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Housing woes: an exploration (pic-heavy)
SidraWillowsky
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I'll preface this by saying that when I decide to decorate a house, I must decorate the entire thing. It's just my... thing. I'm also very much into custom building. A lot of what follows are things that have been a giant pain in those endeavors, with solutions that are either very expensive or have just killed projects. Apologies for random furniture floating around; many of these places have been relegated to storage for furnishings that I'm not planning to use anytime soon.
General
I'll start with issues plaguing existing houses themselves. If you have the Ald Veloth Harbor House, I'm sure you're intimately familiar with THIS:
WHY DOES THIS THING EXIST? What am I supposed to do with it?
I've never been able to figure it out and it makes me crazy.
But OK. I can cover up the entrance and pretend the room doesn't exist. We'll just forget about it. Oh. Wait...
Siiiiiiiighhhhhhhhhhhhh. It has a raised edge. So I can either suck it up and deal or raise it high enough to cover it and have peoples' feet get lost in it or, as in my case, install wood floors on the entire bottom level to raise the floor high enough to cover it. And then, after all that effort, you realize that you kind of hate the house and just give up. We won't talk about the shape of the bedrooms.
Look how cute the Humblemud is! I can build a cozy little loft up there... it'll be great!
Except it turns out that that's inaccessible (unless I'm missing something). The entire reason that I purchased the place, nullified. Why is there no way to see the build area when previewing a house? I guess I could have checked Google but 1. I've not seen other houses that have internal areas that cannot be accessed, and 2. we shouldn't have to rely on external sources for something so basic. The extra great thing is that if I accidentally place an item outside of the build area, it will let me place it, but not select it again. WHY? Just let us see the limits please!!
Custom building
OK, this is the area where I'm about to lose my mind. ZOS, I am begging you, please, for the love of god, add more building materials.
Let's build a peaked roof! I've yet to finish a project involving peaked roofs because I still have no idea how to properly deal with this
(yes, I realize this roof is crooked but I don't want to put the time/effort into that until I figure out what to do about "filling in" the wall):
Gods help me. I think I can get this one to work, but I need to see if it'll affect the inside:
Shingles are also hard to figure out in general. There is almost nothing to work with unless I want to use plates or something, which would very likely eat up close to all of my item slots.
I've actually not touched this house in weeks because I'm dreading having to figure out the peak here as well
This also segues nicely to my next issue: windows. WHERE ARE THEY?! Seriously, this is absolutely absurd. The house I'm working on here is more of a decoration than a livable house, so I'm ok using mirrors as windows for the exterior, but otherwise? Nothing for windows that looks even a bit like an actual window. And re. mirrors... why are they all dirty? The new Solitude mirror is both dirty AND cracked. Just.... why?!
And doors... why don't more than a small, small handful of options exist?
It's less of an annoyance here because I WANT the house to look as gaudy as possible, but if I want to build something that's NOT in the Alinor style, there are almost zero options.
Lighting
Existing houses tend to be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too dark (I was so disappointed with this with my first-ever house- Snugpod) but when you WANT to build an area that's dark, it's impossible. I build myself into an area surrounded by layers and layers and layers of black rocks in the SS below. WHERE IS THIS LIGHT COMING FROM?!?!? There are no cracks. None.
Putting a Varla stone or other extra-bright light within a one-mile radius of things like this makes the weird glow somehow even worse. In general, the light seems to come through the floor no matter what I do.
Arches
As seems to be the case with custom building, if you want to make an archway, you're stuck using Alinor arches and...not much else, I don't think, besides the heinously expensive Clockwork Gazebos, which are super short anyway. It's really hard to do much with them, however, because again... too short, an not enough ways to add "legs". I created a wall then copy/pasted another wall and turned it upside-down when experimenting with them in an effort to create a cool Dwemer-style area... but imagine the cost!
Obviously I'd never make this outside of the PTS but to make a few little house-pods would still cost a TON.
