Area designing contest

[Froggie]

Rosebud Meadow, what if it's an inland plateau with a meadow on top with subtle ocean views?

[Admiral Striker General]

.... *blink* Hm. o3o Plateau sounds odd, but that gives me a similar idea... What about the land in general just being more elevated, and the edge of the meadow being a sharp drop along a good chunk of it? Like you originally had, but with more land at the bottom of the cliff (and a just-slope down for part of it too) instead of water? Then people wouldn't have to climb to get to it but could still have a view of a lot of the region on out to the shoreline. 83 ... x'3 It could probably still use something ELSE 'special', but with all the flowers and a view like that SG thinks it should be a popular couples' spot, too. xP *SHOT*

But yeah, so like.. Maybe in the northeastern part of the West we could have this meadow, with the northern part of its Western edge as a sharp cliff, and then as you go south the meadow slopes down and the cliff gets slowly smaller until it just meets.. :U And at the bottom of the cliff up north could be Oberon Swamp, and at the southern point this meadow could sort of fade into the South's savannah. 83 Or something. x'3 *likes getting ideas of relation of places* ... It's actually a lake btw. xP ... Yes, we're all aware it's treated like the ocean in every instance of everything ever and at the very least probably qualifies as a sea. But ssssh. It's a REALLY BIG lake. x'3;

Rosebud seems a little misleading, btw.. :U What other names could we come up with?

... xD LOLOLOLOLOL I actually typed that last line before the preceding paragraph and when I typed "Oberon Swamp" up there- o3o OOOOOOooooh. x'D; ACTUALLY. I was going to say I thought "Titania Meadow" and was lolling and then wondered about the equally lollish "Puck Meadow" (which is NOW just making me Gargoyles fangirl because PUCK<3 anyway and then they make it PUUUCK<3<3<3 and I have no attention span) but THEN when I went to start explaining that I just realized Midsummer Meadow would be BADASS because I'm a sucker for alliteration toooo. 8'D

.... xD Aaaaaaannnd NOW I thought of something to make it specialful! In thinking of Midsummer Night's Dream and fairies I was thinking too bad we're already working on the fairy forest, though we could still totally go with something closer to it and just base it off really varying mythos, but it gave me a different thought. ^w^ Perhaps the meadow could be famous for its colorful flowers and fireflies? 83 ... That is, colorful flowers and colorful fireflies. x3 *flail* So like, if you came out in the night instead of just little yellow lights you could see a whole rainbow dancing around out thar~<3 Nyah? 83


Edit: ............. DAMMIT now I am REQUIRED to listen to Fireflies on repeat. x'33 *just realized and nyah* <3

[Ethereal]

Lol don't poke fun at the ridiculously sized lake. Think of the great lakes! They're pretty huge xD
Look at all that haha.

In all seriousness I really like the name Midsummer Meadow. Alliteration <3 and a connection to Shakespeare. Ah for some reason I really want an area with tons of hills and maybe some old stone walls and such. I'm thinking of that place in one of the spyro games...What was it? STONE HILL. YES. For a better idea of what that place looks like watch this. There are green grassy knolls and a view of the water and I loved that area.

Anyway. Lovin' the fireflies idea, we could have lots illumise and volbeat

[Froggie]

Alright, new description: Name Midsummer Meadow I like a lot.

Midsummer Meadow is a place for relaxation and to soothe the soul. It starts in the northern-most sections of the western waters where it abruptly drops off into the waters below. There are many flowers in the meadow with a large abundance of fireflies and other nectar loving bugs. The meadow is mostly visited in it's southern portions as it's elevation comes down into a hill like slope that gives access from the lower grounds below.

[Admiral Striker General]

xD I JUST REPLAYED SPYRO A FEW WEEKS AGO<3 And played it so much as a kid I could still quote all the Artisan and a lot of the Peacekeeper and Magic Crafter dragons. x''3 (On the note of Spyro dragons, by the way, do you know there is ONE female dragon? X"D She's in the overworld of Dreamweavers, assuming that isn't just a gay and/or uber feminine male. x''3)

