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The Ayleid Steps 3.5

   (3 reviews)

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About This File

THE AYLEID STEPS

================

Version 3.5, Mar 2012 - Updated by WalkerInShadows

INTRODUCTION:

--------------------

As long as anyone can remember, hundreds of ancient Ayleid stones sit in Cyrodill's wilderness and in Ayleid structures such as ruins and wells. What almost nobody knows however, is what these so-called Steps are supposed to do. Doing the intro Quest, you find out that this network of stones is in fact a teleporting system. Each time you want to teleport, you have to energize the Step with a Welkynd stone.

You can teleport directly into Ayleid ruins, to Ayleid wells, and to lots of locations that the Ayleids once considered important. But you have to prepare yourself: many Steps are defective and will refuse to work, or beam you to random locations. You can land in someone's basement, in government buildings, in caves in the middle of a bunch of goblins, and in very remote and unusual places. Or you can discover about 50 new dungeons, hitherto unknown to man, where lots of treasure and enemies await you. There are two new homes to be found, too - a small one on completing the introduction quest (not very pretty, but it has a bedroll, a private Stepstone (no doors) and many safe containers), and a large one at the end of the final quest, situated in an Ayleid ruin in a private domain.

To start the intro quest you have to try to activate one Stepstone and read a book on the topic. There are no quest markers in your compass during the intro quest - you have to examine, read and think a bit, and search a lot. When you can actually use the Steps, the quest is not over before you find a certain location mentioned in the clues. But after that, you can imagine your own neverending quest: try to map the Network, search for those VERY hard to find lost ruins, and of course hunt for Welkynd stones.

After you have used a certain amount of Steps you will notice that many vanilla NPCs start to teleport through Cyrodiil, and then an epic storyline unfolds in 9 quests. You will learn why the Ayleids built the Steps, where they went after doing so, and what the hero of the opening quest really went through before he died.

To have them blend into the vanilla game these quests are time-driven. To start them, you cannot do much else than explore the Steps and pay attention. Certain events have to develop in faraway locations, dictating the progress of the quest line. Between two quests you often have to wait 4 days. Some of the quests themselves can take a week to complete, so that completion of the entire questline may take 6 to 10 (game)weeks.

The purpose of the quests is to tell the Stepstones story. Part of it is developing while you play but somewhere far away, another part is history. You'll often find yourself involved as an onlooker who performs tasks without fully comprehending what is going on. The NPCs have their own agendas. Although there is plenty to do for you the story is not player-centered, so there are very few alternatives, choices or multiple questlines.

(Please refer to the paragraphs at the bottom of this file for more info on how to start the quests.)

This plugin intends to offer a reason to keep on exploring and adventuring for experienced characters, i.e. those that have completed all default game quests and have attained a level over 20. However, it can be played well by low level characters, except for the final quest in which you face some powerful enemies. Playing the Ayleid Steps with FCOM, or OOO and MMM, or other overhaul mods is highly recommended!

REQUIREMENTS:

-------------------

* Vanilla Oblivion with the latest official patch 1.2.0416.

* OBSE (Oblivion Script Extender) version 18 or newer, get the latest version here: http://obse.silverlock.org/.

* Cobl (Common Oblivion library) version 1.72 or newer, find it here: http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=21104. For use with this mod, you merely have to install "Cobl Main.esm" and the Meshes, Sound and Textures folders in the "Cobl Core" folder, and activate "Cobl Main.esm").

* Elys Universal Silent Voice v0.93. Unless you can super-speedread - this mod has no voice files. Link: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16622

INSTALLATION:

--------------------

FIRST TIME:

* Be sure to install the required files (Official patch, OBSE, Cobl) first. Refer to the section above for download links and installation instructions.

* Backup your savegames before trying them with the mod. As you should do with any mod. Not that this one is in any way dangerous, though. Just in case something goes wrong.

* Unzip the archive to your \Oblivion\Data folder. (Or unzip everything in a folder of your choice, and move the files to your \Oblivion\Data directory).

* Start the game launcher and activate The Ayleid Steps.esp. It should run with any existing savegame.

UPGRADING AN OLDER VERSION:

Upgrading from versions older than 3.2: this mod version's resources are packed in a BSA file. To remove the texture and mesh files from earlier versions, put "The Ayleid Steps Uninstall old resource files.bat" in your \Oblivion\Data folder and run it once from there; then remove it.

Versions from 3.2 and on: unpack and move the files into your \Oblivion\Data folder. Make sure you replace the old files by overwriting them. If you use OBMM or BOSS, you should move the mod back up to its former load order position.

