Attention: Load order instructions are on 'description' page.
10/07/2023: Hey everyone! First things first, thank you all for using this patch and for being patient with the slow updated I did to resolve many bugs along the way!It now has more than 2000 endorsements and more than 100k total downloads. I never thought it would become so popular, so thank you!
As I said a few months back, I don't have much time to work on mods right now (have a job in another city, 7am to 17pm), only during weekends, and I'm focusing on another mod of mine that I'm currently updating. I'm sorry that I've been avoiding replying to posts, it's not my brightest moment as a mod author, but I've been reading the bug reports lately.
So I promise that I'll update the mod by the end of this month (July). Thanks for you patience!
Ok, so I'm working on this for weeks now and finally figured it out:
Missing doors on almost all houses in Winterhold: - got me some days to realize it's meant to be that way (just me beeing an idiot)
Missing ground under the stairs to the jarls house in Falkreath: - had grass patches for both jk's and COTN wich messed it up (obviously after thinking about it) - also the "realistic water two patch" was needed too, wich got it's own mod page and isn't from a patch collection
Missing door and backpart of the jarls house in Falkreath: - IT WAS THE FRICKING LOADING ORDER -> had to manually tell vortex to load them myself, 'cause vortex apparently has no idea what it's doing
Holes in the ground infront of the jarls house in Dawnstar: That's the only thing I haven't figured out yet. If you come from the main street it doesn't show, but if you look from the side you can see beneath the ground. It happens in two places there and you can fall through if you're not careful. I thought this might also be from a grass patch, but after testing none seem to be the culprit.
My crash fixing experience in case it's helpful to anyone:
I experienced CTD when going into Dawnstar's exterior cells; user comments here led me to this amazing unofficial update by PercythePersimmon. It also contains a second file which accounts for the more recent Great Cities of Winterhold update (4.1).
My most time-consuming CTD problem was Winterhold's exterior. I was still getting crashes despite using the above patch; I discovered it was due to the College of Winterhold Quest Expansion mod and its patch from The Great City of Winterhold Patch collection. I had the mod and the patch but they weren't in the right position in the load order; sandwiching them between the city mods and TGCoJN fixed the crashing.
Visually:
" " " COTN - Winterhold.esp The Great City of Winterhold v4.esp College of Winterhold - Quest Expansion.esp TGC Winterhold - COW Quest Expansion Patch.esp Northern Roads - TGC Winterhold Patch.esp COTN Winterhold - Alternate Start Patch.esp (I like this one because you spawn on the inn's ground floor instead of the loft) The Great Cities of JK's North - Patch.esp All these city mods are at the very bottom of my load order, only above my bashed patch.
BTW I also so far believe that I might have been able to get away with only using the College Quest Expansion patch from the GCoW patch collection (I have an Alternative Start and Northern Roads patch from different sources). Nothing immediately looks out of the ordinary; I am experiencing no flickering, overlapping objects, and the streets are clear and traversable by NPCs.
Disclaimer: I haven't actually had an opportunity to play the game yet and this is a brand new, experimental load order for me. I haven't played the College Quest Expansion mod yet. I can't say everything is perfect yet but this solved the immediate crashes when entering these cities' exterior cells.
Good luck everyone! Wrangling three big city overhauls into compatibility is an amazing feat and the result gives each city a sense of scale, culture, and history that the vanilla generic farmhouse villages never did. They actually feel like cities now; Winterhold especially finally has the nobility it deserves. Thank you Gardden!
I think the mod work's fine, since the mod is about exteriors and not interiors. I know Distinct Interiors has patches to make JK's Interiors work with it!
Can someone help me? I've installed all necessary plugins and I have ordered them as told in the description (creating LOOT rules for each step), but in Falkreath, there is an issue where the Jarl Longhouse from The Great Cities overlaps with the tree from COTN-Falkreath. It seems like not all walls are removed properly by the GCOJKN patch. Does anyone know what I might be doing wrong?
(The building is not the regular Jarl longhouse, the building pieces have the BYOH tags like the Great Cities longhouse)
Do you have any other mods that are affecting Falkreath that are NOT part of the TGC/COTN/JK combo? Literally any other mod?
I had a similar issue with Dawnstar and realized it was due to NSUR, as it was creating it's own snow layers.
