After you told me this I thought about it - you are right, half the time I never knew I murdered someone until Lachance showed up in my bedroom - even though they write it across the screen "Unseen forces have witnessed ... etc."

GAAAAH !!!! HOLY COW !!! I nearly had an accident when that giant minotaur suddenly started chasing her and all the doors were locked !!!

Ooh! I had the same foreboding feeling when Aravi entered that chamber of giant minotaurs. Even though I was pretty much expecting it, I still jumped as much as she did! What a white knuckle fight that was! I hope she didn't pee her greaves!

Congrats to Aravi on that new zoom in perk!

If she didn't, I did it for her !!!

I knew something was up when I saw those skeletons were Fallen Adventurers and not just skeletons. To be honest I wasn't expecting that guy at all. I got an Indiana Jones vibe from the lighting so Aravi was looking out for a trap or something. When the big guy appeared though... well you saw what happened. GET THAT DOOR OPEN!!!!!

I smelled a trap right away too - all that and the minotaur couldn't be looted too !! ARGH !!! Lol.

While I'm getting the next video ready I'll post these screen shots.

Aravi's wearing some new greaves and some fingerless gloves:
http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/6945/oblivi...04061824215.jpg
http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/1458/ob...04061824465.jpg


Inside of the dungeon:
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/8345/ob...04061741313.jpg

The first one is my fave !!!!

Looks makes the kitty, and Aravi looks fabulous. Great armor, gloves and sword!

I wonder if Aravi's thinking on the fingerless gloves is the same as Buffy's? She wears no gloves or sometimes, fingerless ones (for cold weather). That way, when she reaches into her quiver, she can sense the diffs between the tails of her broadheads and armor-piercing arrows.

Great screenies!

Mine too. The second one was to show the interesting backing on the gloves.



That's one reason, the other is that you never know when those Khajiit claws will be needed! Same reason why she usually skips wearing boots.

____________________________________________________________

Aravi was sent to investigate a location referenced by that Stele she found in the previous dungeon.

Quest update:
http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/3448/questupdate.jpg

The video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HOQr7k8ek8


APPROX TIME: 8.5 mins

This goes along with the video:
http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/2968/ob...04061749160.jpg

How clever about fingerless gloves so her claws can come out!

The vid was great. Wow, those Spire goblins were tough and hit like hammers! I almost thought we might lose poor Aravi a couple times.

Nice use of command spells a couple time to help thin the ranks.

Oooh! What a delicious little pair Aravi has now with that paralyze spell and fast little sword! Devastating!

As Aravi was approaching the cave from the forest, it felt funny. Then I realized, she is tall enough to see over the top of the grass (unlike some tiny elves, lol).

I keep trying to click "continue" on the screenies, ROFL !!

Holy Cow, those albino goblins had some kind of hard hit when they were unarmed !! It stunned or paralyzed her where she couldn't fight back !! I got scared several times for her when her health dropped so quick !! Awesome vid !!!

A neat look at the Ayleid Spires! Those Albino Goblins sure are tough.

I have been trying to watch your videos on and off, but most of the time You Tube is just too slow. They will play for ten seconds, then sit for thirty seconds waiting on the server. I did not have any problems this time. My guess is because I usually try watching in the evening, and this time I did it in the morning.

Have you ever thought of using a replacement shader for Night Eye? I got sick of constantly seeing blue a long time ago, and installed this mod to replace it with something a little easier on the eyes.

Buffy isn't that short is she? lol! There are some people that tower over Aravi even.


I've done that too!



Thanks for visiting!

One thing you may try is to bring up the video and pause it as soon as it starts playing and do something else for a minute or two. That will give the video a chance to load some and I've noticed that it loads significantly faster when it's paused.

The blue night eye has never bothered me but I'll check out that mod though. Based on the screenshots in that mod page "Edge Detect" is my favorite followed by "Superbright" and "Rotate." Which do you use?

I will try that! Or just stick to try watching during off-hours.


I used to use Desaturate, which washed out most of the colors, making it nearly black and white (well, greys). Now I use Superbright, which basically makes it seem like daytime.

Mini update!

I added a new water mod to the game. I'm not sure if I'll keep it because it causes some major FPS drops when it loads. Not that I wasn't expecting that really.


http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/9662/ob...04072239029.jpg

http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/683/obl...04072240399.jpg

http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/5186/ob...04072241484.jpg

Vilja is the little dot to the top right, she's coming along for this next mission, but I have yet to decide whether I'll leave her outside or attempt to do it with her.


