I like both new homes VERY much.

Markarth:

I wish the interior of the Markarth home had as much impact as the terraces (which are beyond beautiful) - the interior is disproportionately long corridors and staircases to the small and underwhelming size of rooms. If you raised the ceiling a bit on the main room it would feel less claustrophobic. Increasing the size of some of the alcoves by just a small amount so that a couple of furnishings could be reasonably placed there would be good.

Shalidor's: I really like this and it is very reminiscent of Redoubts in the Reach in TES V, I am expecting Reach bandits to start shooting arrows and magic at me any minute! Does the sky change colour according to the time of day? I have seen pink and green and now it is turning cyan - I really like this although it may make it difficult to choose lighting schemes! It is better than the endless dull blue of Coldharbour ambient light though Tip for exploring this house, if you have the Wild Hunt ring, take it off or risk overshooting the various stair and walkways and plunging into the abyss

PLEASE!!!!
REMOVE THE SUN IN SHALIDOR POCKET REALM!!!!
ITS RUINING EVERYTHING, this is supposed to be a magic earie realm like the preview below.

NOT APOCRYPHA VIBE EVERYTHING TURN GREEN I CAN'T LOOK AT THE SKY BECAUSE ITS TOO BRIGHT.





I CAN'T EVEN SEE THE SKY WHICH THE POINT OF THIS HOUSE!!!!
FIX FIX FIX PLZ

Shalidor's Shrouded Realm

Least Favourite Thing

When you leave the house the first thing you see is a dead deer, front and centre in your field of vision. Very, very bad. Not something I'd ever want to look at on stepping out of my front door.

I really wanted to like the Shalidor house and almost considered buying it. Granted part of my reason for wanting to buy it was the sky that was both previewed and that shows up at night when I first showed up. As I was checking it out and commenting to friends, the sky was very nice. Could be used for multiple purposes along the lines of the "daedric pocket realm".

I could easily claim it to be a realm of Nocturnal (my favorite prince), though the sky more readily reminded me of Azura's realm when we walk the path of stars with Khunzar'ri. Point being it could easily pass for lots of different things besides something tied to Shally-whatever-the-heck-don't-care.

This was at the very least, passable for a nice look on a otherworldly-plain house while also hitting on some Nordic themes, both of which I could easily appreciate.



And it almost had me fooled. Until I came back during the daytime when the sun comes out and washes the sky green for some ungodly reason. Suffice to say a house I thought I'd really enjoy I won't even be touching. Partially because the sun is absolutely and horribly blinding, which was already bad enough in the Psijic Villa with its eternal daytime, but this somehow manages to be far, far worse.

Suffice to say, my friends have dubbed this the Holy Shrek House.



The dwarven house in Markarth is nice and a very likely buy, but the Shreklidor house is a hard pass. Even if they fixed the sky, I'll never be able to see this house the same way again. Certainly not enough to spend 80-100$ on it.

I am loving that the structure in Shalidor's realm has *real* windows. That you can see through. I would love to see more of that in other homes going forward.

I was going to go on a non-matchy white Dwemer rant (again), but @Mix already beat me to it...
I 100% agree with her post, please ZOS devs, read her comment too.
So this isn't just me, this has been bothering a lot of other people for a while.
Plus the whole issue could have been entirely avoided by making more sensible design decisions.

Mix wrote: »

I feel I must address the issue of "Dwarven" furniture first.

I love and hate the Markarth Dwarven stuff. It is beautiful and detailed and there is a good selection of items BUT it doesn't match ANY of my current Dwarven items at all. The stone is so white compared to the dark of the current dwarven and I suppose the reachmen polished the metal to a fine shine for some unknown reason (apologies if that is explained but I don't intend to quest on the PTS).

I tried to capture this in a screenshot.



It is so inherently mis-matched being so polished and such light coloured stone. I had hoped to fill in some of the "gaps" in the selection of current dwarven furniture with some new pieces but currently I think the only two pieces that will fit in are the
Frustrum Cage Lamps.



It is so tough because the artists and designers and whatnot did a fantastic job on the new items, it is kind of heartbreaking they don't match the current colours. Could we maybe get a few with recolours? Maybe the chair, one of the tables and the big shiny urn (which looks like the urn with poison in it during Peryite's quest in TES5) to be tarnished and dark stone?

