Dragonstar (Sky_xRe_Ds) [roerich]

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Scamp
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Post by Scamp »

Hm, that explains it. Well! I guess it's an easy fix anyway.

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Post by berry »

Nobody expects a Dragonstar update! :D I've been busy with pushing this one forward since I passed my last exam on 01.09, and a major update is ready. I'll catch up with forum activity in following days, too.

Terrain around the city is almost finished now. It consists of three distinct areas:
  • Skyrim frontier zone, between East Dragonstar and Druadachs/Vorndgad. The idea here is that when Jona set the Reach ablaze after her lover's death, any settlement in this area was strictly forbidden - officially for tactical reasons, to keep a clear frontier, but there's a gossip jarla was led by her soreness decreting it. At any rate, in result these lands became desolate, with groups of smugglers and bandits occasionally popping up, only to be crushed by jarla's guards or Imperial patrols from Taurus Hall. There's also a noticeable tension between these two military groups.
  • Dragonfields - an area between West Dragonstar and Tro-Tuktura tollgate fort (it's a poorly makeshifted supposedly Yoku name I came up with). It's a dry region, but with lots of trees (*bows to Ted* ;) ). It slightly differs from the rest of the Reach, feeling more mountainous - these small mountains arose from tectonic movements of Druadach Plateaus surrounding the valley. I also gave this area an exotic vertex painting, with slightly reddish tones - let me know how it looks like on other PC's. On my machine it looks heavily in CS, but actually cool in-game. Feedback on this appreciated. I also moved the stylite here, out of the city, so this zone feels even more exotic now.
  • "Smugglers canyon", between the city and Scamp's first mesa. A narrow, largely caved-in passage. It was employed by smugglers even before the war, and now, together with Caiar Druad canyon, it's the only viable route for transprovince smuggling (smugglers have to mind garrisons of Taurus Hall and Tro-Tuktura, though). Currently there's a small encampment of hostile Reachmen there.
  • the city received a small lifting too. I came up with a new way to create huge planters in Redguard style, and used it to refine the palaces. I was never happy with Yoku temple too, so I remade it from scratch. The concept remains the same here - there's a temple on a bottom level, and a closed cloister above.
This file is still dependant on SHotN ESM, because I want to employ Muspila's grass ini before I convert this to common data. After that, the city will receive another update too, benefiting from common assets. I'm very excited to see it finally happening, being honest. :geek: :roll:

Please give this a go with Skyrim_main file, they match each other, despite varying ESMs they depend on. If you have some time, I recommend taking a scenic walk from Karthgad tp Tro-Tuktura, actually. The views are breathtaking, immodestly speaking. :P I'm sorry for lack of screenshots this time, I'm under a slight time pressure.

Cheers
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roerich
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Post by roerich »

Impressive as usual, berry. There's so many little hidden details all over the place. Something you've managed to capture perfectly is the paranoid and condense urban layout that should characterize this city. A thief or acrobat character will have great fun being chased through the city, running up staircases and leaping from rooftop to rooftop in escape from the guards.

Some comments:

- Your new planters look great when they are placed on their own, like in the castle courtyard. I think it looks really moddy when the stone walls blends with buildings and such, likewise as in the castle courtyard. I think most of the blending planters could be removed and it would still look great.
- I think in general we can do with less tapestries in exteriors. The buildings rarely benefit from them, IMO, and they look weird ingame as they're not animated. Especially the ones hanging free and not up against a wall. Some are of course fine, like the blue ones on the building by the arena.
- I dunno what is the plan with the red vertex colouring. I'd replace it with a classic 70/70/70
- I'd remove or exchange the two Sky_Ex_Barrow_Block_10 by the Orc smith in the poor quarter. The other additions here are terrific, and you've really succeeded in making this area come to life. Like a village within the city.
- I don't like the tapestry on the MG. The sign should be enough. That little hangout spot is cozy.
- I really, really like the cloister building complex. This is what the Ex_redguard set is all about. But the same issue about the planters applies here. I'd just keep the one with the grape bush and nix the others. The terrace area could also use some more rugs and pillows.
- I don't like the wooden screens blending into the palace walls.

