The Making of: Midras

Hey guys SorcerousSteve here to give you an update on the Ruins of Midras coming this R36!

The Ruins of Midras are nestled in the peaks of Midmaer. I took a lot of inspiration from its reference in Blade of the Avatar along with adding my own take to the map.

Aesthetically I was inspired by the city of Osgiliath in the LOTR. Especially over the idea of having ruins that had vertical space, yet were now ruined frames of what they had once been.


The ancient ruined skyline of Midras.




"They followed the road toward the center of Midras. The newer structures gave way to the more ancient ruins near the center of the city. They came to where the avenue ended in a circular plaza in the center of the town. Here it was evident by the carnage that the fighting had been the most intense. On the east side of the plaza, an enormous tree rose up out of the ground. It had once been a part of a small garden before the doors entering the ancient temple. "
Chapter 2, Blade of the Avatar


"The abandoned shells of buildings looked silently down on them from either side of the road. At their feet, shattered stone and splintered wood"
Chapter 2, Blade of the Avatar




In designing Midras we made sure the ruins had plenty of great PVP spaces to ensure fun dynamic gameplay.
Fight and lose your opponent through corners, alleys, dents, ditches, tumbled rocks, collapsed buildings, rock walls, and overgrown hedges!


"This tree and the trees from its seeds will be here long after the stones have been crushed into sand and the walls erased"
Chapter 2, Blade of the Avatar


Esteben Zaldivar
Level Designer

 

Looks awesome man.

 

Once again, a great job @SorcerousSteve !!

 

Looks great!

Is that an aqueducts in the second pic or just an arched wall feature? Wondering if we will see more towns using Ardoris aqueduct and water wheel features.

 

Fantastic. I love the multi story ruins!

 

Wow! This is truly excellent.

When I first saw the Midras ruins I was a bit disappointed that it didn't really look like how it was described in the book. Great job bringing that to life.

 

I think the "Ruins" scenes are some of the most beautiful in the game. Thank you for continuing this tradition. I can't wait to explore it!

 

QUOTE:
The Ruins of Midras are nestled in the peaks of Midmaer. I took a lot of inspiration from its reference in Blade of the Avatar along with adding my own take to the map.

Aesthetically I was inspired by the city of Osgiliath in the LOTR. Especially over the idea of having ruins that had vertical space, yet were now ruined frames of what they had once been. UNQUOTE

That huge tree looks like an Ent ready to do battle to keep its integrity. Thank you so much for the peek at this area and your brilliant work, @SorcerousSteve !

Some of us would need a day of amnesty before we would enter Midras, so I hope we get MANY screenshots from you and others to enjoy it vicariously.

 

Awesome work, Steve!

I'm still bummed that Midras is a forced MPO PVP area. I've been looking forward to seeing it since reading Blade of the Avatar. Guess I'll have to check it out offline at some point.

 

Even unfinished I had so much fun running around exploring Midras last night. Thanks so much for this wonderful work! So beautiful and complex, with a zillion little places to hide and evade (or ambush!) enemies! I look forward to some team PvP in there <3 It makes me very happy to see PvP and PvP zones getting some much needed love this release!

 

@SorcerousSteve Is there anything in Midras that is unique to the occupants from prior to the Obsidians taking the city? That is, compared to architecture and materials that you can find in more "modern" Novian cities.

The huge tree is impressive! I also thought it was interesting that several of the crystals are not floating "upright", but somewhat angled. Good stuff.

 

Stunning, a so impressive scene ! Great job !