I'm going to pitch it again...

[NoSauceRoss]

With reaper's due out, isn't now the perfect time to introduce the sload and thras to the mod? Honestly, I don't understand how anyone could not want to be a obese, hideous slug creature.

 

[Audiate]

Geez lol, what's with all the Sload hate? You guys do realize this is the equivalent of a pre-schooler wanting to play with a toy and all their classmates saying "no, you can't play with that, because I don't want to play with that." No one should be allowed to say, "no, you can't enjoy ___, because I don't agree/want to."

I agree, they're reasonably prominent in the lore, and as I've said elsewhere, they're more so than just trolls or goblins.

 

[Thanezz]

Actually Thras and the Sload were all killed after they unleashed the Thrassian Plague upon Tamriel. The island does come back, but it takes quite some time until it does, I do not see the reasoning behind adding Sloads at the present moment, perhaps if and when, elder kings reaches the third era, then you could take a look at the Sload. But before then, they're pretty much gone.

 

[Audiate]

The Sloads weren't killed off, some accounts even say they purposely sunk Thras to protect it from the Empire. But who's to say that means they were gone? Sure, many were killed when the Empire attacked them, but clearly not all were killed off. They were probably still conducting slave raids and practicing necromancy, because that's seemingly a pretty big part of their culture. All it really means is that between the Thrassian Plague and the resurface of Thras, the Sloads were being very careful about how aggressive they were towards any group. They could still easily be there, on shallow Thrassian islands or living under the surface, doing everything they can to be evil without sparking the wrath of the Empire.

I totally think it's reasonable to incorporate an area and race that just suffers some sort of penalty from time A to time B, likely with MTTH's, like them having no access to whatever special CB they may have, or limited from using various decisions that otherwise would help them greatly, or just greatly reduce the troops their provinces can muster (or how many thralls they can raise, given that's likely how they'd go about doing war). It wouldn't destroy playing them, especially if there was some way to counteract the limitations if you fulfill some sort of goal(s), and it definitely adds a bit of interest to the area between Hammerfell, Yokuda, and Aldmeris, which would be nice. Island hopping through the Chain to conquer Yokuda from Tamriel or vice versa eventually gets old, it would be nice to roleplay as Yokudans attacking the Sloads for vengence or something, and in the process making contact with the Aldmer. Anyone else role play with their games...?

 

[Darsara]

Geez lol, what's with all the Sload hate? You guys do realize this is the equivalent of a pre-schooler wanting to play with a toy and all their classmates saying "no, you can't play with that, because I don't want to play with that." No one should be allowed to say, "no, you can't enjoy ___, because I don't agree/want to."

I agree, they're reasonably prominent in the lore, and as I've said elsewhere, they're more so than just trolls or goblins.

This post will sound very brusk: Well then, mod it yourself. To use your analogy, what's happening is a pre-schooler wants someone else to stop what they're doing to make them a toy when there's other things that person should/wants to be doing. The mod team has always said they'd be willing to consider integrating contributions from other people.

 

[Buladelu]

I'd prefer devs not to make scope even bigger. For years I'm waiting them to deliver a version of a mod working on a current CK2 version.

 

[HandicapdHippo]

Geez lol, what's with all the Sload hate? You guys do realize this is the equivalent of a pre-schooler wanting to play with a toy and all their classmates saying "no, you can't play with that, because I don't want to play with that." No one should be allowed to say, "no, you can't enjoy ___, because I don't agree/want to."

Quit with the hyperbole, most people don't care for the Sload being added, because it would take a load of time and delay the mod further and an underwater kingdom wouldn't work that well in CK2.

 

[Pilatian]

Devs added Dwemer and they're extinct. Sload are not fully extinct. A one size fits all sload portrait and a sload trait wouldn't hurt that much, would it?

