Elodea Exploration Party: Saturday May 11th

[janaba]

Haha, thank you Annabelle, yeah, Dulcamara just told me too what I've missed ... The numeral on that key was really irritating and prevented me completely to take the chronology into account haha ...

I'm just in there and I'm sooo glad that I've made it now and know how to get there lol ... So, now I'm going to enjoy the culmination of this incredible awesome journey and adventure and I'm looking forward to the release of more sections and realms of this astounding universe ... I wish you all an exciting time in Elodea, a peaceful Sunday and a great start into a wonderful new week and time ... /wave ...

[Annabelle]

I have also found 3 linking books that are inactive, One has no hot spot, the other two lead to Alabaster and Gallardien respectfully.

Thanks for the 1st book without a hot spot, I completely missed that cave in my previous visits. I returned there intrigued by this 3rd book I didn't see yet

I talked with Dulcamara yesterday after the AGM to learn a bit more about Alabaster & Gallardien. The book of Alabaster is placed in a convenient area since that age will be mostly a stone age. For Gallardien, it will be obviously a green age as my picture posted on this thread showed. She said that her ideas keep growing & growing in her head making those 2 ages...universes that could be split into a collection of ages like Elodea So if you see Dulcamara around, give her "brain fertilizer" so those new universes will be just like Elodea.

She told me: "I'm a fan of fan ages so I made Elodea thinking about fans", nice statement

[Ehren]

Can you get to those blocked books without using some sort of cheat? I tried but really couldn't...

There's really a third unusable/unstable book? I only found two blocked book, both at the end of long paths from the beach to island-like areas.

_______

New appreciation for how well thought out this is...

If you force all parts of Elodea (Elodea, Elodeas Unterwelt, Elodeas Tunnelgang, Elodeas Schatz) to be loaded in at once, they fit correctly in space with each other. Like the underground areas all fit together under Elodea itself, the hut with the ladders leading down to Schatz fits in the correct spot and so does the waterfall area. The tunnel that connects Unterwelt and Tunnelgang fit together perfectly from both age files. The cavern of Schatz you see through the gate in Unterwelt fits perfectly with the real one.

There are only a few spots that don't fit together nicely, and even then they are certainly close enough to say that the age parts all together work spatially.

[Wamduskasapa]

@ Ehren You are in the right area but you need to look for the entrance to the cave BEFORE you walk the long path, then find a way around the barricade...

NOW

Have you located the linking book in Elodea that leads to Elodeas Unterwelt. The one that originates from within a waterfall and arrives within another. To find this would require diving, jumping and just plain walking...

to make it easy - here are 4 pictures from the start thourgh to arrival



BTW: one of these screenshots is accurate BUT do not depend upon it to actually locate the entrance to the waterfall...

[Luna]

I was considering installing Uru and visiting this place.
Looking at these pictures though I wonder how people spend longer in the age then the time it takes to link away.

There seem to be no shadows. The textures are too low res and badly UV mapped. The water looks like a large oil spot.

I like it that people try to make ages. But the most important fine about an age isn't quantity or size. It's whether people would like to stay there. Like Trebivdil has no real game play or story, but it is an age where it is pleasant to stay.

[Acorn]

I was considering installing Uru and visiting this place.
Looking at these pictures though I wonder how people spend longer in the age then the time it takes to link away.

There seem to be no shadows. The textures are too low res and badly UV mapped. The water looks like a large oil spot.

I like it that people try to make ages. But the most important fine about an age isn't quantity or size. It's whether people would like to stay there. Like Trebivdil has no real game play or story, but it is an age where it is pleasant to stay.

Yes! We had so much fun exploring yesterday. These ages are HUGE! I spent something like six hours there and probably still haven’t been to half of all places. I recommend checking it out to everyone. The ages suffer from the usual lack of lighting that most fan ages do, but don’t let that first look drive you away – you’ll quickly forget about it as you start exploring.

Luna, Elodea is not perfection - but the game play and exploration are excellent and there are some really beautiful spots where you DO want to sit down on a handy seat and admire the views. Do give it a try!

[Wamduskasapa]

No the graphics are not the best in the world

BUT the immersive quality of these 4 ages is worth exploring. Dulcamara has crafted Elodea, Elodeas Schatzkammern, Elodeas Tunnelgang and Elodeas Unterwelt into one cohesive world that is well worth the time spent in exploring, Shucks I have spent 4 days (about 8 hours per) exploring the incredible vistas and have just exited Elodea. There are nooks, crooks and crannies everywhere, to explore and constant surprises in unexpected places. Please don't loose out on a truly great world, because the graphics aren’t the best in the world...

