If you value your life, stay away!

You can see it looming high in the mountains just South of Blackmoor - the Blackmoor Watch. It was a Legion bastion once... many centuries ago. There is no way to get to the top of the mountain any more, or is there? Don't you go looking for it! No matter what whispers you hear, secret passages or not! The place is a death trap for sure.

Since Blackmoor village does not have a resident gravedigger, we advise that you stay away from the Blackmoor Watch. It's such a bother getting rid of your corpse otherwise.

The Blackmoor Watch on a clear day

Another view

The Dragon Priest

It's got an interior too... But let's not spoil all the fun. I apologise for the Construction Set screenshots, it will all be tested in game, but I wanted to give you a preview in the meantime.

The Blackmoor Inn with the notice board where the above notice is posted. It also has a few local quests! Such as a minor spider infestation in the local mine.

The Blackmoor Mine problem (it isn't actually quite so bright in there, but I used a flash for you to see what's going on).

The delightful tunnels

I don't think it would be much of a spoiler to say that one of the local quests is to clear the mine so that it could reopen. The spider infestation was already present in the mine, but I added some tunnels and "improved" the situation quite a bit. From the point of view of the spiders, that is.

I shall be adding three more local quests, just building on what's already around Blackmoor, and adding a few things. These are not world-shattering quests, but they are no fetch quests either. Keep checking that notice board - they won't appear all at once. This is a system that can be easily expanded in the future as well.

Looks like a neat mod for explorers and questers! Are the pink bits complaints from the mod system of something missing or not right?

Thanks! Sorry, I should have explained. The pink bits are enemies. But rather than a fixed kind of enemy, these are randomly chosen by the system from a list. That's how the same location appears somewhat different every time you come there.

So at the Blackmoor Watch, they are draugr, but in the spider lair they are spiders, but of different levels and abilities rather than one and the same.

Lake Geir is beautiful this time of year. Any time of year. Why not stop for a drink along the way? The Drunken Sailor is always open.

The road connecting Riften and Ivarstead goes along the shore of Lake Geir. If one can speak of a shore of a loch. Mind the slaughterfish now.

Oh, that notice on the bulletin board is great.

Skyrim is getting on! More road building and small quests have been happening, and I am putting dungeons everywhere - I've got over 100 of them to place! (It was 97 to start with, but I added a few in the meantime.)

Here's the current progress map. Roads in orange are already built - landscaped, put stairs where needed, and all fully path grid. Where roads and stairs already existed, I took them up into the network - nothing is wasted. Roads in black were added in the previous release (so they already exist), and roads in grey are planned. They are approximate and subject to change, but that's where they are going. (Orange road locations are also still approximate, as I need to verify their exact location in-game.)

You see a road going to Snowhawk. It is a grand city here. I am not going to touch it in any way, other than build a road to its gate. Whiterun, on the other hand, does not exist. Yeah, I know! But fear not - I found a nice location for it, and you see the road already in place. Whiterun will emerge next.

I am entrenched in the moors... The moors of Hjaalmarch. Snowhawk sits far to the South, engulfed in River Hjaal, but the moors cover the Northern part of Hjaalmarch, the area between the shore of the Sea of Ghosts and the huge mountain with an entrance to Labirintian. Such is the topology of TWMP Skyrim, so the Jarl of Hjaalmarch may be forgiven for being only vaguely aware of the situation on the moors. After all, he sits in Snowhawk.

Morthal is a small town up on the moors, where too sits the Jarl of Hjaalmarch... Well, this one may not rule over Snowhawk, but he does rule over the moors.

This part of Skyrim will see a large transformation in the upcoming release. Firstly, there are the moors, where none existed previously. Secondly, there's Morthal and Windstad Manor - a house that you might earn for yourself. There's trouble here that is more than a fetch quest. This area fired up my imagination, so you will find two fairly long quests and a number of smaller ones already in this release. However, to tell you more would be a major spoiler, so I won't. Geralt is exploring the moors in my current fiction "I am Lena Wolf" here on Chorrol, so you can read a bit more about it there, but even so, I shall try to avoid too many spoilers.

To the East, the Pale is getting Dwemer ruins. Although we've got nothing like the Black Reach, there are still secrets to uncover in several large ruins. Dawnstar will not appear in this release, that town has a story of its own that is to be told at a later date. There is no Winterhold either - I am keeping these two towns out of the development at this point in order to keep it to a manageable size. At least this way it stands a chance of getting finished!

