. The wait time could be used to create them.

Ultimately, my support of this idea hinges on the quality of the heightmap and how long it takes to produce it. A month or two of downtime would actually benefit most mods by forcing a prolonged design stage. Half a year or more would be more of a setback than a help.

You will be needing voice actors if you think about making NPCs because if no sound you will get the Esbern bug.

+1
really not keen for this. maybe when a heap of provinces are finished (if ever) the BSA's/data ESM can be merged, but it's hard enough updating Claims to go with the BSA updates, let along a whole province.
each province needs its own data, sharing files is fine.

just my thoughts.

Hmm well like Cobl - what if the shared esm were optional and not required.

Yeah I didn't mean all provinces would need to share one esm ... but that one that had a good supply of landscape (plants, trees, rocks) type info then as an option to use it. Then later architecture and so on. With the idea that shared resources in it could be used with that esm or borrowed for the province mods esm.

But even with Tamriel Heightmaps now the landscape esm is optional. The heigtmap itself does not require it, but the landscapes do. It is http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36887

We had the majority of other land in Oblivion too, and like your suggestion people attempted to recreate Morrowind in that as well, it never made it past Alpha since it was such a large project.

Yes, I was talking about the planned High Rock mod. Eldarie is an excellent and clearly hard-working world-builder.

Valenwood in lore was an impossibly exotic province. High Rock is more standard northern medieval fare so it would not face the problems adhering to lore.



Have you ever been involved in province modding yourself?
I hope the various teams working on province mods in Skyrim will be friendly and supportive of each other. That was not always the case in the Oblivion modding scene which was quite sad because the amount of enthusiasm everyone had for the hobby was the same.

yes, just follow my sig.
Cyrodiil and Skyrim
highrock until the leader forgot it
and once valenwood, but i handed it other to someone else after completing Arenthia.

Okay, so, looks like everybody's in favor of setting up a wiki/site to keep things organized, am I right?

Also would like to advocate unique landscapes type modding for skyrim, where there is a unified heightmap and different teams contribute to a region, without overlap.

Great to see some effort for cooperation before release of CK -- this sort of organization could either determine whether skyrim modding will end up decent or completely ass-kicking awesome