_{I'm currently taking on Gnasty Gnorc, who I'd have beaten by now if you didn't have to completely restart every time you die. =3= I can get both thieves at the beginning within one circuit if not in the first quarter pretty easily, and USUALLY don't have too much trouble chasing down Gnasty in his similar chase, though sometimes it gets really long and annoying. It's just the damn glide area, there's one corner that's SO DAMN HARD; I miss it by like an inch every time and it's so annoying doing all the work over to get back up to that point so I only end up giving it like three tries in a sitting. 'x3 ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, I made sure to get 100% on every level before moving on so once I beat him I can get Devlin (I think was his name?) again as the last dragon and move right on into the final flight level. ^w^ I beat Gnasty once but never actually got to that as a kid. x3 ... Admittedly I had to look up how to get the last dragon in Haunted Towers again but I did remember the basic concept at least and got everything else on my own and he's hard dammit. 8'3;; Damn taunting dragon you can hear but not see.... x'3}

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ANYWAY! Let's see hear then.... WEST:

Midsummer Meadow

A gentle, rolling meadow covering much of the mainland of the West. The northwestern edge comes to a sharp cliff which looks out over the entire region, offering a view as far as the shore on clear days, while the land gently slopes down to near-sea-level as one gets further south. Flowers of countless varieties cover the meadow, and in places one can find mysterious stone ruins. These scattered walls and occasional towers are inscribed with beautiful designs and are popular for sightseeing, but no one is sure just who built them or why. Even with these marvels, however, the feature the area is most famous for is probably its glorious fireflies, which come in as many colors as the meadow's flowers, putting on a rainbow lightshow on all but the coldest nights.


or




(Edit: O___o WHOAWHAT??? 'xD That is NOT the image I tried to post! I forgot I even had this one lolololol. I guess I'll leave it up too but hahahahahaha. Let's put up the one I MEANT to now.. x'3)

Pokemon: Fireflies, flowers, cotton families, swallows, certain bugs, etc. :3 Been trying to use families that don't have many places where feasible, so we'll see. I call writing list. 83

^w^ Combining stuff from Froggie, Ether, and SG, SG proposes if accepted all three should get a very small cash prize and an unevolved random Pokemon. 83

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<sub>'x3; Back on the lake, it wouldn't bother me. It wouldn't.. The Great Salt Lake specifically is the perfect example given salinity making it more plausible we'd have all these ocean Pokemon in there and its relative location to the area Orre is based on. The WHALES in it may be a little much, but I could live with that... :'3; Except for this, the very first line in the plot that you wrote yourself: "The Era region is the northern-most province in the Pokemon world."

'^^; See, the thing with that is it kind of has to be a peninsula or close to one, or there has to be something else as far north or farther, or at the very least it's only the furthest point north like Minnesota is in the contiguous states (it's got that little tiny bit that extends up that you can't even see on a lot of maps thanks to the lake there, though perhaps with a wider stretch of the North extending up than that, but still) so it wouldn't be northernmost by very much and that statement would still be very misleading. 'x3; OR, of course, all the land on the edges has to be uninhabited, which given it's a modern-day RP wouldn't make any sense at all because even uninhabitable land tends to be claimed by someone or at least labeled for maps' sake which would still make it a further north place and ya. :'3;

'x3; So I wasn't "making fun", it's just been bugging the hell out of me since like my second or third week at VC when I first read the word lake and went "Wait WHAT?" 'xD; But I haven't complained or drawn any attention to it OTHER than in a joking manner once or twice like my last post until you commented on my joking. :"3; I've been trying REALLY HARD not to make a deal out of it and I'm still not. I'd be more than happy to go through and do all the minor edits to change the lake to the ocean to save you the time and effort if you want, but if you're really set on keeping it as-is that's fine. 'x3 I'm just saying it doesn't make sense, but I wouldn't actively argue. :'3; Alternatively, we could just remove the part about it being northernmost, but having some coastal stuff would make Era more diverse, and then we could add a smaller lake as an area somewhere and stuff. But yeah, whatever is fine. 'x3;</sub>

[Ethereal]

I don't think I've beaten any of the bosses in the spyro games Dx I am ashamed and easily frustrated. Those little blue ralts-like thieves were the bane of my existence in the first game. Hmm none of those pictures really catch my eye, mind if I go exploring for some other options? Yes, those prizes sound fair.

I found this picture:


SG there IS an ocean in the north. There's the lake to the west, some land between them, and then the sea to the north. Also, do we really have WHALES in the lake o.0 that might need to be changed.

This is actually what I envisioned Era looking like x3
i53.tinypic.com/rcr7lt.png

[Admiral Striker General]

X"DDDD BIG ASS LAKE. <3<3<3<3<3

80 AND OOOOOOOOOH. THAT makes a lot more sense.. xD *never thought of the north in a strip like that* It still seems pretty misleading if there's land on both 'sides' though. "Northernmost in the world" makes it sound like a pretty significant detail, especially with it being the first sentence and all, where in reality it only barely claims that title.