Scratch that, I went and built Dawnstar and Winterhold... It just didn't feel right not to have them. So now the whole Northern part of Skyrim is getting filled in quite nicely - towns, roads, Dwemer ruins. And snow!

Whiterun is still waiting to be built, but I'll get to it too. Each town has its own distinct look and feel with new or retextured house models, so it won't look like Cyrodiil duplicated. Winterhold also gets the College of Magic (in addition to the town of Winterhold). The College here is so much more than just a college though - I've imported the excellent City of Sunev mod (freeware), to be finished up and adapted to be the College of Magic rather than the Order of Dibella (sorry, not both).

In order to keep the development on track and actually get it done by the end of summer, I shall try to refrain from making any big quests for Whiterun, Dawnstar or Winterhold. They will have houses and people, everyone will be going about their business, shops will be trading, so they won't be ghost towns, but their stories will remain untold for now - until a future release.

I'll have some screenshots for you soon, even if just from the Construction Set, by way of a preview. Also the map will be updated, I'll post it all here in a few days.

Updated progress map is here! You will want to magnify it though - the map is high resolution, try opening it in a new window using your browser's context menu - it should get rid of the frame added by WordPress.

Like before, orange roads are done, and these are the actual roads with correct locations. The Dwemer Canal in Eastmarch is still provisional, and as such it conflicts with the road. I built the road following the landscape, so I'll need to solve that problem there - it should not be crossing the canal. Looks like the canal is going to get a bit bendy.

I am currently busy adapting the City of Sunev to be the College of Magic in Winterhold. That mod is mostly complete when it comes to interiors and city layout, and there are some 75 new NPCs (including guards), but none of them have any AI at all... That's quite a lot of work actually, to give them all something to do. Also some 20 NPCs are still homeless with nowhere to sleep, so more housing is required somehow. And then of course there's the city of Winterhold to do as well.

I was always so disappointed by Winterhold in TES5 Skyrim. Three houses and that's it? Surely, that site is far more important than that! Of course in TES5 they explained it by having had a huge explosion that wiped out everything, but actually you can see that even before the explosion the town was extremely modest. Well, not so in Skyrim for Oblivion! It is of course modest compared to, say, Whiterun or Snowhawk, but it has more than three houses (a dozen, at the moment). And yeah, there's that rivalry and animosity between the "town" and the "mages". Some things never change!

Picture time! It's all about Winterhold and the College of Magic which is located on the site of an ancient Ayleid city of Sunev.

First impressions - lower town

Winterhold Upper Town

Jarl's Longhouse and other posh buildings

The Guard House

Winterhold Upper and Lower - Divided, Yet Perfect

Ah yes, that other thing - the city of Sunev with mages inside

Sunev street

Another view

Still the same street (haven't got that many!)

The College of Magic (still the same street)

The other street

Sunev main gate

The great equaliser

I like this. And there's Magical Armory shop, wow!

Nice! Love the idea of a little Magetown!

Thank you both! Yes, Winterhold needed a bit of extra love, I felt, and when I saw that old mod of the city of Sunev - free to a good home - I just thought I found it a home right there in the North of Skyrim. Cold, yes, but mages will easily sort it out. Have you seen all the Southern plants and flowers? The planters are enchanted to keep the soil and the air above it warm, of course.

Magical Armory is at your disposal. They offer weapons and armour of the regular kind (best Nord quality, naturally), plus enchanted armour. Most enchantments are traditional, but the range is far wider than what you find at a regular smithy.

I'll do some interior screenshots soon, some of those interiors had me ooh and aah when I saw them in the CS. The original author had fantastic ideas, and all that done exclusively with standard assets. I substituted a few things of course to convert it from a religious institution into a magical one, but overall it was a very good fit to begin with. Still working through some unfinished bits at the moment, but it's getting along pretty nicely! Even if I say so myself.

The city of Sunev takes a lot of extra work... Of course I knew what I was getting myself into, but it was too good to pass up. I've done some retexturing, some model tweaking, mostly using resources made by others, but also a few things I made myself. I cannot make new models with Blender or some such, but I can make new models by combining parts of other existing models, and some of the times it even works... Anyway, here come the pictures. I tried to keep the interiors very close to the original, but in some cases things had to be changed to work.

Welkynd mine

Welkynd Masons Guild

Sunev Subterrania - the living area of the city

Mages Houses. There are so many mages in this town that they don't all fit in the Mages Quarters at the College. So other accommodations have sprung up, like these two houses.

Mages Houses from further away

More accommodations in the same area

Turn around

The Howling Twins Bath

The main college halls are also housed in Ayleid halls, which are far from ruins here. That's what you have apprentices for - to scrub the stone. But now that the stone is nice and clean, they don't want it dirtied by things like alchemy. Which is why College Practice Rooms are housed in a different building altogether.

