[WIP] Balmora Redesign

The issue of open/closed cities is not just about object rendering, it is also about availability of video RAM and number of simultaneous AI packages being processed. I'd vote for doing a benchmark first before deciding, as lukkar said.

Alysander theres a different between expanding Balmora and polluting the countryside with houses.

What do you suggest? I suggest to expand Balmora by poor/workers districts.
I.E. it can be ~15 shacks and ~5 Hlaalu-style buildings in this district.
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Hovewer town will be live, not because of houses, but because of working zones/activities.

Instead of adding more houses and people, take the houses one the side with the guilds, put them on the other side, add more merchants (not necessarily arms and armor, more like imports and fish etc.) and make people venture out of their houses.

Look at Whiterun or Solitude for reference :)

@alysander I preferred your previous plan for Balmora. This one contains just too much.

Yours Truly : yeah, may be i need to wait before some models will be updated.
I need such models as fish for mecharts, limestone vein, clay vein, pottery wheel.
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But anyway before i need to see how CK works.

> add more merchants
will be good. I need to see how schedules ("AI") works, and we need model of some market stand for it (if its not going to use Skyrim variant). Or traders just can sit like khatjits on the ground. Will be good to use main population of commonerz district as salesmans (and market visitors) in morning hours. 

But even with this i think Balmora need more work and more people (10-20 poor miners, workers, 4-10 potters and shepherds, 4-6 beggars around temple) in new district to look as live town. There are too much nobles and guards in MW, but very small amount of workers and farmers who need to make all this buildings, items, food and gold.

@lukkar : this is one suggestion, i just showed detail of that.

@alysander

Hold on :)

10-15 poor miners, workers, 2-7 potters and shepherds, 1-2 beggars around temple. It's game, not reality.

Btw. I don't think that priests need house they can simply live in temple and rest place use for gardens or for plaza.

Now, when it comes to population I think we could really use a little "crowding" project, and people to actually direct it and get it done. Additional NPC all over Vvardenfell without dialogue, just some greeting lines. We would need those for Vivec, Balmora, Ald'Ruhn and many, many other places. Patrols along the roads, of guards, merchants, ordinators, ashlander hunters or bandits. We could draw a lot of inspiration from LGNPC and Animated Morrowind.

Maybe a couriers post in Balmora? They need a base, and it would fill a need space wise.

> couriers post
some guar caravans 'd be better IMHO. For simple translation messages (like post) they can use mage guild.
But that i thnk need many time and work. I am not familiar with subj enough.
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For start i suggest to create short trade route between Seida Neen docks and market of Balmora.
If that's even possible.

=> I wonder if it's possible to make items from market stalls to disappear, when seller is'nt here.

re: trade routes

I suggest that the different routes between areas be used, if not seen then in merchants who import items found in varying regions, maybe even an ashlander.  Flora, imperial weapons and misc. items, dwemer findings from Dagon Fel, maybe different fish from different regions... a moon sugar dealer in the shadows...

I'm not sure if balmora needs more people or merchants, there are already 91 named people, 43 of them are merchants, compared to the 80 named people in Solitude with 14 merchants. I also think there are far to many trainers in the city with 36 of them.

I'd say its just to expand on those npcs that are already there. After all most of them just stand around uselessly, who knows what they do when they are not busy being useless. It's not the amount of people that makes a city alive, it's how you use them.

Cor Angars has a point. It's already pretty crowded, despite how sparse things look. The only reason it seemed so empty back in Morrowind is because AI packages were almost nonexistant for non-combative NPCs. I don't think we'd need to add more than ~10-20 or so people, if that, to make Balmora seem a little more lived-in if we use Skyrim's AI scheduling system to have NPCs mill around. Even then, the additions would be best off as nameless npcs with basic packages that can't be talked to.
Also, the River Odai is not a trade route, as it's too shallow for merchant ships. From what I understand, Balmora is a land-trade hub, not river-trade, so pack Guar stables that were mentioned might be a fine addition to the north and south entrances of the city.
As for the borders of the city, I don't think they'll need messed with. All it would really take to add a few new things would be some rearranging of the buildings already inside the city. New NPCs, assuming they'd be crowdmakers and not actually important/vanilla, would do just fine sleeping at inns, or in a common house that could be added to the poor district.

