After a long (very long) period of rest, I have made the decision to resume the development of this mod, with the sole purpose of delivering a definitive version. Therefore I am trying to solve the problems that have been reported over the years, which includes eliminating most non-original assets, in order to avoid incompatibilities.
So, in general the changes have been:
---Granite Hall: The file underwent minor changes, but I am on the verge of making modifications regarding its quest. ---Amol: For now, I have solved most of the problems without major modifications to the city. ---North Keep, Nimalten and Blackmoor: All the files have undergone important changes, but maintaining their previous essence and designs.
However, I need people who can help me with the testing, because I simply don't have the time to check the behavior of the NPCs, both indoors and outdoors.
Likewise, I have difficulty cleaning esp files, so I would appreciate if someone could help me with this.
Finally, I have made the first MERGE of these versions, which have been successful, although I still cannot get the quest scripts to work properly.I hope to put an end to this work, leaving a mod in a final state so that it can be enjoyed by this community.
Hell yeah, I was just moping about how this mod hasn't been updated in ages and I had to use Schlitzohr's mods instead. I welcome your return king. One thing I want to point out is there seems to be compatibility issues with Warzones and RS Children. I don't know how to make patches but is that something you're looking into?
Exciting news! I would love to see Sunguard come back in your new version, if possible. It was my absolute favorite and Skyrim doesn't feel right without it.
It's good to hear that this project is back up. Amazing work. I really hope you are planning to bring back the other villages as well, especially Helarchen Creek cuz the only other settlement in the pale is Dawnstar. I heard that the location was supposed to be a village in the base game anyway but got cut.
^glad to see the mod is still being worked on, and yes I agree with the comment that Sunguard was very nice back when it was part of the mod and I'd love to see it return. A merged all-in-one version or a FOMOD installation would also be immensely welcome.
Is there any chance for an xbox port? We do have an older version from years ago but we are missing out on Blackmoor and some fixes that have been made. If they could be separate as well amazing but
I'm very glad to hear that you are working on this again! For the last few months I have been working on a patch for the Blackmoor module to work with Dragons Keep. I was planning on having 2 different versions - one that is a patch to your Blackmoor module, & one that would be a standalone version that doesn't use any of your mods assets but pays tribute to the overall feel of Blackmoor in a similar location against the side of the mountain. I have always tried to have Blackmoor installed because it usually goes well with Dragons Keep without too many conflicts.
I really would like to make a patch that is able to keep all the quests & original NPCs intact, but I wasn't able to get the quests or dialogue to work to know what I am missing. I tried uninstalling all my mods & patches to play the Blackmoor module as it was designed, & I couldn't get it to work yet. That is why I popped in to this forum, & was happily surprised to see that you are working on this again.
I would be glad to help test things for this once they are ready, especially so that any patch I finish will be updated to your latest version. So far I have made cosmetic changes to the exterior of Blackmoor to make it be more integrated with Dragons Keep & the new content I am working on. What I really want to be able to do is maintain all of your interiors, NPCs, & quests.
Also, one thing I noticed was that the Blackmoor logo on the flag is sideways on the flags that are on a flagpole instead of hanging down from a bracket. I was going to try to fix that, but since you are back, maybe you are already working on it.
Kind of. Most of it is compatible, but the newest version of Blackmoor has a path going up the left side of the mountain to a gated entrance, & Dragons Keep has mountains there, so the gate is covered up by a mountain mesh. Everything else seems to be compatible. it might be worth it to play around with the load orders to see if something is doable until a patch comes out.
So Glad you've returned i always thought this mod had lots of potential if you're open to it you should visit halls of ysgramor on discord you can find some people that may offer useful advice and tools. also please make this open permission(with credit ofc) for an xbox version and patches thanks
I have returned to modding myself and will help with testing of your mod. I think it is a great idea. If others are intersted there are two other TES arena mods that I know of Forgotten Places and Oakwood. However the previous two have some CTD issues.
