New pts house-y things! <3

Elara_Northwind

I adore the cute little bridge house! I want to live there irl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58dw5HJP0HQ

The castle upset me a bit, because I adored it so much! But it is so big it's ridiculous. No way that could be given the justice it deserves with 700 slots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCPcF-TtzhE

And the GORGEOUS new furnishings that are just... Wow!! I don't know if I am the only one who is super excited about socks and trousers

https://studio.youtube.com/video/n97M2d_P5Ws/edit

Sylvermynx

Oh, yeah. I'm already warning husband about the money.... Lucky for me, he's happy for me to spend money on a game I enjoy.

Elara_Northwind

Sylvermynx wrote: »

Oh, yeah. I'm already warning husband about the money.... Lucky for me, he's happy for me to spend money on a game I enjoy.

This is such a great chapter! So many beautiful things

Sylvermynx

Elara_Northwind wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

Oh, yeah. I'm already warning husband about the money.... Lucky for me, he's happy for me to spend money on a game I enjoy.

This is such a great chapter! So many beautiful things

Exactly! Every time I look back through the datamine pics I find another gem I missed 'cause I was in such a hurry!

Hymzir

That castle/chapel combo is gorgeous! I especially like the medieval vibe it has.

And yeah, I agree, it's prolly gonna be hideously overpriced, and it is way way way too big. No effing way 700 bits is gonna fill it. It is simply too big.

- sigh -

And what really irks me about it, is the fact that despite all that space, there are still so few rooms. I counted 4 actual rooms in the castle and a ton of way too big corridors serving no real purpose beyond taking space and looking empty. That is just absurd design.

I find it stupendously silly to expect a lot like that to be a 1 bedroom apartment, but what can you do? ZOS just doesn't understand the concept of having separate kitchen, bathroom, study/library, magical laboratory, servants quarters, maybe a guest bedroom or two and an armory would be nice and a proper cellar to store some wine barrels in. Oh and a workshop for crafting and such.

It's made even more irritating by the fact that there are all those extra structures scattered about the courtyard that you cannot enter. Like if you are gonna build a frigging tower, then at least build a frigging interior in it as well.

Oh well, another house one for me to ignore then I suppose. Besides, the bridge house looks really lovely and will be more than enough for me.

Arahallris

wOw that chapel is nice. Like listed in the video shame you'll only ever be able to furnish a quarter of it, if that. There should be an option to pick only one house(locks out all others, can teleport but cannot store items), and you'll have a yuge décor count being 2-3k. High home price tags should come with much higher décor caps.

Apologies if this seems insane but being a Wildstar refugee I've been super spoiled with 5k décor maxes.

Elara_Northwind

Hymzir wrote: »

That castle/chapel combo is gorgeous! I especially like the medieval vibe it has.

And yeah, I agree, it's prolly gonna be hideously overpriced, and it is way way way too big. No effing way 700 bits is gonna fill it. It is simply too big.

- sigh -

And what really irks me about it, is the fact that despite all that space, there are still so few rooms. I counted 4 actual rooms in the castle and a ton of way too big corridors serving no real purpose beyond taking space and looking empty. That is just absurd design.

I find it stupendously silly to expect a lot like that to be a 1 bedroom apartment, but what can you do? ZOS just doesn't understand the concept of having separate kitchen, bathroom, study/library, magical laboratory, servants quarters, maybe a guest bedroom or two and an armory would be nice and a proper cellar to store some wine barrels in. Oh and a workshop for crafting and such.

It's made even more irritating by the fact that there are all those extra structures scattered about the courtyard that you cannot enter. Like if you are gonna build a frigging tower, then at least build a frigging interior in it as well.

Oh well, another house one for me to ignore then I suppose. Besides, the bridge house looks really lovely and will be more than enough for me.

It IS way too much corridor! It's such an odd and huge place. You couldn't even buy it to use for a custom build because it's all just buildings, everywhere... It's such a shame, because it really is gorgeous, the style is beautiful. I was quite shocked when I noticed that it was half full already after buying the furnished version, because it was still mostly empty I agree too, the bridge house is just perfect!

