The Reach - Karthgad and surroundings [Worsas]

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worsas
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The Reach - Karthgad and surroundings [Worsas]

Post by worsas »

An overhaul of the familiar town of Karthgad and the surroundings. This started as a purely experimental thing and now has progressed so far that this should become an official claim now. Since the claim has become somewhat big, your feedback will be appreciated. Are there any particular additions or amendments you would like to see happen within these claim boundaries?

[hsimg=]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/223 ... _Claim.jpg[/hsimg]

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roerich
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Post by roerich »

Possibly a small barrow or two.
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worsas
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Post by worsas »

I think I'll add the bear clan family barrow along the mountain path seen in the lower left corner. Also, I'm going to add some kind of magical menhir on the island east of the town defended by Spriggans.

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Post by worsas »

I'm 95% done with this claim. The working file has been reduced to the 12 exterior cells affected by my modifications.
Grass still needs cleaning up in a few places and container plants still need to be added in around some spots.

Any feedback is appreciated.
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berry
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Post by berry »

I like it. Your new layout makes much more sense in this area and is really eye pleasing. My suggestions:
  1. I'd say the cave entrances north and west of town should be more rock covered, more integrated into rock/mountain formation. I believe it is matter of modding preferences actually, but to me at least they look out of place now (the tomb entrance though is perfect). The mine entrance especially doesn't look like it could lead down to actual mine; I'd try to make the rocks here tad more massive
  2. I think it may be a good idea to make nature obelisk on the isle more overgrown. By that I mean adding some bushes here and there, moss, ivy, I'd also replace barrow blocks with fitting rock_grassy_04 ones. Currently it looks more like the Nords came here and poured concrete all over the place, in my opinion.
worsas wrote:Are there any particular additions or amendments you would like to see happen within these claim boundaries?
Have you considered adding there nordic sacral building of some kind? Perhaps some kind of hall of the dead (makes sense given the proximity of barrow, I bet it is still functional?) combined with small shrine to Kyne (makes sense given all the forests around ++ I think Reach needs some not-reachmen places of cult).

Also forest path texture is missing in my CS; so I suppose it was added with latest data update, right? I haven't updated mine yet.

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Post by Yeti »

Since Karthgad already has a village shaman, I think we have its religious needs covered already. With that said, we should definitely incorporate more Nord religious themes in their other settlements in The Reach.

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Post by worsas »

One last update before I call this done.

I did some considerable work on the forest parts of this claim that will need to get carried over to the rest parts of the forest. This is something that might be hindering a release of karthwasten for a while. Container plants have been distributed/exhanged/decimated according to our region planning aswell.

@Berry: I have not been able to think of a good way to implement your improvement proposals yet. In particular I don't want the small sanctuary on the island to look like the reachmen stone circle Scamp made on one of the border mesas. It should be visually clearly tied to the look of the barrow structures, similar to the kyne sanctuary Roerich made in his claim. Ingame the "beton"-look isn't that striking, either. But I think that the platform and the offerings lying on it are still too little. Something needs to be added to it. I also didn't flesh out the flora on the island as much as I maybe should.

Regarding the mine, I wouldn't mind a change, but in order to make the mine entrance lead sidewards into the hill, I'd need to change the terrain of the hill considerably. I haven't taken that fully into consideration yet and I'm kinda hesitating to do it at the moment.

Anyway, I took some screens:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/kakzqgzjmjbr ... PtZSa?dl=0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Post by Yeti »

Those look great, Worsas. Concerning the mine entrance, I wouldn't worry too much about it if changing it causes a hassle.

Suggestion: I'm thinking of changing up Karthgad's demographics to make it a little less cosmopolitan and give the Bear Clan a larger presence (since it is supposed to be their ancestral clanstead). What are everyone's thoughts on how we should characterize the village? I'll put together a concept plan later in the week, mixing old ideas and new.

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roerich
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Post by roerich »

I think it would be fine if the Bear Clan had more presence in the village.