The alchemy room. Some of the ingredients are grown right there too.

Learn to harvest your ingredients - it's just as important as learning to brew potions.

Consult the library

It is quite extensive

What do you mean - how to get to the upper shelves?

You levitate, of course. Could it be that you cannot?

No, I am not introducing levitation spells here - they've been outlawed, remember? But of course if you already knew how to do it...

All the mages now have a place to sleep, a place to eat and some AI to actually do it. As well as teach at the college, naturally. We've got an Arch-Mage who holds regular Council meetings. We've got the Office of Imperial Commerce, there to help the College in mundane tasks such as making money from all the Welkynd mining and trading... But the mages aren't as stupid as that. There's a balance here.

Things that remain to be done in Sunev is to recruit 20 apprentices to fill the halls (someone needs to keep scrubbing that stone), and to take care of the city guard which at this point just stands still wherever you place them. Their barracks need work too, because there're only three beds for some 20 guards... I foresee problems...

I shall also need to add a few non-magical citizens so that there's someone walking around town during the day, besides the guards. I've got a few of those Ayleid apartments free for that purpose. There's also a house for sale in the Subterrania - it's straight off the lobby, there's no need to descend into the baths. Although I wouldn't blame you if you did. You might want to visit the crypt and see if there's anything untoward going on there per chance. Who knows, the dead do become restless sometimes...

Other than that, I've been building more roads as a distraction from all the housing issues in Sunev. Here is the updated progress map.

The ancient Ayleid city of Sunev looks onto the Sea of Ghosts from the height of its white stone walls... The city of Sunev, now better known as the seat of the Winterhold College of Magic. And although the Jarl would like to pretend that the Nords don't want all those foreigners on their doorstep, they do rather like the taxes from the Welkynd mine that funds the college.

But politics and adventure don't mix, so let's return to adventure.

The white walls of the city of Sunev are visible from a long distance away, even though at first you take them for a snow-covered mountain. They stand out and blend in, all at the same time.

Walk the walls and look out onto the Sea of Ghosts. Your first ghost stands right before you: the Smouldering Fort.

This ancient fortress is built upon a cliff rising sharply from the sea bed, bizarre and out of place. What force thrust that rock upwards at such a decisive angle? That we shall never know, but the fort was built on top of it to keep watch for approaching ships. Then... well, we don't know what happened exactly. One day the fort burned.

Engulfed in flames, it stood as a giant beacon at see. The flames raged for days, far longer than would be possible even if every scrap of timber had to burn. Eventually the flames died down, but the embers were still glowing, making the night sky red.

Over the centuries the glow reduced and all but went out. Yet as you stand on the white walls of Sunev and the night falls around you, you notice that the fort is still smouldering... The rock around it still glows in the dark, and the wind brings strange noises from the fort - screeching of bone, clinking of metal, howling of lifeless breath.

There is no way up to the fort - you can see smouldering rock blocking the entrance. The pier had long burned down, and no ship or boat can dock there. And yet... Would a fort be built out at sea without an underground passage to it? I should think not. But would that passage not be filled with rock the same way as the entrance gate is? Probably. But can you be sure?

Some say there is no way in, that the undead in the Smouldering Fort are trapped there forever. Others say, where there's a will, there's a way. For all its civilised appearance, the city of Sunev is still an ancient Ayleid city where the passages to the true underground had been sealed. If you've ever been to the Ayleid ruins elsewhere, you know what to expect - those ruins are far from empty. They contain ancient treasures, both material and spiritual, and although mages are generally not interested in trinkets, they are interested in ancient knowledge. Do you really believe that all the passages to the ancient Sunev were sealed? It's your call.

Looks like you're having a lot of fun with this Ayleid-inspired magical city!

And that's just the half of it! The original mod didn't use any new assets, but I can... and there are so many new items available now that weren't available then! I've gone Ayleid artifact shopping on Nexus and now I have difficulty choosing what to use!!

Winterhold and the College of Magic at Sunev are finished! Phew! That was a big job. Those two towns together have almost 150 NPCs... That's including guards and apprentices, but still. Each and every one of them had to have a place to sleep and some AI, however basic. No one stands around like a statue any more, they all have stuff to do, places to be. It is a busy town, even though the apprentices are of course supposed to be at their classes, but you know students... Always finding an excuse to loiter around town instead.

