As some of you may know, L[aura]7 and I have released a number of RPs together, most to poor reviews. With SC2 oncoming (I'm using this as a very broad statement), I figured I'd make a last ditch attempt to show everyone that the ST1 console has a lot of potential, and that my terrain has its uses.

This is an alternative to a UMS project thread, mainly because the only thing I need to do is the terrain, Laura providing the console, which aside from names, will remain unchanged.

Map Image as of Friday October 23 2009: (JPEG @ 1920x1920)


Close ups of various areas: (May or may not be changed in final release.)









Now you may say "Damn Ex, these are overly doodaded and not too much extended." This is for 3 reasons:
1. RPs require atmosphere rather than overly extended terrain that only looks good in a screenshot.
2. RPs require room to build things. Restricting building placement makes players unhappy.
3. Its just sort of my style. I use a lot of doodads, and I don't go making six layers of dirt and high dirt with aqueducts roaming around.

I dig the overall layout. Mainland in the middle with sufficiently large islands is a very good idea in my opinion, as it leaves some options for use of water units while also leaving enough space to build, and looks like there will be plenty of room for caves and whatnot. Alternately, you could turn half the "caves" area into additional space for the lower right island. Props for the layout.

Also very good points, but as a word of caution, over-doodading can do just as much harm as over-extending terrain in terms of building space and whatnot.
And I hope this part wasn't a shot at me about feyvern/lathirion's mountainous areas

In the first close up, the path is sort of stinky to be honest, people don't usually build paths in loops that small and players won't be able to build in the middle of it. The temple and temple-ish doodads are quite nice, but the metal doodads and the circle-fungus-church-organ-looking doodads look like they're just taking up building space. In the 2nd close up, only thing that bothers me is the metal doodad guy.

In close-up three you might consider making the area on top of the cliff larger and removing the rock doodads so people can build up there, as well as removing the snake unless that's intentional. Again with the metal doodies and church-organ-fungus-things, but the cave is pretty cool looking.

Props again for close-up #4. I don't think players on the ground will be able to see the 2 doodads on top though.

Close up 5 is nice, but you might consider removing the raised jungle in the U shaped section at the top of the ruins so a CC/Nexus sized building can be placed there.

#6, not going to be able to build much with all those trees. Make sure you cut off the corners of the terrain so that squares you normally cant build on but looks like you can can be built upon too to increase build space. (That goes for the whole map of course, but is particularly relevant there)

#7, I can see players wanting to put something exactly where that doodad on the high dirt is, you might consider removing that as well. Otherwise looks nice.

Of course, if you guys want it for any reason I believe I uploaded a template for my triggers here on SEN, but I can understand that you guys probably want to do it all yourselves. Maybe you could find something useful in it though.

I always thought Lath's doughnut sort of shape was both unique and undervalued. No one really seemed to like it but me. In truth Vrael I always found your terrain a little plain, but the layouts were nice. Reminded me of Ticondera, which is always a good thing.

No the six layers thing was a shot at the screenshots all over this forum which look nice, but have no functionality, and then Falk or someone comes in with LOL HEIGHT PROBLEMS like the maker didn't already know that.

I'll see what I can do about the various notes you've made. I imagine a lot of re-doing before I'm halfway done with the map.

Yeah I was trying to think of a good way to incorporate water units without making the entire map an ocean. In feyvern you have those islands in the bottom right of course, but I didn't want to replicate that. Looking back, the terrain is quite plain, but I suppose I was worried about building space. When I used to RP on Ticondera I would always make huge cities, and I wanted that to be a good option on my maps as well. I'm not sure how well I pulled it off. With lathirion at least I was dissapointed in the large-city capability because its divided up into sections smaller than I used to make the city in Ticondera. That is the most difficult aspect of RP terrain in my opinion, making a continuous land that can be naturally divided into sections, or function as a larger section.

Man, I wish I had my multiple versions of unfinished lathirions and feyverns so I could look back on them for the lulz.