The Archeology Guild hall
http://img806.imageshack.us/img806/1508/ob...04072242421.jpg

http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/7637/ob...04072242499.jpg


This video shows a new toy that Aravi just found in the Guild hall...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw93CY1hxmI

APPROX TIME: 1 min

ROFL !!! I expect at any time to hear you have begun finding ways to rid yourself of Vilja ... AKA "The Adoring Fan" - shoving her off Dive Rock ... making her wait outside of Oblivion gates, etc. ROFL !!!

That bear trap is hilarious !! You can set it five feet from a gate in the Imperial City and watch people spawn in through the gates ... SNAP !!!

Beautiful water screenies. I know of the mod, but don't use it.

And the Arheology Guild looks just as neat as can be!

I love the trap. How perfect for an archer. Set up behind the trap, take that poisoned sneak shot and use the trap for some insurance. Wonderful. Thanks for the demo vid!

The trap reminds me of how I like to use mines in FO3. Put out a bottlecap mine, or about four frag mines, and stand twenty feet or so back and start shooting the super mutants...

The water does look pretty. But I probably would not want the performance hit. I just use a tweak to the .ini file that makes it more transparent so that you can see through it.

I actually prefer my water to be less transparent and more reflective. I don't like the fact that you can see through the water so clearly when you are above it but your vision gets fogged over so much when you go under. I simply cannot grasp how that is in any way possible, ergo I countered with this, which makes the water less transparent and more reflective on top, but pushes the underwater fog back considerably when you are swimming. Much better looking to me (though it does sort of force you to keep the water reflections on, and they are known to cause performance problems for some people).

I use this one to improve the view underwater. I could never stand all the fogging underwater, especially seeing how much my characters love to swim.

MALX- I'll never kill Vilja! If she gets annoying I'll tell her to go home! And I think I like Acadian's use for it better lol!

Acadian- I turned off that water mod, it was pretty but it didn't deliver on what it promised... namely more realistic water. Great tactic! You'll see Aravi use that at the beginning of this video.

SubRosa- I used bottlecap mines to take out Behemoths because my characters almost always were explosive experts. I thought it was kind of silly that they were always more powerful than the over varieties of mines.

Thomas Kaira- I'm just using Natural Water that came with Natural Environments mod pack now.
____________________________________________________
More Spires content!


The mission:
http://img853.imageshack.us/img853/8462/thehorn.jpg

The video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BMoVCb9n50


APPROX TIME: 13.5 mins

Aravi's bow broke in battle! How embarrassing!

And as ever, we open with Aravi needing a bath! Your new night eye looks good. Superb use of that new trap. What a big fight at the end! Using the scamp was a good idea, and it was funny (but scary) to see Aravai break her bow (right before almost running out of arrows). Whew!

Natural Water is buggy, IIRC. All the times I used it, I was plagued by flickering rain ripples on the water surface. And that's not to mention how clear it is on top. It says that the reflections are improved, but I have to call "shenanigans" on that one. Enhanced Water does a much better job for the reflections due to it making the water non-transparent. This draws more attention to the reflections and does a much better job hiding the fact that there is pretty much nothing to be found beneath the waves besides rocks and slaughterfish. Believe me, there are much better alternatives for water out there. In fact, an new one just got released.

Natural Vegetation has been usurped by Enhanced Vegetation, which is more customizable.

Natural Weather is extremely buggy, as well. The advertised rainbows are flat-out broken and when in dialogue mode, the weather has an annoying tendency to insta-switch every 5 seconds.

If you were to ask on the BGS modding forums, you would be strongly advised to ditch every aspect of that mod save Natural Habitat, and I agree with them. Natural Environments is extremely old and almost every component in the mod has been done better by someone else.

However, what you wish to use is entirely up to you. I'm just here to provide recommendations and suggestions.

Nice use of the new trap against the daedra. Nice to see in color again too!

I love that 'night-eye' !! Holy Cow, that was one tough enemy !! I was watching her health (etc.) take hits with each swipe of the sword and knew he had to have some kind of reflection on weapons.

