Idea: Skull Fortress of the Pirate King

Combining Ian's mention of a fort, Trevor's suggestions, and a seemingly good response to the skull house....

I noticed that in each node there is a mayor, or some sort of official. Here's my suggestion.

Skull Fortress of the Pirate King. Technically simple, yet visually pleasing; built into the sizable skull of a Leviathan that once wrought havoc upon the high-seas. The bulk of the "fortress" could be visually implied behind high walls, lined with cannon holes and pointed seaward.

This could add story, intrigue, and also help size down the scope a little bit, removing the bone-yard section, while still including the concepts. Perhaps this could even lead us to the intimidating (and nautical) calling card "Team Leviathan"? ;D

This and the giant pirate ship in the dock-town (how about calling it "Wharf Road"?) could form two very different, yet coinciding big/main elements of interest. I think with that, we could just Populate the docks, add the other and future interesting buildings and assets as they come up, and be good to go.

Discuss!

Palms and Archetecture

bumper boats instead and or with go-karts

Town Layout Ideas

Below are a couple of ideas for how the town could be layed out, and where.

I'm torn between most of the town being outside, or inside. Both offer lots of possibilities from floating buildings, small boats, bridges that are high enough for small boats to go under, multi-level buildings, docks, towers, using the environment for buildings, such as a crag or two, with a bridge suspended between them.

I think using the internal idea would be easier on us, in regards to overall occlusion. We can eaisly split it up into several chunks, so players won't have to see the whole thing at once. However, this can be done externaly as well, but it would have to be done with crags and large (or lots) buildings.

Share your thoughts on what seems like more fun; and do note that neither of these are finalized, just trying to get everyone on the same page in regards to our options... there is an infinite number of ways to layout the town exactly... and the more interesting it is, the better!

Below are some thoughts of placements for certain things... hopefuly this will add to some more awesome ideas... the mores concepts I see, the more I like this.
I would like to see a little less wood though. Maybe roofs made from sails or plants.
A small dock, offset from the entrance to the mouth of the cave would add opportunity for a couple of buildings, plus a fisherman somewhere on the dock.
I think having most of the inhabitants of this area be on the beach, or in the cove's cave would be ideal. That way we can keep some of the idea of having homes built into the side of things, now a cave wall instead of a tree.
Look a the list of NPCs nate posted. We do not have to represent everything there, but a good handful would be nice.These people will need something to identify them, aside from just the character. We'll need some kind of visual sign (an icon), or objects in a building that make it fairly obvious what the building is for.example: The miner may have a few wooden beams, a shovel and a pick in a pile, with a sign dug into the ground that has a pick stuck in a rock.The archer may have a couple of targets set up with arrows sticking out of them inside the cave.
Keep it simple, keep it obvious.
So far the concepts we've seen are dead on with the style of art that FreeRealms is made of.
Unfortunately, most of it has been from 3 people.
So, take what you can from the below images, and bash together some more ideas for points of interest... things the player would do on this beach, or the outlying crags/hills/cliffs.

Easter Pirates Concept

Combining themes. Enjoy. Comment.

-: CONCEPT LIST :-

You all should have noticed by now that (in game) there are different job classes and treasure items which carry through to every node. USE THIS THREAD as a listing for those things that we need to make sure we include. Please add any missing items you see to a COMMENT OF THIS THREAD and I will add them to this head post.
Note: for future reference I will add a link to the right of the blog that will go directly to this CONCEPT LIST so that you won't have to search the entire blog just to find this post.

And now, the list:

JOB/TRAINER CLASSES:
(remember, we can invent our own: fisherman/lifegaurd/ect.)

• adventurer
• ninja (not sure if these are in every node, please confirm)
  
• postman
• medic
• blacksmith
• miner
• warrior
• archer
• wizard
• kart driver
• chef
• brawler
• card duelist
• explorer

and some more

Rough Layout and Waterfall idea

Gah, sorry for the long post fellas;

I will add more schematics and explanation tomorrow because I need sleep, but basically it's a cove with pathways cut into the cliff faces. Ideally the topography would be more uneven but for the sake of an easier visual read I kept the pathways (which are tan) pretty level. I have some more sketches that should help explain the way I'm thinking the houses would be incorporated, I'll put those up tomorrow in the afternoon/evening when I'm done cleaning them up.