Lugaldu

Elara_Northwind wrote: »

The castle upset me a bit, because I adored it so much! But it is so big it's ridiculous. No way that could be given the justice it deserves with 700 slots

It is true that the furnishing limit for the castle is far too low, but on the other hand the medieval castles weren't that "crammed" with items either. Inside of them everything feels somehow empty, they weren't cozy.

Water´s Edge is just the opposite, cozy and charming.

Inaya

MUST have Water's Edge!!! And do I see walls without mold?

Tommy_The_Gun

Am I the only one that was hoping for a small Murkmire-style hut or smaller undestroyed Xanamer (Lakemire has un-removable rubble and it way too big vs furnishing slots) ?

I mean... I kinda think that I had a right to expect an Argonian - themed house in Black Marsh zone... right ?

Lugaldu

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Am I the only one that was hoping for a small Murkmire-style hut or smaller undestroyed Xanamer (Lakemire has un-removable rubble and it way too big vs furnishing slots) ?

I mean... I kinda think that I had a right to expect an Argonian - themed house in Black Marsh zone... right ?

I'm a bit surprised too, apparently there won't be anything new Argonian themed.

phantasmalD

Lugaldu wrote: »

Elara_Northwind wrote: »

The castle upset me a bit, because I adored it so much! But it is so big it's ridiculous. No way that could be given the justice it deserves with 700 slots

It is true that the furnishing limit for the castle is far too low, but on the other hand the medieval castles weren't that "crammed" with items either. Inside of them everything feels somehow empty, they weren't cozy.

Water´s Edge is just the opposite, cozy and charming.

Pretty much this. The vast "emptiness" is part of the atmosphere. You'd be doing disservice to the home by wanting to fill every last inch with furnishing.

And ZoS have been tackling the furnishing limit issue in their own way: by adding giant combo-furnitures. Like pre-filled bookcases or staircases. These basically combine 20-50 furnishings into one, freeing up a lot of slots.

In this update we are getting stuff like stacks of plates - ~15 plate in one. So you can fully furnish a kitchen with just 10-20 furnishings, instead of 100+.

Also seen stuff like laundry piles, socks, etc.

Davadin

what i realized with that little house, is that most (all?) other houses have a big WALL surrounding it.... this is expected due to technical limitation and instancing obviously..... but that balcony on the little house made me feel like I can BREATHE better when I'm home...


the Antiquarian house is my go-to now for this reason, even if the Rift's bungalow is still my fav "home".

Hymzir

Urhg... I feel a full wall of text coming... I'll try to keep this a s brief as possible, but it is one of those things I could go on about for hours at length, so do try and forgive me okay.

Anyway, the thing is, that the notion of medieval castles being sparsely furnished is a popular misconception. It's no doubt brought about by the current state of most such structures that remain. These days they are museums and such, and are designed to accommodate movement of large crowds of people. They are not spaces where people actually live.

The topic is further muddled by the fact that most castles were not actually used as living spaces. They were, after all, military structures. Most medieval kings and queens did not "live" in castles. They lived in palaces or manor houses or such. At the very least, their fortification had a manor house in addition to a keep. You know, a nice cozy and warm place to live in, instead of the cold, damp, and dark monolithic stone structure.

Thus a lot of these places just didn't have the need to have all the accouterments associated with comfy living. Just the bare necessities needed, should the need arise for the lord to evacuate within the safety of the keep. This did not meant they were empty though.R emember, building those things was not cheap, and once you had it erected, there was little incentive to keep it vacant. You could always use it as a storage at the very least.

The ones that were occupied, however, were also furnished with all the detritus one would expect to see in an occupied space. And occupied they were... See it wasn't just the lord and his family plus maybe a butler and a servant or two. No... A typical lords family was followed by an entourage of a hundred others. There were guards and servants and cooks and stable masters and craftsmen and clerks and clergy and maybe a minstrel or a troubadour or two. And also all the offspring and hangers about that such a large crowd would inevitably have buzzing about.

As such, space was at a premium in a medieval castle, and I guarantee it was not wasted on austere sparse environments. Just imagine a castle kitchen that has to feed a crowd of a hundred people each day. The sheer number of pots and pans and cutlery required for that, not to speak of all the copious amount of food that had to be stockpiled in the larder, took a fair bit or space. Not to mention all the people buzzing about preparing the food.

