Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Just a progress check

Yep, just reporting on how the beach area is turning out! Also tested a few of the earlier areas and had fun&giggles - even though I know it's lame to laugh at one's own jokes :( Well, I'm tired, not paying attention to my lecture at the moment and can't find anything clever to say. So, look, pretty pictures!




Friday, September 25, 2009

Hoorray! Time to advance!

Yes, I'm finally finished the overland map design! I will get back to scripting & populating it later, I have more urgent areas to focus on - such as this one nice shipwreck beach. Feels nice to design an area that's not in a miniature size. Of course, I'm having a wee bit hard time since I haven't designed a beach before. What makes a good, beautiful and natural beach? They're usually mostly sand...

But plain sand is boring! I looked at Storm of Zehir's shipwreck area, but that didn't help too much since the idea was too different and the actual beach was...well, pretty much empty. I need to think of something, the area is supposed to be nice and relaxed and fun to explore and talk to NPCs. Oh and the ship will be a part of a "quest" that will NOT appear in the player's journal. It's sort of a mystery that the player will have to solve without relying to journal entries telling them every little thing they need to do. I won't make it too hard though, I promise!



Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Still working on the overland map

The overland map is taking more time than I thought it would...on the other hand I haven't had much time to work on it. At least I'm starting to develop some kind of routines now that I'm getting used to school again. Which means I should start having more time for modding - I'm also thinking of quitting my stressful part-time job to have more time for this and rest of my life! (:

Anyways, here's what's happened since the last picture upload. I've pretty much finished the texturing on the map, but I still need to make finishing touches once all the placeables are in place. Also, 90% of the map is grassed and shaded. As you can see, there are plenty of forests, jungle and mountains to explore! I'm getting restless while working on the overland map when I have so many good areas waiting to be created on the map (such as Witch's hut and Aboriginals' camp). Both will be "optional" areas that won't be directly integrated into the main quest actually.

Look forward to the finished overland map at the end of this week or in the beginning of the next one! But hey, here's a new picture - you didn't read any of that anyways, so just marvel at it.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Back in business!

Sorry for the long absence. I had a lot going on in personal life and virtual life also. I found my lost love for EverQuest private server called Shards of Dalaya. Pretty awesome MMORPG considering it's completely free - actually it beats most of the commercial MMOs out there. But now that I started college and moved to another city, I won't have enough time to concentrate on my characters. So, yesterday I grabbed my mouse and opened the Toolset...

And whoa, it was a bit confusing - I confess I had been modding Left 4 Dead a bit and going back to the Toolset controls was preeeeetty hard. But I'm all used to it again. I played through what I had created of CotL so far and I was pleasantly surprised, it all worked pretty well and looked nice. Of course I found some odd dialogue that I'm determined to change the next time I have the time to focus on it.

I should have an internet connection on 10th of September, so look for an update after that date. Right now I'm at school so I can't post any screenshots, and I really don't remember much of what progress I did yesterday. But...

It's good to be back!