I am extremely proud to say that update 3.0 is now released! This took months of hard work, and although it took longer than planned, I hope you all enjoy it :)
If you're updating from an old version, you will need a new savegame (character). However, if playing for the first time, you can install the mod mid-playthrough.
The mod includes some massive changes, such as a huge overhaul to Lastendell including 5 new quests (such as travelling across multiple realms of Oblivion!) and a newly voiced merchant. It also includes a total revamp of Freywyn Hall (the playable home) into a customisable Hearthfire style house with which no longer requires a side quest to purchase. For a full changelog, please see below:
Spoiler:
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Added in 5 new unique side quests to Lastendell which are:
"Closing the Rifts" - A huge quest involving finding 5 portals to Oblivion across Lastendell, entering them into unique realms and completing interesting tasks to close them
"Of Trade and Strife" - Hunt down a Scamp and journey into Oblivion to retrieve a Sigil Stone
"Black Book: Aperture of Nihility" - a black book dungeon with its own unique rewards
"A Stray Wisp" - rescue a wisp trapped in Lastendell and send it home
"Protective Measures" - stop a Daedric ritual threatening Lastendell
Expanded the locations of Lastendell to have more variation including interiors
Added a new mysterious merchant to Lastendell (who I hope you'll love) with his own quest "Of Trade and Strife" and unique new dagger reward
Revamped Freywyn Hall into a Hearthfire-style house with customisable wings and over 250 buildable objects that is no longer locked behind a quest
Added a new spell, “Conjure Dremora Warlock” which can be purchased from The Tradesman in Lastendell or found hidden in the new realms
Reworked the "Spectral Hunt" quest to involve a more interesting boss fight taking place in a unique realm
Expanded multiple interiors to make them more interesting and unique
Added new model to the Bow of Florin (credits to InsanitySorrow)
Given the assassin from "A dangerous scheme" a new weapon (credits to InsanitySorrow) and armour set (credits to WasBunny)
Improved and expanded lore by rewriting most of the books and a few load screens
Revamped Aryrru exterior
Fixed Aryrru seams
Added more dust and cobwebs to the Ayleid ruins
Added a kinetic resonator puzzle to waterstone cave (solution top L, bottom R, top R, top L)
Added new texture to mudcrabs (credits to Bellyache)
Fixed stuttering and lag (I hope!) due to a faulty esm conversion (I'll still provide esp version) and too much kelp underwater
Added an extra house in Florin (to help with improved performance),
Improved Scholars trial final puzzle (solution silver cup, human skull, firewood, chicken egg)
Moved Elysia's misc quest to the north island to encourage travel there
Reduced volume of courier lines
Tyrek should now return to Midwood Isle when dismissed from another worldspace
The champions should no longer be hit during the trial
Champions trial difficulty modified
Fixed Telani's crown and Valdil's helmet invisibility
Fixed DLC arrows not working in archery tourney
Altered worms in the trees objective markers to be clearer
Now returns a dragon soul if you have already unlocked the word of Steal Soul Essence before being taught it
Nesianna now gets the ruined house after "A dangerous scheme"
Adjusted Lastendell atronach health and damage
Improved sand LOD to be brighter,
Added failsafe to "A business arrangement" to make sure it progresses
Nedhel now gains some stuff over time after completing "A drunken beggar"
Added a few rocks to base of the Nordic towers and lighthouse
fixed VR bug of Lastendell NPCs spawning in random cities (credits to benjapo for spotting this and uploading a fix)
Sadly had to remove aurora from Lastendell sky due to a bug with the soul cairn and apocrypha sky bleeding back into lastendell :(
Huge thanks to CBVoiceover for providing the voice for the merchant, and all the other modders for providing the assets I used (please see the credits section on the main page for a full list).
I'll be uploading to Bethesda net in the next couple of days. I'll also take a look at the patches and make sure they all work properly, as well as come up with a few more.
At the moment I am feeling incredibly burnt out, and think this will be the last update to Midwood Isle. The mod is packed with content and things to do, and I'm really proud of how it turned out. Thank you all for reading, and I hope you enjoy the update!
