"The entrance to Syrinx is located in Balmora between the two flights of stairs leading up to the siltstrider port."
A wizard did it
This is my approach as well. I'm doing a mod right now and the door in and out of the house is in the Caldera Mage's Guild. I don't have the time or patience to assemble multiple bits on fiddly exteriors!
Yes, the exterior - which is just one door - was particularly fiddly and took multiple attempts (perhaps a dozen or two) to get just right. The interior, which had no existing content to conflict with, was substantially easier: mostly just snapping to grid/angle.
Anyway, you certainly seem to like the look of it; I hope you enjoy playing it just as much.
Alright, I've checked this out in game, and overall I have to say it looks pretty good!
Syrinx is a simple Redoran-style underground manor located underneath the Balmora Silt Strider. This is a somewhat popular location, with about a dozen house mods and even a few dungeon mods utilizing the same spot, so a few conflicts may occur. But otherwise, Syrinx is a really well furnished home with a number of small side rooms connected via a central corridor with labeled containers for easy storage. These rooms include a small armory, study/library, alchemy lab, and bedroom, all decently decorated with static items to make the place feel like home. As far as I can tell, there's no major bugs or issues with the mod, but a problem many players may end up having is the lack of display space. Nearly every available display surface is already taken up by static objects that can't be moved, meaning there's very little space for the player to display their own stuff. Other than that, another small problem that may occur is a slight FPS hit due to the number of lightsources in use. Morrowind's game engine is, to say the least, not very well optimized, and it can't handle large amounts of lightsources very well. Thankfully though, these lightsources aren't static, so the player can actually fix this problem themselves by grabbing any excess lightsources they want and thus reduce the FPS hit. Overall, a fine and well functioning abode, including some custom recipe books for potions (a nice addition), a fast travel scroll that works pretty well, and plenty of storage space, ideal for the kleptomaniac player. Endorsed.
It should also be noted that the file is clean of dirty references and GMSTs. TES3CMD does report one junk cell in the file - Balmora (-3, -2). This can be cleaned out using either Enchanted Editor or TES3CMD (you can find a tutorial for EE here and one for TES3CMD here).
I would recommend taking a look at Danae's Containers resource here on the Nexus, if you're planning to do a future version. You could replace many of the static items with containers from Danae's resource, giving them some functionality while keeping the place balanced and decorated.
In any event, a great first mod, I look forward to seeing what mods you may end up making in the future!
And I absolutely think you should submit this mod for Morrowind May Modathon Month, any mod made in May can be submitted, and it'll get you some extra attention.
I also added some screenshots for you (using Google Chrome), but I don't know if that'll help with visibility.
Many thanks for the review, screenshots and other advice.
I've added "*Part of the May Modathon Month*" to the top of the long description. That appears to be the text shown in the YouTube video you linked to earlier (it was a little difficult to read) but differs slightly from the "Part of the Morrowind May Modathon Month" you wrote. Probably not an issue but let me know if it needs changing.
When making this addition, I noticed another problem. Under "File information" there's a text entry prompt for "File name"; accordingly, I had entered the filename: "Syrinx.esp". This prompt should indicate "Module name" (or similar) which is what is really wanted here. I have changed this to "Syrinx", the module name.
Macbone wrote: Some screenshots of the interiors would be lovely. =)
There are some screenshots, but they got added to the Nexus Images Page instead of added to the file itself. This is somewhat unfortunate, since the Nexus won't display a mod in the "Latest Files" list if it doesn't have any screenshots, preventing this mod from getting more attention from people visiting the website.
In any event, I'll be checking this out in the next day or two and adding my review. I would highly recommend the author consider adding screenshots, and perhaps labeling the mod as Part of the Morrowind May Modathon Month (since this mod was released in May), which should help bring more attention to it.
I attempted to add the screenshots to the mod but encountered the same problems as many have described in the "Changes to the file image uploading system" section of File bug reporting system and image uploading updates.
Adding the screenshots to the "Nexus Images Page" was the only way I could find to upload them. I subsequently looked for a way to link these images to the mod; I had no success with this.
Any advice on how to proceed would be appreciated. I'm happy to fix this myself if provided with (a link to) some instructions: perhaps I just need to wait until the documented bug is fixed. I'm also happy to authorise a site administrator to associate the images with the mod (however that might work).
I'll look forward to your review. I don't know if Syrinx is appropriate for "Morrowind May Modathon Month" but, if you think it is, I can label it as such.
