Princely Dawnlight Palace Lighting

Raijindono

I bought the Princely Dawnlight Palace a while ago because I love the geometry and symmetry of the Redguard patterns and architecture. I have just gotten around to decorating it, but this place has been a challenge to decorate for multiple reasons:

1. Size: You pretty much have to decide to focus your attention on the outside or inside. 700 items really isn't enough and I'm sure many have posted about this here.
2. Configuration: The house has a lot of levels and staircases in, sort of, the wrong places making it difficult to build larger vignettes.
3. Lighting: The most frustrating part of this house is the lack of ambient light inside of the palace.

I have pretty much all of the furnishing patterns and have been researching the lighting options; this post on Reddit had a great analysis of them. The only problem is that the best lighting options aren't in the Redguard or anywhere near Redguard style.

A lot of folks are using the Varla Stone, Glowing and the Culanda Stone, Glowing to light the main hall because these are so bright. They're nice, but they're also heavily tinged blue or amber. I'd like to have a neutral light that is somewhere close to the style of the house.

TL;DR;

Dear Devs,
Could the windows in the palace have some neutral lighting come from the actual windows? The artwork for the main hall seems to suggest that was the original intent.



If we didn't have to invest so many of our inventory slots on interior lighting, then we'd have more for the fun small furnishings.

Thanks,
Rai

Tigerseye

I used many, many, Redguard chandeliers.

They just look better than the other options, frankly, even though the chains aren't long enough.

You just have to place them where they look best and ignore that the chains of some of them don't reach the roof.

You don't really notice, as long as you don't place them too low.

Also used a High Elf lamp at the bottom of each of the pillars and lots of candelabras, on multiple tables (it's a bar/restaurant, so having lots of tables makes sense, anyway)..

I got it pretty light in the main room, given the original limitations, but ended up using more than half the furnishing slots on lighting.

The positioning of the chandeliers can look quite interesting, in itself and can form quite nice patterns.

I totally agree that the natural lighting in there should be far better (or far less bad) than it is, though.

All in all, I wouldn't recommend the palace, unless they improve the natural light and/or up the furnishing slots slightly and/or introduce a new, extra large, Redguard chandelier design (with a very long chain).

Sporvan

The problem is that the narrow windows are all bugged and don't light up during daytime. Only the wider corner windows. They really should fix this bug and the house will improve tremendously!!!

bluebird

Yep. People complained about this on the PTS over a year ago when this house was implemented, nothing got changed.
I also submitted a bug report saying that around 80% of the windows don't light up as the others do and as they should.
Nothing got changed. At this point there is basically 0 chance that they will listen to the feedback, because even when they develop newer houses, they still do the same thing. As with the new Elsweyr homes which have the same un-lit windows.

Raijindono

Yeah, I figured the windows being bugged was a thing. I originally decorated Hundings Palace and it was also very dark inside. I guess it was easier to light because there was a smaller space?

I played around with the Clockwork Illuminator, Solitary Capsule inside of the walls and at the base of the windows. I really like how it makes all of the gold trim shine.

This is still a work in-progress, but at least it's lit:

Jaraal

Try placing a Culanda and a Varla stone together inside (yes, inside, the light will still bleed through) the thickest part of the wood pillars. The blue and the yellow will offset each other to a degree and produce a slightly more natural light.

You can place traditional sconces, braziers, or chandeliers near the hidden magic stones, to create the illusion that the light is coming from them, rather than being weird glowing wood.

Tigerseye

Sporvan wrote: »

The problem is that the narrow windows are all bugged and don't light up during daytime. Only the wider corner windows. They really should fix this bug and the house will improve tremendously!!!

Yes.

Even at night, some light should be coming in from those two giant moons and the stars.

Tigerseye

Jaraal wrote: »

Try placing a Culanda and a Varla stone together inside (yes, inside, the light will still bleed through) the thickest part of the wood pillars. The blue and the yellow will offset each other to a degree and produce a slightly more natural light.

I tried that - didn't like the quality of the light, even when combined.

It's quite harsh and not warm, at all.

SantieClaws

If anyone is travelling in EU PC Tamriel you are most welcome to visit Claws Temple Spa Resort and see what this one has done.

If you use Essential Housing Tools it is set as an open house there yes.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Jazz_Funk

Currently for a great deal of lighting I have been using something called Remnant of Argon which I guy from the furniture vendor in Murkmire. They are expensive but give a huge amount of light and you can buy a pedestal to place them on.

I believe there are lights called Magma Geodes small/large that drop in Depths of Malatar that give even more light and these should be purchasable at guild stores.

If you want something a little different but looks good that you can probably craft yourself (plan dropped in witches festival) use a Hagraven Cauldron and bury it in a floor or wall and it will gives a cool green light to the room.

Raijindono

Tigerseye wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Try placing a Culanda and a Varla stone together inside (yes, inside, the light will still bleed through) the thickest part of the wood pillars. The blue and the yellow will offset each other to a degree and produce a slightly more natural light.

I tried that - didn't like the quality of the light, even when combined.

It's quite harsh and not warm, at all.

It's neat that the two sort of cancel each other's colors out, but I agree that the light is super harsh. Great idea for another project, but I too am looking for something a bit softer.

I kind of dig what I've done so far. However, the number of inventory slots taken for just lighting is still so high for such a large house

SantieClaws

To be honest this one just focussed on the big room inside.

There is a small office upstairs but really it is not possible to both light and furnish the upstairs rooms well with the present limits.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Raijindono

Jazz_Funk wrote: »

Currently for a great deal of lighting I have been using something called Remnant of Argon which I guy from the furniture vendor in Murkmire. They are expensive but give a huge amount of light and you can buy a pedestal to place them on.

I believe there are lights called Magma Geodes small/large that drop in Depths of Malatar that give even more light and these should be purchasable at guild stores.

If you want something a little different but looks good that you can probably craft yourself (plan dropped in witches festival) use a Hagraven Cauldron and bury it in a floor or wall and it will gives a cool green light to the room.

I have a magma geode and they are basically the same as the Culanda lights (very bright but amber in tone). It looks like the Remnant of Argon has the same plight.

