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The Lost Spires version 14.00 www.LostSpires.com
by Liquid Graphics Interactive
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Thank you for playing The Lost Spires— a narrative Oblivion adventure.
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Very Important Tips:
1. Read this file thoroughly!
2. As you play, save often in case a rollback is needed.
3. Be wary of mod load order. Most bugs and crashes result from conflicts with other mods.
4. Stuck? Have a bug or question? Visit the FAQ page:http://www.lostspires.com/pages/faqs.htm
5. Contact Email: info@lostspires.com
6. No mods, expansions, patches, or utilities (official or unoffical) are required to play Lost Spires.
7. Don't expect to beat Lost Spires without dying a few times in the process. This is not a dumbed-down game.
8. Check www.lostspires.com for unofficial language translations, patches, and bonus content.
9. Don't read the post-mortem until you finish the quest. It contains spoilers.
10. Under Gameplay Options, set Dialogue Subtitles to Yes.
Installation Instructions:
1. Place all contents into your Oblivion\Data folder. Contents include: "The Lost SPires.esp" and "The Lost Spires.bsa".
2. Run Oblivion and click on the “Data Files” button on the front pop-up screen.
3. Activate “The Lost Spires.esp”, making sure that its checkbox contains an “x”. Click “OK”.
4. Boot up Oblivion as one normally would and enjoy the game.
!!!: If running other mods, position Lost Spires towards the end of your load order.
Upon loading a saved game, or starting a new game, your character will be prompted with a journal update, providing a waypoint to the Archeology Guild (located just south of Imperial City). The Lost Spires main quest can be started from either a new game, or a previous save. Although the main quest has no hard limits in terms of character level, it is designed to challenge medium level characters (level 20+). Difficulty ramps up as your progress, and gets really tough at the end.
Comments:
1. Feel free to leave feedback. All discussion concerning Lost Spires takes place on the Offical Bethesda Forums. A link to the most recent thread can be found at www.lostspires.com. The site's footer contains a link entitled: "Thread".
2. After playing, please do not reveal sensitive plot information in areas where new, potential Lost Spires players will be able to see it. The sensitive plot is easily spoiled. Write all spoiler text like so: [spoiler] my spoiler text goes here [/spoiler].
3. Please report any bugs or conflicts to info@lostspires.com or at the thread mentioned above. Patches are issued periodically.
4. Please rate Lost Spires at PlanetElderscrolls and TESsource. Help spread the word!
Modder’s Resource:
Lost Spires is more than just a role-playing adventure, it's also jam-packed with new modding resources. Perusing the extracted Lost Spires files will reveal hundreds of unique meshes and textures, many icons, sounds, a few new creatures, and two entire retextures of the vanilla “white” cave tile-set. Most new meshes are contained in a single folder: Data\meshes\dungeons\caves\clutter01. Likewise, most new textures are contained in: Data\textures\dungeons\caves\clutter01. Creature models and retextures are contained in the standard creature folders. The two cave retextures are contained in Data\meshes\dungeons\caves\cave02 and Data\meshes\dungeons\caves\cave03.
Feel free to use the Lost Spires resources for modding purposes. You need not ask my permission to do so. Three stipulations apply, however:
1. Give credit where credit is due.
2. If you intend to re-release the Lost Spires content itself after tweaking, adding, subtracting, or in any other way modifying, or if you plan to merge the Lost Spires with other mods, you must ask for permission by contacting me at: info@lostspires.com
3. The original Lost Spires esp and resources may NOT be hosted on alternate servers without my explicit consent. New mods using Lost Spires resources ARE allowed to distribute those resources explicitly used in that particular mod through any avenue, provided credit is given proportionate to the amount of resources used.
I encourage any modder out there to take full advantage of the provided resources. The two new tile-set retextures (Primeval Hollow and the Warlock Ruins), along with their accompanying decor geometry, will be of particular interest to you. The Primeval Hollow design is an especially powerful for constructing immersive dungeons, and has only been utilized once in the Lost Spires. I’m sure you guys can generate some interesting variations with the provided resources.
