locale sub-forum

[sphr]

While I am writing stuff, sometimes I will need certain landscape features/locales. I was thinking that since Kodama is our master cartographer, we should create a subforum specially for maps/land issues, where it serves 2 purposes:

1) Kodama can post latest snapshots of the lands, which will help me a lot in placing things.

2) cartographers can try to create map instances (note: landmass != map. Map is an interpretation with probably less accurate features but with other things like political borders etc). Also, we probably need maps of different scales for different areas, maybe right down to city level.

3) People can suggest detailed locales that Kodama can try to incorporate into the land if it is appropriate.

[Cogidubnus]

now that we have a thread for this -

Do we have a opinion for Bu' Po archetechture? If not, I'll run with it, but I wanted to get a consensus.

[Kodama]

We had some tree houses for Bu Po, but there will also be some bamboo huts on the ground, Bu Po has a large harbor and the palace will be on an island in the harbor.

I wish i had maps of the landscape, that would be great, but there is now way to tell how Ka Po Tun will look (it will be bigger then on the beta map).

Unfortunatly, screen shots of the landscape are useless right now, no distand LOD's yet, so you could not get an idea of how the land looks like.
But Sphr, you can download the landscape if i post it on rapidshare and PM you a link.

[Kielanai]

May I put in a request for flat rocks? None of the rocks in the game are flat. -_-* Often flat rocks (particularly of gray or white color) are used for things like building ishidoro, paving walkways, creating garden structures, ... even being the base gravel in a zen garden. Many rivers are filled with large flat rocks that make it so pretty for crossing or sitting and just admiring the scenery. They could be used to build waterfalls, too. The rocks in the game can be pushed into the ground to appear flat, but bottoms are chunky and rounded. There are door stones I haven't experimented with yet, but I suspect there will be one side invisible.

It's not necessary, of course, but I thought I'd ask.

[Kodama]

Yeah, maybe Necron could create something like that, you would have to show a picture of how you want the rock to look like.
Not everyone knows how ishidoro look like, or what they are (stone lanterns).

[sphr]

Basically, I think this is something I could use but it's only a suggestion.

Basically, the "White Desert" is not really a desert. I was thinking that maybe the northern part of Kamal is actually a separate island seperated from mainland by a North Channel. But landscape-wise, this wide water body is permanently frozen that it became part of the "land" (So I guess it will still be "land" in implementation)

Due to the fact that it is actually frozen water, there are no trees/plants etc. It is just like a desert in that there is a general lack of support for life. It got its name partially from this and the fact that it is "white".

Travelling through this part of the land, especially when travelling from the mainland to the "real" island is extremely difficult. Other than the bitter cold and general lack of fuel/food sources, there are also occasional "glacial storms", where a portion of the White Desert cracked to revealed the water and moved (maybe as a result of earth plate movements?), swallowing whatever that is unfortunate to be nearby and changing the "landscape", before being frozen up again. This also makes navigation worse, in addition to the general lack of landmarks and short visibility range in the frequent snow/hail, which also make navigation of stars difficult.

[Kodama]

I have been thinking about making something like that, the problem is that most of Akavir has a warm climate, so it would be unrealistic to have an ice landscape in the north.
That's also why Kamal is a high mountain, otherwise there could be no snow.
Another problem would be that we need to have large ice-plate models (like those in the north part of Solstheim, TES3) to cover the sea.

[sphr]

hmmm... yes I see your point. frankly speaking, I was initially troubled by the logic for Bethesda's placement (from descriptions and hints) of Kamal too. I initially thought that it's because the north part of Akavir stretched to the Nirn's equivalent version of North Pole or something.

As an alternative, if we really want some uniqueness you if you find any part of the landscape that you've designed but placement needs backup, tell me. If we cant find a natural explanation, we can always find a supernatural one I've left plenty of "buffer gaps" in lore .. e.g. The titantic battles between the dragon-gods and the Tsaesci have changed much of the Akavir landscape in the distant past (as a back up to explain things if some things in the current landscape is not the same as in ancient times. also allow us to add newly "rediscovered" lands as add-ons if we need to). Mighty magicks were released that could have changed climate too (.e.g. "Central Plains", a ficticious lowland area where the old human Empire was initially sited and later taken over by the Tsaesci, was once flooded, the once peaceful ancient forerunners of Kamal were also displaced from their original homes which started them on their long migrational journey that finally ends up the Snow Hell). Another possibility is that the land is still being magically affected ... e.g. something may have caused the unnatural coldness in Kamal (more quest opportunities)

btw, just asking. is it possible to post some sketches of your land with main areas/cities marked out? I find that looking at landscape directly is not that conveneint for planning purposes as it is too detailed. Or perhaps you can found a "Cartography Guild" here to get people to produce "artistic" versions of the maps? (e.g. like some of those seen in the other Silgrad Tower mods.. i.e. the Map link at the top of the page).

[Kodama]

Yeah Ysne said the same thing about supernatural reasons for your idea.
However, we would still have two problems:

1: we don't have the ice models, and i don't expect that a modeller will make them any time soon.

2: I'm trying to keep the landscape size within 200 x 200 cells (square for simplicity's sake) Kamal is in the north, if i create more land there i would be outside the planned size for the landscape, and i really don't want to make it any bigger then it allready is.

I will soon be able to draw a new map, maybe in two days from now =)

[Lady Nerevar]

i think there are way too many subforums, especialy with 1-5 threads per subforum...

/opinions