I'm just looking for something that is natural light without a strong hue.

mnemoniclights

Honestly this is a huge problem with most of the notable house interiors, they all seem to be really dark unless it's an opened house like Pariah's Pinnacle, Earthtear Cavern or the Observatory. For instance currently I'm decorating Tel Galen and found myself having to use a ton of lights to make it not look incredibly dark.

Honestly the biggest problem is that ZoS wants you to buy and use big/huge furnishings for most of the notables or they'll look undecorated, that's why we see a lot of people turning notables into stuff like libraries or dwemer labs. That or they start closing areas off like the huge room in Pariah's Pinnacle.

Hymzir

Dawnlight is build into a cliff face. The long narrow windows at the back of the main room can't admit light, since they are buried inside the cliff. Light can't really shine through solid rock. In fact, many of the windows that do admit light should not be able to do so, because they open into the cliff face.

And gettign the sort of light shaft in the main halls center structure, as is seen in the load screen, is not really possible without actual skylights. The structure is topped by a dome ringed by small windows, which are also slightly recessed into the wall. No way would they create a dramatic cascade of light.

Though I doubt the devs had any of those things in mind when they set the light values in that place. It's just another lazy copy paste interior from elsewhere in the game, and I assume they just copied what ever values the original interior had. (I.e. Hubalajad Palace - though I haven't been there in a while, so don't remember how dark that place was. I do have a distinct memory of it not being particularly bright though. I did spend a considerable amount of time there hunting for skooma bubblers long ago.)

The interior of the place is a mess anyway, I do give you that thought. The layout makes no sense, and a lot of space is wasted on an utterly redundant huge extra staircase. Both of which are way too big given the number of rooms the place has. Neither of the upstairs bedrooms exist in the exterior mesh, and most of the windows do not match with what is shown outside. And there are two small tower structures outside, that do not exist inside the palace. I've had to build new structures outside to have at least some plausibility exist between the exterior and the interior. I've had to wall of windows that do not exist outside, and just avoid certain rooms at certain times of the day, since the "window" cast impossible lights on the floor.

And I had to do some major construction work to convert one of the ridiculously oversized stairwells into actual usable space I now have an upper study area and a lower bathroom area, where the north-east stairwell used to exist.

Even with all the issues, and all the stupid design choices, and lazy implementation, and impossible features that the place has, it still is my favorite home (and the only one available in Abah's Landing, my favorite town in the game) and I've adapted and overcome all the issues I've had with the place. Even the far too low item cap for the place. I solved this by building a crazy mago-tech contraption thing from really large furnishing pieces in the main room, leaving me with enough to give both exterior and the inheritor a decent enough look and feel. Besides, what else is one to do with the crazy sized main room but to blonk several humongous pieces of arcane contraptions in it. It's way too big to be used for anything sensible.

I did try to build extra floors there, but... Well that was pretty much impossible due to the existing structures, the limited amount of construction blocks available and the overall item limit. So I quickly abandoned that idea and went with really big pieces of furnishings. That seemed to wotk fairly well.

Even with all these issue, lighting up the place has never been one for me.

Like I said in the beginning, the palace is build deep into a cliff face. It is surrounded by solid rock from several sides. Obviously such a place is going to end up being fairly dark, especially since it has relatively few and small windows, and those that exist are narrow in shape. You really should not have high levels of ambient lighting in such a place.

If you want to light up the place, I suggest you use one of the excessively bright light sources that exist in the game. You could use the Crystal Tower key replicas to create a gigantic chandelier in the main hall. Just add a few Varla stones, or Light of Meridia shards to your custom chandelier, and you have excessive amount of light available.

It will, of course, feel artificial, but then again... The place is surrounded by solid stone, and most of the windows should not emit any light at all. I like to think that the name of the place refers to the fact that it makes you appreciate the light of the rising sun. I.e. it's dark to highlight the effect of emerging to a new dawn or something. And the light one is supposed to appreciated there, is supposed to be appreciated outside the building. That's my take anyway.

If you are someone who doesn't mind the disjunction between the exterior and the interior realities, then I suppose I can understand why you'd want better ambient lighting in the place. But for someone like me, who does pay mind to such things, I really don't want them to increase the light levels inside the structure. I'm more than happy with my own light levels emitted by all those arcane contraptions I've stuffed in the main hall, and increasing ambient light would really wreck my design.

If they do add more light, it needs to be added in a way that let's people choose whether to go with increased light, or to retain the original design. And I highly doubt ZOS is willing to waste resources on implementing sucha a feature. No profit in it for them.

The moral of the story here is, that any changes they make that would benefit you, will undoubtedly screw someone else's design and setup. Thus ZOS should be really cautious with going and doing edits to old homes. Adding better collision (and let's face it, lot of the older homes really could do with a collision mesh once over), and fixing possible gaps, is generally fine, but messing with the ambient things like light or sound, or moving stuff or adding unmovable items, may result in a lot of angry customers.

Tigerseye

Hymzir wrote: »

Neither of the upstairs bedrooms exist in the exterior mesh, and most of the windows do not match with what is shown outside. And there are two small tower structures outside, that do not exist inside the palace. I've had to build new structures outside to have at least some plausibility exist between the exterior and the interior.

I've long given up on that.

The first large house I acquired was Hunding's and there is no correlation, at all, between the exterior and the interior windows, at the back or sides, there.

It did give me pause, at first and I wondered why they hadn't even tried to match it up, but I realised that getting hung up on that was just a route to unnecessary OCD, wasted furnishing slots and (ultimately) bad interior design.

...and that is just one of many (/most).

The townhouse doesn't even have any windows, at all, on the ground floor, for example.

Despite it having two very obvious ones on the outside and no logical reason, I can fathom, for them not existing on the inside as well.

You just have to let it go and work with what is on the inside, in most houses.

Regardless of what is on the outside.

The one exception for me, so far, would be the large hut on the Topal island.

Shutters on the outside, but no windows/shutters on the inside, at all.

It only looked fit to be a crafting area, or a duelling arena, or maybe a chemistry lab, like that.

So, I retro fitted the impression of windows, by strategically placing large paintings, which provided a frame and a similar coloured background, as possible, to what would have been the view (water/trees/sky in most cases and rock in one).

