The Land of Desera

[nedalezz]

So Cedar is gone. I have Prop Pox, and even after erasing everything and trying to rebuild, it just does the same thing. The city tile itself is corrupted, I guess. Its so demotivating. I havent erased the tile - its still there as I backed it up, but the same problem reoccurs over and over again. Unfortunately, I cant seem to find a solution for it anywhere. Siiiiiigggghhhhh.

[cubby420]

What a shame! I am sorry for this blow to your hard work.

Still, I can only imagine what it is like to lose a location that you've worked so carefully on.

If it is too demotivating...remember that lots of people here truly admire your work and are eagerly anticipating how you bounce back from this setback. It may be an opportunity to try some new things!

[io_bg]

What a pity indeed I wish you best of luck with rebuilding Cedar!

[Ol.S / Benoit]

Nice update ! I like the style in this new chapter
I also love Cedar and Crellson night shots, amazing ! By the way, your night shots are always perfect, keep up the good work !

[sumwonyuno]

I had a longer reply... disappeared.     To summarize, when you're force to rebuild, you can leverage both the old experience and new possibilities to create something better than before.  Good luck.

[nedalezz]

Well, this is what I'm dealing with. Even with the backup (which was a couple of months old), when I get to that eastern part of the map, the Prop Pox starts appearing again.

[packersfan]

I know the feeling of prop pox.  I eventually had to completely rerender the region and plug a fresh tile in and start all over.  Sucks, but hopefully the cause of the pox is out of your plugins.  I'm still rebuilding my tile!

[RickD]

This sucks. Prop Pox is stealing the fun out of the game. Everytime I load a city tile I am worried about it. 

[nedalezz]

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: DISCOVERY

Tiberius was standing at the foot of Redstone Hill, a small mountain that rose to about three hundred meters above sea level northeast of Wildbank. It got its name from the unusual maroon colored rocks that were prominent all over the side of it, rising above its rocky base. Ray's heart was beating fast from his anxiousness; Tiberius had messaged him about twenty minutes ago telling him to come urgently, and he had no idea what to expect. By nature, he immediately assumed the worst, but when he saw Tiberius standing and in no apparent harm, he eased up.




Ray Black (getting out of his motor): What in the world is goin' on, Tiberius? You scared the crap out of me.

Tiberius Driver (excited): Come here, cowboy. See these red rocks?

Ray Black: Yeah, they're kind of hard to miss.

Tiberius Driver(smiling): Its Starium, cowboy.

Ray Black (shocked): What?

Tiberius Driver: Starium. My reader is off the charts. It's all over the mountain, right underneath the red rocks, and most probably beneath it, too.

Ray Black (still processing the information): Wow. You sure about this?

Tiberius Driver (nodding): Positive. I've been trying to crack away at the red rocks all day, and I broke through about an hour ago. Took  a sample out of the rocks underneath it, polished it up, and there it is.




Tiberius handed the small Starium ore to Ray, cleaned up and gleaming. The ore was one of the most sought after resources in all of Haven, but that was not what he was thinking about. Recently, Tiberius had made the AA-One; a motor machine that was equipped with missile launchers, heavy artillery gatling guns, and most importantly, armored by Starium that was bought from a trader who had come into town. The metal might be light, but it was the strongest metal found on the planet, almost impenetrable against conventional weapons and guns. The AA-One was Wildbank's strongest defense, something that was sorely needed now that the Haven Republic had apparently branded the town as an outlaw refuge. Sooner or later, someone was going to come and take the town away from its people, and the AA-One was going to be what stopped them. One of them, however, was not going to do much.


Tiberius had been searching high and low for traders who had access to the ore, but had no luck. It was by pure chance he had stumbled across his find; he was at Redstone Hill studying if it was feasible to mount a transmitter to catch satellite feeds at the top of it when his laser ore finder started blinking and beeping wildly. He had inspected the red stones at first, but nothing came of it, so he figured whatever ore the finer was blinking at, had to be underneath it.


Now came the hard part; making sure they were in full control of mountain and the precious metal it possessed. Both men knew what had to be done; Redstone Hill had to be defended at all costs.

The Bank of Wildbank, looking south. It was immediately a success, with people even coming from neighboring towns to become clients.



Ray Foods latest venture - a vineyard to the northwest of town.



An overview of Wildbank, looking north.

[Schulmanator]

I am glad to see you back. I have not had the pox yet, but I have had plenty of problems with my region as well. All the best as you move forward.