Ended up mostly going through the city, but that smuggler cleft is a neat idea as well.

With the risk of repeating myself, I am sorry if I'm being too harsh. I've written down all the things that came to my mind that I would change or alter, but the vast majority of the file is pure awesomeness and I whole-heartedly support the direction you're going with this.
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Post by Luxray »

Had a quick look at this file, looks good. Wagon wheels on the Travelling Merchant on the Redguard-side of Dragonstar by the gate have 2 wheels bleeding though!

Also, I appreciate anew how separated (subtly) Jarla Jona's palace is from the rest of the city -- great touch!
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Post by berry »

Thanks for feedback. :) Most of tbe stuff you mentioned are leftovers from my previous take on the city - I hardly touched the city right now, focusing on the landscape around it. The city will receive an update when I have common data available. I'll keep these points in mind.

Overall, I plan to finally finish this claim before October.

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Post by berry »

Getting closer... I could get this finished in a day or two, but I need a few days-break from modding, so I'm posting the file for safety.

The landscape is finished now, alongside with MGE grass. The file was converted to common data, and I started to utilize it to make final touches to the city. Tamriel_data's usage includes:
  • giving Dragonstar vendors few exotic goods to sell
  • dressing npcs in Colovian/common clothes, together with SHotN and vanilla ones
  • placing canopies around the city
  • placing PC's clay jars in the city. They are supposed to be Redguard amphora-like containers for small stuff, similar to urns of Morrowind. I plan to make them unique later on and give them fitting leveled lists.
  • using Gold Coast signs for shops of West Dragonstar
  • making small aloe rock gardens next to the palace, castle and Yoku temple
Overall I tried to keep the usage of common data here subtle, to create an exotic vibe of Crowns' ancient trade city, but not to step over the line and make it differ too much from the Reach. But let me know if you feel I've overdone here!

I took pictures this time, here's the album link for anyone curious. I'm not posting these directly to the boards, because there are so many of them (55 screens :geek: )

Looking forward to hearing your feedback, opinions and requests as always :) cheers!
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Post by worsas »

I'm sorry, but I have a lot of critizise about your inclusion of foreign assets in this claim:
placing PC's clay jars in the city. They are supposed to be Redguard amphora-like containers for small stuff, similar to urns of Morrowind. I plan to make them unique later on and give them fitting leveled lists.
I was hoping that the new naming scheme would make it clear that these are intended to be found in Colovian Barrows. They don't really make sense in the context of this town.
using Gold Coast signs for shops of West Dragonstar
What is the point about these? Do you want to imply that these are hammerfellian shopsigns? I don't think so. We don't really have redguard shopsigns, so those have to be the nord ones like in Karthwasten.
making small aloe rock gardens next to the palace, castle and Yoku temple
Apart from removing the novelty of seeing these plants in P:Cs gold coast, I don't think that this is the right climate for them. We have so many own container plants. Why can't we stick with them rather than mixing up things around every turn?
Overall I tried to keep the usage of common data here subtle
You have a different sense of subtely than I have. For the most part I find the inclusion of assets from P:C or TR to be rather jarring.

The khajiit-market stand uses remarkably many morrowind goods. Why should morrowind-export goods be featured that prominently this far away from the province? It's not like Morrowind was a particularly outwards-province, whose goods would be seen more frequently outside of it than export goods from other provinces. Why should there be a gold coast guard captain armor found at the market around here? Some traders wear an armor part belonging to the Kali Mes faction in Sutch.

The biggest misunderstanding, in my point of view, is that you seem to think that Dragonstar needs to be more much much much more "multi-culti" and "redguard" than Karthwasten. It doesn't. Dragonstar is a reach town like any other, except that one half of it is governed by Redguards and that it's admittedly situated at a cross-position between provinces. A little bit more redguard-stuff is okay, but I find it to be a bad idea to make new objects pop up in such quantities. Dragonstar in its previous iterations was fine with me, but this version clearly passes the line of what I consider acceptable.

