Feedback: New client and map update

Lennier · Post by **Lennier** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 12:08 pm

More Mapupdates will be in the next close future. Be sure. The time of endless monotony ends.

Trolls Bane: I tried to get up some old features of the pre-wipe map (channel in the mid of the town coastline behind the Seahorse by the new Adron-Lake, wine cellar below of the tavern, pigs inside of the town. etc.) But now the basic version is ready and will not be changed completly again. Now It can be used to develop the town with more buildings in future. There are enough possibilities.

Varshikar: Some bigger changes are there too, but not so radical like Trolls Bane. I try to develop it to a part of the oasis. The desert will expand for this, the oasis too.. and much more...

Miklorius · Post by **Miklorius** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 12:59 pm

Okay, here some feedback on the map update (I've seen TB, the road up to Greenbriar incl. new forest river and the road up to Varshikar incl. oasis):

I like the more details and more "natural" nature

(can't wait to see the "smooth effect"). In Troll's Bane I like the new workshop (but glas furnace is gone!), the wine cellar, the gate towers, the new Lake Adron.

But I don't like all the new rivers!
Maybe it is the concept that the ground water level was raising, but all the rivers are just obstacles while travelling and you have to go detours.
So, I suggest fords or making 1 tile of water passable (= you are able to cross small rivers).
BTW: A spreading desert, but the oasis has so much water that a new river arises (and flows uphill)...?

Back to Troll's Bane:
A river that arises (too wide) in a (too big) mud pit?
A central shop/trading post which now is very narrow and has too much tables and too less chairs?
Only three gates (all gate towers have gates 90° to each other)?
A south-west gate tower which effectively stands inside a swamp?
A small river the rises near the prison at the town wall?
So much hedges which hinder walking straight through the city?

I just want to express that some changes seem not to be very logical.

More Feedback, mainly on the client update.

Berengar · Post by **Berengar** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 1:33 pm

I agree with Miklorious, except for the new shop. I like it

And I don't mind the river outiside of Trollsbane, but I agree that it has too few crossings.

Suggestions:
Move the Ardon Lake a little north and draw it around Trollsbane towards the north tower-gate. It would be a natural border, so you wouldn't need the river, which arises inside of Trollsbane and you could remove the swamp right outside the south western gate-tower.

More crossings for the new river east of trollsbane, for you have to walk all around it if you re heading south don't want to go through Trollsbane.

All in all I like the changes

it doesn't look so... "squareish" any more

Mystra · Post by **Mystra** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 2:59 pm

I agree with Berengar that it is good that it doesn't look so squarish. But I would actually like to have a square somewhere. A plaza of some sort. What about that?

Nalzaxx · Post by **Nalzaxx** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 3:02 pm

Ok people, the town has changed, you don't have to STILL stand outside the shop all the time. Go down the tavern or something, jeez.

Misjbar · Post by **Misjbar** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 3:13 pm

I like the new cave walls!

Isilwen · Post by **Isilwen** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 6:31 pm

Nalzaxx wrote:Ok people, the town has changed, you don't have to STILL stand outside the shop all the time. Go down the tavern or something, jeez.

Yeah I found it amusing that people still stood in front of the shop in the middle of the night

Go places, people!

Miklorius · Post by **Miklorius** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 7:48 pm

Should we all log out in the night time to simulate sleeping? Or should everybody go to the Fluffy Sheep or Seahorse Inn...?

Nalzaxx · Post by **Nalzaxx** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 7:48 pm

Exactly, go to teh Tavern. Have a pint, socialise, play some games etc etc.

Samantha Meryadeles · Post by **Samantha Meryadeles** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 8:46 pm

What she meant is, stopp standing in the darkness. You guys could at least start a fire, lol. Especially in winter. It is cold, very cold. It is dark. But you stand around outside, without a campfire.

Miklorius · Post by **Miklorius** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 9:01 pm

Samantha Meryadeles wrote:What she meant is, stopp standing in the darkness. You guys could at least start a fire, lol. Especially in winter. It is cold, very cold. It is dark. But you stand around outside, without a campfire.