I then put another painting (the Summerset coastal one), that more closely replicated the view, over those paintings (in the case of three of them), leaving the frames of the bigger paintings showing on top of the, more ornate, Summerset frame and then hung Argonian curtains over them, with the slight gap in the curtains, vaguely, showing the seascape.

But, on the whole, I don't bother.

I just let it go, work with what I've got and just wonder, from time to time, why they don't make things match-up, when there is no reason not to.

The moral of the story here is, that any changes they make that would benefit you, will undoubtedly screw someone else's design and setup. Thus ZOS should be really cautious with going and doing edits to old homes. Adding better collision (and let's face it, lot of the older homes really could do with a collision mesh once over), and fixing possible gaps, is generally fine, but messing with the ambient things like light or sound, or moving stuff or adding unmovable items, may result in a lot of angry customers.

Perhaps, but I think there are far, far more people who would just be happy to get some light in there.

I would even be happy if they, suddenly and without warning, retrofitted windows to the Alinor townhouse.

Yes, I would have to remove/move a fireplace from one room and a large painting from the other; but, I would still be ecstatic to finally have the windows that should have been there from the start.

ZhugeKongming

I made a fairly bright one.

If you want to check its lighting, my userid is @ZuoLiang.

I am rarely on, but you can still visit with addon.

bluebird

Tigerseye wrote: »

The moral of the story here is, that any changes they make that would benefit you, will undoubtedly screw someone else's design and setup. Thus ZOS should be really cautious with going and doing edits to old homes. Adding better collision (and let's face it, lot of the older homes really could do with a collision mesh once over), and fixing possible gaps, is generally fine, but messing with the ambient things like light or sound, or moving stuff or adding unmovable items, may result in a lot of angry customers.

Perhaps, but I think there are far, far more people who would just be happy to get some light in there.

I would even be happy if they, suddenly and without warning, retrofitted windows to the Alinor townhouse.

Yes, I would have to remove/move a fireplace from one room and a large painting from the other; but, I would still be ecstatic to finally have the windows that should have been there from the start.

Pretty much, yeah. Like, I'm glad you personally got used to bugged windows and made them work for you @Hymzir, but those windows are objectively bugged. It's not a subjective aesthetic choice, its a broken feature of the house. Also, if you want a dark house where you can control the light with lamps, night time exists ingame so you already have the option for unlit windows in any house. But people who prefer daytime and would actually like their windows to let in some light in there don't have that option.

It's also extra hilarious that the lore description of the palace mentions that Hubalajad wanted to catch the light of the sun better (hence, Dawnlight)... but it's one of the darkest homes with most of its windows not catching any light at all.

And they keep doing the same thing in Elsweyr. This is what a daytime inn room looks like in sunny, warm Elsweyr. It's darker than a dark elf house in a dim zone full of volcanic ashstorms, for crying out loud. Those windows are again, objectively bugged. Very disappointing.

Raijindono

It's also like the windows are just placing a "reflection" image rather than being a source of light.

Sporvan

bluebird wrote: »

Pretty much, yeah. Like, I'm glad you personally got used to bugged windows and made them work for you @Hymzir, but those windows are objectively bugged. It's not a subjective aesthetic choice, its a broken feature of the house. Also, if you want a dark house where you can control the light with lamps, night time exists ingame so you already have the option for unlit windows in any house. But people who prefer daytime and would actually like their windows to let in some light in there don't have that option.

Yup, I wonder if a support desk ticket will finally make them take not. After all I had to spend cash for a defective product...

Hymzir

bluebird wrote: »

Pretty much, yeah. Like, I'm glad you personally got used to bugged windows and made them work for you @Hymzir, but those windows are objectively bugged. It's not a subjective aesthetic choice, its a broken feature of the house. Also, if you want a dark house where you can control the light with lamps, night time exists ingame so you already have the option for unlit windows in any house. But people who prefer daytime and would actually like their windows to let in some light in there don't have that option.

It's also extra hilarious that the lore description of the palace mentions that Hubalajad wanted to catch the light of the sun better (hence, Dawnlight)... but it's one of the darkest homes with most of its windows not catching any light at all.

And they keep doing the same thing in Elsweyr. This is what a daytime inn room looks like in sunny, warm Elsweyr. It's darker than a dark elf house in a dim zone full of volcanic ashstorms, for crying out loud. Those windows are again, objectively bugged. Very disappointing.

I said my piece on this, or so I thought. But since you took the extra step and tagged me, I'll give you a retort:

The windows are not objectively bugged, they are objectively stuck inside a cliff face. Buried in solid rock and the fact that they do not emit light makes a lot more sense than them permitting sunlight to pass. The windows that are objectively broken, are the ones that do emit light, even though they are buried under tons of solid rock, and one could make the argument that ZOS should go and remove sunlight from them.

You may disagree with this, and prefer the light in your subjective reality, but in my subjective reality I prefer there to be no light from the fake windows. There is no right or wrong here, just differing opinions. It's all virtual reality after all.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who share your opinion and would like more ambient light in the place, but I'm sure there are also people who would find sunlight shining through solid rock distracting. Besides, the windows in the place are rather small, and there aren't all that many of them. Even if the place was build on top of a hill, it wouldn't get all that much light anyway. It does not feature gigantic panorama windows or skylights.

Maybe there are more people in camp light, than there are in camp dark, as far as this place goes, but this is the way it has been for well over a year now, and in my mind that is teh way it should continue to be. Note that I do consider several other houses to have way too low light levels given the amount of windows and the layout of the building. It just happens that Dawnlight is one of the places where the dim light levels actually makes sense. And I like things making sense, maybe you do not care, but I do.

As for suggesting I only visit the place during night is down right bonkers... Why don't you just use Culanda stones to light up the place. Just push them past the windows and you have more than enough light. What? Not satisfied with my suggestion? Well, I am equally unsatisfied with your suggestion.

