Areas thus far

These areas, along with brief descriptions, are meant to give a good outline of what the city looks like, what atmosphere we're trying to develop, and emphasize the importance of story in the campaign. CoR is going to be a high roleplay persistent world, where even the most "insignificant" character's tiniest action can impart change on the game world. I hope these are helpful.

The Serpentine street (note captilization) circles the outer ring of the three-ring city. In the southern district, the north-south portion of the road contains several shops and offices.




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As The Serpentine stretches off towards the western district, you can see Rochester Manor, home of Lord Rochester, a powerful city administrator. Also visible is the southern garrison of the city guard and an as of now unnamed tavern. On the right hand side of the page you can see a small portion of the Smith's Guild and Smith's Square. The Smiths guild will be a largely defunct organization that has lost much power since the invasion of Iuz, as many of it's famed artisans and craftsmen fled the city upon it's occupation. It will very likely be a largely political organization that may or may not be available for PC membership. We'd like to promote heroics/anti-heroics among the PCs, but may allow a level of sim-hood to transpire depending on how other dms/developers feel about it.



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Benedict's Trading Coaster holds offices and a large warehouse in Western Rookroost along Cheap Street. The coaster has gained power since the occupation by carefully playing the city's new political game. Where other prominent merchants and nobles have fallen in the game, the Benedicts have done surprisingly well. They frequently hire out adventurers to guard caravans, retrieve stolen goods, and seek out rare items.



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City walls are all currently in the process of being replaced with walls from the different city wall haks. They'll be largely unreachable by PCs but we'll likely have npc guards patroling them to watch out for those pesky goody-two-shoes that make enough of a name for themselves to become hunted by the city guards.

Rochester Manor:

This is going to be a largely social area (Though all areas will be open for pvp) in the southern district used for a few minor errand quests, some higher end quests, and several dm plot driven quests, as Lord Rochester is planned to be a major plot npc (at least through the alpha stage, who knows what will happen in that time!). The area will also house a player faction.

The basic floorplan for the manor is laid out but is entirely up to be changed by the developer that decides to get after it. There is currently a jail and a barracks already added.

How big are your city exteriors going to be?

I ask because these will likely be your heaviest load areas on the server with the combination of;

- placeables
- NPCs
- sounds
- textures
- players porting to/from

It won't take much before your maps will be a 45-60 second load for the average player. This will loose you customers in the "I want it and I want it now" reality of 2010.

I strongly suggest stress testing your city areas to make sure they aren't bogging down under an "average" load.

I had the same issue when I was building the city of Arabel for my campaign using a prefab from NWVault. Eventually I had to split it up into 8 separate sections to get load times into the reasonable range, and still be able to make each area look like a city would - with all the things listed above.

The NWNx4 and xpbugfix updates will help greatly. Also suggest you use them.

The 4 city areas vary somewhat in size, with both central and west being somewhat smaller, south and northwest both being somewhat large. East is on the medium side, but isn't on the dropbox yet. I'd appreciate it if you'd check out the mod and take a look at it.

Also, I haven't looked at NWNX4/xpbugfix yet (though I plan to) mostly due to the fact that I'm not sure exactly how they works and what they do.

I know you've got a lot more experience building than I do, hope you take a look at what I've got so far and give me any advice you can offer.

The city of Rookroost's five main areas: Northwest, East, South, West, and Central are all created. More may be added in the future, such as north rookroost and the middle ring (which was cut for now), but as is I've gotten the placeables put into each area. NPCs are not entirely added, and there's plenty of work I'm going to be doing with sounds/weather/etc, but the basic foundation is there.

I'll be doing a lot of work with interiors soon, as I've got several quest hubs, quest areas, factions HQs (which may or may not be available in alpha), and various sites of interest to get built, but as is Rookroost's exterior is by and large done... now, time to do me a favor :-).

LOAD THE MODULE!

I'll put it on dropbox for you to download, the server files are located under builder resources, so just drop them in the appropriate folders, and check it out. Give me your thoughts, your feedback, your bug reports. Hell, at this point, I want your criticisms too, so don't hold back! Rip me a new one, if it means getting the server raised to a higher standard, I'll suck it up and take the punches.

pm me for dropbox info if you haven't already.