So after some frustrating sifting through mods I've just found out that Sentinel edits the chest_tomb_large01 entry from having leveled items, to instead having 10000 gold, a basic levitation potion, and a leveled weapon. This means all instances of that chest in the game contain that. That's the only one I noticed though, there may be other rogue edits like that.
This is a really nice mod that I enjoy very much! It has a nice design, it looks great both inside and out, and there are a lot of nice details, like the way several torches in the Lord's Chamber illuminate the shield crests behind them. There are some nice rewards inside, but nothing over powered. Some people might think the amount of some items would make this a cheat mod, but I don't think so. Given the location and the enemies inside, I think it is pretty balanced. It also has a nice backstory that seems to fit in well. I think Hos Dagur is a very nice touch. There are a lot of nice ideas in this mod and since it doesn't have its own meshes or textures, it fits in with whatever replacers you might use. I think I found and tested everything and it all worked great. Some of the new spells are interesting too, even though my destruction isn't high enough to cast them. I especially liked a couple of the free spells that are also free to cast! Overall, I really like this mod and I will definitely keep it in my load order. And the hidden doors look and work great. I especially like the ones that are a little more hidden. :)
I did notice a few immersion breaking things that I would fix for myself if I knew how. I could be wrong, but I don't think I have any mods that are conflicting and causing problems.
There is a large tree floating in midair. It's trunk starts about half way up the castle wall. The top most entrance looks like a trap door from outside, but a regular door from the inside. From underneath, on the ground or while levitating, you can see and actually fly through the castle floor/wall to the upper most entrance and the archery chest. It is like the floor and maybe part of the wall isn't there from underneath, but it is there from above. You can see the outline of the trapdoor and the chest. The lower entrance door is almost completely covered by rock. That might have been by design, but the part of the door that you can click on is so small that a PC wouldn't be able to fit through it. In fact, I missed it the first time and didn't see it until I exited the door from the inside and turned around. I am assuming you can't get the shield that is underwater. I couldn't find a way to click on it, but I could have missed something. Finally, there are a few random spots on the exterior of the castle (maybe the interior too) that flicker when you move the mouse. I have seen that before in a couple other mods, but I haven't figured out what causes it.
However, none of these things effect gameplay and they are only minor observations. I would much rather see little things like this than to have issues that cause CTDs or warning messages in-game.
Again, this is a great mod! Thank you so much for sharing it and for all your other mods as well. I know I have tested some of them already and I am going back through my mod list now and testing everything again, in more detail, before my next play through. I definitely plan on going through all of your mods because they seem to work great, fit in nicely, with no game impacting errors.
Thanks again and this mod really should have more endorsements!
EDIT: If there was one thing I could change about this mod it would be to make the dummy into a real practice dummy. I have only tested 2 mods so far that have practice dummies that you can actually train on. Most dummies are for looks only. Either that or the script for the dummy doesn't work. I am always looking to get in some free practice and training! :)
Hi and thank you for this nice and thorough review! I am really glad that you enjoy the mod for the most part as I had intended :) This was one of my favorite mods as I was always very fond of castle ruins and that is primarily what drove the inspiration behind this mod. I am glad that for some people it works as intended and is enjoyable and I appreciate that you recognize the creativity that went into the more unusual features of this mod. I always tried to work with vanilla assets as much as possible in my mods and tried to keep them lore friendly and plausible. Now as for the problems you have observed; first a disclaimer, I have not played Morrowind in a long time let alone worked on mods for it, so I do not even recall some of the things I have done in my mods, but the floating tree and the blocked lower entrance sound to me like another mod interfering, i.e. a rock and tree mod=replacer. I do not recall having those issues in my game but I recall that by design the entrance was blocked by a few boulders as it is a ruin; could be that I over did that but I had no issues activating the door in my game. As for the clipping when levitating; sounds like that could be just game mechanics or if a mod that changed rocks and trees is involved could have affected collision. I do not have a good explanation for it and I used only vanilla assets in this mod, so its either another mod causing this or just a vanilla bug. It has been a long time but I think you may be right about the trapdoor to the tower platform being connected to a regular door in the castle. This was actually intentional; part of it was the logistics of placing a trapdoor inside, and part of it was using your imagination between points.. My idea was that there is a secret passage-stair inside the thick wall of the castle as often was the case in real castles and that imagination fills in the gap because at the time I did not have the vanilla assets to create a narrow passage inside the wall. I admit it may be a bit of a stretch but that was the intention behind that design. As for the dummies, I simply lacked the skill at the time to do anything with them, and I totally agree with you that I wished they would be functional. Alas I no longer mod for Morrowind and I forgot even how I did some of the things I did in my my mods, so pretty much what you see is what you get. I am happy that you enjoy my mods; Morrowind was a profound experience to me.