I had to build some additional housing to give every citizen a place to sleep. By far most houses are of multiple occupancy - lodges. Posh ones have a concierge, plain ones just have several people living there. Some have their own rooms, whereas some just get a bed in a shared room. Well, people have different income and so different levels of luxury in their housing. Although with the Welkynd mine feeding the town, it is generally a very prosperous place. You should see Sunev guard barracks! All marble and silver. Winterhold guards are jealous, but on the plus side, they don't have two Captains and a Legate to remind them of their duties all day long. As always, everything is relative.

Whiterun is being built! I've done the city layout, but that's the easy bit. The interiors and the NPCs is what takes the real work...

This is a rather large city close to the White River which has spectacular waterfalls in TWMP Skyrim. Whiterun is located on a main road immediately after a bridge over the White River. The road passes through Whiterun and continues on to Snowhawk. So it is also the city's main street.

Right and left of the road are two hills: Dragonsreach and Jorrvaskr. They are facing each other, and Jorrvaskr is a little jealous because Dragonsreach is on a bigger hill. The town itself is split between the two hills as well: the smaller houses climb up the hill to Dragonsreach and use the rising land to compensate for the lack of height. The larger houses stand proud along the main street, not climbing anywhere and not needing the hill to add to their height. Some of you might recognise the architecture. Have a look at the pictures!

City entrance right after the bridge over the White River

Up the main street

The way to Dragonsreach

A few stairs to climb

And a bridge to cross

The Jarl lives here

Dragonsreach hill

Jorrvaskr

It's all about dragons

Don't forget to eat

Whiterun main street

What beautiful work! Wow!

Thank you, Acadian!

Here's an upgrade to the Jorrvaskr Meadhall and Sky Forge. Clan Grey-Mane lives in the large house near Jorrvaskr, and they have the forge in that round house attached to it. Because of the incline of the hillside, it is built on solid rock. As it should be.

The other members of Ysgramor's Companions mostly live in the meadhall - this prevents them from tumbling down the hill when drunk. I haven't decided yet who is going to live in the medium sized house, but I'll think of something.

Clan Battle-Born lives in one of those tall houses along the main street. Naturally.

Upgraded Jorrvaskr hill

The meadhall

Sky Forge

Some nice splashes of color.

Your interpretation of Dragonsreach is impressive. The dragon sconces on the stairs are a real nice touch.

Thanks Macole, Acadian!

Whiterun is taking shape - I've been making interiors and people who live there (playing god again). Whiterun is a big town, it has 23 houses, a chapel, a meadhall (Jorrvaskr) and of course Dragonsreach which is a massive castle. Those Breton houses are all large multi-storey buildings too, with the Bannered Mare having five floors! In terms of interior decorating, that's like making five houses... And since these are all new models, there aren't any existing interiors that I could copy and modify, these all have to be done from scratch. More or less.

As I said earlier, Whiterun will not be all filled in this time around - too much work. Instead, it will have a quest not unlike the one for Elden Root in Valenwood where you have to do things to bring the citizens back. This quest will start in this release but will actually be completed in the next release. With this I hope to give some explanation as to why there are so few people around in Whiterun when you visit it first, so it won't be so blatantly unfinished town. Obviously, you won't be able to actually do the quest this time because it isn't all there yet... You will be asked to come back later - that's for the next release.

So what can we expect from Whiterun today then? Well, we've got a few shops and an inn, the chapel is open so you can get a blessing, and there are a few people around so it doesn't feel empty. These people will also tell you about everyone who's not around and where they went, but you won't be able to do anything about it yet. There is also a house for sale, you'll need to speak to the Jarl's steward in Dragonsreach about that, except of course that Dragonsreach is closed for refurbishment just now. Seems you'll have to wait. The Jarl's housecarl had a falling out with the Captain of the City Guard, a brawl followed, and now major repairs to the building and furniture are required, and the steward has his hands full organising it. The Jarl gathered his housecarl and the Captain of the Guard along with most of the guards and took them all away on a team building exercise somewhere - he is keen to avoid any such brawls in the future. Gosh, you'd think a dragon was thrashing around the castle! So you see, it's closed at the moment. Come back later.

The Mages Guild is closed until it reopens.

High Rock Gourmet Inn is closed because Belethor had gone to High Rock for supplies and new inspiration. He'll be back of course, never fear.

Fools' Ebony is closed for stock taking - Dervayn Adlenar is off to Morrowind for supplies, he was unhappy with what he got last time and decided to see to it personally this time.

Dragon Break Books is open as usual.