I don't know about you, but I spent plenty of time checking out the place before I bought it, and considered the pros and cons. I even spent couple of days on the PTS testing things out before committing to getting that place. And I am fine with the light levels in that place. I bought it because it was what it was, not what I thought it was, or what I hoped it might be. I did offer feedback back when it was first featured on the PTS, and then waited to see what, if any, changes ZOS was going to introduce to the place. Turns out they didn't do all that much. They did extend the safe waters of the beach, so that you wont be instantly murdered by slaughter fish when you touch the water, but that was about it.

When it was finally made available on the live serves, I once again spend plenty of time checking out the place before buying. To make sure I was okay with the way it was, that I was okay with the pros and cons of the place. Only after I was certain I knew what I was buying, did I actually commit the crowns. If you are unhappy about the light levels inside the place, then maybe you should've done the same before buying it.

Should ZOS change it after all this time, make more of the windows emit light that are buried inside a rock face, then I will be asking for my a refund, since the product I bought would no longer be what I actually bought. I'd also be asking refunds for a host of other things I bought specifically for that place.

Of course ZOS could, if they actually cared about issues like this, just introduce sunlight emitters. They could make sunlight and window pieces and stick them in the special furnishing category (not like we are getting much use from that category of items at the moment) That way each player could set the ambient sunlight levels to what ever they themselves preferred. Or just add an actual function in to housing that lets you set the ambient light levels within your homes.

But look, I am not gonna drag this on any longer. I have a differing opinion from yours. Tait's all. Deal with it. Maybe you don't care about thing like impossible windows, but I do. In fact I would much like it if they removed certain windows from the place altogether, or at least turned their light emissions off, since they make absolutely no sense given the layout of the structure. I am not, however, going to ask ZOS to do so, since those lights and windows maybe crucial to some other players design. I work around those issues, and was willing to do so when I bought the place. To me the pros outweighed the cons.

In general I believe, that the prudent course of action, is to not change things once they are released. They are what they are, and one man's aggravating problem maybe the key selling point for someone else. If you can't work around the issues any given house has, then my advice is to not buy it.

And as for light levels and the dimly lit cavernous halls, I urge you to focus your efforts into improving lighting conditions of unreleased houses. Like the one's coming up with Elsweyr. They are not yet released, and thus their final state is not yet set in stone, and there are no people who have yet bought them and who could be miffed by changes to them. Mucking with released houses is a far trickier proportion, and there are always bound to be more than one point of view on such issues.

P.S. - as for the lore and Hulabajad's fixation with the morning sun... As I noted earlier, maybe the pale is designed to be dark for precisely that reason. When you wake up early in the morning, the place is dark so that the effect of emerging to meet the light of dawn is enhanced. The view from the towers atop the building is pretty nice. In fact I made (or am working on it at the moment) a rooftop garden for precisely such things. Watching the sun rise over the sea from the rooftop is pretty awesome sight. See that's the thing with lore, there's always bound to be more than one interpretation as to what it means. And I am happy with my take on the lore behind the place.

Hulabajad's first palace is build atop a frigging hill, and it shares the same layout as Dawnlight palace, so logic dictates that that place gets lot more morning light than the palace build in the shadow of a cliff, half buried inside the rock. So maybe the appreciation is about how the morning sun rises above the sea, and the dawn's light is supposed to be appreciated on the easterly pointed steps that rise from the sea. Makes more sense than sitting inside the place trying to appreciate the light through small windows.

In fact, as I am writing this response, I am also watching the sun rise ingame, standing on top of th northern tower of the seagate. And the thing is... The sun is rising from a north eastern direction... It does create a spectacular glow on the open sea, but it is rising from the wrong direction. The palace is located south west of the cliff on which Hulabajads first palace is located. Most of teh actual palace is still within the shadow of the cliff face, and you only really get a good look of the event while standing on the outer walls. So Dawnlight most certainly is not located in a place that is better for catching the light of the morning sun... You'd get lot better view of the rising sun from the palace atop the hill...So that's a bit of a let down really.

Ultimately, it's just flavor text that was 'prolly not all that carefully though out, and the place itself is just an asset flip, so it most certainly was not actually designed around appreciating light. It is what it is, and brightly lit is not it.

bluebird

Hymzir wrote: »

bluebird wrote: »

Pretty much, yeah. Like, I'm glad you personally got used to bugged windows and made them work for you @Hymzir, but those windows are objectively bugged. It's not a subjective aesthetic choice, its a broken feature of the house. Also, if you want a dark house where you can control the light with lamps, night time exists ingame so you already have the option for unlit windows in any house. But people who prefer daytime and would actually like their windows to let in some light in there don't have that option.

It's also extra hilarious that the lore description of the palace mentions that Hubalajad wanted to catch the light of the sun better (hence, Dawnlight)... but it's one of the darkest homes with most of its windows not catching any light at all.

And they keep doing the same thing in Elsweyr. This is what a daytime inn room looks like in sunny, warm Elsweyr. It's darker than a dark elf house in a dim zone full of volcanic ashstorms, for crying out loud. Those windows are again, objectively bugged. Very disappointing.

[Snipped the text because it was too long to quote]

That's a long post for what is essentially a single argument 'It's built inside a cliff'. My post actually said that I'm glad you make it work for yourself so I didn't see why your angry rebuttal was warranted, but no, it's not a 'matter of opinion' and yes, you are objectively wrong.

It's a long established fact that the interiors of the buildings have nothing to do with the exteriors. You're welcome to check them out. Missing balconies, odd hallway and room configurations that shouldn't look that way but do, mysterious towers and structures that are nowhere to be found. So your argument of 'those windows are dark because of cliffs' is ridiculous. Those windows are simply bugged.

If they designed the interior of the palace with respect to its exterior (they didn't, it's just one more copy paste from an already existing ingame asset and even you are aware) then the windows shouldn't be there at all. As in the Alinor Townhouse's basement (which btw should have windows based on its exterior even though it doesnt). But the windows are there. With no concern for the cliff because house interior have nothing to do with house exteriors. And some of them do let in light. So again, the bugged windows have nothing to do with a conscious decision, they're just bugged.

