Server Proposal: 004 Waterdeep

[hollyfant]

Looks great!
Needs more crates though.

[boombrakh]

Looks great!
Needs more crates though.

There will never be enough crates! >_<

[paazin]

Does it come with that drow?

[boombrakh]

Does it come with that drow?

Highly doubtful since it belongs to Sandermann and he's overly protective when it comes to his Drow.

[Castano]

All placables must be converted except those with walkmeshes that you wish to be used.

Incorrect. Environment objects do not have collision boxes and therefore have no bearing on PC or NPC pathing or LoS. You should balance the trade off between pathing and rendering, not just blindly convert everything to an environment object.

Large city areas MUST be converted to environmental objects and the doors mass set as static to prevent door removal.

Incorrect, see above. Most placeables should probably be converted but not all of them or you can end up with quite odd looking navigation around the area.

If you are going to make 20x20 or large city exteriors...put down all your placeables...all the buildings etc. Then bake it. This generates a WALKMESH file (the .trx file). Then take your area files and store them someplace safe (really you need to do this as after the next step - you cannot add a new placeable or rebake the module files ever so you will need them someplace safe in case you decide to update an area). Then go in and convert the buildings to environment in your module directory version of the city. This reduces a lot of lag issues...we did this for Caer Callidyrr city on MS and the performance improved manyfold. I also did it for Corwell Town and the performance again improved.

bear in mind that if your area will be subject to combat and you need the placeables to block arrows, do NOT do the above without the following: The arrows will fly right thru unless you add in invisible placeable barriers and leave them as placeables.

And avoid 32x32 exteriors if you possibly can..we did Calli in 32x32 as a design challenge and also because the city would not be done jistice w/o beign all together.

[Regalis]

Ok, so here's the deal. I am going to start looking for interior designers (:P) pretty soon because the exterior will be done not long from now. That means that you can basically ask to build something in the lists below. The reason I do it this way is because I know how passionate I am about certain things and how impassionate I am about other. Another reason is to give people the satisfaction to say "I built that!". That is why I want to give the power of creativity to those who feel they really want to build something or the other to those who do.
Naturally, this won't be an open Free For All, which is why I'll run this by my development team and other consults.

This will make me very unpopular, but what else is new?

Treat your new server like a startup business. The first step is discovery. You have to validate your plan.

You want to build what 200, 300 canonical locations. OK, people are coming into this thread talking about wetting themselves, is that validation? No.

How do players use the current large cities with a great many unique interiors? Do they all get used with any frequency? Is there real demand for even more diversification of interior areas? Or do people tend to explore once or twice and then settle into a habit of using only a few areas to congregate and actually roleplay?

I would posit that efforts might be better spent looking at Powers of Faerun and DMG2 to try to create a script driven system that gives PCs with sufficient financial resources the ability to become stakeholders in the world, i.e., the ability to start their own shrine, inn, festhall, etc.. Much like a prestige class, it might require a flag set by a DM so that there is discussion before it is undertaken to make certain that it is inline with the vision and values of the server.

I believe the widespread idea that more areas are the cure is wishful thinking. That adds width to the world. What's needed is more depth, particularly things to drive player engagement in non-combat related activities outside of DM events. Additionally, adding more depth in the realms of polity and economy can only be a good thing.

Flame away.

[Galadorn]

I think if people outside are willing to do the grind work of creating many different and unique areas for WD, then why not? I think there is nothing but more places to explore and enjoy if, like proposed, all of the areas are outsourced and then implemented. Even if the majority only go to a place even one time, it will always be there for anyone else to go anytime after and for DMs to have ready for using in sessions etc.

I have first hand experience that after it's built and running... PC stakeholding is rampant already on all servers. I'm pretty sure when it's ready to go, if a PC has some gold, and wants a shrine built, or inn, or house, i can't see it not happening of course... it alrady does!

With everything created with love, all these interiors etc will provide a great base for depth at teh get go.

w00t

[wvincenti]

Best of luck to you and your team Boom for the resurrection of dear old Waterdeep. I look forward to seeing the Dripping Dagger again and getting mugged in the Docks.



-Bill

[CloudDancing]

Approve it already. Waiting till they stop being hyperactive and excited is going to ruin the momentum YET again.

[Adanu]

Seriously, what CD said.

[Ksiel]

Hey Boom, what is the status of this? If it is still in limbo and you want to sharpen your toolset skills, there are quite a few builds/updates to BG we could use. What do you say?