The Bannered Mare is open, and lodging is free due to the lack of customers. It won't be like that forever, so be sure to take advantage of it! Be sure to dine there as well, or else! Well, there's no where else to eat in town anyhow, except for the Drunken Huntsman, but who would go there?

The Warmaiden is open.

Jorrvaskr meadhall is open, but when you enter you only find the housekeeper there. She tells you that the Companions are currently out of town. Come back later. Oh, and Jorland Grey-Mane at the Sky Forge isn't trading with you because he only serves members of the Companions. So pointless to ask.

The Golden Cauldron is closed because Arcadia is self-isolating with Ataxia again. You can wave to her when she looks out of the window.

The Drunken Huntsman is open. The notice board next to it is rather empty though, you must have caught them at a lull.

The Chapel of Kynareth is open but where is the priest? Gone to bond with nature, it appears. Still, the altar is working, but it's all self-service now.

The Battle-Borns are on holiday! Went to the Golden Coast for a few months. Rumour has it, they planned on taking one of those tropical tours from Anvil - yes, some of those ads even made it to Skyrim! A new tropical island with untouched pre-Ayleid ruins... That got their interest. It may be more than a few months, by the sound of things though...

All in all, your immediate needs will be covered, but for more adventure come back next year.

Dawnstar is a white town on the edge of Skyrim. I've been filling in the interiors and adding populace.

Dawnstar street view

The sea is just there

Yep, it's a port

And here's proof

There's no getting away from it

Except to here

Another town done! Nice.

Thanks, Acadian! Not quite done here yet, but getting there. Dawnstar has 11 houses, 2 ships with interiors and the lighthouse which is in fact the guard house with the dungeon in the cellar. For once the guards make themselves useful and tend to the fire in the lighthouse. I am now exactly half way doing the interiors, and I think since this isn't a very large town, I'll have it all filled in already in this release. But no quests! Or I'll never be done. But I think what with all the Dwemer ruins in the area and Castle Volkihar still to rise in the Sea of Ghosts directly North of Dawnstar, this town will make for a nice base when exploring the area, even without any quests.

No quests? Ah, a nice quiet peaceful stroll through the countryside. Sometimes that is all that is needed.

Who said anything about peaceful?

You go to your death. Turn back now. This is your only warning.

This is indeed the only warning you get if you happen to be so foolish as to knock on the door of Castle Volkihar.

The castle was there first - a looming presence on an island in the Sea of Ghosts. Yet some Nords thought it was a good idea to build a town just opposite, on the shore of Skyrim. "Dawnstar" they called it. Was the climate there particularly harsh or was the cold emanating from the castle?

"You must be mad if you want to go there," any local would tell you if you asked them for boat transport to the island. "It's Castle Volkihar! You go to your death."

And no local would sail, row, swim or waterwalk to the island. Of course such warnings never stopped anyone, and plenty of adventurers, both green and weathered, made their way to the island. Some even say there is an underground passage somewhere leading straight into the castle proper... But who would go looking for such a thing?

Clan Volkihar are no ordinary vampires. Lord Harkon is a pure-blood Vampire Lord who got his "gift" directly from Molag Bal. His wives and their direct descendants are all pure-blood vampires as well. Their breath is said to freeze the blood of their victims even before they attack. And of course they can never die.

...

"Another idiot is on his way to his doom," the locals would tell each other watching you swim towards the island. "He'll join the cattle if he is lucky," they'd shake their heads. "Although death would be better, I reckon."

"What are they all looking for there?" Another local would follow you with his gaze. "There are no riches within. Just death."

They'd watch you until you disappear from view, then go about their business. You are not the first to take on the challenge of Castle Volkihar. You would be the first to return though.

Dragon Bridge is done! It's just a small place with a big bridge...

Anyone seen a dragon?

Or perhaps a dragon skull?

Look there - between the trees!

Ah, that's better!

Walk the bridge

Come to the village

Woodcutters' corner

Towers watching over you

And of course a bridge is nothing without the road on either end. Here is the updated map. I have also mapped the roads in Hammerfell - this is the original TWMP Hammerfell that is bundled with Skyrim. You can't have Skyrim without it, I'm afraid. However, it only covers a small area of Hammerfell, just that bit in the South.

I shall release the new map at the same time as when I release the Skyrim mod. It will be exactly as you see it here. The roads are all mapped true to their actual locations. They are not only a "painting on the ground" but are fully landscaped (they are flat and passable with stairs where required) and fully path grid with preferential nodes so that NPCs can "see" them. Otherwise they have no clue and try to cut through the wilderness!

Have you been to the Gnoll Mountain? Have you faced the gnolls?

