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Evaluation Version Feedback

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Vagrant

Posted: Aug 21 2009, 19:53 PM

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From a PM sent to me by David Brasher, one of the people I had shared the link with.

QUOTE

The mod is beautiful to look at and amazingly huge. It is probably larger than Cyrodiil. I have only begun to explore. Unfortunately it is rather empty. There is almost nothing to do there. This makes it not as interesting of a place to hang around in as Cyrodiil, The Shivering Isles, or Morrowind. It is like a movie with great special effects, costuming and scenery, but no plot and no conflict. I imagine you will add some quests, adventures, and dungeons.

The cryptic note had errors in it. It is always important to make a good first impression. The text was not indented. In the age of computers, that is not the style, because the poorly-designed software won't accept it, but if you write a letter or a book in real life, you indent. "myst" needs to be changed to "must." There is a line that should read "verse has been". "Deplets" needs to be changed to "depletes."

Companions may not follow the player character into the mod, but that is to be expected. They don't go to the Shivering Isles either.

Upon going through the portal, you are instantly lost. You are in an absolutely gorgeous garden. Kudos to the people who did the meshes for that area. great architecture. Lovely plants and sky. The guards have beautiful custom armor, and the raggedy priest-looking people seem to have custom gloves or bandages.

But you are lost. I need to research the lore on Meridia. I really can't remember what she is the Daedric Lord of. The name of the garden was about the only clue I had about where I was and what was going on. All the people in the garden were stupid and boring. They couldn't tell me where I was and what was going on. I could not find anyone with custom dialog. They just talked about Kvatch being destroyed, Oblivion gates opening up all over Tamriel, and my latest exploits against the Blackwood Company. This just struck me as wrong. If these people live on a plane of Oblivion (Is that where they are?) then I would not expect them to keep up on all the news and gossip of Cyrodiil. I suggest that you make it so the NPCs do not have the rumors topic. I suggest that you start another topic with a name like "news," "gossip," or "conversation." You could then make a few dozen dialog infos about various topics pertinent to your world which the NPC's would randomly talk about. You could use silent dialog created by TES4 Gecko or have the user apply it to your mod before playing it.

So there I was lost in the beautiful garden. There was no map. I guess that happens with an interior cell made entirely of custom meshes. None of the people had anything useful to say. The Grand Gates on the walls were all non-functional. This was annoying. They should have been locked and unopenable without a key. That would have made them mysterious. As it was, they just seemed broken. I tried a couple of magic portals, but the time was not right. Then I found a glowing one that took me to Eastport.

Eastport was rainy, and was a really cool looking port town from the outside. Not much to do there though. I liked the bookstore.

There is one empty L-shaped house with a bad inner door. It is hard to click on. I think the door needs to be moved further out into the room.

It was cool seeing the docks and the ships, but the doors to the ships were all inoperative.

I took a swim and ended up at Watcher's Peak. I loved the exterior ruin architecture and layout. Much more picturesque than the average fort ruin. I went inside and the light level was way too low. There didn't seem to be any lighting. There were some stupid ignorant people there who had nothing to say about who they were and what they were doing. I think they were some sort of soldiers or religious people or something.

I went to Kell's Fork and it wasn't there.

I loved looking at the sky in that general vicinity. It must be some sort of custom weather.

I went to Arie Village. No doors, no people, nothing to do. Some sort of mysterious horse statue that seems to be related to the five scrolls I got. I will have to look for horses.

The land is big and empty! The hills and vegetation are okay, but the flat plains give you line of sight far beyond where the computer can generate grass. I suspect that in vanilla Oblivion, they strove to limit the distance you could see in most places to limit this inaesthetic occurrence.

There are no creatures. I think you should place spawn points all over the place like in vanilla Oblivion. I encountered one pair of big scary boars. I saw one small group of deer, but that was all the wildlife I saw.

I am sorry, but I was starting to get bored. I was thinking about how one of my other characters was finding allies for Bruma and closing Oblivion gates. I was wanting to be doing those activities.

Then I finally found a dungeon! Cranston's Grotto. Congratulations to whoever made it. It had a really cool and confusing floor plan. I loved how the map was of limited use because of overlapping tunnels! The Land Dreughs in there were really really scary. I imagine they were modded because they were almost too much for my level 39 pure warrior to handle. I was very low on torches, and low on potions. I came very close to dying about three times.

I loved the yellow crystals. I imagine there is something cool to do with the crystals I gathered. Maybe it ties in with a quest, or is like Amber or Madness Ore. I liked how the room with the water looked. I liked the amount of treasure. Some people put way too much treasure in. This dungeon had the right amount. It was a real challenge completing this dungeon. It was one of the highlights of my experience this evening.

