Design Thread - Tsaesci Highlands

[Ysne]

I am making this thread to help further the progress on this mod. Exilehunter, Ciao and Deeza thank you.

[exilehunter]

As a starter, i have 2 pics of the Highlands, both taken from the north of the eastern island looking south. As you can see, its a nice area for some interesting ideas.



All i know about the place is that the Tsaesci camps are somewhere on this plot of land. Help me out here!

[Deeza]

Alrighty then...

This is the area of the islands that the Tsaesci have occupied (a few weeks ago in the game storyline). Thus, they aren't very well established here yet - all their structures are temporary. There are several caves which they are using as storage (for weapons and, more importantly, food - in the form of Tang Mo and other creatures to eat later - these guys are vampires after all). I think that it might be a good idea to have several smaller camps rather than one massive one (an epic final battle would be awesome but I suspect it would be too much of a hit to most people's FPS)

The main Tsaesci camp contains their commander in his enormous, luxury tent - the island's main quest line will end when this character has been killed either by the player or one of the other Imperial troops. Additionally there will be opportunities to free the prisoners held captive in the caves (and thereby gain access to the weapons and armour stored there).

Climatically, this area is grassland, with only small patches of bamboo and other trees. Long grasses would be best, but perhaps that would be too much of a performance hit?

Presumably, before the Tsaesci invasion, this area was inhabited by the Tang Mo. There may still be several survivors hanging about in the wilderness. There are also perhaps reinforcements in the form of Imperial legionnaires who were cut off from the main army during the retreat from this area.

[exilehunter]

Tsaesci are vampiric?! And here i thought the snakes would like a nice sunny spot to lounge in.
A grassland is nice and simple. Perhaps making the land tierred (sort of like rice paddies that dig into the side of a mountain) and each level is a grassy area with rocks (and cave entries) and some trees at their base??? (if you dont get what i'm talking about, think of the mountains as staircases where each horizontal is a grassland whilst the vertical is a rocky wall/cliff with caves). Perhaps the peak could be the commanders area.

Anymore suggestions and ideas?

[Deeza]

Originally posted by exilehunter
Tsaesci are vampiric?!

Apparently. This is why there are no elves or humans in Akavir. Apparently the beast races that remain were indigestible.

I like your idea a lot - perhaps the area was once actually used for farming - explaining why there aren't many trees here. How long would it take you to make that?

I love the idea of climbing up, capturing each level one by one until the final showdown at the top!

[exilehunter]

It shouldnt be too hard to make the tiers. I was thinking we could use Mr Siika's rock meshes for the cliff parts.

As for vampiric tsaesci, i think we need to endeavor into the matter later on.

[Deeza]

A definite yes to both your points. My return to modding will come soon, so let's get going!

[Ysne]

Originally posted by Deeza
A definite yes to both your points. My return to modding will come soon, so let's get going!

Shivertail will be back soon too! Do you want me to email Willward?

[Deeza]

Certainly! Find out how he's getting on, then we can start dividing up the work on this area.

[exilehunter]

If you guys are starting to band together, you might want to start developing the specifics of the region. Its all good to say its a tiered area but without clearly setting out the required trees, rock colours, grass, plants and terrain colour, its fruitless to gather people.

And also, i developed the heightmap with 2 peaks. 1 is specifically a volcano ( the south peak) but the north peak (which i believe you can see in the above images) isnt specified as a volcano or a mountain. If you want, i can make this peak part of the highlands and have the commanders area on top (hence shrinking the volcano area).