Good afternoon everyone!

Thank you for all your patience with another update on Raven of the Reach mod. When I started this year I made a goal to become more organized with modding. So I set out on fixing many of the mods bugs and CTDs. I’m happy to announce that I’ve fixed many of the mods reasons for freezing and crashing. It took taking the time to learn more about how TES5Edit worked and seeing what was causing errors. One of the major issues I learned was creating a large scale mod with many assets is issues with conflicting ids, navmesh issues and conflicts between the different assets when they were brought together into the same world cell.

Now I wouldn’t say I know how it all works but I struggled my way through figuring out how to fix the mod. So I’m happy to show you a screenshot of both the RavenoftheReach.esp and the RavenoftheReach.esm files. The RavenoftheReach.esm works as a base for the majority of the assets for the mod and the esp is used for holding the dialogue and the quests.

This doesn’t mean it’s perfect and as I further develop the mod I’m sure I’ll have to fix it continuously as I go. But I’ve learned that it’s good to celebrate even the small victories, so I’m happy to share this hard earned one! As I played through the mod I’ve noticed that a few of the quests got broken on the backend, I’ll need to go and reconnect those again to test the mod doesn’t get snagged on certain scenes. Sometimes it’s not even a bug that breaks a quest, sometimes it’s some other random hiccup that stops a scene from progressing which breaks the quest completely. For example Cael is riding his elk through the woods in a scene, a bear comes along and attacks. This cancels the scene from playing out correctly and doesn’t allow the quest to continue. This is a common problem for scenes and quests that occur in the open world space where things are randomized. So I go back and remove all predators from the surrounding areas, now I think nothing could interrupt the scene from playing out. As the scene plays out Cael is riding his elk and the elk runs between two trees and his antlers are so wide they get hooked on the branches resulting in yet another halt in the scene and breaks the quest.

Then all that I can think of is to clear a definite path for nothing to get in the way of the elks path and deleting the trees in the area. These are the kind of bugs I’ll need to be trying to find next. It’s taking me longer than I thought to fix these bugs but with mods it’s not a sprint but a marathon. I’ve been happy to find time to work on the mod between work hours and crazy busy schedules. I’ve been so blessed to also have great supportive team members who have come along to offer support with some of the important additional quest writing and voice acting. A big thank you to Kelly, Kerstyn and Jessie for offering their help to finish these things. Also of course a big thank you to our main writer and voice actor Chris for continuing to be involved the project and with finishing the main quest writing and voicing Cael’s many lines of dialogue.

I hope all of you are doing great and taking time to pursue your creative passions and goals. Each person has as a gift and it’s meant to be shared and celebrated. I know life can get busy and chaotic even. But don’t let your dreams be put on the side all together, make time to express that unique gift you have. Whether it’s art, writing, sewing, sculpting, sports, singing, voice acting, etc. Whatever your gifts are they are a beautiful thing about you and it’s good to make time for those things when you can.

Thank you for reading yet another diary entry and have a wonderful weekend! – Mara

For more diary posts and progress updates please visit the Raven of the Reach Progress page here https://skyrimromance.com/rorprogress/