Quest Implementation: Changing Landscape
Original Link (now dead) - http://acdm.turbinegames.com/featuredarticles/?action=view&article_id=136
Quest Implementation: Changing Landscape
By Alicia Brown
Turbine's team uses various tools to create and shape the world of Dereth. To give players a better understanding of this process, we have created a series of "implementation" articles, revolving around the work that went in to making the Gaerlan Quest, to give you an in-depth view on the nuances involved in creating each element.The first major task that the team needed to do for this quest was to alter the landscape. In the "real world," acts of god change the landscape dramatically in a very short period of time, but for the Gaerlan quest the team had to rely on Zontar. Having just returned from an extensive vacation, he was tasked with creating an impassable mountainous wall from the landscape that only allowed four "quest-controlled" entry points where players could gain access to the valley.
First on his "to do" list was finding an appropriate area in Northern Osteth that coincided with the approximate location of Gaerlan's Citadel. Then he had to decide which tool would quickly and best deliver the needed changes. There were two possible approaches: utilizing WorldBuilder, our internal game editing tool to raise/flatten individual cells and vertices or using Photoshop to alter the grayscale map that defines terrain height.
Since Zontar had never done any large-scale terrain transformations, he had never needed to use the Photoshop method before. And because he knew that the area he'd selected already had mountain ranges that came together (complete with a narrowing valley in between), he reasoned that there was no need to redefine terrain height. It seemed best not to experiment, so he opted for the familiar approach, using WorldBuilder.
As Zontar himself later stated, "That was probably a mistake."
In hindsight, he realized that tweaking the mountain ranges into a "natural" barrier took much longer than if he'd taken the much simpler Photoshop approach. WorldBuilder, you see, does not allow large-scale alterations to the terrain; this limited his effective development viewpoint to the area immediately around him - not unlike working with blinders on. Not a lot of fun in itself, but then came the tedious cell-by-cell tweaking process, testing to ensure that the avatar could not run up or climb over the mountains. But, eventually, after grueling hours of work, he did mange to complete the task.
And guess what? ACDM's intrepid players still found a way into the valley!
Players found a tiny seam where they could jump over and down, get stuck, then climb up to reach a point that would allow them entry into the valley. So, not long after the event was released, the valley was crawling with players.
