Beluaterra Map

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Which will probably occur in Beyond, if anything. Let's help make that happen.

[DoctorHarte]

No, it looks like somewhere the Human Armies of the World should Invade for Part Five of Beluaterra's Exciting Adventure 

I like that. The black fog starts disappearing only to reveal ravaged lands of all types of monsters! Giants taller than our towers should be included with some special mechanics of a super-tough 1-man unit that crushes armiesss! Flying enemies that can only be killed by archers. Deadly poisonous monsters that will kill your unit over time (3 men first day, poison spreads and 2 die the next day, etc).

And this time, personally, I would rather no NPC be run by players. These players can go inactive as seen in the 4th invasion and it stop the ball from rolling.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Have you seen what comes out of the blight already?

Besides, why do people keep persisting about uncovering the blight? Everyone was given plenty of warning that parts or all of Beluaterra could have been lost. As it stands, not too much of the continent is inaccessible, so even if I might sound harsh in saying this: Stop crying over spilled milk.

[DoctorHarte]

Have you seen what comes out of the blight already?

Besides, why do people keep persisting about uncovering the blight? Everyone was given plenty of warning that parts or all of Beluaterra could have been lost. As it stands, not too much of the continent is inaccessible, so even if I might sound harsh in saying this: Stop crying over spilled milk.

Yes, I was in Enweil for quite a while battling all the monsters. Why? Because under it is where a lot of history has gone down, many opportunities could be made, and because Beluaterra isn't Beluaterra with this damned blight. We want our old continent back so the fun times will return!

And to be honest, we know it's inaccessible. So let us do our thing and stop trying to stop a perfectly reasonable discussion. There's no harm in talking about it and I see no one crying.. or any spilled milk.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Then please explain what the goal of discussing getting rid of blight is. It's not going to happen anytime soon, and thusfar ideas have been focused on material that would probably not occur anymore (Read: NPC-led invasions).

A map retexture might not be that hard, and, as originally suggested by the OP, the affected regions, if uncovered, should probably have some modifications. But then that would likely just bring on a slew of new complaints along the lines of "These regions suck" or "Monster spawning in Eno is too high".

But most importantly, why are we talking more about how to dispel the blight when the more fruitful questions might be what the invaders were doing? The blight was not the central aspect of the 4th Inv (at least it doesn't seem like it because it occurred three months after initiation). But where are discussions about that, OOC post-Invasion sharing of information gathered during the Invasion? There was a short-lived thread on the dlist, but that achieved little more than revealing who played the Light and Undead.

And what do I think about this? I think it's because the blight, and the somewhat increased (more tame now) rogue spawns, affect things tangibly in-game. All this story stuff about the invaders doesn't actually change anything in terms of numbers. Maybe the story aspect isn't lost on anyone, but the vast majority appears to be more concerned with things like region stats, expansion, and things related mechanically to the game. There's nothing wrong with that, and it makes sense. But I think we're looking in the wrong direction if that's our main concern. The 4th Inv was supposed to provide us with a neat story to uncover. Of course, we kind of muddled a bunch of it, but that's expected too. Still, I think the main point was the actual plot, not whatever mechanical things occurred afterwards.

[Jimgerdes]

No, it looks like somewhere the Human Armies of the World should Invade for Part Five of Beluaterra's Exciting Adventure 

haha That certainly could be interesting.

[DoctorHarte]

Then please explain what the goal of discussing getting rid of blight is. It's not going to happen anytime soon, and thusfar ideas have been focused on material that would probably not occur anymore (Read: NPC-led invasions).

A map retexture might not be that hard, and, as originally suggested by the OP, the affected regions, if uncovered, should probably have some modifications. But then that would likely just bring on a slew of new complaints along the lines of "These regions suck" or "Monster spawning in Eno is too high".

But most importantly, why are we talking more about how to dispel the blight when the more fruitful questions might be what the invaders were doing? The blight was not the central aspect of the 4th Inv (at least it doesn't seem like it because it occurred three months after initiation). But where are discussions about that, OOC post-Invasion sharing of information gathered during the Invasion? There was a short-lived thread on the dlist, but that achieved little more than revealing who played the Light and Undead.