No? No, I don't mean the Gnoll Mountain near Bruma - there are no gnolls there, everyone knows that! That mountain was named so by the local Nords after the real Gnoll Mountain in Skyrim, West of Snowhawk.

The road between Whiterun and Dragon Bridge is very steep as it climbs the Gnoll Mountain on the Western bank of River Hjaal. An imposing castle on top of that mountain overlooks the entire region - the Gnoll Castle.

Gnoll Castle

Gnoll Castle courtyard

Under the arch

Bird's eye view

Trouble is, it is owned by gnolls.

Or at least, so claim the rumours. Gnolls, impressive as they are, are still animals and therefore cannot own castles, although they can overrun them. The truth is a lot more prosaic: they found a way into the castle, killed the owner and many of the people living there, forced the remaining inhabitants into hiding and are now roaming the castle and the grounds. What do gnolls want with the castle? You'll have to ask them yourself!

Don't expect a reply though - they are animals, didn't I say that? They are probably just raiding the kitchen. But where are they coming from? The entrance to the lair is said to be hidden, for even the local hunters don't know where it is, not that any of the local hunters are foolish enough to go after gnolls. One would have to watch the gnolls as they appear in the courtyard at night and see where they are coming from, or else watch them return to their lair at dawn. Then follow them, fight them, defeat the chief... the usual. Get the key, unlock the castle and claim it for your own! You've earned it. There would be no further surprises, surely?


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I found the Gnoll Castle on Nexus, abandoned and unloved, free to a good home. So sad... it is an impressive castle! But it was created before the appearance of Frostcraig Spire, and as the name suggests, it is located on the Gnoll Mountain near Bruma, conflicting with the Frostcraig Spire. So I thought... hang on... we'll have a proper Gnoll Mountain in Skyrim! Complete with gnolls! (Although on the second thought, I am not so sure this was an improvement. )

If anyone wants to use the original, they still can. It is in good shape, even though it's listed as BETA - there were only a handful of things to correct. It should work fine in your game, provided you don't want Frostcraig, of course.

The Skyrim version is going to be almost identical to the original, but I tweaked a few things and changed some quests, all for the love of gnolls...

I've been tying up loose ends with Skyrim, there are a few of those still left... One of the things to do was to creepyfy Castle Volkihar. It wasn't creepy enough from the outside. Looked like a positively friendly place. I hope it is now clearer just how friendly it is exactly.

Climb the stairs to the castle

Enjoy the decorations

All guests are gratefully received

You're nearly there

Do come in!

Such an inviting ah-hem uninviting place to spend the night.

I know! There are also warnings in Dawnstar that travelers should absolutely stay away from that castle, as there's no loot there at all... Well... as far as we know, which of course we don't, because no one ever returned!

But such warnings never stopped anyone. Curiosity doesn't just kill cats, you know. This is exactly why clan Volkihar will never run out of cattle!

TWMP Skyrim Alive release 2 is out!!

Now I can get back to playing. Phew.

Ok, I feel I have to complain, and you get to listen.

Mods come without support!! Yeah!! That's how it works! You get a piece of software for nothing, and you get the support to match the price!

Ok, complaint over, sorry about that. I feel I got shouted at by someone who demanded immediate help because the new version of my mod crashed his game... Well, that's too bad. So I tried to help him, then got shouted at because apparently there was nothing wrong with his installation... Except for the crashes, of course. Which was all my fault! I have half a mind to block that person, but I think I won't. I only blocked one person so far.

Anyway, if TWMP Skyrim Alive crashes your game, you could always go play TES5. Why don't you?

With that said, most users are really nice, and the criticism they give is good and constructive. Helps to make our mods better, I'm all for it. So there will be a series of maintenance releases of this mod, because it's a huge one, and I discovered some potholes in the roads already, and some floating rocks and such. I'm not giving up just because one person wasn't all that polite.

Sorry you ran into a bad apple. As a mod user only (not smart enough to make them), I am always super appreciative of the skill and efforts of modders who offer neat stuff for free simply out of love for the game. Modmakers are awesome!

Thanks, Acadian!

Been there, bought the same t-shirt.

The most common source of crashes is dirty mods that have deleted items you mod uses. That's not a problem until your mod is installed, so it's your fault.

Suggest the user clean his mods with xEdit, especially the "undelete and disable" part.

That's a good point to keep in mind, thanks Ghastley! I'm having issues with Morroblivion (although not shouting and complaining at people who made it!), so I'll have a pass at cleaning everything - you never know.