I saw lathirion got bastardized recently. v2.10 or something like that, its full of messed up pyramids and weird bridges and half-assed towers and shit, makes me sad that people like that version more than the one I made

I did put some solid effort into lathirion's terrain, like the forest, I swapped out raised jungle for high raised jungle to give the path that 'dark' feel, and the mountains took forever, and I took the time to cut all the corners of terrain like I recommended to you in the above post. So thanks for saying it's undervalued, feels nice to hear that. All this rp terrain talk almost makes me want to put down the tenebrous rpg for a bit and make another rp real quick I have my old template... and all I'd need to do is names/stats/terrain...

As for my notes, basically they all boil down to the same thing. "Is this particular patch of terrain going to interfere with an RPer who wants to build something cool or make some cool setup on this patch of land?"
There, now you can read my mind when it comes to rp terrain

I believe I had made that blend from WoodenFire a bit better in my Tree of Genesis map. Take a look at it, I change the little blocky tile inside, finding many various others tiles that would match better.
I'm talking of the one on high dirt that allows players to enter in it.
Anyways, nice terrain there, though I hate how the ruins paths are blocky D:

STATUS REPORT:
Nov 25 2009
Last night I spoke with Laura about her involvement with the project. Since ST1's latest form was setup for Quadra's desert theme, it needed some changes. I asked her she wanted to do it, and that I'd be fine doing it on my own if need be. She opted to edit the names and stats accordingly, and so that will make things go a lot faster than if I were doing them.

I've added several more islands, merged a few of the smaller ones, and am messing with the borders of various land masses. If all goes well we could see a release in the next two weeks.

I like how you place these little "mushroom spots"

Map progress as of Dec 5th 2009: (1920x1920 JPEG)

Nice job, Ex. One minor thing is the green structures towards the middle don't look like buildings, as much as mossy rock in a square pattern. Not sure if there's anything better as a replacement, though, without making them look like the main structure in the center.

And you might want to break up the monotony of the walls of the 'fort' in the center, as they're just straight lines right now. Maybe a ruined bit.

They're inspired by Ticondera and may or may not stay in the final.

Pretty cool. I only have 3 major concerns:
1). Careful with your doodad-ing. In spots like the top left you might be erasing valuable building space by having doodads.
2). The amount of green Raised Jungle areas in the middle. It's cool to have a couple of them, but sometimes people want to build structures along the road, and then just use the raised jungle enclosures for special buildings that you can walk inside of. I just think there are too many and again, it hurts building space.
3). Trigger console thingy. I understand that laura may want to do the triggers herself, but you guys may be handicapping the map by not adding in newer things, like custom teleports.

Also, if you move the island in the top right down and to the right a little more, you'd have more room for people to actually do stuff on the island, like maybe you should consider having enough building space for a supply depot or something there so they could RP like, some powerful wizard-hermit there or something, you know?

1. Yeah I know.
2. Also noted.
3. ST1 is the best console I have ever seen or worked with. It needs nothing added or taken away.

There are many islands that could already serve this purpose. Look around.

Is the area underneath the console finished? If it is, it's very bland. Also, I agree with Vrael that the island top right could be made a tad bigger; however, not as large as the other ones.

Those are the caves, they aren't doodaded yet.

You name your trigger sets....?

Anyway, back on topic.
To me it seems like it only has the basic functions of older RP maps. Spawns, lights, doors, ect. It also looks like it's wasting a lot of space. I understand that you may be proud of it, but in the interest of making a better map, you may want to consider optimizing it. Your console is actually taking up a lot of space in the map, with respect to a features/size ratio. A lot of what you have in there could be compressed, even if you don't feel like adding extra features.

It's Laura's console, codenamed ST1.

I helped her in the design and how much space it takes. I don't believe it takes up more than an acceptable amount of space. You can have all the features you like, but I find most other consoles uncomfortable and unusable.

To be fair I haven't done an optimization since Laura added another 3-4 features. I just did one a few moments ago and I have a rough copy that shaves off 58x30 tiles.

Yeah, I thought so

Yeah its smaller but its messier, less organized, less streamlined, ect. The groupings are a bit off and I combined some areas that were usually separate.

I'm going to have to see what Laura thinks of it.

:]. I like this terrain! The bottom island is sexy. :].

Vrael : I freaking know! Lathirion v.2.10 was so lame -_-. I thought YOU updated it so I went in and downloaded... game starts... and I'm left looking at the remains of Jerusalem cut into tiny little swuares.. (Analogy of something awesome turning into something gay x))