Map Update

[Bella Pious]

Thank you so much for all the thought you have given into the project and all the 4hour-sleep nights you endure.

[Cyrus Tegyr]

The theme will be Shabooli but will have a more primitive look.

So we're to expect a new dungeon based on trolls/giants while khaldun becomes about shaboolies even in later levels and we'll see some new shabooli boss mobs?

I am hoping there will be a few boss type Shabooli in here, that is out of my hands right now as that comes in scripting side.

What I can tell you thus far:

Shabooli once inhabited the area we now call Yew, in total there were 9 tribes, each tribe had a shared heritage and shared many customs and rituals between them though there were some that also had their own customs and rituals along with their ancestral ones. Cannibalism and Endocannibalism played important roles in a couple of these tribes for different reasons. Along with rituals and customs, in terms of what I guess we would call professions, some focused on fishing more than hunting in the traditional sense due to their location to the coast. I know none of this affects us players in game unfortunately but what "does" affect us is why the Shabooli tribes are no longer a semi cohesive set of 9 tribes, not to go too cliche on this, but similar to that of the Degar/Montagnard of Vietnam's Central Highlands or the American Indian or countless other indigenous peoples around the world who's lands have been seized in the name of government, domestication or any other handful of reasons, this is what happened to the Shabooli ancestral lands. An influx of settlers fleeing the miasma of the pestilence wrought on Britain and outlying towns and cities or those who had been reduced to beggary and vagabondage initially settled peacefully alongside the Shabooli tribes but as with the aforementioned real life examples, as time wore on, the settlers more and more encroached on Shabooli lands which led to war in which the Shabooli tribes were not much of a match for the well trained and militarized armies sent in to remove by force the Shabooli.

It's all a work in progress but that is the gist of where the Shabooli peoples came from and why they are in the state they are in now.

As for Khaldun:
Since it is supposed to be their new home so to speak, think a dungeon replete with buildings inside that are meant for living quarters, food preparation, what I will call check points through out the tunnel system, a meeting hall for various rituals including (endo)cannibalism (again, these are meaningless to us as players, thankfully our characters can not be gobbled up by baddies). Located on the first floor is a hole which leads to a second floor, a small area which houses various chests and hopefully potentially a mini boss type mob. This room I would like to have only accessible by the party that slays a final baddy on the second floor but I am not sure if that will be scripted anytime soon if at all (it is of course totally doable), the second floor which at this point is not decorated and I think will be the final floor of the dungeon (I do not consider the "treasure room" a complete floor as it is so small) will either be accessed through a staircase or ladder or by a rope locked down on the ground the player uses to "jump through" a hole in the ground (I am growing to like different looking entry points to various places other than just ladders or stairs). I have not decided yet to keep this floor the same maze like looking one as what traditional Khaldun looks like, may use a cavernous type dungeon, I have about 150 dungeons I can select from using a personal copy of maps I acquired.

I will say, I am still on the first floor, I redecorated with all those annoying stalagmites and rocks but am running low on imagination I will put it as I do not want to constantly repeat various things time and time again. I want it to look like, if anyone has seen the inside of the Việt Cộng tunnel network in Vietnam, those were not just for unseen travel under the feet of the French and later the American troops but also the Việt Cộng's hospitals, living and dining quarters, of course this being Ultima and set in the medieval time period I have to make do with the graphics I have so it is coming along just a little slower than I thought but perhaps by the end of the week it will be done as I have a four day weekend coming up at the end of this week. One of the things I did do first was go through the entire first floor thus far and make the floor uneven so it is just no some plain Jane looking dungeon (apologies to any Janes out there, it's just a saying ).

Note, Khaldun as far as I can tell on OSI is a single floor dungeon with a treasure room and this was my original thought once I began work on Khaldun, to make it a 1.5 floor dungeon but opted to bump it to a 2.5 floor dungeon.

