Skyrim

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ConspiracyDawg

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Kazeii1

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About this mod

Makes Whiterun less... empty.

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21 November 2017: Added FAQ.
4 November 2017: Changed series name.


Look, I know. Nobody asked for another Whiterun mod. But I'd already made the thing for my own use, so I thought I might as well post it. So here, my first Nexus mod.

I really, really like JK's Whiterun (and everything else), but Whiterun still felt a little empty to me. You know, for a hold capital and trade center and all, there's remarkably few people living there. So I went looking, and I found Ultimate Whiterun, which is also pretty nice. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite what I was looking for, and anyway I like throwing things around in the Creation Kit, so I made my own mod, which attempts to do in one mod what these mods do separately. Didn't quite succeed in my opinion, but it looks pretty nice and I had a lot of fun with it, so here you guys go. 

That said, I basically wanted JK's Whiterun but bigger, so some things, such as the gate into the Skyforge, may feel... familiar, shall we say? Sorry, JK. You're a darned good level designer.

Basically, this mod adds a bunch of new houses to the city, each with its own personality (admittedly, some have rather more personality than others). It also adds stuff to the houses that were already there, appropriate to the owners' individual interests. If they didn't have interests in the vanilla game, I gave them some. I wanted it to feel like people were actually living in this city, rather than just wandering through it now and then. It also makes Whiterun more defensible and adds a little bit of a medieval atmosphere because I have an interest in that sort of thing.

Plus, you can take down an entrenched skooma dealer. That's fun. It's not a full-scale quest because I don't know how to make one and am not super interested in learning, but you can follow his dastardly deeds through notes and dead bodies (plus some disturbingly live ones), destroy the local aspects of his organization, and eventually find and kill him. If you need help getting started, I'd recommend either the storehouse behind the guard post by the gate or the half-finished shack by Ysolda's. Wouldn't recommend doing it on your brand new file, though; the baddies, as hardened criminals, are designed to be reasonably tough.

You need Whiterun house foundations by Percevan. Things will look very weird without it.
You also need Dawnguard for this one tree in front of Dragonsreach, and I think I may have used an asset or two from Dragonborn. I'm honestly not sure. It probably won't be game breaking or anything if you don't have them, but I'm going to say you need them to be safe.


Reasonably Comprehensive Feature List:
-30-something new residences (exteriors only)
-A not-quite-quest involving a skooma dealer
-Security improvements (gates. in. the. gatehouses. plus crenelations and a bunch of other stuff)
-Everyone gets a yard or a garden or something relevant to their interests
-Dragonsreach grounds made more interesting
-Proper Hall of the Dead grounds (basically this town finally gets a cemetery)
-Outdoor dining area for the Bannered Mare, as well as, god forbid, banners
-Secret entrance/exit to the city
-Two not-really-dungeons (they've got, like, two enemies each)
-Some goats and a bunch of chickens
-Everybody gets more firewood
-Brief profanity


Reasonably Comprehensive Issue List:
-Performance hit: potentially bad, potentially negligible. This mod adds an awful lot of stuff to Whiterun, and it crashes my ancient, long-suffering desktop, causes lots of FPS drop with my laptop, and runs perfectly fine on my shiny new desktop. Just...be aware of the possibility.
-Conflicts: mods that add objects to Whiterun may conflict. Mods that modify existing things in Whiterun may conflict. There is a potential for lighting mod conflicts, as I did move some of the lights in the city slightly, but I don't imagine that those conflicts would be extreme.
-Keys may spawn outside of lockbox. Just has to do with how the physics treat them on that particular day, even though I specifically instructed the game's physics to ignore them. 1/5 occurrence for me.
-J'Karth and the cook may politely ask you to leave instead of attacking you. I honestly do not know why this happens, and I wash my hands of the whole business. Hit them and they'll fight back properly.
-Walks-As-Beast may spawn just outside of the upstairs room instead of in it. Don't know why, but it shouldn't affect anything. Just hit him as usual.
-Chickens may escape enclosures. Look, for some reason, the game lets them open doors sometimes. It's poor decision making, yes, I agree, but it wasn't my poor decision making.
-Grey-Mane cow may spontaneously decide not to exist. It'll be back.
-There will be clipping in the Battle of Whiterun, mostly involving catapults and rubble. Shouldn't be game breaking, but I haven't actually tested it.
-Brief profanity


FAQ: 
Q: Is this mod compatible with [other city mod]?
A: No. Well, I haven't tested it, but chances are very, very low.