 

[Wandering Sentinel]

It's not that simple. If they add the trait and race, they have to change the map and add the portrait, a religion, titles, events, buildings, and localization for all that because people wouldn't want just a portrait, trait, culture, and religion. I assume that would put the mod back several months on top of the complete rework they're doing and eventually patching for compatibility. Considering they're already two major patches behind, they probably don't want or need to worry about adding in another race at present.

 

[Audiate]

It definitely would be simpler and take much less time than all the Akavir changes, many of them going off of guesses since we don't know a lot about the races like Tsaesci or Kamal, nor do we know much about Akavir as a continent, where as we know those things about Thras and the Sloads, including maps and illustrations--I imagine it would be easier to reshape a couple sea provinces and add a few islands than add an entire continent that you would have to design mostly from scratch, given there's so much speculation towards what Akavir might look like--and the devs added in the latter quite well and forwardly. Since there's plans to expand the timeline a lot, it's another thing worth getting done sooner rather than later, which I assume was at least partially the reason why so much work was done in Akavir before anything TES1-5 related was (fully) incorporated.

 

[Wandering Sentinel]

The devs mentioned somewhere that some issues they're currently having were significant enough to warrant starting over from scratch more or less, at least with core features. Once they have those ironed out they'll probably focus on trying to get the mod compatible with Conclave and Reaper's Due before worrying too much about new features. Meanwhile, Paradox is probably already planning the next piece of DLC for this, which makes things harder for the dev team, just like with every major patch and DLC release. I'd honestly be surprised if they're in a position where they can even consider it by the end of the year.

 

[Audiate]

Right. So, going off of that, once the devs fix the problems that exist currently and that are surely to come, and begin developing the mod further with new features, bookmarks, and so forth, what exactly is limiting them from adding in Thras and the Sloads? Never did anyone say "they have to come before all else." I would much prefer to have a really good mod all around with many different playstyles and beginnings and outcomes than a single race or culture, but it would still be nice to get that race or culture. If there was, in the real world, some sort of creatures living in the Atlantic ocean that were disgusting, vile, sinister beings, but biologically traced from humans, and had a totally relevant part of history in medieval Europe and were close enough to mainland Europe to fit on the map, don't you think Paradox would add them into CK2 at some point? Of course, that's the real world, and we don't have things like Sloads to easily compare to, but in Nirn, or at least around western Tamriel, Sloads are absolutely a part, and surely more overall important/relevant than monkey or tiger men and ice men that are ironically called camels.

Previously, the only answer from the devs on this topic was "no." If the reasons behind that were along the lines of "they wouldn't make sense because they're not men or mer" and "how do we even know they were feudal," much of that has already been touched on by myself and others and I've already provided in two threads now just a few ways to make the Sloads unique and enjoyable, you know, for the Oblivion players who preferred the Vile Lair over all other, more amazing, DLC player homes.

This post will sound very brusk: Well then, mod it yourself. To use your analogy, what's happening is a pre-schooler wants someone else to stop what they're doing to make them a toy when there's other things that person should/wants to be doing. The mod team has always said they'd be willing to consider integrating contributions from other people.

Yes, I or anyone else could easily mod in Thras and the Sloads as a submod with some time and some hard work, but the main argument here is "why aren't they just in the base mod?" Once they're in, they're in for good, where as a submod can easily become incompatible, and often times sub-devs can't keep them updated. Just look at many big mod projects that span years of development, many times important devs and even lead, founding devs have to leave the project indefinitely, and given that they have a mod team, those mods can be updated, improved, expanded, and finished. Also, this mod just has great and experienced devs, each better than most at modding CK2. As for considering integrating contributions from other people, given that, again, the only dev responses I can find anywhere regarding the Sloads is a big, fat, and simple "no," with little to no further explanation or reason, it often just seems the team doesn't like the big bags of bile, yet they're more relevant than many things added into the mod already, and that's the concern that I personally have. To touch on the argument made by some previously, the Sloads seem to have a more developed culture, language, etc. than the Draugrs of Atmora, yet they're there, taking up way more map space and provinces than Thras would.

I'd prefer devs not to make scope even bigger. For years I'm waiting them to deliver a version of a mod working on a current CK2 version.