Yeah, sure. But I think it needs some time until the most players get familiar with daytimes and temperatures.
But I think a central meeting place is needed, and now Eliza's trading post and the forecourt is a bit small.
All in all I quite like the new eastern part of Troll's Bane, though the western part is not my favourite location (gigantic mud pit etc.).

Isilwen · Post by **Isilwen** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 9:04 pm

Well think about it, would you rather be in front of a shop in the cold and sometimes dark, or in a tavern?

Retlak · Post by **Retlak** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 9:29 pm

Graveyard.

Poots · Post by **Poots** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 10:32 pm

Misjbar wrote:I like the new cave walls!

me too!

yeah, I'm going to ang out at the tavern now, I think it's alot more logical. the only reason people stood at eliza's was because many people passed by there, and everyone is attracted to other people. and inside eliza's you could look like you were digging in you depot when you were actually clipping your toenails or something.

but anyways, to the tavern!

Sess'sth · Post by **Sess'sth** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 4:58 am

Miklorius wrote:...
But I don't like all the new rivers!
Maybe it is the concept that the ground water level was raising, but all the rivers are just obstacles while travelling and you have to go detours.
So, I suggest fords or making 1 tile of water passable (= you are able to cross small rivers).
BTW: A spreading desert, but the oasis has so much water that a new river arises (and flows uphill)...?

Back to Troll's Bane:
A river that arises (too wide) in a (too big) mud pit?
A central shop/trading post which now is very narrow and has too much tables and too less chairs?
Only three gates (all gate towers have gates 90° to each other)?
A south-west gate tower which effectively stands inside a swamp?
A small river the rises near the prison at the town wall?
So much hedges which hinder walking straight through the city?
...

@Rivers:
Maybe the people of Trollsbane decided they wanted a moat. Life THRIVES around water. Now we have a better source of food in the town; so many fishermen can now do their jobs without leaving the safety of town. The river by the prison is a natural boundary. Either if Trollsbane had it expanded because they ran out of stone, or if it just rose by itself and the town built around it like it built around the other rivers, I like how it is now.

@Too Few Bridges, Et Cetera:
If we built TOO many bridges, we'd have no need for the rivers at all. I'm assuming that the builders of TB helped the water a bit by building ditches. People constantly complained about being hungry when I was around town, and whenever I tried cutting a tree or two down in town, I was thrown into the dirt and kicked for taking the life of "a valuable source of food."

Now we don't have that problem anymore, but I still can't cut those darned trees down, hehe.

@Central Trading Shop:
It's a town, not a trading center. The town is HUGE (compared to 2-or-so years ago at least) - explore, find a meeting spot for your posse. In MY day, the tavern was used a ton more than it is now. People rarely visit that place now; whenever I wander over there, it's empty. A tavern would be one of the most interesting places to visit in a medieval town, because, in my opinion, the town practically revolved around it. Let's face it, the guy who invented beer was an idiot, but a rich idiot who brought people together over a pint.

@Gates:
I'm not sure what you're getting at. Yes, there are only three gates now. Therefore, less area to put more guards to keep more people safe. The whole 90° gates in the towers are there to slow enemies down. Many medieval gatehouses were built similarly. Archers would fire arrows from above until they were overwhelmed. By the time the first gate was broken, they had enough time to flee to a better place and the guards inside the town had time to gather for a counterattack. Since it isn't a straight line from one gate to the other, it takes extra time (miliseconds count!) to get to that next door. By the time you ram the second one down, you find yourself staring at an army of guards (or in the case of TB, 2 guys with a warhammer and battleaxe along with 6 townspeople with pitchforks). About the SW tower in the swamps: it's yet another natural boundary. Try attacking a town by running through a swamp. Your armor will get soggy and heavy, and therefore you'll basically have to take it off or move very slowly.

@Mudpit:
Well, pigs need a nice, big space to wander. It's so huge because they must've ripped up the land while they were grazing. Maybe we should pen them in like we used to do in the good ol' days!