Q: SSE????!!!!!!
A: Not in the near future.

Q: But why? The 64-bit engine is far superior for rendering many objects at once, so it significantly decreases the performance impact of most city mods.
A: Yeah, but I'm lazy and I really don't want to do upkeep for double the mods. You're always welcome to port it yourself. 

Q: Why won't you make interiors? This mod ruined my immersion.
A: I very rarely actually go inside buildings in Skyrim, and I don't really like making interiors and linking them up with exteriors and whatnot. It's a whole lot of extra work for something I know I'm never going to use, and something that I feel the mod works fine without (y'all didn't complain when Witcher did it; give Skyrim the same consideration).

Q: And NPCs?
A: Pain in the bum. Especially given that I don't want to make interiors. I'd recommend using a mod like Inconsequential NPCs or Populated Cities if the absence of inhabitants really bugs you. 

Q: Okay, well, what about navmesh? That's like, basic.
A: Have you seen navmesh? Most intimidating interface I ever saw in my life. Also, I do my best to build out of the way of NPC paths. You might still get a collision or two, and your followers will be very confused, but it shouldn't be a total disaster.

Q: All these answers are permutations of "I'm lazy." Why are you even making mods?
A: I make them for myself, and then, when they make me happy, I offer them to you all, typically as-is (though I'm always open to creative suggestions). The point at which they make me happy is not as advanced as it might be for a more skilled and dedicated mod author, but it's just a matter of what you're willing to live with. I'm perfectly happy to live without interiors, NPCs, and navmesh edits. If you're not, I'm sorry to hear it, but these aren't the mods for you. Another Skyrim is never going to be well looked after. If something's genuinely broken, I'll fix it, but at the end of the day, I made these mods for me, and while I am delighted beyond words that other people enjoy them (seriously, the reception to these has been more positive than I had ever dreamed), the amount of work I'm willing to do on them is very limited.

Q: Why does this mod tank my performace?
A: It adds a whole lot of buildings. I optimize as best I can, I really do, but there's only so much you can do. Sorry. I know your pain.

Q: Performance? Compatibility? Mods in screenshots?
A: See "Reasonably Comprehensive Issue List" for the first two, and "Mods in screenshots" for the last one.


Mods in screenshots:
-VandB ENB Nature
-Enhanced Landscapes with Green Fields plugin, for green grass. However, I believe new versions do not include this option, so you'd have to download an older one.
-aMidianBorn Whiterun (and every other mod Cabal ever made), textures
-DynDoLOD (uncheck this mod in your load order when you're generating new LODs)
-The Useless Shop and Interior Overhaul, which is why I left the Drunken Huntsman alone.


Future plans: 
Officially, absolutely none, don't ask, I won't do it, bugger off, I'm never opening Creation Kit again. This was created for my own use and I am offering it as is. Unofficially, I like messing about with this thing, so I may drop in and add new stuff occasionally. Or not. We'll see. I'd like to do a Whiterun Exterior mod, expand the city a bit outside the walls, as happens with medieval cities, so the area surrounding it doesn't feel quite so barren. I'd also like to do a similar mod for the other enclosed cities, but that's unlikely. If you've got an idea for something that'd look awesome in this mod, tell me and I'll take it under advisement. Or, if you see an issue, tell me, and I may or may not fix it. I'll probably just tell you to fix it yourself, but you never know.


Credit:
Thanks to Bethesda for Skyrim, in all its glory, which we are still appreciating years later. Thanks to JKrojmal for the really excellent JK's Skyrim series. Thanks to Captain Swoop for Ultimate Whiterun, which is really a heck of a mod. Thanks eternal to Percevan for creating Whiterun Foundations, and thanks to Elinen for uploading it, because without that glorious mod, this would've been even more of a pain than it already was.


Changelog:
7 May 2017: Shiroyel added patches for JK's Skyrim and Dawn of Whiterun like a boss
v1.1 30 April 2017: fixed gaps and added occlusion boxes

Please do not repost, etc.