Detailed Age WritiNg Contest (DAWN)

[Trylon]

No, pretty detailed is okay

(That, and I'm curious )

[Mystified Explorer]

I'd kind of feel awkward reviewing my own age, but I will try my best

[GPNMilano]

I'd kind of feel awkward reviewing my own age, but I will try my best

Ditto on that one.

[Zander]

I haven't been around much, but having ventured back in I am very excited about this and looking forward to the results. So it's not being entirely forgotten...

[Dot]

Where should we post our reports? On this thread in spoiler tags? Or initially by pm to the other judges in case we need to discuss something?

What time on Sunday should we submit the reports?

[Trylon]

Posting them here should be sufficient for now, though it'd be okay to post a link to a larger report, in case it gets pretty long, or in case you want to do some formatting which you can't do on the forums.

As for the time: Deadline at 23:59 @ UTC-12,

[ametist]

My winner of the DAWNcontest is Chloe's Office - Eder Licinius,

Emphasis in judging will be on story and audiovisual details

Chloe's Office:

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+overall good textured - books on shelf, maps, officewalls, floor, roof and door, the bed, and most other items such as computer, notes, the magazine, pencils
+light - on the maps, from blue lamp
+the GUIs- magazine, notes
+the open window where one can see the cavern
+working linkingbook to Nexus
+the story - it reviels a bit of the drama with the Illusionists and their age Eder Licinius and I want to know more
+different footstep-sounds, 'paper-sound'
+the maps on the wall
+the mixture of old and modern items
+no lag

-texture on the Journal-cover is missing edges
-fuzzy view of the cavern
-a weird pink squareform can be seen from certain angle at the lamp on the desk
-no background-sound (from the cavern)
-I can't come close enouigh the most left map to really see what it depicts
-too small text (for my eyes) in the Journal

The first new neighborhood-room is very exciting and I really felt the cavern alive again when visiting Chloe's Office!

Eder Licinus has also a lot of good things:

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+the working telescope
+the gondola - modelling and texture
+the sounds from great birds(bahros?)
+explanation to why the gondola-ride doesn't work
+the little hut with a Jornal which reviels more of the story here
+the light and texture in the pond-cave
+the water and ability to swim in the pond
+working linking-books to Nexus and Chloe's Office
+sounds from water and gondola

- - the lag in this age
-fuzzy texture on the stair and platform
-the stream of water surrounding the castle(seen in the telescope) seems to run to fast

I had some concerns with the fact that this age was 'fixed' after the first release, but since Mystified Explorer didn't react on that, it's obviously no problem.
The backstory gives Eder Licinius and Chloe's office a great potential of growth, and I'm looking forward to see more of it!

Tehr Dovah
This little forest age is very pleasant to visit, the background-music and the birdsong gives a nice feeling and strolling about I ponder the backstory and want to know more.

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+different birdsounds
+nice music
+trees - textures and shadows
+the sun and the reflections on the sea
+textures and modelling of the house,pagoda,bridges

-no collider - I fell off the age
-lag inside the little pagoda; another camera would fit here
-missing texture(face) on the pagoda roof
-the water in the little stream
-no swimmingmode in the sea
-no Journal in the age

Mystified explorer has explained why this age isn't 'finished' yet, and I'm sure the next version will give us more of the backstory and fixed now missing details.

Big Thanks to both contestants!! /bigthumbsup!

[Mystified Explorer]

Here's my report. I decided to divide them into 2 parts - Graphics/Visuals/Immersion and technical/gameplay. I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to technical aspects so I might inadvertantly focus more on the artistic/visual side

Eder Licinius

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TECH/GAMEPLAY
Overall, It's good. I'd give it a 7 out of 10
Key points:
- The nexus book at the top - I had some issues with it - Uru froze when trying to link. Also I had trouble using the link to the 'hood office, although I think that was an issue on my end.
- Stairs were a bit funny to walk up sometimes - might've benefitted from a collider, but I'm not sure how easy that would've been.
- Lag - It was intermittent for me (I have quite a good computer), but it was present.
- The cable car animation - it did lag a little bit, and might've been a cause for some of the issues there
Aside from those things, the age worked great
ARTISTIC
Overall I'd give it a 7/10 also. Apologies in advance if I sound like I'm nit-picking here, but I figure it's good to be honest I'm also kind of picky with my own work
I liked the age on the whole. It definitely does have the right feel. I liked the nice touches with the swinging cable car and other elements. Overall the visual elements fit nicely together - pretty much everything feels like it belongs. Also, the journal was great in giving some background to the age. I did notice a few little things that kind of detracted from the experience a little though:
-Textures on the stairs. The tiling is kind of noticeable there. Maybe try remapping/ plus adding a detail texture? I think that'll help heaps
- The rock texture on the cliffs was noticeably pixellated in parts. Adetail texture might help with this. Also maybe use a less harsh rock texture for close up parts - the holes and darker parts look flat in a few spots, mainly because of the shape of the rock and proximity of the camera to it.
- Water in the cave - it was nice overall, but I'm wondering if it might've been better with a waveset there? Once again not 100% sure on technical aspects of that.
- Lighting was on the whole very nice. The blue tint in some of the shadowed areas (especially on the cliff on the top platform) was a little too strong IMO, but otherwise very nicely done!
- The age was very very quiet. It would have been awesome to have some wind sounds, maybe a creak for the swinging cable car also. It would give the age that little bit of extra immersiveness

