IslesofDread2 -Released

[The Man In Black]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

I sent you the concept awhile ago and you said Malgoriand was pulled out of the isles for his castle. Other than Malgoriand, I don't see why his concept can't stay mostly the same.

Dreadwind?

Was originally planned as a series of 4 maps, gauntlet style:

"The Ashen Shores"
-The players arrive on dreadwind via a crashed ship, airship, or destroyed portal. Something of that ilk. The idea there is that there is no turning back.
The ashen shores are just what they sound like, the shores of Dreadwind are covered in a black, sootish sand while jets of white hot flame burst from below, cooking man and beast alike in their random fury. Serves as an introductory point to the island, final confrontation with an Ash Archon (similar to a fire elemental or wind elemental, but with a combination of both types of attacks). The players make their way from the Ashen shores onto the rocky grounds of...

"The Dreadwake"

This plateau of massive rocks, the skeletal remains of dragons, giants, and other beasts too ancient to name. The bones of tortured men, elves, and dwarves dot the landscape, held above the rocks in cages where their flesh became a feast for swarms of carrion birds. Abberations of spirits, beasts, and men hound adventurers every step of the way across this area. Eventually, however, they begin to meet organized resistance: Drelaxxians, extremely dangerous warriors of elven descent (though their resemblance to their fair cousins is negligable). This area culminates into a fight against a Drelaxxian general, Thazzad Ra, who guards the gates of...

"The Halls of Pain"

The Halls of Pain are the remnants of Lor Malgoriand's castle, built upon by the Drelaxxians in his absence. Hardcore fights, ending with the players facing their first Nightmare.
A Nightmare is a massive, 30 foot tall or taller, form of a Minotaur: Half man, half horse, covered in black hair and with eyes of fire. This particular Nightmare wields a great sword.
After the Nightmare is slain, nothing is left but...

"The Eye of Malgoriand"

The highest tower in the Halls of Pain leads to a room housing a massive portal. The players go through this portal into a fortress that is at once real and unreal, a memory of Malgoriand's fortress of old as it once was during the Great War. Drelaxxians deep within are attempting to summon him, aided by the Orc tribes and the powers of the Lost. Good luck.


That was the original writeup for Dreadwind. End-game content, mind you, not just like level 40 stuff.. Originally slated to be level 99+ content.

 

[Thothie]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

Dreadwind is another continent unrelated to the Isles of Dread, as I understand it.

 

[The Man In Black]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

Dreadwind is another continent unrelated to the Isles of Dread, as I understand it.

I'd highly doubt that, but if you can prove it..

 

[Thothie]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

Yeah, it was supposed to be an entire continent separate from Daragoth, I know that much. Little-G and Cerix had planned to map out a whole new game on it under Lanethan's mythos. Then somehow catdogs and bludgeons got involved... >_>

Also think I have a dev map sketch with both dreadwind and isles of dread on it around here...

 

[J]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

Yer map is so small, and there's supposed to be multiple isles of dread. So I figure we could glue your two maps together as part of a series...

I know, I was only talking about the first isle, I have nothing against him making Isles of Dread maps. I don't even have any plans for other Dread maps, nor any other maps for that matter.

I also figure #1 goes to whoever's done first, as it can go either way.

The reason why I would like to have the first one is because Rickler and I already got the transitions sorted out, and I've got the map nearly done, I wouldn't like to start changing stuff again.

 

[Thothie]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

I also figure #1 goes to whoever's done first, as it can go either way.

The reason why I would like to have the first one is because Rickler and I already got the transitions sorted out, and I've got the map nearly done, I wouldn't like to start changing stuff again.

Well, as I understand it, Dridje is building a transition based on your map, so you wouldn't have to change anything. You wouldn't even have to change the transition name, as I can have the Game Master intercept the transition name and direct to any of the Isles of Dread randomly.

I've another isle of dread on hold to convert from a Svencoop map.

 

[J]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

I'm not following.

What transition are you talking about? There are three in my map, all with different vehicles: Deralia boat to OC, Row boat to Smuggler's Cove, and a raft to another isle.

And how can he be doing it based on my map when he hasn't even seen it yet?

 

[Thothie]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

I sent him beach.bsp to work with... You've obviously expanded quite a bit since you gave me that though. You've only the one boat on there.

 

[J]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

Well I haven't exactly expanded it much, I've only added one hall but anyway, the places for the transitions were there but the boats were missing. Where there was a rowboat is now the Deralia boat, the rowboat to Smuggler's Cove is at the cliff exit and the raft is at the jungle exit. I can give Dridje the raft if he wants his map to come after mine.

 

[Dridmar]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

Well I haven't exactly expanded it much, I've only added one hall but anyway, the places for the transitions were there but the boats were missing. Where there was a rowboat is now the Deralia boat, the rowboat to Smuggler's Cove is at the cliff exit and the raft is at the jungle exit. I can give Dridje the raft if he wants his map to come after mine.

School sucks.....anyway...J I would be pleased if you can get me that boat then I can get rid of a rowboat model and place that brush in there. IF your map is coming first, it needs to be finished asap as mine will be done pretty soon (Thothie needs to make the scripts.) I say we both aim for a May patch then?

Also Thothie, I had some ideas for a little camp of warriors/guards at the spawn with a boatman to take people to a 'part3.' If I gave you some speech, could you make some of those npcs?

 

[Thothie]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

Again, it dun matter which comes first, I can just have the isle trans send you to a random isle, it'd just be nice if all the isles connected to each other either directly or indirectly, in turn. Empty transitions are always appreciated (should really say "required" but...)

Send me the dialogue and I'll see what I can do... Think I just finished yer hit and run boss (J-M is going to hate this bastard). I'll send you an alpha pack to play with that in a bit.