Now if the castle had a foyer of some sort, I would wager it was the sparsest room in the structure since it would no doubt serve as the main through-fare for all the daily goings of the castle. The great hall would probably be the next least "cluttered" space in the building, but even so it would be far from empty. The walls would be crammed full of tapestries and coats of arms and such, and there would be large tables around which the folk of the castle could gather. And plenty of bowls and pillows and candlesticks too. There was usually a fairly large fireplace too, along with the stuff that goes with a fireplace.

The hall would feel "empty" in comparison to the other chambers within the castle, since it had to reserve lot of space for all the people that usually filled it. So when not in use (which would've bee fairly rare, since even during night a lot of people would be sleeping within it - dedicated bedrooms were only available for the "posh" people.) it might look bit sparsely furnished, but only in relation to the size of the thing.

Any dedicated bedrooms in the structure would also double as sitting areas for the people living there, and most rooms would hold beds and storage for several persons. Again, remember that space was at a premium in a medieval castle, and any nook and cranny usable for storing something would've been used for storing something. They did not live in an age of disposable goods after all.

Another thing to keep in mind, is that most people did not spend their days withing their "private" quarters. No, those rooms were only used for sleeping and their daily lives were spent outside, or in the main hall or the kitchen or any of the various workshops a castle was bound to have. As such, the rooms only needed to contain beds, cabinets and chests with a few chairs and benches scattered about. But if there was an open spot in a chamber somewhere, for one to claim as their "sleeping area", I am quite certain that someone would plob down a bed in that spot fairly quickly indeed.

And while we have no photographs of said periods, we have plenty of illustrations and woodblock prints, that do depict daily life in medical settings. Here are few I found with a bit of googling;







All of these depict relatively small chambers with plenty of stuff in them withing close proximity of each other.The thing about ESO buildings is that their rooms are ridiculously huge. A usual bedroom by ESO standards would've been the great hall of a large castle by historical standards.

But the key thing to take away form this, beyond the fact that medieval people did not really care about depicting places as much as the people within that space, is that their idea of "realistic" depiction of living quarters was not spares nor austere.

Finally, keep in mind that this is a fantasy game, not a strict historical emulation. So we are not limited to the living conditions of say 14th century Europeans, even though we should choose to build a house based on such aesthetics. People of Tamriel have access to a far larger and wider pool of technologies than 14th century folk, and can produce large quantities of good quality glass for example. Also the existence of magic helps with things too. And Tamriel has a fine and log history of arts, ranging from sculptures to paintings and a tradition of displaying historical artifacts. So perhaps the living conditions and practices of 14th century are not the ones we should be looking for inspiration, and perhaps the conventions and practices of 16th or even 17th century living would fit more within the practicalities of daily life in Tamriel. Even if aesthetically we look more towards 14 and 15th century decor.

But yeah, medieval castles were not sparsely furnished quiet cavernous halls of muted tones. No they were noisy and lively places filled with the hurlyburly of daily life and were filled with all the clutter that comes with that.

They were not austere medieval monasteries as they are often seem these days. Heck, even the idea of an austere medieval monastery is a bit of a misconception, but... I'll leave that for another rant on another day. The bottom line is, that any place used for living by people tends to accumulate the detritus associated with living there. This is true today, and was just as true during medieval times, and is equally true for people living in Tamriel.

Lugaldu

Hymzir wrote: »

Urhg... I feel a full wall of text coming... I'll try to keep this a s brief as possible, but it is one of those things I could go on about for hours at length, so do try and forgive me okay.

I like your detailed explanation. But I also have one more comment on the matter of medieval castles. I think it is also a bit a matter of personal definition what you consider "empty". Of course, the castles were not so empty when they were in use as they are today (as museums), but when I look at historical paintings, woodcuts etc. the interiors shown on them look for me sparsely furnished, purely practical. Compared to today. Of course there are still people today who prefer to furnish their houses in a minimalist way, but the tendency is that I know more people today whose apartments are really full of lots of little things. And historical or even antique representations usually dont depict decoration stuff in large quantities as we see it today.

maddiniiLuna

I actually have the Daggerfall Overlook and I have like 600 Items inside on the main floor and another 100 scattered around. Not even half way furnished. I would need double the space to furnish it properly. I can totally understand, why that is the reason you would not buy the house and agree on that.