As have I, and as said, I'd personally prefer them update the mod to the current version of CK2 as well. By a huge margin. At a point when I thought I had more free time than I ended up having, I tried helping the development team, but at the time all they had for me to do was making flavor events, and again, I didn't have the time I thought I had. However, given that the mod is planned for a lot of expansion after being caught up to speed with CK2, I personally think the addition of something like Sloads, as well as any other changes to the map or additions of x, y, or z, should happen between the catching up and the expanding on periods. If they were added sooner rather than later, it may mean a bit more work per significant patch (like adding in more history for a bookmark), but it also means there'd be less work to do all at once if they're implemented way further down the line, meaning they'd be even less likely to see in the mod, having tons of more work to do for them.

Sheesh, good thing I enjoy writing. I might as well write a book at this rate. How does "A Memoir of the Argument Supporting the Addition of Big Gross Monsters into a Mega-High Fantasy Mod for a Medieval Historical/Ahistorical Video Game on the Grounds of the Sanctity of Lore" sound? Heh.

 

[Korbah]

Sload will be added at some point as a minor race without dynamic portraits (they're already partially implemented). They aren't intended to be fully playable but there won't be anything stopping someone ruler designing one in. Thras itself won't be added, no changes to the map are planned aside from perhaps adding or altering provinces if new lore becomes available or we need to for some purpose but adding new landmass won't happen.

Portraits are Saffron's work; I think he really did the Sload justice

 

[saffronmar]

Audiate, I would love to read your writing in a different form hopefully rather than passionate forum whining - you certainly have the energy for it. The reason the team puts new comers into event writing is because we are open to, and badly need flavour events for the many races of tamriel.

 

[LeSingeAffame]

Why don't you all work on the Sloads if you want them so badly ? The devs are already working on a thousand things, and do not have time to spare on such a thing.
Go for it, if you give the devs actual content instead of complaining, the chance of having the Sloads into the game will increase drastically.

 

[Audiate]

Sload will be added at some point as a minor race without dynamic portraits (they're already partially implemented). They aren't intended to be fully playable but there won't be anything stopping someone ruler designing one in. Thras itself won't be added, no changes to the map are planned aside from perhaps adding or altering provinces if new lore becomes available or we need to for some purpose but adding new landmass won't happen.

Portraits are Saffron's work; I think he really did the Sload justice

Those look grea- well, THEY don't look great, but great work saffron for capturing that so well! I'm happy to hear that they're being added, but may I ask two things? How are they to be introduced into the mod if not as the owners and inhabitants of Thras? Will they work like vanilla CK2 foreign councilors, in that events trigger for random players that a Sload turned up looking for work? Will necromancers be able to invite one to court to help with sinister activities?

Despite all the question marks, my second question is about the map. You said there's no plans to add Thras, but is that a matter of development practicality, or are there specific reasons Thras should not be added?

Why don't you all work on the Sloads if you want them so badly ? The devs are already working on a thousand things, and do not have time to spare on such a thing.
Go for it, if you give the devs actual content instead of complaining, the chance of having the Sloads into the game will increase drastically.

I actually have started working on a few versions of Thras, mostly what it would look like sunken, so much of the swamps are gone, and you're left with the more hilly and high-rising bits of land left as smaller islands. The only problem I'm running into, aside from having minimal experience modding maps aside from repositioning a few boarders, is playability. Given that Thras was already pretty small, making them appropriately sized and smaller than they were with the marshes, which made up a generous portion of some of the islands, is proving quite difficult. I'll continue screwing and hammering around with it if the mod team could make use of it, I'm not a big submod kind of guy after running into so many incompatabilities. Damn Skyrim has been running me up a wall with that lately.

Audiate, I would love to read your writing in a different form hopefully rather than passionate forum whining - you certainly have the energy for it. The reason the team puts new comers into event writing is because we are open to, and badly need flavour events for the many races of tamriel.

