Blue waters city preview

[noamik]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently working on some maps with the code name "Blue waters city". The general setting is composed of several isles that have been spared from the general decline of AT due to their remoteness on the water (monsters don't swim ).

If you don't want to know anything about it prior to playing it, read no further.

Can I see it?
If you want, you may have a quick look at the current stage of my work. You will quickly notice that some areas are in the workings currently. So I don't need feedback about those being empty. But I would really like you to take a look into the central area that is mostly done and into the houses interiors and tell me what you like or dislike.

blue_waters_city_world_map3.jpg

( this image is huge, 4800x3840 pixels)

How to play it?
If you want to take a look at the sources, for example to run it, feel free to peak into my repo: https://github.com/noamik/andors-trail/ ... water-city

The maps I consider ready, or mostly ready, are playable. Just leave the spawn house to the left and head straight into the wall and you will be teleported into the maps.

What about quests?/Will there be monsters?
Currently only the monster isles to the left are populated, but you won't want to fight those. They are intentionally way to strong for you, especially the big boss. I have a quest in mind where you will have to prove your recklessness by running one turn around the boss. I will send a hand written letter with personal congratulations if you can beat the current rock giant without cheating
The other monsters are doable for a level 100 or 200, I don't know. But you won't be supposed to fight them either.

I do already have some quests in mind, but none implemented so far. There will be some more isles with monsters, but so far I haven't planned to make them a farm area. I want the area to serve as a quest hub, but you won't do them in the city but all across AT.

Things I would want you to do!

• Look at the map and tell me where stuff doesn't look right
• If you have quests or quest ideas I want to hear those
• If you know how to make graphics, please make me one or two boats that fit into AT. The current models I use are trash. I just needed something so I know where to place them later.

[Zukero]

Hello noamik,

I finally found time to write this reply, sorry it took so long.
Let's start with the stuff I dislike, so I keep the best for the end.
I'm trying to be constructive, and gave abusive names to places, so I'm sorry if they don't match yours
- The boats indeed don't look right. Moreover, I would vote against the boat transport. I wouldn't mind some "decorative" fisherman on his boat, but I'd rather avoid the player taking a boat himself.
- I feel that the dock on the "inn-island" doesn't look that good. I can't tell precisely what would need to be done, but I suspect the borders are the main culprit. It looks like it is floating, and that it is as flat as paper.
- The bridges connecting the inn-island to the "temple-island" also look like they were glued, some blending/connecting between island ground and bridge floor should be added. I believe this could be sorted out easily by changing the borders.
- The church island looks gorgeous, honestly, but it looks like it is from the Renaissance or Colonial-era, while AT is in a medieval setting. I believe that simply changing the stone texture used to make the house walls to something less "well built" would change the feel in the right way.
- There's something weird in the look of the roofs of two the the "big-island" buildings: the red one, and the light-blue one. Especially the red one. I'd say copy the bottom-most section (from roof top to gutter), and paste it as is just above it, so that the middle roof intersects with the top one, and we see the windows of the middle one fully.
- The lanterns, while pretty, also seem not to be in line with the AT world IMHO.
- Having some stone ovens placed on wood seem like the best idea to burn this place to the ground (Inn and temple)
- We use a rule to define the size of the interiors: 1x1 tile out = 2x2 tiles of floor in. If one of your building takes a 4x6 tiles space outdoors, its floor (that means, excluding walls) in the interior must be 8x12. However, you don't have to stretch the doors: a one-tile-wide door out can be modeled as a one-tile-wide door in.

Ok, done with the rants, here comes the praise:
- The "western-island" looks awesome. It has this je-ne-sais-quoi that makes it tell "Come, you're welcome here, and in a while we'll eat you alive". A bit like in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
- The house interiors look great too (aside from the critics above). I like the first floor of the temples, with the yellow burning torches.
- I can tell from the first look that you really worked hard to keep consistency across the maps. While overall I feel that some details makes it look out of line with the AT world, as a whole it looks credible.
- I can also tell that you really worked hard on it, as you really produced a huge amount of maps, and created (used ?) new tiles. This level of commitment is really heart-warming for us.