Thanks for your reply and thanks again for this awesome mod! As I read your reply, I realized that there might actually be a mod conflict for the tree and rock thing. After playing this game since it first came out, I have only recently discovered the joy of using mods and I managed to go through the STEP wiki to improve graphics, appearance, meshes, textures, etc. That wiki includes some mods that change trees, rocks, landscape, and ground cover overall. I don't think of those causing conflicts, but it is very possible they might.
Regardless, just in case anyone takes my original comments wrong, nothing that I noticed caused a problem with game play. The lower door still works for me and the ruins are very fun to explore. I only track stuff like immersion breaking things or problems I notice in my game because some of them I am learning how to fix for my own personal use. And I am keeping a huge spreadsheet of information on all the mods I am testing, to help me and maybe to help other newbie mod users who are totally lost! :)
Thanks again! I completely understand about no longer being active in modding or even MW. I just hope that I can eventually learn to mod to the level of the mods that you have shared with the everyone!
Hi, yes now that you explain that I am pretty sure the landscape alterations you mention would affect the rocks and trees around the castle; there is one particular one another player reported that changes the rocks to the point that they swallow the castle ruin whole. I am glad your set up still works for you and that you can enjoy the mod ;) I do not often meet players that have played Morrowind since it came out and still play it, that's impressive and I can totally understand it. The game has lost none of its allure for me either and I do go back to it from time to time. It was the first RPG I ever played and no other has quite stirred that same sense of wonder in me. If you have not already I highly recommend to look into the Tamriel Rebuild project where you can explore all or most of mainland Morrowind. Their team did a fantastic job and I think they are still working on it. Thank you also for that nice complement, I certainly put allot of heart into my mods but I never considered myself one of the best moders out there, but it is always great when that effort is recognized. Have a great New Year as well!
I am so glad you like it, this mod is very dear to me and was inspired by my love for castle ruins. I am not familiar with the mod you mention mainly because I have not played Morrowind in a long time and am not really modding for it any longer. Can you tell me or maybe share a screen shot in what way those meshes conflict with my mod? I guess some clipping?
MRM replaces all the normal rocks with taller, more jagged ones. Due to this pretty much all of the rocks that the castle is built on go up through the castle.
13 comments
It's a compact living space, with an interesting story and some nice bits to explore.
I did notice a few immersion breaking things that I would fix for myself if I knew how. I could be wrong, but I don't think I have any mods that are conflicting and causing problems.
There is a large tree floating in midair. It's trunk starts about half way up the castle wall. The top most entrance looks like a trap door from outside, but a regular door from the inside. From underneath, on the ground or while levitating, you can see and actually fly through the castle floor/wall to the upper most entrance and the archery chest. It is like the floor and maybe part of the wall isn't there from underneath, but it is there from above. You can see the outline of the trapdoor and the chest. The lower entrance door is almost completely covered by rock. That might have been by design, but the part of the door that you can click on is so small that a PC wouldn't be able to fit through it. In fact, I missed it the first time and didn't see it until I exited the door from the inside and turned around. I am assuming you can't get the shield that is underwater. I couldn't find a way to click on it, but I could have missed something. Finally, there are a few random spots on the exterior of the castle (maybe the interior too) that flicker when you move the mouse. I have seen that before in a couple other mods, but I haven't figured out what causes it.