Credits:
Design, Art, Scripting, Writing, Level Layout, Website, Support:
Leo Gura
Scripting Consultation, Creature Rigging, Nifskope Alchemy:
XMarksTheSpot
Voice Actor Manager:
Stephen 'Ibsens Ghost' Boyes
Voice Actors:
Stephen 'Ibsens Ghost' Boyes
Wesla 'LadyDeadlock' Lee
Liz 'Lizanneh' Muirhead
Kelly Patricia Jones
Robin Locksley
Moghedian
The Shadow
Daniel Persson
Lotta Markgren
Special Thanks:
Theo Habit
Scruggsywuggsy the Ferret
Kikaimegami
WillieSea
TheTalkieToaster
Corepc
b3w4r3
Haama
JoelBurgess
Sarkandar
Ghogiel
Throttlekitty
Phitt
Quarn
Melthroak
the Nifskope team
Civ4 Exporter
TeamGecko
Jochen Gehring's Texture Replacer
Vasiliy's BSA Commander
FRAPS
the Audacity Team
Avery Lee's Virtual Dub
Willow's Anvil Studio
Adobe
Autodesk
nVidia
numerous artists of various reference imagery
the Oblivion modding community
Bethesda Softworks
The Lost Spires, and all of its content, excluding that belonging to Besthesda Softworks, is copyright 2006-2008 Liquid Graphics Interactive. These files may NOT be re-distributed or sold without explicit written consent.
www.LostSpires.com
--------------------------------------------Version History--------------------------------------------
version 14.00: Full voiceovers with lip sync. Moodier lighting in Archeology Guild. Miscellaneous bug fixes.
Version 13.00: All dialogue has been run through a spellchecker as part of the voiceover process. No voiceovers yet, as they're incomplete. All instances of the AddTopic Box Bug have been cleared up, so no more incomplete topic additions. Duplicate excavation site door removed from cell (12,8). Newheim's Heirloom Mug removed from Archeology Guild Sleeping Quarters. Miscellaneous other things I can't recall.
Version 12.00: Adjusted firewall speed formula, making it easier for players with 90+ speed. Added additional pool of water to the final dungeon. Removed an accidental duplicate instance of an important quest corpse, now there's only one. Fixed bug where equipping the Evil Sorcerer's hood caused player's face to disappear. Taking gold from Bloodvein's main tunnels is now considered stealing. Deleted a duplicate ceiling tile in the first spire cave. Fixed bug where the Labyrinth Key would fall through the pedistal on which it lay. Downgraded stats on several overpowered items (just a bit).
Version 11.00: More funeral scene fixes. Many artifacts are now activatable directly from the inventory (no more droping items). Summoned Ethereal Imps will now follow you through doors. Adjusted loot containers in Primeval Hollow, making sure they are all accessible.
Version 10.00: LS is now compatible with Mud & Blood. Fixed floating rocks near the Pristine Spire. Adjusted funeral scene settings to address a bug where Rythor would start following the player around. Fixed exploit where an Archeology Guild member would continue issuing gold if the player repeated the same topic over and over again. A few minor typos.
Version 9.00: Fixed 2 missing texture issues: the corrupt wisps and the Horn of Zyyr room spike.
Version 8.00: Fixed all those funeral scene bugs. Good stuff.