It popped into my head the idea of a waterfall hiding the cave entrance to their inner lair where all their loot would be (think Pirates of the Carribean gold cave and dock). The waterfall I'm theorizing could be layers of moving alpha textures, say 3, and to transition from full waterfall to nothing could be achieved by decreasing the visual opacity of each layer over time. I think it'd make a great view and gimmick, including a walkpath that goes behind the waterfall. Hopefully one of you level guys can wrap your brain around that one without much difficulty.

Another idea would be to reveal a rock formation that resembles a skull with the mouth forming the cave entrance, revealed when the waterfall subsides.

The words on the upper right read "to ruins" in anticipation for node 2.

Where does the water go? Perhaps the 'pirates' have incorporated the ruin's levy technology...?

Just getting ideas out before I forget;

I had an idea for node 2 that had whatever ancient civilization we find there utilized water for their technology, and maybe a minigame would be a downstream water ride that took the player on a log ride through tunnels that occasionally break out into tree ceilinged outside environments, with the player eventually landing in the pirate's cove or some other area in node 1.

Tomorrow (well, later this morning) I will be working on more concepts and playing with shapes and color schemes from 10am to 3pm at least, so feel free to call me if you have any immediate questions!

Crag Shape and Color test Iteration 1

a few props

here are a few pirate things i thought up

Pirate Cove WIP

Hey guys, hope you all are having a good (and productive!) weekend so far.

Here's a WIP for a Pirate Cove inlet, we (viewer) are looking out a large cave that serves as the pirate ship's dock. This is just a mean layout of the land and a search for possible beauty shots in-game. The topography of the hills/cliffs will most likely change to accomodate pathways and domiciles.

I'm thinking houses could be built into the walls of the hills, with pathways in front of them (beginnings of pathways and stairs on left), and perhaps "a wise elder" lives on the island crag at the end of the pathway. The pathway could wind up the cliffs which lead to node 2 (jungle and mayan/aztec/whatever ruins). I'm also planning on having the pathway continue over the mouth of the cave entrance (sort of framing it) and over the other side to more houses.

One of the things I noticed about FreeRealms zones are how expansive the spaces are; even interior spaces like caves are pretty big scale-wise in comparison to the player's character, we definitely need to keep in line with that.

I'll post more later, including a top down paper map, and some other views, but I got work from 8-5pm sunday.

I want people to start thinking about what kind of houses we're going to be doing. I'd like for you guys to block out some silhouettes, if I can get at least 5-10 from each of you that'd be great. If you want to do more, fantastic. Again, I just want silhouettes, we want to make sure it reads well before we start going into detail. Please send them to me via e-mail as I don't want the blog cluttered up.

Also think about what kind of props we want in here so we can make a list of what we need to conceptualize and model. We will have large, medium, and small props obviously, so think of ideas in that respect, at least five each. E-mail me those as well and I will compile and redistribute them after I've conferred with Ian.

Thanks guys.
Glenn

We may have to meet prior to Week 2.

Now that the presence of a giant tree (albeit not quite the same idea as ours) is known... it does seem we should push our project in a new direction.

3rd time is the charm, right?

Please share your ideas, and/or build off of other ideas...

To build off of nate's pirate "dock" idea... I think something that's more tropical, cove like, with lots of steep cliffs and thick jungle would be cool. Maybe a race of person-sized parrot people live there. That would add all sorts of cool possibilities for living spaces, from nests, to hanging houses, you name it. Built from ship parts? Awesome. This would still have lots of opportunities for cool props in a wide variety, and we could not only create rock formations and beaches, but push the work into a thick lush jungle. ancient ruins anyone?

Which leads me to another idea.
Think southern north american and south american ruins from ancient civilizations. Free-realms it up with voodoo spirits. nifty thought. Maybe incorporate a "basecamp" of explorers, which would be part of node 1, with temples and shrines of various types, strange statues of monsters and animals... again just thoughts.

A miniaturized world. A domain of giants, where everything is huge. Players will run into massive oversized objects, spoots, chairs, things like that. This would certainly add for some fun ideas, players running into classic mouse-holes in the walls of a giant's house, fighting off rats, stealing back cheese, what have you.

