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Making of Brittany Estates

Discussion in 'Developer Work and Blog posts' started by RrMatey, Jun 16, 2016.

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  1. RrMatey

    RrMatey Developer Emeritus

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    Hey guys back again to keep you posted on the progress of another Brittany neighborhood. Brittany Estates is a gated community with lovely scenery and magnificent gardens. A great place to settle down and find that house or castle of your dreams.

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    One of the new things I experimented with in this scene is creating running water streams / rivers. So far it's been very successful and here are some shots of a small stream that runs through Brittany Estates.

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  2. Alexander

    Alexander Avatar

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    Wow. This looks really nice.
     
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  3. redfish

    redfish Avatar

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    @RrMatey ,

    I don't know if this is something you can do : increase the flow of the streams and rivers when its raining, the moreso the harder its raining... also, the water level would rise.
     
  4. Leostorm

    Leostorm Avatar

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    swanky
     
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  5. RrMatey

    RrMatey Developer Emeritus

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    That's a neat idea. But out of the scope of this project.
     
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  6. Duke Gréagóir

    Duke Gréagóir Legend of the Hearth

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    With flooding of lots with the increased water!
     
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  7. redfish

    redfish Avatar

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    I'll sell you flood insurance !
     
  8. Carlin the Druid Archer

    Carlin the Druid Archer Avatar

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    Thanks for sharing. @RrMatey How come some of the background is blurry? e.g. the city walls in the photos? Is that the LODs taking effect?
     
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  9. Leelu

    Leelu Avatar

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    Love the Garden. Love the water. Stone work is so nice.
     
  10. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

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    Very nice. Seems like it's early in the early stages of development, but it's a very cool looking concept.

    Two things to consider here: (some of this will be a repeat of feedback I gave Steve for other areas of Brittany)
    1. I don't like speaking for anyone but myself, so let me put it this way. It's my perception that players are SUPER concerned (on the whole) with traffic flow and vendor placement. I find that many of the areas of Brittany look fantastic and your scene is no exception. However, I haven't seen many places in any of the Brittany scenes that really make an effort to provide homes that face the flow of traffic. Brittany Central actually does a horrible job of this, and I have no idea why. In many conversations I've had with people during the mini-land rush we just had, everyone one of them was saying things like "I just want to get house number X" because it's the only one that is closest to the flow of traffic from the outside to the inside of town, it's the only one that would really be a good place for a vendor.

    You see, not every player cares about having a vendor, of course. But with limited space, having say 50 lots and only one of them is any good for selling goods, that's a real waste of space (in my opinion). So I wonder if you and the other developers might want to think about that more as you're designing these areas because I'm really surprised at how they're being made. It's like they're being made to live in for real life without consideration of what players would really find exciting in this game. Yes being able to look out over the horizon and see a beautiful scene is great, who wouldn't love that? But it's a game and there are very real limitations that over a short period of time may not get the kind of returns that a similar scene in real life would.

    Over time, I would speculate that it would be more important to have areas of the game that are well traveled (not all of them but of course but more of them in these scenes) and offer more social and economic benefit. Because at the end of a few months, I think our goal should be to attract players not just areas that make for good screen shots.

    2. The absence of benches are weighing pretty heavy in those pictures and I have no doubt that you just haven't gotten to that part of the development process. As a POT owner, I've been very interested in trying to find more ways to encourage player interaction within my town. Even though my town is open pvp, I want people to do more than just run around and fight each other. I want them to talk, buy and sell things from each other. Which is going to be really difficult to accomplish early on since it doesn't look like there will be any NPC guard AI. But in Brittany Estates you don't have that problem. You have a layout problem. Benches are just places to sit down and there are probably going to be a lot of those. So what in this scene will encourage players to sit down and talk or interact with one another?

    In a scene where players are grinding out experience and loot, that's not really a huge concern. But this is different and I don't see where that's going to happen. Not just with this scene but a lot of the Brittany areas. There are pockets of those scenes where it might be better than others, but for the most part these scenes are like quotas of player housing being met. We've got to have 10 Castles and 10 Keeps in here! It's like that's the primary goal, and I don't think that's good for the long term value of these areas. I think we need to begin thinking more about how players gather and what makes for a positive interaction that will make whatever scenes the players are in feel more special and less dead.

    So here are few examples that I hope might help you, I know this is a challenging subject and I struggle a lot with it myself when trying to plan out my POT.

    1. Maybe there should be a temple to one of the Titans that could possibly attract followers of that Titan and would make a good place to have service related to that Titan in Brittany Estates?
    2. Maybe the garden hedges should have some kind of ability to for the public to harvest a special flower that is only found in Brittany Estes? It's just a small node, it's obviously not going to be guarded by a mob. But maybe it only appears during a random event, and so players not knowing when that random event could be, often stop to sit and watch or read the history of this flower together hoping that today might just be the day! I get it, this is probably outside the scope of the last 40 days, but this is exactly the kind of thing that will turn Brittany Estates into a memorable and meaningful place vs. a scene full of large houses.
    3. Perhaps there should be more seclusion in the garden areas, giving rich nobles a way to communicate anonymously with other players in the scene? I'm thinking of maybe some taller hedges that allow one player to sit on one side without seeing the player on the other side. Almost like a priests confessional. Maybe there's a way to work the Oracle in here, like an "open" confessional?

    These are just off the top of my head. I hope this feedback helps.
     
  11. Duke Lorimus

    Duke Lorimus Avatar

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    This is looking great.
    excited to see more.
     
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  12. Gideon Thrax

    Gideon Thrax Avatar

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  13. Gideon Thrax

    Gideon Thrax Avatar

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    Has a new money appeal...
     
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  14. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    that makes me happy! i'd love to see small streams added all overt he place. we have all these big rivers with no tributaries.

    ..especially in random encounters.
     
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  15. Beaumaris

    Beaumaris Avatar

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    Looking great, thanks for sharing!
     
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  16. Lord Andernut

    Lord Andernut Avatar

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    I like the preview! Thanks! I love me some opulent areas. What is the lot distribution like?

    I assume that come the release the hedges won't be growing into the stone pathway right?
     
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  17. Bushmaster

    Bushmaster Avatar

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    That's going to make it a hard choice to live in Brittany Fields or Estates.........

    Nice work! Cant ways to see it what QA comes up.
     
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  18. Halvard

    Halvard Avatar

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    Wouldn't it be nice to get a lot in Brittany... at group 32 im guessing I will have a hard time to snatch a lot for my own :(
     
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  19. Kara Brae

    Kara Brae Avatar

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    I have no idea how many people feel the way I do, but I like beautiful towns, I think Brittany is beautiful and I hope it stays that way. Nothing ruins my gaming experience with SotA as much as having vendors and gaudy displays in my face wherever I look. When I enter most towns (especially Owl's Head) I put my avatar in auto-run mode so I don't have to look at the vendors as I run past.

    In my opinion, what the game needs is some mechanism for letting people know where to get what. If I knew that John Doe was selling something I needed at an acceptable price I would gladly pay him a visit. As to "being able to look out over the horizon and see a beautiful scene": that is priority #1 for me. And it is the reason why my village home will be in Rift's End on the top of a cliff overlooking the beautiful ocean.
     
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  20. RF Lord Marshall

    RF Lord Marshall Avatar

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    Oh wow ... that is original what I love !!!!
     
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