As an aside, you could also consider doing the separate TGC/COTN/JK combo patches that come from the COTN specific patch series. I am using that now as it work's really well, and considering its separate mods it's easier to navigate any issues.
for those who may have the same problems as I did (specifically Winterhold, Dawnstar and Morthal)
first of all, remove all the JK`s patches for the original mods (especially for Winterhold)
for CTD crashes in Dawnstar and Morthal this (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/109400) solved the problem for me
right now the only problems I seem to have are very minor (invisible lumbermill in Morthal and flickering lighthouse in Dawnstar) which I imagine are from the eFPS patches for the original mods, but it`s nothing gamebreaking, it`s not like I need to go or use either of those. On first look, everything else seems fine
Edit: also this for Falkreath (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/89262), although I remember on older playthroughs I fixed it with by changing the loadorder
Im getting tons of pop-in with Winterhold - turning the camera objects, floors, NPCs, etc disappearing and then re-appearing all depending on the camera/angle. I also am running into an issue where some doors appear boarded up (like the library, but you can still interact).
Hey, this is my first time using Nexus and I have a problem. I am playing The Great Cities of JK North .Morthal, Dawnstar mod, when I approach these cities or use fast travel, the game crashes and the desktop appears. I point out that Falkreath and Winterhold work fine for me in these locations. I noticed that Morthal dawn star have the plug-in light on, maybe this is the problem that these locations are not working?
Hey all - thank you all for providing your insights and workarounds and fixes! I finally got this series of mods to work!
However, I have a question I hope someone here can help me with: pop-in.
I have noticed - in various random tested areas - I will get these weird pop-in and outs. I'll say that Winterhold is the worst offender, with multiple pop in and outs while walking around.
Does anyone have any solutions? I followed TheHiddenAbility's suggestions around load-order (his comment is in this thread chain). So I am unsure what to do next.
Thank you!
EDIT So I was able to resolve my Falkreath pop in problems problems via following Mo's specific load order (they made a series of patches specifically for this combo mod - https://github.com/mosharky/Ongoing-Patches/wiki/The-Great-Cities-of-JK's-North) which is a touch different than TheHiddenAbility's load-order. However, Winterhold is still a mess with pop in and random boarded up doors and such (for example, the library door is boarded up). Still searching for a solution.
EDIT #2 So I am confident this is an Lux Orbis issue. I removed all of the Lux series (Lux, Orbis, and Via) - and carefully made sure the load order followed Mo's Ongoing patches - and it was resolved completely. I have since switched to the individual COTN Patch series combination patches to allow greater freedom with other town mods. I do think for most that is where the issues will lie.
EDIT #3 So, I found using the COTN Patch series to combine JK's Skyrim, the INDIVIDUAL TGC Major Holds (rather than the combined major and minor), and COTN worked very very well. I was also able to use TGC Winterhold patch to bring in COTN Winterhold's Jarl Castle into TGC (note I did NOT use COTN Winterhold Patch seres).
If you, like me, we're having very persistent issues with winterhold having huge holes and clipping issues, make sure you have the great city of winterhold v4 load AFTER cotn - winterhold. LOOT will not do this by default. If you have vortex just go to the plugins tab and choose "Manage Rules" in the orange area.
I don't know how it will ultimately interact with patches besides JK's and the GCoJKN ones, but hopefully this will help someone save half an hour troubleshooting.
1778 comments
10/07/2023:
Hey everyone!
First things first, thank you all for using this patch and for being patient with the slow updated I did to resolve many bugs along the way!It now has more than 2000 endorsements and more than 100k total downloads. I never thought it would become so popular, so thank you!
As I said a few months back, I don't have much time to work on mods right now (have a job in another city, 7am to 17pm), only during weekends, and I'm focusing on another mod of mine that I'm currently updating.
I'm sorry that I've been avoiding replying to posts, it's not my brightest moment as a mod author, but I've been reading the bug reports lately.
So I promise that I'll update the mod by the end of this month (July).
Thanks for you patience!
Missing doors on almost all houses in Winterhold:
- got me some days to realize it's meant to be that way (just me beeing an idiot)
Missing ground under the stairs to the jarls house in Falkreath:
- had grass patches for both jk's and COTN wich messed it up (obviously after thinking about it)
- also the "realistic water two patch" was needed too, wich got it's own mod page and isn't from a patch collection
Missing door and backpart of the jarls house in Falkreath:
- IT WAS THE FRICKING LOADING ORDER
-> had to manually tell vortex to load them myself, 'cause vortex apparently has no idea what it's doing
Holes in the ground infront of the jarls house in Dawnstar:
That's the only thing I haven't figured out yet.
If you come from the main street it doesn't show, but if you look from the side you can see beneath the ground.
It happens in two places there and you can fall through if you're not careful.
I thought this might also be from a grass patch, but after testing none seem to be the culprit.
I experienced CTD when going into Dawnstar's exterior cells; user comments here led me to this amazing unofficial update by PercythePersimmon. It also contains a second file which accounts for the more recent Great Cities of Winterhold update (4.1).