How does all this sound so far? Bear in mind this is all just my opinion, and I can't really do much more than offer suggestions, since I've only ever diddled with CK once or twice and hated it. Perhaps I'll try drawing on the maps.

>the River Odai is not a trade route >Balmora is a land-trade hub         = true
> I don't think we'd need to add more than ~10-20 or so people             = in limits of vanilla Balmora - off course.

> there are already 91 named people, 43 of them are merchants, compared to the 80 named people in Solitude with 14 merchants. I also think there are far to many trainers in the city with 36 of them.
= you see the problem. That's why town need some workers and poors to compensate this amount of noble and traders. And i don't see very good activities for them in town - what will they do? There is no workplaces around. Merchants in shops will be sitting all day only for one client - player. If you will be killer - you even have'nt enough people to kill.

I want add such workplaces and professions as:
+ Clay deposit             = 2-3 miners
+ Potters workplace     = 3-4 potters
+ Limestone quarry     = 2-3 miners
+ Pottery shop            = 1 merchant
+ General shop           = 1 merchant
+ (market point)         = 1 merchant
+ (fishing point)         = 1-2 fishers/fishfarmers who also sell their fish on market
+ (sitplace)                 = 2 beggars
+ (guardpost)              = 4-6 guards / 3-4 active at time
+ caravan stop + inn    = 3 servants
+ (wall in construction) = 2-3 builders

some market points can be added on square around silt strider, but i am not sure if this possible to make their items dissapear when there is no trader in place. Alternative: when team will have guars - we can make caravan point/stop here.

In general, i suggest to use more of Skyrim features:
+ movable bridges (Need new model (metallic): in some dwemer places, (wooden): in some isolated towns, like Gnaar Mok)
+ veins and mining animations (not only in mines - team can depict prospectors/contrabandists in MW and relate it with some quest).
+ water wheels and woodmills (1-2 can be placed in bittercoast)
+ hammering animations from DG can be used to add live in some coastal towns: will be nice to see some working shipyard.
+ farmers now can use some animations. This also can be related to alchemists, collecting herbs.

@Alysander

Do you suggest having ''nameless NPC's''? Because too much of those is never good. At the same time, making up 30 new names is also very difficult, most Skyrim mods that add NPC's fail badly on the names. Let alone adding some personality to them.
I think the best option is to have NPC's that are already IN Balmora have interesting schedules. There are ones that don't DO anything at all. Add to that some traveling caravans and quality guards, and I've actually come to think that Balmora might not need (m)any additional NPCs at all. It all depends on how well executed these trading caravans are though. Some might stay for a week, others might stay for 1-2 days. 

As for the River Odai, there shouldn't be large ships at all(so I agree with many above), but a few rowing boats would add significant character to it. Also, of course 1-2 rowers that can offer to take you places (1 for up-stream, 1 for downstream?)

Now my creativity-supply needs refilling :D

> Do you suggest having ''nameless NPC's''? Because too much of those is never good.
= IMHO even bandits and guards should be unique person, at least with name and w/o reviving.

> At the same time, making up 30 new names is also very difficult, most Skyrim mods that add NPC's fail badly on the names.
= List of Ancestral tombs give surnames (~40 surnames) + List of names from other persons. Maybe i need small subprogram for it.
= I want make someone of them wandering to Ancestral tombs from time to time (with a little help off course)
= some beggars and bandits can use more nicknames than surnames.

> There are ones that don't DO anything at all.
= They can be used on next stages of Skywind progress: on market, on caravans.

> As for the River Odai, there shouldn't be large ships
>few rowing boats
= i think river is too shallow (and crossed with roads) even for boats.
 

about the names problem solved 

http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/?q=namegenerator

Silvermodder

about the names problem solved 

http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/?q=namegenerator

I should have known such a thing existed! The issue that remains is that if you increase NPC amounts you will decrease quest-density. 

And, about the boats, I retract my previous statement, the river is indeed too heavy on the bridges in Morrowind to allow boats to go over it. They are present in the concept art though.

> namegenerator
= even for all races? cool.

> the river is indeed too heavy on the bridges
= yep. If it will be caravans - may we need even more solid bridge instead hinged one.
= actually it maybe good idea to depict this river as mostly artificially buried (to get clay for town buildings).

> you increase NPC amounts you will decrease quest-density.
= from one side - yes, but it's also way to make new quests and services.

The bridges can be tweaked to allow small row boats.  