I find even the canopies to be a bad idea, because they have a certain function at P:C and belong into the context of the Gold Coast. Generic stuff like candles and com-clothing are a different matter, of course. A few foreign goods like the colovian lantern and generic colovian armors are fine with me, also. The dunmer cushions are somewhat okay as a stop-gap until we have redguard ones.

Lastly, here are two examples of makeshifting that, imo, don't work:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/223 ... shift1.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/223 ... shift2.jpg

To be fair, I like the landscaping you did around the town. in particular the narrow valley south of Dragonstar. Nice work there.

By the way: We have a vacant windmill interior left from Karthwasten that could be used for the one in Dragonstar.

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Post by Luxray »

With the new unified Tamriel-Data this kind of stylemixing is surely bound to happen more often. Thus I hope we can all agree to take criticism like this in good stead, where it is offered (and be diligent about pointing it out, too).

So I hope you won't be offended if I agree with muspila. This stand for example has a load of Mw-potion meshes which we should pretty much never use in shotn. The ordinator helmet is a big no as well. There is other stylemixing about as well, like the use of de_ex furniture; also bits of makeshifting like the wood around the platform in that picture which look messy.

Apologies to lump on the criticism, but whilst I looked at the file there is another bit of makeshifting around the town I don't like, this platform entrance; it looks a bit 'moddy' and I can't believe they wouldn't have built proper stone stairs, seeing as every other building in the town has them. Maybe you could lower the whole building down a bit? The doorway adjacent should probably have one of our iron gates as well, instead of the interior door. A certain amount of makeshifting is fine but I think this city is at the point where there is somewhat too much of it. I appreciate that the city wants to be detailed and interesting, but some parts like this are confusing.

Did you test this rock ramp ingame? Is it supposed to be traversable? It doesn't look so due to the many rocks along the path, also it looks a bit odd as is, to my eyes, deleting that middle rock would help i think.

I think the border fort has been overcleaned? As it is missing a large part of the walls and adjoining cliffs. Also the side-passage muspila mentioned, would it be worth removing some of the grass under the cliff part? Whilst examining it in the CS I found myself wondering how likely it would be for grass to grow underneath an exterior-cave due to lack of sunlight.

I'm sorry for the lengthy post about things I don't like. Hopefully you aren't dispirited. The city is largely very good.
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Post by berry »

Thanks for making an effort to take a look at this, champs!
worsas wrote:You have a different sense of subtely than I have. For the most part I find the inclusion of assets from P:C or TR to be rather jarring.
Yeah, I clearly do. I think they might feel jarring to you especially, as you're the man who's been spending the most time with PT assets (on the other hand, I'm probably too little familiar with PC's assets myself), but if one were to take these 3 screens for example, showed them to someone from outside of PT and then asked to point out misfiting elements:
Image Image Image
I'm sure he wouldn't get anything.

I can't quite agree with West Dragonstar being a city like any others, too. It's an ancient Crown fortress, with centuries-old continuity of governance, and certainly it's own customs and traditions - given how each city-state of Hammerfell is largely independent. That's what I've been trying to capture, remembering how a Crown town looked like in TES:Redguard. I never aimed for a 'multi-culti' feel (well, maybe back in the days when I was still proposing us to have a Zenithar temple here, long months ago :P :roll: ) - goods from different provinces just show it's a major trading point. The Khajiit probably have whole chests filled with Cyrodiil and Skyrim goods too, back in his warehouse, but he put the Morrowind ones to expose on his stall to catch people's attention, as these would be the most exotic and original to local folks. I mean, just show some goodwill here, Muspila... ;)
worsas wrote:I was hoping that the new naming scheme would make it clear that these are intended to be found in Colovian Barrows. They don't really make sense in the context of this town.
Oh, no worries, that was clear. I got it in Colovia they're used as barrow assets - in fact I remembered seeing them in Stirk barrows and sought after them purposely there. Clay containers have this traditional Redguard vibe to me, and these are more "generic", or "neutral" when presented in city's surroundings than spineinside's urns.