My Skyrim mod was actually crashing his game. I reproduced the problem eventually and found the culprit - a corrupt record. I was having a lot of editor crashes at the time, so it must have inserted a corrupt record that only gets triggered every now and again. Fixing it now. But I still feel that shouting was out of line.

Another favourite of mine is "Your mod conflicts with my mod XYZ! Make a patch!! NOW!!!" Yeah, right. Roll up your sleeves, mate, and make your own patch!

Modding is the game, isn't it?

Yes and no. It's a game, but it is also far more straining and tiring than playing. But it's addictive - worse than skooma! I have a head full of ideas for Skyrim, even though I'm absolutely drained and tired of the big release that I just finished. Crazy. Also ideas for Valenwood are coming in thick and fast, and I already had some before, so may be I'll do Southpoint next. Hint: wasps, carnivorous plants, monster trees and snails, on top of capulari/Davy Jones. Anyone played Dragon Age Origins? Remember the oak poet?

And then there's Morroblivion. Hauk has got a job to do, and Lucien is soon to go to Morrowind as well, and with the two of them I want to explore more of not just Morroblivion proper, but of Tamriel Rebuilt. It still has many missing textures in this build, and I've already been fixing a few, but there will be many more which of course I shall have the compulsion to fix... But that's an easy job, really. All the textures are actually present, you just need to point the system in the right direction.

Oh, and then there's Geralt - I made the necessary mods and started a new game for him in Skyrim. He was the whole reason I wanted Skyrim filled in! Well, plenty of monsters there for a witcher to tuck into. The next release of Skyrim Alive (apart from bug fixing releases) will be a quest release adding all those quests that I had planned to do but scrapped due to having run out of steam. Plus I had a few interesting suggestions for whole new quests, so I might do them as well. And the ideas I had in between... Hint: dragons!

Once I know my way around Tamriel Rebuilt, Skyrim will get connected to it properly. You already can teleport from Snowhawk to Balmora courtesy TWMP Skyrim Improved. I plan to add boat transport from Windhelm to Solstheim and connect the Rift and Dunmereth mountain passes to their equivalents in Tamriel Rebuilt. I haven't been there yet, but the map markers are there, so it's worth a try.

Of course Skyrim itself is still missing Falkreath and Markarth and the guards in Snowhawk wear the wrong armour (that of Markarth). Also, the Hold borders are not drawn correctly in game, so it tells you you're in Whiterun Hold while in fact you're in the Reach... Will be fixed later. I'm using Ghastley's Falkreath so not fussed about that, but Markarth... Yeah, we need it. But that will have to wait, along with the rest of the Reach, I think this is something for another major pass, may be next year or so. Release 3.

The paint is still wet on Skyrim but new plans are already brewing...

The second chapter of Valenwood Cities will be about Southpoint. It will still be months and months before it is ready, as I haven't started yet! And won't start for a while - I promised myself a break from modding. However, it doesn't mean I can't think about it...

The population of Southpoint has been kidnapped by Maormer pirates! Why, their ghost ship is floating above Southpoint every night! And it's up to you to rescue the populace...

The people have been taken to an island to work in a mine - this island! I found this unfinished island up for grabs, and it's just perfect for this story. Which is quite a simple story, really: each captive is wearing enchanted wrist irons that prevent him from escaping. That isn't even necessary, strictly speaking, because there is no escape anyway... unless...

Your task is to find the keys for each of the captives, they are all individual keys hidden somewhere on this dangerous island. I don't plan on making caves, this will be mainly an overland adventure, but if you've ever tried to locate a small chest in a dense undergrowth - or a grey Ayleid step stone among grey rocks covered in moss - then you'll know it's not that easy! In particular while being frequently attacked by tigers, spiders and hummingbirds... and other stuff! (Evil trees, carnivourous plants, giant wasps, man eating snails and the like.)

Once the magical wrist irons are off, the person returns to Southpoint. But for you to return, you need to find a teleportation stone which is also hidden somewhere in the undergrowth...

That's the idea, nice and simple. There will be also stuff to do on the ghost ship itself - you'll need to find your way to the island through that ship. Once everyone has been rescued, the ghost ship will vanish too.

I am stepping back form modding for a bit. I think something is seriously wrong with the latest version of xEdit that I'm using. I am getting very strange effects, sporadic crashes and just unexplained unstable behaviour. Yesterday I made a very small mod that worked fine out of the CS, but after cleaning with xEdit it crashes the game when you are trying to save. There was no backup and nothing to go back to either because apparently xEdit didn't do anything... Except of course it did. I have redone the mod by hand (it was a small mod) and promptly the game is working fine again.