My suggestion of night time was quite reasonable - it costs you literally nothing to have a dim house, you simply have to wait and wow, you magically have a dark house where you can play around with your lights. So your suggestion wasn't comparable at all. If we want a lit house however, we need to spend several hundreds of slots on lighting furniture. The culanda lights are not only a limited time item from the expensive luxury vendor, but their light is entirely unnatural even when combined with the varla lights. And 'just use culanda lights' isn't an answer to bugged windows, and how about we shouldn't need to find workarounds that take up slots, when it's clearly a matter of a bug - some windows on the same wall on the same side of the palace light up while some others next to them don't.

As for your suggestion that I'd better complain about the unreleased houses, rest assured I complained about them too, plenty. I posted my feedback, I uploaded pictures on the PTS threads, and even after several PTS updates they remain ignored and obviously bugged. That said, the existence of newer bugged windows doesn't mean we can't also acknowledge the existence of older bugged windows, let's call a spade a spade.

Tigerseye

bluebird wrote: »

And they keep doing the same thing in Elsweyr. This is what a daytime inn room looks like in sunny, warm Elsweyr. It's darker than a dark elf house in a dim zone full of volcanic ashstorms, for crying out loud. Those windows are again, objectively bugged. Very disappointing.

Yeah, I don't know why they keep doing that?

Tigerseye

Hymzir wrote: »

bluebird wrote: »

Pretty much, yeah. Like, I'm glad you personally got used to bugged windows and made them work for you @Hymzir, but those windows are objectively bugged. It's not a subjective aesthetic choice, its a broken feature of the house. Also, if you want a dark house where you can control the light with lamps, night time exists ingame so you already have the option for unlit windows in any house. But people who prefer daytime and would actually like their windows to let in some light in there don't have that option.

It's also extra hilarious that the lore description of the palace mentions that Hubalajad wanted to catch the light of the sun better (hence, Dawnlight)... but it's one of the darkest homes with most of its windows not catching any light at all.

And they keep doing the same thing in Elsweyr. This is what a daytime inn room looks like in sunny, warm Elsweyr. It's darker than a dark elf house in a dim zone full of volcanic ashstorms, for crying out loud. Those windows are again, objectively bugged. Very disappointing.

I said my piece on this, or so I thought. But since you took the extra step and tagged me, I'll give you a retort:

The windows are not objectively bugged, they are objectively stuck inside a cliff face. Buried in solid rock and the fact that they do not emit light makes a lot more sense than them permitting sunlight to pass. The windows that are objectively broken, are the ones that do emit light, even though they are buried under tons of solid rock, and one could make the argument that ZOS should go and remove sunlight from them.

Yes, well the game sticks walls of stone behind many of the houses...

I think it's probably so they don't have to worry about incorporating the backs of the houses into the ingame scenery and/or maybe as an excuse for why they don't have back gardens?

Either way, why would you fit windows into the back of a house, that is buried into a cliff face, at all?

Windows are expensive to fit.

You don't fit them against solid rock.

The point is, they did fit those windows, illogical as that is given the cliff face outside and so, they should emit light.

As you point out, yourself, the outsides of the houses do not correlate with the insides.

So, given that and the absolute absurdity fitting expensive windows into rockface would be, I think it would be better if they all at least let in light.

Especially as some of them do, anyway.

As you point out, yourself, none of it makes any sense, anyway.

So, why pick this as the one thing that suddenly has to be logical, in a totally illogically designed, mismatched, world?

The fact that the whole thing is illogically designed (not just the cliff face) is not subjective; it's fact.

We all "like things to make sense", but none of this makes any sense.

So, if that bothers you a lot, I would suggest you're playing the wrong game.

Raijindono

@Hymzir I applaud you for your dedication to the cause. However, I'm willing to forgo the window placement pedantics to simply not have to use up so many inventory slots on lighting. If they designed the interior with windows, whether they're legitimately against a cliff or not, then they should have some light coming out of them for practicality reasons.

All in all, they could just increase the overall brightness in these houses. It would just be a touch more meaningful if the light came from the windows, but I mean, it's code not real life, lol.

Great discussion here though!

Tigerseye

...and another thing:

In reality, no architect in their right mind would put the main room of a palace (or any other house) at the back of the building, cut-off from all natural light.

Fake windows, or not.

It would be designed the other way around, with the main room at the front (or occupying the entire depth of the building), enjoying both the light and the gorgeous view.

It isn't like that, because it's an illogical cut and paste job, in which no one bothered to work with the light, or the scenery, at all.

If you bought it, you just have to try to ignore all that, forget that it's utterly ridiculous and would never be like that in real life and try to enjoy it for what it is, both inside and outside, separately.

They ought to do a far better job in the design of these places, they should be far more cohesive and well planned; but, it is what it is.

Sporvan

Hymzir wrote: »

bluebird wrote: »

Pretty much, yeah. Like, I'm glad you personally got used to bugged windows and made them work for you @Hymzir, but those windows are objectively bugged. It's not a subjective aesthetic choice, its a broken feature of the house. Also, if you want a dark house where you can control the light with lamps, night time exists ingame so you already have the option for unlit windows in any house. But people who prefer daytime and would actually like their windows to let in some light in there don't have that option.

It's also extra hilarious that the lore description of the palace mentions that Hubalajad wanted to catch the light of the sun better (hence, Dawnlight)... but it's one of the darkest homes with most of its windows not catching any light at all.

And they keep doing the same thing in Elsweyr. This is what a daytime inn room looks like in sunny, warm Elsweyr. It's darker than a dark elf house in a dim zone full of volcanic ashstorms, for crying out loud. Those windows are again, objectively bugged. Very disappointing.

I said my piece on this, or so I thought. But since you took the extra step and tagged me, I'll give you a retort:

The windows are not objectively bugged, they are objectively stuck inside a cliff face. Buried in solid rock and the fact that they do not emit light makes a lot more sense than them permitting sunlight to pass. The windows that are objectively broken, are the ones that do emit light, even though they are buried under tons of solid rock, and one could make the argument that ZOS should go and remove sunlight from them.

You may disagree with this, and prefer the light in your subjective reality, but in my subjective reality I prefer there to be no light from the fake windows. There is no right or wrong here, just differing opinions. It's all virtual reality after all.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who share your opinion and would like more ambient light in the place, but I'm sure there are also people who would find sunlight shining through solid rock distracting. Besides, the windows in the place are rather small, and there aren't all that many of them. Even if the place was build on top of a hill, it wouldn't get all that much light anyway. It does not feature gigantic panorama windows or skylights.

