Note: this area is not yet finished. Requires minor tweaking before it is functional.
This is my second attempt at building an area using the NWN2 toolset. My aim was to create a small settlement, to the purpose of learning the processes of terraforming, texturing surfaces, and working with the placeables.
My approach to areabuilding is that an area should be an expression of something bigger. Similar to how a construction site tells of engineering, and how a modern office building tells of capitalism, each area in gamedesign should tell of something.
For the setting, I decided to focus on the concept of a medieval knight's residence. In the feudal age, knights were vassals of more powerful landlords. The knight would serve the landlord in war and administration and in exchange, the knight received an amount of land and serfs to live from. He would need to keep horses, provide armour and weaponry as well as surround himself with a number of warriors to protect his belongings.
I began the area with the idea of a large mansion. I took inspiration from the Briton hillforts of the classical era. I placed the mansion on an artificial hill, and surrounded it with a number of apple trees to hint at luxury. I fenced the hill and began to work on the homes of the knight's servants. He would only keep his most trusted and important servants close to him, such as his warriors and horsehandlers. Placing housing for 6 families, I worked on a path and again fenced it off. Next I kept a stroke of lands free as pasture for the knight's horses. A hillfort wouldn't be a hillfort without fortification, and I painstakingly constructed a palisade and ditch. I realised the pasture would also make an excellent military camp in times of trouble, and thus I added an encampment next. The watchtowers came after that, and I figured it would be nice to have something to actually look-out at. I placed some trees and elevation and by applying an old theatre trick, crafted the optical illusion of distance by scaling the trees smaller the more distant they were.
The area is not yet finished and not suitable for actual play. It has no sounds, no NPC's and no gameplay content. It is simply my second attempt at worldbuilding using the NWN2 toolset.
Some of the lessons I learned:
- Applying different shades of the same texture might look good in the toolset, but it does not come out properly in-game.
- Settle the area dimensions early in the creation process. Having to change it later will create allot of work since the elevations have to be adjusted. This is difficult and I haven't been able to make the landscape look good after making an area bigger.
- NWN2 is not made for looking into the distance, but rather top-down in the style of Baldur's Gate. I have to take this into account what making my compositions of placables, building, etc..
- The proportions of the placeables are scaled too small and are almost fairytale-like. Interior-design won't match the exterior proportions of the houses. This makes my drive for authenticity difficult, and will require creative solutions and tedious efforts to get it right. For this module, I used BTH's housing pack and 'clipped' the houses into each other to make bigger houses.
Some of my design principles, mostly explained with some example questions I come up with while building:
- Authenticity, not sensationalism. Areas should be believable at first, beautiful at second.
- Region and geography determines terrain. All non-human(oid) elements from 'nature's perspective'. IE: what natural processes have affected the area and terrain?
- Function and purpose determines engineering. All human(oid)-elements such as constructions and roads are there as effect or side-effect from human(oid) activity. IE: What was this activity? What was the purpose? Why is a home placed the way it is? Why was it build in that style of architecture? What has happened to the building since it was made?
- Enhance the gameplay experience. Players will witness the area as they travel through it to quest, battle, etc. An area should accommodate player movement and activities. IE: between which points will players travel most? Should this be clustered as much as possible?
- The landscape is a gamefeature. Exploration and sightseeing shpud be accomodated.
- The context of the gameplay narrative. The area should hint at the storyline and plot the players are going through. IE: if there is a war, should there be signs of siege or preparation?
- The day of play. There should be signs of daily activity, according to the time and period a players travels the area. IE: if it's winter on a farm, are all farming implements stored away?
- Computer performance. The complexity of the area should not be a hindrance to the player. (Note that with this area, I disregarded performance.)
I might continue with the area in the future. At the moment, I just wanted to share it so that I can 'proof' myself to any people or projects looking for builders.
If anyone can actually make use of this area, feel free to do so. And please let me know how it works out for you!
Note: I combined the following resources into the module's hakpak (part of the .rar files):
This .rar contains the two hakpaks needed. Add it in the hakpak list of the module properties, with the 2da.hak as the first entry. Use winrar or a similar program to unzip the download.
10 - A Masterpiece, Genuinely Groundbreaking 9 - Outstanding, a Must Have 8 - Excellent, Recommended to Anyone 7 - Very Good, Deserves a Look 6 - Good, Qualified Recommendation 5 - Fair, Solid yet Unremarkable 4 - Some Merit, Requires Improvements 3 - Poor Execution, Potential Unrealized 2 - Very Little Appeal 1 - Not Recommended to Anyone
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at 2008-07-04 15:16:48