One thing I thought was weird, she was using her bow and a message popped in at the top that said "Your blade skill increased." Maybe the game was listening to Imoen saying, "My blade will cut you down to size" and took her seriously, lol.

Awesome vid, I am dying for this mod after watching Aravi playing it !!!

@Rosa: If you are looking for improved water reflections, Water Reflection Blur is a significant help. It's an SDP alteration, sort of like the night-eye shader replacer that blurs the edges of the water reflections to remove the extremely heavy aliasing you see on distant water reflections.

Note that you will need to turn the water ripples option off in the video settings when using this, because these two don't play nice together. However, this is not a heavy price to pay, as the only thing the water ripples setting affects is the ripple effect you see when your character is swimming. The normal animations for calm and rainy weather are not affected.

Acadian- I groaned when I saw that! That little bugger will work it's way into every video I swear! I wasn't laughing when the bow broke though. I think my word(s) were "Sonovabitch!"

TK- I've been quite happy with most of the effects of Natural Environment with the exception of the weather portion. That thing cycles weather so fast you'll walk outside with the beautiful sun shining, and before you take 20 steps it's pouring rain. Needless to say I don't have that portion running. Do you know of any good weather mods?

SubRosa- I admit I was doubtful about that filter replacer at first, but I really like it. I'm going to keep it. Thanks for the suggestion!

mALX-

That fight would have been really short if Aravi didn't have the Storm Ring (resist shock 100%). Each one of those bolts would have done 60 pts of damage along with the paralyze effect.


That's part of the realistic fatigue mod I think. As you carry heavy loads some of your physical skills go up. Sometimes it's blade, sometimes it's blunt, sometimes it's hand to hand. It's a little strange but it doesn't bother me. It happens so infrequently that it doesn't make a big difference.


I'm dying for your game to work again!

Good weather mods?

If you are looking for something light, Enhanced Weather is the way to go. It allows for easy customization of things such as night luminance, seasonal weather, and timescaled weather, as well as a nice weather control system and several new weather themes.

If you want to go all the way (like me) you'll want All Natural. This mod combines all of the weather themes from three major weather mods (Natural Environments, Enhanced Weather, and Atmospheric Weather System) and unites them under a single robust weather control script (probably the best available). It also come with:

-Night luminance customisation
-Moon luminance customisation (this is the only mod that does this, too!)
-Fog range customisation (good for people who have reduced their DistantLOD draw distances, replaces Streamline's StreamSight feature)
-Natural Interiors (look out of windows and see the weather outside, currently in progress: special particle effects so you can see the rain and snow, as well)
-Real Lights (Gets rid of the ambient lighting in interior cells and realistically lights them, adding great new character to the game's interiors)

Take note that these mods only support HDR lighting. They should not be used with Bloom or Normal (static) lighting.

EDIT: I'm sorry I'm not watching the vids at this time, but I, too have The Lost Spires installed and I don't want to spoil anything for myself.

I'm going to try All Natural. Going to take an hour or two to download.

Then please take note that Wrye Bash is required. You need that Bashed Patch, otherwise the interiors portion won't function properly.

You just had to force me to get Wrye Bash didn't you?
_______________________________________________________
Mini update!

Nothing from Spires so it's TK safe. Just an encounter with a bandit. He got really unlucky, which is to say Aravi had one helluva shot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W2p6Ox8Bvw


APPROX TIME: 1.18 min

That was a magnificent shot! And at the end Avari took a leak, in front of everyone!

There were so many people running helter skelter at the last scene that I couldn't figure out who anyone but Vilja was (blue dress), who was zooming whom, or what the heck was going on! (Or who that named character was, lol).

That right there is why Maxical is dangerous in melee - everyone there would have had arrows in their heads while the bandit escaped, ROFL !!

Awesome vid !!!

@mALX: That indeed was Vilja. I don't use companion mods, myself, but she is one of those people who you just can't miss.

I hear Symphony of Violence! Good show, sir, don'cha just love how much better that bow sounds?

Right through the middle of Crestbridge Camp, too! Perhaps you might want to help them out with a bit of goblin trouble they've been having lately?

Fabulous shooting, Aravi! And nice assist, Vilja!

I had to go back and watch my video again, then I got it!



I hope Maxical wouldn't try shooting after the many accidents at the Arcane University!



I really like the new sword sounds as well.

After that the residents of Crestbridge Camp were more than happy to see us leave.