Only if you started the Intro Quest with an old version of this mod (anything before 2.6) and have not yet activated the Steps Network, you should make a clean save and start the Intro Quest from scratch. (Clean Save: de-activate The Ayleid Steps in your game launcher, start Oblivion, load your last Savegame ignoring the complaints about missing content, save to a new Savegame and exit Oblivion; then activate The Ayleid Steps, start Oblivion, load your last Savegame.)

DE-INSTALLATION:

----------------------

Start the game launcher, untick The Ayleid Steps.esp in your plugins load list.

Load a savegame, save as new savegame, exit the game.

Then delete these files from your \Oblivion\Data folder:

1. ...\Oblivion\Data\The Ayleid Steps.esp.

2. ...\Oblivion\Data\The Ayleid Steps.bsa.

3. ...\Oblivion\Data\The Ayleid Steps 3.* ReadMe files

COMPATIBILITY:

-------------------------------

UNIQUE LANDSCAPES & BETTER CITIES:

The mod detects which (if any) Unique-Landscape-mods or Better Cities IC mods are activated, and adjusts certain Stepstone positions accordingly. It does this once after each savegame loading (and at the start of a new game). Note that this will ONLY work if you have not altered the original .esp filenames! If the mod cannot find a plugin, the Steps in the area will be reset to their default position. So no more displacements after you change your plugin load order. How Oblivion stores the Steps positions in its savegames is of no importance at all, since the adjusting is repeated with every game loading.

If you have all UL-mods merged into one .esp file, then rename that file to "xulAll.esp" to make the adjustment script recognize it.

Better Cities, Open Cities and Open Better Cities (non-IC modules): compatible in so far that there are no Steps in exterior town cells, so no conflicts.

Other mods that The Ayleid Steps can adjust to, are listed under "Reference".

OTHER PLUGINS:

The mod is built with only Vanilla Oblivion, aforementioned official patch, OBSE 18 and Cobl 1.72. It is playtested with UOP, FCOM (OOO, MMM, Francesco's, WarCry), the UL and BC mods and many smaller mods activated; so far no severe conflicts were found.

This mod may conflict with other plugins that:

- alter the vanilla landscape (House and village mods for example)

- alter vanilla interiors, change architectural layout, move furniture, etc.

- alter availability and/or prices of Welkyndstones. (To be sure, load after such mods).

If you teleport somewhere and don't see a Stepstone where there should be one, an other mod may have buried it. As a consequence you can't use it. This is not necessarily a problem - there are so many Steps in the world that you can easily do without some.

The mod is tested with the Valeria Caresse and Vilja companions; there were no issues so far. Every companion that can teleport to the player should be OK.

REFERENCE:

Overview of mod versions used for compatibility testing:

* UL-Ancient Redwoods 1.6 ("xulAncientRedwoods.esp")

* UL-Ancient Yews 1.4.1 ("xulAncientYews.esp")

* UL-Arrius Creek 1.1.2 ("xulArriusCreek.esp")

* UL-Aspen Wood 1.02 ("xulAspenWood.esp")

* UL-Beaches/Lost Coast 1.6.2 ("xulBeachesOfCyrodiilLostCoast.esp")

* UL-Blackwood Forest 1.0 ("xulBlackwoodForest.esp")

* UL-Bravil Barrowfields 1.3.2 ("xulBravilBarrowfields.esp")

* UL-Brena River Ravine 1.0.2 ("xulBrenaRiverRavine.esp")

* UL-Cheydinhal Falls 1.0 ("xulCheydinhalFalls.esp")

* UL-Chorrol Hinterland 1.2.2 ("xulChorrolHinterland.esp")

* UL-Cliffs of Anvil 1.1.2 ("xulCliffsofAnvil.esp")

* UL-Cloudtop Mountains 1.0.1 ("xulCloudtopMountains.esp")

* UL-Colovian Highlands 1.0 ("xulColovianHighlands_EV.esp" as well as _DV)

* UL-Entius Gorge 1.1 ("xulEntiusGorge.esp")

* UL-Fallenleaf Everglade 1.3 ("xulFallenLeafEverglade.esp")

* UL-Imperial Isle 1.6.2 ("xulImperialIsle.esp")

* UL-Jerall Glacier 1.0.1 ("xulJerallGlacier.esp")

* UL-Lush Woodland 1.3 ("xulLushWoodland.esp")

* UL-Panther River 1.0 ("xulPantherRiver.esp")

* UL-River Ethe 1.0.1 ("xulRiverEthe.esp")

* UL-Rolling Hills 1.3.2 ("xulRollingHills_EV.esp" as well as _DV)