> bridges can be tweaked to allow small row boats.
= off course this variant is the best (with boat stop out of Balmora per se. Better with boat-pier around small island close to silt-strider post).

I have question related to workplaces. Is this possible to realize?
(I mean that state in which fisherman can be sheduled to reach it and get out of there after)
I think it can be interesting feature for villages of Bitter Coast region.


 

@Alysander Cool idea with that fisherman :) Btw. what about to make solid/house shop area make like this

Of course everything from shacks and connected with shack area with bridge above road. Construction looks quite cool I think this good place to add trigger with stick-up event in that place. Maybe some moonsugar illegal business too. It has this advantage that it takes a small amount of space but is quite compact.

And just one more idea. On light at night to add cool mood here.

lukkar: that's more good idea to commoners district of Balmora. I got this idea too, but in my version it looks more like reconstruction of Chatal-Guyuk (one of first towns of humans).

I suggest these be added to the roofs of buildings, on the balconies or even guard towers. They add color to the city, which would give the poor district a slum-like feeling, as color is everywhere in for instance, Rio.

[External image]

Edit: to be specific, I am referring to new models that would be made of cloths, some more colorful to show wealth, and others made of less desired materials, possibly with holes in them.

No extra housing will be done unless some person is signed to do the equivalent interiors. Not good enough to say they can be done later, because we are very far behind with people doing existing interiors.

YoursTruly: not sure if this awnings exists in new/ready models. Sure models like it (from cloth or straw) will be very useful,
as some shack kit (modularity in each building type, actually).



HappyChappy: yes, it's obvious. Now it's mostly planning and placeholders. Anyway new Hlaalu models not exist yet.

HappyChappy

No extra housing will be done unless some person is signed to do the equivalent interiors. Not good enough to say they can be done later, because we are very far behind with people doing existing interiors.

We currently don't have enough housing and beds to account for the NPCs of any given town.  New housing should be accounted for at the same time that the layout of the town is being designed, and assigned to NPCs as needed.

As there is a dearth of clutterers I suggest that we approach such housing in a 'hotel' manner.  A bare-bones interior is made, including furniture placement (bed, chairs, wardrobe closet,etc) and cloned/renamed to be used as the interior for all houses of a given style.

These will be placeholders indefinitely.  Clutterers can come through and add embellishments to it as befits the character who owns the home later, or not.  This same idea could be applied to all sonewhat repetitive locations (ashlander yurts, guard barracks).  Easier on the clutterers than starting from scratch each time and relieves a lot if the pressure to make sure that every interior has loads of time specially dedicated to it.

I am willing to take on the task of furnishing the "new houses" you have in mind. Of course, I am not able to do 3D models so that would keep on being the modellers job. 

Hiya team awesomesauce... I was looking at Morrowind Rebirth recently and saw their Balmora (I haven't used Morrowind Rebirth, but may after my current vanilla and slightly-modded playthrough).

Anyway, there were a few screenshots of their expanded Balmora I thought were worth seeing, both for layout options and "concept" viewing.

Note in the above image the deepened and widened Odai River.

See above for a new, enclosed Balmora. This shot also includes the widened, deepened Odai River.

You can see in the above picture the additional buildings.

Anyway, I thought it was worth sharing and seeing!

^

I like it, although the bridges should be more open for boats obviously, but the outer walls with the big wooden gates look like a good idea and the gaurs with packs on them are awesome. Another thing is that everything is the same colour, just different shades which makes it look dull, really dull, more colours like flowers, the covers hanging from the houses could be different colours, blue or/and red lights, and see through windows would be the bomb. I think that having a closed city would be weird considering you could fly out using a levitation spell or have a weird invisible wall.

 

Open cities was the consensus for a long time, and with Skyrim getting more and more outdated by the month it isn't unreasonable to expect future midrange or even low-end PCs to run it just fine by the time we are at full release. Anyway most of the graphical load is mitigated by occlusion culling, model/texture optimization and LOD, all of which were largely nonexistent until recently. Don't forget, closed instanced cities are a compromise. Loading screens ruin video games period. They are preferred by less than one percent of gamers. Game developers handicap themselves with great resources and are thus forced into the undesirable position of emplementing closed cities. We are better than this because we aren't motivated by money, and it isn't necessary that we handicap ourselves in this way.

