What he said. I've got about 2 more zones to 'finish up' (which shouldn't be that much work) and then the map is alpha-ready terrainwise. I'm not too sure what Zelda's at, but we're getting close now.
The thing about windows is that making them behave specifically (i.e. a player would be able to 'look outside') just isn't worth the effort. For one, there's no fog of war in the game and as such a player will be able to 'look through walls' anyway (because he's simply got a top-down view). Additionally, most of these walls have occlusion to make exploring the building easier on the eyes; this system would clash horribly with windows. There's more reasons, but all in all there's not much point to it.
As for wallpaper... I'm relatively happy with the power plant as it is. The only two things I found myself actually missing were some kind of wall decoration (paintings, mainly) and carpets. If you feel like making some then be my guest, but it's low on the priority list at the moment - I've managed to find 'workarounds' to distract from the mostly empty walls and floors.
To be fair, the actual power plant is 99% finished, but I just didn't want to show it off yet. I'll give you guys a little teaser so Soulfilcher can see his wall in action ;)
There's gonna be a roof on that, btw.
Edit: Also, Zelda's point on the amount of players is a bit outdated (though he couldn't know, I haven't discussed it with him yet). Looks like 6 players is pretty likely at the moment, with 8 being a pretty real possibility. I doubt we'll be able to go higher than that, though.
A) Are you saying you guys can set up mini towns now? What about warehouses?
B) What kind and how much randomisation? Something as simple as rearranging the 'maze-like' layout would make it very interesting for me.
Btw Maity, I'm not trying to shove as much sci-fi into your map as possible but the more quest stories that are, the more interesting for ppl like me. Maybe you'd like to share (clearly) what constraints you have and I'll try and come up with ideas that work for you?
A) Yes and no. I can confirm that there's room for at least one 'town' outside of the main city - it's yet TBD how big that town is gonna end up, but it'll have at least a Starmon Centre and two houses. Other 'towns' aren't officially planned but will/might be added as there is room for it. There's also a route which has just a Starmon Centre and no additional buildings. We'll decide this more or less on the fly as we figure out what we need.
B) Maity will have to get back to you on this. I've left some room open for both these zones. I'm not sure if there'll be much (if any) randomization in the cave's lay-out, though it might be possible to change the looks slightly. We'll have to see. As for the Desert: I think the plan was to make it both huge and completely randomized in terms of doodads, though I'm not sure how that'd work and if that is at all/still the plan.
A) We're going to make most buildings enterable. As in you can see them from the outside, go in through the door, and do stuff inside. No teleportation or anything involved.
B) There's some planned randomness involved. I think the Desert was planned to have some randomization (correct me if I'm wrong, Maity), as is one specific layer of cave. Either way, the two zones that will likely involve most grinding (desert and cave) are HUGE and you shouldn't become bored with the terrain any time quick there.
This is just my opinion but it's more interesting having very different environments to travel through. Instead of having most of the map as zones maybe trade some out for reusable caves/ruins/warehouses? It also doesn't make sense for a magma filled area next to an ocean next to something else wacky :P. That seems like a very unnatural environment.
Well, there is sort of a 'hemisphere'... it's not like I'm throwing down volcanos next to glaciers and lush forests. The zones also intertwine at the borders; there's no real "zone X ends and zone Y begins" - you'll see the tree types, textures and plants flow over gradually.
I'm not sure how they did it, but I once played a map that when you got to the edge of the map, it had those lines that you see at the edge of melee maps sometimes when the map doesn't quite fit in the minimap. Then you crossed that, it brought you to a new map allowing them to have as much room as they could possibly want. I don't know what the map was, but it was like a campaign style map. I guess they could have used mods to do that.
Sounds like this was a singleplayer map. For singleplayer effects like these are easy; we could've made every zone a map of its own if we wanted to and simply carry over hero/unit stats (similar to the WarCraft 3 expansion's Orc campaign with Rexxar for those who remember). For a multiplayer map, there is no map carry-over.
@TheAlmaity: Go You know... you can make your map larger, but it needs some work. All you have to do is to make everything that goes in the map smaller. If you reduce everything (from terrain, to doodads, to units...) to half the size they are now, you have quadrupled your map's size. By setting a custom camera you can make everything looks the same as before.
I've seen this approach but don't like it personally. I've never seen it executed in a way that didn't come with shenanigans in one form or another. Either the UI screws up, the camera move speed ends up being funny or something else pops up. The game wasn't meant for it and thus it's hard to make it work. We've already increased texture quality and zoomed the camera in and I'd rather not go much further.
On the flipside, I'm more positive about the room we have than Maity. There may not be space to add in all possible ideas, but we currently have... what is it Maity, 12? zones planned total and they should all fit in easily. Each of these zones will be relatively the same size as one in the original Pokémon games.
This they actually aren't, really. You're seeing a border in this picture. There's trees long the side, but they've been cut down around the actual windmills.
That said, I still need to do *some* heighting play in the area just to make sure everything isn't 100% flat.
The arena city will be the only one mostly due to map size restrictions - There just isn't enough space for us to put in towns and cities.
