Looking for opinions and advice:

[Drukakis]

Hi! This is my first post here, I've been lurking for a little less than a week so I figured I'd use this as an opportunity to introduce myself and get a little constructive criticism in regards to what I'm currently working on.

The map I'm working on is a regional/overland map of the Province of Elsweyr from The Elder Scrolls universe for a mod project.

Map of Elsweyr

One thing that is kind of off putting for me during this is that I'm having a tough time getting a decent transition between the coloring of the Ne Quin'al desert in the north and the jungles of Pellitine in the south of the region.

[Badger]

It would help to know what software you are using to create the map before I offer any advice on how to fix it...

[Drukakis]

ah yes. I knew that I'd forget to mention that.

I use Photoshop CS2.

EDIT: Also, I'll point out that this is an early preliminary mock-up of this map. I'm using it as a process to fully flesh out what the others in the project want.

[Robbie]

I'm at work and the site you're map is hosted on is blocked for me, so I can't offer any feedback on the map, but I can express my interest in your project...I'm STILL playing Oblivion...I played it almost all the way through the Shivering Isles expansion after beating all the guilds and main quest on the PC with minor use of the console...now I've fired it back up on the XBox 360 and am playing it on my new 42 inch LCDtv...this time without cheating...and I've done the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves guild all the way through and am almost done with mages guild...I LOVE Oblivion, the graphics are great and the world is so rich with culture and storyline. Tell us about your mod project.

[Drukakis]

Sure, I only just recently joined the project when they started talking about maps, but here goes:

The project is named The Elsweyr Confederacy and is going to create the Province of Elsweyr, homeland of the Khajiit and bring it into Oblivion. There are going to be plenty of new quests, factions, and a good deal of other content. I know that there has been a lot of progress recently with the city of Orcrest which is situated pretty much smack-dab in the middle of the Ne Quin'Al Desert. Since there hasn't been representation of Elsweyr since Arena was released back in 1994, most of the visual style is being created by the team based on the available lore in books and the two Pocket Guides to the Empire.

Besides just the breed of Khajiit shown in Oblivion (which I believe were either Cathay-Raht or Suthay-Raht) the project will be including the sixteen different breeds of Khajiit whose appearance and size are determined by the phases of the moons at their birth. This project will be adding a bunch of stuff previously only mentioned in books, like The Mane (spiritual leader of the Khajiit) and liberation groups such as the Renrijra Krin.

This project is part of a group of other province buliding projects called Beyond Cyrodiil which includes teams recreating the provinces of Valenwood and Black Marsh. Other projects are also adding new territories as well, Tamriel Rebuilt is recreating Hammerfell and there is also a seperate team creating High Rock; these two aren't related to us, but it's always nice to give other teams some lip-service . The Elsweyr project is also affiliated with the Silgrad Tower project who are recreating their mod from Morrowind which added a large chunk of mainland Morrowind off the coast of Vvardenfell.

So, players will be able to travel across the arid wastes of the Ne Quin'Al Desert in Anequina all the way down through the Tenmar Forest to the capital of Senchal in Pellitine.

[Robbie]

I am floored...

I have one question though...books? I didn't know there were elder scrolls books...I just finished reading through the Halo series and am looking for new reading material, and having already put myself in a game mood, I am all over that.

Ok...two questions. If all of Tamriel is being built pretty much for Oblivion...whats going to happen when Bethesda releases their next game and IT features all of Tamriel in an online playable fashion (hinted at over at the UESP wiki news page) and there suddenly becomes HUGE differences between what modders think the rest of Tamriel should be and what Bethesda thinks Tamriel should be? Also, having been on (and still somewhat a part of) a Neverwinter Nights and The Witcher mod team myself as a modeller (I made the first rideable horse model for NWN as a member of the DLA team but did not do the animations for it) I know what the timelines can be like for mods, what happens if the timeline for such a huge project doesn't even finish before Bethesda finishes its next release and there's discrepancies between your content and theirs?

I'm not knocking your teams work at all, I'm just curious what kind of contingencies you guys have in place for such occurences?