Sylvermynx

Isn't this house a "chapel" instead of a "castle"?

Lugaldu

Sylvermynx wrote: »

Isn't this house a "chapel" instead of a "castle"?

The chapel belongs to the entire complex which includes castle and chapel, as far as I understand.

Ravensilver

I like the Water's Edge one. That might go on my to-buy list.

But I'm no longer spending either gold or crowns on these huge houses as long as they get stuck at the 700 item cap.

Sylvermynx

Lugaldu wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

Isn't this house a "chapel" instead of a "castle"?

The chapel belongs to the entire complex which includes castle and chapel, as far as I understand.

Ah. I don't have the data to do pts. Thanks for the info!

Hymzir

Lugaldu wrote: »

Hymzir wrote: »

Urhg... I feel a full wall of text coming... I'll try to keep this a s brief as possible, but it is one of those things I could go on about for hours at length, so do try and forgive me okay.

I like your detailed explanation. But I also have one more comment on the matter of medieval castles. I think it is also a bit a matter of personal definition what you consider "empty". Of course, the castles were not so empty when they were in use as they are today (as museums), but when I look at historical paintings, woodcuts etc. the interiors shown on them look for me sparsely furnished, purely practical. Compared to today. Of course there are still people today who prefer to furnish their houses in a minimalist way, but the tendency is that I know more people today whose apartments are really full of lots of little things. And historical or even antique representations usually dont depict decoration stuff in large quantities as we see it today.

That was actually one bit I kinda forgot the comment on - or to expand that though process fully. It came to me while I was fetching some groceries, after having finished writing the precious wall of text.

It came after I realized I made the usual error of mine with centuries - see as a non native English speaker, I find this happen quite often to me. In English parlance, it is typical to say something like "during the 14th century", meaning the years between 1300 and 1399, where as in my native tongue we would more often use a structure closer to saying "during the thirteen hundreds."

And when I noted that "conventions and practices of 16th or even 17th century living" I really meant to say 17th and 18th century.

This relates to what you noted by the practices of the day - Medieval people did not clutter their living quarters with knickknacks and mementos. Displaying things for the sake of displaying them was not something people did back then.That came along later, during the 17th and 18th century, and of course is also quite common these days. Though there is a fairly strong minimalistic living trend going on these days too. Mostly because modern society provides the convenience that allows one to do so. Back in medieval days, you were more often living under the wisdom of "better have it and not need it, than not have it and need it."

But Tamriel is not a medieval society, and when I referred to it's long tradition of displaying stuff and paintings and sculptures, that is what I meant. In Tamriel people do tend to display stuff. Perhaps not to the same extent that many people do these days, but definitionally to a greater degree than they did back in yonder days.

The reasons for that are of course many, but do boil down to the fact that most "living spaces" were not really used for living. People slept indoor and spent their days outside, so there was little reason to have stuff displayed for merely sentimental reasons. Such mementos were kept in chests and coffers and only taken out when one had a reason for it. Improvements in construction techniques and new housing technologies enables a more indoor lifestyle to emerge. Similar thing could be said to have occurred in Tamriel. The population density of castles and palaces is definitely lower than that of true medieval lodgings, and I find more appropriate for people to have "personal" space in Tamriel, and to decorate it to fit ones taste and personality. (There is also the little bit about this being a fictional game player by modern people, many of whom do have that urge to clutter everything up, and sadly the game engine fails on this account , and fails badly.)

As for medieval folk, personal wealth was flaunted more by ways of how one dressed and how embellished their knickknacks were, not by displaying it in the decor of their homes. So I do agree on that, during medieval periods, living spaces were more functional in nature than they are today. They were also lot smaller and did still contain all the crud one tend to accumulate. Tools of ones trade and such, so I would not call them any sparser than those of today. Maybe less embellished but that was more out of necessities of practical living and shared rooms, than any conscious dedication to minimalistic living.

