Even though the bards are singing I pretty sure it's just constucted as regular dialogue, and there are always pauses between the lines of an extended dialogue. I can't, offhand, think of any other way to construct it so that the bard could sing the entire song with lip syncing so that the pauses would be eliminated (at least not with what I knew about the Gecks; the CK may have more options (and that would be great and we could fix it then), but I'm doubting it since the pauses are there).

Commenting to say that I'm just another person eagerly awaiting this mod and that I'll be lurking this thread

Great on the songs and music. The singing bards is my favorite new addition by Bethesda in this game

Thanks!

I just wish I had more professional recording equipment instead of a simple microphone on my headset.

So far we have three completely custom songs, need more folks.

I will put up 'March of the Draugar' soon and get 'Rolf the Brave' back up.

I have a friend who is a really good singer in a band and who has a professional microphone and equipment at home. I'll ask him if he'd be interested in lending his voice to your project.

Sounds like a great mod. I'd love to offer help with voice acting.

That would be awesome! Thanks!

I love this sort of mod, really adds a depth of character to the world.

While more brawling has been mentioned why not throw in some gambling mini-games like Fable and The Witcher? When it came to capturing the atmosphere of a fantastical tavern I always thought that The Witcher had gotten it pretty spot on.

I don't know what constraints we will have with implementing mini-games yet, I think thats something we will have to wait for CK to deal with. But a magical roulette with a random number gen wouldnt be that hard. Maybe a card game. Or the community could come up with something new and unique.

Dialogue or message-box based card and dice games are possible.

Ideally there would be a script command that let's us start a custom UI file, then we could theoretically adapt any Flash-game as a minigame.

Aaand just in case Meek doesn't often check his private messages...

If you sit in a chair in some taverns, they already have an NPC that comes up and offers you food and drink.

That would be pretty awesome.


Thanks for letting me know, there are some superb voices in there.


So I have been told, but have yet to experience.

I've only read the first page so far, but I'm assuming with this you're only planning to do the tavern upgrades on those found in places like Riverwood, Ivarstead, etc? The ones in the 5 closed cities are all unique already. They could still use some interior love but nothing on the same scale as the ones in the smaller cities and villages.

I know that if I get around to doing vanilla village expansions I won't have any intention of moving what's already there - that's never been my way before. It's far more interesting to work what's there into what you're adding than it is to bulldoze the whole place anyway.

In the closed cities I will be revamping to some extent, but not touching the exteriors at all. In the smaller towns I still won't touch exteriors, but will revamp interiors. In rural locations I will probably completely revamp interiors and exteriors. For instance these locations should have stables and maybe even a stable boy that you can tip to look after your horse. Gardens to grow vegetables, stocked firewood etc...


I have been looking around closely and I think:

1) Solitude's Winking Skeever, quite nicely done. I would very likely be playing around with wall and floor textures though to create more flowthrough, rather then sections that look as though they don't belong in the same building. That place could do with a re-organisation of furniture and of course a bar revamp.

2) Riften's The Bee and Barb. Needs more things in it. Right now it has very little character for a town that is reputed to be a dangerous place. Needs different lighting in particular. Shadowy corners with hooded people talking in hushed whispers, sort of thing.

3) Markarth's Silver blood Inn, no character and even less seating.

4) Windhelm's Candlehearth Hall. My favorite of the whole bunch, yet it certainly needs the upper level revamping with more seating and a better use of space.

5) Whiterun's The Drunken Huntsman. Not a lot in there and again no unique character of it's own.

But the main target is....http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n99/Shezrie/Inns.jpg, located.....everywhere. (I removed the firepit thing in this particular tavern to gauge the amount of space not used.)

This tavern is literally copy pasted in every smaller town and rural tavern location. You will find the exact same items in the exact same place and it is really immersion breaking for me. These taverns need a real revamp to reflect the character of the town they are in or the countyside that they are located in. Each tavern should be completely different from every other tavern in the land.

Wow, I didn't realize it was -that- bad O_o I hadn't bothered to look, but you're right -- that is pretty lame.

@Meek: That's not 100% true! Sometimes they have the little flames in the center, so its TWO taverns everywhere xD.

The easiest to find and try is in Whiterun's tavern. Take a seat there. As long as the Redguard serving girl is alive, you'll hear the owner tell the Redguard that there's a customer that needs serving.

Hey Meek, I'm thinking of redoing the interior of the Winking Skeever to match the exterior, but if you're going to be moving things around anyway...might be an opportunity to reorganise the walls a bit (it's all tileset, would be easy-as)?

