Well here we are again. The last time we chatted we were in the Reikland Factory, searching for cake. This time the search for more cake leads us to open RvR, and Keep ramps.
Keep ramps! This update to our open RvR is a good example of live development on WAR. All games ship with items that will get criticized. In a subscription-style game such as ours, we have the opportunity (and responsibility) to make changes to the product after it goes live to meet these criticisms, and improve the game. With this change to the Keeps, we’re addressing one of those concerns. Specifically, the Keeps are getting a bigger footprint and we’re adding a second set of stairs leading from the first floor to second floor.
PLAN OF ATTACK
Okay, brass tacks. This issue was, at its core, one of space. The single ramp was not offering any sort of interior strategy in terms of attacking the lord. Warbands were essentially just zerging the stairs and it was a fairly limited space to begin with. So, we knew right away the change would be extensive to the existing structure. Because of the space involved, we didn’t want to cut into our Keep’s play space with the new ramp geometry, so we opted to expand the structure out instead.
BUILDING THE FIXTURE
First on the deck was the actual Keep fixture itself. We started with a prototype (imagine very simple shapes outlining the basic volume). You always want to start with simple shapes since, in the beginning, these shapes are fluid and very subject to change. We tried several ramp sizes, for instance, before we settled on the “double original ramp” width. As the prototype progressed, it coalesced into early working geometry, shown here in the 3DS Max viewport:
Left: Launch version of the Empire Keep (back view). Middle: New working exterior (back view). Right: New working interior (first floor). Grey volume denotes newer construction.
Here, you can see that we blew out some of the side/back wall and wrapped the new stairs around the rear corner of the Keep. (The delete key is the ultimate wrecking ball for virtual buildings, I would like to add.) As I mentioned before, the new stairs were twice the width of the original ones, and in the new position they did not jive with the original tower already occupying the space. Spatial issues like this are common when you go back and apply significant updates to existing assets. In this case, the rear-right tower exists in this corner position on all the square Keep-types; so, we had to either delete or redo that tower as a function of our ramp addition.
As you can see from the image, we chose to redo the tower. Since we knew we were going to be adding divine altars to the Keeps, we reworked the back right tower to have a chamber/space/gazebo dedicated to the altar, further extending the playable space inside the Keep. At that point, we had two reasons to redo the tower: a new ramp run-through at the base, and the divine altar room at the top. So, the decision to commit was easy. Quick note: The divine altars will move to the new location atop the tower when these Keeps go live.
For the round Keep-types (the Elves/Dark Elves), the new ramp was one long set of stairs with no landing. They also have the “gazebo” space at the top of their back-right towers dedicated to the divine altars. The new ramps for the round Keeps were, like the square Keeps, twice as wide as the original ramps. In all, it was a good analogue to the changes we made for the square Keeps.
While we were at it, we took the opportunity to correct a few other spatial issues in different areas of some of the Keeps; see below for more details.
Left: Before. Right: After—much better standing space near the oil, I think we can all agree.
Anyhow, the entire framework was in place, and we began fixture construction in earnest. That’s where more of the art team was brought in. There were six Keeps to perform surgery on, and in every case where it was possible, we assigned each to its original builder in order to aid in both consistency and workflow.
FUN FACT! Only two Keeps were not made by their original artists, but I’m not telling you which ones unless you can come up with a suitable bribe. Hint: It is a bakery confection often featuring candles.
We didn’t delete the original ramps! So, don’t forget they are still there when everything goes live. They offer a shorter, more direct route to the lord than the new ramps. It was fun to see the core testers flanking each other within the structure of the Keep itself by drawing attackers up one ramp and running in behind them using the other one.
PLACING THE KEEPS
About the time the artists were finishing up with the fixtures, one of our terrain guys (Hi Mike!) was starting to position the Keeps within the game world. The first step was simply replacing the old with the new to see what kind of changes we’d have to make. Since the new Keeps were bigger than the old ones, in some cases we had this happen:
This shot is directly from our terrain editor software. Left: The new Keep on the old terrain (a mismatch). Right: The new Keep on the updated terrain.
Oops! Again, this was not unexpected considering the bigger footprint. The process then became massaging the terrain across the game to accommodate the increased size of the Keeps. That’s 30 Keeps across 21 zones throughout Tiers two, three, and four. We knew going in this would be the case, since each Keep location is unique, but it’s worth noting here so people see the full impact that adding stairs has on game construction. Fortunately Mike was still on the job and not trying to kill anyone. After all, he has a Rank 40 with an interest in all this.
FUN FACT! Our art updates always incur downloads, since you can only see our work if you download it to your client first. Hmmm. Maybe that’s an unfun fact upon reflection.
While we were at it, we corrected some nearby terrain bugs since we were already forcing a download of the zone data to the player.
Left: Before. Right: After—gravity returns to normal in Thunder Mountain.
A few of the Keeps had to be moved because of how they interacted with the surrounding PVE terrain or another portion of the RVR lakes. Of course we didn’t want to intrude on them, so that meant a change in the location of not only the art but all the mobs and other spawned items that are placed by the content team. It also meant we needed to update the icon positions and map image files in a few cases.
LIGHTING THE KEEPS
Since some new exterior and interior lights were added as a function of increased surface area, we had to redo a portion of our lighting as well. That’s where the lighting team comes in. We use light maps, which means the lighting solution you see (if you turn on light maps) is pre-baked by us on the back-end and not rendered at runtime (dynamic). I was especially pleased with how the Chaos Keep looked after it was lit.
Once the lights were placed and baked, the bulk of our work was done. (Well, after we delivered all this stuff to the client building team, I mean.) I like to call it the BDD. Big Data Dump. Read into that whatever you want.
FINAL RESULTS
Here are some shots of the end results for each Keep after we delivered them:
Left column: The new exteriors. Center column: The rear of the Keeps. Right column: The new interiors.
At this point, the art was done; however, the work on the Keeps continued after we artists passed the baton since there were quite a few changes still to be made by our content developers (including things such as updating the positions of the mobs, and pathing, et al). After that it moved into the testing phase as the data moved through our internal servers. In order for there to be time for these dependencies, the art is done months in advance before it’s finally seen on live. In the case of our Keeps, we finished the work back in June.
And now our tale is finished. I do hope you guys enjoyed seeing how it all took shape on our side. Farewell!
- Russell