... 'xD; And yes there are whales because Wailord needed to go SOMEWHERE and not every big oceany thing can go in Boreal Port. That's just basic game mechanics. :U If players can get too much of what they want in one area they don't have incentive to go to others and lose interest faster. Balance be gewd~ |D

So SG can haz suggestion?<3 This is the Orre, right? See how there's water on the southwestern side? ^w^ Could we maybe has it so that Era looks more like this? ^w^ That would solve like EVERY problem<3

For serious. Then some of the water-bordering places could be on the ocean and some on the lake so the region is more spread-out. The Western Waters would have even more waters, and Era would be more diverse. ^^ We could put the whales in the ocean where they belong and still have the ocean powerhouses spread out. It keeps your basic vision of Era with only slight modifications(*), and puts greater emphasis on its northern status as the plot implies~ ^w^ It's like made of win~<3

_{(* = Not that you can't look and see what was done but to explain why. ^^ Extended the West's western border a bit for mostly obvious reasons and brought the ocean around. In the official map Orre seems to have a bit of emphasis on its northwestern part, so extended it a bit to match more. Messed with the South/West/Orre/neighboring borders to accomidate for those two factors. Gave the north an extra little place sticking up just to further emphasize northiness and brought down the border of the neighboring region because it was extending further north. 'xD Drew in the islands roughly with actual borders; I figure Convict is stated to be in the middle of the lake and that makes most sense anyway, while Paradise makes more sense on the ocean, and Glass can really go either way. I threw it in the ocean but if you like lake more.. *shrug* x3 But yeah, and then the south was noticeably largest and the East seemed teeny tiny, so I shifted the border there to make it a little more fair. :3 I figure the map is obviously just a doodled ref so you probably weren't TOO concerned with perfect proportions, but why not while I'm tweaking for suggestion-ness anyway, eh? ;P)}

^w^ Could weeee?<3<3<#

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'xD; Do you know I spent over an hour modding that screenshot of Stone Hill just for you!? Not to mention the time just to FIND a good shot that Spyro's head wasn't in!? .... x'P But yeah I know it still sucks. xD Feel free to look for another pic. DEAR GOD I need to get to bed before the kids wake up if I want any sleep at all, but if you haven't found one by the time I wake up I'll start searching more too. ^w^

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<sub>x'D; Dawww. Didn't you at least beat Toasty, the sheep on stilts dressed like a shepherd? (.... <<; Though if you never got to him or barely did but couldn't beat him because of those DOGS, don't feel bad. Those bitches were TOUGH!!! Dx *died at least once or twice from them on recent replay*) .__. But God you'd HAAAAATE the Gnasty Gnorc fight then.

You see, the game is made to fuck with you. In Artisans, there are two blue thieves. In Peacekeepers, we get a few more. In Magic Crafters, the rest of them for the game, adding up to twelve total I believe. After all that, Beast Makers only has two thieves (green and red), both in Treetops and both on crazy-ass supercharge paths. If you can GET TO THEM, though (and you can't beat them to the supercharge ramp, so you do have to follow), they're pretty slow after the run. Even this isn't really the same as your old blue thieves though, as the chase dynamics change greatly, and the thieves are actually also placed there to show you how to get to hard to reach places in an amazingly intricately-designed level especially for its day. (<3)

Then Dreamweavers has no thieves. None. There are also none in the other levels of Gnasty's World. Thinking woot? <_< Well it would be... except then you get to Gnasty Gnorc and there are two of them. And they're faster and have more intricate twisting turning long-ass circuits for you to chase them around with a reset at the end of each lap so if you were getting close you lose it. AND THANKS TO THE LACK OF NORMAL CHASES IN THE PAST THREE WORLDS YOU'RE OUT OF PRACTICE!!!!! "XD; After you get two keys from the two thieves, you get to chase Gnasty in a similar chase where you can't catch him. He stops at the end of each lap for a few seconds and you have to get close enough and flame him. The distance is damn sensitive because your flame only goes so far but if you get too close he bolts far fast. 'xD; Also it'll take you ages to figure out to even try flaming him because he's wearing armor and your fire hasn't hurt one metal object the entire game (excluding those vent fan chests but those take several blows and it's different and yeay) so why the hell would it work on the main boss? Because he's also big and you only have two attacks so the makers had to pick one of them, and that was the more complicated! X"P After that he runs off into this hallway with ledges sticking out of the wall over a river of lava that slowly retract back into the wall as you're running so if you don't get far enough fast enough you can't make certain glides. 'x3; I can't remember the fight after that because I haven't gotten far enough fast enough since I was like 15. 'xD;</sub>

[Ethereal]

That design you made actually works really well. Personally I think we should make an official map and have it be pretty and proportionate. Hahaha you love the big ass lake? I think both convict and glass island should stay in the lake. The others could go either way for me.

