Soluthis' Rocky Region: Area Claim #05

[Razorwing]

Soluthis' Rocky Region: Area Claim #05

Click the image for an overview
Please note that the grayed out areas indicating claimed areas are added
manually when time permits, and will not be updated promptly as claims
change status; they only serve to add clarity when there's time to update
the image. Thus they should not be taken as clear signs what is claimed and
what isn't, but on the other hand you can be certain that the grayed-out
areas are indeed claimed.

Estimated size: 9 cells.*
* The estimation in general is influenced by facts like parts of the cell being unmoddable or parts of it being water.

The "Rocky Region" north of Soluthis is a barren wasteland with nothing but rocks, rocks, rocks and more rocks. Well, almost, because the rocks are really only window dressings for the true allure of this place - action-packed moldcaves, forgotten Velothi tombs, abandoned mines, and other fun locations for the player to explore and fight through. (Dunmer Strongholds, Dwemer ruins and Daedric shrines wouldn't be out of place either, but at the time of writing this the models are still under construction. If they're finished when you're reading this and I have yet to update the description, then they're ok to feature here.)

[title]The particulars[/title]
Thanks to sandor's region generation much of the work is already done. You won't need to texture the landscape, nor do you need to drag a ton of rocks into the world window. You should almost always add more rocks though, and arrange them to your liking. Keep the facecount of an exterior cell between 100,000 and 150,000. If you know what you're doing you can trade facecounts between cells back and forth but otherwise don't go beyond 150,000. Don't forget to add vertex shading underneath rocks where needed, because it looks bizarre without it. Please also use vertex shading to break up the monotony of landscape textures, but naturally never as dark as you use underneath rocks. You can often use very light green and very light brown to create subtle shades on the ground that help break up the monotony without the player really realizing it.

If you notice misaligned rocks in your area, please fix them. Either by realigning them or by deleting and replacing them.

Don't mod outside the bounds of the area; no object you place should protrude beyond your cells, even if the object belongs to a cell within your area. If your area is partially blank, like up north in Area 04, or partially encompasses another region like the southeast corner of Area 11, please don't mod on the wrong portions of those cells.

Spider- and insect creatures should be plentiful around the whole region. Please use monster lists instead of directly using creatures, since the custom creatures have a tendency to generate errors despite working perfectly fine. You're welcome to decorate your area with cobwebs and spider eggsacks if you're sure spiders will roam about near where you decoreated. Don't forget to create pathgrids for the creatures to move about on.

There can be a limited occurance of flora. Check around the generated cells to see which varieties are ok. Don't use varieties that you don't see elsewhere. Be sure to only place flora on mossy rock landscape textures, and don't add so much flora that it detracts from the 'barren wasteland' theme.

[title]Time to kill something[/title]
The "Rocky Region" has never been inhabited by civilized people, at least not in modern time. At the same time it's not a total wilderness because it does lie within a reasonable distance from Soluthis. You can find remnants of years gone by here and there - Velothi tombs, Dwemer ruins, Dunmer Stronghold - perhaps stemming from a time when the region was less hostile. You could even find 'uncivilized' locations, like Daedra shrines and different types of active mines. But no-one wants to live here, so you'll definitely not find villages or inns. There should probably be a road in the region, going from Soluthis' harbor entrance through 18 -> 17 -> 16 -> 02 -> 01 -> 04 -> and beyond - to Blacklight in the north - but there's no civilized settlements along the route in Soluthis' rocky region. Or to put it succinctly; this region is for the player to venture out in search of fun and adventure.

You're expected to set up entrances to locations in your area. You're welcome to mod them too, but you don't have to - you can issue claims for them instead. Please do that in a new thread on the Dungeon claims board. On average there should be one location for every ten exterior cells. When you pick a cell which will contain an entrance to a location, please name the exterior cell SoluthisLoc### where ### is an claim number. (In the cell list window just left-click on your cell slowly two or three times and a cursor will start to blink, letting you choose a name for the cell.) You can pick an arbitrary claim number, like SoluthisLoc395, which will then be re-numbered when your area is slated for merging. The interior cell for that claim will be named SoluthisLoc395lvl1 and so on depending on how many cells it encompasses. Sticking to the template makes it very easy to playtest the location.

Don't forget to decorate dungeon-type entrances and exits with Hermit's Crook, since a) that's the only places they can exist and b) they're helpful to players.

[title]In closing[/title]
To claim this area, post a reply saying so. You don't have to wait for anyone to confirm your claim, you can get started right away. But bear in mind you should not have more than two of these area claims active at any one time. If you claim a third one before one of the other two are approved by our reviewer(s) it'll likely get "un-granted" after the fact. It's just my way of ensuring that there are less dead claims lying around, especially since things are starting to heat up a bit for Silgrad Tower v3.0. I hope to see at least a few areas with accompanying locations modded before release.