Basically if an idea is so grandiose that it takes an unreasonably large amount of manpower to bring to fruition and disables us from faithfully recreating this game in a way that makes everyone happy i.e. a well-optimised and polished open city, it should definitely be considered not to take a step too far. Be realistic. A sprawling favela isn't that, as nice as it would be. It's way too easy to overthink this and consequently go overboard. Even if we do, ours would still be superior that we found a way around the crutch of closed walls and loading screens.

Also here is some stuff I recorded months ago whilst getting creative with Balmora

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu_kxdumA-Q&feature=youtu.be

Also also this guy is a genius. This needs to happen.

Satchboogie

Gonna post it with image instead of link, since everyone seems to be doing that :D 

[External image]
I really think adding something like this is the only way to allow boats to be interacted with in some way. It would also allow for sewer entrances(if those are planned) or shops for the poorer folk. Especially nice locations for shady bars.

Another example:
[External image]

awesome ideas guys. i would agree with open cities. occlusion culling in the new enb, occlusion planes, lod generation and so on. also the features you planned are great! i currently work on my own solitude overhaul for skyrim and have experience in exterior design, interior design (less experience though :/) and basic ai packages.

i love alysanders ideas of disctrict, but because of my modding experience with solitude i also know that we shouldnt add too many npcs! so if you guys have models ready you could assign a small distrcit to me and i will implent ai packages for existing npcs, housing including npcs and so on.
and the best thing: i wont overdo things!

if you want proof of concept just pm me :) i would love to contribute to a small district of balmora as a whole city is way too much work for a person!
 

Kia ora

Have any of you guys seen the Mod "Balmora Expanded"? It is a great exspansion for Morrowind

i would love to try my hand on the market place or the garden district for the rich people (number 2 in alysanders concept). maybe i could also try the commoners district (number 4). if you could give me information on unused npcs in the commoners distrcit i could try to implemt them first before i make new houses , npcs and so on!

also like smitehammer said i could do basic interiors with idle markers, beds and then clutterers (thedarkprince already applied for doing interiors) could then clutter them.

Kiwi-Hawk

Kia ora

Have any of you guys seen the Mod "Balmora Expanded"? It is a great exspansion for Morrowind

three or four posts above yours someone posted about it :)

Maybe just get rid some of some stones in place 8 to expand common district.

And add some buildings (maybe small 5-6) like in image underneath but this one main difference that they will be on quite steep slope. Just add some mood as in old middle-east city. Many narrow dark streets.

And between caravan post and market on the hill will be good place for abandoned mansion. Good view and localization (which u can renovate when u will be hlaalu master) Of course if this idea is accepted (houses to buy). Post in which I proposed that.

 

Something to consider, which could fit among the narrow streets Lukkar mentioned, is that Balmora is known for it's skooma. Redwater Skooma is seen as being second only to what can be found in Balmora (outside of Elsweyr, of course). Balmora Blue in particular, made from Moon Sugar, could be found in a Balmora Skooma Den. The smoke from Redwater's moonsugar has a red tint to it, so it could be fitting for Balmora blue's smoke to have an equivelant blue tint.

as mayn of you might know, the public developer alpha is soon to be released and i plan on starting to improve a balmora part then.
[External image]

which part can i do? i know we are missing some ressources, but why not start with something relatively simple then?

I think TWarrior can decorate (5)(9) regions easy. Do you have stripped Skyrim.esm and all that you need?

no i do not have the stripped esm and other stuff. that is why i have to wait for the dev alpha release :) in the meantime i try to get ideas. i would love to try my hands on part 5 slums.

i can imagine soup kitchens and wooden shacks on the island between the two bridges. i might try to do some mixing and matching of shacks in between commoner houses so that there wont be a sharp line in between the housing styles. we want to go for a somehwat favela look right?

so what more info and ideas can you give me?

 

how many people should i add? what demographics should they have? what jobs do they eventually have?
i know i cant overdo it because we have an open city and it will kill the performance.
 

