Supporter newsletter 64

Issue
This is a copy of Eternal and Diamond Supporter Newsletter #64, published by Grinding Gear Games.

Hello Supporters,

The two week charity race started yesterday. I didn’t have a lot of time to play, but I have been running a Molten Strike Duellist. I haven’t died yet (unlike my series of characters in Invasion).

The GGG guild stash has been filling up with items, so I know that several other developers are also playing.

This week Rory will be discussing the design process for the Mao Kun map which was added to the game in 1.1.2.

Carl

Map Design - Mao Kun

Hey guys, this week I’ll be telling you about the process that went through designing the supporter unique map, Mao Kun.

The supporter came to us with an idea - He wanted a pirate treasure island. A strong theme like this often gets all kinds of crazy ideas being thrown about the office, as everyone has their own thoughts for what could happen. Mark1 (Skill Programmer), Rhys (Level Programmer) and Joel (Level Designer) and I discussed the map and the supporter’s requests informally for 5 or 10 minutes, throwing out ideas and the consequences of them. After this discussion I formed a plan, ran it by Rhys as he would be doing most of the programming on it, then ran it by the supporter. Many interesting ideas from developers, like buried treasure chests, had to be turned down because of the complexity of their creation and our inability to let players know how to interact with them. After a few emails tuning the finer details, the supporter confirmed he was happy with the design.

Over the next few months, Joel created a level design for the area and Rhys created the tech needed for the boss. Here is how the map works:

http://i.imgur.com/uNVygpl.jpg

The supporter had requested that the map have as many tricornes as possible. Suggestions included:

Pirates wearing Tricornes (This made it into the game)

Players wearing Tricornes (This wasn’t something we could do)

Map icon shaped like a Tricorne (This made it into the game)

Fairgraves dropping a ghostly tricorne that the player could see but not pick up (This was decided to be too challenging and too confusing for players)

The map also including Sand Spitters, but with their bodies replaced with Tricornes (This was decided to be too silly, even for a unique map)

http://i.imgur.com/M2moWKa.png

Usually, we won’t get many new effects created for maps, but after a discussion with Erik, we decided to create new effects for Fairgraves to use for his spells. If the fight was a success, we’d add his abilities to the Fairgraves quest encounter in the game. Here are a few screenshots that were shown to the supporter during development.

http://i.imgur.com/0bnfQdM.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/SKcJx2j.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/gfGp8TI.jpg

Minor adjustments were made to the map over the month before the map was released. Chests were made more visible and set to show up on the minimap, as testers often missed them when clearing the area. The map size was reduced, taking the monster count down from over 1000 to 650, as it was too hard to find the pursers amongst all the ghost pirates.

For the rest of this article, check out the pathofexile.com news later this week!

Rory

Insider Info

This week, some concept art:

http://i.imgur.com/qDdGWXq.jpg

Erik has given me a few more pictures like this to show off, so you will be able to see Lioneye, and other characters from the Wraeclast universe in the coming weeks.

Carl

Feedback

If you want any further information, or wish to discuss your forum avatar or unique item, feel free to email us at design@grindinggear.com