---

I MUST also add that I pointed out why adding white Dwemer recolours is a terrible idea on every PTS feedback thread, from Frostvault Chasm to Stillwaters Retreat, to now Stone Eagle Aerie. But here we go again.

For some reason (some mysterious, confusing reason) you decided that you would add a house with the new Dwemer style that would be white and gold. It's understandable that the art team would have wanted to create white Dwemer assets (to copy Skyrim's Markarth more closely which was indeed paler than ESO Dwemer architecture). But it's NOT understandable why the housing team chooses those assets for housing over other, already existing Dwemer assets. The art team's current work SHOULDN'T BE THE DETERMINING FACTOR IN THE HOUSING TEAM'S ADDITIONS TO HOUSING.

Ideally, the Housing and Furnishing systems should take several things into consideration:

1. An awareness of what's already there (e.g. we have 6 basic wooden benches, maybe we don't need 6 more).
2. What's not yet there, and could bear development (e.g. Ayleid and Dwemer furniture have existed since forever yet none of them have a matching house; there's also no Bosmer notable house while other races got one or several already).
3. Responding to community needs (e.g. people ask for structural items, let's add them - thanks for adding the Solitude structurals last patch btw, it was widely applauded by the community)
4. Tapping into new styles and themes (this is original stuff that emerges from development, such as the Morrowind styles that were added to the game with Vvardenfell, or the Murkmire style houses Grand Topal and Lakemire Xanmeer).

Houses and Furniture shouldn't be added seemingly in a vacuum, on a flavour-of-the-month basis. In isolation, the S.E.A house and its white-gold furniture are a wonderful creation, a beautiful art-deco-vibe luxurious house complex with fabulous water features! BUT you can't just look at things in isolation. It seems very much like you just decide to add things because 'Art worked on this now, let's add this as a house'. It's hard to explain otherwise why Dwemer, a core style ingame with tons of assets got 3 houses with none of them match this established style? What was the rationale behind Frostvault Chasm, other than 'The art team did Frostvault dungeon assets now, let's add them as a house' even though it doesn't fit in with the Dwemer aesthetic at all and matches exactly 0% of Dwemer furniture. NONE of the three Dwemer houses match Dwemer furniture OF WHICH THERE WERE 96 in the game already for years. (I also feel like the discussion wouldn't be this bad right now, if Frostvault Chasm had been a proper slate-and-bronze Dwemer house, instead of white and icy; which compounds the crimes of the two more white Dwemer houses this year).



Are you aware of this? Is the art team aware of this? That there are NINETY-SIX slate and bronze Dwemer furniture, including Dwemer luxury furniture, and TWO CROWN STORE Dwemer furnishing packs (Forge-Lord's bundle and Dwarven Pipes bundle)? Furniture which match the DOZENS of Dwemer delves, dungeons and public dungeon assets that are ALL OVER the game from Alikr to Vvardenfell? And yet haven't got a single proper Dwemer style house since 2017? But keep adding icy or otherwise white recoloured Dwemer houses (3!!!) instead? Whyyy???

Was your solution that you now added a third white Dwemer house in a row, and added 40 white-and-gold Dwemer furniture to go with it? A third white Dwemer house that doesn't match the already existing 96 Dwemer furniture, and 40 new-Dwemer furniture which do not match the already existing 96 Dwemer furniture. How does that make sense? Please, someone explain this to me!