"Balmora Blue"
[External image]

> professions
= stuff is'nt ready. I hope there will be such objects as pottery wheels, hand mills and other. But you can make now many beggars, some gondoliers/boat fishers (that need change of all river down to sea, however), houses for miners, some quacks, may be a fence or pawn dealer. Most of people can work in caravans.

if you want my opinion how i want to see shacks district - take attention on Madagaskar. Very sad there isnt modern sandbox TES games. I want to see many aborigens.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/26/Hunted_Silky_Sifakas.jpg/800px-Hunted_Silky_Sifakas.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/72/Antananarivo_Street.JPG/450px-Antananarivo_Street.JPG
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Roadside_souvenir_shop_on_N7_III.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sanitaire_Anjozorobe.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ilakaka.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Madagascar74.090.jpg

pictures give some good impressions, thank you!

New on the forum, so sorry if I just barge in. I just read this last page and there are a lot of interesting ideas and thoughts around Balmora... And sorry in advance if all my ideas have been mentioned before and all but I really LOVED Morrowind and love this project probably even more, so thanks everyone for making it happen.

alysander: You said that you could add a poor/workers district which sounds like a nice a idea. But what do you mean by Hlaalu-type houses? Hlaalu at the time was the richest of the 5 houses and had it's seat in Balmora. It seems weird to have their houses in a poor district.

lukkar: I don't know if you upped the pic first or even made it, so it's not directed at you, but the overview of balmora (is it the) market district?... Anyways that picture looks way to cluttered. It makes no sense having two buildings covering up the perfectly awesome market space.  As Hlaalu are great merchants and bureaucrats it makes perfect sense that you have an open space between the different merchants houses. However what would make the place look great is if you took the "crates and stands" from the original game that are up against the houses and move them juuust a little bit into the middle and then have the owners of the stores move in and out depending on weather and demand that would make the market place come to life. Oh, maybe add a blacksmith with a smelter if it's not already added as an extension of an already existing house (like in riverwood)...

Another difficult question was adding npcs. Cor Angar makes a great point. There are currently 41 or so merchants in Balmora. Maybe travelers is what this town needs more of. Of course scripted and all that, making it a bit of a task. But wouldn't it be great to see traveling merchants... Or better yet, a not too populated place in Balmora is the temple. How about more pilgrims. It's already a big thing in the very religious part of Morrowind, why not make it even bigger? Having people moving in and out of the city is a great way of making the city itself and the surrounding landscape more alive.

Sorry for taking up space. If it's allowed and wanted I will become more up to date with what has already been brought up so I can come with more informed ideas... if they are welcome, thanks for me :)

> It seems weird to have their houses in a poor district.
= some traders or other rich-people can be everywhere if there is source of profit.
In north part of Balmora i want to place only 3 clay (Hlaalu-style houses) - common shop, head of quarry and some redware potter or smbd... Will be good to place some hostel from clay too, but i am not sure.

>some traders or other rich-people can be everywhere if there is source of profit.
= Sorry, but invalid argument. Rich people set themselves apart, especially from poor people. Most of the people you referred to as living in those quarters would be miners. History tells us miners have never (except in Scandinavia maybe, and that only since the 20th century) earned a lot of money (hence no business). Miners in Vvardenfell consists of poor people and or slaves with no market value what-so-ever. They lack in funds to be a good target group. Anything brought in from the mines down south would also pass the market place and traded, so would the money from the miners if they ever got ahold of a good bit of gold, probably at the pub by the south entrance of the city.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be merchants in the poor quarters if you build one which I'm all for. I'm saying that merchants and bartering would mostly be for common living goods and be deals within the confines of what people there could make and trade. For example a fisherman trades his fish for pottery that a wife of a poor household makes.

What I am saying is that logic is really important, and you have not presented a logical valid argument to having "rich" people or rich peoples houses in a poor peoples quarter.

You mean around "area 7"? Looks like a nice place if you want to make Balmora bigger. For it to work naturally I see the commoners area bleeding into the poor peoples district where the Hlaalu houses would be at the border between then two and look a bit more crappy then the rest.
 

Two things for you people to keep in mind, Balmora is already a pretty performance heavy city and probably will continue to be as a closed one so be cautious of that and also widening the river will push everything away which could end conflicting with the mountains which can't be moved. 

Tried to add some color in a quick moodpainting;

 

[External image]

That concept is awesome, Vrt! I've often felt that Balmora could use some foliage. Also very pleased to see you made the staircase on one side that leads down to the water (similar to the images of Dutch cities I posted but still unique.) 

Thats the whole point of Morrowind, it reminds you of many real-world things but its always just a tad different, alien. 

Great stuff :)

we could try to add more occlusion planes in the alleyways