And what do I think about this? I think it's because the blight, and the somewhat increased (more tame now) rogue spawns, affect things tangibly in-game. All this story stuff about the invaders doesn't actually change anything in terms of numbers. Maybe the story aspect isn't lost on anyone, but the vast majority appears to be more concerned with things like region stats, expansion, and things related mechanically to the game. There's nothing wrong with that, and it makes sense. But I think we're looking in the wrong direction if that's our main concern. The 4th Inv was supposed to provide us with a neat story to uncover. Of course, we kind of muddled a bunch of it, but that's expected too. Still, I think the main point was the actual plot, not whatever mechanical things occurred afterwards.

Because talking about ridding the blight is fun and discussion can go where they please. This is topic about the Beluaterra Map, not some serious-centered discussion of what Beluaterra should do next - although I'm not stopping it from being so! I just want you to stop beating on those who talk about ridding the blight and what we think would be cool to happen if the fog ever does reveal the rest of the map. I see no reason not to, they are all ideas from the players that Tom can read and perhaps extract a few ideas from.

However, I consider the 4th invasion a large failure, but I'm not going to launch into that. If you want to discuss more about the Invasion, then make a new topic for it and I'm sure more players will interact and join in. Just don't try to block the discussion of other topics because it isn't realistic in-game

[songqu88@gmail.com]

You know what? Forget it, there's nothing for me to say to you.

[DoctorHarte]

You take too much seriously. I and others are only contemplating what we would like to see come of the blight or Beluaterra. Wtf is so wrong with that?

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Knowing full well that the blight will be around for at least 2011, knowing full well that there will very likely be no more Invasions handled within the main game (at least in any form similar to how they've gone so far), an interesting discussion would involve creative suggestions that move around these two current limitations. Brainstorm ideas for a way to integrate Beyond or some similar expansion into the fold of the main game to unveil the story that would have been diverted under the influence of hundreds of characters.

Think about the alternate form of Invasions that seems to be the future, if they occur in any form at all. If you want to speculate on (most likely) impossible things that are (very probably) never going to happen, then there's no stopping it. But at a certain point it becomes a question of just why are we fantasizing about some aspect of the game that will most likely only ever exist in our minds? If you have something cohesive and/or interesting that's fiction, then share out the story so we can enjoy, but so far, there hasn't been anything cohesive or of any remarkable length.

The thing about this particular thread, is that it started about how the map might be altered, and yet, we have now deviated into a lot of imaginative things. That in itself is nothing bad, and I think you are also overreacting to my desire to see us back on topic. That, and my curiosity about whether people actually realize what happened in the 4th Inv wasn't some fluke or joke.

So on the actual topic...I see no maps, nor any attempts at them. I have given an attempt using Photoshop and the provided wiki textures, as well as some copy-pasting work, but the badlands textures don't behave. They appear "wrong" when they show any slightest discernible texture pattern. Also, I don't have AoW, and probably won't obtain it anytime. So for those who still remember the original intent of this thread, what is the progress, if any.

[De-Legro]

The topic of what might happen with the blight, or what might be needed to remove it lies well within a reasonable deviation from the original post I think. Discussion evolve and take new directions, and until we move on to a completely separate topic, or completely dominate this one with idle speculation, there is no real  need to split of the discussion.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Yes, well, surely I can't be the only one other than maybe the OP who has even attempted to do anything with the map?

I could link you to my progress, but all you'd see is some poorly photomanipulated BT map that has the western desert area slightly expanded, nothing more.

[De-Legro]

Always found it difficult to use photoshop to change up the maps. I would probably need to see exactly what is going wrong to suggest a fix.

Most people I know use the Age of Wonders level editor, but I've never really given that a go either. It was suggested that I could get hold of it for free, but I never really spent the time to work out if it is possible.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Is it free? If so then I would use that. I currently have SCBW, WCIII (ROC not FT) and Battle for Wesnoth map editors. Those don't exactly provide anything vaguely resembling the BM maps.

But so far, it looks like I have to pay for AoW to use its map editor.

[De-Legro]

yeah I can't find any free links for the editor. Though I did notice that the wikipedia entry for Age of Wonders references Battlemaster. That's right people we are still on wikipedia, even if we don't have our own page.