Version 7.00: Fixed the Evil Sorcerer quest update bug. Added a final escape hint to eliminate frustration. Fixed a ton of minor bugs, including typos, object alignments, etc.
version 6.00: Made aspects of the final battle easier.
version 5.00: Fixed problem with the Guard near Miro's Scribe Services getting stuck inside her house, thus not allowing the player to speak with him. This fix is retroactive, so no need to load previous saves. Fixed problem with Tumyr where he would refuse to give you more Dissolving Agents after you received the first one. This is fix is retroactive too. Fixed minor dialogue issues. Fixed misaligned lamp in the Bloodvein Mine Vampire Lair. Repositioned one loot chest in the Bandit Lair.
version 4.00: Fixed another potential excavation site problem. Fixed boss exploit. Fixed floating rocks around BloodVein mine. Increased Bloodvein mine difficutly a bit.
version 3.00: Fixed Tumyr's excavation site crashes. Minor dialogue corrections. Added quest targets.
version 2.00: Fixed the missing mesh icon that appeared in the Archeology Guild garden.
Version 1.00: Release
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----------------------------------------- Compatibility Issues -----------------------------------------
1. Lost Spires IS compatible with Mud & Blood, MMM, and OOO.
2. Most mods don't conflict with Lost Spires, provided you put LS at the end of your load order.
2. Minor incompatibility with Unique Landscapes: Everglades. Download a UL fix at www.lostspires.com.
3. Minor incompatibility with Unique Landscapes: Dark Forest. Download a UL fix at www.lostspires.com.
4. Reported conflicts with Enter The Shinobi.
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-------------------------------------- Workarounds for Problems ---------------------------------------
FAQ Page:http://www.lostspires.com/pages/downloads.htm
!!!: Please respect my time. Visit the FAQ page prior to contacting me for email support.
Solutions to Problems:
1. Problem: Loading up LS and talking to Teav yields no dialogue options. Solution: Check mod load order. If that doesn't help, open the console with "~" and type: "addtopic ARCanIJoin".
2. Problem: Lost Spires is constantly crashing. Solution: Look at your mod load order. Position LS towards the end. Use a process of eliminating to find conflicting mods. Start by disabling a good chuck of them, and seeing if the problem persists. Then, renable mods in small chunks.
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-------------------------------------------- Known Issues ---------------------------------------------
1. Overgrown Spire tile seams: Lava glows through tile seams in the Overgrown Spire. This is a property of the vanilla cave tileset. There's not much that can be done other than remake to whole tileset, which is a monumental undertaking. Seams disappear if anti-aliasing is turned on.
2. Some people report hang-ups when quiting LS or other large mods like OOO, MMM, etc. This might especially be the case if you're running many large mods. No single mods appears to be the particular culprit, but rather it's the combination of all of them. There is possible solution listed in the FAQ.
3. Quest Markers: Lost Spires is an adventure. I don't expect you to blindly go from A to B to C... You will only receive quest markers when appropriate. Example: you will not see a quest marker to return to the Archeology Guild after being told to do so! You're smart enough to figure that out on your own.
4. The final battle and escape sequence is hard: Yes, that's by design. In fact, it was already nerfed severely after player complaints. You'll die a few times in the process, but you'll come out feeling like you truly survived. It's very doable.
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---------------------------------------------- Hints --------------------------------------------------
Warning!!! Spoilers Ahead!!!
1. I've found the first celestial plane in the Pristine Spire, but my quest won't update. What do I do?Answer: Search the celestial plane carefully, and you will find a corpse lying on the floor. This corpse has a scroll quest item, which will trigger a journal update.
2. I've found the Lost Deity Statue after going through the Primeval Hollow, but my quest won't update. What do I do? Answer: At the base of the Vacant Statue lies a quest item. Picking it up triggers a journal update.
3. I can't outrun the firewall, help! Answer: unequipping your weapon makes you faster. Diving into a pool of water allows you to wait out the fire.
4. That does the Zinj want? It doesn't work! Answer: You must be clever. The Zinj is an easter egg for clever, persistant players. Read "Sentinels of Kar'Toom" to get a hint. Once you know what types of things it wants, keep feeding the Zinj in various quantities. If you feed him the right amount of things, a pop-up will appear. Then, continue feeding to receive various rewards. Experiment and have fun.
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