Overall I think we might have a little too hardcore approach on banning different, supposedly unfitting assets. Clay jar is just a clay jar, sunwashed signpost is just a sunwashed signpost, no matter if it's seen in Gold Coast or Upper Craglorn. If an assets fits it's surroundings and local people, if it looks cool, then why don't we use it?
Luxray wrote:Did you test this rock ramp ingame? Is it supposed to be traversable? It doesn't look so due to the many rocks along the path, also it looks a bit odd as is, to my eyes, deleting that middle rock would help i think.
Traversable, as in: "one can eventually get up there, if they jump up the rocks here and there"? Yes. Traversable as in "one can simply walk up the mesas here"? Nah. I made it that way because I figured mesa #2, given it's desolate nature, shouldn't have a valid path up to it, especially not so close to a city that big.
Luxray wrote:I think the border fort has been overcleaned? As it is missing a large part of the walls and adjoining cliffs.
These belong to main SHotN exterior file already, that's how it looks like with both files loaded:
Image
The inner courtyard of the fort hasn't been detailed at all, as I figured the mod would end on it's outer gate.

---

Please revoke this, it won't require much work from anyone else to get this finished now. It's not a 'rage-quit' by any means, but I don't want to be the one getting rid of all these changes, as I think that'd be a major mistake and I've spent long hours thinking about the character of the city and how to portray it (not trying to make you guys feel bad, it's my fault really for not bringing it up for discussion earlier); now, it's the conscience clause. ;)

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Post by roerich »

Revoked as per request.

Although I can agree with the style-mixing criticism here (and the points of how similar DS and KW should feel), I just want to say really good job on this city, berry. Very impressive over all and a surprising amount of work in short time compared to my slow picketing away at Markarth. I'm glad it's not a ragequit, but I can understand the frustration dealing with wasted work. Hope you take it all in good stride.
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Post by roerich »

I'd like to claim and finish this when I'm done with the main file fixes and merges for Karthwasten.

Edit: Claimed for the heck of it.

Edit: Edit: Wow, four city (five including kw) claims at once roerich? Greedy much?

Edit: Edit: Edit: Though tbf, Markarth, Karthwasten, Dragonstar and Dunbarrow are all only finishing touches. Shouldn't take long if I stop editing my posts and starts doing some actual work.
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Post by berry »

I feel a little bad for meddling in this conversation between roerich, roerich and roerich, but d'oh. :P Anyway, good luck! Please, be gentle with it :( :D

Here goes the summary of the city plan I had in mind (I'll post quest proposals and more vague planning ideas in conceptualizing thread soon), along with some notes that I haven't posted yet:

