Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Old mods

A while back, I found a large group of old mods which I have never finished. They range from a cozy room for the Temple Patriarch to a sprawling desert occupied by nomadic Khajiit. I wanted to see how they all looked in game with MGE shaders. The nostalgia flooded in as I explored my own creations. Keep in mind that these were made over 6 years ago, contemporary with and older than my Leijing Hill mod; it's too bad I don't still have the ones which are even older!

I took some screenshots of my exploration which you can see below. I've also given short explanations for everything. I hope you enjoy this little trip down my memory lane!

Fort Westmoth, Khuul


This mod added a legion garrison to Khuul. This mod was interesting because I made it before I knew how to edit or create pathing grids. So I tried to corral all the NPCs using invisible barriers like the ones used during CharGen. It made navigating the narrow streets pretty tricky.




Nilla Don


I found a pleasant peninsula in the Ascadian Isles that was just begging to have a small Hlaalu settlement built on it. So, I made one and named it Nilla Don. I actually finished a lot of the interiors in this town too, which impressed me.


Rock


The hardened, Nordic clan of Rock has built themselves a small hold in the West Gash. Their loyal retainers keep the place running with a small garden, and a dwemer furnace.


Melchior's City


Mixing architecture can be fun so that's what I experimented with here. This long bridge out over the Inner Sea led to a Vivec-style canton.

Metamora


I spent a lot of time on this city mod. I really like the Indoril tileset, so I wanted to bring that to Vvardenfell. Behind those mountains is a "hidden" city with severely limited access (I even made lines of people waiting in the customs office) to outsiders. I experimented with scheduling here as well, so that shops closed up at night, NPCs would head home or to the local tavern. And everyone had unique greetings and some unique topics as well in most instances. I also wanted the city to be thief "friendly," so I made rooftop access points and windows which acted as doors. I think I got burned out on this when I thought about making the interior for the palace.


Patriarch's Study


I made this mod for one of my characters since the previous patriarch's study was not good enough for me. It would be considered a cheat by most since it has the full staff set, a full glass set, lots of skill books (including the complete set of Vivec's Sermons). There's no vent for the smoke from that fire... a little oversight on my part! But this was a nice retreat for my character.

Arknth Ruin


This is a home I made for another one of my characters, a mage with an interest in dwemer ruins. It had an old artillery tower which you'll see in the next screenshot. That tower was used in my "just for fun" mod, Tagdar's Fleet.


Oshan Grotto


A fully detailed grotto which I made as a home for an Argonian character who made his way as a professional diver. The grotto concealed a sunken Imperial fort along with a strange daedra who had some extra bartering money hidden in one of his many chins. A side note which may be interesting to some: this same character is what prompted me to make my Pearls Enhanced mod. 


Tagdar's Fleet


I made this mod for the fun of it. It's just a nordic fleet of battleships (which look oddly reminiscent of Velothi architecture) assaulting some dwemer artillery towers.


Clockwork City, Exterior


I was always curious what the outside of Sotha Sil's Clockwork City might look like. So I took a stab at it using a mix of Sotha and Dwemer architecture. I even tried my hand at making Sotha Sil, using vanilla resources. I think he had the actual helmet on before, but I didn't load that resource.


Starside


For this mod, I wanted to have a cell which was perpetually night. I didn't know how, but I still wanted stars. See all those stars in the picture? Those are actually silver plates way up there with lights shining against them. Ingenious, no?

Soutlan



I don't remember what inspired this mod, but I envisioned everyone here talking with strong Jamaican accents (hence the name's funky spelling of Southland). I was going to have a desert on one side, filled with white, bleached stone monoliths and nomadic Khajiit. On the other side would be tree dwelling Bosmer (sounds pretty much like Elsweyr and Valenwood?).


Sunmoth


Before Moonmoth, there was Sunmoth. Or so the dunmer contractor here claims. Apparently the Imperials changed their mind about the location of the fort and screwed this poor guy over. I was planning on making a quest to finish the fort (you'd gain access to the interior in stages).











6 comments:

  1. By gosh , Melchie ! Love the screenies even if they are of projects lost and gathering dust . I'm guessing a lot of this has gone into making Lyithdonea ( the inspiration that is ) .

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    1. Yes, indeed. What you see here is what I cut my modding teeth on. Lyithdonea has become the accumulation of what I learned. I'm planning to release these on MMH for curiosity's sake, and if anyone was interested in messing around with them.

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  2. These look great! When you release them, it would be great if you told us which ones are playable "as is" for those of us who aren't modders but love all the work the community does.

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    1. Well, they've been released! http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1489913-relz-melchiors-old-mods/

      Now, I can't guarantee their readiness to be played right off the bat. As I haven't cleaned them of possible dirty references. Are you familiar with cleaning mods?

      All of them are in a state of at least being eye-candy additions to the game. But a couple should be pretty much ready to go: Nilla Don is pretty much completed, as is Rock, Patriarch's Study, Arknth Ruin, and Oshan Grotto.

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  3. I know Praedator is making a large Hlaalu overhaul mod. I wonder if you'd both be interested in incorporating Nilla Dorn into that?

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    1. That's an interesting idea. I'll try and remember to propose it to him.

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