Once this project is done, I need to drop Storm onto Felucca as per Argons request since Malas has an issue regarding stats which as I recall is completely changeable by a config file but it does not matter as this will mean with Storm on Felucca, player's cursors will not change annoyingly to a different color. (I always found this rather annoying but I know why it was done). Once that is done and i have redecorated/removed some Japanese design items, I need to design the entrance for Storm, which I think I have a unique entry point thought out, it will not be in Buc's Den as I thought I might put it. Then finally I need to build a couple ruins where New Haven once was and want to add a single floor dungeon there consisting of undeads, not sure how tough the theme should be but my thought on the theme was a crypt that was previously unknown by New Haven town planners and builders and when they had built over it, it was only a matter of time before the undead broke through and utterly destroyed the town, burning it to the ground. Story line wise maybe a meddling Necromancer discovered this crypt and began work to amass an army from it's contents which is what led to the undeads breaking free and either killing the Necromancer or maybe he could be a boss type mob inside this dungeon. But that is not important right now as I am babbling on as ideas just pop into my head.

Just a finalized agenda to clear out the ramblings of a madman:
- Finish Khaldun's first floor, move onto the second floor, then place the completed treasure room which needs some minor edits.
- Put Storm on Felucca and build/place it's entry point on the main map
- Build a couple ruins where New Haven once was with an entry point to a single floor crypt like dungeon
- Look over and finalize the probably complete undisclosed area. (I am itching to post screen shots of it I am that excited about it but I will hold off as only Argon and probably other staff and myself have seen screen shots of it, everything in it is unique, I will say I have named it already and placed all the markers of importance to a UOAM file.)
- Return to my little pet project of the egyptian themed dungeon, entrance already placed just needs decorating.

Any ideas completely welcome as to decor, ideas to improve what is to me sounding like maybe not a so impressive Khaldun (though the colors, the colors are gone! So that is an improvement imo).

[Cyrus Tegyr]

does a few more fruit trees to specific areas of the map as well as a couple more mountainous spots that may have the potential for some rare mining spots if the staff decides to do so.

Began walking the triangle dungeon.
Added a final custom dungeon, 2 floors.

While talking and letting someone test some files out I've got a surprise for the install files once I finalize the map and create a new exe install which will include an updated uoam folder as I've previously mentioned which we will all need to update to. I wasn't going to mention this but I spent some money toward this particular surprise so I hope it will be well liked it does not break anything currently nor does it add new items but you'll all see it at hopefully the start of the new year.

Khaldun floor 2 still needs to be decided upon and decorated but I will dedicate sometime Sunday to this.

Finally transport Storm to Felucca from Mala's as well as create a place for its entry.

There will be three specific areas I have not and will not post images of just as a little surprise and a small reason to explore.

[Cyrus Tegyr]

Well, running a bit behind but wanted to let you all know despite the silence I'm still plugging away.

Khaldun - Level 2 drawn and converted, decoration mode now. Despite other failed attempts at drawing and converting a dungeon floor this time it turned out fairly well.

This is one of the final big pieces I need to complete, next will be the copying over of a couple final bits and other than removing a couple items the work is done.

[Cyrus Tegyr]

Player input wanted which hopefully the staff will see and nix or have other ideas.

My concern brought to attention by Glarundis and Tyrion, the giants on level 3, what to do with them. Immediately I had an idea but Tyrion immediately through a spanner into the gears which is my brain saying there's a bunch of giants on level 3.

My question since I don't have a GM account, should a new giant dungeon be added? Aside from potential decorations, it is not an issue to add a new dungeon, I'd just require feedback on its decor as I don't think giants should inhabit caves, maybe a classier looking dungeon decor like marble or stone or sandstone or what my original thoughts were the Shadow items as there's a couple pieces in there that fit well with mobiles that are supposed to be huge.

Also wanted to note, Khaldun's second floor is comparable to its first floor size where I took the current second and third and essentially added their sizes together so while technically it's a 2 1/2 floor dungeon in terms of size it is the same size as the current first through third floors are.

[James Blackburn]

Player input wanted which hopefully the staff will see and nix or have other ideas.

My concern brought to attention by Glarundis and Tyrion, the giants on level 3, what to do with them. Immediately I had an idea but Tyrion immediately through a spanner into the gears which is my brain saying there's a bunch of giants on level 3.

My question since I don't have a GM account, should a new giant dungeon be added? Aside from potential decorations, it is not an issue to add a new dungeon, I'd just require feedback on its decor as I don't think giants should inhabit caves, maybe a classier looking dungeon decor like marble or stone or sandstone or what my original thoughts were the Shadow items as there's a couple pieces in there that fit well with mobiles that are supposed to be huge.