So far, I have been totally impressed by this mod, however, I'm having a major problem. When I click on the statue that is supposed to take me to Lastendell, my screen goes dark for a second as if going to the loading screen, but then comes back to the statue but without a HUD. at this point, my game is locked with me just standing at the statue. I re-downloaded the mod and the hotfix, but I'm still having the same issue. Any ideas on how to fix this?
Thanks for replying, Steve. Tyrek dismisses himself at the statue and I left Sofia in a nearby town. I still have the same issue. I've deleted and reinstalled this mod several times, but I always get the same issue at the same place. Up until now, I haven't had any problems but this one. I tried loading a previous save as well, but this problem continues.
Sorry, I didn't like your mod. Surely, it is a beautiful and well designed land (the landmarks, actually), but there are some issues. The main problem are the constant CTDs after the grand voyage in the final quest(s). Couldn't finish the story. Sure, it can be something interfering in my mod list, I don't know. Also, some quests are very (very) irritating. One, in particular, doesn't make any sense since all the "kingdoms" are so close of each other. Any outsider of Midwood shouldn't have to interfere so anyone's wishes of these quest givers' are attended. Another problem, which I just mentioned, is the proximity of places. They are just so close of each other. There's no real exploring. I just triped in them. This is quite annoying. Last but not least, as I mentioned in an earlier commentary, there is the peculiarity of everyone (or almost) being so friendly and open to my character only because I am a dragonborn. Even the kingdoms lords' are like that. It shouldn't be that easy. Sure, it is not like I am asking to be treated like the characters from the "Beyond Reach" mod even after doing everything they asked me to do (ethically). Though, I don't mind having to rising in the ranks a bit and just gradually achieving some kind of respect from my superiors.
Even after my complaints, congratulations on your path.
nice mod ...but on my playtrough i have shumer,bruma,arnima,sky divide (maids2) wyrmstooth, elsweyr (dbm) falskaar etc the midwood isle is the smallest but i get CTD every 500 meters in exterior and that only in midwood anywhere else all ok soo please why is that i cant understand thanks ah, and i use the light version of midwood
Also happened to me, though only in the final(s) quest(s) - from the shrine onward. And I only have (at the time) some new lands' mods: Beyond Reach (which I haven't had any, if only a few, CTDs) & Beyond Skyrim: Bruma (which I haven't even started yet in my current playthrough). So, couldn't finish the main quest (I tried, even did the trials and arrived in the place where the villain was, but it crashed so many times that I gave up entirely). Can't say it's a shame for not completing the mod, since I dislike many of the quests. It was certainly not a Beyond Reach type of mod in the manner of depth and immersion. In this mod, everyone liked me from the start and treated me as their king/lord solely for being the dragonborn. I hate this.
This mod is a textbook example of how not to design a quest in an RPG.
Talk to guy X who sends you to guy Y, who sends you to guy Z who sends you to guys A and B, each of which sends you back to guy Z who then sends you to C who in turn sends you to guy D who finally sends you somewhere that actually progresses the quest's plotline.
Basically that for most of the quests in this mod, including the main one. Also, no. The 'small favors' quests is not good because it's self-aware.
For f***'s sake, I know Skyrim's quests are not exactly winning any rewards for their design, but this makes them look like Witcher 3 side quests.
Following your cricital analysis of this mod you are clearly an expert modder capable of producing high quality mods, full of intrigue and suspense with superb graphics. Would you be kind enough to leave a link to your Nexus site so I and others might enjoy the benefits of your ability. Thank you.
Following your deep rebuttal to my criticism, you are clearly an expert reviewer capable of producing high quality criticism, full of insight and references with accurate points. Would you be kind enough you leave a link to your blog page, so I and others might enjoy the benefits of your ability? Thank you.
On a serious note, why do you think being involved in a certain field is a prerequisite to deliver any criticism in its regard? I do not need to be a car engineer to identify that a car without a wheel has a major issue that will be to a detriment to it's function as a vehicle. All I need is an understanding of said function and knowledge on how the wheel benefits this function. Similarly, when it comes to my criticism of this mod, I do not need to have ever made a mod to be able to identify flaws in its design. All I need is to have actually experienced the mod in question and have a reference frame to compare its elements to; in this case that would be the quest design which is the only point I made, and every other quest across any game/mod I've played.
