Arena Design: "The Bronx"

At last Sunday's PvP party, I had the pleasure of visiting (our very own) Heather Raven's Celestial Observatory.  She allowed me a sneak peek before the event, and there were some amazing features and motifs within her design that highly impressed me.  Working with partner Donna Spellthorn, Heather brought us to a battle ring that is "out of this world," yet retained a home-sweet-home feeling for those of us who love "indoor" duels.

The Entrance

Before you even take a step, you are enveloped by a lush of lime green and teal upon arrival.  The overgrowth and abundance of plant life instantly shroud the fact that you're standing on a platform in a cold and desolate outer space.  The scattered columns and grounded flowers intuitively welcome the expectation of other humans in the vicinity...and indeed, there is Heather with her special Red Gobbler.

Within the center, there is further evidence of an existing community: walls of brick containing the battle ring.  For some, this may bring memories of a gym, a fortification, or an underground meeting room.  For me, it brought images of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to mind, and thus, I quickly associated the layout with the theme of a battle-worn city, standing sturdy and stable through the years of duels within or around it.  Hence, the name "Bronx."  Let's dive in further, shall we?

The Battle Ring

You can see within the closure a gang of Red Gobblers, hopping around in search of excitement, action, and fun.  Overlooking the duels are five rooted dragon heads...perhaps trophies of Heather Raven's travels?  One day, we shall find out, but I digress.  As the battle ring stands separate from the scenery of nature, it presents a  hidden metaphor that any thoughts and emotions of any duel that takes place should remain within the boundaries of where they originate from.  In other words, "whatever happens in the Arena stays in the Arena."  The matches shouldn't be taken personally, whether a victory or loss was received; competitive tension should not step into the sovereign of friendship.

Here lies the teleporter nearby a scene of confrontation between two Colossi.  This device will launch competitors into the enclosed ring.

Another teleporter would direct travelers onto an invisible plane, as seen in the picture above.  This had my jaw dropping, as I learned something new about the teleporters:  

When the Teleporter Destinations (TP-D) are floated above a Tangible Area (an area where your Wizard can walk upon without the aid of Floating or Teleporters),  the Users will be relocated to the same point as the TP-D.  On their own screen, they will see that they are hovering in midair.  However, on other players' screens, the User is actually standing on the ground.  In addition, the User's perspective will show that other Users are standing on the ground directly below them.

To help you understand what this means, picture that you and five other friends are standing in front a Teleporter.  One of your friends walks into the Teleporter first, and will be relocated to where I am standing in the above picture: hovering next to a Celestian tree.  That friend will see exactly what the picture above shows.  However, to you and your other friends, you will see that person standing on the ground.

Now, let's say that the rest of your friends follow through the Teleporter, leaving you by yourself.  On your screen, as you look towards this Celestian tree, you will find all of your friends standing within each other, on the ground.  They aren't moving off of one another, which seems puzzling.

When you run into the Teleporter, you will find yourself hovering next to the tree, as the picture above shows. Isn't it odd that your friends aren't anywhere near the top of this tree, though they went through the same Teleporter you did?

Heather explained that this was formerly on a makeshift platform that she created out of rugs, only to be removed when she "Picked Up" something below it.  But, I believe this is one of the greatest housing discoveries accidentally made!  By floating the TP-D, you can have a full audience watching from the exact same spot -- without blocking each other's view!  What does that mean?  Infinite seats....(well, sort of...assuming that there is no limit of visitors to the house!)  Combine this idea with the wooden headboards from my MFP, and you will virtually have the best seats for everyone in the Arena.  Great find, Heather!

Rooftop View

Heather, with Donna's help, brought me another surprising innovation: the "Rooftop View."  Spectators are used to watching spells from a distance at various ground-level and inclined levels, but what about viewing spells from directly above?  This sturdy platform with a "transparent" extension left me in excited awe...

What a sight!

I'm very sure that many new prototypes and designs of the "Rooftop View" will spark and flourish within the community, thanks to our hostess's and friend's vision.  From above, you can actually look down and see the clutter of sheep within the Frost Giant's spell, or the top of the Efreet's topknot!

Since the battle ring is closed off and allows only competitors to enter, there is another teleporter for a way out.  However, there happens to be a few chairs around here...implying that a few special spectators may be allowed to watch up close...