Here's how I view Karthgad: A small frontier village characterized by the surrounding dense Vorngad forest, with all of it's mysteries and dangers. Traders and travellers pass through now and then, but most are quickly on the way again. The village is ancient and in some ways somewhat forgotten by the court in Markarth. Life goes on in Karthgad, and the village hasn't changed significantly for centuries, although it has seen more life recently with the opening of trade routes between Karthwasten and Markarth (and beyond). The Bear Clan are the one to make the rules here. They mostly dislike visitors, especially Elves and other foreigners. They know the land and the forest, and make good use of this in their smuggling operations other illegal activities, but also lend their knowledge to those wishing to travel through the forest (although they are more often than not betrayed, robbed, and left for dead). The player should have a hard time feeling at home here, rather a feeling of being watched and distrusted. The thane is loyal to the king, but the power struggle with the clan is always present and they have a lot of influence on important decisions.
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berry
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Post by berry »

Worsas wrote:I have not been able to think of a good way to implement your improvement proposals yet. In particular I don't want the small sanctuary on the island to look like the reachmen stone circle Scamp made on one of the border mesas. It should be visually clearly tied to the look of the barrow structures, similar to the kyne sanctuary Roerich made in his claim. Ingame the "beton"-look isn't that striking, either. But I think that the platform and the offerings lying on it are still too little. Something needs to be added to it. I also didn't flesh out the flora on the island as much as I maybe should.

Regarding the mine, I wouldn't mind a change, but in order to make the mine entrance lead sidewards into the hill, I'd need to change the terrain of the hill considerably. I haven't taken that fully into consideration yet and I'm kinda hesitating to do it at the moment.
I took a look at it in game today and indeed it doesn't look wrong at all, my bad. I'm afraid you will call me a nit picker now :P but wandering around your claim resulted in another two thoughts of mine:
  1. Are you sure about that palisade in the middle of the city? It looks good, but what would locals want it for? Is it supposed to be inner wall protecting Clan Den? That place looks rather like an ideal spot for city square for me, with well, some benches, maybe one market stall, though I'm not sure about the latter.
  2. Have you considered adding some mountain stairs (dunno how those are called, provided pics below) on the road slope leading to city's south gate, in the spot where the road is the most steep? Just some wooden planks here and then, without terrain adjusting. It is not needed by any means game engine wise to climb that hill, but I believe Karthgad citizens would rather have such thing to help them in their everyday journeys up and down the hill.
[hsimg=]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-69qz7o2YkWY/T ... CF3938.JPG[/hsimg][hsimg=]https://myfitspirations.files.wordpress ... n-horz.jpg[/hsimg]

But yeah, I wouldn't say any of these changes is truly needed here. It looks great, really majestic.

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Post by worsas »

I had some wooden terrain stairs at the very beginning but scrapped them at some point. Most likely because there have been massive terrain changes all the time. I'll give it another try and look how it works. I'm only very occupied at the moment. Therefore the little progress.

The palisades within the town are a leftover of an initial plan to turn karthgad into a passage town with a road leading through the middle of it, framed by palisades on both sides and possibly something like a toil house. It didn't work as well as I had hoped, so I changed things back to their old state in most places, but I have kept karthgad split up and I think it works quite well.

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Post by worsas »

I totally forgot that we might want to review our finished exterior claims. Then again we don't have anyone but scamp for this. Should we shift this and berrys claim to reviewing, regardless?

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Post by Yeti »

I'd say yes, though it's worth remembering I'm currently working on this area in the main file.

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Scamp
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Post by Scamp »

I'll see to it that I review these exteriors this week.

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worsas
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Post by worsas »

Scamp wrote:I'll see to it that I review these exteriors this week.
You should review my claim within the Skyrim_Main_v02.esp, when Yeti is done with it and hands it out. So it is a mixup of the regular order of things for this claim, mostly because I knew Yeti wanted these cells and I forgot about having them reviewed by someone beforehand.

But Berrys exterior claim can already get reviewed now.

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Post by Scamp »

This claim is in Sky_Main, approved.

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