* UL-Silverfish River Valley 1.0.2 ("xulSilverfishRiverValley.esp")

* UL-Skingrad Outskirts 1.0 ("xulSkingradOutskirts.esp")

* UL-Snowdale 1.0 ("xulSnowdale.esp")

* UL-Stendarr Valley 1.2.1 ("xulStendarrValley.esp")

* UL-The Dark Forest 1.0.3 ("xuldarkforest.esp")

* UL-The Eastern Peaks 1.0 ("xulTheEasternPeaks.esp")

* UL-The Heath 1.1.1 ("xulTheHeath.esp")

* BC-Better Cities 4.3.5 as translated & packaged by Ismelda ("Better Cities Full.esp", "Better Imperial City.esp" or any combination of the single IC .esp files in the package. Exceptions: 'BC Extras' and Blood & Mud variants.)

* Bartholm 6.0 ("bartholm.esp")

* DLC Frostcrag official plugin ("DLCFrostcrag.esp").

* Frostcrag Reborn 3.0.6 ("DLCFrostcrag.esp")

* New Roads and Bridges 4.6.3 ("road+bridges.esp")

* Talos Bridge Gatehouse 1.1 (TalosBridgeGatehouse.esp")

* West Roads 1.1 ("West Roads.esp")

Note: The Frostcrag and Frostcrag Reborn plugins both use the "DLCFrostcrag.esp" filename, so the adjustment script cannot determine which of the two is in use. Since it checks and adjusts for "DLCFrostcrag.esp" first, and THEN for "DLCFrostcragReborn.esp", you have to put an empty .esp with the latter name in your Data folder and activate it. (There's a blank esp included in the archive for just this purpose.) The patch script should then move the 5 affected Steps as needed.

---> Compatibility with newer or older versions of the mods listed here is not guaranteed. <---

ISSUES & KNOWN CONFLICTS:

---------------------------------------------

* Some users reported getting stuck when trying to reach a particular Stepstone near the invisible borders of the game. The scripts were corrected for this one. In case you find another problem Step, you can correct it by editing this line in your Oblivion.ini file: "bBorderRegionsEnabled=1". Change the 1 to a 0, and save the file.

* Playing with MMM, you may encounter bands of adventurers in the Lost Dungeons. If you find this immersion-breaking, use the MMM-provided "Mart's Monster Mod - No Adventurers.esp" to prevent them spawning in dungeons.

* Should stepping activity of NPCs cause problems, it can be altered with the (Cobl) Options menu in your inventory. Look for the "Ayleid Steps - NPCs behavior" option. You can determine if NPCs will go teleporting, and if they should be set to essential when they do so, to protect them.

* The dialogues in version 3 are mostly performed by custom NPCs, but several vanilla NPCs are involved with a few lines, and they must be alive in your game to ensure quest progress. These are Angalmo, Aryarie, Calindil, Carahil, Gundalas, Hlidara Mothril, Mog-gra-Mogakh, Orintur, Suurotan, Tumindil and Ungarion.

* There are a few landscape edits far northeast of Cheydinhal (pathgrid edits) and south-southeast of Skingrad/West of Silorn (a small building, pathgrids & slight height changes). These areas are not affected by currently finalized UL-landscaping mods as far as I know.

* There is a minor conflict in the Murder Masquerade quest and Open Better Cities; you'll have to toggle Skingrad to "closed" in order to proceed with the quest.

* There is a slightly misaligned hall piece in Lost Tocrec; this hasn't been corrected because it would require rebuilding half the ruin to do so.

CHANGELOG, release 3.5

-------------------------------------------------

* Grounded/adjusted/unburied numerous objects as appropriate.

* Adjusted rugs in the Depot Room so they don't clip, and made all the chests non-respawning for the sake of conformity (most were, but a few weren't).

* Moved the entrance to Fanacasecul Erfinsel to avoid a conflict with Hentai Mania/CDEP Fanaceya.

* Added a rock to mask a floor gap in Lost Doriun and adjusted two overlapping tunnel pieces in Doriun Silante.

* Raised the benches/added an altar for the coffer in Lost Fafette (if you sat on the benches, your legs would be in the floor).

* Lowered a floor piece on the tower in Lost Fort Hardaxe Cavern.

* Lowered the flame in Lost Ganaz so it's enveloping the large crystal, and moved the runes in the same room so they're on the pillars.

* Fixed the door in Lost Gutmess Dungeon (it was originally a prison door that belonged to the Bruma Guard faction).

* Added welkynd stones to Lost Sutch Sewers and one of the Unknown Caves.