Sadly there are some errors in some of the plugins preventing any merge, and adding a strong possibility of problems during play. This kind of mod is hard work and not easy to finish for sure, too bad it's been abandoned apparently... Plugins with errors at least : amol : [00:01] [INFO:02029172] ('I have! Some travelers on their way back south mentioned that Birna, the pawnbroker up the road in Winterhold, has a dragon claw' in GRUP Topic Children of AMOdialogues3Topic "Have you heard any local rumors?" [DIAL:02029171]) [00:01] INFO \ Responses \ Response \ NAM1 - Response Text -> Can't read string: [EEncodingError] No mapping for the Unicode character exists in the target multi-byte code page [00:01] AMOdialoguesoyla2 [DLBR:0202A1B4] [00:01] DLBR \ SNAM - Starting Topic -> Found a NULL reference, expected: DIAL
I can't guess what is the starting topic here ! So I can't fix it, I can just choose randomly a topic here to avoid a crash... !
Blackmoor has the longest list, didn't look into it yet. But these seem to be encoding problems, they shouldn't occur in sse, this plugin was probably made on a non utf8 system 1st, the quickly converted... !
Granite hall has also only encoding problems, easily fixed this time.
I'll try a 1st merge without Blackmoor to see how it works... edit : after testing : very good, so I'll try to fix blackmoor later and do a complete merge this time ! :) I particularly like the detailed dialogues, so unlike the rest of skyrim, and the small quests added in each settlement, it's a pity to give up on such a mod... !
edit 2 : finished the complete merge, seems to work but I had to guess the null references for some dialogs for blackmoor, so I should test it 1st. Also the merge requires a bashed patch to merge 1 navmesh apparently (but I don't know if it just creates some bugs in npcs moves or if it crashes the game). I'll test that for a few days then !
edit 3 : well had some trouble to start the quest because I couldn't find the priest who is not in his temple, and the jarl doesn't send you to him, he tells about the events, but doesn't start the quest. He is near the only tomb of the town, near the ruin of a house, just outside the walls of the town, very easy to miss ! I finished the 1st quest, and it chained correctly onto the 2nd, so everything seems to work. The quests are really great !
After totally finishing the 3 long quests of Blackmoor : wow impressive job. Only small problem : in the end we are left with Forad skull in our inventory, I guess it would be more logical that the priest gets it back, in case you decide to return to this mod one day... ! But except that, very impressive work, you are truly a dungeon master ! I was a little surprised to see Hircine in his ghostly form at the end, I almost expected to see his warrior-like form, like the one he had in bloodmoon, the morrowind extension, but if he had chosen this I am not sure I would have been able to handle him, so it's probably better this way ! :)
For me everything seems ok, so here is the archive of the merged version : https://mega.nz/file/jc0lkZIL#QSOl1_LA4b-GN9JV2ZIyDCYK4O-NsDBDcV7sKlKFx1A I advice to make a bashed patch with this one, to fix some eventual navmesh issue. I am not sure the lods are referenced by the mod, it hadn't included them in the resulting merge, I just added the files from the original download but I am not sure they are useful. Just use dyndolod if you want serious lods, but anyway I didn't find any bug after finishing the 3 quests in Blackmoor and starting the one in Amol, so it seems ok for me.
You are a literal hero, this mod has always been one of my favorites for immersive reasons, on my last playthrough it just broke randomly. I cant wait to try this out :)
Heya. I know I'm far too late with this, but for anybody else dealing with this merge giving them CTD's especially around Vernim Woods, I ran it through sseedit's quick auto clean and that seems to have fixed it. Ran my own isolated test running through each of the areas and none of em gave me issues
This mod looks amazing, but I use two mods that introduce a butt-load of trees to the game. I went to a few of the settlements and found a bunch of trees in the buildings. I could clean this up with Jaxson’s Positioner or the console, but would rather make a patch. Can you direct me to some resources so that I can figure out the best way of doing this?
There are some trees growing through houses when using this and the great forest of Whiterun and i have been using the disable command, but that is not a very efficient way to do things.
This is my first time hearing about & trying the mod, and am having a gret time. Clearly a few years went into this project, and it looks it. Thank you. Been a while since my Skyrim game was so lively.
A couple of these towns put shame to those found in the base-game. Vernim Wood is more useful than Kynesgrove. Amol is definitely more lively than Winterhold. Blackmoor is in a great location, especially since there's not much there otherwise. Granite Hall looks like it's always been there.
