Review of the Wizards Tower mod

Official description:
This add-on makes the Wizard's Tower, Frostcrag Spire, become available. Packed with numerous useful enhancements, this structure will prove invaluable to magic-oriented characters.

What you get:
A house in the jerral Mountains. Roughly between Bruma and Cheydinhal. It features a botanical garden containing around 130 ingredients, as well as an Atronach companion and means to enchant and or create spells outside of the mages guild.

Description:
After you install the mod you get a journal update mentioning you've inherited a house and a key to said house magically appears in your inventory.

Travel to the location (no need to find it first, instant travel is available) you find yourself a small way from the tower and get a nice view of it.

Enter through the main door and you find yourself in a seemingly small room, with some 8 circles along the right and left walls and a large circel in the middle from which an icy hand reaches.

Ontop of the hand is a tome, detailing the history of the home and explaining to you that you can buy the things to finish the home from the Mystic Emporium in the Imperial City.

Then stepping on one of the circles ligning the walls will open a secret wall at the far side of the room leading you into a larger room.

Now I'm assuming you've bought everything you can buy at the Emporium for this, this is what you'll find.

When you step into the room, to the right and left you'll find bookcases with lots of books and some other things like pots and alembics and such.

In the center you'll find three large circles, one icy, one flaming and one representing earth. And beyond them on a higher platform are three altars, one for spellmaking, one for enchanting and one for summoning the Atronach companions.

You can only summon one Atronach at a time and activating the altar will allow you to choose which Atronach you wish to summon.


There are also two portals; one leading to the vault and another to the living area.

The one to the vaults leads you to an underground vault, filled with chests, some barrels presumably containing beer orso and of course a wine rack with some very good wines. You'll also find a number of Vault guardians floating there, I assume to watch over your goods and make sure no one steals them.

Inside the living area you find a small bed, some more books and an alchemy altar which raises your alchemy skill when you get close enough.

In an adjoining room you'll find the botanical garden containing the ingredients mentioned in the description.

Aside from a portal back to the ground floor, the living area contains one more portal of transportation and a door. The door leads outside to a number of portals leading to the various mages guilds throughout the cities. All but one work, the one to Kvatch gives you the sad announcement; "The Kvatch mages guild is no more"

Then the other portal in the living area transports you to the top of the tower, to the "highest peak in Cyrodiil"


Alexanders Opinion:

Definitely not bad and with some helpful features, but I think this had way more potential then what was made of it now.

Well, where to start, let's take it from bottom to top. In the room on the ground floor you find the 8 circles lining the walls, well it might be me but I don't really understand the meaning of them.

Into the next larger room, the altars are a great benefit, no longer needing the mages guild for enchanting and spellmaking might very well be very helpfull for any evil mage character, or any character for that matter.

The rest of the room however, the bookcases are nice but why only 6 of them and so far apart? It appears they're just there to make the room less empty and don't really feel like they're in the right place in my humble opinion. And I can definitely understand having a few of the same books, I have some books myself which I greatly enjoy and which is why I bought different versions of it, but having 25+ "fundaments of Alchemy" in the same bookcase goes way beyond me.

And next to the bookcases on the left you find a table and chairs, but rather then putting a nice chair in which to relax and an eloquent looking table, you find a table and stools there you'd likely find in a low priced bar in the bad parts of some generic town.

Also, the alchemical equipment that appears there is of the novice or apprentice standard, I would think a mage as qualified as the previous owner would give you some better parts.

Then the vault, it looks pretty nice, though I think it could have been a lot greater with some extra effort. The wine rack and such is a nice touch and the chests are handy, no real purpose to the vault guardians though I guess it's the thought that counts.

In the living area what strikes me the most is the smallness of things there, everything appears to be cramped. A small bed, with some more books, opposite of which is the alchemy altar. I would have imagined having to activate something to get the bonus to your alchemy skill but it comes by itself. It also doesn't last very long though considering it's a 15pt bonus that's pretty good I guess. Some more alchemy equipment there as well but again of low quality.

Then in the adjoining room there's the Botanical garden. Now this is another thing where Bethesda could have achieved a lot more then they have now. I'll believe them when they say 130 ingredients as I haven't counted them ;-) but the room is really very small. Three circles interwoven contain the ingredients which are all grouped very tightly together. I would have imagined pherhaps a very large underground cavern where all these ingredients were grown, but instead we get three flowerpots. A disappoinment to me anyway.

Then last but not least the portal leading to the "highest peak in Cyrodiil" giving you "A breathtaking view of Cyrodiil from the highest point in the land" Well again I'll have to take Bethesda's word for that because during the 3+ days I spent ontop of that tower, I saw nothing but fog, rain and the distant peaks of mountains. And one definite downside was the fact that just like in Morrowind, the rain came right through the roof, or pherhaps the roof was giving the rain? Unless it was meant as nostalgia towards Morrowind, it was one of the lesser features of the tower.


In short, yes the mod has some definitely plusses, like the enchanting and spellmaking altars, and all the ingredients right there, and the Atronach Companion, but is it worth $1.89? I'm not so sure.

Especially since after buying it, you need yet another 10,500 gold to get every aspect of the tower and Bethesda could definitely have done a lot more with the way they shaped the tower and the rooms inside then what they did now.

And last but certainly not least, even after having visited the tower for ten or more times, each time you fast travel there you always wind up a ways to the south of the tower, I really think being able to travel right to the front door of the tower, or even inside would not have been such a bad thing, time for a good multi mark mod In my humble opinion.