Image

Castle Dragonstar - I'd love this place to be not only a residence of Dragonstar's ruler (currently Jona the Ansei-Slayer), but an oldschool dungeon too, classic cRPG-style, just like it's counterpart in sisterly Sentinel was in Daggerfall; with forgotten corridors overrun by monsters and filled with traps and secret pathways. Heck, even the name "Castle Dragonstar" has that classic dungeon vibe to it. :P So to that end, I placed plenty (5, more or less hidden - there's also another one that I thought might be used by DB members to get to their HQ; it might or might not be joined with Castle's dungeon. They all are labelled with "_secret#" activators in CS) entrances/exits to/from the dungeon. I also started playing with how the interior might look like, you can check the results in dummy cell "Castle Dragonstar, dungeon"
Dragonstar Arena - likewise, some time ago I started to fiddlie with potential bloodworks of the arena, where savage monsters are gathered to battle with gladiators. The cell is "Sky_arena_bloodworks". I also thought there might be a hidden entrance to Dragonstar tunnels in one of cages here.
Master Acrobat - queer and run-down man with his werid habits, who will train PC if they can prove their skill, finding some secrets he hid on the rooftops and in dark alleys of the city. Fun, little flavour quests for jump-around kind of players.
Shelez & Sons: Master Sword Forging - Isora Shelez with her two sons runs here an exquisite shop with top-notch traditional Redguard blades. The blades are top-notch, but so are the prices
Convent of Zeht - I liked the world "brethren", but I renamed Merchant Captains guild to "convent", so I can fit "main captaincy" as well in letter-limit. I have my thoughts on the guild too and I'll try to post them soon; I imagined it grew to become a major trading power of Craglorn, having smaller company houses in whole area, but Dragonstar remains their main city, where "captains" return and from where they rule. As for the guild's nature: think masonry (with weird and sometimes dark ancient Yoku rituals) meeting East India Company and Hanzeatic oligarchy. I imagined a Grand Captain (guild's leader) can be a strong-willed Redguard woman, the most important person in West Dragonstar just past the prince (and a questgiver of your undead quest?)
Upper Craglorn, Ghast's Pass - a name I came up with for the border fort, originating from other TES games (TESO, Shadowkey)
Multi-doors houses - as you can see, most of the houses in the city have multiple doorways. I'm really fond of the idea of making small "tenement houses" out of them, and made so many entrances to achieve that, but once again, that would differ from how this tileset work in Karthwasten. Many of this doorways would probably be obscure if we end going "Karthwasten way", so I bet some of them should be removed.

I think that's it. Of course, these are just my remarks, "developer notes" as one might say. :) Cheers!

edit: Also, I don't know why, but somewhere along the way two large cliffs went missing - one in the canyon, just where one of secret exits is, the other one behind Taurus Hall (this one belonged to Skyrim_main file, I think). This should be addressed too. Sorry for that.

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Post by Luxray »

Huh, Shadowkey remains a great source for names and ideas, huh :) Good find. I like the name for the pass.

That overview map is surely a good thing to work off now, thank you. The aerial shot really cements to me how well you have meshed the city in the landscape.

Given the many opportunities afforded for climbing and jumping in this city, I think having a master acrobatics trainer hidden somewhere here would be very fitting.
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Post by Yeti »

Thank you for your work on this, berry, and your professional response to feedback.

Nice names for the various buildings. For Dragonstar Arena, I picture more as a place for honorable duels, training, and military exercises, not an arena in the Roman sense of the word, so I'd say no to gladiators and beast pens. Castle Dragonstar could have a largish dungeon, though not a large one, I'd say.

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Post by roerich »

Yeti wrote: Nice names for the various buildings. For Dragonstar Arena, I picture more as a place for honorable duels, training, and military exercises, not an arena in the Roman sense of the word, so I'd say no to gladiators and beast pens. Castle Dragonstar could have a largish dungeon, though not a large one, I'd say.
I think it should be a mixture. There won't be a lengthy arena questline like Oblivion had, but there should be occasional gladiatorial fights (mentioned in dialogue and perhaps have a misc quest centered around the practice). Dragonstar is a tense city with a population that has been through a lot the last thirty years, the rulers need to give them some entertainment to keep them happy. It would also play well with the general martial character of the city, and it is a convenient way to rid the dungeon cells of captured agents and insurgents. If we can't agree on this, I can accept that the arena has previously been used for gladiatorial fights (in peaceful periods), but that it is now claimed by Jona's Nord warhost as their training grounds.

I think Castle Dragonstar should be the name for the fortress as a whole, and "Castle Dragonstar, Palatium" be the name of Jarla Jonas palace. I also don't think the makeshifting of the Rga fort pieces works here, perhaps we need to use the Breton tower interiors for this, disguising them as much as we can with light settings, decoration choices and so on.