Just a couple of minor areas that you might care about for future edits... - In Blackmoor, there's a floating beehive in the middle of the road near the Pilgrim's Rest. - Dunstad Grove has 2 floating chests next to the river, just hovering in mid-air. - The map marker for Dunstad Grove puts my face into a stone wall.
With such a large fan base, should be able to find people who'd be willing to voice some of these NPCs?
I love what this mod adds and have been using since I started modding Skyrim, but an issue I've always had with Missives is that notes sending you to cities added by this mod don't show the city name and leave that space blank. What I mean is they say things like "Deliver letter to ", "Deliver potion to ". UnU
Anyone else running into an issue where all of the static wall-hanging shields for the cities are jacked up? The texture seems to be rotated at a weird angle, and off center, creating this weird shapeless blob effect.
I am so much enjoying this mod. I keep forgetting about all the towns this mod adds. I am repeated surprised. It's a solid mod that add so much to every playthrough. I had to choose between this and Fabled Forests and this won, hands down.
Would love to try this...and even help determine compatibility with modern quest mods such as LoTD...but that is hard, from the mod page.
Any chance we can get screenshots of where each is located on the current game map? The Daggerfall map gives a general idea, but knowing exactly where each town is placed, would make going there to test compatibility before dedicating to the mod, much less of a hassle.
Not sure if anyone else encountered this issue but I use several of the FYX mod that replaces some meshes and for some reason, when they are used by this mod, they are invisible. FYX - 3D Stockades for example made walkways invisible and the SMIM version of FYX - Eastern Empire Company Building makes several walls invisible on the main building in Northkeep.
This is such a wonderful mod. I've spent my long weekend modding Skyrim to play it for the first time in over a year and finally got to start actually enjoying the game yesterday. I've spent my free time since then exploring Blackmoor and its quest, poking around the city and getting sucked into Daedric nonsense - sounds about right for a Dragonborn! Blackmoor is a great little town. I have a soft spot for settlements that are built vertically, and BM fits the bill perfectly. Carved into a hillside, it beautifully reflects Whiterun's layout without copying it wholesale. The guardhouse and farms are on the bottom level, followed by the inn and general store, and the top layers have the temple and the homes of nobles. Everything is close together and cozy, and the architecture and town layout really makes it feel like a part of Whiterun Hold. The homes feel lived in without being cramped to the gills with clutter, and the general populace continues to not give a single damn about the Dragonborn - a time-honored Elder Scrolls tradition. I wasn't expecting such an in-depth quest! As I completed objectives, I was continually surprised that there was more to discover. The dungeons were HUGE, sprawling and with significant focus on puzzles. Yet, like BM itself, it felt like it could have easily been part of the vanilla game. There was no OP loot (perfect to complete relatively early in my run) and plenty of enemies for Hoth and I to bash apart.
An issue I see relatively often with mdoded content is clipping, or assets that don't quite line up the way I should. This wasn't an issue with Volkulruth or the Blood Cavern - everything fit where it was supposed to and there were no awkward moments where I noticed that a wall asset doesn't actually have a back.
I love that they both had an element of returning to the same point: for Vokulruth, it was returning to the central dungeon area and for the Blood Cave it was scaling one area through side tunnels to reach the top. I was really impressed by your level design.
And the Moorhouse was a perfect reward to end such a fun quest. Like everything else, it fits comfortably among the vanilla game. It's not overpowered, with tons of loot and every crafting station known to Tamriel and a display for the dragon masks and claws... it's a small, comfortable home that works very well for the early game, with just enough clutter and decoration to make it feel cozy and lived-in and a bed for that well-rested buff. Getting the key to that place made me feel so accomplished and proud that I decided that it was the perfect high note to end my night on.
And that was just Blackmoor. There's tons more for me to explore from the mod as it is, and I'm really looking forward to it. You did a fantastic job of making something that feels like it could have been shipped in the game - lore friendly, balanced, and fun. Thanks so much for all your hard work!
I'm glad to hear this being reported. I tried the quest in LE & got stuck at the part where you are supposed to pick up & read a note from a pedestal in Volkulruth or the Blood Cavern (not sure which), but it wouldn't allow me to take the note so none of the quests would advance forward from that point.
