Making of Blood Bay (cont.) and Ardoris Polish

The Making of Blood Bay

Blood Bay is going to be an Open PVP area with two NPC towns, player housing, adventuring areas, and entrances to underground adventure areas. It is going to be a testing ground for several systems that will, in turn, propagate to other parts of the game if successful. We hope to have a first iteration of this map live in Release 38. We showed the scene during the Telethon and talked more about how we hope to have certain systems working. This is the third update we have posted so far on this map.

[A Dev+ Forum Post by Travis “Vas Corp Por” Koleski]

Blood Bay continued:

South shore housing area

Beware the quicksand pits

Back (West) of the island

Magic-boosting shard

South-side of the island zoom-out

 

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Ardoris Polish

In Release 37, we are spending time on polishing the visuals for Ardoris and making them more distinct from the rest of the game. We had already given Ardoris a vaguely Asian theme but we wanted to push that further, so we purchased an Asian-themed asset pack from the Unity Asset store to provide us with additional assets for this purpose. Over the course of Release 37 and Release 38, we are going to propagate those assets (along with the new character assets we are building) throughout the Perennial Coast region to give that entire region its own distinct visual identity. You can expect to see similar treatment to start appearing in adventure scenes, other NPC towns, and PRTs over the next several releases.

[From a Dev+ Forum Post by Esteben “SorcerousSteve” Zaldivar]

Hey guys, SorcerousSteve here giving you a sneak peek at the visual improvements made to Ardoris this R37.

One of the major new alterations to the scene has been the addition of roads leading out to the East and West resembling those present on the overworld map. Alongside this new Asian architecture/foliage has been added to the scene in key areas.

Expect to find new Chinese gardens sprinkled throughout the map, such as this one located inside the castle grounds.

West Road coming into Ardoris ending in a dock from which you can grab a boat into town.

Gardens surrounding the Oracle Confirmatory, a grass topiary bear can be spotted in the garden.

Koi Pond. Well maybe one day we can have coy fish in it.

Areas for inhabitants to do Tai Chi. Shoutout to level designer Dan Brennan for setting these NPC schedules up.

New foliage, including Cherry Blossoms and Bamboo, have also been added to the scene. Shoutout to Art Lead Michael Hutchison for the art support.

New street lights have also been added to further accentuate the Asian Theme.

Be sure to pay a visit to Ardoris this upcoming R37!

See ya next time.

Esteben Zaldivar
Level Designer