I think your mod is too ambitious. You might need to shrink it down a great deal. The mod is still under construction, so I need to cut it some slack. But gamers expect mods to be very highly detailed. They expect them to be as highly detailed as vanilla Oblivion. Most mods tend to be more detailed than that. I am not sure if the gamers will like it if your mod is less detailed than vanilla Oblivion.

I think the mod has great potential, but so far, much of the effort has gone to the wrong things. That may just be my impression because of the particular places I have been. In my opinion, a good mod has quests, adventures, dialog, mysteries, interesting characters, conversation, and battle. I have deleted mods from my computer because they failed to have these.

Sorry about all the harsh criticism. I am sort of a blunt and cruel critic. I am not always negative. When I see things I like, I mention them, and at other times, I offer advice on what specifically could be changed in what way to improve things.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to play your mod. If there is something specific you would like me to test, or questions you have about how my play-testing went, feel free to contact me.

I already responded to most of the issues related to things not being done, and offered some suggestions for checking out the Black Pit area. But it is still a bit of valid feedback.

JC Phoenix	Posted: Aug 22 2009, 07:16 AM
Fresh Meat Group: Member Posts: 4 Member No.: 276 Joined: 20-August 09	I've kind of been in one of my "sick of Oblivion" states lately, but after fixing the OMOD I did play a little bit. Pretty much the same impression and feedback from me. Everything is beautiful and well put together. I understand the blandness, blank spots, lack of dialogue, etc. since it's just an evaluation. I had the same sort of feeling as him with the "What am I doing here, who are these people?" From the orange room I figured out that there's some sort of ore and they worship a rainbow lady, then I found the shrine and figure out who it was. Later I visited the Black pit, had some guy try to sell me his house, and had the lady tell me to get 10 lockpicks. The teleporter near the Necromancer Prison gave me the Nvidia black screen bug. Visited the mines, and they looked good. The torch item that I got from the shrine was broken it seemed, after equipping it there was a quick stealth bonus and chameleon effect that lasted one second but remained after the timer ran out. It also gave my character a weird black shader effect. Is crime implemented yet? I repeatedly attacked one of the store owners until she died and nothing happened, I think I even started attacking her as a guard who was practicing up stairs was leaving. Can't really think of much else. I'm more of a storyline/dialogue type so it's kind of hard to give feedback on what's currently there.

Vagrant

Posted: Aug 22 2009, 08:49 AM

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More from David

QUOTE

I was thinking the rumors communicated from the NPCs to the Player could be disabled by checking the "No Rumors" box on each NPC. That way they wouldn't talk about Cyrodiil to the player. Doing that, and adding a new custom topic to take the place of Rumors would be the only change in that department I would propose. That would not be dirty.

Today I went to Scout's Ridge. It seemed to just be a ridge. Maybe a quest will refer to it.

It seems like the plants that spawn ingredients are sort of rare, and come in clusters. I finally encountered some lavender, but I don't think I have seen anything else that goes into a healing potion.

I visited Rhen Myr. The trees waving in the storm were quite remarkable.

I went to Mabrelle's Taphouse. I laughed at the bottles on the floor. But I was sort of annoyed that she wasn't a merchant and couldn't sell me a drink. (It is a taphouse.) I liked how the town looked with the Ayleid ruins in it. I went to the door of the ruin, but it was inoperative.

I decided to be a troublemaker and see how law enforcement worked. A Nord guard wouldn't have a normal conversation with me, so I took offense and punched him. He drew his sword and tried to kill me. After he chased me around the town a few times, I yielded, but he didn't arrest me. I thought that was very odd. I wanted more trouble, so I went trespassing in the Harker's house. They threatened to call that silly guard. I stole some worthless items right in view of Mrs. Harker. She did not react. Finally they got sick of my trespassing and attacked me. I ran outside with Mr. Harker in hot pursuit. He is fast! I ran around the town, and ran over by the silly guard. Instead of arresting me, he fled! I ran over by him again and he fled again. What a lousy town guard! I decided that The Colored Rooms were a place where anarchy reigned and criminals could do as they liked. I later found out more about that subject.

Goldhorn Ranch was my next stop, so I ran toward it with Mr. Harker trying to club me. We ran past one pair of boars, we outran them and encountered another pair when we were halfway to the ranch. I yielded to Mr. Harker, we had a nice boar hunt, and parted on friendly terms.

Goldhorn Ranch was a bit bland. I was trying to figure out what type of livestock they raised, because there don't seem to be cows in this game (just beef.) There was no one to talk to, and no one around, so I was tempted to steal one of the horses and try out the scrolls and horse statues, but I decided that I would feel guilty about it and that I had committed enough crimes. Even if the guards didn't care, the Nine Divines would.