Nonono I definitely beat toasty. I remember that part of the game clearly and I don't remember it being that difficult. I meant the final bosses for the games xD

[Admiral Striker General]

x3 Oh you meant multiple games, lol. Hey, some of the world bosses were hard! xD I mean, Toasty was easy, but those DAMN DOGS were annoying. 'xD; My death(s) this run I'd forgotten about them and they caught me off-guard at the beginning so I got a bad start; can't remember if I died from that or not. x'3; The time I KNOW I died was terrible, though; I was going out on this ledge to the side and there was a sharp corner and I didn't even SEE the dog until he landed on me. x'D; And it was such a tight area and I could barely move without falling and he got me again and yyyeah. x'D;

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OHEY you edited while I was replying! XD I do like that pic. ^w^ So we can haz add then~?

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x''3 And the lake itself is kind of cool, but I love the fact that you WROTE "big ass lake". xD

[Ethereal]

Yep let's add that area now. Would you like to make the pokemon list? It seems you already have it somewhat planned out ^^' How are we going to decide the random money/pokemon prizes?

[Admiral Striker General]

x3 Eh, since you have highest authority you can go ahead and decide how much you'd rate this area as normally and we'll just split that three ways. ^w^ Then I'll generate random Pokemon until there are three unevolved and let you and Froggie pick which of those three you want first so I'm left with the last one to offset my having generated them. :3 Gewd?

x3 And I ALWAYS have lists moderately planned. xP Not to mention I said "I call it" earlier~

83 So randomz..... *roll*

Taillow, Natu, and Kabuto. :U (Or if you think fossils are too rare fourth to come up was Meditite.)

[Ethereal]

I think fossils are too rare so let's have meditite be the last on that list. I'll take the natu for Osiris. As for the money, I'd say 1000.

[Admiral Striker General]

... Way to pick a number not evenly divisible by three. x''D Make it 999 (|D I love 9's anyway) and 333 each then? x''3 You gonna update everyone or just you or just you and Froggie?

Froggie, Meditite or Taillow? ^w^

[Ethereal]

Haha ok. I'll update Froggie and myself then...

[Admiral Striker General]

..... 8'D; Actually I hereby donate three dollars to the Insert-Eran-Charity-Here because I realized having a number other than 5 or 0 in my last slot is going to drive my OCD INSANE. x''D;;; And... will update myself later when I think about it. x'3; *buseh* ...... ;3; And Varian's still awake. *facedesks repeatedly* TT__TT

[Ethereal]

What my experimentation in photoshop has resulted in:
A physical map:

And a political map:


xD

[Jay]

............That's amazing ._.

[Admiral Striker General]

8U I really like the bottom one!

.3. If I could, might I suggest moving Scorch a bit further north and the Amphi deeper south? I know it's used for tournaments and being close to the capital makes sense for that purpose, but it seems like being more in the searing heat would make it a harsher battle environment for maximum ultimate-ness (*shot*), plus it's sort of seemed more out on its own than close to the city in various RP's people have done, so it would help with consistency. .3. *nod* ... x3 Also the Lab should totally be on there. xP According to several RP's it's apparently semi-close to Scorch, though not just right next to it. ..... :U Also, could I suggest moving Dewpoint further from Glacial? The desc says further south, but that doesn't mean directly south, neh? Maybe in that little nook west of Aerial Tower or so? Just to make the North more spread out and balanced. ^w^

'x3; And there was a reason for the bit of land on the southwestern border in my suggestion before.. The way you have it now, the South borders the ocean a little. x3 Not that it would take more than two seconds to change, but just point it out.

[Ethereal]

Where the points are and their names are difficult/impossible to change because I have them on the same layer as the background. So I can only add things ^^'

[Froggie]

That's beautiful. And I'll take the Taillow, but could we maybe roleplay Ben obtaining it in some way. Like someone gives it to him? Also, I like Ethe's picture the best.

Also, I love thae bottom map it's like awesome, but I think it needs a few more things in the north, liek Wayward Forest and a few of the other things they have as it has those for the other three regions.