Новогодние новости проекта DoR. Текст из поста FirePaladin на Heroescommunity.В свете новогодней суеты нет времени перевести текст, пардон.
The Palace lineup… and a new neutral!
This update will be a bit more informal. With all the holiday rush, stress, and things that have or had to be done, I figured that it would be best to take a breath and chill for a bit. Well, that is, until this update post reaches its end. After that I have to go back to the usual, or else the Tiger Den awaits me!
We had no idea what to do with this dwelling a few years ago – the H4 concept of a cave painted white was already questionable, but in the context of the Palace, it was outright unusable. Thankfully, it’s nothing that learning 3D from scratch (and a concept art, eventually) couldn’t solve in a few years…
This update is more like a retrospective of the whole year. To highlight some of the progress that was made within the last twelve months… there’s also plenty of stuff we can’t reveal just yet. While Palace is already being showcased, there are also two other factions in development. Other content (wink-wink, alternates) also kept us busy over the course of the last three years of full development (and with a nudge from MDT’s work).
Who is that Pokemon?!
It’s a bit crazy to think that at one point, progress on the other factions was even further along than on the Palace. And we are not talking about when the Palace was barely more than a bunch of quickly put-together units by a dodo (Treth) and a total beginner (me), joined by two or three other graphics, but sometime a bit later.
Despite being covered in a thick sheet of glaciers, or perhaps thanks to it, the Snow Elves and other people are able to build imposing fortifications made of ice. These serve as the basis for new towns.
That’s enough reminiscing! Work on the town screens is nearly done. Standards being, of course, those set by the one Forge town screen peek you got, and even a bit higher: it is this year when the team truly improved its art. And now the polishing angst is bearable, we have design points and principles from H3 to back-reference to.
Treth said this is just above Stronghold-tier; he’s always like that. I told him that it looks marvelous, and is on par with Rampart and Tower at the very least. And he keeps improving it more and more. I also totally forgot his water had ripples in it. I was too lazy to do that for Palace (but I have an excuse: this is a 25+ years old game).
Creatures are in a similar spot as town screens. We are missing but a few of those, in H3 terms. Of course, there are still good amounts of concepts we could implement for 1.0… but there are already plenty of neutrals with cool and useful abilities, besides the alternates.
The Coeurl is the level 4 alternate creature in Grotto. It is a fast, mobile creature with an ability related to illusory effects, powerful enough to be a viable alternative to the ever-spreading Fungoid. A staple of DnD, as are beholders and other creatures from H3, this feline monster also has loose ties to the Dark Elves, through Drizzt Do’Urden’s familiar and the general aesthetics of the Underdark.
Also, is this truly not an IMAGE of a FRIENDly cat?
Town screens and creatures are *not* all that DoR is about, however – or any real H3 expansion, at that. There are two new terrains in DoR, with one having seen good progress last month, and another which needs a general overview. That’s one of my next tasks (yay!)…
The squirrels are back!
There are various miscellaneous graphics which were done. However, many still remain to be created: UIs, certain adventure map locations, spells, icons, combat obstacles and siege screens (especially these). Not that it is necessarily difficult to create these (compared to town screens and creatures), but they too have to be completed. We also have to take a look over all the new gorgeous heroes which Nephretes (Polski forum legend) has been making in my so-dubbed “hero scene”.
The evolution of Male Cleric, Female Ranger, Male Alchemist, and Male Elementalist. The Elementalist was changed due to the original being literally just a recolor of Dracon, a Tower campaign hero, and to better encompass the faction’s aesthetic.
There are story-writing, music, and sounds, too. As of now, a decent amount of creature sounds are made, and the town themes are virtually finished. Writing is progressing in parallel with everything else.
And lastly, programming. This is not my area of expertise, and I know those guys love their secrecy, so I’ll just say… the previous teaser was entirely recorded inside the game. For now, you don’t even know the insane work that’s been put into the actual DoR game. That’s all.
Is this… an actually serious link for once?!
All-in-all, it’s been a pretty good year, and I hope the next one will be as well. We certainly have a much better workflow now, and the biggest graphical hurdles are out of the way. People may misinterpret the message one way or another, and while we may include an incredibly niche easter egg or piece of deep lore information or what else in a story text or graphic, these updates are meant to be taken at face value.
Heavenly maidens who reincarnate Vori’s people…
"Conqueror of Worlds, Maker of Dreams... the greatest force of all, yet elusive it seems."
To close it off, we hope you’ll enjoy your holidays and the New Year, and even if you don’t celebrate them, we wish you a good time. We are optimistically developing the mod, and, sooner or later, we will drop another update. Stay tuned, and see you around!