I think something similar happened to TWMP Skyrim Alive and Lena's Companions ESM that came with it. Lena's game is now crashing even with the previous release of Skyrim, but I changed other mods as well, it must be one of them (may be even the Companions ESM!). I shall investigate it, downgrade xEdit and get Skyrim fixed up as best I can, but after that I'm going back to Lena's story writing. I still have backups of old setups that were working properly, and with that I'll get the game restored. I'm sure Skyrim can be made "playable" as they say, and that was really all I wanted.

EDIT: Suspicion confirmed!!! The weird problems started when I upgraded xEdit to the latest version 4.0.3. I found a spurious duplicate cell <0,0> in Skyrim Alive, and that cell later "vanished" leaving weird problems in its stead. Version 4.0.3 lists this as a solved bug: "#669 - CELL at 0,0 may be spuriously added to worldspaces during cleaning." Now I don't know whether it removed too much or whatever else happened... There are a lot of scary bugs listed there, apparently fixed, but it makes me very mistrustful of this whole unsupervised automatic cleaning thing... I always feel computers require human supervision.

Another thing is support. I found myself spending too much time and energy dealing with other people's issues, and I'll be stepping back from that too.

So expect less in the way of huge mods in the future and more in the way of stories!

As a former mainframe master console operator, DP shift supervisor, and release candidate stress tester I can confirm this to be true.

Confirmed. Installed additional diagnostics tools which finally reported something that looked like a fatal conflict - two mods were trying to insert two different cells at the same coordinates. This is not allowed. The two mods were: Elsweyr Anequina and... TWMP Skyrim Alive. What??? Why the heck was Skyrim inserting cells South of Anequina???? I certainly didn't put them there!

Cleaned these cells and a bunch of other suspicious cells inserted for no reason. Much better. No more strange behaviour or crashes where I've seen them before. Not saying that all crashes are now solved, but this is certainly a step in the right direction!

Further review of the log files show that we have a conflict between Elsweyr Anequina and TWMP - the same sort of thing that I had with Skyrim. Both ElsweyrAnequina.esp and Tamriel.esp define cells at the same coordinates with different formIDs - nearly 700 cells overlap like that! Zelazko - this could be the source of your instabilities that you wrote about earlier.

These cells will need further investigation. I've been talking to Haldar about it - he maintains TWMP now. He immediately suggested that the overlapping cells should be deleted from Tamriel.esp, however that was before I told him just how many cells we're talking about. I think some of them may be in Valenwood, and so that would mean that they need removing from Anequina. I am going to make a proper cross-reference of this between Anequina, TWMP and Valenwood Improved Original. All three of these mods operate in the same area, and we need TWMP if we want to have Pelletine. With this cross-reference we can then devise the best course of action to make it possible to combine Anequina with the neighbouring mods without conflicts or potential instabilities.

When you combine magic with gremlins the result is likely to be unpredictable and often unpleasant.

When you mentioned that Anequina and Skyrim overlapped, my first reaction was that X/Y coordinates were wrapping, but the XCLC records hold two 32-bit values, so that shouldn’t happen. Unless the CS is internally assuming that a signed byte is enough. The Cyrodiil map fits in -64 to +64 in each direction, and Anequina would only go a little further south, and may still fit. It certainly would not reach -128. So the only question would be if Skyrim might exceed +128 going north? I still do not think it would wrap far enough to reach the bottom of the map, but empty Ocean may be defined beyond the explorable range.

It may even be a conflict of empty cells anyway. I don’t recall how much padding with those there is. A long time since I turned off borders and walked off the edge of the world.

Skyrim does extend further North than +128, just a few cells up to +132, but still. Solstheim however extends far further, and it's been a part of TWMP for a long time already. No, this isn't the problem. The X coordinate was all wrong for the cells that I was working on. All in all 288 bogus duplicate cells were inserted in the Anequina region, not contiguous either, and I strongly suspect not so much the CS but rather xEdit, TES4Gecko and Merge Plugins. I was merging in several mods and I think this is where it went wrong. Plus xEdit definitely introduced garbage as well, I've had problems also with other mods, although it wasn't bogus cells. Some untraceable rubbish - a different CRC but apparently the same content, and one version crashes the game while the other works perfectly.

It is only a few days ago that I discovered this fantastic log file produced by MessageLogger, and now I'm finally able to clean up that rubbish - this is where I saw the cell conflicts. We'll get it sorted yet!


Gremlins, definitely. Or possibly goblins. Goblin shamans with their foul zombies, I'd say!