Rebuilding Arwic
Related topics: Arwic
Original Link (now dead) - http://acdm.turbinegames.com/featuredarticles/?action=view&article_id=157
Rebuilding Arwic
By Alicia Brown
To give the players a realistic feeling for the actual processes needed to rebuild a town, the team decided to phase reconstruction of Arwic over several months, beginning with the Atonement event delivered in August 2002. With this month's event, The Slumbering Giant, we have seen the completion of this rebuilding effort with the addition of the heavily fortified walls.
"I formulated the idea back when we were planning to destroy Yanshi," Todd reminisces. "I figured, at the rate we were blowing up towns, we'd better start rebuilding a few before we started running out of them!"
Since the rebuilding was one of Todd's pet projects, he planned the phases and came up with the new town layout, but several members of the team were involved in different aspects of this urban renewal plan. Orion worked with the vendors and non-player characters (NPCs) in Arwic, changing what they were saying to reflect the mood of the town - the happiness of the denizens to be returning, their gratitude for the efforts of both Nuhmudira and High Queen Elysa in getting the town rebuilt, and also their hidden fears about rebuilding after such horrible devastation. Zontar added a few civic improvements to the town, such as a fountain, benches and a park with trees. All the artwork involved was created, modeled and textured by our newest member of the ACLive team, the artist gBro.
"I modeled the town around Todd's layout," gBro told us. "I added things like gates where it seemed apparent they belonged, and a tower in the center that is the main tower, larger than the others. This accomplished what Todd wanted - which was for the whole town to look like it was heavily fortified, with huge walls and the rooftops of buildings just poking above the walls."
Todd explained his reasoning: "I figured, since the old Arwic had been destroyed by invasion, there was no way they'd build a new Arwic without preparing for the worst. Also, in designing the town, it was my intention to give it a tighter, more urban feel. I wanted to keep the buildings close together so as to give a feeling of streets and alleyways. A new and stronger set of walls was an important part in securing that feeling
Introduced in August's Atonement, the first phase leveled terrain, rebuilt the road, brought out the surveyor (created and placed by Speed) and a temporary blacksmith appeared. Phase two came in September's Verdict, when players saw the craters filled in and the foundation of the first building in Arwic. For these two phases, gBro and Huxt worked together to provide some basic construction materials: wooden beams, cut stones and a rope-and-pulley system.
The third phase came in time for November's The Iron Coast, in which the first few buildings were completed and the foundation of another building was started. Then, in December's The Tusker King, the final buildings were completed and the vendors moved back into the town.
All the buildings and interior decorations were previously existing items, but there was one major item on the art list coming up - a new set of walls. Due to their complexity, the introduction of the new walls was a phase unto itself, the fifth, which was also the last of the major reconstruction work to be done on Arwic.
"This gave gBro the time required to do a great job on the walls," Todd explained. "I provided gBro with specs for how high the walls should be and for how close they should come to the buildings on the inside in order to obtain the 'back alley' feel we wanted around the edge of town - and then he simply did his thing.