So, to follow up on that, I will now compare the quest design in this mod to a quest in a game I'm playing right now, Gothic 2. As I stated in my original post, the quest design in this mod relies heavily on sending you one point to another to interact with an NPC, which is something it repeats a lot across most of its quests. You are given a pointer to follow, and you follow it because that is all you can do. Now let's look at a quest in Gothic where you are instructed to obtain an item and bring it back to the quest giver. To boil it down, the same way I did with the quest in this mod, it would go as follows: Talk to QG, find the item he wants, bring it back, profit. As you may have noticed, this is kind of different from this mod. You are given one task to do, with no defined path to complete it.
To give more context, in this quest you are tasked with proving yourself capable of killing an orc and bringing back its weapon as proof. The quest giver gives you directions as to where you might find an orc, and if you follow them, you will actually find an orc warrior with his pet wolf hanging out in a cave, but unfortunately at this stage of the game the orc can and will kill you with one strike while you do not have the damage output to penetrate his armor, meaning if you want to win this you have to be lucky enough to kill the wolf quickly enough to not fight 2 opponents at once and be skilled enough to not get hit even once while chipping away at the orc with minimal damage the game allows you to deal for a long while. In other words, you are fucked. Luckily for you, that is not the only way to complete this quest. Note that the objective here is not to kill this orc, it's to get an orcish weapon. How and where you get it from is a different matter, and here you have two alternatives. One, you can accompany a local hunter into a nearby forest on another quest and if you pressure him to keep going you will eventually find an orc scout. A much weaker opponent that you can fight with an ally, putting you at the advantage. Two, if you talk to guards around the city gate, they will tell you about another orc they shot with crossbows and give you directions to where it run off to. Follow these directions, and you will find a cave with an orc inside. Dead one, as it bled out due to injuries. So to sum it up, you have three different ways of completing one task that rely entirely on your capacity to interact with the world, your own desire to explore it and your ability to navigate it.
Meanwhile, the quests in this mod, and most of Skyrim to be honest, are all about following the map marker. You are not given any option to go off path because the quest design is strictly rigid and doesn't include any open objectives. The mere fact that I can write the whole previous paragraph just about how this one quest is designed, while with this mod and Skyrim I have nothing more than 'follow the map marker', is a statement of its own.
Sorry if I'm a bit long-witted, I like to think through the positions I hold :)
Ah yes, #LongManBad. Haven't seen this in a while. Not exactly invalidating anything I stated, though. I'm going to take this as a win and pat myself on the back.
His criticism could have been worded in a kinder way, but your response is the weakest comeback possible. The "you can't do it, so you can't criticise it" is laughably pointless. You don't have to be a chef to know you've been served a bad meal and you don't have to be a mod author to give feedback to a mod author. It's one of the reasons for comments sections in the first place.
Further to you derogatory comments and pathetic attempt to undermine my experience and qualifications, be advised that I am qualified to PGCE and spent many years working with applicants for the British army required in specialist divisions. So yes, I am a professional reviewer, not for some amateurish blog, but in real life affecting real situations. In response to your marvellous "car wheel" analogy, no, you don't have to be an expert in particular fields to comment, but it's how you comment that matters - constructive criticism is good in the right place, but to blatantly annihilate the hard work of a modder who has published his work free of charge is totally unacceptable unless of course you can produce better? I ask again as I could not find any link to your mods within the rambling gibberish which spewed from your mindset.
One can make a comment without being an expert, but not if it's about something free? Sir, that is irrelevant. If you are served a rotten carcass as a free meal, you can criticize it regardless of your ability to cook.
Also, I feel the need to firmly state that I am not comparing the mod to said carcass, as you seem to have interpreted me delivering a single point of criticism regarding a single aspect of the mod as me "blatantly annihilate the hard work of a modder".
The whole point of criticism is finding what works and what doesn't while trying to answer the question of 'why', which makes the difference between the criticism being constructive or not. And yes, my original comment could not be considered constructive, as all it did is point out a point of frustration I had with the mod after playing through it to completion, which could have been worded better and more constructively... like I did in my first reply to you, where I identified the specific issue I took with the quest design, that being its rigid structure and handholding, and compare that to what I view to be a well-designed quest with exploration of why that is. Criticism is to be learned from, regardless of the form it takes, as long as it's relevant and accurate there is something to be learned from it.
