Faerûn[Forgotten Realms]TW - v0.2 released, check the first post

[Andriscus]

Cool sounds good, I will also contact the admins and find out why I can't be added, might be to do with my post count, I will let you know what they say.

[vercassivelaunos]

You have to have 25 posts and be registered for a certain time (I think 1 month), then you can join groups.

[Andriscus]

Ah fair enough, cheers

[Vladyvid]

Andriscus, I contacted the admin you spoke to and he said that he would see what he could do. Nothing much as of now I suppose. Not to be entirely pesimistic though, here is a tiny preview of some of the interface changes:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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The buildings in the city panel are the m2tw icons. The buildings aren't done yet and will not be so soon. The current focus is on the interface and finishing the units research, which will be followed by implementing all units into the mod.

[Andriscus]

Nice one, that looks really promising. It's been so long since I played M2TW I'd forgotten what the icons looked like... so used to the Third Age icons now.

That plan sounds sensible though, better to get units done first then fit buildings around them than vice versa.

[vercassivelaunos]

Wow. Looks really nice!

[Vladyvid]

I'm glad that you both like it as it's really nothing fancy.

Coming back to the unit research subject, Andriscus because as of yet you can't be invited to the social group that contains most of our research topics, I just wanted to let you know what factions rosters are incomplete:

- The Lapaliiya (also known as The Lapal League)
- Kingdom of the Great Rift (partially done)
- Kingdom of Damara
- Empire of Mulhorand (partially done)
- Nation of Rashemen (partially done)

Most other factions have their unit rosters ready or nearly ready, so searching for other units would be likely doing things already done. We have also started gathering info regarding characters names. The progression of this mod though seemingly slow, is actually steady and continuous. BTW about buildings we have already gathered lots of buildings ideas but as said before that will be developed later on.

[Ixor_Drakar]

Everything is looking great so far. I can read through The Thousand Orcs again if there is anything in there you might need. Its the only book I have, didnt know it was part of Salvatore's great series when I grabbed it years ago.

[vercassivelaunos]

I'm glad that you both like it as it's really nothing fancy.

That's exactly what the interface's elegance comes from. It's plain, without any exalted features, and that looks simply good.

[Andriscus]

That's exactly what the interface's elegance comes from. It's plain, without any exalted features, and that looks simply good.

Yep exactly, I'd prefer it kept plain and simple, certainly to start off with anyway.

[Vladyvid]

Small update of the current progress.

The unit research is finally coming to an end. At this point 22 factions rosters are ready for the next phase of work which is implementing them into the mod. The 23rd faction roster will be done within a day or two. The total number of units is not known (counting them seems nonesense to me) but there are around 300 or even more.

The rosters were done mostly thanks to vercassivelaunos and my own researching, and at this moment we are the main two members of the 'team' who continue working on this mod. Melfice is helping with collecting characters names, and for that big thanks! I would especially like to thank in this place for the constant support that vercassivelaunos is giving this mod - doing a great deal of work, now coding the units.

Skinning the units will be my main occupation now I suppose. I'm also thinking to contact some other modders and ask if it would be possible to use some of their mods' units. I'm not sure what mods to contact but I guess will have to look around and figure it out. The most necessary models would be mages, dwarves, gnomes, and various monster races (trolls, ogres, giants, minotaurs, goblins, orcs etc.).

If anyone knows who could I ask about some of the mentioned models/units, please PM me.

[Andriscus]

Cheers for the update - great work guys!

[vercassivelaunos]

Thanks for the praise

About models: You could ask the "Thera V3: the legacy of the great torment"-team, the "Akthross: Total War"-Team, The "Call of Warhammer"-Team and the "Westeros: Total War"-team. All of these are fantasy mods and are likely to have some useful models.

[Vladyvid]

So many mods, it's really nice.
I guess it will be my weekend assignment to try them out and see what models exactly would I ask their creators about. I must say it doesn't appeal to me to be such a parasite of others' work, but then the prospect of using only vanilla models is even worse than being a parasite...

Ofcourse no models will be used if not accepted by their makers.

[Vladyvid]

I just finished the last faction roster so the unit research stage is over.

The research was difficult because it was a lot like archeology - findings only little bits and trying to figure out what the big picture would be. Since there is no complete source of reference, some of the units are designed based on more general info, while still the majority are designed based on the lore. Ofcourse one has to keep in mind that the Forgotten Realms lore was never intended as background info for a war game - so tweaks and lore-bending is simply unavoidable. Well, more than lore-bending it would be filling in the blanks in the lore I suppose.

Now the skinning... oh boy it will take a while...

Edit:

Everything is looking great so far. I can read through The Thousand Orcs again if there is anything in there you might need. Its the only book I have, didnt know it was part of Salvatore's great series when I grabbed it years ago.

Sorry mate I forgot to reply before so let me do it now. Thank you very much for the offer, any help is most welcome. At this moment the faction rosters are ready and perhaps better than asking you to find something in your book, would be if you wanted to join our developers' social group and see for yourself what is there that you have suggestions for? Though if you are already busy with other mods or otherwise, I would not feel right ask for your aid. Cheers!

[Andriscus]

Cheers for the group invite Vladyvid, joined up now so I can start helping out properly!

[Vladyvid]

My pleasure, just browse our discussions in the group to see what you could help with. Don't hesitate to post your ideas and comments there.

[VinlandForever]

Do you need someone to write faction descriptions and unit descriptions? I'd love to help out somehow, and that's something I'm good at.

[Vladyvid]

Do you need someone to write faction descriptions and unit descriptions? I'd love to help out somehow, and that's something I'm good at.

Yep, we could use some help with that too, as the descriptions are not done yet. We've got a lot of reference material to help with this task. Thanks for your interest. PM me if you are interested to help. It would be easiest if you could join our dev. social group cause we have lots of info in discussions there.

[Vladyvid]

VinlandForever as I explained you in a PM I cant yet invite you to the social group so if you want to help, you can post in this topic. For best references on politics and factions relations I suggest this website:

http://www.realmshelps.org/


We have right now one debate in our social group going on that is devoted to politics/faction relations etc, so I will sum up what we have established already:

Lords' Alliance - alliance of Waterdeep, Silver Marches, Elturgard and Baldur's Gate
Amn and Tethyr are probably going to start as allies or as friendly nations.
Mulhorand is at war with Unther.
Lords' Alliance is at war with the Zhentarim.
The Thay have peace with Aglarond and other neighbours, and are supporting Unther with money.
Amn and Baldur's Gate are rivals and their relations are poor.
Cormyr and Sembia the same.

Well I think thats most of the essential things we've got ATM, but we have been progressing with other stuff too.

Important information about factions is that there is no religions as such, the religion is replaced with society: Barbaric, Feudal, Despotic, Mercantile and Theocratic.