• If the white-and-gold Dwemer furniture was a FULL SET, it would "only" make the old Dwemer items obsolete, but at least we would have a matching Dwemer house and a matching Dwemer furniture set. As it stands, old Dwemer furniture (which are a majority of Dwemer furniture at the ratio of 96 vs 40) are obsolete anyway because they have no matching Dwemer house, and since the minority of new Dwemer furniture have a matching house they will be more favoured than the old style with no matching house.
• But it's not even a full matched set, as several items are missing from the new style. You recoloured some lamps, which now exist in 'old Dwemer' and 'new Dwemer' versions, but a whole array of furniture are ONLY available in ONE of the styles. Suite stuff (beds, dresser, etc) are only available in new Dwemer. Workshop (pipes, machines, forge, fans, vents, workbenches, Dwarven construct parts) and Structural items (platforms, stairs, pillar) and other iconic pieces (Dwemer Throne, Dwemer Fountain) are only available in old Dwemer. Neither of the sets can furnish a cohesive home, each have major blindspots ('Do I want a Dwemer bedroom and diner with no matching workshop; or a Dwemer workshop and gallery with no parlor stuff?'). This issue would have been entirely avoidable if you had used the new Dwemer furniture to complete the already existing set, instead of adding a recoloured Dwemer variant that is equally lacking but in different ways now.
• Even if you released the old Dwemer items with the new Dwemer recolour reskin so that we would have a full matching set now, it would devalue the existing Dwemer style even further; and even if you finally release an old Dwemer house to match the old Dwemer furniture, it won't be compatible with the new white-gold items. Essentially we end up with a lot of wasted potential and wasted work.
• We have reached the absurd situation where 'Dwemer' furniture (the new white-gold one, that got a matching white-gold house) FIT IN WITH CLOCKWORK HOUSE better than they do with the other half of 'Dwemer' furniture. (See 'old Dwemer' vs 'new Dwemer' side-by-side image above, compared to the Clockwork house furnished with 'new Dwemer' below).
• And conversely, we got a 'Dwemer' house (the third white one, after Frostvault Chasm, Stillwaters Retreat and now Stone Eagle Aerie) that FITS IN WITH AYLEID AND ALINOR FURNITURE better than it does with the majority of 'Dwemer' furniture (the original 96 slate-bronze ones). (See 'new Dwemer' and Ayleid and Alinor comparison in the 'new Dwemer' house, in the image twice below).

This also brings up the issue of style identity and incursion. 'Old' Dwemer style, the majority (96) of the existing Dwemer furniture had a distinct visual identity (slate stone and dark bronze metal), a style that was present in all Dwemer architecture too (which we didn't get as a house at all). The 'new' Dwemer style is white stone and gold metal. As I mentioned in the list above with the Ayleid and Alinor comparison, white stone already had an association: Ayleid, and the old Aldmeri (Alinor Timeworn) style from which the Alinor style developed. The gold colour of 'new Dwemer' is also only slightly paler than the brass of Clockwork, making the contrast between the old and new Dwemer styles greater than the contrast between the new Dwemer and completely different styles. I mentioned this in another thread (about Alinor and Vampire wood furniture which are similarly plain brown, similarly Gothic and similarly spikey; resulting in there being more difference within the Alinor and Vampire styles each, and less difference between some Alinor and Vampire items side by side) inhabiting a visual identity that is far too similar, and I'll say it again: it would be reassuring if the Art Team developed styles with an awareness of what's already covered ingame, and if the Housing team would chose those assets to convert into player Houses and Furniture that make most sense for the Housing system itself, not just the most current brain-child of an artist who may not be aware of everything that's already ingame.

---

Now, granted, I made some assumptions in my comment that may not be true. I don't actually know what determines art direction and housing decisions for example (it may have been 'It's white dwemer house and white dwemer furniture, or nothing at all this year'), I can only comment on what I see on the consumer end. And that is curiously confusing decisions that must have lead us to this outcome.

I also realize that not everyone cares about this, so it will probably come across as melodramatic whining to many. There will be plenty of people who will love the house anyway; hell, even I love the design and aesthetic in isolation. I'm just incredibly frustrated of how it fits (or rather doesn't fit) in with existing design and the existing items. (And yes I know, some people will use and will continue to use Dwemer furniture in non-Dwemer houses, or don't care about matching at all; but please let's not be dismissive of the issue based on exceptions and people who have no strong interest in it either way).

Regarding the tone of my comment, I hope that it will be permissible on the Forums, and won't come across as rude. There is incredulity to be sure, and I'm metaphorically tearing my hair out in frustration. I also use capitals and bolds - not to shout at people or come across as threatening, but to convey emphasis and the sheer absurdity of the situation. No offense is meant to any devs, even if my comment comes across presumptuous at times. If a mod does feel like they need to censor it in some way, I only ask that they please remove only the offending bits without deleting the whole thing, which I think has a lot of reasonable points overall, that I feel need to be said.