I do write ASOIAF spin-off fanfictions based on various topics from A World of Ice and Fire and my own lil brain, but I assume you're more interested in things Elder Scrolls related. I'd always be happy to write for the team, but event modding has never been my forte, since it's more time consuming for me than simply writing. When I got assigned some work on Akavir way back, I basically had nothing to work with, since the most I knew then about Akavir is involving invasions and subjugations and assassinations and a guy named Uriel. Some of my favorite stuff in CK2 and CK2 mods are event chains, so if you guys ever need pages of content on anything Tamrielic, just let me know and give me a max character count.

 

[Korbah]

A basic checklist for Thras would be;

• Create the landmass in the topology file and use it to generate a normal map. I spent a lot more time on Akavir's than Tamriel's admittedly, but by the time I redid Akavir I'd learned a fair bit about creating heightmaps by hand and I'm quite proud of it. My favourite part being the river valley in the south.
• Draw the terrain types in the terrain.bmp.
• Add any trees in the trees.bmp.
• Draw the provinces in the province map.
• Draw in the islands to rivers.bmp
• Draw the islands in colormaps, it's what basically "prettifies" the terrain. It's the reason Elsweyr's desert, Hammerfell and the Potun's deserts look different, as well as how northern Skyrim, Atmora and southern Kamal are perpetually covered in a layer of snow/ice for example.
• Add the appropriate entries to definition.csv, positions.txt, region files, seasons, adjacencies.
• Create the new landed_titles entries along with new flags for the new titles (consider that we're missing flags even for core areas on Tamriel and elsewhere).
• Create province, title and character histories covering the 4 (technically 5) bookmarks we currently have.
• Localise everything.

The time it would take me to do all that would be a weekend or more of modding if I'm motivated which I'd rather spend working on other areas of the mod and conflicts with my current plans on the Sload. There will be one landed Sload at some point in history on a small island somewhere off the coast of Hammerfell but other than that they'll make potential appearances in invasions (like Sunset Invasion) and other things. They're being included as a minor race, not a full blown one; hence the lack of dynamic portraits.

 

[NoSauceRoss]

A basic checklist for Thras would be;

• Create the landmass in the topology file and use it to generate a normal map. I spent a lot more time on Akavir's than Tamriel's admittedly, but by the time I redid Akavir I'd learned a fair bit about creating heightmaps by hand and I'm quite proud of it. My favourite part being the river valley in the south.
• Draw the terrain types in the terrain.bmp.
• Add any trees in the trees.bmp.
• Draw the provinces in the province map.
• Draw in the islands to rivers.bmp
• Draw the islands in colormaps, it's what basically "prettifies" the terrain. It's the reason Elsweyr's desert, Hammerfell and the Potun's deserts look different, as well as how northern Skyrim, Atmora and southern Kamal are perpetually covered in a layer of snow/ice for example.
• Add the appropriate entries to definition.csv, positions.txt, region files, seasons, adjacencies.
• Create the new landed_titles entries along with new flags for the new titles (consider that we're missing flags even for core areas on Tamriel and elsewhere).
• Create province, title and character histories covering the 4 (technically 5) bookmarks we currently have.
• Localise everything.

The time it would take me to do all that would be a weekend or more of modding if I'm motivated which I'd rather spend working on other areas of the mod and conflicts with my current plans on the Sload. There will be one landed Sload at some point in history on a small island somewhere off the coast of Hammerfell but other than that they'll make potential appearances in invasions (like Sunset Invasion) and other things. They're being included as a minor race, not a full blown one; hence the lack of dynamic portraits.

Thanks for the response korbah. It was a pleasant surprise to get a status update and find that you guys actually have plans for the sload going forward. As always, you guys are legends. Thanks for making something so good that it has an argumentative fanbase. I love you.

 

[_Arzakon_]

Mmmmh. N'gasta.

 

[Astrades]

So, we have falmers and dwemers and sloads will eventually appear in mod. How about lilmothiit and kothringi? Will they become once minor races in Elder Kings?