@Hedges "hindering" your travels through the city:
The roads are there for a reason. Sure it saved time to move around the buildings instead of following the roads sometimes, but I think it's fine the way it is. It's more of a town now, than a bunch of cubic buildings sitting randomly on some island.

All in all, Trollsbane looks more like an island town should. The people of Gobiath don't have that many resources, so they've built around the rivers and used natural boundaries to their advantage. Much more... *gulp* realistic.

Keep up the good work!

Gryphius · Post by **Gryphius** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 11:53 am

The question might seem trivial, but it was my very own ritual to start the day: Rising from the wooden cart in front of Eliza's Shop, yawning and stretching my arms. Yesterday i woke up - lying on grass!

Where's my cart?

Miklorius · Post by **Miklorius** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 4:28 pm

Gryphius wrote:Where's my cart?

Send me 10 silver coins to get it back...

@Sess'sth:
Thanks for your huge reply.

1. Rivers
Yeah, water brings life and trade. But for boat traffic the river seams to small (except the lake), and I think it is not very clean (relates to food) - pigs and mud (btw: make it smaller, put fences around it!) at the river's spring and town folk who dumps their trash in it...
The prison river could be seen as some kind of moat, but I wouldn't connect it to the real river (easier way for escaping).

2. Too Few Bridges, Et Cetera:
The new (almost small) rivers radically change travelling. So at least on ford per each river would be very good. And the river inside TB does not look very "guided".

3. Central Trading Shop:
Hmm... it's a also question of RP - is TB bigger then all the ingame buildings? Do all citizens really lives there? But besides that, the main place in medieval cities were the central market place, mostly with wells and at the church.
In TB there is such a place, the green field in front of the shop. But is is smaller then before (not so market-day-suitable). Elizas trading post is okay, but some tables and the dividing door inside shoud be removed (plus the barrels besides the depot) and some chairs added.

4. Gates:
Okay, what you said make sense, although I never saw this "90° gates"! Maybe that is the reason for the gone wagons - they don't fit through the gate towers

. And if some besiegers break the first gate it doesn't really matter that there is a 90° turn...
Okay, the towers are designed obviously that way because everyone should see the gates at first sight which isn't possible with north and west placement. Because of that you have to walk some extra metres to get to the SW tower; and the swamp as an natural obstacle is correct, but I think the enemies on Gobiath will come from everywhere but the south west... (and building near a swamp is orc logic).

All in all I get used to the new Troll's Bane, but I really hope some details as mentioned above will be changed!

PS: A Magical Medieval City Guide

Berengar · Post by **Berengar** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 7:46 pm

@Ses'sth:Please, don't turn this into another "But-in-RL/medieval-times-it-would-be- like-that" topic... We all agree that it looks nicer than before (I think so at least

)
However, so many cut offs are quite annoying and in addition to that you virtually have to walk the paths when travelling in and around Trollsbane, which is kind of restricting imo

Sess'sth · Post by **Sess'sth** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 8:28 pm

Berengar wrote:@Ses'sth:Please, don't turn this into another "But-in-RL/medieval-times-it-would-be- like-that" topic... We all agree that it looks nicer than before (I think so at least )
However, so many cut offs are quite annoying and in addition to that you virtually have to walk the paths when travelling in and around Trollsbane, which is kind of restricting imo

Well, just trying to justify the changes since we weren't exactly given a huge story in the RPG board. What did we get - a "Your town's bigger; have fun," thread? Hehe.

Lennier · Post by **Lennier** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 8:49 pm

90°-Gates: Maybe you noticed within all months and years of playing illarion, that from outside you can not see the front of a house in the north and east?

ALL doors are within a southern or western wall, because anything other would not be seen from outside. So 90°-Gates are the result of technical limitations.