If anybody has made it through the whole thing, thanks for reading. I'll tie myself to some old slate-and-bronze Dwemer furniture as weights, and throw myself off the not-matching white-and-gold Dwemer balcony into the waterfalls below now, to cool down. I obviously need it after all this, lol.

I have to say that I really prefer the new brighter shinier looking dwemer stuff and honestly it makes sense to me that some dwemer stuff may be more eroded and tarnished and some areas may have gathered more dirt or dust making the stonework darker. I know this seems to irritate other players who want to match furniture, it would be nice if there were new versions made of the old furniture in the more shiny style for them. Only items that don't exist, eg benches exist in both styles, no need to redo even if the design is slightly different. Dwarven turbines don't seem to be in the new shiny stuff so maybe they could get a polished version.

Do you have any other feedback or suggestions for these homes or furnishings?

I would still like to see some Solitude and Vampiric stuff that is seemingly missing at the end of the year long story.

These fur lines chairs:



Vampiric blood apparatus:


Also the home good furnisher in Markarth has the same items as the home good furnisher in Solitude, some different trees/foliage would be nice.

bluebird wrote: »

~~~~~ PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF THE GODS, READ THIS ~~~~~

Feedback about the Dwemer style in Housing and Furnishing (for the 3rd time)

I was going to go on a non-matchy white Dwemer rant (again), but @Mix already beat me to it...
I 100% agree with her post, please ZOS devs, read her comment too.
So this isn't just me, this has been bothering a lot of other people for a while.
Plus the whole issue could have been entirely avoided by making more sensible design decisions.

Mix wrote: »

I feel I must address the issue of "Dwarven" furniture first.

I love and hate the Markarth Dwarven stuff. It is beautiful and detailed and there is a good selection of items BUT it doesn't match ANY of my current Dwarven items at all. The stone is so white compared to the dark of the current dwarven and I suppose the reachmen polished the metal to a fine shine for some unknown reason (apologies if that is explained but I don't intend to quest on the PTS).

I tried to capture this in a screenshot.



It is so inherently mis-matched being so polished and such light coloured stone. I had hoped to fill in some of the "gaps" in the selection of current dwarven furniture with some new pieces but currently I think the only two pieces that will fit in are the
Frustrum Cage Lamps.



It is so tough because the artists and designers and whatnot did a fantastic job on the new items, it is kind of heartbreaking they don't match the current colours. Could we maybe get a few with recolours? Maybe the chair, one of the tables and the big shiny urn (which looks like the urn with poison in it during Peryite's quest in TES5) to be tarnished and dark stone?

---

I MUST also add that I pointed out why adding white Dwemer recolours is a terrible idea on every PTS feedback thread, from Frostvault Chasm to Stillwaters Retreat, to now Stone Eagle Aerie. But here we go again.

For some reason (some mysterious, confusing reason) you decided that you would add a house with the new Dwemer style that would be white and gold. It's understandable that the art team would have wanted to create white Dwemer assets (to copy Skyrim's Markarth more closely which was indeed paler than ESO Dwemer architecture). But it's NOT understandable why the housing team chooses those assets for housing over other, already existing Dwemer assets. The art team's current work SHOULDN'T BE THE DETERMINING FACTOR IN THE HOUSING TEAM'S ADDITIONS TO HOUSING.

Ideally, the Housing and Furnishing systems should take several things into consideration:

1. An awareness of what's already there (e.g. we have 6 basic wooden benches, maybe we don't need 6 more).
2. What's not yet there, and could bear development (e.g. Ayleid and Dwemer furniture have existed since forever yet none of them have a matching house; there's also no Bosmer notable house while other races got one or several already).
3. Responding to community needs (e.g. people ask for structural items, let's add them - thanks for adding the Solitude structurals last patch btw, it was widely applauded by the community)
4. Tapping into new styles and themes (this is original stuff that emerges from development, such as the Morrowind styles that were added to the game with Vvardenfell, or the Murkmire style houses Grand Topal and Lakemire Xanmeer).