I have changed quite a bit here, I'm excited to show it to you when I'm finished. Most importantly I've increased the number of property walls, further fragmenting the city into districts, thereby causing it to appear larger and more clustered than it is. It will also give a thief/acrobat type character some advantages, as a lot of gates and alleys will be locked off. There's plenty of balconies, rooftops and shortcuts for the agile adventurer.

I also fixed the concerns voiced by worsas and Luxray.

Lastly I've changed the Imperial fort to be one of those sentinel type towers invented by berry and used in Castle Dragonstar and Taurus Hall. The city jail will also be here, and the Imperial Legion are officially handling legal matters concerning incarceration and execution of outsiders. The East and West governments handles their own jurisdiction when it comes to legal citizens of the cities, having their own jail cells in Castle Dragonstar and the Crown Barracks. The player will be put in the Imperial jail if caught doing crime, as he/she is an outsider. (Edit: Perhaps we should just keep the jail in Taurus Hall?)

Edit: Another thing. I disagree with the idea that Dragonstar is an ancient Crown fortress. Like most of the city-states in this area, it's more complicated than that. Dragonstar, Jehenna, Karthwasten and so on have largely been multicultural semi-independent cities throughout their history. When occupied by various regional powers, they have been mostly been located at their borders, and the populations of these cities (Karthwasten and Dragonstar more so than the others) are a mixture of many different peoples and races, with different political and ethnic sympathies. Dragonstar should have Nords sympathetic to the Crown rulers, and Redguards loyal to Skyrim, to show that race doesn't equal ideology/nationality and that (human) races in TES are more fluid than the character creation menu would have us believe. The vast majority of the population was never Nord or Redguard, but Reachmen and a mixture of races from all the neighboring provinces (though Redguards would be one of the main ethnic groups after Breton/Reachmen and compared to Nords). Most of these cities were founded by Nedic or Reachmen tribes and later shifted hands between various conquerors interested in controlling and taxing the trade routes and markets here.
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Post by berry »

Sounds exciting. I can't wait to see what you've come up with here. :)
The city jail will also be here, and the Imperial Legion are officially handling legal matters concerning incarceration and execution of outsiders. The East and West governments handles their own jurisdiction when it comes to legal citizens of the cities, having their own jail cells in Castle Dragonstar and the Crown Barracks. The player will be put in the Imperial jail if caught doing crime, as he/she is an outsider. (Edit: Perhaps we should just keep the jail in Taurus Hall?)
Well, the whole subject of a mutual relation between governor's fort and Taurus Hall requires some profound planning anyway. One way to tackle it would be making Taurus Hall garrison nothing but an emergency force, and delegating all guard tasks to the city sentinel; or the other way around - move the whole "infrastructure" up to the hills, and say the outpost in the city is there only to keep both halves of the city at bay, while a majority of Imperial force (together with authorities) reside in Taurus Hall. Their tasks can be bisected too, of course, but I'm afraid that could result in making things more blurry, confusing, and create an impression this area is dominated by Imperial authority, when it isn't (I think?)

I sort of lean towards moving a prison to Taurus Hall myself, for a continuity with vanilla MW.

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Post by roerich »

I would be fine with having the prison located at Taurus Hall. You're right about not showing Dragonstar as an Imperial controlled city, it is something we should be cautious of.

Image

A little teaser. I hope you can recognize it!
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Post by berry »

Boy, that's narrow! I love it (I bet Jona's guards don't, though :P )

I like how you addressed the arena region especially, that (together with a ruined house between a palace and an alchemic) was the area I was the least satisfied with TBH. Looks great now.