Overall, I like Eder Licinius. A very nice age!

Chloe's 'Hood Office

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TECH/GAMEPLAY
Very few complaints here. Everything worked, but I will echoe ametist in that a couple of things were difficult to read. Overall though Great job! 9.5/10

ARTISTIC
Once again very few complaints. The place was very richly detailed - It definitely felt like an office. I liked the maps on the walls, the various things to examine/read, and the general look of the place. However, there were these things I noticed:
- 'Hood texture was very flat, partially due to a bit of perspective issues I think, plus pixellation.
- Lighting was very nice in the environment, but there wasn't really any light on my avatar.
- There was also a bit of a lack of sound in the office, and I never heard bahro screams in either ages, but maybe that was an issue on my end :S
Overall, a very nice job with the office - it was really richly detailed and immersive - it was really close to cyan quality! 9/10

Lastly, here is a review of my own age. I do feel a little weird reviewing it, but I will post my thoughts on the whole thing retrospectively.

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TECH/GAMEPLAY
The age was pretty barren in terms of interactivity and gameplay. This was due to my lack of planning and python skills. I attempted to add a journal, but failed miserably. Aside from that, though, everything that is there works, at least to the best of my knowledge

ARTISTIC
Overall, I'm fairly happy with the look of the age. The trees came out nicely, and the buildings also looked nice. I did originally have little purple flowers and ferns dotted through the age, but the maya .nif exporter/blender .nif importer flatly refused to import them I also originally intended to have large trees along the perimeter, as well as a sandy shore with waveset ripples, but I ran out of time and could not get the shores to work. The stream waveset also did not come out as well as I hoped. It needs tweaking. Also, some of the stones need fixing. Aside from that, I was happy with the general mood. Turjan's music was a big help with that I'm also pretty happy with how the lighting turned out, although the age could definitely benefit from some diffusion lighting on the avatar. The age was also somewhat devoid of the details. That is something I hope to fix in subsequent releases.

[Dot]

Here is my report for Mystified Explorer's Tehr'Dovah (a forest age).

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On initially linking in, you hear a magical soundscape: waves lapping on the shore, insect sounds and birdsong, and the melancholic strains of Turjan's music.

Turning around you see a lake rimmed with distant hills. Possibly a sunrise reflecting on the lake (good reflections -- but waves need to be added to match the sounds).

On the small wooden pier is a square green button -- a promise of things to come (no hotspot yet, nor does it light up).

I tried climbing the cliffs on the left when facing the lake. Got into the water, but no swim so sank like a stone and relto'd out. Might need anti-climbing collisions there.

Now walking up the path curving between broken pillars. Some of the stepping stones have rough edges and fractured surfaces -- I guess this might be an artifact from the model conversion process. The plants are like the ferns in Delin in that they don't let you walk through them.

The way the path curves between the hills is good -- you don't know what is going to greet you as you turn the corner.

At the top of the hill is an exquisite wooden bridge over a stream (?). The stream edges extend up the hillside -- possibly an artifact. I walked down the stream towards a distant view of mountains. When I reached the end of the model I fell into the black abyss and again relto'd out.

Back to the little bridge, following the correct path brings you to a oriental-style gate leading into a garden. The decorations on the windows in the gate disappear at some angles.

The models in this little garden are very nicely done: statues, model boat, floating lamps hanging lanterns, bridges, gazebo (it'll be good when we can sit there). Insect sounds add to the ambiance.

Now attempting to go into the house -- had to jump over the step onto the veranda. Inside are a couple of very small rooms, with a comfy looking settee (can't sit on it yet), empty bookshelves, stove, etc.

I then ran onto the hill behind the house (bad Dot). This will need to be blocked off.

