Not to rain on your parade but that area of Hammerfell isn't actually desert. Only about 1/3rd of Hammerfell is actually supposed to be desert. ESO forgot this though and made it more like half. They might forget again and make the whole dang province a desert wasteland, but I really hope not.TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »I could imagine an expansion in Southern Hammerfell, it would encompass that region south of Bangkorai [...] a lot of land could be used for an expansive desert so we can finally get the feeling of being able to become lost and isolated
BroughBreaux wrote: »Not to rain on your parade but that area of Hammerfell isn't actually desert. Only about 1/3rd of Hammerfell is actually supposed to be desert. ESO forgot this though and made it more like half. They might forget again and make the whole dang province a desert wasteland, but I really hope not.TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »I could imagine an expansion in Southern Hammerfell, it would encompass that region south of Bangkorai [...] a lot of land could be used for an expansive desert so we can finally get the feeling of being able to become lost and isolated
The only part of Hammerfell that is supposed to be desert is this part circled in red. It's craggy and rocky to the north, green in the middle, and then transitions into the Colovian Highlands on the border of Cyrodiil.
Yep! Big opportunity for the south eastern region of Hammerfell in a future Chapter, with Rihad and Taneth as the main cities. It could be really beautifulBroughBreaux wrote: »Not to rain on your parade but that area of Hammerfell isn't actually desert. Only about 1/3rd of Hammerfell is actually supposed to be desert. ESO forgot this though and made it more like half. They might forget again and make the whole dang province a desert wasteland, but I really hope not.TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »I could imagine an expansion in Southern Hammerfell, it would encompass that region south of Bangkorai [...] a lot of land could be used for an expansive desert so we can finally get the feeling of being able to become lost and isolated
The only part of Hammerfell that is supposed to be desert is this part circled in red. It's craggy and rocky to the north, green in the middle, and then transitions into the Colovian Highlands on the border of Cyrodiil.
TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »BroughBreaux wrote: »Not to rain on your parade but that area of Hammerfell isn't actually desert. Only about 1/3rd of Hammerfell is actually supposed to be desert. ESO forgot this though and made it more like half. They might forget again and make the whole dang province a desert wasteland, but I really hope not.TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »I could imagine an expansion in Southern Hammerfell, it would encompass that region south of Bangkorai [...] a lot of land could be used for an expansive desert so we can finally get the feeling of being able to become lost and isolated
The only part of Hammerfell that is supposed to be desert is this part circled in red. It's craggy and rocky to the north, green in the middle, and then transitions into the Colovian Highlands on the border of Cyrodiil.
If ESO made half of it desert then half of it is desert.
It's been a while since our last update, but we've still been keeping busy. This post will be a big read so strap in.
Since our last update:
- the map has been updated with the new dungeons and High Isle's prologue quest islands
- I changed my forum username (not super relevant but figured I'd mention it anyway)
- in preparation for High Isle, we've been thinking about Western Tamriel and how to present it
- since High Isle is ostensibly breton now, we decided that HR needed a spruce up as well
- due to this, Breaux has redone High Rock's to be more like the Anthology map (outline is how it was before)
In summary: Balfiera has been moved to its proper position, Wrothgar and Rivenspire have been squished and Glenumbra has been moved inwards. also, Daggerfall has lost its infamous "inlet nub" and looks a lot better imo. I had to fix all the wayshrines and zones for High Rock which was a big pain, but it's fine, because it looks a lot better now.
We've also been considering the Systres problem, which is that ZOS has put it (High Isle) far too close to Summerset, and has in doing so ended up deleting Eyevea on the map, which is wrong.
note: ignore the "Eyevea" on this, this is just taken from the UESP online interactive map, I don't think they've updated its position yet.
In the official map of Western Tamriel from Redguard, we can see that the Systres are far to the west of Summerset, if we followed that through on the ESO map, High Isle would just be off the edge of the map. plus, we have Eyevea's canonical position to contend with (which ZOS seemingly forgot), so what do we do?
Well, we've figured out something which addon authors we spoke to previously said was impossible - adding new zones and worldspaces to the map (like Blackreach).
In order to fix the Systres problem we're going to add a whole new worldspace to ESO, the Eltheric Ocean, like in the map above.
Practically this means there'll be a Blackreach-like circle to the north west of Summerset which will take you to a new map with the Systres on it as well as Yokuda in the distance. This is how it looks now: (Looks not final)
This approach will allow us to focus on the Systres (& later Galen, coming later this year) without compromising on the correctness of the map. As a bonus, it'll also fix the awful wayshrine spam problem that High Isle has right now on PTS.
The Eltheric ocean map itself is still wip so I'll let Breaux talk about that if she wants to, but that's the main bit of news here.
In other addon related news:
- Gamepad mode is now supported
- Coding wise, the addon is at a state I would call stable-ish, with most of the kinks worked out.
- Finally, I've added a settings menu to control the potentially more contentious settings of the addon:
Zone Descriptions toggles showing lore tooltips over zones when you hover over them, only on the world map and the Aurbis though. (Disabled by default)
Lore Accurate Names renames certain zones, wayshrines and other map features to be lore accurate, for example Southern Elsweyr -> Quin'rawl.
This is enabled by default, and we anticipate that this will be a contentious thing to include, so you can turn it off to return to vanilla names. (Also, English only for now, so turn this setting off if you want the map to be translated into your language)
The other settings there (world map style and wayshrines) don't do anything yet, but the map style one will let you change to an alternate look of the map, which is a more colourful and pleasant version Breaux is working on.