[Shark7]

You have a very nice looking rural area here.  Being that I live in a rural area, this very much reminds me of the tiny towns around me.  The dirt roads, the mostly wood buildings and larger lots are all a nice touch.

You've also done a very nice job of using plop props to bring the area to life.   

[Ol.S / Benoit]

Very original, nice work on this rural area, the vineyard looks nice also with the painted style
Hope you can fix the prop pox problem

Can I ask you what is the water mod used in the last picture ?

[Tomas Neto]

Amazing work!!! Fantastic update!!!   

[Utvaw]

Cedar was one of my favorite MDs to follow.  It really bums me out that it had to end like this. 

I hope you won't let this deter you from starting a new MD of the same style, maybe it can be even better since I am sure you no doubt learned many things from making Cedar.

Whatever route you choose, I wish you good luck, because you really had a flair for this stuff.

[nedalezz]

Thank you all for your support.

Unfortunately, there just doesnt seem to be a solution. Cedar was built almost entirely on that 1 city tile, and to be honest, I dont feel like rebuilding it. Its too demotivating to have to try to place the same building, and given how revolved around the story the city was built, it would be close to impossible to replicate. It just sucks so bad considering what I had planned for the city - there was going to be a bunch of warehouses popping up alongside a new road heading west from Northern Cedar, developments alongside the Ravine River, a new tower downtown, more destinations for Nesara Airlines...and this was just the next few updates

Haven is still going on, and Im enjoying writing that story very much, so that will stay alive, though.

Thank you again for your continued support, and hope you stay commenting

[nedalezz]

Chapter Sixteen: Planning

The meeting was set up for late at night, when the town of Wildbank had gone to sleep. Only a few select men were invited: Ray Black, Tiberius Driver, Sheriff Turner Tower, and three others who served under him, directly involved in the security of the town and its people. They were to meet at Ray's office behind the Wildbank Town Hall, ready to discuss how best to handle Tiberius' discovery.


Retrieving the Starium ore was not going to be easy. In fact, no one in the town had the expertise or the know how to develop a mine sophisticated enough to handle the extraction of it. Most of the ore was not found on the side of Redstone Hill as first believed, but beneath it, which complicated matters much more. Given the sensitivity of the find, Ray and Tiberius were trying to keep it as tight lipped as possible, as they knew that if word got out, people all over, including the Haven Republic, would start rolling in the cavalry trying to retrieve it. It was extremely rare to find ever since the Great War decimated everything on the surface of Haven, but before the war it was one of the most traded and exported resources on the planet. Light and extremely strong, Starium was a natural replacement for Iron and Steel metals on Earth, and was used in relatively the same manner all over the universe. For Ray, it was an answer from God, given Tiberius' latest machine, the AA-One, was built using the Starium metal. If they could get a few more of those built, some equipped with anti-ground missiles and other with anti-air, they could rest easier at night knowing they had the capabilities to at least put up a fight if an army came. They had already fended off Frontier's Jim Benstrike, who had disappeared since his defeat, but that was a motley crew of untrained goons. The Haven Republic was whole different animal, and while both Ray and Tiberius knew that Drake would not send it a large contingent to retake Wildbank, simply because he could not afford to pull away troops from his battle in the north with the Eartheners, he could and would try to retake the town by force at some point.


Ray was already waiting in his office, having dismissed both Pristine Homestead and Brett Bion hours ago, but did not leave behind them as he usually did. Tiberius arrived first, followed by the Sheriff and his men a few minutes later. Sheriff Tower had been briefed about the find, but he did not know the details nor did he know what Ray and Tiberius had planned. A similar outpost to the ones constructed outside of town was to be built, but it was also to be protected by missile launchers to both sides of it. It was to be manned by four men at all times, and four more men were to take rounds protecting the mine on the outside. What was still unknown to the men was how to construct the mine itself. Tiberius estimated that they would have to go about fifteen meters below the mountain, but extraction would require machinery he had no experience in constructing. That's when Sheriff Tower spoke up.



Sheriff Turner Tower: I know someone.

Tiberius Driver (looking up): Who?

Turner Tower: A middle aged man came through not so long ago, stayed over at the Wildbank Inn. I struck up a conversation with him at the bar, and he told me he was an engineer for the Republic before he ran off. When I asked him what his position was, he told me he was part of a team that developed a Tilkan gas refinery that also extracted it.

Ray Black: Sounds interesting. He's still in town?

Turner Tower: Naw, he left. But he brought some of your agricultural products, said he was heading west to sell them. Said he'd been to Wildbank a few times already, he's making a pretty penny from your products. He'll be back.

