Holdfast Design Contest

Discussion in 'Player Owned Towns' started by Prince Guni, Jul 1, 2014.

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  1. Prince Guni

    Prince Guni Avatar

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    HOLDFAST DESIGN CONTEST​
    sponsored by Anshe Chung Limited and Avatar Friends​

    _________________________________________________________________

    Dear fellow Shroud of the Avatar fans,

    on behalf of Anshe Chung Limited and the Avatar Friends guild I am happy to announce our first player owned zone design contest. The goal of this contest will be to design a Holdfast that will become the first community estate in Shroud of the Avatar with lot ownership rights guaranteed by Anshe Chung.

    -Sir Guni
    _________________________________________________________________

    DESIGN PARAMETERS:

    • Zone type: Holdfast (corresponding to the Holdfast deed offered in the Add-on-store)
    • Settlement name and theme must match Shroud of the Avatar lore and setting
    • 12600sqm total of player lots
    • Zero or one town lot and the rest should be row and village lots
    • When players enter the holdfast they first pass a prime commercial area that comprises about 20% of the buildable lot space plus the NPC owned building that comes with the settlement deed. This could be a road with buildings on both sides, a market square surrounded by buildings or any other suitable arrangement that exposes shops and vendors to arriving visitors.
    • Beyond the commercial area, roads branch off to the rest of the holdfast and remaining lots.
    • There should be multiple zone exits (roads in land zones, boats in island zones) that allow people to exit from any lot in the settlement without a too long journey to the exit

    WINNER SELECTION AND PRICES:

    • Contest entries should be submitted via email to anshe(dot)chung(add)gmail(dot)com no later than Monday July 14th. Winners will be announced before Friday July 18th.
    • Entries should at least include a map/layout of the zone and a text that describes your concept and design decisions. Supportive imagery (your own sketches or pictures grabbed from the Internet) that better illustrate your ideas are optional and welcome.
    • The first place winner of the contest will receive a village size lot in a holdfast that we will add to the game based on his/her design entry plus a free village lot deed from the Add-on store. 2nd and 3rd place entries will receive a free village and row lot respectively (lot deed not included).

    ABOUT ANSHE CHUNG LIMITED:

    Anshe Chung Limited has almost 10 years of history managing virtual real estate and developing communities in virtual worlds. We are currently managing >4500 regions comprising >60000 rentable lots on a total of 295 million sqm of buildable space in Second Life. Land ownership guaranteed by Anshe Chung means your lot is safe.

    ABOUT AVATAR FRIENDS:

    Avatar Friends is a new guild for Shroud of the Avatar that will bring together old friends from Anshe's guilds in previous games and new recruits alike. Some of us will have played games such as Asheron's Call, Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies, Second Life or World of Warcraft together. Others who believe in the virtues of honesty, honor and love may seek to join us as new applicants and bring their own stories and histories with them.
     
  2. algumacoisaqq

    algumacoisaqq Avatar

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    Is this to be done on unity or just pure design? Problem is I don't think we will be able to place the lots anywhere on the scene, unless we create the scene ourselves and Portallarium thinks that scene is good enough to be on the game.
     
  3. Prince Guni

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    This is a pure design contest to think up concepts and lot arrangements. We don't expect people to build an entire zone in Unity. Portalarium just said that they will start working from a template (an existing zone they already created for somewhere else in the game) and try to modify that to get it closer to what the buyers of the settlement deed envision/request during a design meeting with them. I think a major restraint might be what could be done within limited time (Portalarium is still a relatively small team super busy creating a huge game).