Houses and Furniture shouldn't be added seemingly in a vacuum, on a flavour-of-the-month basis. In isolation, the S.E.A house and its white-gold furniture are a wonderful creation, a beautiful art-deco-vibe luxurious house complex with fabulous water features! BUT you can't just look at things in isolation. It seems very much like you just decide to add things because 'Art worked on this now, let's add this as a house'. It's hard to explain otherwise why Dwemer, a core style ingame with tons of assets got 3 houses with none of them match this established style? What was the rationale behind Frostvault Chasm, other than 'The art team did Frostvault dungeon assets now, let's add them as a house' even though it doesn't fit in with the Dwemer aesthetic at all and matches exactly 0% of Dwemer furniture. NONE of the three Dwemer houses match Dwemer furniture OF WHICH THERE WERE 96 in the game already for years. (I also feel like the discussion wouldn't be this bad right now, if Frostvault Chasm had been a proper slate-and-bronze Dwemer house, instead of white and icy; which compounds the crimes of the two more white Dwemer houses this year).



Are you aware of this? Is the art team aware of this? That there are NINETY-SIX slate and bronze Dwemer furniture, including Dwemer luxury furniture, and TWO CROWN STORE Dwemer furnishing packs (Forge-Lord's bundle and Dwarven Pipes bundle)? Furniture which match the DOZENS of Dwemer delves, dungeons and public dungeon assets that are ALL OVER the game from Alikr to Vvardenfell? And yet haven't got a single proper Dwemer style house since 2017? But keep adding icy or otherwise white recoloured Dwemer houses (3!!!) instead? Whyyy???

Was your solution that you now added a third white Dwemer house in a row, and added 40 white-and-gold Dwemer furniture to go with it? A third white Dwemer house that doesn't match the already existing 96 Dwemer furniture, and 40 new-Dwemer furniture which do not match the already existing 96 Dwemer furniture. How does that make sense? Please, someone explain this to me!

• If the white-and-gold Dwemer furniture was a FULL SET, it would "only" make the old Dwemer items obsolete, but at least we would have a matching Dwemer house and a matching Dwemer furniture set. As it stands, old Dwemer furniture (which are a majority of Dwemer furniture at the ratio of 96 vs 40) are obsolete anyway because they have no matching Dwemer house, and since the minority of new Dwemer furniture have a matching house they will be more favoured than the old style with no matching house.
• But it's not even a full matched set, as several items are missing from the new style. You recoloured some lamps, which now exist in 'old Dwemer' and 'new Dwemer' versions, but a whole array of furniture are ONLY available in ONE of the styles. Suite stuff (beds, dresser, etc) are only available in new Dwemer. Workshop (pipes, machines, forge, fans, vents, workbenches, Dwarven construct parts) and Structural items (platforms, stairs, pillar) and other iconic pieces (Dwemer Throne, Dwemer Fountain) are only available in old Dwemer. Neither of the sets can furnish a cohesive home, each have major blindspots ('Do I want a Dwemer bedroom and diner with no matching workshop; or a Dwemer workshop and gallery with no parlor stuff?'). This issue would have been entirely avoidable if you had used the new Dwemer furniture to complete the already existing set, instead of adding a recoloured Dwemer variant that is equally lacking but in different ways now.
• Even if you released the old Dwemer items with the new Dwemer recolour reskin so that we would have a full matching set now, it would devalue the existing Dwemer style even further; and even if you finally release an old Dwemer house to match the old Dwemer furniture, it won't be compatible with the new white-gold items. Essentially we end up with a lot of wasted potential and wasted work.
• We have reached the absurd situation where 'Dwemer' furniture (the new white-gold one, that got a matching white-gold house) FIT IN WITH CLOCKWORK HOUSE better than they do with the other half of 'Dwemer' furniture. (See 'old Dwemer' vs 'new Dwemer' side-by-side image above, compared to the Clockwork house furnished with 'new Dwemer' below).
• And conversely, we got a 'Dwemer' house (the third white one, after Frostvault Chasm, Stillwaters Retreat and now Stone Eagle Aerie) that FITS IN WITH AYLEID AND ALINOR FURNITURE better than it does with the majority of 'Dwemer' furniture (the original 96 slate-bronze ones). (See 'new Dwemer' and Ayleid and Alinor comparison in the 'new Dwemer' house, in the image twice below).