However, none of these things effect gameplay and they are only minor observations. I would much rather see little things like this than to have issues that cause CTDs or warning messages in-game.
Again, this is a great mod! Thank you so much for sharing it and for all your other mods as well. I know I have tested some of them already and I am going back through my mod list now and testing everything again, in more detail, before my next play through. I definitely plan on going through all of your mods because they seem to work great, fit in nicely, with no game impacting errors.
Thanks again and this mod really should have more endorsements!
EDIT: If there was one thing I could change about this mod it would be to make the dummy into a real practice dummy. I have only tested 2 mods so far that have practice dummies that you can actually train on. Most dummies are for looks only. Either that or the script for the dummy doesn't work. I am always looking to get in some free practice and training! :)
This was one of my favorite mods as I was always very fond of castle ruins and that is primarily what drove the inspiration behind this mod. I am glad that for some people it works as intended and is enjoyable and I appreciate that you recognize the creativity that went into the more unusual features of this mod. I always tried to work with vanilla assets as much as possible in my mods and tried to keep them lore friendly and plausible.
Now as for the problems you have observed; first a disclaimer, I have not played Morrowind in a long time let alone worked on mods for it, so I do not even recall some of the things I have done in my mods, but the floating tree and the blocked lower entrance sound to me like another mod interfering, i.e. a rock and tree mod=replacer. I do not recall having those issues in my game but I recall that by design the entrance was blocked by a few boulders as it is a ruin; could be that I over did that but I had no issues activating the door in my game.
As for the clipping when levitating; sounds like that could be just game mechanics or if a mod that changed rocks and trees is involved could have affected collision. I do not have a good explanation for it and I used only vanilla assets in this mod, so its either another mod causing this or just a vanilla bug. It has been a long time but I think you may be right about the trapdoor to the tower platform being connected to a regular door in the castle. This was actually intentional; part of it was the logistics of placing a trapdoor inside, and part of it was using your imagination between points.. My idea was that there is a secret passage-stair inside the thick wall of the castle as often was the case in real castles and that imagination fills in the gap because at the time I did not have the vanilla assets to create a narrow passage inside the wall.
I admit it may be a bit of a stretch but that was the intention behind that design.
As for the dummies, I simply lacked the skill at the time to do anything with them, and I totally agree with you that I wished they would be functional. Alas I no longer mod for Morrowind and I forgot even how I did some of the things I did in my my mods, so pretty much what you see is what you get.
I am happy that you enjoy my mods; Morrowind was a profound experience to me.
Regardless, just in case anyone takes my original comments wrong, nothing that I noticed caused a problem with game play. The lower door still works for me and the ruins are very fun to explore. I only track stuff like immersion breaking things or problems I notice in my game because some of them I am learning how to fix for my own personal use. And I am keeping a huge spreadsheet of information on all the mods I am testing, to help me and maybe to help other newbie mod users who are totally lost! :)
Thanks again! I completely understand about no longer being active in modding or even MW. I just hope that I can eventually learn to mod to the level of the mods that you have shared with the everyone!
Happy New Year!
I do not often meet players that have played Morrowind since it came out and still play it, that's impressive and I can totally understand it. The game has lost none of its allure for me either and I do go back to it from time to time. It was the first RPG I ever played and no other has quite stirred that same sense of wonder in me.
If you have not already I highly recommend to look into the Tamriel Rebuild project where you can explore all or most of mainland Morrowind. Their team did a fantastic job and I think they are still working on it. Thank you also for that nice complement, I certainly put allot of heart into my mods but I never considered myself one of the best moders out there, but it is always great when that effort is recognized.
Have a great New Year as well!
It does not seem to be compatible with MRM (Mountainous Red Mountain) a popular mod which makes the rock meshes more extreme.
Any plans of doing an MRM update for this?
I am not familiar with the mod you mention mainly because I have not played Morrowind in a long time and am not really modding for it any longer.
Can you tell me or maybe share a screen shot in what way those meshes conflict with my mod? I guess some clipping?
Thanks for the response!