    I suggest to freely start with a 2D map and not restrain yourself but work towards your ideal vision when it comes to lot arrangement, placement of key buildings, paths/roads, land/water, vegetation and so on. Create your vision. How far Portalarium would later be able to mod a template to get closer to that vision or if they would be able to let our own modelers help is hard to tell now. Lets simply make this contest about examples of what a great holdfast that works well for players living or visiting there could be like :)
     
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  4. Biblik

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    If you aren't artistically talented and wanted to use the town designer I built feel free -

    http://sotaexchange.com/#towndesigner

    You will need to register to be able to edit it but in a nutshell -

    1. Create a map (I recommend using the Metropolis size as it is to scale for the number of lots, not overall hex size which we don't really know yet)
    2. Click Toggle Edit at the top
    3. Drag over a series of tiles and then click a tile type in the top right
    4. Toggle edit when you are finished to save it. You can screen shot it or give the URL to someone to be able to view it.

    As a note each tile is 5 sq meters. Here is a sample I built -

    [​IMG]
     
  5. Fenrir the Hunter

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    Thank you for running this contest, I submitted an entry.
     
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  6. Prince Guni

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    Thank you. Anshe just texted me that she received your entry and two others too and forwarded me your Dropbox link. I think there may be an issue with player owned houses placed on bridges. The way the system in SotA works right now is that you need a flat and empty lot (land or water) and can't really mix a public structure (e.g. a bridge) with a player owned structure in the same place. The only solution to this would be for our artists in Wuhan to create a special set of player house prefabs that would actually include a bridge segment as part of the house prefab and get that approved by Port. Maybe easier to design the settlement with all player houses on normal land/sea lots for now.
     
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  7. Fenrir the Hunter

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    I realize it's ambitious, and I hope some day it can be achieved, perhaps with a later release. One day I would like to travel to a player metropolis with a wide winding river cutting through it like London with multiple bridges like Bruckenrathaus and Ponte Vecchio to explore.

    To avoid custom houses for the Holdfast we could adjust the design so instead of one large bridge we replace it with a small island connected to each side by a small bridge. The bridges could be staggered so you pass through a little downtown merchant district with row house and one or two village lots to get to the other bridge.

    Thank you
     
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  8. Prince Guni

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    Hi fellow avatars, the contest is still running until Monday night. As stated in the original post, submissions can be sent by email to Anshe at anshe(dot)chung(add)gmail(dot)com :)
     
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  9. Prince Guni

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    And the winners are *tamtamtamtamtam-drummroll-bambambam*:

    (1st) The honorable Sir Fenrir the Hunter for his concept of a river-crossing holdfast inspired by old European bridge houses
    (2nd) The honorable Sir Dallanar for his concept of a mountain holdfast and display of l3wt Unity skills :D
    (3rd) The honorable Sir Aevans for his vision of a riverside Viking village built around the magnificent Great Hall given to us by the Gods of the game :)

    Congratulations. Village and row lots respectively (in our settlements) will be granted to the winners and the first prize winner already received a village lot deed from the store. Cheers :)
     
  10. Bambino LudoVate

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    Thanks for the contest Guni and Anshe Chung, wish I had more time to work on the project unfortunately I am designing the metropolis design for The Bear Tavern at the same time, Which is a more time consuming project and required my utmost attention.
     
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  11. Fenrir the Hunter

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    Thank you for the contest, and congratulation to Dallanar and Aevans!

    I look forward to seeing the settlement grow and to seeing what Anshe Chung and the Avatar Friends community build in game.

    Thanks again,
    Fenrir
     
  12. Ambrosius

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    Cool contest, pity I missed it. Congrats to the winners! Are you planning more contests like this?
     
  13. Mata

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    Congratulations to all Winners!
     
  14. Vallas (Beran’s Reach)

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    Congrats to the winners, an interesting contest. :)
     
  15. Rufus D`Asperdi

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    How can the winning entries be viewed?
     
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  16. Father Aquila

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    yes please, can we see the winners?
     
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  17. Anosa Saycosie of Gilnea

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    Is this a business foray to crowdsource a business objective?
     
  18. Jhorus

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    I agree with the previous posters, could we see the designs? either the Unity files (like in a full project type thing for us Unity n00bs), and/or a top-down map jpg? Pretty please?

    Some of us are trying to get a Holdfast together as well, and just looking for ideas/layouts/etc. :)
     
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