This also brings up the issue of style identity and incursion. 'Old' Dwemer style, the majority (96) of the existing Dwemer furniture had a distinct visual identity (slate stone and dark bronze metal), a style that was present in all Dwemer architecture too (which we didn't get as a house at all). The 'new' Dwemer style is white stone and gold metal. As I mentioned in the list above with the Ayleid and Alinor comparison, white stone already had an association: Ayleid, and the old Aldmeri (Alinor Timeworn) style from which the Alinor style developed. The gold colour of 'new Dwemer' is also only slightly paler than the brass of Clockwork, making the contrast between the old and new Dwemer styles greater than the contrast between the new Dwemer and completely different styles. I mentioned this in another thread (about Alinor and Vampire wood furniture which are similarly plain brown, similarly Gothic and similarly spikey; resulting in there being more difference within the Alinor and Vampire styles each, and less difference between some Alinor and Vampire items side by side) inhabiting a visual identity that is far too similar, and I'll say it again: it would be reassuring if the Art Team developed styles with an awareness of what's already covered ingame, and if the Housing team would chose those assets to convert into player Houses and Furniture that make most sense for the Housing system itself, not just the most current brain-child of an artist who may not be aware of everything that's already ingame.

---

Now, granted, I made some assumptions in my comment that may not be true. I don't actually know what determines art direction and housing decisions for example (it may have been 'It's white dwemer house and white dwemer furniture, or nothing at all this year'), I can only comment on what I see on the consumer end. And that is curiously confusing decisions that must have lead us to this outcome.

I also realize that not everyone cares about this, so it will probably come across as melodramatic whining to many. There will be plenty of people who will love the house anyway; hell, even I love the design and aesthetic in isolation. I'm just incredibly frustrated of how it fits (or rather doesn't fit) in with existing design and the existing items. (And yes I know, some people will use and will continue to use Dwemer furniture in non-Dwemer houses, or don't care about matching at all; but please let's not be dismissive of the issue based on exceptions and people who have no strong interest in it either way).

Regarding the tone of my comment, I hope that it will be permissible on the Forums, and won't come across as rude. There is incredulity to be sure, and I'm metaphorically tearing my hair out in frustration. I also use capitals and bolds - not to shout at people or come across as threatening, but to convey emphasis and the sheer absurdity of the situation. No offense is meant to any devs, even if my comment comes across presumptuous at times. If a mod does feel like they need to censor it in some way, I only ask that they please remove only the offending bits without deleting the whole thing, which I think has a lot of reasonable points overall, that I feel need to be said.

If anybody has made it through the whole thing, thanks for reading. I'll tie myself to some old slate-and-bronze Dwemer furniture as weights, and throw myself off the not-matching white-and-gold Dwemer balcony into the waterfalls below now, to cool down. I obviously need it after all this, lol.

Amazing post making some very good and valid points. I don't particularly go for Dwemer style housing or furnishings as such (and if I get the Markarth one will probably decorate it in a different style - irl I live in a home built in one era but furnish it in more modern themes) but you make some excellent points.

Fata1moose wrote: »

Also the home good furnisher in Markarth has the same items as the home good furnisher in Solitude, some different trees/foliage would be nice.

Agreed.

I was also a little disappointed to find how absolutely sparse any Reach-related furnishings are. Not even just in the furnisher... but in the game at all. I get that Reachmen are somewhat minimalistic people in terms of architecture and material wealth but c'mon. This is the season of the Reach and we barely got anything actually tied to the Reach besides a few stick lamps, hide flags, and some mossy pergolas (which I do like btw). Heck, we didn't even get some more universal decoration pieces that could've worked like animal pelts and more assortments of skulls.

Its bad enough most Reach-related furnishings already in game are either exclusively locked behind the Crown Store, some of them seasonal only (Witches Festival), or the lux furnisher. Big sad.

Still waiting on removing saddle and sitting/laying animations for mounts/pet much like you see animals do all over Tamriel.

My dog at the fire standing ready to jump in, real life dog would be laying there half asleep.

brandoncoffmannub18_ESO wrote: »

Still waiting on removing saddle and sitting/laying animations for mounts/pet much like you see animals do all over Tamriel.

Agreed! There are several obviously mount-sized wolves in Markarth that lie or sit down. It would be super awesome if they could do this in our houses. Maybe as a future update to housing after they're done messing with Pathing?