Also wanted to note, Khaldun's second floor is comparable to its first floor size where I took the current second and third and essentially added their sizes together so while technically it's a 2 1/2 floor dungeon in terms of size it is the same size as the current first through third floors are.

giant dungeon would be awesome, maybe something similar to the old tek temple cave? i mean giants are supposedly like humans, so that would make sense if they would live in fairly clean and advanced place, instead of mere dungeon, so imo atleast in terms of the style cave like that would fit for them

[Cyrus Tegyr]

Just to put an update out there, I took a break from the map. Do not be disheartened however, I spent the time wisely, basically today was used to do one thing and one thing only, make craftable carpets a thing IF Blckfire wants to implement them when the new map drops. I had a package floating around that offered this but I did not like many things about it so I spent the last oh, 11 hours rewriting most of it with a new gump, adding every carpet type to it and all that jazz as well as defining each carpet piece in an itemdesc file, about 100-110 pieces.

This took a good while to do because mainly, I have not scripted in a loooooooooong time, we're talking 11+ years so I had to familiarize myself with stuff.

The releasing and locking down of these I believe is the exact same as any other deeded item, i will need to check this but if it isnt it should not be too difficult to make it so.

Limitations:
- NEED to be in your house as you would expect to place them, though I need to get a working copy of WoD's housing system to test this as I am using a different housing system so function calls will be different slightly so I may need to address this or let Blckfire work out this.
- carpet sizes are a maximum dimension of 8x8
- NOT colorable but easily doable, if this is a want, it is a simple add, I scripted it so that the carpet takes on the color of the deed so all that would need to be done is make the deed dyable in the itemdesc file (as I recall it is a simple "Dyable 1" in the itemdesc for this I can not remember.
- Currently there are two carpet types that are giving me grief, the "star pattern blue and red" carpets I need to figure out the maths for them also, the red carpet in particular but the blue as well, there is a solid tile blue or red tile respectively that can be placed, ought I add a solid blue and solid red carpet to the gump?
- As for determing lockdowns, if you consider at a maximum 8x8 area carpet is 64 pieces, that would be a lot of lockdowns, so what I did was took the range of each axis (X and Y) and added them together, then divided it by 2. This returns a whole number rounded up as I recall so carpets won't consume a ton of lockdowns. As a player myself I know how precious lockdowns and secures are on a house.

This screenshot shows the gump with a deed that is not colored.
Non Colored Carpet Deed Gump

How the gump appears if it is colored, I felt it was important to give the player an idea of how the carpet might look if the deeds were dyable so I wrote the gump to color the carpet art based on the color of the deed. Note, it is not unique to UO that deeds are dyable, this is something that is done on OSI for ease of the player.
Colored Carpet Deed

Carpet Styles, Note I need to do some maths to work on the blue star pattern one as well as determine which star pattern to use depending on if carpet is longer on one axis or another.
Array of Carpets 1
Array of Carpets 2

A colored carpet, I hope you like pink!
Colored Carpet using a Dye Tub

I will gladly make this available once the map is completed and will ship it to the staff when I ship the map files if they are interested, if the star pattern on the blue and red carpets looks fine to you players I will not bother figuring out the maths for the for...endfor statement used to build the carpet. If there is interest in wanting a solid blue and solid red carpet I can add that fairly easy I think to the gump and include file used to generate the carpets.

Finally, do not put much stock into me writing this (well most of it, I rewrote a good amount of it and had to add stuff like LoS checks, a max size allowment...), it is really not much to speak of and is hardly a huge pkg. If I want to seriously look into scripting I still have a lot to learn and relearn.

[Cyrus Tegyr]

Back to Mapping.

Upon running around in a preliminary level 2 of Khaldun, I came to the conclusion that some of the areas were just too tight. So I went back to my BMP and widened the dungeon by 10 pixels (these are translated in game as squares), I think I am pretty happy with the results and thought I would share a screen shot of the second floor as it appeared while I was drawing it to give players an idea of what it will look like in game and to what I actually meant when I said "drawing it up", it was literally drawing it up in a photoshopesque program.

The brown line that runs through the center is a dirt path, this may or may not be kept, I will convert it to a mul file and find out what it actually looks like in game. The brown bit in the center I hope will be set up as an arena type scenario where the party begins the event. each room located off the main passageways will be what I hope to be encounters with mini bosses or just bosses depending. One of these boss rooms is not actually a room but instead a pathway split by a blue square in the center (when converted this blue square will be the blackness we see when in the dungeon area of the map).