As for the gibberish that spewed from my mind, I am glad to inform you that I have recently started to work on a game and will be glad to let you know about it when and if I ever finish it. There is also a Machinima series on YouTube that I worked on with a friend, but considering that it was made over 8 years ago when I was still in highschool and the fact that the only two episodes that were translated into english by me are the first two episodes that both had little to no creative input from me and that both me and my friend consider to be the worst of the 14 that were completed, I will skip on that. There are however plans to remake the series in the near future, if that plan comes into fruition I will be sure to add english subtitles just for you.
(Sorry for any gramatical problem, 'cause I'm not a english speaker)
I Have a problem in my Midwood questline, i can't go to the cutscene of the worshipers, everytime I click on the "i'm ready to go" answer, it just close the conversation menu, i tried reload it, even tried to be arrested, but nothing works. Could someone help me, please?
495 comments
I am extremely proud to say that update 3.0 is now released!
This took months of hard work, and although it took longer than planned, I hope you all enjoy it :)
If you're updating from an old version, you will need a new savegame (character). However, if playing for the first time, you can install the mod mid-playthrough.
The mod includes some massive changes, such as a huge overhaul to Lastendell including 5 new quests (such as travelling across multiple realms of Oblivion!) and a newly voiced merchant. It also includes a total revamp of Freywyn Hall (the playable home) into a customisable Hearthfire style house with which no longer requires a side quest to purchase.
For a full changelog, please see below:
Huge thanks to CBVoiceover for providing the voice for the merchant, and all the other modders for providing the assets I used (please see the credits section on the main page for a full list).
I'll be uploading to Bethesda net in the next couple of days. I'll also take a look at the patches and make sure they all work properly, as well as come up with a few more.
At the moment I am feeling incredibly burnt out, and think this will be the last update to Midwood Isle. The mod is packed with content and things to do, and I'm really proud of how it turned out.
Thank you all for reading, and I hope you enjoy the update!
The main problem are the constant CTDs after the grand voyage in the final quest(s). Couldn't finish the story. Sure, it can be something interfering in my mod list, I don't know.
Also, some quests are very (very) irritating. One, in particular, doesn't make any sense since all the "kingdoms" are so close of each other. Any outsider of Midwood shouldn't have to interfere so anyone's wishes of these quest givers' are attended.
Another problem, which I just mentioned, is the proximity of places. They are just so close of each other. There's no real exploring. I just triped in them. This is quite annoying.
Last but not least, as I mentioned in an earlier commentary, there is the peculiarity of everyone (or almost) being so friendly and open to my character only because I am a dragonborn. Even the kingdoms lords' are like that. It shouldn't be that easy. Sure, it is not like I am asking to be treated like the characters from the "Beyond Reach" mod even after doing everything they asked me to do (ethically). Though, I don't mind having to rising in the ranks a bit and just gradually achieving some kind of respect from my superiors.
Even after my complaints, congratulations on your path.
on my playtrough i have shumer,bruma,arnima,sky divide (maids2) wyrmstooth, elsweyr (dbm) falskaar etc
the midwood isle is the smallest but i get CTD every 500 meters in exterior and that only in midwood anywhere else all ok
soo please why is that i cant understand
thanks
ah, and i use the light version of midwood
Talk to guy X who sends you to guy Y, who sends you to guy Z who sends you to guys A and B, each of which sends you back to guy Z who then sends you to C who in turn sends you to guy D who finally sends you somewhere that actually progresses the quest's plotline.
Basically that for most of the quests in this mod, including the main one. Also, no. The 'small favors' quests is not good because it's self-aware.
For f***'s sake, I know Skyrim's quests are not exactly winning any rewards for their design, but this makes them look like Witcher 3 side quests.
On a serious note, why do you think being involved in a certain field is a prerequisite to deliver any criticism in its regard? I do not need to be a car engineer to identify that a car without a wheel has a major issue that will be to a detriment to it's function as a vehicle. All I need is an understanding of said function and knowledge on how the wheel benefits this function. Similarly, when it comes to my criticism of this mod, I do not need to have ever made a mod to be able to identify flaws in its design. All I need is to have actually experienced the mod in question and have a reference frame to compare its elements to; in this case that would be the quest design which is the only point I made, and every other quest across any game/mod I've played.
