Author Topic: Potm Domains/Countries  (Read 3591 times)

Miuo

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Potm Domains/Countries
« on: February 05, 2017, 12:12:34 PM »
I got to thinking about the other areas iv seen on the Ravenloft maps, and it occurred to me, I don't think its ever been stated if there is something like a driven intent to actually build every domain. Till eventually the whole Ravenloft setting is basically represented in game. Or if only very specific ones are being chosen to keep some sort of balance or something like that. Or is there really no plan in place, and things just eventually get added when a staff member takes interest in that particular area?

There is no judgment or criticizing, I just became curious once it occurred to me.

MAB77

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Re: Potm Domains/Countries
« Reply #1 on: February 05, 2017, 02:03:25 PM »
It's often been clearly stated we would never build all the domains of Ravenloft. Beside the simple facts of manpower and time to do so, you must also consider the physical limitations of the game engine. It would not support a module large enough to encompass all the domains of Ravenloft, even if we talk only some part of them. It does not have all the tilesets and placeables it would need to properly portray some of those adequately either.

That is not to say we will never visit other domains. It is actually our intent to add new content from other domains. Whether or not it will ever come to be depends on a lot of factors. As to which domains, you will have to wait and see.
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Miuo

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Re: Potm Domains/Countries
« Reply #2 on: February 06, 2017, 12:35:01 AM »
Ah, when trying to search I mostly only just got a ton of threads that referenced cleric domains. What about making a frequently asked questions thread? That is updated as needed?

DrXavierTColtrane

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Re: Potm Domains/Countries
« Reply #3 on: February 06, 2017, 01:56:42 AM »
Some discussion in this decently recent thread (before it was derailed by talk of Oompa-Loompas):

http://www.nwnravenloft.com/forum/index.php?topic=41199.0

The most relevant quote:

For the foreseeable future, I don't believe we'll be seeing any additional domains between limited developer resources and the mechanical limitations of the module.

That said -- Who knows? Darkon is dead in the water for the time being (gasp) while Sithicus is still ailing due to its incompleted-ness.

Ghastria, however, was in the works at the time and subsequently implemented.

In re-reading the thread, I'd say there was a fair amount of sentiment for developing existing areas.

I don't know how easily the Berez part is mechanically to swing onstage and send back behind the drop curtain, but that model seems to have certain advantages.

Lately the server has had a fair number of people on it much of the time (I saw it hit 60 again tonight). It wouldn't hurt during lower traffic periods to have some areas shut off and push folks together, versus opening more up when we're breathing each other's oxygen.

I recall when I first came here traipsing through so many areas and trying to explore them, only to find out that they were often relics where little happened now. When MAB writes:

Quote
Beside the simple facts of manpower and time to do so, you must also consider the physical limitations of the game engine. It would not support a module large enough to encompass all the domains of Ravenloft, even if we talk only some part of them.

...this opening and closing might be a way around that. In other words, if nothing is really going on in the Abandoned Fishing Lodge near the Skrag caves, yank it for a bit and shut off the transition taking folks there. While it's out of production, perhaps tweak it and give it a fresh coat of paint.

You know, how amusement parks work with their rides and exhibits.
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.

EO

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Re: Potm Domains/Countries
« Reply #4 on: February 09, 2017, 10:32:32 AM »
We revisit older areas from time to time to give them a makeover but it's always easier to create new work than revise someone else's or your own.

That being said, there's no actual master plan for new domains. We don't try to cover the Core; it's a mixture of creativity/motivation and practicality. A developer needs to want to add a new domain for it to happen and it has to add something to the server or at the very least not be detrimental.

Slaog

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Re: Potm Domains/Countries
« Reply #5 on: February 09, 2017, 02:04:08 PM »
What if we slightly decreased the scale of the map, little by little?

  Exceptionally long roads with only the occasional cave distraction could have a cell or two moved so that you could then implement a new area from Ravenloft in the new "frontier" created by the "vacuum."

  People considered to be in the same cities or fiefs would have higher chances of bumping into one another and the server won't feel (at first glance) as on the fringe of "empty" while still having a huge number of domains to explore.

Arawn

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Re: Potm Domains/Countries
« Reply #6 on: February 09, 2017, 05:07:20 PM »
What if we slightly decreased the scale of the map, little by little?

  Exceptionally long roads with only the occasional cave distraction could have a cell or two moved so that you could then implement a new area from Ravenloft in the new "frontier" created by the "vacuum."

  People considered to be in the same cities or fiefs would have higher chances of bumping into one another and the server won't feel (at first glance) as on the fringe of "empty" while still having a huge number of domains to explore.

Or we could just add new content to those areas and new areas. We're nowhere near the practical cap for number of areas in a module, especially with our initialization/deinitialization scripts.
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Slaog

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Re: Potm Domains/Countries
« Reply #7 on: February 11, 2017, 01:37:03 PM »
Sounds good, lol. I was under the impression that we were approaching the edge of the Earth, so to speak.

Bluebomber4evr

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Re: Potm Domains/Countries
« Reply #8 on: February 14, 2017, 10:41:14 PM »
I'm sure we'll probably add some more domains in the future, but it's just not feasible to recreate the entire world. In part because of the game engine's limitations, but also in part because there would just be a lot of redundancy.

The Ravenloft setting was basically designed around "let's make a D&D version of a classic movie monster and build a country around it!" In a traditional tabletop "pnp" campaign, it's not likely that you'd visit every single one of these countries, either. I know that in my old campaign, the only domains I sent the party to were Barovia, Darkon, Souragne, Har'Akir, Sri Raji, Valachan, Kartakass, Gundarak, Forlorn, and the Nocturnal Sea/Nebligtode, and that was over a period of 2-3 years. Other peoples' campaigns might not go to any of the areas I listed, or might spend the whole time in a single domain. That's how things work in PnP: there's a whole broad world but most DMs rarely explore the whole thing.

But when you adapt the world to a NWN persistent world, each place you add has to have a reason to be in the game beyond "this is where our version of classic monster X lives" or "that's what's in PnP" or "it would just be cool to have." We have to balance things appropriately, we have to make sure we can reasonably recreate the content of the domain faithfully, and we have to make sure there's an interesting reason to go there (such as new crafting ingredients -- which then means we have to make changes/additions to the crafting system), and we have to make sure we're not spreading the playerbase too thin to the point that no one sees each other. Given that, there's no way to add the whole entire world map in a practical way (and we'd have performance issues if we tried to do that anyway).

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