Summary:
Attractively modelled and textured items
Excellent immersive soundscape with birdsong, water and insect sounds, and music
Curving paths add to the mystery
Reasonably consistent framerate of about 50 fps throughout the age (running at 1600x1200 with highest setting for graphics quality)

Things to tweak: Rough edges of stepping stones, transparency issues (gate windows, looking through tree foliage), adding hotspots for places to sit, making buttons work, populating the bookcase, adding collision planes to prevent explorers going where they shouldn't, adding story elements in age to give context.

Here's my report for GPNMilano's Eder Licinius.

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The loud bird squarks when I linked in made me jump (and my dogs bark!). It is otherwise silent, which gives an uneasy feeling.

The initial link-in spot is colourful, but looks fuzzy.

The elegant palisade is well modelled and attractive in its detail. The working telescope is a plus, and I liked the way the camera slowly panned back when I left it (though I guess this will be need to be fixed).

The subtly moving mist shrouding the valley and castle looks good. The water flow under the mist looks a little too rapid.

Does the tram run on a wire loop or solid runners? The pulley attached to the cliff suggests it should be a wire loop, but there is an obvious bend in the wire visible from by the telescope.

The first time I linked in to this age (just to check its stability), the tram basket was attached. This time, it is sloping at an angle, unattached to the ropes. The handle is floating. In fact, as I watch, the basket is slowly turning around its long axis. The basket bottom is now facing the plaza.

Now going down the stairs. It's good that these have different shades, but they still have 'stripes' curving downward. I like the layered cliffs and the steps curving through them a lot.

At the bottom, I jumped to the area on the right. The texture at the base of the cliff on the left side receded strangely as I walked down. The veranda structure has a floating ridge pole unattached to any obvious support. At the base of the cliff at this point there are some stretched textures -- otherwise the floor of this area looks great.

The bespoke cover to the journal found here is a nice touch. The journal itself sets the scene for the age -- gives some story behind it, plus links in with present-day explorers (which I hope will happen more as more ages are written). The text inside will need editing for punctuation and spelling (too many commas, as in 'The age, was written'; missing apostrophes, as in 'Thats where things get murky'; typos, as in 'the spring wanter'; grammatical infelicities) -- I know Andy is meant to have written this, but he doesn't make that many mistakes... I can help with this if it would be useful. I wonder too why the typewritten text changes colour -- I don't remember that happening when I used the old manual typewriters.

The water room has some very nice features: the vine frieze edging the wall top, the simple moulding on the pillars, the 'aging' applied to the floors, the rock textures themselves, the hanging lights. The waterfalls could do with a bit more work, and the two sets of ripple animations made me feel a bit woozy when my avie was standing in the water (but I am being particularly picky here). Being able to swim in this area was a refreshing bonus.

To sit down on the benches, my avie first shuffled so that she was knee deep in bench, then sat down.

Walking to the linking book area, I paid particular attention to what was happening to the frame rate. Up to now, I was getting 90-110 fps. As I approached the further bench and the wall, the rate went down to about 50 fps. I went back to the cave entrance to check again, but this time Uru froze as I approached the spot. (This also happened several times when I was initially testing the age's stability, so something does need attention here.) The exception type was "Breakpoint". This one was a serious freeze. Control-alt-delete couldn't kill it (waterfalls were sounding all the time). In the end I had to switch the computer off since it too stopped responding to mouse clicks and keyboard.

Linked back in. This time the tram basket was in the right place, so I took advantage of it and tried it out. The lever switch works well (though occasionally avie does a 'stuck' animation before the correct one kicks in). The ropes aren't consistently attached to the basket -- the back left one is particularly adrift as the basket sways (nice touch that, by the way).

Ran down the stairs to try to get to the linking book, but got another call stack as I approached it in roughly the same spot. The fps was 124 at the time, though. This time, I could click OK on the error message and quit Uru.

Third time lucky? ... Yay! Got past the crash point, but now hit a spot where the frame rate goes down to 14-15 -- it's two pillars away from the linking book. It stays low until I pass the pillar just before the book, then goes back up to over 100.

I managed to link safely to the office, but it's time to take the dogs out for a walk... More to come later.

This next part looks at Chloe's hood office.

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To avoid wasting time, I linked directly from Relto to Chloe's hood office.

It is silent in the office -- no background sounds from the wider hood or city. I miss those sounds.

Footstep sounds change as I step onto and off the carpet -- good detail.

I like being able to look out of the window to the cavern wall. At a guess this must be the other side of the lake from the ferry terminal?

