I agree completely. I think if OpenGameArt is going to break open, it will be by aggressively pursuing (and showing off) quality.
Not all of us have a good critical eye though. Instead of relying on random users to rank items, should we appoint some users as trusted "critics" to rank entries? At least, some sites separate critics from user scores (e.g. critics rank it X%, users rank it Y%).
DeviantArt shows "most popular" entries for users not logged in, with the option to instead view by most recent. This definitely gives new users a better impression of possible quality. One hard part of that: commercial-quality art comes along rarely, so the OGA frontpage would look unchanged for long spans of time. Harvesting existing projects might help there.
It could be handy. Minecraft, for example, implements some known noise and fractal algorithms to generate much of its landscape.
A general library would be good, especially if it took advantage of existing, well-researched algorithms. E.g. I could write a maze-generator, but I'm sure someone out there has published a paper on why one specific algorithm makes the most efficient and interesting mazes.
I might move the past war a little closer to "present", maybe 12 or 15 years past. That would put the hero as a child during the war.
I like the idea that summoning magic of a previous war leads to the landscape being overrun with monsters. Most of civilization would be hidden or at least well-guarded. I used a similar hook in my last D&D campaign and I enjoyed it.
I don't want to use the "hero of prophecy" hook or the King/prince/noble hook for the main hero. I don't mind using it for a background person -- maybe the crown prince was the hero of prophecy, left on his quest months ago, and now his head is on a pike outside the fortress of some villain. To the despair of everyone. Maybe this explains why no other hero has bothered (after all, no one questioned the prophecy)
Maybe the hero is cursed/marked by the same dark magic that opened the interplanar gates (that brought the monsters). Banished from the capitol along with everyone else cursed/marked.
Maybe the temples are related to self-redemption. Hero has cursed markings; each elemental aspect he defeats removes a marking.
Maybe the temples are related to tribal redemption. Perhaps the hero's bloodline is of magicians and mystics, and are blamed for the kind of wreckage that happened to the world. The hero's entire tribe is lost/scattered/cursed/dead. Defeating the elemental aspects restores honor/acceptance to his people.
Maybe the temples are related to world redemption. The elemental aspects themselves are cursed, and by defeating their corrupted version the hero frees that elemental keeper and sets that part of the world on the long path to recovery.
Port Wetrock should be still mostly destroyed. It should be obvious that the port town used to be much more glorious, and would have been rebuilt by now if not for lack of supplies from Boorkh (and other places).
Here are some flagstone isometric tiles http://opengameart.org/content/flagstone-floor-tiles
And, here is a tutorial on how to leverage Blender to make isometric tiles. http://clintbellanger.net/rpg/tutorials/isometric_tiles/
Project list:
I agree completely. I think if OpenGameArt is going to break open, it will be by aggressively pursuing (and showing off) quality.
Not all of us have a good critical eye though. Instead of relying on random users to rank items, should we appoint some users as trusted "critics" to rank entries? At least, some sites separate critics from user scores (e.g. critics rank it X%, users rank it Y%).
DeviantArt shows "most popular" entries for users not logged in, with the option to instead view by most recent. This definitely gives new users a better impression of possible quality. One hard part of that: commercial-quality art comes along rarely, so the OGA frontpage would look unchanged for long spans of time. Harvesting existing projects might help there.
It could be handy. Minecraft, for example, implements some known noise and fractal algorithms to generate much of its landscape.
A general library would be good, especially if it took advantage of existing, well-researched algorithms. E.g. I could write a maze-generator, but I'm sure someone out there has published a paper on why one specific algorithm makes the most efficient and interesting mazes.
Written by OGA user Tartos in Python.
See info in this thread: http://opengameart.org/forumtopic/osare-v010-released
It's interesting so far. He's got it currently generating a 5-level deep dungeon.
From a rough perusal of the code, the general algorithm is like this:
I'll ask Tartos if he can stop by and talk about his algorithm in-depth.
Fun! Does it go up forever? I assume the vertical scroll gets faster as you play?
I usually close the voting on fridays, unless there's one runaway winner early
Tartos: excellent! aaah those dark goblins are fast!
It's great to see that, even this early, someone is able to figure out how to make content for the game. Kudos!
nubux, I plan to do so. This week in fact, for our "Art Tutorial" Weekly Challenge
Ideas.
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