Also, were you thinking of having 'random' NPCs travel between taverns? ie generic NPCs with random gear lists so that if someone gets eaten by a bear between cities the guy spawning in his place looks totally different?

I did that, thanks for the tip, and it was good. I 'think' that this is the only place it happens due it being part of a quest. But correct me if I am wrong. At least we do have it though.

I have noticed something that I actually really like and that is that the rental scripts no longer deal with the room door's and ownership/unlocking etc of those. That is really good as it means it has been simplified to cover just ownership of the bed. Something that I considered doing in my Oblivion mods but went with the often buggy vanilla way of doing it.

Still putting together the songs, I have written The March of the Drauger but just cannot settle on how I want the music to go. But I will get there.


I haven't looked too closely at the Winking Skeever's tileset, but if it is like some other's I have seen then it may not be quite as easy. Most of the tilesets are designed to click together and have sloped roofs and various different peices that might be difficult to combine with a tile it is not mean't to go with. That said, there are always work arounds.

At this point I am going to concentrate on interiors, but we may add in NPCs wondering between taverns at some point.

Re: being served by a barmaid, I finally experienced this at the Dead Man's Drink Inn in Falkreath. Maybe it has something to do with what chair you sit in? Or the time of day? The Falkreath barmaid actually spends a lot of the day outside the inn, so it's easy to sit down at a time when she isn't around.

Anyway, one more item for the wishlist: after finishing the Civil War quests (I gave the Imperials the victory), I've noticed that the "Age of Aggression" song hasn't changed--the bards in the taverns still sing of defeating Ulfric and the Stormcloaks as a hoped-for future event. It'd be nice to record male- and female-sung updated versions of this song, and its Stormcloak counterpart, that would replace http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Songs_of_Skyrim once one side or the other has won the Civil War. Something like:

Empire wins: "The Age of Aggression" becomes "The Age of Ascension"

We drink to our youth, to battles now won. To the age of ascension, and its battles to come.
We settled the Stormcloaks and restored our home; now a fair High Queen takes up the throne.
Up with the Empire, closest of friends; up with bonds between families that begin now to mend.
We're the children of Skyrim, and we fight all our lives. And when Sovngarde beckons, every one of us dies!
But we'll die together in this land that is ours, the cold North united under the stars.

Stormcloaks win: "The Age of Oppression" becomes "The Age of Secession"

We drink to our youth, to battles now won. To the age of secession, and its battles to come.
We drove out the Empire from this land that we own. With Nord blood and Nord steel we took back our home.
All hail to Ulfric! You are the High King! For you and for Talos we drink and we sing.
We're the children of Skyrim, and we fight all our lives. And when Sovngarde beckons, every one of us dies!
But before us the Thalmor, we thirst for their screams; this land is ours and we'll see it wiped clean.

Your Oblivion mod looks nice, but there are a few things I dislike about it from the video that I would also prefer not be in your Skyrim tavern mod:
- toilets
- bathrooms with sinks
- pools
- modern furniture and chairs, etc

Skyrim is supposed to have a strong medieval touch to it and I don't want mods to detract from that, so stuff like I mentioned above are a no-go for me.

What you posted in the OP sounded nice though with unique interiors and music.

Solitude already has a modern sewer system in it though, even though you never get to visit it. I'm still convinced that Skyrim is further ahead in comparitive history than the medieval period. Simple toilets are therefore not out of the question. Neither are large swimming pools since those existed here since at least Roman times. They called them "baths" though. Skyrim also already has plenty of pieces of furniture that we see even today as "modern" - especially those in taverns.

I do get what you're saying though. Making that kind of stuff look too modern can detract from the setting.

There's also a working serving wench in the Silver-Blood Inn in Markarth. I was approached by her several times when I sat down in there to eat.

Re: toilets, for what it's worth, there are a few locations in the game--the main indoor area of Fort Greenwall, north of Riften, is an example--where there is a very small room with a stool and a bucket, which seems to me clearly meant to be a toilet room. With that in-game precedent, you could use the same sort of thing in the rural and small town inns, and to me at least it would feel right. But then, I'm less fixated on whether things are technology-appropriate...it's more, if I don't see something like a toilet anywhere, then I can imagine them being everywhere; but if I see them in just one place, it suddenly forces the question of why they aren't in other places. But there are buckets everywhere in Skyrim...

Fixed.

No matter what point in the history of the lore, it will never be modernized. That feeling, that atmosphere, is forever the world itself.