And with that, the latest version of the (in-development) addon is available to download here. It's not on ESOUI.com yet because it's not done, but if you want to try it out, press the big green download button, download zip, extract and rename the resulting folder to "AccurateWorldMap" and put it in your addons folder.
The Eltheric ocean map itself is still wip so I'll let Breaux talk about that if she wants to, but that's the main bit of news here.
Zos pay this person and use this map.
BroughBreaux wrote: »
The way they fix Shadowfen is to change the name of Narsis to some small town name and change related dialogue lines. Then rename Stormhold to Narsis, change the architecture, edit the geography around it to fade to swamp as you enter Black Marsh, and edit the related dialogue. Then change either the Hatching Pools or Hissimir to Stormhold, change the architecture to Ayelid, and change the related dialogue.
The retcon that showdoefen as it is in ESO poses isn't simply a redrawing of the border, it would effect the whole of the politics of the country since we're now supposed to believe House Hlaalu is a Great House and somehow became an economic powerhouse when they only have a tiny city with 6 buildings as their capitol and don't have Kragenmoor or Ebonheart anymore. Hlaalu needs more breathing room and Dres does as well.
BroughBreaux wrote: »
The way they fix Shadowfen is to change the name of Narsis to some small town name and change related dialogue lines. Then rename Stormhold to Narsis, change the architecture, edit the geography around it to fade to swamp as you enter Black Marsh, and edit the related dialogue. Then change either the Hatching Pools or Hissimir to Stormhold, change the architecture to Ayelid, and change the related dialogue.
The retcon that showdoefen as it is in ESO poses isn't simply a redrawing of the border, it would effect the whole of the politics of the country since we're now supposed to believe House Hlaalu is a Great House and somehow became an economic powerhouse when they only have a tiny city with 6 buildings as their capitol and don't have Kragenmoor or Ebonheart anymore. Hlaalu needs more breathing room and Dres does as well.
MyNameIsElias wrote: »Im so excited for this to be released, your work is very impressive!
Sylvermynx wrote: »I downloaded the interim release posted by Thal-J on the 10th. So far it's working just fine, and I'm really looking forward to the release of the whole shebang!
They could pull the "Old Ebonheart" again with Narsis. Make the current Narsis "Old Narsis", make the new Narsis "New Narsis" or "Narsis" for short, because it'll be bigger and better. House Hlaalu is already a Great House (likely for historic reasons) but hasn't become as big as Redoran and Telvanni yet. They addressed that when they were talking about why Balmora is Redoran in ESO. House Hlaalu invented the concrete used to construct the houses in Balmora, which they built for House Redoran, and they are rapidly expanding under the radar of the other houses. Only one Redoran NPC is in Balmora mumbling to herself that House Hlaalu is a threat that needs to be taken seriously. They could center a chapter around the Hlaalu building New Narsis or rather "Narsis" and then it'll be sort of like Orsinium, except with more trade deals.
Sadly for the map to actually make sense they'd have to redo Deshaan in its entirety. In older maps Mournhold was connected to the Inner Sea, which makes complete sense, but now they are only connected to the Padomaic Ocean, except there are waterfalls in the way and no boat could pass through the wall they built towards Shadowfen. Base game zones are wild.
They could pull the "Old Ebonheart" again with Narsis. Make the current Narsis "Old Narsis", make the new Narsis "New Narsis" or "Narsis" for short, because it'll be bigger and better. House Hlaalu is already a Great House (likely for historic reasons) but hasn't become as big as Redoran and Telvanni yet. They addressed that when they were talking about why Balmora is Redoran in ESO. House Hlaalu invented the concrete used to construct the houses in Balmora, which they built for House Redoran, and they are rapidly expanding under the radar of the other houses. Only one Redoran NPC is in Balmora mumbling to herself that House Hlaalu is a threat that needs to be taken seriously. They could center a chapter around the Hlaalu building New Narsis or rather "Narsis" and then it'll be sort of like Orsinium, except with more trade deals.
Sadly for the map to actually make sense they'd have to redo Deshaan in its entirety. In older maps Mournhold was connected to the Inner Sea, which makes complete sense, but now they are only connected to the Padomaic Ocean, except there are waterfalls in the way and no boat could pass through the wall they built towards Shadowfen. Base game zones are wild.
House Hlaalu isn't supposed to have much land now anyway. PGE1 says that "Clan Hlaalu is the smallest and weakest of the five clans, clinging to Great House status in their ancient capital of Narsis". Although Narsis in ESO is way too small even allowing for scaling down; they should at least have a market bigger than this tent.
In maps that I've seen, Mournhold is connect to Padomaic Ocean rather than the Inner Sea. One is the simple PGE1 map, which also puts Narsis on the Thirr, connecting it to the Inner Sea and the (already revised) concept map for TESIII, included on this page of Morrowind's maps, also has this eastern river, placing the source northeast of Darvon's Watch.
According to TESIII's dialogue, "the west and south-central region [of Morrowind] is mountainous and sparsely populated", while Black Marsh has "largely uninhabited" "northwestern upland forests". That could actually fit Broughbreaux's proposal to split Deshaan and Shadowfen apart. Even though it wouldn't have many settlements, its delves etc could represent a historic presence of a combination of House Hlaalu, Ashlanders, Cantermiric Velothi, Ayleids, Kothringi and Argonians. Of course, we can see between Deshaan and Shadowfen, so a map allowing space for this region wouldn't match what we see on the ground.
BroughBreaux wrote: »
Which AddOns do you have?