Amazing in sight, the "Bronx" was indeed a new perspective for duelists and the audience alike.  The only thing similar to this, that we've seen before, is probably the Marleybonian Arena, where the duel takes place within a walled and roofed area.  The one drawback about this design is the duelists' point of view, and I reiterate that this Design is still a work-in-progress.  The reason why KingsIsle added some Intangible Area surrounding the battle circle tightly is to ensure that the Battle Animation cameras of each player are not obstructed by tall objects such as the brick walls or trees (this will be another topic for another day!).  But, I strongly support designs such as the "Bronx," since it places the Architect (the house designer, house owner, etc.) into a new level of decorating, where distance, placement, and perspective matter.  For example, we cannot see where the cameras are flying around, and thus, we must hop into the Arena ourselves (or with a second account) in order to test for a design's user-friendliness.  That requires a lot of patience, practice, determination, and critical thinking.

I am very sure that there will be even more impressive features as Heather revises the few flaws and upgrades the design of her ring.  I cannot wait to return...thank you, Heather and Donna!

Vlog #21: Birthday 2011

Arena Design: "Vacuum" - Part 2

Now that you have "shadow floating" in your skills set and the concept of keeping random guests out of the center, let's take a look at how you would enter your duelists:

The miniature "stable" that I set up on the edge of my Celestial Observatory is reserved mainly for team PVP.  There were countless cases when set teams had to restart the Joining Process over and over, simply because eight minds were thinking in different directions, or there were connectivity problems.

If you haven't figured it out yet, you can control the order that teams and players are set up in PVP within a house.  Players from opposing teams must join in alternating fashion.

For example, let's say Team A is composed of Adam, Ben, Carrie, and Denise, and Team B is composed of Eugene, Frank, Gertrude, and Henry.  Team A wants to have Denise go first, followed by Ben, then Adam, and finally Carrie, and Team B wants Gertrude to lead, with Eugene, Henry, and Frank following, in that order.  Thus, for visual simplicity: Team A wants the order of DBAC, and Team B wants the order GEHF.

Since the game will automatically decide on a random turn order for each team, it doesn't matter which team enters first.  But, in the process that follows, it does!  Let's say that Team B decides to enter first; Gertrude would enter the ring to start the countdown.  Since both teams must join in alternating fashion, that means Denise will be the second player to enter.  Now each side of the battle circle has an opposing team member, and you technically have a 1v1 going on.  Thus, Eugene will be the next to enter, followed by Ben, then Henry, then Adam, then Frank, and finally Carrie.  The total join order is G, D, E, B, H, A, F, C.

It sounds elementary, but with a little miscommunication, mistakes can happen...sometimes again, and again, and again.  I remember when the Massive Fantasy Palace came out that it took about 6 or 7 tries in one PVP party until we could finally settle with a Fixed Teams match.  And still, today, it tends to happen, no matter how familiar the players are with the process!

Thus, the little "stable" thing I created is an attempt at "fool-proofing" the initialization of a PVP match.  Let's re-use Team A and Team B in this explanation, but with Team A's lead player (Denise) entering first!

Here's a top-down view of the setup:

Denise and Gertrude would enter the first lane, with a crate separating them from each other.  Ben and Eugene will take the second lane, Adam and Henry in the third, and Carrie and Frank in the fourth.  Since Team A is going first, Denise, Ben, Adam, and Carrie would occupy the space that's closest to the teleporters (and facing them), while Team B would be facing the crates.  So, imagine the top row of players in the picture are labeled D, B, A, and C, and the bottom row are labeled G, E, H, and F, respectively.

When the match is about to begin, all players would AUTORUN forward.  Team A should be running into the edge of the Celestial Observatory, while Team B should be running against the crates.  The host would then click on the Small Purple Rug (which has the Long Blue Runner "bridge" attached) and place the small rug down behind D.  Because there is now a "tangible" area in front of Denise (instead of the boundary of the CL Obs), she will advance forward and into the teleporters.  The crate in the first lane is then removed, allowing Gertrude to follow in the same manner.  The bridge is then moved to the next lane, where it "shoots" Ben towards the teleporters.  The second lane crate is removed, allowing Eugene to follow, and so on.

It sounds a little complex and tedious in writing, but it's a pretty simple (and inexpensive) procedure in the long run.  Maybe we'll have to have some PvP parties to show it in action, sometime!

