Architecture

Racial architecture of the same Village ( ﺡﺮﺴﻤﻟﺍ 3) node on different servers. Dünir Dwarven influence (top). Kaelar Human influence (bottom). Alpha-1 NDA ﺮﻴﻏ ﺔﺷﺎﺷ ﺔﻄﻘﻟ.

The layout and architecture within a Node’s development area are determined by influential race. For example, a stage 3 Node with the majority of player contribution being Py'rai would have a Py'rai village with Py'rai architecture. Most NPCs would be Py'rai elves, and offer questlines within the Py'rai narrative. – Margaret Krohn

Each player’s contributed experience is flagged with their character race and other identifiers. When a Node advances, the race with the highest experience contribution determines the Node’s style and culture. This style and culture change can happen at every Node Stage. For example, if a Node advances to Level 2 - Encampment Stage and 51% of all experience was earned by Ren’Kai players, the Node will be a Level 2 Ren’Kai Node. If that same Node advances to a Level 3 - Village Stage Node, but the Py'Rai contributed 62% of all the experience earned, then the Node will be a Level 3 Py'Rai Node. – Margaret Krohn

Node layout and style is determined by several factors:

The way that the node system is built is that they can exist across a spread of 18 biomes, but at the same time have to represent the cultural influence of these cultures that are intrinsically a part of a specific biome. – Steven Sharif

• Environment (biome) and location of the node.
  • Nodes will adjust the local topography to fit the aesthetic and mechanical requirements of the node.

Currently the way that the platform system is set up, is it's capable of adjusting the topography of the node's footprint, regardless of the surrounding terrain. So the reason for that is we want to have flexibility in the presentation of the node's layout and how it is essentially both from an aesthetic standpoint as well as a mechanical standpoint with node sieges- how it's constructed and that construction should have the ability to take on a variance of different types of topography. So it shouldn't be dependent on the surrounding area. Now that's not to say that the surrounding area isn't going to have some influence over. So for example... we're experimenting a little bit with the platform tech and putting up a node up against the side of a mountain or on the edge of a cliff or something that has a beautiful vista. Those are things that we're going to test out obviously as we continue to work on the node tool and how that platform system works, but the idea is to have the node independent of the surrounding terrain. – Steven Sharif

• Node type.

Some parts are determined by the area it's in. Some parts are determined by the type it is. Some parts are determined by the race it is; and then the rest of it is determined by the mayor. – Jeffrey Bard

• Race that contributed the highest percentage to the node's advancement will alter the racial appearance of its buildings, NPCs, and props.
  • Parent races do not combine their cultural influences. For example, Py'Rai and Empyrean count as different cultures. Their parent race, the Pyrian, no longer exists.
  • This style and culture change happens at every stage.
  • This applies to all nodes, including castle nodes.

All nodes, whether they're associated with a castle or associated with normal node structure, has cultural influences that replicate over to the buildings that are produced and the NPCs that are present. – Steven Sharif

• The rest is determined by the node's mayor.
  • It should be possible for a node to complete several building projects within a mayor's one month term in office.

Q: How long would you say it will take players on average to fill/build up a node completely from wilderness to metropolis?

A: It's one thing to get a node to a certain level: it's another thing to develop the node; and I can't really give you an on-average expectation, because there's a lot of variables at play. There's how many citizens does the node have attracted to it; what's the type of traffic that the node is attracting to it based on things like its tax rates, or the specialization that it chose to spec into, based on the building types it's chosen to build. All of those things are variables that can affect the quote-unquote "average build-out time" of a particular node. So it's difficult to give you an average when there's so many variables along those lines. But the idea is that if there is a particular project that players are interested in in developing based on the node stage, that they would have the ability to complete several of those projects as within a single term of a mayor; and a term of a mayor is one month. – Steven Sharif

Node buildings

Unique node buildings

Alpha-1 Node buildings.

Each node type has a unique service building associated with it that can be activated at Village ( ﺡﺮﺴﻤﻟﺍ 3) of node advancement. The unique building plays a central role in the progress of civilization for a server.

Freehold buildings

Freehold building types.

After you build your house, you can build other buildings on your Freehold. Each building needs the blueprint to start the process. If you have a cosmetic skin you want to use on a building, this is used after placing the blueprint. Once this has been placed, the building will be shown in a non-functional, construction state. Players will need to provide the required materials needed to complete the building construction, for each building on their Freehold. No Freehold has room for every possible option, so players will need to choose how to develop their Freehold by choosing to build specific artisan buildings, business buildings, and creating room for livestock and crops.

Freehold buildings that can be placed on a freehold plot serve three main purposes.

• Homesteads.
• Artisan buildings.
• Business buildings.

Freehold buildings require blueprints and materials to construct.

• Sheds are present on empty freehold plots to provide storage for materials needed to construct freehold buildings.
• Some freehold buildings have multiple tiers, with different footprint sizes.
• Upgrading a tier will not change the size of the building in terms of footprint, but may increase in height.
• Basements in freehold buildings are to be decided.

Freehold taxes are calculated based on the number of permits issued for buildings on a freehold.

• Buildings that require permits will have additional upkeep costs.

Freehold building architecture is based on the blueprint for the building.

• Freehold skins are applied to blueprints matching the type of building: housing, artisanship, and business.
  • The vast majority of cosmetic freehold skins are used for the homestead.
• The freehold building blueprints must be obtained in-game first before the cosmetic can be applied.
• Players are not locked to the racial appearance of a freehold building blueprint.

The way we look at it is the freehold is your space so we want you to be able to make it look the way you want it to. – Jeffrey Bard

Artistic influences

Asian influenced Ren'Kai architecture.

Character races are super important. These are the choices that we make at the onset of our adventure in an MMORPG: what race- not just mechanically aligns with our decisions, if those races have game mechanics behind them from a stat perspective, but visually and culturally and historically: What are these? What do these races represent? So it's important that visually they're distinct. And everyone's seen fantasy games do Elves, so everyone's seen them do Humans, everyone's seen them do Orcs: There's an established expectation almost behind what these traditional fantasy races represent; and there's a risk, because whenever you're creating a new IP or a new story or a new world- a new Universe; a realm in which things don't have to always be the norm, you can take a little bit of creative liberty to redefine some of the aspects of a particular race; and that can be a good thing, because it's something that is new to players. It's something that is unique to the realm that we're building- the surroundings that you have. So what we wanted to do was push a little bit more on the unique side of what the Py'rai would look like from a visual perspective. – Steven Sharif

• Aelean architecture has a French medieval influence.
• Dünir have a Nordic cultural influence.
• Empyreans have a Greco-Roman imperialistic feeling.
• The Kaelar have a European influence.
• The Niküa have a Polynesian influence.
• The Py'Rai have a Navajo Native American influence. Py'Rai architecture has a woodland inspiration.
• Pyrian architecture has a Greco-Roman influence.
• Ren'Kai architecture has an Asian influence.
• The Vaelune have a Middle Eastern influence.
• The Vek have a Mesoamerican influence.

You will see in the different races that are available from a player character standpoint a lot of different influences that reflect many cultures in the world: Not just European, not just Africa, not Mesoamerican. These cultures are going to be present in many of the races. – Steven Sharif

The idea is just to find a base component in the real world as a starting point and then to begin to fantasize. – Steven Sharif

Gallery

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See also

• تائيبلا
• تاقابس
• Buildings