And don't even get me started on the scarcity of Dwemer pipes, both the actual pipes and the corresponding blueprints- a few of them are nearly impossible to find. At all. I've been able to buy ONE of the full pipeline columns. One. The blueprint was listed a few weeks back for 3.5 million dollars. Once you empty your pockets on the blueprints, you need 10+ Dwemer frames to build ONE. The PTS offers one crate with 200 of each style material and then it's gone. I've been creating characters just for that crate, then deleting them and doing it over again so I can create enough pipes to play around with things. And you can't even buy them in the Crown Store? I would spend real-life money on crowns to have these just because I literally cannot find them in guild stores
On a positive note, I can make lava. Very expensive lava (the Crown Store exclusive red crystal beds turned upside-down + braziers hidden)
But I don't expect to be able to purchase lava pools or try to recreate Dwemer architecture that I've been seeing in some of the TES V mods I'm playing. I am asking for access to the most BASIC of materials. Ways to build roofs. Windows. Doors. Walls that aren't made of wood or Alinor style or other floors turned on their sides (the resulting walls are too thick). Arches. I don't think that we need more ferns that look like five other ferns currently available, boulders, dead trees, or piles of animal remains. What we need are ways to be able to build basic houses- you do, after all, offer two "homes" that are designed for custom builds. Why are the options available for doing so so limited. So many pieces only work in a handful of situations and with a handful of other items, so I feel forced to decorate in a certain way based on that.
Again, I plead, beg, everything... is it not possible to add better building materials? The current selection is so incredibly frustrating that it has completely ruined the process for me more than a few times.
/rant ty for reading
Edited by SidraWillowsky on April 30, 2020 9:52PM General
I'll start with issues plaguing existing houses themselves. If you have the Ald Veloth Harbor House, I'm sure you're intimately familiar with THIS:
WHY DOES THIS THING EXIST? What am I supposed to do with it?
I've never been able to figure it out and it makes me crazy.
But OK. I can cover up the entrance and pretend the room doesn't exist. We'll just forget about it. Oh. Wait...
Siiiiiiiighhhhhhhhhhhhh. It has a raised edge. So I can either suck it up and deal or raise it high enough to cover it and have peoples' feet get lost in it or, as in my case, install wood floors on the entire bottom level to raise the floor high enough to cover it. And then, after all that effort, you realize that you kind of hate the house and just give up. We won't talk about the shape of the bedrooms.
Look how cute the Humblemud is! I can build a cozy little loft up there... it'll be great!
Except it turns out that that's inaccessible (unless I'm missing something). The entire reason that I purchased the place, nullified. Why is there no way to see the build area when previewing a house? I guess I could have checked Google but 1. I've not seen other houses that have internal areas that cannot be accessed, and 2. we shouldn't have to rely on external sources for something so basic. The extra great thing is that if I accidentally place an item outside of the build area, it will let me place it, but not select it again. WHY? Just let us see the limits please!!
Custom building
OK, this is the area where I'm about to lose my mind. ZOS, I am begging you, please, for the love of god, add more building materials.
Let's build a peaked roof! I've yet to finish a project involving peaked roofs because I still have no idea how to properly deal with this
(yes, I realize this roof is crooked but I don't want to put the time/effort into that until I figure out what to do about "filling in" the wall):
Gods help me. I think I can get this one to work, but I need to see if it'll affect the inside:
Shingles are also hard to figure out in general. There is almost nothing to work with unless I want to use plates or something, which would very likely eat up close to all of my item slots.
I've actually not touched this house in weeks because I'm dreading having to figure out the peak here as well
This also segues nicely to my next issue: windows. WHERE ARE THEY?! Seriously, this is absolutely absurd. The house I'm working on here is more of a decoration than a livable house, so I'm ok using mirrors as windows for the exterior, but otherwise? Nothing for windows that looks even a bit like an actual window. And re. mirrors... why are they all dirty? The new Solitude mirror is both dirty AND cracked. Just.... why?!
And doors... why don't more than a small, small handful of options exist?
It's less of an annoyance here because I WANT the house to look as gaudy as possible, but if I want to build something that's NOT in the Alinor style, there are almost zero options.
Lighting
Existing houses tend to be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too dark (I was so disappointed with this with my first-ever house- Snugpod) but when you WANT to build an area that's dark, it's impossible. I build myself into an area surrounded by layers and layers and layers of black rocks in the SS below. WHERE IS THIS LIGHT COMING FROM?!?!? There are no cracks. None.
Putting a Varla stone or other extra-bright light within a one-mile radius of things like this makes the weird glow somehow even worse. In general, the light seems to come through the floor no matter what I do.