[Annabelle]

But the most important fine about an age isn't quantity or size. It's whether people would like to stay there. Like Trebivdil has no real game play or story, but it is an age where it is pleasant to stay.

Tre'bivdil is dull. There's nothing to do there. If I want to sit in a garden, I'll go in a botanic garden and sit in RL...

What I want in a game...is to play and what I want in a "adventure-based" game like URU is to play & explore something. It seems I'm not the only one.

You don't see me often in Gehn shard. I should go there this month to grab my monthly sparkly...that's all. Why? Because I don't find anything to do there. OHHH the ages are quite sensationally beautiful & magnificent ... except there's nothing to do & more, nothing to climb to, with new physics engine. I won't redo URU for the 200th time. And the fan ages are quite nice: Fehnir's House, Vothol Gallery, & Tre'bivdil, once you saw them quite a few times, you go on.

In deep island you have hours of exploration. Even nice looking age like Prad which gives you a challenge...just one little tiny challenge making worth your visit there. Apart from heavy lag issue like in Somewhere, I'm not complaining. One thing I know: I can only come out with a flat land. My age would be call: "the dry & flat land", an arrid desert with nothing much to do... I don't judge works made by other!!!! more so because I never published any age...preferably it should be great if everyone would do the same...playing the Pharisian is just plainly vile

[Luna]

If we don't judge works made by others no one would ever judge.

I don't make fanages. I have tried and felt they weren't good enough. So I stopped and didn't publish.
I'm not critizing out of spite, I just feel that raving about a fanage that can clearly use some improvements helps no one.
It's not like things like tiling, uv mapping, using larger textures, lightmapping or just paint the corners slightly darker to fake shadows are extremely hard things to do. And they would improve this age (and some other fanages I have seen) a /lot/ .

I understand people have different preferences, but I prefer an age I can actually spend time in then an age with much to explore. Because if the age doesn't have the former, I sometimes /can't/ explore them.

But I'll try to explore Elodea later today.

Edit : ha ! Within the edit time limit.

I looked up an recent thread with pictures to make it clearer on how much difference things like lightmapping make.

This post has pictures without lightmap(under the spoiler tag) -> viewtopic.php?f=117&t=6092#p62798
This post has almost the same picture but now with lightmapping -> viewtopic.php?f=117&t=6092&p=63145#p63109

It's an interesting thread in general with both Tweek and Hoikas chiming in on how fanages can improve.

[Ainia]

Shorah luna,

I'm glad that you will be checking out Elodea.

I will supplement Annabelle's comments about this Age. True enough, Elodea is fairly unrefined visually, which is a bit off-putting for many of us (myself included). However, I have noted over the years that fan Age Writers oftentimes over-focus on creating Cyan quality *visually* without a similar emphasis on creating Cyan quality for Age *substance* (backstory, explorability, puzzle-solving). It is this latter that makes Elodea such a work of art. Dulcamara has done an astounding piece of work in crafting Cyan-quality substance for this Age (or for these four worlds). Quite honestly, I haven't seen such quality of *substance* in any other fan-made Age.

I commented earlier in this thread that this structural work gives Elodea solid "bones" upon which to build a truly beautiful fan-made Age should anyone care to do so. As before, I would *love* to see a version of Elodea that fleshes out the visual aspects to be of Cyan quality as well. In my mind, this would make it a fan-made equivalent of Cyan's Yeesha Journey Ages. Or in other words, it would be as close to new Cyan-quality content as we could hope to achieve within the fan community.

I can understand why Dulcamara chose to leave the visuals in their current state--she poured all her hard work into the substance instead of the visuals and attempting to do both with such an enormous body of work likely would have meant Elodea would have taken her decades to Write. So I will pitch my suggestion once again, that (assuming Dulcamara is okay with the notion) refining Elodea would be an excellent community project. I also recognize that such a project would be a logistical nightmare and is highly unlikely anyway. Most of the Guild's talented Writers are busy with their own projects after all and it would be no small task to tackle all the visual, scripting and conversion issues. But I do think this underscores why the creation of Cyan-quality Ages needs a *team* of talented experts.

Ok, 'nuff said. I'll shut up now! Back to tackling (and mapping) Elodea!