I enjoyed looking at the pink clouds above the peaceful grassland. I guess it is sort of nice having a lower danger level and not always being attacked. In Cyrodiil, nowhere is safe, and you can't just enjoy the scenery. Maybe my characters will go to the Colored Rooms now and then for a relaxing vacation.

Then I encountered the tarantulas of Flooded Cave. They were really cool! Great modeling. I liked their blind power. They didn't seem so tough, so I went into the cave. More yellow crystals! I like Kintonite. Then four tarantulas attacked me. I killed one, and then they very nearly killed me. They had me helpless on the ground for like thirty seconds. I had not realized how powerful their drain fatigue could be when three of them bit me at once! Excellent programming! It reminded me of hand to hand combat in Morrowind. It that game I always carried a couple of restore fatigue potions, but with the spiders I didn't happen to have any, and almost died. I think I will start carrying them again. I managed to run outside and heal myself.

I ventured into the cave again, but ran out of torches and had to leave. Flooded Cave has no map marker for you to discover. I do not know if this is an error, or if it was intentional. I decided I needed to head back to Mundus when I got a chance, to get some torches. I couldn't find any in The Colored Rooms. (My pure warrior is allergic to magic and will not use enchanted light rings or light spells.)

I went to Whitewood Enclave. The shrine of Meridia was really cool-looking, but didn't do anything. There were a bunch of priest-looking people hanging around, but they wouldn't talk to me and explain their beliefs. Vodus Crunus had some neat-looking custom armor.

I walked back to Eastport. Eraamion seemed to be locked out of Eastport Lodge. I went to the portal to go back to Cyrodiil for torches, and ended up in Black Pit. Crime doesn't pay. I was lost. I couldn't figure out what to do. The NPC's wouldn't talk to me about crime and punishment. Some dude tried to sell me a house. I didn't want to live in Black Pit. Agaron had an error in one of his lines. He said "behing" when he meant to say "behind."

There was no icon on the quest "Ryme House for Sale."

I went to the Safe House, and an orc got mad at me because he doesn't allow criminals inside. I think one of his lines was wrong. I think he said "skul" instead of "skull." He attacked me and I ran away. When I went back, he was as calm as could be, and I explored the house at leisure. I am not sure if it was supposed to work that way.

There was no explanation of how to work off crimes. I was lost. I went to the Shrine of Meridia. This one did something. It offered ways for me to get my crimes forgiven, and offered blessings. But there was no readme, and no manual, and no in-game instructions. I saved my game and started experimenting. There is an error in the messagebox the shrine gives you. It should say "Shards to be offered." Not "Shards to be offer." There also needs to be spaces after the two periods that follow in later parts of the message.

I tried "offer self" and that was a mistake. It crippled me so I couldn't cast healing spells. I had no way of knowing how long the ability would last or if there was a way to reverse it. I reverted to my savegame. I puzzled over the menus some more and decided I better see if there was a way to acquire shards.

Wandering around town, I realized that the reason the game lagged every time I went into a building was because of all the many many candles. I suggest that you make most of the candles fake and use Hollywood lighting if needed.

I found an inoperative portal platform.

The back of Promina Vercuto's shack has a flashing board low down on the wall. A sign that two objects are occupying exactly the same space and that one needs to be moved or deleted.

Finally I stumbled upon a pawnshop named The Tainted Flask. It had a sign with the three gilt balls which are the centuries-old symbol of the pawnbroker. I was eager to pawn some of my weighty loot. Then I found out that the sign was an error, but fortunately Malak was the one I needed to talk to in order to get out of this ugly town full of criminals. (Ugly town is a compliment in this case. The atmosphere is great!)

I had finally found someone who could explain to me how to work off my crimes. I think most of the NPC's in town ought to be able totalk about that subject. Even if it is something as unhelpful as, "To work off your crimes, you have to get shards for Meridia." or "If you want to pay your debt to society and get out of here, you have to go down into the mines and sweat.

Malak has an error in his line about the rock crusher. It should say, "should you need it."

The mines are awesome! I was finally wrapped up in a quest and really getting into the game. Nice retexture on the mine walls! I love the mining lamp! It has lasted a very long time and not burned out. I also was able to gather so many torches that I won't need to go looking for them in Cyrodiil. The mine has a very complex layout and is easy to get lost in. I love the rickety walkways and stairs on the edge of the pit.

The door between Silverhand Mines and Aterite mine seems to have the lime green box with the pink cone placed wrong. It feels like it is sunk half a cubit into the mine floor.