612 comments
After a long (very long) period of rest, I have made the decision to resume the development of this mod, with the sole purpose of delivering a definitive version. Therefore I am trying to solve the problems that have been reported over the years, which includes eliminating most non-original assets, in order to avoid incompatibilities.
So, in general the changes have been:
---Granite Hall: The file underwent minor changes, but I am on the verge of making modifications regarding its quest.
---Amol: For now, I have solved most of the problems without major modifications to the city.
---North Keep, Nimalten and Blackmoor: All the files have undergone important changes, but maintaining their previous essence and designs.
However, I need people who can help me with the testing, because I simply don't have the time to check the behavior of the NPCs, both indoors and outdoors.
Likewise, I have difficulty cleaning esp files, so I would appreciate if someone could help me with this.
Finally, I have made the first MERGE of these versions, which have been successful, although I still cannot get the quest scripts to work properly.I hope to put an end to this work, leaving a mod in a final state so that it can be enjoyed by this community.
I send you my best wishes.
Greetings
Thank you for continuing the work with this mod, it has a lot of potential and having a merged version would be a lifesaver for compatibility patches!
Hell yeah, I was just moping about how this mod hasn't been updated in ages and I had to use Schlitzohr's mods instead. I welcome your return king. One thing I want to point out is there seems to be compatibility issues with Warzones and RS Children. I don't know how to make patches but is that something you're looking into?
Thank you either way
I really would like to make a patch that is able to keep all the quests & original NPCs intact, but I wasn't able to get the quests or dialogue to work to know what I am missing. I tried uninstalling all my mods & patches to play the Blackmoor module as it was designed, & I couldn't get it to work yet. That is why I popped in to this forum, & was happily surprised to see that you are working on this again.
I would be glad to help test things for this once they are ready, especially so that any patch I finish will be updated to your latest version. So far I have made cosmetic changes to the exterior of Blackmoor to make it be more integrated with Dragons Keep & the new content I am working on. What I really want to be able to do is maintain all of your interiors, NPCs, & quests.
Also, one thing I noticed was that the Blackmoor logo on the flag is sideways on the flags that are on a flagpole instead of hanging down from a bracket. I was going to try to fix that, but since you are back, maybe you are already working on it.
This kind of mod is hard work and not easy to finish for sure, too bad it's been abandoned apparently...
Plugins with errors at least :
amol : [00:01] [INFO:02029172] ('I have! Some travelers on their way back south mentioned that Birna, the pawnbroker up the road in Winterhold, has a dragon claw' in GRUP Topic Children of AMOdialogues3Topic "Have you heard any local rumors?" [DIAL:02029171])
[00:01] INFO \ Responses \ Response \ NAM1 - Response Text -> Can't read string: [EEncodingError] No mapping for the Unicode character exists in the target multi-byte code page
[00:01] AMOdialoguesoyla2 [DLBR:0202A1B4]
[00:01] DLBR \ SNAM - Starting Topic -> Found a NULL reference, expected: DIAL
I can't guess what is the starting topic here ! So I can't fix it, I can just choose randomly a topic here to avoid a crash... !
Blackmoor has the longest list, didn't look into it yet.
But these seem to be encoding problems, they shouldn't occur in sse, this plugin was probably made on a non utf8 system 1st, the quickly converted... !
Granite hall has also only encoding problems, easily fixed this time.
I'll try a 1st merge without Blackmoor to see how it works...
edit : after testing : very good, so I'll try to fix blackmoor later and do a complete merge this time ! :) I particularly like the detailed dialogues, so unlike the rest of skyrim, and the small quests added in each settlement, it's a pity to give up on such a mod... !
edit 2 : finished the complete merge, seems to work but I had to guess the null references for some dialogs for blackmoor, so I should test it 1st. Also the merge requires a bashed patch to merge 1 navmesh apparently (but I don't know if it just creates some bugs in npcs moves or if it crashes the game). I'll test that for a few days then !
edit 3 : well had some trouble to start the quest because I couldn't find the priest who is not in his temple, and the jarl doesn't send you to him, he tells about the events, but doesn't start the quest. He is near the only tomb of the town, near the ruin of a house, just outside the walls of the town, very easy to miss ! I finished the 1st quest, and it chained correctly onto the 2nd, so everything seems to work. The quests are really great !