I don't have precise quest ideas, but this is a potential city background inspired by the maps preview:
- Looks like a safe haven, preserved from outer violence, and being autarkic. That could also explain some architectural differences with the rest of the AT world.
- The player is first welcome, but people keep their distances.
- The places hides a secret, shared by all the citizens, that might be best not revealed (à la Stephen King, H. P. Lovecraft, or The Stepford Wives).
- The player will have a hard time overcoming the evil lurking below, or can be tempted to kneel before it.
- The village could be transformed afterwards (once the player choose sides), changing for an evil looking place, or get burned to the ground.

That's it. I hope you will take my critics for what they are: constructive remarks in order to guide you towards a path that can ultimately lead to the inclusion of your maps in AT.
I'm really grateful that you took time to set up a full work environment (with github fork et al.), that you wish to participate, and I hope that this post has not made a dent in your enthusiasm.

Keep'em coming !

[Duke]

Wow! I really like this. Great work Noamik. I think Zukero gave some great feedback. And I can't wait to see what happens on the island with all the bones and the shackles.

[Tomas 3]

I can give some ideas for quests for the island:


1)Go before to another town for example stoutford ,there you talk to someone he/she says to search
or buy something(fish or other thing) in the island.

2)In the Inn of the Island the cook beg you to kill some monsters to have her body for cooking them after(for example squid,octopus,fish,crabs etc...).

3)In the Island someone ask you to search his ring because he was going to propose marriage to a beautiful lady ,but someone stole the ring(could be ex boy friend of the girl or the father of the girl),you must ask for the ring . One person of the people may suspcious for who stole the ring because he/she was gossip(or other thing) and said he saw him in his house with the ring,you go to the house of ex boyfriend or father is angry because won't accept the love of the couple and you decide to kill him or put to the jail(better to kill him ) .


these are good quest for the island i think.
I going to think for more quest or items

[noamik]

Thanks a lot to all who contributed some thoughts.

I'll try to respond to some of the suggestions. Everything I don't mention I will just silently try to implement.

- The boats indeed don't look right. Moreover, I would vote against the boat transport.

The same has been said by Ian to whom I have presented an earlier version via PM. But I don't get why? The boats work exactly the same as usual map changes. Using them feels "right" when playing. I will also add NPCs that will operate those boats and maybe even charge you for using them. This will immerse you even more in the world of AT.

The problem with lots of isles without boats can be observed in the area north east of Loneford. No offense to the creator of those maps, but that place doesn't really look right. And moving there isn't really interesting. To make matters worse: it's not credible. Bridges are pretty expensive to build, there weren't that many as we have today in the medieval area. Boats on the other hand were pretty common and so were ferrymen.

I agree that the current texture of the boats is shit. But I needed something to work with and that can easily be fixed before a release. Once I got better graphics I will just replace the tiles and the maps will be updated automatically.

- I feel that the dock on the "inn-island" doesn't look that good. I can't tell precisely what would need to be done, but I suspect the borders are the main culprit. It looks like it is floating, and that it is as flat as paper.

That's because it's supposed to be a float. I just lack proper texture to make a float. You are right though that it should be changed before releasing.

- The church island looks gorgeous, honestly, but it looks like it is from the Renaissance or Colonial-era, while AT is in a medieval setting. I believe that simply changing the stone texture used to make the house walls to something less "well built" would change the feel in the right way.

I've already exchanged the texture to some more raw material after presenting to Ian. Since you bring up the same remark now, could you please propose a specific tile that you think would fit better? To me the dark huge stones really don't look like Renaissance or Colonial. I rather think http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visigothic ... chitecture

- There's something weird in the look of the roofs of two the the "big-island" buildings: the red one, and the light-blue one. Especially the red one. I'd say copy the bottom-most section (from roof top to gutter), and paste it as is just above it, so that the middle roof intersects with the top one, and we see the windows of the middle one fully.