And I think the woodcarvings and paintings reflect this. They depict rooms filled with stuff one would expect to find in such rooms, You wont find copious amounts of potted flowers, or a teddy bear collection though. Things that are in that room are there for a functional reason. But I also see these images to depict rooms that do not have empty spots or bare walls. If there is room for a cabinet or a chest or a workbench, then a cabinet or a chest or a workbench is gonna get placed there.

Another thing to keep in mind about those old pictures is, that like I remarked earlier, they weren't really interested in depicting the places as much as the people within the space. Not that they really could either, linear perspective was only really invented in during the 15th century, and creating accurate depiction of spaces was kinda difficult before that. Thus it is actually kinda difficult, relatively speaking, to find lot of images from say 13th and 14th century that depict those spaces But from pretty much all the ones I've ever seen, it is clear that those rooms were used to their full capacity. No whiff of any nonsense about open concept living and having room to breathe. Rooms existed for a reason and were filled with stuff relating to that reason.

But anyway, like I said earlier, this is one of those things I could go on for hours and hours on about, and debate different views and interpretation all day long, but I got some rice I need to cook, and would like to play a bit today too so... I'll just end it here.

As a final parting remark though, that austere medieval aesthetic is a thing, it just isn't a historical thing, and personally I find it quite pleasing. There is something... magical and mythical to it, a fairy-tale like quality that harkens to those yonder days in my childhood when I spent a lot of time visiting and exploring medieval castles. Which are... well sparsely furnished these days. The atmosphere in those places always made me feel calm and relaxed. I used to live most of my life just a brisk walk away from a castle, where as these days I'd have to plan a full day trip just to visit one. I do miss the feeling one gets when visiting those places though. Guess that is one of the reasons I spend so much time creating virtual ones.

Sylvermynx

@Hymzir - fascinating posts! Thanks for taking the time and effort to make them.

Lugaldu

Hymzir wrote: »

But anyway, like I said earlier, this is one of those things I could go on for hours and hours on about, and debate different views and interpretation all day long, but I got some rice I need to cook, and would like to play a bit today too so... I'll just end it here.

Now plenty of further things come to my mind, but that goes too much off-topic. Overall, one can say that the interior design in Tamriel - which is mostly functional and not extremely embellished or overly decorated - corresponds well to the conditions of earlier centuries on earth, although the size of the rooms tends to be larger. Of course, the question is to what extent this is really intentional made like that or if it is rather connected to the amount of data. Somehow the furnishing limit in the houses (which is also related to the amount of data) in a certain sense ensures that an atmosphere is created which matches to the rest of Tamriel. But if you want to furnish your entire castle with a lot of small items according to today's taste, then you run into problems.
The comparisons with the conditions of the "old times" brings us to another point - I find that the lighting in the upper room in Water's Edge is too bright. It almost looks as if someone has switched on the electric light, everything is fully illuminated. I hope it will be changed.

Elara_Northwind

Hymzir wrote: »

Urhg... I feel a full wall of text coming... I'll try to keep this a s brief as possible, but it is one of those things I could go on about for hours at length, so do try and forgive me okay.

Anyway, the thing is, that the notion of medieval castles being sparsely furnished is a popular misconception. It's no doubt brought about by the current state of most such structures that remain. These days they are museums and such, and are designed to accommodate movement of large crowds of people. They are not spaces where people actually live.

The topic is further muddled by the fact that most castles were not actually used as living spaces. They were, after all, military structures. Most medieval kings and queens did not "live" in castles. They lived in palaces or manor houses or such. At the very least, their fortification had a manor house in addition to a keep. You know, a nice cozy and warm place to live in, instead of the cold, damp, and dark monolithic stone structure.

Thus a lot of these places just didn't have the need to have all the accouterments associated with comfy living. Just the bare necessities needed, should the need arise for the lord to evacuate within the safety of the keep. This did not meant they were empty though.R emember, building those things was not cheap, and once you had it erected, there was little incentive to keep it vacant. You could always use it as a storage at the very least.