Vilja really let him see that sword nice and close didn't she?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another mini update!

This is what Kvatch looks like now in my game. It's not totally rebuilt but there are some buildings up and the streets are cleaned up.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5cSuYG22Ms


APPROX TIME: 1.5 min

Have you seen my LOD Toggler plugins for Kvatch Rebuilt? It can help quite a bit if you want to get the correct Distant LOD of the city! Make sure to read the proper usage steps, though, as this is not a conventional mod.

[/shameless plug]

EDIT: Unfortunately, once again you are posting a video that contains spoilers to a quest mod I use, so I cannot watch it. Again, it will have to wait until I've progressed a bit in Kvatch Rebuilt.

What a neat little snip of Kvatch in progress! Thanks for sharing!

I must confess I had a grin on my face all the way through this at the concept of Vilja and her pet cat.

That was Awesome !!! Does it get more built up when you bring them supplies? I love it !!! And it makes more sense than it burning forever !!! Is this the same mod Acadian has?


I haven't heard Vilja speak in so long, I love her voice and accent !!!

I don't have a Kvatch mod, although I may at some point in the fairly long range future.

Dude you need to start playing these!

I Dled your mod but I think I'm missing something. LODgenerator or something.



I'm doing my best to get Buffy to fix up the city when the siege is broken!
And I had a good laugh after you explained your comment



Kvatch gradually gets rebuilt as you do quests for it. The quests are separated by quite a bit of time so it's not something you can just do in one sitting and have a built city. I like it like that though.

You'll like this next video it's mostly Vilja
___________________________________________________________
Mini update!

The first 20 or so seconds is just showing how dark the nights are. I don't remember which mod did this but it's something Thomas Kaira recommended. The rest of the video is meeting Vilja in the Mechant's Inn after an afternoon of shopping. Vilja spent 300 septims on...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM_y8hDT5lo


APPROX TIME: 1.3 mins

I know, I know, I just keep procrastinating on that darned Oblivion Gate!

I prefer to wait until my character hits level 10 before I close the Kvatch gate and retake the city. I think my current character is about Level 7 right now, so it won't be too much longer.

As for my plugins...

You need TES4LODGen to use them.

Are you loading those plugins into the game? If you are, SOMEONE didn't follow the instructions properly, and SOMEONE should probably look over the readmes again.

What you do is put them into your load order, activate them, run TES4LODGen, and remove them from your LO again when you are done. I primarily designed that mod for people who already use LODGen (RAEVWD users, for instance) because generating LOD while KR is active caused the walls to double, resulting in a very annoying flickering effect.

I take it you've already passed the point where the chapel was being rebuilt? If so, you will want to use the "Restored" plugin, as that will allow you to see the walls no longer burnt and (if using RAEVWD City Architecture) you will be able to see a few buildings inside the city, as well (chapel and arena I am certain of).

The mod addressing the night brightness is likely All Natural (if that is what you are using).

Wow, the night looks great!! And Vilja must be planning a dinner party!

What city did that start out in? I loved getting to see more of Vilja !!! Are you setting her up to start doing her alchemy and vegetable garden in Aleswell? I love her accent and voice - oh, and I did what you said and wrote to both Desu and Brucevayne about it.

Great Vid !!! The only thing that would have made it better would have been if it was in 3rd person so we could see Aravi too, lol.

SOMEONE didn't include that on the list of required files to run their mod...

I just unpacked the compressed archive, read the read me and noticed I didn't have TES4LODGen so I set it aside.

Did I not reference the need for it about 5 times in the readme details and instructions?

Did I not warn you not to load the plugins into the game?

Did I not provide a download link for TES4LODGen under the tools used section?

Please read the readme again. I am not interested in debating this.

I will, however, add TES4LODGen into the required mods section, though.

mALX - at about 12 seconds into the vid, Aravi's cursor tags 'Anvil Dock Gate'. I was a little disoriented too during the opening part as to location.

KC - Yes, a dark night. It looks good, then you show off Aravi's cat eye (night eye) with your new non-blue tone.

Wonderful to see and hear Vilja again. How delightful that she bought a complete matching service for twelve! Just what I'm sure Aravi needs!

My net was crapping out read my post again.

Might I suggest you put the TES4LODGen link in the Requirements section because it IS a requirement? I just skipped the tools used section because I did not care what tools you used to make the mod.