* Added a crystal/light to a welkynd chain that was missing them in Megund Rael and Ontobel.

* Lowered a stairway that was a bit too high in Lost Merglynn Nonacsel.

* Replaced the missing ceiling piece in Lost Nemice and covered up the gap in the buttress and fixed up the ceiling a bit in Nemice Cinsel.

* Adjusted a misaligned corner piece in Lost Vanuasecul.

* Fixed incorrect music type in several dungeons and Erfinsels.

* Fixed an error in one of Norb gro-Rukhol's wander packages that made him constantly run into Shelley in Cheydinhal.

* Moved a step below the Talos Bridge to avoid a conflict with Talos Bridge Gatehouse.

* Updated the scripts for compatibility with UL Eastern Peaks, Silverfish River Valley, and Cliffs of Anvil.

* Fixed errors in the reference spreadsheet and updated it with new mod conflict information.

* Optimized meshes and textures with PyFFI 2.1.11 and DDSOpt 0.7.3.

* Cleaned esp with TES4Edit.

CHANGELOG, release 3.4.1

-------------------------------------------------

* Edited version of 3.4 for compatibility with "Oblivion XP Update 4.7" mod by SirFrederik and Andalaybay.

CHANGELOG, release 3.4

-------------------------------------------------

* Corrected lots of little typo's.

* Grounded some floating objects in several Lost Dungeons.

* (Stepstone)scripts edited and optimized.

* Changed a container in the Talos Bridge Hideout to be non-respawning. Caution: if you have put any items in the upper drawer to the right of the alchemy sorter, remove them before installing this new mod version!

* Stepstones will no longer emit message spam when triggered by anyone else than the player.

* Set cell ownership of Talos Bridge hideout and Guardians rooms to Player.

* Many small cosmetic changes in the Guardian's storage room.

* The introduction quest 'The Ayleid Steps' has compass markers.

* Corrected Welkynd Worries quest so that Cultists will attack player in their hideout even when he is an invisible master sneaker.

* During the final quest Elsabeth will no longer pop up in the farmhouse while player is preparing to enter the crater.

* Removal of several items from Player inventory during the final quest was rescripted using Cobl functions, to avoid problems with quest items.

* Cheating the Core by adding and removing Deathgems should no longer be possible.

* Added the Automagicon item transformer to the library in the Guardian's quarters. This one can spawn Ayleid clutter, Ayleid weapons, Cobl books and Cobl ingredients too.

* Added dialog topic for Bertold to explain how to use the Automagicon.

* NPCs should no longer teleport into player-owned houses.

* NPCs will (in most cases) not teleport all over Cyrodiil when another mod such as Kragenir's DQ has set them to be essential for their quests.

* Added some more named boss-type characters to several lost dungeons.

* The Steps adjustment script is now aware of the BC variant "Better Cities BRAVIL - Blood & Mud.esp".

* The adjustment script will now recognize UL's "xulRollingHills_EV_withoutWheat.esp".

* The adjustment script is now aware of the Unique Landscapes Snowdale plugin (English and German version).

CHANGELOG, release 3.3.2

-------------------------------------------------

* Moved entrance step for Lost Varlavale from cell 0,3 to 2,2 to fix map marker problem causing occasional crashes.

* Fixed script glitch which would stall Vanuasecul quest when player escaped the dungeon using mark & recall.

* Fixed script glitch which sometimes stalled final quest (Tertia's squad refusing to show up for the final journey).

* Losing the watchman in an interior cell during Mapping Mayhem quest will no longer break the quest.

* Many minor questscript tweaks and typo corrections.

* Welkynd stone base price is now capped at 510 septims.

* Added named bosses to 12 of the lost dungeons.

* The boss character in the final quest is now much tougher.

CHANGELOG, up to release 3.3.1

-------------------------------------------------

* Language edits completed. All dialogs and books/notes of the quests 6 through 12 were proofread and edited by Ed Waldorph.

* In the Mapping Mayhem quest fast travel is now disabled during Player's mapping journeys.

* The Dead Mages Guild messenger (Intro Quest) is relocated from Wellspring Caves entrance to the northeast. She can now be found on the roadside near the Ayleid Well.

* Several very minor quest and dungeon tweaks.

* Start of Vanuasecul Venture slightly altered: the beggar will now set out to find the Player in the IC instead of waiting in the Market district.

* Several objects will no longer be marked as quest items after Vanuasecul Venture is completed.

* Fixed a dialog bug which would affect all NPC's if Player elected to abandon the final quest.

* Fixed a script glitch that prevented proper use of the handles in the Guardian's Hub room.