(This set up is appropriately called "Vacuum" since players enact a "force of gravitational pull" by Autorunning towards the orange "black holes," which spits them into "another universe" where the victims must do battle to return home.)

Arena Design: "Vacuum" - Part 1

Ever tire of asking guests, "Please don't stand in the center," "Please move," or "GET OUTTTTTTT!!!" when they refuse to budge from the center of your residential battle circle?  I know I have.

At first, I tried to combat the issue by placing scrolls around the "inner ring" to create a collision barrier that would keep people out of the middle while allowing potential duelists to still join future matches.  However, it turns out that a player using the "ledge jump" bug (where you play in Windowed Mode, run forward, and click and hold the window "pane" or Wizard101 logo on the window; the bug is visible only to others looking at you, but you will "fly" through walls into space and infinite) can glitch themselves through the barrier.

So, my next idea was to create some kind of one-way ramp...but I was too lazy at the time to want to execute such a time-hoarding plan.  

Welcome to the age of Wysteria's debut, and you know what that means:  Teleporters!

This will be a two-part post; one will detail what "shadow floating" is along with a video demonstrating its use, and the second will show how to utilize "shadow floating" to your teleporters' advantage.  So, let's get started!

"Shadow floating" was discovered on accident while I was working on the barrier scrolls.  You can click on the link above, but if you're not able to hear the audio (or have 'Tube-phobia), I can elaborate what it is here.

Assuming you know the basics, "shadow floating" is a miracle in itself.  When you create a platform (small rug attached to a larger rug; the larger rug will be known as the "platform") and place the combined rugs/platform down, you have created "shadows."  (click on the pictures below to zoom in)

Red line = perimeter of "shadows" | Blue line = perimeter of "no placing furniture here" zone

The blue hashed line shows where you cannot initially place objects within.  The Small Purple Rug and Chessboard have now created a temporary "shadow", which expands the "tangible" terrain.  In other words, this is what happens to the blue line when the platform is set down and then picked up by the Small Purple Rug:

Placement of the rug and chessboard increased the area in which I can place objects down into.  I can click on the Small Purple Rug as this point and create a "leap frog" effect by moving the rug into the space where the chessboard just was:

The Small Purple Rug is now sitting in the chessboard's FORMER shadow.  Once you place the platform down into its previous shadow, that shadow disappears, and a NEW one is created, denoted by the red outline in the above picture.  Let's do it again:

And again...

And one more time...

Still unclear?  Check out this video where I demonstrate how to float the barriers and teleporters close to the battle circle:

Click on the bottom right corner of the player to enter "Full Screen" mode

(to be continued in Part 2)...

Arena Design: Introduction and Debut

I'm starting to think that I can be classified as a Wizard101 PvP Otaku (kudos to Lady Blade for teaching me this term!).  When it comes to designing a house, most of my passion and creativity are devoted to sprucing up the Arena circle; I just can't find the same passion for interior designing (which is mainly why many of my houses and castles are nothing but storage rooms inside; also, many Wall Hangings, Wallpapers, and Floorings find a new home in someone else's house after being adopted from the Bazaar, where I have dropped them off along with their birth certificate and immunization records).  

Well, there is a case where I've found a love for a design that isn't revolving around PvP.  Puzzle houses can take hours and hours of brainstorming, planning, executing, and testing, however.  Just being able to float things in the right places without altering something else can be tedious to a point of exhaustion or frustration.

My January Battleblood Castle is a physical representation of when my true interests (regarding housing) began manifesting.  Comparing the amount of items around the arena circle versus anywhere else, I think it's a closed case to my otaku-ness with the battle circle.  I blocked off the interior from being accessed by visitors, which funneled the focus down to the PvP Ring.  This was portraying an ancient battlegrounds where wizards have dueled for millenniums and centuries, causing the field around them to stack up with Fizzle Soot.  There is so much magic within the sedimentation that even mystical life forms could exist within; an Elder Honey Sickle is growing out of one of the "rocks."  

However, I realized that my aestheticism created a bothersome imbalance: players and spectators had minor inconveniences when utilizing the battlefield.  Slowly, I began removing items one by one in hopes of maintaining user-friendliness simultaneously with design.  Eventually, most of the rocks were removed, and I felt an evolution was due for this scene.