After totally finishing the 3 long quests of Blackmoor : wow impressive job. Only small problem : in the end we are left with Forad skull in our inventory, I guess it would be more logical that the priest gets it back, in case you decide to return to this mod one day... ! But except that, very impressive work, you are truly a dungeon master ! I was a little surprised to see Hircine in his ghostly form at the end, I almost expected to see his warrior-like form, like the one he had in bloodmoon, the morrowind extension, but if he had chosen this I am not sure I would have been able to handle him, so it's probably better this way ! :)
For me everything seems ok, so here is the archive of the merged version : https://mega.nz/file/jc0lkZIL#QSOl1_LA4b-GN9JV2ZIyDCYK4O-NsDBDcV7sKlKFx1A
I advice to make a bashed patch with this one, to fix some eventual navmesh issue. I am not sure the lods are referenced by the mod, it hadn't included them in the resulting merge, I just added the files from the original download but I am not sure they are useful. Just use dyndolod if you want serious lods, but anyway I didn't find any bug after finishing the 3 quests in Blackmoor and starting the one in Amol, so it seems ok for me.
edit: damn, didn't work for me lol
Isolated test of the merge and it CTD on Vernim Woods
There are some trees growing through houses when using this and the great forest of Whiterun and i have been using the disable command, but that is not a very efficient way to do things.
A couple of these towns put shame to those found in the base-game.
Vernim Wood is more useful than Kynesgrove. Amol is definitely more lively than Winterhold. Blackmoor is in a great location, especially since there's not much there otherwise. Granite Hall looks like it's always been there.
Just a couple of minor areas that you might care about for future edits...
- In Blackmoor, there's a floating beehive in the middle of the road near the Pilgrim's Rest.
- Dunstad Grove has 2 floating chests next to the river, just hovering in mid-air.
- The map marker for Dunstad Grove puts my face into a stone wall.
With such a large fan base, should be able to find people who'd be willing to voice some of these NPCs?
Any chance we can get screenshots of where each is located on the current game map? The Daggerfall map gives a general idea, but knowing exactly where each town is placed, would make going there to test compatibility before dedicating to the mod, much less of a hassle.
Thanks.
Blackmoor is a great little town. I have a soft spot for settlements that are built vertically, and BM fits the bill perfectly. Carved into a hillside, it beautifully reflects Whiterun's layout without copying it wholesale. The guardhouse and farms are on the bottom level, followed by the inn and general store, and the top layers have the temple and the homes of nobles. Everything is close together and cozy, and the architecture and town layout really makes it feel like a part of Whiterun Hold. The homes feel lived in without being cramped to the gills with clutter, and the general populace continues to not give a single damn about the Dragonborn - a time-honored Elder Scrolls tradition. I wasn't expecting such an in-depth quest! As I completed objectives, I was continually surprised that there was more to discover. The dungeons were HUGE, sprawling and with significant focus on puzzles. Yet, like BM itself, it felt like it could have easily been part of the vanilla game. There was no OP loot (perfect to complete relatively early in my run) and plenty of enemies for Hoth and I to bash apart.
An issue I see relatively often with mdoded content is clipping, or assets that don't quite line up the way I should. This wasn't an issue with Volkulruth or the Blood Cavern - everything fit where it was supposed to and there were no awkward moments where I noticed that a wall asset doesn't actually have a back.
I love that they both had an element of returning to the same point: for Vokulruth, it was returning to the central dungeon area and for the Blood Cave it was scaling one area through side tunnels to reach the top. I was really impressed by your level design.
And the Moorhouse was a perfect reward to end such a fun quest. Like everything else, it fits comfortably among the vanilla game. It's not overpowered, with tons of loot and every crafting station known to Tamriel and a display for the dragon masks and claws... it's a small, comfortable home that works very well for the early game, with just enough clutter and decoration to make it feel cozy and lived-in and a bed for that well-rested buff. Getting the key to that place made me feel so accomplished and proud that I decided that it was the perfect high note to end my night on.
And that was just Blackmoor. There's tons more for me to explore from the mod as it is, and I'm really looking forward to it. You did a fantastic job of making something that feels like it could have been shipped in the game - lore friendly, balanced, and fun. Thanks so much for all your hard work!