PaxLair Player Owned Town Scene Design and Test

Discussion in 'Player Owned Towns' started by Winfield, Mar 31, 2015.

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  1. Winfield

    Winfield Legend of the Hearth

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    [​IMG]
    PaxLair as seen from the "air" prior to people moving in - Pre-alpha Release 17


    Also see:

    Original Post:

    Hail everyone,

    Many of you probably saw Starr Long's Q2 2015 Schedule Update which included the following:

    RELEASE 17, April 30, 2015:
    • Player Owned Town Test: We hope to have our first example of a Player Owned Town in the game with the PaxLair Metropolis.

    I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Portalarium today (March 30, 2015) to show them details for the PaxLair metropolis design. I will certainly share with you what I experience and how the design and test are going along the way. I am able to discuss this in the PoT public forum here.

    Remember, I don't work for Portalarium - I am just a backer and a PoT owner. So what I say are my observations and experiences about what goes on.

    The goal is to have PaxLair in place in Novia at the start of Release 17. In fact, the PaxLair scene is intended to become a completely re-usable template (in total or parts) for other owners to consider using for their PoTs. It may even be used for some Player Run Town scenes. It may be used for Holdfast to Metropolis sized PoTs.

    Stemming from this test should also be the design of the PoT questionnaire to gather necessary design information efficiently and accurately from all PoT owners.

    I will show you the PaxLair scene design from start to current finish and how we are requesting lot positions, NPC buildings, NPC scripts, geography, and connection to four other scenes. We started with an MS Paint concept drawing last year and now have a fairly refined map within a 1 square km landscape.

    We already adapted our PaxLair design today after I gained a more detailed perspective and appreciation about how the designers' must do their work. I can see that scene design is not simple work and with 100+ PoTs to create, the process must be efficient.

    I will add my images, spreadsheets, and notes to this thread very soon (a day or two) so you can see our approach. You will be seeing a "test in progress" so things may and will likely change before final production. As PaxLair goes through this, your ideas are crucial to help all of us get the most out of our Player Owned Towns' designs and desires.

    I also plan to have some IRC sessions too, perhaps Wednesday night and Thursday morning (Central US Time) like we did during our Helping With Ideas For Player Owned Town Templates discussions.

    I'm really excited about the way PoT designs can go and what we can all achieve. Thanks for your patience and interest.

    /Original Post

    FINAL PAXLAIR TEMPLATE AND LOT LAYOUT SUBMISSION

    UPDATE: I will keep the Latest Version of the PaxLair template and scene design here. We are not done changing it, and may have two versions: R17 test version to work with community testing, and Episode 1 version for PaxLair. (these will just differ in how the City Lots are sub-divided / combined to make other lots).

    [​IMG]
    PaxLair Template​
    Red City Lots can be subdivided or combined​
    Yellow/grey lots are options to be used for water lots​

    [​IMG]
    Final Version as of April 28, 2015​
    RED lots are City Lots (flat spaces) for the PoT Owner to subdivide or combine into final lots.​
    YELLOW/GRAY lots are water lots, that can be chosen or not chosen.​
    April 16 -- added more city lots on right side for template - making Forest Alley. Lots on Central Lane and Alleyway moved around a little. Made some "blocks" closer together to form alleyways, added Fishers Pass, expanded Stonehill mountain area on top, added path to reach "front" of the castle from Main Street as the front entrance will be towards the cliff overlooking the town. Map is not rotated yet, but will be 90 degrees clockwise, Sunset Rock will be on the East Side, and Stonehill will be on the West Side.​
    April 22 -- moved row lots around in Stonehill and in the Market to make it better and denser.​
    April 28 -- moved a few lots to unblock the view from the castle.​

    [​IMG]

    On April 24, Portalarium revealed the PaxLair Scene for Release 14.

    [​IMG]
     
  2. Sold and gone

    Sold and gone Avatar

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  3. Gaelis

    Gaelis Avatar

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    Thanks Winfield, can't wait to see it :)
     
  4. Stryker Sparhawk

    Stryker Sparhawk Avatar

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    Thank you, Winfield! Hope to see all those fishing trips to bandit lake pay off. :)
     
  5. Xenar

    Xenar Avatar

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    I was hoping that your design process would be that open, helping the MANY other PoTs structure their planning process.

    You (PaxLair) have been very open with your planning to date, and I'm glad you and Port are taking the time to let us in on the process.

    Thank you both!
     
  6. Abydos

    Abydos Avatar

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    Thank You My Lord !
     
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  7. Waxillium

    Waxillium Avatar

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    *watches thread and requests carrier pigeons send him updates*

    Best of luck!
     
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  8. Aartemis

    Aartemis Avatar

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    Excellent!! Thanks for keeping us up to date!
     
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  9. DarkStarr

    DarkStarr Executive Producer SOTA Developer

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    We had a great day of work and iteration with Winfield yesterday. I think we are getting much closer to a solid intake process and an efficient building method. Winfield has been drafting a prototype intake form that we iterated upon yesterday to the point we felt it was close enough to start creating a web form for it (in anticipation of R18 goal of beginning the submission process). We also did a bunch of changes to his submitted town layout to get it closer to a reusable template versus a one-off custom layout.
     
  10. smack

    smack Avatar

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    Awesome! Looking forward to visiting PaxLair during R17.
     
  11. Sean Silverfoot

    Sean Silverfoot Avatar

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    While it was hard to see some of our original design change, it all made sense in the long run and turned out to be a very workable process once you wrap your head around it. Very exciting stuff.
     
  12. Vallas (Beran’s Reach)

    Vallas (Beran’s Reach) Avatar

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  13. Dinsoo

    Dinsoo Avatar

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    This is great! Thanks for letting us sit in. I'm excited for all of us.
     
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  14. Thadeus Crook

    Thadeus Crook Avatar

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    Can't wait to see what you all did! I'm excited to check it out!
     
  15. Duke Death-Knell

    Duke Death-Knell Avatar

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    OK, so how do you see the process going forward?

    I understand there will be templates that are being created as we speak. After that I'm kind of fuzzy on how Portalarium see's the process.
     
  16. Spoon

    Spoon Avatar

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    I'm hoping for Unity tiles, so that one can arrange pre-fab tiles of lots instead of having a fixed layout.

    Example I threw together in 5min.
    [​IMG]
     
  17. Themo Lock

    Themo Lock Avatar

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    Expect something more along the lines of smaller PoT's choosing a section to cut out from existing large templates.
     
  18. Waxillium

    Waxillium Avatar

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    Not sure how many people are using Unity. I don't have the skill set nor was it a requirement to buy a PoT. I assume that maps we provide in any format will be edited on their end.
     
  19. Spoon

    Spoon Avatar

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    There is no need to have Unity - it is not a requirement. Check Winfields comment in the OP. PaxLair did not bring a Unity model.
     
  20. Duke Gréagóir

    Duke Gréagóir Legend of the Hearth

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    Awesome!!! :)
     
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