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Post by roerich »

Yes, loads of good places for ambushes or hiding. Glad you like it so far, and I hope you'll like it even more when I post the finished file. It is always a tough job, altering the work of someone else.
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Post by roerich »

Update. Uploading in case of crash.
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Post by berry »

Chapeau bas! I'm so glad you took this over, it looks wonderful. You did great job removing my dubious makeshifting and asset mixing and there are so many new wonderful creations, like the walkways, the bazaar, ruined tower by the barracks or the arena stairs. And those little touches, like the blue lantern by the MG, similar to the one you put by KW enchanter, or using the dirt used in Haimtir already make this town a part of the consistent world. Love it. :)

I wonder wouldn't it make sense to abandon the concept of makeshifted walls for Imperial garrison and use Redguard fort assets for it altogether. I know the idea was to present the dividing wall as a temporary solution, but the war was what, like 3 decades ago? The Imperials have some best military stonemasons in the world, they can quickly manage to erect some durable constructions - we know the Vvardenfell forts were all constructed in less than 13 years for example, sometimes between 3E 414 and charname's arrival in 3E 427. With Redguard assets here the framerate is better (since less references are used) and the city feels even more crowded, claustrophobic: http://i.imgur.com/az8XL3D.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/c6XYJC3.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/SZpGsp3.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/KoU8U8d.png The problem is it would require some more changes to the garrison area :| Uploading the (very) WIP file I quickly cobbled together with these walls in case it might come in handy.
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roerich
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Post by roerich »

Thanks berry!

That seems like a better solution, I never liked that makeshifted fort.. I think there's some more makeshifting in this city that's on the border of being too moddy looking, but I'm not sure. This seems like a good way to solve the problem, I will continue work on your file.

Edit: btw berry, how can we convince you to join Discord :-D Much easier to have discussions there.
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Post by Luxray »

I like the wood-wall-structure as it currently is because of the extra height, it makes it look like something more imposed upon the city than the outer walls.
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Post by Yeti »

What further work does Dragonstar's exterior need? It would be nice to pass this through review before putting up interior claims.

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Post by roerich »

I will upload an almost-final version in a few days. No internet connection for my pc currently.
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Post by Yeti »

No need to rush, roerich. I just wanted to know what stage it was at. I look forward to seeing the final version!

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Post by roerich »

All right, here is a WIP file. Still a few things to change but not much compared to the last version. Some areas are still very WIP, but most are completely or near finished. I'm trying to make it a bit smaller to avoid Karthwasten 2.0

I might post a bit more on the things I've done here, but I don't have the time right now.

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Post by berry »

Image

Eh, that's rather extreme makeover now, especially for this late stage of work here. To be honest, I can't see anything of note in the city itself that remained from the stuff I did (FG, one backalley, Nord beggar, random stalls and natural fountain by Yoku temple is all I can see that remains) ... I'm not really sold on all of these being necessary to make the city smaller as well.

As for now the city has lost it's alleyway-ish atmosphere as well, but that can be reinstalled later on of course, in detailing phase. The question is, why discover the wheel anew? We had it all here, imo it was enough to move the village(s) outside the walls (and maybe cut down on the beast of Jona's palace) if we wanted to make the city smaller. :P

Lot's of these complaints is probably grief speaking, but then I think it's well-justified grief from my side here. Still, I trust your judgement and I'll have to get used to it over time; I'm just not very fond of seeing long months of my work going down the drain.

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Post by roerich »

Yes I'm sorry berry. Really, these claims switching back and forth is bound to cause some wasted work, and that is regretable. :| I have a temdency to just follow my intution, when I have some ideas that just feel right to me.

Still I feel like many of the makeshifted additions were too moddy and different from the way the set has been used in Karthwasten. And I wanted to make the terrain feel the same in both sides of the city, the sudden shift to Hammerfell style road textures and such felt a bit too artificial to me. Really, I've tried to keep or alter your work where I could, but the new Imperial wall and the new space and such proved a challenge. I'm much more happy with the fort and such now, and I'll try to make it more alleylike as well.

These kinds of changes might seem like wasting work, but I'd rather tinker with it until it feels right than have to go back later and change things when it's almost too late, like we did with Karthwasten.

But I can understand your frustrations and they are reasonable to have.
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Post by roerich »

Really sorry berry, I think I just got caught too up my with my ideas and didn't of how much it would intrude on your work.
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