Arches
As seems to be the case with custom building, if you want to make an archway, you're stuck using Alinor arches and...not much else, I don't think, besides the heinously expensive Clockwork Gazebos, which are super short anyway. It's really hard to do much with them, however, because again... too short, an not enough ways to add "legs". I created a wall then copy/pasted another wall and turned it upside-down when experimenting with them in an effort to create a cool Dwemer-style area... but imagine the cost!
Obviously I'd never make this outside of the PTS but to make a few little house-pods would still cost a TON.
And don't even get me started on the scarcity of Dwemer pipes, both the actual pipes and the corresponding blueprints- a few of them are nearly impossible to find. At all. I've been able to buy ONE of the full pipeline columns. One. The blueprint was listed a few weeks back for 3.5 million dollars. Once you empty your pockets on the blueprints, you need 10+ Dwemer frames to build ONE. The PTS offers one crate with 200 of each style material and then it's gone. I've been creating characters just for that crate, then deleting them and doing it over again so I can create enough pipes to play around with things. And you can't even buy them in the Crown Store? I would spend real-life money on crowns to have these just because I literally cannot find them in guild stores
On a positive note, I can make lava. Very expensive lava (the Crown Store exclusive red crystal beds turned upside-down + braziers hidden)
But I don't expect to be able to purchase lava pools or try to recreate Dwemer architecture that I've been seeing in some of the TES V mods I'm playing. I am asking for access to the most BASIC of materials. Ways to build roofs. Windows. Doors. Walls that aren't made of wood or Alinor style or other floors turned on their sides (the resulting walls are too thick). Arches. I don't think that we need more ferns that look like five other ferns currently available, boulders, dead trees, or piles of animal remains. What we need are ways to be able to build basic houses- you do, after all, offer two "homes" that are designed for custom builds. Why are the options available for doing so so limited. So many pieces only work in a handful of situations and with a handful of other items, so I feel forced to decorate in a certain way based on that.
Again, I plead, beg, everything... is it not possible to add better building materials? The current selection is so incredibly frustrating that it has completely ruined the process for me more than a few times.
/rant ty for reading
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Tigerseye✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Sorry to hear you are finding this so annoying.
Other people have complained about that cellar in Ald Velothi, too.
Honestly, though, I think it's is the best bit, from a purely practical point of view.
It's where I put my crafting tables and my large storage chests.
It's the perfect fit for them:
Also love the shape of the bedrooms, to be honest.
Can make the little alcove, in the one downstairs, into an ensuite (the house is supposed to be a guest house/B&B):
...and the loft bedroom upstairs can make a nice master suite:
I think, in many ways, the entire charm of Ald Velothi is in its irregularly shaped rooms and unusual (to say the least!) wall textures.
Although, I appreciate that if you had a specific project in mind, that involved a very wide floor area downstairs, the cellar opening must be annoying.
As for building, I just don't really bother.
With a few exceptions, the furniture allowance simply isn't enough for furnishing properly, most of the time, let alone for building and then furnishing, as well.
I treat most of my projects from a restoration and conservation type of perspective.
As I generally would, in real life, if I had to renovate a listed building, in a conservation area.
So, that normally means changing the exterior very little, or not at all and working with what there already is, on the inside, rather than changing it dramatically.
I make them look different, predominantly, via the mixture of furnishings I use and in some cases, by intentionally going against what their original appearance would suggest they ought to end up looking like.
As opposed to changing their fundamental structure.
I know this is not what people, who build, enjoy doing, but it gives me a certain amount of satisfaction, if I have managed to make even a fairly shabby and/or dingy house look quite nice, without changing it much, if at at all.
The fact that you can't change the shape, or even repaint, or replaster, a wall becomes part of the challenge, in fact.
Also, the fact that you are working with furniture you wouldn't even necessarily pick, in real life, from a selection.
Even though I would like a few more pieces I would...
I reached my limit with Lucky Cat and its uneven interior window placement, though.
If I can't even place some curtains properly (and even if I manage to, kind of, it still looks awful), it makes me not want to bother, at all.2 -
Alucardo✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭That picture with the large pillar thing and spiral staircase that leads to no where reminds me of the buildings in TES III (Morrowind). They were so annoying because you'd follow it all the way down and it literally lead to no where xD
My guess is it is supposed to be based off those.1