I didn't understand why entering part of the mine was trespassing, but I later found out it was because of the local guild of thieves.

Rock Beasts are cool! I love how they rise up from being a pile of rocks. Those Gloom things are scary. Some of them can cast a spell once that almost does me in. I am glad they can only cast it once.

On one of the rickety walkways on the edge of the pit and between sections of the mine, there is a flashy board. I was running from a Gloom creature, so I didn't notice exactly where.

It is cool how the creatures in the mine spawn so very fast. In most dungeons, you can go out the way you came in safely, but not this one.

Back in town, I met a couple of weirdos, and I had the option of saying, "I want to join your faction." I had no idea what their faction was. I inquired more deeply, and found out it was the local guild of thieves. I think there might be a more graceful way to handle that bit of dialog. Perhaps just "My Faction"

The "Darker Than Blacksmithy" is cool! It has orcish weapons! They were not as powerful as the weapons I was carrying, but I just had to buy one anyway. I loved the cage with the weapons on display inside. Nice work. The goblin in the cage upstairs was interesting. I bet there is a story behind him.

The Black Pit is the best town I have found in the mod. It seems like a real, complete, fully-functioning town. With a little bit of work, it will be just right, and more interesting than most towns in Cyrodiil.

I was wondering if you started your mod before The Knights of the Nine was released. One poor fellow made a mod that was Sheogorath's Plane of Oblivion. And then the Shivering Isles came out. The mod stunk though, because he didn't play-test it before releasing it. Nice scenery and idea, it was just impossible to beat without cheating a lot.

Apparently Umaril the Unfeathered and his Aurorans come from The Colored Rooms. But since Meridia invited you to her realm, those unpleasant things shouldn't bother you. Meridia hates the undead. What else is known about her? If Umaril and his thugs would stop desecrating chapels, you could say that Meridia and Arkay have a great deal in common. Meridia doesn't sound like such an evil Deadra Lord. I guess the lore is so vague, thin, and conflicting, that a modder can do almost anything and stay lore-friendly. The thing I was reading talked about how Mankar Camaron goofed and made lore-unfriendly statements.

It sort of cracked me up that in Morrowind, Sheogorath was one of the four worst Daedra. One of the Four Corners of the House of Troubles. But in the Shivering Isles, he is sort of a sympathetic figure.

I had a much better experience playing the mod tonight than I did last night. I really got wrapped up in the quest to work off my crimes. After that I looked around, and realized that I seem to have explored everything I know about that I have access to. I felt sort of sad. I will go back to the tarantula cave with plenty of supplies. I think I will explore the wilderness more and see if I can find more unmarked caves. Maybe I will buy the house just for kicks and testing purposes. I could bring my cleptomaniac nightblade character here and have him join the Silver Hand to see how that works.

Are there some areas I have overlooked that I should explore? Anything in particular I ought to test out?

Thanks for letting me try the mod.

Sincerely,
David Brasher

JC Phoenix	Posted: Aug 23 2009, 21:05 PM
Fresh Meat Group: Member Posts: 4 Member No.: 276 Joined: 20-August 09	I haven't gotten around to revisitingthe colored rooms, but two things I forgot: 1: When I first used the portal I moved around after being hit with the effect and as such I was never teleported to the Colored rooms. 2: Another time I activated the prismatic gem right in front of the birth stone causing the portal to be inside of the birth stone. I couldn't activate the portal, and had to tcl inside of the birthstone in order to activate it. This post has been edited by JC Phoenix on Aug 23 2009, 21:06 PM

Vagrant

Posted: Aug 23 2009, 22:56 PM

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QUOTE (JC Phoenix @ Aug 24 2009, 02:05 AM)

I haven't gotten around to revisitingthe colored rooms, but two things I forgot:

1: When I first used the portal I moved around after being hit with the effect and as such I was never teleported to the Colored rooms.
2: Another time I activated the prismatic gem right in front of the birth stone causing the portal to be inside of the birth stone. I couldn't activate the portal, and had to tcl inside of the birthstone in order to activate it.

Unfortunately, the location where the portal opens is not something which can be fixed without altering those cells (cannot be done safely within a .esm). Instead, the location is at a point somewhere directly in front of the player. This location also cannot be checked for validity. You should however be able to re-use the stone to change the location of the portal without incident. As the stone will have some additional properties in the official release, rest assured, being able to open up the portal again if it happens to be inaccessable will always be possible. It will probably make more sense once I have the prologue put together and released.

The pulse that the portal sends out should send you, and any npc which is following you within the immediate area into the realm right away. I'm not sure how moving once hit would prevent you from teleporting since the teleport is linked to the script effect. But will look into it.

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