* Changed Steps adjustment script to avoid conflict with DLC Frostcrag Spire.

* Fixed a few layout problems in the dungeons as pointed out by Khettienna.

* Added 4 new Lost Dungeons. We now have 48 Lost Dungeons plus 3 quest-specific dungeons.

* Placed more bedrolls in third Fefandor level to prevent cultists from sleeping in the Selatus family hideout.

* Closed a big gap in the second Crater Passage cell.

* Fixed a layout problem in lower level of Lost Megund Rael.

* Steps adjustment script can now recognize West Roads 1.1 mod.

* Corrected Jannus Mercium's script so he won't chase Player after completion of main quest.

* Teleporting NPCs will no longer pop up when Player is in a lost dungeon.

* Shortened time between quests from Murder Masquerade on to final quest to 4 days.

* Tweaked spell for Purple Welkynd recharge; Alteration level governs how often you have to cast the spell.

* Deathgems capacity is now grand, although the Core will continue to use 1200 points of it at maximum.

* Replaced a mesh in the .bsa for the 'shiny' Stepstone variant.

* Fixed a mesh-texture path bug (for the cultists' banner).

* Added new textures & meshes for the Deathgem and special Imperial Legion armors, all designed by Bleral.

* Packed resource files into a .bsa file; added a batch file to remove earlier versions' file clutter.

* Resolved a conflict with the new UL-module Skingrad Outskirts.

* The mod now recognizes the German UL-filenames (thanks to Chaky for sorting these out).

* Fixed another missing mesh bug (for the tombstone)

* Implemented a few cosmetic fixes in the SSotA worldspace as pointed out by Chaky.

* Removed object script from welkynd stones.

* Fixed a bug in the Daring Dunmer quest (quest would halt if Norb Gro-Rukhol didn't like player).

* Fixed some Lost Dungeon architectural problems in Morra and Carnivore Cave.

* Pimped one of the Lost Dungeons (Tocrec) with a new large room and enemies.

* Rewrote AI script and packages for the cultists. They should now behave as intended.

* Fixed a few problems in the Talos Bridge Hideout as pointed out by Khettienna.

* Added meshes & textures for the Guardian's diary, a tombstone, a True Descendants banner and a street poster (all designed and produced by Bleral).

* Added new textures for the Stepstones. They are now seamless; some have nice glinting scraps of welkynd embedded (Bleral).

* Added new custom Ayleid Steps quest icon (Bleral).

* (WIP) Covered essentials of the version 3 questline in the Spoilers file.

* Added a few new Steps here & there.

* Added 2 new Lost Dungeons. We now have 44 Lost Dungeons plus 3 quest-specific dungeons.

* Texts in books, dialogs and quest updates from the Intro Quest up to the Daring Dunmer quest were corrected and edited by Qbit.

* Corrected missing mesh bugs introduced in previous versions.

* Changed a StepstoneScript to avoid a nasty problem in the Mapping Mayhem quest.

* Added Cobl's alchemy sorter to the Talos bridge tower hideout.

* Removed Ayleid arrows from leveled loot lists in the Lost Dungeons.

* Fixed several small (Lost) dungeon layout problems.

CHANGELOG release 3.0

---------------------------------------------

No changes in the content of the 2.6 versions.

<snipped 'Reference' chapter>

THANKS:

-----------

* to the OBSE programmers for their nifty script extender.

* to MadCat221 (madcat221@gmail.com), RDjeke (rdjeke@gmail.com) and Sotobrastos for the Ayleid Meteoric Iron Weapons.

* to Meo, Cryptic_Rain and Vacuity for the Ayleid Clutter objects.

* to Wrye and anyone who contributed, for Common Oblivion Library (Cobl).

* to several people in the Bethsoft and TesNexus forum threads or sending e-mails, for suggestions that helped improve the mod - notably Skyranger for the Hubs concept, WalkerInShadows, Khettienna, Jack Whitehead and Dazu for bughunting, Chaky for general helpfulness, Shadowborn for pointing out conflicts and script bugs, and Wrye for constructive criticisms.

* to PresetM (up to 2.3.1) and SuzieQ (from 2.6.1 on) for the German versions.

* to Bleral for designing and producing the custom meshes and textures.

* to Qbit for correcting and editing all texts of the first 5 quests.

* to Ed Waldorph for correcting and editing all texts of the remaining 8 quests.

* to WalkerInShadows for updating & editing this final version.

<snipped 'Legal' chapter>

<snipped 'How to start the Intro Quest' chapter>

Please visit forum thread: http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1091510-relz-the-ayleids-steps-3-thread-2/


What's New in Version 3.5   See changelog

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