Maybe there are more people in camp light, than there are in camp dark, as far as this place goes, but this is the way it has been for well over a year now, and in my mind that is teh way it should continue to be. Note that I do consider several other houses to have way too low light levels given the amount of windows and the layout of the building. It just happens that Dawnlight is one of the places where the dim light levels actually makes sense. And I like things making sense, maybe you do not care, but I do.

As for suggesting I only visit the place during night is down right bonkers... Why don't you just use Culanda stones to light up the place. Just push them past the windows and you have more than enough light. What? Not satisfied with my suggestion? Well, I am equally unsatisfied with your suggestion.

I don't know about you, but I spent plenty of time checking out the place before I bought it, and considered the pros and cons. I even spent couple of days on the PTS testing things out before committing to getting that place. And I am fine with the light levels in that place. I bought it because it was what it was, not what I thought it was, or what I hoped it might be. I did offer feedback back when it was first featured on the PTS, and then waited to see what, if any, changes ZOS was going to introduce to the place. Turns out they didn't do all that much. They did extend the safe waters of the beach, so that you wont be instantly murdered by slaughter fish when you touch the water, but that was about it.

When it was finally made available on the live serves, I once again spend plenty of time checking out the place before buying. To make sure I was okay with the way it was, that I was okay with the pros and cons of the place. Only after I was certain I knew what I was buying, did I actually commit the crowns. If you are unhappy about the light levels inside the place, then maybe you should've done the same before buying it.

Should ZOS change it after all this time, make more of the windows emit light that are buried inside a rock face, then I will be asking for my a refund, since the product I bought would no longer be what I actually bought. I'd also be asking refunds for a host of other things I bought specifically for that place.

Of course ZOS could, if they actually cared about issues like this, just introduce sunlight emitters. They could make sunlight and window pieces and stick them in the special furnishing category (not like we are getting much use from that category of items at the moment) That way each player could set the ambient sunlight levels to what ever they themselves preferred. Or just add an actual function in to housing that lets you set the ambient light levels within your homes.

But look, I am not gonna drag this on any longer. I have a differing opinion from yours. Tait's all. Deal with it. Maybe you don't care about thing like impossible windows, but I do. In fact I would much like it if they removed certain windows from the place altogether, or at least turned their light emissions off, since they make absolutely no sense given the layout of the structure. I am not, however, going to ask ZOS to do so, since those lights and windows maybe crucial to some other players design. I work around those issues, and was willing to do so when I bought the place. To me the pros outweighed the cons.

In general I believe, that the prudent course of action, is to not change things once they are released. They are what they are, and one man's aggravating problem maybe the key selling point for someone else. If you can't work around the issues any given house has, then my advice is to not buy it.

And as for light levels and the dimly lit cavernous halls, I urge you to focus your efforts into improving lighting conditions of unreleased houses. Like the one's coming up with Elsweyr. They are not yet released, and thus their final state is not yet set in stone, and there are no people who have yet bought them and who could be miffed by changes to them. Mucking with released houses is a far trickier proportion, and there are always bound to be more than one point of view on such issues.

P.S. - as for the lore and Hulabajad's fixation with the morning sun... As I noted earlier, maybe the pale is designed to be dark for precisely that reason. When you wake up early in the morning, the place is dark so that the effect of emerging to meet the light of dawn is enhanced. The view from the towers atop the building is pretty nice. In fact I made (or am working on it at the moment) a rooftop garden for precisely such things. Watching the sun rise over the sea from the rooftop is pretty awesome sight. See that's the thing with lore, there's always bound to be more than one interpretation as to what it means. And I am happy with my take on the lore behind the place.

Hulabajad's first palace is build atop a frigging hill, and it shares the same layout as Dawnlight palace, so logic dictates that that place gets lot more morning light than the palace build in the shadow of a cliff, half buried inside the rock. So maybe the appreciation is about how the morning sun rises above the sea, and the dawn's light is supposed to be appreciated on the easterly pointed steps that rise from the sea. Makes more sense than sitting inside the place trying to appreciate the light through small windows.

In fact, as I am writing this response, I am also watching the sun rise ingame, standing on top of th northern tower of the seagate. And the thing is... The sun is rising from a north eastern direction... It does create a spectacular glow on the open sea, but it is rising from the wrong direction. The palace is located south west of the cliff on which Hulabajads first palace is located. Most of teh actual palace is still within the shadow of the cliff face, and you only really get a good look of the event while standing on the outer walls. So Dawnlight most certainly is not located in a place that is better for catching the light of the morning sun... You'd get lot better view of the rising sun from the palace atop the hill...So that's a bit of a let down really.

Ultimately, it's just flavor text that was 'prolly not all that carefully though out, and the place itself is just an asset flip, so it most certainly was not actually designed around appreciating light. It is what it is, and brightly lit is not it.

I'll destroy your argument with one picture:



As you can see the square windows in the corners work and light up. The ones that are narrow and long are bugged.

Want more evidence? Sure...



The middle narrow window which is facing the courtyard (not cliff face) is completely unlit and the corner windows are lit up.

More evidence? Sure...



Kitchen window which faces the courtyard is completely unlit.



The hallway window (also facing the courtyard) is completely unlit.



The top hallway window (also facing courtyard) is lit...

So as you can see from every screenshot of Dawn's Light Palace it's whenever you have a narrow window that they are bugged. The square wider windows are not bugged.

Tigerseye

I will just add that I would be perfectly happy if they allowed people to eliminate some (or all) of the natural daylight, if they wanted to.

So, if they added some kind of option, in settings, to do that.

However, what should obviously not be the case, is some windows not letting in any light, at all, while others do.

It should also not be the case that houses, with windows, are made to be impossibly dark (as standard) before artificial lighting is added.

bellatrixed

Stuff like this is mindboggling, because while I understand why they don't want to increase item slots... they could do so much to mitigate the downsides of the current item limit.

Allowing us to have custom control over how bright our houses are would be one way to do that.