The ones that were occupied, however, were also furnished with all the detritus one would expect to see in an occupied space. And occupied they were... See it wasn't just the lord and his family plus maybe a butler and a servant or two. No... A typical lords family was followed by an entourage of a hundred others. There were guards and servants and cooks and stable masters and craftsmen and clerks and clergy and maybe a minstrel or a troubadour or two. And also all the offspring and hangers about that such a large crowd would inevitably have buzzing about.

As such, space was at a premium in a medieval castle, and I guarantee it was not wasted on austere sparse environments. Just imagine a castle kitchen that has to feed a crowd of a hundred people each day. The sheer number of pots and pans and cutlery required for that, not to speak of all the copious amount of food that had to be stockpiled in the larder, took a fair bit or space. Not to mention all the people buzzing about preparing the food.

Now if the castle had a foyer of some sort, I would wager it was the sparsest room in the structure since it would no doubt serve as the main through-fare for all the daily goings of the castle. The great hall would probably be the next least "cluttered" space in the building, but even so it would be far from empty. The walls would be crammed full of tapestries and coats of arms and such, and there would be large tables around which the folk of the castle could gather. And plenty of bowls and pillows and candlesticks too. There was usually a fairly large fireplace too, along with the stuff that goes with a fireplace.

The hall would feel "empty" in comparison to the other chambers within the castle, since it had to reserve lot of space for all the people that usually filled it. So when not in use (which would've bee fairly rare, since even during night a lot of people would be sleeping within it - dedicated bedrooms were only available for the "posh" people.) it might look bit sparsely furnished, but only in relation to the size of the thing.

Any dedicated bedrooms in the structure would also double as sitting areas for the people living there, and most rooms would hold beds and storage for several persons. Again, remember that space was at a premium in a medieval castle, and any nook and cranny usable for storing something would've been used for storing something. They did not live in an age of disposable goods after all.

Another thing to keep in mind, is that most people did not spend their days withing their "private" quarters. No, those rooms were only used for sleeping and their daily lives were spent outside, or in the main hall or the kitchen or any of the various workshops a castle was bound to have. As such, the rooms only needed to contain beds, cabinets and chests with a few chairs and benches scattered about. But if there was an open spot in a chamber somewhere, for one to claim as their "sleeping area", I am quite certain that someone would plob down a bed in that spot fairly quickly indeed.

And while we have no photographs of said periods, we have plenty of illustrations and woodblock prints, that do depict daily life in medical settings. Here are few I found with a bit of googling;







All of these depict relatively small chambers with plenty of stuff in them withing close proximity of each other.The thing about ESO buildings is that their rooms are ridiculously huge. A usual bedroom by ESO standards would've been the great hall of a large castle by historical standards.

But the key thing to take away form this, beyond the fact that medieval people did not really care about depicting places as much as the people within that space, is that their idea of "realistic" depiction of living quarters was not spares nor austere.

Finally, keep in mind that this is a fantasy game, not a strict historical emulation. So we are not limited to the living conditions of say 14th century Europeans, even though we should choose to build a house based on such aesthetics. People of Tamriel have access to a far larger and wider pool of technologies than 14th century folk, and can produce large quantities of good quality glass for example. Also the existence of magic helps with things too. And Tamriel has a fine and log history of arts, ranging from sculptures to paintings and a tradition of displaying historical artifacts. So perhaps the living conditions and practices of 14th century are not the ones we should be looking for inspiration, and perhaps the conventions and practices of 16th or even 17th century living would fit more within the practicalities of daily life in Tamriel. Even if aesthetically we look more towards 14 and 15th century decor.

But yeah, medieval castles were not sparsely furnished quiet cavernous halls of muted tones. No they were noisy and lively places filled with the hurlyburly of daily life and were filled with all the clutter that comes with that.

They were not austere medieval monasteries as they are often seem these days. Heck, even the idea of an austere medieval monastery is a bit of a misconception, but... I'll leave that for another rant on another day. The bottom line is, that any place used for living by people tends to accumulate the detritus associated with living there. This is true today, and was just as true during medieval times, and is equally true for people living in Tamriel.

I love this! Thank you so much for sharing

I agree too, a castle near me actually has a big part of it decorated how it would have been when it was functional, and it definitely has much much more than 700 items in just a couple of rooms