In closing, I haven't used "Morrowind Nexus" previously and this is the first mod I've uploaded. So, being unfamiliar with this site, I've possibly made some novice mistakes: I'll fix any problems if they're pointed out.
7 comments
A wizard did it
This is my approach as well. I'm doing a mod right now and the door in and out of the house is in the Caldera Mage's Guild. I don't have the time or patience to assemble multiple bits on fiddly exteriors!
This looks beautiful. I know I will enjoy it!
Anyway, you certainly seem to like the look of it; I hope you enjoy playing it just as much.
Syrinx is a simple Redoran-style underground manor located underneath the Balmora Silt Strider. This is a somewhat popular location, with about a dozen house mods and even a few dungeon mods utilizing the same spot, so a few conflicts may occur. But otherwise, Syrinx is a really well furnished home with a number of small side rooms connected via a central corridor with labeled containers for easy storage. These rooms include a small armory, study/library, alchemy lab, and bedroom, all decently decorated with static items to make the place feel like home. As far as I can tell, there's no major bugs or issues with the mod, but a problem many players may end up having is the lack of display space. Nearly every available display surface is already taken up by static objects that can't be moved, meaning there's very little space for the player to display their own stuff. Other than that, another small problem that may occur is a slight FPS hit due to the number of lightsources in use. Morrowind's game engine is, to say the least, not very well optimized, and it can't handle large amounts of lightsources very well. Thankfully though, these lightsources aren't static, so the player can actually fix this problem themselves by grabbing any excess lightsources they want and thus reduce the FPS hit. Overall, a fine and well functioning abode, including some custom recipe books for potions (a nice addition), a fast travel scroll that works pretty well, and plenty of storage space, ideal for the kleptomaniac player. Endorsed.
It should also be noted that the file is clean of dirty references and GMSTs. TES3CMD does report one junk cell in the file - Balmora (-3, -2). This can be cleaned out using either Enchanted Editor or TES3CMD (you can find a tutorial for EE here and one for TES3CMD here).
I would recommend taking a look at Danae's Containers resource here on the Nexus, if you're planning to do a future version. You could replace many of the static items with containers from Danae's resource, giving them some functionality while keeping the place balanced and decorated.
In any event, a great first mod, I look forward to seeing what mods you may end up making in the future!
And I absolutely think you should submit this mod for Morrowind May Modathon Month, any mod made in May can be submitted, and it'll get you some extra attention.
I also added some screenshots for you (using Google Chrome), but I don't know if that'll help with visibility.
I've added "*Part of the May Modathon Month*" to the top of the long description. That appears to be the text shown in the YouTube video you linked to earlier (it was a little difficult to read) but differs slightly from the "Part of the Morrowind May Modathon Month" you wrote. Probably not an issue but let me know if it needs changing.
When making this addition, I noticed another problem. Under "File information" there's a text entry prompt for "File name"; accordingly, I had entered the filename: "Syrinx.esp". This prompt should indicate "Module name" (or similar) which is what is really wanted here. I have changed this to "Syrinx", the module name.
I had another bash at uploading screenshots and was finally successful after employing a drastic workaround. See File bug reporting system and image uploading updates for details.
Syrinx is now showing up under "Latest Files".
Again, thanks for all your assistance.
There are some screenshots, but they got added to the Nexus Images Page instead of added to the file itself. This is somewhat unfortunate, since the Nexus won't display a mod in the "Latest Files" list if it doesn't have any screenshots, preventing this mod from getting more attention from people visiting the website.
In any event, I'll be checking this out in the next day or two and adding my review. I would highly recommend the author consider adding screenshots, and perhaps labeling the mod as Part of the Morrowind May Modathon Month (since this mod was released in May), which should help bring more attention to it.
I attempted to add the screenshots to the mod but encountered the same problems as many have described in the "Changes to the file image uploading system" section of File bug reporting system and image uploading updates.
Adding the screenshots to the "Nexus Images Page" was the only way I could find to upload them. I subsequently looked for a way to link these images to the mod; I had no success with this.
Any advice on how to proceed would be appreciated. I'm happy to fix this myself if provided with (a link to) some instructions: perhaps I just need to wait until the documented bug is fixed. I'm also happy to authorise a site administrator to associate the images with the mod (however that might work).
I'll look forward to your review. I don't know if Syrinx is appropriate for "Morrowind May Modathon Month" but, if you think it is, I can label it as such.
In closing, I haven't used "Morrowind Nexus" previously and this is the first mod I've uploaded. So, being unfamiliar with this site, I've possibly made some novice mistakes: I'll fix any problems if they're pointed out.