My thoughts on the Arena event:
- Party enters though the northern walkway which leads down into the arena pit. Inside is an NPC, when spoken to using the correct word/phrase the arena event begins (hopefully with a "Begin event" confirmation gump.
- Party faces off with in two to three fights that increase in toughness, between each fight is a 30 second wait for party to regain their whits.
- After the two or three fights, the Champion comes forth and the final fight begins. This is intended to be the final "boss" of the dungeon. When this Champion is defeated, a chest appears with the spoils, this chest, only lootable by members of the party (easy to do IF the party system is set up similar to how it is in the Distro), inside the chest is the usual goodies, but amongst them is a Khaldun specific item (a rope) needed to enter the "treasure room" located off the first floor.

Treasure Room:
- The rope is taken back to the first floor to where the treasure room entrance is located (This is easily found as it is a hole in the cave floor with rocks surrounding it), using the rope near the hole from the players pack places the rope on the ground in a locked down state, again, only party members can use this. This rope will remain for X amount of time (thinking 30-45 minutes but that may be too long haven't decided yet), when double clicked on, the player "scales down the side of the hole into the treasure room.
- Inside the treasure room is 5-8 puzzle boxes (I have the scripts for this, will need tweaking if hints are to be given to players with lockpicking, as well as a trap being set off if incorrect, this did not seem to be scripted in on my testing.), they can neither be picked or have remove trap used on them. To unlock these, the player must match up the right combination of colored cylinders to unlock the chest. Just think of this as a UO version of a combination lock.
- When successful, the player is presented with the open container and the spoils can be looted.
- If after 10 attempts the lock is not solved, it resets itself to a different combination (I think hints ought to be given to players with sufficient lockpicking, using the uo stratics scale).

One issue with the treasure room, I want to prevent happy campers, no not fire happy kindling lighting players but those who would just sit there and wait for the respawn to occur, I have not worked out a good system for this other than maybe a "cave in warning" after so much time is spent in there that if the player(s) do not vacate within this time, rocks fall and do mass damage to anyone caught within the area. Just a thought, welcome to other suggestions, just trying to prevent abuses before they become an issue.

Khaldun Lvl 2

[Cyrus Tegyr]

Begun working on Khaldun level 2 in terms of statics.

The floor plan after drawing it up and converting it to something usable by the client looks pretty good if I must say so myself. As I finish some stuff tonight through tomorrow I'll post what it will look like in game.

Floor plan changed slightly from the one pictured above, moved one of the passageways down by 6 tiles.

For now, enjoy some screen shots from level 1 of Khaldun, feedback welcome, does it look too bland/generic? Less obstructions? Any feed back welcome, keep in mind this is not the entire floor but I did include all of the structures that will be found inside. Each has its own purpose based on the statics placed within it.

Khaldun Level 1

Edit: My apologies, delays in map work caused by my interest and redabbling in scripting, so that took up about a week to a week and a half of no map work being done but I've put my nose back to the grindstone and will work fastidiously to get a final product out.

I've decided to hold off on a dungeon I personally placed for a future map update so that there is no mucking about.

[Cyrus Tegyr]

Loaded Khaldun Lvl2 map file into my map editor and began decorations and map tweaking with an in game type view of the map.

- The arena is built and is slightly modeled after the Jhelom arena with a catwalk above the pit with benches that line each side of it. This was the first thing I sunk my teeth into as this is the centerpiece to the second floor.
- Added a few structures
- Hallway of obstacles (going to toy around with some scripting once I get the map finalized to maybe get some custom traps made for this part of the dungeon, to fit a more primitive group of npcs)

Have a look at some of the screen shots, keep in mind it is bare bones right now aside from some of the things I added, later today (the 26th) when I wake, I will work on placing the usual cave deco and then begin working on the rooms for each "boss type". Some of the areas meant for encounters are smaller than others so, I have to decorate some of these in a sparse manner while a couple others can be more in depth in terms of decoration.

The pattern in the arena pit have no bearing on anything with regards to any encounter that may occur there, just a pattern I decided to add, who knows though maybe they will come into play as markers for pillars to drop down and add obstacles to an encounter maybe not.

Have a looksee and again feedback welcome and remember the lack of deco is mostly going to be solved later today.

Khaldun Level 2, Converted and Decorations Begun