So, to follow up on that, I will now compare the quest design in this mod to a quest in a game I'm playing right now, Gothic 2. As I stated in my original post, the quest design in this mod relies heavily on sending you one point to another to interact with an NPC, which is something it repeats a lot across most of its quests. You are given a pointer to follow, and you follow it because that is all you can do. Now let's look at a quest in Gothic where you are instructed to obtain an item and bring it back to the quest giver. To boil it down, the same way I did with the quest in this mod, it would go as follows: Talk to QG, find the item he wants, bring it back, profit. As you may have noticed, this is kind of different from this mod. You are given one task to do, with no defined path to complete it.
To give more context, in this quest you are tasked with proving yourself capable of killing an orc and bringing back its weapon as proof. The quest giver gives you directions as to where you might find an orc, and if you follow them, you will actually find an orc warrior with his pet wolf hanging out in a cave, but unfortunately at this stage of the game the orc can and will kill you with one strike while you do not have the damage output to penetrate his armor, meaning if you want to win this you have to be lucky enough to kill the wolf quickly enough to not fight 2 opponents at once and be skilled enough to not get hit even once while chipping away at the orc with minimal damage the game allows you to deal for a long while. In other words, you are fucked. Luckily for you, that is not the only way to complete this quest. Note that the objective here is not to kill this orc, it's to get an orcish weapon. How and where you get it from is a different matter, and here you have two alternatives. One, you can accompany a local hunter into a nearby forest on another quest and if you pressure him to keep going you will eventually find an orc scout. A much weaker opponent that you can fight with an ally, putting you at the advantage. Two, if you talk to guards around the city gate, they will tell you about another orc they shot with crossbows and give you directions to where it run off to. Follow these directions, and you will find a cave with an orc inside. Dead one, as it bled out due to injuries. So to sum it up, you have three different ways of completing one task that rely entirely on your capacity to interact with the world, your own desire to explore it and your ability to navigate it.
Meanwhile, the quests in this mod, and most of Skyrim to be honest, are all about following the map marker. You are not given any option to go off path because the quest design is strictly rigid and doesn't include any open objectives. The mere fact that I can write the whole previous paragraph just about how this one quest is designed, while with this mod and Skyrim I have nothing more than 'follow the map marker', is a statement of its own.
Sorry if I'm a bit long-witted, I like to think through the positions I hold :)
Not exactly invalidating anything I stated, though. I'm going to take this as a win and pat myself on the back.
Also, I feel the need to firmly state that I am not comparing the mod to said carcass, as you seem to have interpreted me delivering a single point of criticism regarding a single aspect of the mod as me "blatantly annihilate the hard work of a modder".
The whole point of criticism is finding what works and what doesn't while trying to answer the question of 'why', which makes the difference between the criticism being constructive or not. And yes, my original comment could not be considered constructive, as all it did is point out a point of frustration I had with the mod after playing through it to completion, which could have been worded better and more constructively... like I did in my first reply to you, where I identified the specific issue I took with the quest design, that being its rigid structure and handholding, and compare that to what I view to be a well-designed quest with exploration of why that is. Criticism is to be learned from, regardless of the form it takes, as long as it's relevant and accurate there is something to be learned from it.
As for the gibberish that spewed from my mind, I am glad to inform you that I have recently started to work on a game and will be glad to let you know about it when and if I ever finish it. There is also a Machinima series on YouTube that I worked on with a friend, but considering that it was made over 8 years ago when I was still in highschool and the fact that the only two episodes that were translated into english by me are the first two episodes that both had little to no creative input from me and that both me and my friend consider to be the worst of the 14 that were completed, I will skip on that. There are however plans to remake the series in the near future, if that plan comes into fruition I will be sure to add english subtitles just for you.
10/10 funniest quest I've done.
I Have a problem in my Midwood questline, i can't go to the cutscene of the worshipers, everytime I click on the "i'm ready to go" answer, it just close the conversation menu, i tried reload it, even tried to be arrested, but nothing works. Could someone help me, please?