I've tried but it still looks unreal. I think the real problem is lack of contrast between roofs. Most likely I will solve it by creating special tiles for the outer roof elements that properly mark the end of the roof.

- The lanterns, while pretty, also seem not to be in line with the AT world IMHO.

I will remove those. But why are they among the tiles?

- Having some stone ovens placed on wood seem like the best idea to burn this place to the ground (Inn and temple)

Now you know how all those place got burned down in the medieval area Good catch, I'll see how I can solve that.

- We use a rule to define the size of the interiors: 1x1 tile out = 2x2 tiles of floor in. If one of your building takes a 4x6 tiles space outdoors, its floor (that means, excluding walls) in the interior must be 8x12. However, you don't have to stretch the doors: a one-tile-wide door out can be modeled as a one-tile-wide door in.

Despite reading everything I could find about mapping guidelines on the wiki and the forums I didn't catch that one. I'll adjust my houses. Are you sure it's already written down for beginners like me?

- The player is first welcome, but people keep their distances.

You will be amazed by the quest that you need to accomplish before being allowed to even speak to most people in town
It will be a challenge to any player, regardless of his level.

- The places hides a secret, shared by all the citizens, that might be best not revealed (à la Stephen King, H. P. Lovecraft, or The Stepford Wives).

I thought about the thieves guild playing a major role in this city. What you called a temple is actually supposed to be their head quarter. I thought about them having a dangerous alliance with some forces of the evil. They try to control the beasts on the western isle and use them to fight back any attack of other monsters in the world of AT. Do you think that this is in line with the current story of AT?

- The village could be transformed afterwards (once the player choose sides), changing for an evil looking place, or get burned to the ground.

So you just doubled the amount of work I'd have to do I'll see if I can add this somehow for one of the isles ... looks like a cool challenge.

I'm really grateful that you took time to set up a full work environment (with github fork et al.), that you wish to participate, and I hope that this post has not made a dent in your enthusiasm.

Keep'em coming !

Thanks for taking the time for such a long essay. It's better to hear criticism early. That will spare me to redo everything when some things are a no go.



@Thomas 3
There is lots of space for quests on the isles. Feel free to add more ideas. It would be even better if you would details the current ones. If you are a native speaker I would really appreciate if you would write the complete dialogs for your quests. I will take care of the implementation, but my English isn't good enough to write the dialogs by myself.

[Mourngrim]

I'll skip the technical stuff and jump to the real world stuff.

It doesn't look like there are enough houses to support either the economy or a church of that size. I would suggest enlarging each island, or adding another one. Little beach huts and small cottages should do. Look how many noats you have in the water, are there enough houses to support those families?

A boat yard would be a must, which leads us on very nicely to an easy quest to introduce. Boats are made of wood, and we just happen to know of someone who has cut down a load of trees (sidequest to kill more wasps!)

I'm totally on your side about boats as transport.

The Inn looks wrong to me. Not enough smaller tables and chairs to fit locals and visiting sailors and traders.

M

[noamik]

About the number of houses: I haven't done 1/3 of the maps yet, so there will definitely be more houses. It's intended to be a small city on isles, so I would expect it to be twice the size (and number of houses) of Fallhaven.

Linking the city with the wasp quests sounds like a cool idea. But didn't they already have a reason for them cutting those? Either way there is no reason why there wouldn't be a follow up quest started in the city which leads to those wood choppers again.

[Mayweed]

But didn't they already have a reason for them cutting those?

Their reason for cutting down the trees is that Feygard told them to do so.
The reason for Lord Geomyr's order we don't know yet.
Maybe he wants to fortify his city?
Or he wants to sell the wood to a shipwright?

[Mourngrim]

I thought they were clearing the land... the wood is a byproduct

[Mourngrim]

Where do you plan on placing these? Just so that I can get an idea for a piece I am thinking of.