I'm unsure if free-realms has a cityscape. If not, I think that would be a brilliant idea. To get a sense of scale and size, I think playing WarHammer Online, and running around in their two major cities would give you a strong grasp of how much stuff there really is to do in a large city. Mix it up a bit with some burning buildings, a giant crater, sewers, and maybe a castle, to avoid the drudgery of tons of buildings.



Please, share your ideas here, build on eachother's. I'm surprised nobody (by that I mean the developers that were there) said they already had a giant tree... strange.

Regardless, if we can find a way to incorporate the concepts that have been posted already, we certainly should. I like the skull that's turned into a home... large bone graveyard would be cool!

Tree Concepts

Incorporating Austin's post with the waterfall, I thought why not use that as a way to break up the ground, close the area, and add overall interest.

(before you get too excited about this though, you should probably read the bad news posted prior to this. T_T )

SO, I've added the waterfall, Distance mountains, broken the ground. Adjusted the tree so that it is growing at an angle from the cliff wall, Snapped off the top of the tree, made it a stump, made the stump hollow (allowing natural light to pour through and making room for a city within the tree, Thrown a MASSIVE rope around the tree (similar to that found around Japanese wishing trees), and tacked banners over each separation between roots.
I also flashed my artistic license to the art police, and took the liberty of adding a cliff-fall-off (which gives us another border, and an airship; waiting for players to board, so that it may ferry them around the mountain to node 2. ...or whatever :P

quick sketch of a few new ideas

well.....Crap

after seeing austin's post. ...or rather walking into the room as he screamed obscenities at his discovery, then shortly doing the same myself... we pretty much figure we're going to need a more unique idea (?)....


....in that event... We did some brainstorming. Here are some other paths you all may like to venture down...:

--

Sculptor's villiage

• a village filled with several LARGE, and unique statues, towering over the player, littered with stones with etchings in them, chiseled pillars on buildings, stone accents, and any other great ideas we can come up with.
• perhaps a statue of a character spans its arms across a ravine to form a bridge that players can walk across it's shoulders.
  

Monster Slayer's village

• Same as I said before. A village of monster slayers who hunt Grand-Monsters (massive versions of the existing, and yet to be discovered monsters), buildings made from the skeleton of a massive fallen dragon/monster. Such as the one with the skull in the concept I posted, A large building crafted from the ribcage (perhaps a hub), ect.
  
• Maybe a "Monster Museum" (perhaps even as an additional node) that holds exhibits. perhaps a library, caged monsters, and similar to the t-rex skeleton you see in a stereotypical museum entrance, there could be a dragon/monster skeleton, in tact, on display.

The Pirate Docks

• (I'm about to heavily overuse the word "dock"...) The node could essentially consist of the dock itself. Several boats would be docked at a very interestingly, wonky-ly shaped dock. Each boat would be boardable, and have a different purpose. One boat for each profession (pet trainer, brawler, ect) each having character. At the segway of the docks, a massive pirate ship forms the central hub.
• This instantly opens up LOTS of minigame ideas and room for imagination. Perhaps a diving minigame where you "walk the plank" and dive to retrieve as many pieces-of-eight as possible within a time limit, A fishing game, a cannon game, a swashbuckling game. ...tons of stuff.
• Maybe small islands surrounding the docks that have OVERDONE island cliches (comedic).
• A set of tidepools (quest exploration)
• A mermaid chillin on a rock in the water (whom you recieve a quest from)

Atlantian style underwater city

• ....Whatever we can come up with.
  

Giant Turtle Shell

• ....Whatever we can come up with.

--
Those are some quick brainstorms. Feedback? Feedback on the current project and predicament? Feedback at all?

And the water falls :(

SOOOOO.......I JUST LOGGED INTO FREEREALMS

AND

Other Ideas

Well, i was doodling yesterday and wanted to get this out of my system.

Since we're only a day in, I thought I'd throw this up for fun: a concept for a dwelling built into the skull of a giant beast.

Don't anybody freak out, I'm not trying to sway the project, I just figured I'd toss it up since we're still in the concept phase.
Maybe one of you guys will get a good idea from it? I figure post every creative thing we do that could be applied to this thing right?

Let me know what you think.

More tree stuff is on it's way too.

here is some paint overs i did and some colors for like dusk ish and day

A (very) quick Blockin

Feel free to use this to do paintovers for concepts, or just get the general idea.

Hey Guys!

Welcome to the prototyping SP09 Blog.

Please post comments, critique, and work here.
Lets get to it!