Sometimes I want a house to be dark, and need to cover every window up. Sometimes I want a house to be bright and have to add maybe 100+ lighting items.

We should be able to set our houses to be at day/night and have a couple brightness options within the buildings themselves... other games have managed this, but sadly I don't think ESO is capable of it.

Hymzir

bluebird wrote: »

That's a long post for what is essentially a single argument 'It's built inside a cliff'. My post actually said that I'm glad you make it work for yourself so I didn't see why your angry rebuttal was warranted, but no, it's not a 'matter of opinion' and yes, you are objectively wrong.

It's a long established fact that the interiors of the buildings have nothing to do with the exteriors. You're welcome to check them out. Missing balconies, odd hallway and room configurations that shouldn't look that way but do, mysterious towers and structures that are nowhere to be found. So your argument of 'those windows are dark because of cliffs' is ridiculous. Those windows are simply bugged.

It is not an objective truth. That's my point. Your subjective interpretation is, that windows should emit light no matter what is on the outside of the building. My subjective take is, that windows should not emit light if they are essentially fake windows, just decorative elements with no real function.

To you, your subjective reality makes sense and you want to frame it objectively. But ultimately it is just your opinion. To you the windows are bugged, to me they are not. To me they are fake windows, decorative elements more akin to mirrors than anything else.

And it is not a long established fact that interiors of buildings have nothing to do with the exterior. It is a fact that ZOS plays fast and loose with these matters, and that the larger the building is, the more likely it is to have mismatching interiors And this is something I have been criticizing ZOS since housing was released.

The second criteria, on which I've based all my house purchases, has been how well the interiors and exteriors match. (The first obviously being: "Do I like it?") And there have been several homes I've liked, but ultimately skipped because the differences were too great.

A good example of this is the upcoming Jode's Embrace. The difference there, is too great for me to suspend my disbelief. Another good one is the Daggerfall Overlook. I was seriously contemplating buying that place, but gave up on it because the liberties taken there were just too glaring to overlook.

Dawnlight Palace, while it has it's share of issues, is still within reason as far the exterior and the interior matching is concerned. It's not like the pace has the interior of a Cyrodiil chapel. That would be a case where the interior would have nothing to do with the exterior.

The notion that none of the houses have matching interiors and exteriors get's brought up a lot, but it isn't actually true.
There are plenty of small and medium houses that do actually match up quite well, and few larger ones too. There are also, of course, homes that have really mismatched interiors and exteriors(Mistveil Manor...), but saying that a mismatch is a given, is objectively wrong. And claiming that the interiors have nothing to do with the exteriors is hyperbole. Even the large homes that have serious mismatch issues, still maintain some relation between the interior and exterior.

And the existence of such issues does not mean that we should not care about correlation between the interior and the exterior of hoses in ESO. If you don't, then good for you. One less headache for you. But there are people who do care about those things, and telling that we should not care about such things feels a bit arrogant position to adopt.

My suggestion of night time was quite reasonable - it costs you literally nothing to have a dim house, you simply have to wait and wow, you magically have a dark house where you can play around with your lights. So your suggestion wasn't comparable at all. If we want a lit house however, we need to spend several hundreds of slots on lighting furniture. The culanda lights are not only a limited time item from the expensive luxury vendor, but their light is entirely unnatural even when combined with the varla lights. And 'just use culanda lights' isn't an answer to bugged windows, and how about we shouldn't need to find workarounds that take up slots, when it's clearly a matter of a bug - some windows on the same wall on the same side of the palace light up while some others next to them don't.

No it was not. Your suggestion is that I should only use my house, a house that cost over hundred bucks, only during the night. Really? Do you have nay idea how silly that sounds?

And no, you do not have to spend several hundred slots to light up the place. That is hyperbole. There are plenty of powerful lights that will light up the place just fine. They might not be available in the style you want, or be restricted by some other means (crowns, achievements, on a luxury vendor timer) but that is an issue of a large number of lights being too weak, not an issue about the ambient light levels inside Dawnlight Palace.

And yes, culanda lights, one of the more powerful orange hued lights in the game, are an expensive item only available during one weekend during the year. Which is, I agree, really bad design choice, but that is the design ZOS went with. I've spent a lot of time criticizing the practice of squirreling away key pieces of furnishings behind a year long wait cycle. But again, it is it's own topic, and something hope ZOS will change, since it negatively impacts housing as an activity in this game.

And yes, lighting up the place is expensive. Housing is expensive in this game. Period. Last weekend I dropped a million gold into 15 pieces of Achievement furnishings, including one that gives of ridiculous amounts of light (Crystal Tower Replica key 150k a pop). The prices are ludicrous, but that too is a different topic. Lighting up Dawnlight is gonna cost a lot of gold or crowns, that's just the way it is in this game. I wish ZOS priced thing more reasonably, in gold and crowns as well as materials required.

ZOS could also add pieces of special furniture into the game that let you cycle though different ambient light levels or something, but that would mean actually adding new features to the housing system, and I doubt they are interested in doing any of that.

And again, to you the windows are bugged, to me they are not. The fact of the matter is, that you either did not really think about the light levels of the place before you bought it, or you did and bought it anyway, knowing full well that it was a dark and dimly lit place.

Sporvan wrote: »

I'll destroy your argument with one picture:

<snip - for the pics, check the original post above >

So as you can see from every screenshot of Dawn's Light Palace it's whenever you have a narrow window that they are bugged. The square wider windows are not bugged

Actually you don't.

I have spend prolly close to hundred hours in Dawnlight palace. I am fully aware of which windows do emit light and which do not. And I know that the narrow windows act in a different manner to the wider ones. My take is, that the narrow windows are just made for a darker glass, while the narrow ones are made of a lighter one. (I used to live in a house that had such glass features when I was a kid, at it feels natural enough to me.) They do still cast light on the floor and light up the place, as much as such narrow windows are able.

Look at this:



and then take a look at this:



Do note, that there is no actual difference between light levels when standing in front of windows of either variety.

What irks me, is the impossible cast light on the floors and ceilings of the place, but I do my best to ignore them.