Having GoC maps stuck to the walls is a nice touch, though the tape used looks a little too bright -- and might it damage the walls (not good from an archeological point of view ). The image detail on the large map is very good -- it shows fold lines.

There are very strong contrasting shadows from the table and chair, but the lamp at the end of the room looks too weak to cast them.

The lamp on the table has a problem with the bit that shines (sorry, don't know the technical term), which has turned to a pink square.

Also on the table are well-modelled tools appropriate for a researcher: heavy-looking reference books, pencils and pad, laptop, working Nexus book (presence explained in journal on Eder Licinius), plus a note neatly giving context to Eder Licinius and setting up story elements (typos need correcting, e.g. S'lochin (2nd para), wherabouts (next to last line) among others). Putting the note down results in a paper slap sound -- good.

Now for the journal on the crate: The worn edges look a little odd, with pinks and greens and yellows -- but is this an artefact of my graphics card? The journal starts with '%s,' -- stray bit of code? A plea: if dates are given with the months written out, it will help international players read them. Good story background, including more details about the office contents, but typos will need correcting.

I'm not sure about the ancient camp bed, to be honest. If you can get microwave and two computers down to the cavern, why not a comfortable modern camp bed as well?

Some objects seem fuzzier than others: for example, the microwave and computer monitor are fuzzy while the computer box is sharper.

There's a hotspot on the keyboard, but nothing happens (the keyboard is open, by the way, to show stationery items).

Nicely authentic note from Mike -- including the scare quotes round 'cavern' (I can imagine editors doing that!). Good mock-up of magazine.

Summary: The linked ages are rich in visual and text details that hint at a deep, ongoing story. The soundscapes could do with more ambient background sounds for greater immersion. As mentioned in the reports, there are some technical and textual hiccups that need sorting out.

Of the two ages presented, I would say that Eder Licinius/Chloe's hood office meets criteria 2a most successfully:

2) Emphasis in judging will be on story and audiovisual details
2a) (edit) Story as stated above can also refer to the ages background info -- in whatever form given -- and immersion or continuity.
(Why is an object in your age? How did it get there? How does it affect the environment?)

I'm looking forward to seeing how both ages develop. Thank you, Mystified Explorer and GPNMilano, for the care and detailed work that has gone into them. They are treats to explore!

[GPNMilano]

Here is my report for Mystified Explorer's Tehr'Dovah:

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Over all I really liked Tehr'Dovah. I haven't checked it out on my laptop, so I couldn't see the waveset on my PC (I so need to update my graphics card)But that was the only visual oddity I had, and I have it with every age so its not his fault, its my computer. The audio immersion was stunning. I really liked audio quality of this age. Between the background music and the sounds of the birds mixing with the water's wave sounds it greatly added to the feel of the age.

The minus' for me were mostly missing colliders and the lack of a backstory for the age. It seems to have a D'ni name, but I could be wrong. Did people live here at one time? If so what happened to them? Overall I give the age an 8 out of 10, the immersion of the sounds with the excellent quality of the age in general really makes up for the lack of story here

As for my age, like Mystified I feel odd about grading it, mostly cause I'm to harsh on myself:

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Eder Licinius:

I'm a bit unhappy with the texturing in some places, mostly the stairs, and the link in point. As others pointed out the water also needs to be slowed down by the river surrounding the forest area. I had put out a minor update to fix the crashes that some people were having with my linking books. But I didn't want to fix anything else as the deadline had already passed. So i left fixing of the textures to another update.

The lag in spots is horrible, because of the swaying animation of the tram car. Thankfully I have fixed this issue in the unreleased version coming soon. The audio details of the bird sounds need to be quieted down, as well as the actual birds in the sky put in. I want to put more ambient sounds in the age, as well as some greenery. To much rock is never a good thing. Plus the crashes with the swim region need to be fixed, and some minor grammatical fixing on the journals, which were written hastily in python a few hours before i posted the age.

Chloes Hood Office:

I'm really happy with how this age turned out. Some people can't seem to hear the generator sound background noise (its there, I guess I need to up the volume on it) Some minor fixes with the shadows, as well as the lamp sprite's shading to eliminate the pink dot. The textures on the journal and the microwave and computer need to be redone completely, as this is an issue with the actual texture image, and not the way it is mapped. background view of the Dorehn hood needs to be redone, as this was taken via fly mode and not set up properly in game and looks to stretched. And the animation for the keyboard does not work properly. Other than that I am happy with the way it looks, as it really gives the age a D'ni feel, and I've visited it many a time.