Fast forward many millenniums later, when the world itself becomes unstable.  The February version is a complete transformation of January's arena scenery, changing the battlegrounds into the turf of Mother Nature's wrath:  molten lava.  Think of it as the opposite of the Christianity's Flood.  Actually, the overall theme was to express "love" in a symbolic and eccentric way:  February as the "month of love," my passion for PVP, and my notoriety for Defender Pig "farms."  The lava was representative of "burning heat," whether it be for a Piggle BBQ or some other context.

This revision of the ancient battlegrounds also took on a more "functional" evolution, where the design also focused on how well others could use the PVP area.  That's where the metal platforms came in.  Instead of limiting viewers to surrounding the duelers on equal ground, I integrated the "lifted platforms" to imitate the Colosseum "feel" Dragonspyre's arena gives.  More visibility options, like low, medium, and high!

Through the PVP Parties, commentating battles from the side, and receiving feedback from friends, I reconstructed my arena further to try to optimize the battle circle aesthetically and functionally.  I haven't really had time (or the spirit) to make a behind-the-scenes video or to call it the "March" edition, especially when it required about two months to design, but here are some pictures to introduce the context.  You can click on the pictures for a bigger view:

Out from the lava of February comes a bustling explosion of human design and creations.  While Cassandra Hexthorn's MFP design was focused on the darker side of man's inventions, I contrasted with the appreciation for culture and innovation.  Welcome to "The Globe."

What humans have imagined and designed has always fascinated me.  I mean, take a look at Wizard101, and  then try to convince me that Homo sapiens aren't fascinating and clever.  This product is an example of our (again, that word...) culture.  References to movies, music, philosophy, history, games, books, and values passed down through the generations exist in these files -- records of our creativity, in other words.

Smoking columns float along with Mooshian flags to signify an active dueling grounds.  

The items within here have a theme that blend Mother Nature and mankind together.  Stone columns were crafted out of rocks by humans.  The barrel in this picture was formerly a tree that was cut down and sent to a lumber mill for carpentry.  Wooden boards with cryptic writing display our unique ability to communicate through systematic languages.

Scrolls and trophies surround the casting field.

Due to the high frequency of spectators and duelers asking other players to remove themselves from the center of the dueling circle, I began to hone my floating techniques into designing some kind of "barrier" that would (1) prevent others from trespassing through, but (2) allow visibility for both the audience and participants alike and (3) allow accessibility for potential participants (i.e. allow people to join the battle circle after a duel has ended).  I ended up creating a video on how to float items into the PVP ring.  Trophies were placed along the barrier of scrolls to give it a more aesthetic feel.

Minigames and wooden boards above the seating platforms.

There were a few hilarious glitches to the design itself...one being that if a player ran directly below a minigame kiosk that was situated on a raised platform, that player would find themselves encased within the kiosk!  The columns were also floated to ensure that visitors could traverse the area without the inconvenience of collision.  These were all late revisions to, again, enhance user-friendliness.  The wooden boards also serve a very special purpose:

The view from riding a mount and wearing a Life Amulet.

One pet peeve that I have with Wizard101 is the lack of the ability to zoom your camera in for a first-person view; your wizard's always in the way!  However, you can force the camera to zoom further in, simply by placing your character's back to a wall, and looking straight ahead, as demonstrated in the picture above.

A first-person view, without the mount, weapon, or amulet.

Five boards were placed on platforms that were perpendicular to one another to allow spectators the freedom of watching a match without their body obstructing some of the view.  With a raised view, they also provide for some awesome visibility all around.  Here are some other views from the other platforms:

"South" view

"East" view

"North" view

One guess I could make about why I become so excited about designing an arena ring:  Wizard101 is on the focus of plot development through a series of card battles.  Your wizard develops a reputation with the teachers after completing quests and defeating monsters and bosses with the use of cards.  Word of mouth, supposedly, brings your name to other characters and other worlds, and eventually you become an influence to their world or their culture.  Purses are returned to their original owners because you pulled out a blade or a trap card.  Thus, to me, what appeals the most is where you're using the cards.  The team positions, cards, decks, weapons, and pets may all look the same, but there's a noticeable change in what you feel when your battle takes place in a strange or unfamiliar area.  You're either excited, intimidated, distracted, or visually stimulated in some way, shape, or form.

So, welcome to yet another personal Battleblood project: Arena Design, where ideas and plans are executed, floating and housing mechanics are dissected, and other works within the community are appreciated.