Your map has taken sloppy to a new level though. That whole area above the trees - I don't even know what that's for other than ensuring everything on the map gets rendered every frame. The smaller trees all need the 1 unit gap method done to them too, and the larger ones should have the ground sliced beneath them into boxes. Also dunno what this sky brush running under the forest is about... I'm reading about 4000 wpoly's in a quick compile. Doesn't affect my 8800GTOC none, but it would affect anyone with a sane graphics card rather severely.

 

[Dridmar]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

Again, it dun matter which comes first, I can just have the isle trans send you to a random isle, it'd just be nice if all the isles connected to each other either directly or indirectly, in turn. Empty transitions are always appreciated (should really say "required" but...)

Send me the dialogue and I'll see what I can do... Think I just finished yer hit and run boss (J-M is going to hate this bastard). I'll send you an alpha pack to play with that in a bit.

Your map has taken sloppy to a new level though. That whole area above the trees - I don't even know what that's for other than ensuring everything on the map gets rendered every frame. The smaller trees all need the 1 unit gap method done to them too, and the larger ones should have the ground sliced beneath them into boxes. Also dunno what this sky brush running under the forest is about... I'm reading about 4000 wpoly's in a quick compile. Doesn't affect my 8800GTOC none, but it would affect anyone with a sane graphics card rather severely.

Okay, my original plan was to have this place as a desert styled thing and players could get up to the area above the trees. If players shoot a fire arrow or something up to that area they'll see the rocks which I guess give it the illusion that there are higher cliffs. When I run the map, I don't really get any problems at all with the fps. As for those smaller trees, I have already done the 1 unit gap method. I'll keep a lookout for any major fps drops and attempt to fix them if I run into them.

Edit: I'll also start 'nulling' the areas where the players can't see.

 

[Thothie]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

FPS aren't reliable, as everyone has different graphics cards. I get a solid 100fps at 4000 wpoly's, but a lot of folks (most especially all the ATI users) would come to a stand still.

r_speeds 1 - watch the wpoly count. The source you gave me didn't have the 1 unit gaps yet, and the lack of those is probably among the biggest wpoly makers. I don't think your cliff effect is visible, but if the players can get up there, I'd section it off into rooms so the whole forest doesn't draw every frame.

 

[Dridmar]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

FPS aren't reliable, as everyone has different graphics cards. I get a solid 100fps at 4000 wpoly's, but a lot of folks (most especially all the ATI users) would come to a stand still.

r_speeds 1 - watch the wpoly count. The source you gave me didn't have the 1 unit gaps yet, and the lack of those is probably among the biggest wpoly makers. I don't think your cliff effect is visible, but if the players can get up there, I'd section it off into rooms so the whole forest doesn't draw every frame.

Okay will work on that. Also, alpha pack pl0x?

 

[Thothie]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

Sent.

 

[J]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

School sucks.....anyway...J I would be pleased if you can get me that boat then I can get rid of a rowboat model and place that brush in there. IF your map is coming first, it needs to be finished asap as mine will be done pretty soon (Thothie needs to make the scripts.) I say we both aim for a May patch then?

Check your PMs for the raft. I think I can make that deadline. Basically I'm only missing a chest, I think I'll give Thothie a test version now. And I would really like it if someone took the zombie and made him a throw animation so Thothie could make them throw stuff at you, they are pretty helpless in my map atm.

 

[Thothie]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

Sent ye an alpha with a spitting zombie ye can try out. Sadly, didn't include a new chest, but you can use the usual chests/gold_10 placeholder or what not.

 

[Dridmar]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

Thothie, I have to talk to you about the health of this beast. It needs more hp or more defence from weapons. Stellie 2 hit the thing with a dark sword. I've also changed the number of them in the forest. There will now be 3.

 

[Dridmar]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

Update: Progress is coming along rather nicely. Most of the mapping is done and I'm just trying to fix some things up (water and spawn basically).

The monster seems to be good and working fine except the health bit ^^ (look above). Will be talking to Thothie about more npc scripts for the map.

@ J: If you want, you could start posting your progress or info about your map in here and I can make this thread for both Isles_of_Dread maps.

 

[Thothie]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

Stellie's pretty high - what level you want this thing to be tailored for? Thought it was 25 or so.

Also curious if you want to use ghost render on this thing (maybe hologram render) to make it easier to spot when it is visible.

 

[Dridmar]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

Stellie's pretty high - what level you want this thing to be tailored for? Thought it was 25 or so.

These are the isles_of_dread, not the isles_of_cute_little_creatures_which_are_weak_as_****.
I wanted this to be for 25-40 level people. I'm thinking that the final number of creatures will be three. Also, if you could make the damage a little stronger too?

 

[Thothie]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

Oh hell yeah, I'll rebalance thus fugger accross the board then. Ye just kept sounding like you wanted something weak but hard to find. 25-40's kinda hard range to balance for though.

 

[Dridmar]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

Oh hell yeah, I'll rebalance thus fugger accross the board then. Ye just kept sounding like you wanted something weak but hard to find.

Yay I get to make a hard map instead of another low level map! (G_Maps) :-/

 

[J]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

@ J: If you want, you could start posting your progress or info about your map in here and I can make this thread for both Isles_of_Dread maps.

Well, I don't really have much to report, I just have to get the monster difficulty right. And I'm probably not going to post many pics of the map prior to the release because it's so small that there wouldn't be much left to see after that.

 

[Dridmar]

Re: Current Project (WIP)

Alright then J. Keep up the good work on your map. Anyway, I was speaking to Rickler last night in-game and he was talking about his transition to the island and dread map and he said that he put 'islesofdread1' as the name for the map. (99% sure about this). Just wanted to tell you that in case you didn't know. I'll be naming my map islesofdread2 which is shorter than the_isles_of_dread_part2