--------------------
But, here: The 'Marientor' of Naumburg (Saale), Germany. A real nearly 90°-Gate

It`s the last gatehouse of my towns middleage townwall. The big gate in front is inside of the old town wall. In original the street at the right side of the gate was not there. There was the Townwall and continues behind the church.The other gate leads outside. But at the picture it is covered by the building itself. It is behind the coat of arms at the periphere building. The place inside of the gatehouse is a big corner of a nearly 90°-Gate.

---------------

But in general i thank you for your critics. I will see, what i can do. The pig-mud seems to be too large, indeed. And the width of the innertown channel is to big. The channel will be thinner in future. But i do not see reasons to remove it completly. The channel helps to part the town, to build a barrier. In alternative of it i also could set up a second townwall inside of the town. But it would make more problems because of more shadows.

Towngate in the southwest and the prision in the northwest: I needed a solution to end the townwall in these areas. The best thing all times is water.

With water and swamps you can solve lots of problems. In this case it helps to close the townwall without to make a new 360° townwall and in use of the big Adron Lake. Townwalls only produce shadows. But now we have an "open" border in the west, like in the old days.

Desert: It is not ready, really! It needs lots more changes there. But o can not work on a special area for hours and days. I work step for step, but i switch between 3-4-5 places between my work, like my fantasy gives new impulses and ideas. My only words here: The old and currenty dessert is more illogical than anything other. It is a big sandbox without any landsacpe. This has to be changed. To set up a connection between the oasis and the moat of the Castle of Varshikar was one step of it. But only one.

The thing of more rivers in general: Gobaith is large, very large. But there are no details in the landscape and no barriers between the different areas. Rivers in all kind of length and width are a solution to part Gobaith (but not the only) in more or less logical parts (and to fill the landscape). The connection of these parts are narrows. That is an aim, no accident. We can discuss about more and alternative narrows. But narrows are important at a big map like our. They are changes to force meetings of players and RP.

Liles · Post by **Liles** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 9:26 pm

Could you up the size of the jail, also?

It seems overly crowded and hard to RP in. I'd like a jail where I can slide them food without opening the door and even mayhaps see them, if possible.

Miklorius · Post by **Miklorius** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 9:35 pm

Thanks for your reply, Lennier.
I will await the upcoming changes and modifications (smaller pig pit - yeah! Smaller intown river - hooray!) and eventually reply then again.
No one is safe from the Mockin' Miklorius!

PS: I surely do not want casting doubt on you efforts!

Tinuva Geogroda · Post by **Tinuva Geogroda** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 3:38 pm

The Partysquad - I'm Sorry:

"I can see my hole world changing."

Misjbar · Post by **Misjbar** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 4:40 pm

I think Tinuva posted on the wrong thread.

And:
"Ik kan mijn "gat" wereld zien veranderen."?

Djironnyma · Post by **Djironnyma** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 12:21 pm

Mir ist aufgefallen das das Wetter sehr wechselhaft ist. Ich denke man könnte es besser ausspielen wenn es kontinuierlicher ist und nicht von einen Moment auf den anderen sich die Temperatur von Frost/Schneflocke auf gemäßigt/Grün verändert oder es lediglich 10 Sekunden lang regnet.....

Miklorius · Post by **Miklorius** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 3:15 pm

Djironnyma wrote:Mir ist aufgefallen das das Wetter sehr wechselhaft ist. Ich denke man könnte es besser ausspielen wenn es kontinuierlicher ist und nicht von einen Moment auf den anderen sich die Temperatur von Frost/Schneflocke auf gemäßigt/Grün verändert oder es lediglich 10 Sekunden lang regnet.....

1. Hmmm... Hab bisher nicht so drauf geachtet, könnte aber sein.
Ich habe bisher als Wettereffekt nur etwas Schneefall bei finsterster Nacht erlebt (Effekt verbesserungsfähig...) und war dann bald offline, konnte also nicht sehen, wie lange es anhält.

2. Wir haben doch noch Winter ingame, oder? Warum tragen dann manche Bäume schon wieder Früchte?!

3. Das Aktualisieren der Tageszeit-Helligkeit geschieht manchmal definitiv nur bei Aufruf der Drachenuhr.