In short terms Rigmor of Cyrodiil demonstrates that immoderation of detail and a unidimensional focus of development is an awful design combination.

Rigmor of Cyrodiil is a heavily story-driven narrative molded within Skyrim that takes the player on a journey to Cyrodiil where they encounter among their allies and enemies factions vying for political power.

Insofar as one can trace the compositions of meshes of visual structures to other creations the author cannot independently demonstrate their ability to compose well-formed architectural structure, but there are occasions that upset that typical reality, and in such occasions the author demonstrates the ability to create organized structure on a basic level. Consider the visual presentation of the entrance and exit to the maze and the topography of Bruma and Cyrodiil; they at least have a basic organization of visual harmony; there are pathways, organizational structural divisions and centered visualizations that work together to compose the geometry that makes up the architectural layout. However, there is hardly any demonstration of elaboration on architecture that can be attributed to the author and whenever the level design strays away from imitating preconceived locations most of the architectural motifs and contours vanish and the player is left witnessing completely simplistic designs. There are pathways such as the hallways in central Cyrodiil, for instance, but the crude geometry is exposed and there is no artistic variation within them. Likewise, preconceived environments have little creative touch to the degree that they can be altered for a sense of the author’s unique artistic presence.

Most environmental atmospheres presented in the level design are mild. Much of the potential that could be realized from preconceived environments such as the constructs within Bruma and Cyrodiil which come from other works dissipates due to poor visuals in the form of extremely low-quality textures. The best examples of visual immersion made manifest are in the exteriors where much of the terrain is lush with objects that harmoniously compose a believable environment. This contributes both to detailing and visual immersion. The music contributes to the immersion to enough of a degree that the auditory domain is not left unattended and some modifications to specialize interiors are made such as acoustic spaces, but beyond these additions auditory immersion is left largely untouched. Although the rubric does not necessarily concern itself with technical execution it is worth noting the technical malpractices rampant throughout Skyrim modding, most notorious of which is the production of poor-quality voice sounds that destroy auditory immersion almost completely in every case where they are present. This mod is no exception to the norm. Detailing of the visual kind is present enough to demonstrate adequacy as far as decorating environments goes, but no case is reached that can be construed as a steeled display of visual wealth in environmental detail. The placements and compositions of the placements of static miscellanea are typical throughout the locations encountered in the main quest from Bruma to Cyrodiil, for instance.

There is almost no evidence of gameplay as far as any conventional gameplay in Skyrim is concerned, such as combat, exploration, or questing. Instead the player is taken through some elongated link of scenes that unravel the plot, wherein some variation in choice is allowed so as to present a set of rules, choices and implications that may be construed as a game, but where no challenge can be definitively recognized and no distinct point can be found in small enough increments so as to motivate the existence of such a game. For instance, it takes over half an hour of dialogue to get to a point where the player can make some choices that vary the plot somewhat, but the whole idea of that gameplay breaks down in that there is no concept of winning or losing for a very long time, and the incremental steps that can be taken within such a game show little effect as far as game interaction goes. Finally after well over an hour of dialogue and travel, the player is presented with a maze and the entertainment is drawn out by suspense and the environmental transition of the player, but any climax is essentially non-existent as the player is not met with any sort of challenge at the end of the maze, but another drawn-out dialogue. This sort of pattern is rampant throughout the mod. Falskaar had, almost definitively, one of the slowest mundane introductions among other large-scale mods, clocking in at least ten minutes of dialogue and travel. Comparatively, this mod exceeds that amount by at least threefold. Hence the flux, while highly consistent, may be one of the slowest in Skyrim modding history, and thus partially defeats the purpose of gameplay flux.

The storyline is highly detailed. Virtually every primary character can be recognized by their personality and relationships. Many secondary characters don’t have much distinction from generic templates of participants in a medieval “politics and romance” story, although comparatively such a statement is trivial in light of the similarity to Skyrim’s secondary characters. The character’s motives follow along with the plot that gradually develops as the player converses with those involved, but not in any way that would strongly distinguish this particular storyline from the romantic and devious political ploys of a microcosm in a medieval play. All the predictable character templates are present: the manipulative and sinister queen, the hopelessly romantic, naïve princess, the deceptive and seemingly admirable noble courting her, the independent and gallant hero, and so forth. The plot follows a similar track. The uniqueness of this story largely comes from the deviation found between particular characters, such as Morag and Rigmor, the former typically being entirely antipathetic towards the latter though is not entirely so in this case. The depth is difficult to explore for the first half of the plot as much of it is spent listening to monologues about the political minutiae of the time and overindulging in a glutinous amount of detail elaborating a particular character, relationship, or scene.

Most players expecting an engaging mod in this case will be let down. They ought to expect slow and extremely detailed dialogues in which most of the discussion is concerned with topics adjacent to occurrences in the plot. The number of countable details given within a creation does not guarantee nor correlate in a quantifiable way with high-quality design. In short terms Rigmor of Cyrodiil demonstrates that immoderation of detail and a unidimensional focus of development is an awful design combination.

Overall Rating: 3.275/10

Tier Rating: 1