Southern Realm: Resurected

[Jubal]

I'd rather rebuild a copy of the old map, but that's mostly because I never liked the Warband map as much and I feel the borders and topography are nicer on the vanilla & SR maps. I agree that the old SR map is really kind of dodgy, but I'm not much a fan of the way the borders etc work on the Warband map (the states are just a rather unnatural shape) and the addition of the freakin' great desert kind of  makes it hard to put the Southern Realms anywhere sensible.

Definitely copy the scenes to start with, that's a good call.

[Cuddly Khan]

Well, it could be southern and northern hemisphere? I'm just not too keen on using the old M&B map for a Warband mod. I'm not sure how the public would receive it. I'm sure I could definitely do it in a way that the southern realms look mostly the same. We could change the Warband map in a way that the states and borders make more sense if need be.

Also, Floris comes with some OSP scenes that we could also scatter around until we can get around to creating original scenes. One thing I think will be good about using Floris is the bounty of new weapons we can use to make new factions more unique.

[Jubal]

Hmm.

As an alternative offer, can I request that if you're doing Southern Realms for Warband, you let me draw out the modified/new map and send you my thoughts? I don't think I'll have time to actually do the map making, but I guess I'd just like to have that bit of say in how the SR world looks (and I like maps a lot/am a massive topographical pedant). I'd be happy to draw out a pretty new/different map, it's mostly just being sure that all my factions (and particularly my pet factions/locations) from SR end up in places that I feel suit them.

[Cuddly Khan]

Sure. I was thinking that it would look very similar to the old map, all except for the original game area with the original factions. It would have to be a bit different to the old one to accommodate the desert. If we still plan on adding the Nords homeland to it than that would still be mostly the same, across the sea to the north, Floris adds ship travel.

One thing I would also like to discuss with you is the culture of all those new factions of yours. What did you get inspiration from to make them. With that I may have a better idea on how to form their troop trees and which scenes to use for them that are most similar to how they're meant to be.

Also, we needs to work out which new features from Floris that we don't want in our game, one I'm not much of a fan of is the fog of war, which makes all towns and villages invisible until you see them for the first time, but I'm pretty sure that can be turned off ingame.

[Jubal]

I can certainly provide you with all those details on aesthetics and design, that's no problem

I guess one thing to consider is that the original game area and ownership of towns changed quite a lot in SR - for example, the addition of Alania, Zendar, Curaw, which were all in "Calradia proper". Having effective ship travel (can lords ship travel in Floris?) would make quite a difference and make the addition of islands much easier, so I'd be tempted to put a lot more islandy stuff around the place. I'll have a think, anyway.

[Cuddly Khan]

I'm not sure. I've been having a look through Floris and some guides for modding and it all looks very daunting. The mod in Floris that adds see travel adds ships for Bandits, Merchants and yourself obviously, but doesn't mention lords. Here is what it says about it:
http://floris.wikia.com/wiki/Seafaring

Here is a list of all the mods in the pack: http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,148140.msg3589074.html#msg3589074

[Jubal]

Possibly not then - maybe PM Floris and ask.

Modding M&B isn't too daunting, just start relatively simple and work up. The module system appears to have tons of files but you don't need to use most of them - just add one faction at a time, start by putting some new troop trees and stuff in and then work up to actually doing one faction and so on. It will be quite a lot of work, particularly adding the factions, but you can partly copy some stuff out of the old SR and you won't have to do neeeeearly as much adding features as I did for SR. 

[Cuddly Khan]

Well, I got some tools that will prove to be very useful in helping me, particularly this: http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,117997.0.html
This should help with so much work. What I plan on doing is getting all the factions and troop trees done before I start work on units and such. After that, doing the towns and villages and map shouldn't take too long. The main thing I find daunting is figuring how to get the Developer Pack of Floris working and figuring out what everything in there actually is.

I plan on playing the Floris mod pack on Native a bit to see what I like and don't like about it. That way if there is something in there that I'm not particularly fond of I can take it out.

Also, I don't have an account to PM him with over at the taleworlds forum. Might have to create one.

[Cuddly Khan]

So I created an account but monnikje hasn't been on since 2012. :/ I suppose I'll ask Duh.

EDIT: Did a bit of digging around and Floris stopped development 2 years ago. Also, from what I've tested of it, it's quite a bit buggy. Not to mention that not all of the stuff in it is OSP so we'd have to ask for permission to use some parts of it, which may take forever or never happen because a few of the people who created them aren't active anymore. I do plan on continuing this mod but maybe it would be wise to wait until Bannerlord come out and do the mod for that.

[Cuddly Khan]

I've made up my mind, we'll use the new viking DLC for it. By the looks of it, it will have a big focus on sea battles, so hopefully that means that enemy and allied lords will be capable of sea travel as well. Also, we will still be able to use varies weapon and item mods for it as well. It also has the feature of religion, which I think was one thing that you put in the original mod, so that is supported in the DLC as well.

[Jubal]

Ooh, yeah, a proper religion system would be neat. 

One of my major plans for the original SR was to a) try and restrict factions to fighting their neighbours initially but also b) to script in huge crusading armies, which would have been pretty cool. Sure I'll never get round to that, though.

[Cuddly Khan]

Well, one way to do that is make it so that certain parties don't start spawning until a certain amount of days in game. But of cause, I have no idea how I would go about doing that. I think Prophesy of Pendor did something similar but I'm not sure.

[Cuddly Khan]

Jubal, how many faces did your big map have? I read somewhere that Warband can handle more than 100,000. I'm not sure if that's the same size as the old one or more.

[Jubal]

I've no idea, sorry

[Gmd]

Mallardia ftw. That is all.