Even if ZOS suddenly decides that the narrow windows should have equal glare as the wide ones, it would not actually affect the ambient light level of the place at all. It would just make them glow in a a shade of yellow, isntead of being the muted brown they are now. And there are plenty of other window styles that are lit in similarly - i.e. they have a muted glow and do not shine bright yellow no matter what direction the sun is facing. It's a style issue. You may prefer the brightly lit windows, while others might find the more toned down types more reasonable. In fact, one could make a case that the brightly lit windows are the ones that are bugged, since they are showing unreasonable levels of brightness regardless of whether they are facing the sun or not.

But ultimately it's just a style question, since the way the window panes are lit does not actually influence the general level of light inside the interiors, or even seem to have any effect on cast light on the floor. Do note how in the two images I posted, the north corner window is all lit up. It seems that pretty much all windows do that, whether they are brightly lit or not. And the intensity of that light is tied to the time of day and the direction of the sun. And at the time of taking those screencaps, the sun was in a southwestern direction - thus no cast light on the floor for the north window.

I do not really care what color the window panes themselves are (though prefer the less brightly lit ones, like the ones found in Alinor homes and Morrowind abodes, the Khajiti and Redguard homes have a good compromise, while Breton and Imperial homes have ridiculously over lit windows.), my real issue is with the cast light on the floor as well as the general ambient light level of the place. Fact of the matter is, that Dawnlight palace has relatively few and small windows, and it would make no sense at all for it to have bright ambient light levels.

But yeah - I Don't think I have anything else to add. Except I get it that some of you might disagree with my vies, but just try to keep in mind that there are people bound to disagree with your views, and we really shouldn't paint things with absolutes.

And as a final final note, yes - more robust system for controlling the ambiance of homes would be much appreciated. Like lightning and what sort of sounds the place has, and maybe even let us set the weather. I could see the potential of having a home stuck in a perpetual storm...

bluebird

Hymzir wrote: »

bluebird wrote: »

That's a long post for what is essentially a single argument 'It's built inside a cliff'. My post actually said that I'm glad you make it work for yourself so I didn't see why your angry rebuttal was warranted, but no, it's not a 'matter of opinion' and yes, you are objectively wrong.

It's a long established fact that the interiors of the buildings have nothing to do with the exteriors. You're welcome to check them out. Missing balconies, odd hallway and room configurations that shouldn't look that way but do, mysterious towers and structures that are nowhere to be found. So your argument of 'those windows are dark because of cliffs' is ridiculous. Those windows are simply bugged.

It is not an objective truth. That's my point.
[...]
My subjective take is, that windows should not emit light if they are essentially fake windows, just decorative elements with no real function.
[...]
And it is not a long established fact that interiors of buildings have nothing to do with the exterior. It is a fact that ZOS plays fast and loose with these matters, and that the larger the building is, the more likely it is to have mismatching interiors And this is something I have been criticizing ZOS since housing was released.
[...]
The notion that none of the houses have matching interiors and exteriors get's brought up a lot, but it isn't actually true.
[...]
And claiming that the interiors have nothing to do with the exteriors is hyperbole.
[...]
Your suggestion is that I should only use my house, a house that cost over hundred bucks, only during the night. Really? Do you have nay idea how silly that sounds?

And yet your argument continues to be objectively wrong, by any law of logic we can think of

Firstly you acknowledge that ZOS often mismatches exteriors and interiors, and you complained about this. So you directly contradict yourself when you dismiss my argument that exterior limitations don't inform interior decisions. This establishes that you're aware of the pattern that exterior considerations have never ever forced ZOS to change or alter the interior of a ripped copy paste, no matter the cliffs or whatever. Their interior designs are not reliant on the exterior, so there isn't a single precedent for exterior considerations trumping interior design. So that throws your suggestion of the windows being dark because of cliffs out the window (pun intended)

Congrats on spotting the hyperbole in 'interiors have nothing to do with the exteriors' but as you are aware, that was a hyperbole not an assertion that 'none of the houses have matching interiors'. But by the laws of logic, if ZOS has already showed patterns of suspending the laws of physics and ignored the exterior in favour of the clearly mis-matched interior, there is no argument to be made for them sticking to the exterior design, do you understand? If they already showed that this is not a consideration for many of their houses (the exterior limits having no impact on the design decisions [copy pasting] they make), you cannot use your own projected expectation (that interiors should adhere to exteriors, a rule that ZOS never established) as an argument for why some of the windows shouldn't light up.

As for your subjective take of having decorative windows with no real function, there isn't a single precedent in ZOS houses of 'decorative windows'. Not only would it not make sense to cut a hole and cover it with glass if there was indeed a cliffside right behind the wall, but every single shred of evidence (and common sense obviously) points towards ZOS intending windows to be actual windows, panels of glass with light coming through them. So again you're expecting the windows to act as something that there is no precedent for and goes against all of ZOS's previously established work.Your own pictures, for crying out loud, prove this, when you show that they put light beams on the windows that don't light up. It's clearly intended to be a window, not a decorative element, and they're simply bugged.

You continue to complain about my suggestion that night time exists if you want dark windows, and don't see how that directly dismisses your own suggestions. Nighttime occurs naturally ingame with no extra cost or furniture slots. To create light that makes up for the lack of illumination that the bugged tall windows don't give off costs both money and slots. Nighttime naturally cycles around so you automatically have periods in your home when the lighting level is as dark as you wish it to be based on your (wrongly expected) cliff limitation. There isn't a single period in that 'over-a-hundred-bucks house' where the windows light up as we argue they should, or as ZOS's own lightbleams suggest they should (were they not objectively bugged).

Besides, even according on your (baseless) complaints about the cliff-windows you absolutely do agree that the windows are bugged You simply seem to be confused as to which windows you consider bugged, but the fact remains that the windows of the palace are objectively bugged.

Edit: Just wanted to add that this isn't about whether individuals can make bugged windows work, or what kind of lights help with brightening up homes. Obviously I agree with @bellatrixed in that having a light toggle would be ideal, and I also walled off all of my windows in my dark elf vampire's home for example. This is simply about calling out clear design flaws, and not about trying to defend obvious inconsistencies and bugs by putting lipstick on a pig.