My most time-consuming CTD problem was Winterhold's exterior. I was still getting crashes despite using the above patch; I discovered it was due to the College of Winterhold Quest Expansion mod and its patch from The Great City of Winterhold Patch collection. I had the mod and the patch but they weren't in the right position in the load order; sandwiching them between the city mods and TGCoJN fixed the crashing.
Visually:
" " "
COTN - Winterhold.esp
The Great City of Winterhold v4.esp
College of Winterhold - Quest Expansion.esp
TGC Winterhold - COW Quest Expansion Patch.esp
Northern Roads - TGC Winterhold Patch.esp
COTN Winterhold - Alternate Start Patch.esp (I like this one because you spawn on the inn's ground floor instead of the loft)
The Great Cities of JK's North - Patch.esp
All these city mods are at the very bottom of my load order, only above my bashed patch.
BTW I also so far believe that I might have been able to get away with only using the College Quest Expansion patch from the GCoW patch collection (I have an Alternative Start and Northern Roads patch from different sources). Nothing immediately looks out of the ordinary; I am experiencing no flickering, overlapping objects, and the streets are clear and traversable by NPCs.
Disclaimer: I haven't actually had an opportunity to play the game yet and this is a brand new, experimental load order for me. I haven't played the College Quest Expansion mod yet. I can't say everything is perfect yet but this solved the immediate crashes when entering these cities' exterior cells.
Good luck everyone! Wrangling three big city overhauls into compatibility is an amazing feat and the result gives each city a sense of scale, culture, and history that the vanilla generic farmhouse villages never did. They actually feel like cities now; Winterhold especially finally has the nobility it deserves. Thank you Gardden!
(The building is not the regular Jarl longhouse, the building pieces have the BYOH tags like the Great Cities longhouse)
I had a similar issue with Dawnstar and realized it was due to NSUR, as it was creating it's own snow layers.
As an aside, you could also consider doing the separate TGC/COTN/JK combo patches that come from the COTN specific patch series. I am using that now as it work's really well, and considering its separate mods it's easier to navigate any issues.
first of all, remove all the JK`s patches for the original mods (especially for Winterhold)
for CTD crashes in Dawnstar and Morthal this (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/109400) solved the problem for me
right now the only problems I seem to have are very minor (invisible lumbermill in Morthal and flickering lighthouse in Dawnstar) which I imagine are from the eFPS patches for the original mods, but it`s nothing gamebreaking, it`s not like I need to go or use either of those. On first look, everything else seems fine
Edit: also this for Falkreath (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/89262), although I remember on older playthroughs I fixed it with by changing the loadorder
Did you happen to run into any of these issues?
Edit: found a patch! https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/109400?tab=posts
However, I have a question I hope someone here can help me with: pop-in.
I have noticed - in various random tested areas - I will get these weird pop-in and outs. I'll say that Winterhold is the worst offender, with multiple pop in and outs while walking around.
Does anyone have any solutions? I followed TheHiddenAbility's suggestions around load-order (his comment is in this thread chain). So I am unsure what to do next.
Thank you!
EDIT
So I was able to resolve my Falkreath pop in problems problems via following Mo's specific load order (they made a series of patches specifically for this combo mod - https://github.com/mosharky/Ongoing-Patches/wiki/The-Great-Cities-of-JK's-North) which is a touch different than TheHiddenAbility's load-order. However, Winterhold is still a mess with pop in and random boarded up doors and such (for example, the library door is boarded up). Still searching for a solution.
EDIT #2
So I am confident this is an Lux Orbis issue. I removed all of the Lux series (Lux, Orbis, and Via) - and carefully made sure the load order followed Mo's Ongoing patches - and it was resolved completely. I have since switched to the individual COTN Patch series combination patches to allow greater freedom with other town mods. I do think for most that is where the issues will lie.
EDIT #3
So, I found using the COTN Patch series to combine JK's Skyrim, the INDIVIDUAL TGC Major Holds (rather than the combined major and minor), and COTN worked very very well. I was also able to use TGC Winterhold patch to bring in COTN Winterhold's Jarl Castle into TGC (note I did NOT use COTN Winterhold Patch seres).
If you, like me, we're having very persistent issues with winterhold having huge holes and clipping issues, make sure you have the great city of winterhold v4 load AFTER cotn - winterhold. LOOT will not do this by default. If you have vortex just go to the plugins tab and choose "Manage Rules" in the orange area.
I don't know how it will ultimately interact with patches besides JK's and the GCoJKN ones, but hopefully this will help someone save half an hour troubleshooting.