I should add that there's some positive news here; I've been able to crack in small houses and even tiny villages every now and then without running into map size problems. There may be a couple of these villages scattered around the area. They won't be major quest hubs or such like the villages in the original Pokémon games, but it should help the world feel a bit more lively.
I like this due to the fact that it'll make the world this much more dynamic and with that, larger. It doesn't matter how much you've played and how high level your Starmon are, you'll always have plenty of reasons to go back and train in the mountain zone, desert or forest if you feel like it.
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@TheAlmaity: Go
What he said. I've got about 2 more zones to 'finish up' (which shouldn't be that much work) and then the map is alpha-ready terrainwise. I'm not too sure what Zelda's at, but we're getting close now.
Brace yourselves; alpha is coming.
You will want to swim in it. Check out Eiviyn´s Magicide if you want a sneak peek at the direction I´m going to take it. It´ll be good :D
@Trieva: Go
Slacking.
As for me, getting inspiration to do the beach - all that's left for alpha terrain-wise.
@SoulFilcher: Go
The thing about windows is that making them behave specifically (i.e. a player would be able to 'look outside') just isn't worth the effort. For one, there's no fog of war in the game and as such a player will be able to 'look through walls' anyway (because he's simply got a top-down view). Additionally, most of these walls have occlusion to make exploring the building easier on the eyes; this system would clash horribly with windows. There's more reasons, but all in all there's not much point to it.
As for wallpaper... I'm relatively happy with the power plant as it is. The only two things I found myself actually missing were some kind of wall decoration (paintings, mainly) and carpets. If you feel like making some then be my guest, but it's low on the priority list at the moment - I've managed to find 'workarounds' to distract from the mostly empty walls and floors.
To be fair, the actual power plant is 99% finished, but I just didn't want to show it off yet. I'll give you guys a little teaser so Soulfilcher can see his wall in action ;)
There's gonna be a roof on that, btw.
Edit: Also, Zelda's point on the amount of players is a bit outdated (though he couldn't know, I haven't discussed it with him yet). Looks like 6 players is pretty likely at the moment, with 8 being a pretty real possibility. I doubt we'll be able to go higher than that, though.
>.>
<.<
A) Yes and no. I can confirm that there's room for at least one 'town' outside of the main city - it's yet TBD how big that town is gonna end up, but it'll have at least a Starmon Centre and two houses. Other 'towns' aren't officially planned but will/might be added as there is room for it. There's also a route which has just a Starmon Centre and no additional buildings. We'll decide this more or less on the fly as we figure out what we need.
B) Maity will have to get back to you on this. I've left some room open for both these zones. I'm not sure if there'll be much (if any) randomization in the cave's lay-out, though it might be possible to change the looks slightly. We'll have to see. As for the Desert: I think the plan was to make it both huge and completely randomized in terms of doodads, though I'm not sure how that'd work and if that is at all/still the plan.
@Trieva: Go
Two things:
A) We're going to make most buildings enterable. As in you can see them from the outside, go in through the door, and do stuff inside. No teleportation or anything involved.
B) There's some planned randomness involved. I think the Desert was planned to have some randomization (correct me if I'm wrong, Maity), as is one specific layer of cave. Either way, the two zones that will likely involve most grinding (desert and cave) are HUGE and you shouldn't become bored with the terrain any time quick there.
Well, there is sort of a 'hemisphere'... it's not like I'm throwing down volcanos next to glaciers and lush forests. The zones also intertwine at the borders; there's no real "zone X ends and zone Y begins" - you'll see the tree types, textures and plants flow over gradually.
Sounds like this was a singleplayer map. For singleplayer effects like these are easy; we could've made every zone a map of its own if we wanted to and simply carry over hero/unit stats (similar to the WarCraft 3 expansion's Orc campaign with Rexxar for those who remember). For a multiplayer map, there is no map carry-over.
I've seen this approach but don't like it personally. I've never seen it executed in a way that didn't come with shenanigans in one form or another. Either the UI screws up, the camera move speed ends up being funny or something else pops up. The game wasn't meant for it and thus it's hard to make it work. We've already increased texture quality and zoomed the camera in and I'd rather not go much further.
On the flipside, I'm more positive about the room we have than Maity. There may not be space to add in all possible ideas, but we currently have... what is it Maity, 12? zones planned total and they should all fit in easily. Each of these zones will be relatively the same size as one in the original Pokémon games.
So you waited until I was gone until you did this:
I'm hurt :(
Because... that's where the wind blows? Why would you build them in hills?
This they actually aren't, really. You're seeing a border in this picture. There's trees long the side, but they've been cut down around the actual windmills.
That said, I still need to do *some* heighting play in the area just to make sure everything isn't 100% flat.
SNEAKIN' IN A TEASER PIC!
...
Aaaand out again.
I should add that there's some positive news here; I've been able to crack in small houses and even tiny villages every now and then without running into map size problems. There may be a couple of these villages scattered around the area. They won't be major quest hubs or such like the villages in the original Pokémon games, but it should help the world feel a bit more lively.
@TheAlmaity: Go
I like this due to the fact that it'll make the world this much more dynamic and with that, larger. It doesn't matter how much you've played and how high level your Starmon are, you'll always have plenty of reasons to go back and train in the mountain zone, desert or forest if you feel like it.