Ray Black: Alright then. When he comes back, I want to see him. We're going to need him. And gentlemen, this goes without saying, but not a word to anyone about this. No one.

[art128]

Looking great there, Nedal! I love the second picture!

[nedalezz]

Since the destruction of Cedar by Prop Pox, I've been wanting to get back to developing a modern time MD based in Earth. Don't get me wrong, I love writing Haven and dreaming up my futuristic world, but there is also the urge to deal with real world problems and real word economics

This time, however, I wanted to do something different - basically, I wanted to bring this MD to life by including you, the readers. Now this concept has already been tried atleast once before (to my knowledge), with the RP journal "The Towne", although that died out rather quickly, it was a very captivating idea and premise for me.

Below is the general outline of what I'm thinking:

Concept: Starting out with 5 to 10 readers that will present me with their character's requested information, the MD will be a turn based strategy game, basically, where the reader controls his character's move every turn. Each real life day will represented a specific time IG (in game), maybe 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, etc. That can be decided later if this idea takes off on what the best timeline would be. The game will start in the modern era (2011), and although the game will jump ahead of real life in terms of time and years, technology will stay true to the real life timeline.

Location: The location is a desert island in the Indian Ocean. Filled with nomads, it has never been occupied. The government (or monarchy) has decided to open the island up to the world. It is called Dunya, and the capital city is called Rawa. A completely blank canvas whose development will be decided by the characters. At the beginning, no resources will exist – as the game progresses and the government gets money, it will issue exploration campaigns to discover resources, of then which the characters will fight over, if they have enough power and money!

Characters: Each reader will choose from one of the professions available for his or her character, and, like real life, the objective of the game would be to make money, attain power, and procreate. Given the timeline that will be followed, a character will sooner or later have to perish, so readers will follow their empires, successes, failures, etc. through their character's family. For example, I choose John Doe to be a trader. Starting up with a small stand, he makes enough money to rent out a new showroom on Main Street. Given the recent boom in town, his location becomes prime, and his customer base grows substantially. This allows my character to earn IG Dollars (more on that below), which I then choose to invest in a second location for my character. At my liking, I can decide for him to get married, and again at my liking, I can give him a child. However, with a new wife and child, comes expenses, so I have to take that in to account before I decide to procreate. Lets say John Doe perishes at the age of 75, allowing his 30 year old son to continue his legacy. John Doe's worth is passed on down to his son, who starts the process all over again. Obviously, this is just a rough example, as there are some things that need fine tuning, but that would be the basic premise.

In Game Dollars: A lot of the game will revolve around the concept of money. Lets say each character starts with $10,000. Taking the example above, I decided to invest John Doe's $10,000 into a stand, which was assigned to him for $5,000. Let's say John Doe starts off making $300 profit a day from his stand, and lets say every real life day amounts to 1 month IG. That would mean John Doe would make $9,000 a month. Now we have to take into account his expenditure: Each character has to spend a minimum of $1,000 on himself/herself per month IG to cover food, petrol, electricity, water, etc. John Doe also has rented an apartment for $500, so that would leave him $7,500 that goes into his account per month IG. After a year IG of saving up, he would have $90,000, and I can finally buy him that piece of land I was eyeing at the edge of town alongside the newly constructed but still empty road. I take the $90,000 and buy the land, so now John Doe has his business and owns a plot of land that may rise in value. He may even choose to develop it. Again, a lot of this needs fine tuning, but that's the basic premise.

How the Game Works: Basically, the game will be a lot like real life, except I will be Master of All! What I mean is this: I will have a plan for development, laws, etc. that will NOT be revealed to anyone. For example, the city is getting crowded and congested, so I, acting as the government, decide to construct a new avenue. The plan is told to the public (i.e readers), and then development begins. Land on the small stretch of unpaved road cost $10,000 a plot right now, but given that the new avenue is sure to bring development, like in real life, the price starts to jump. Now lets say I bought John Doe land there right after the plan was revealed and it was still $10,000 a plot. After the construction of the avenue, and development by the government owned construction company, prices begin to jump. Soon, John Doe is sitting on a $200,000 property. It's the same premise for nearly everything. Lets say John Doe owns a tile factory – I, as the government, plan a new Police Headquarters, and need 70,000 sq. meters of tiles. Obviously, John Doe will benefit as those will be extra to his 5,000 sq. meters of tiles he sells a month. Not everything could be a success, however. As the government, I will also have a specific budget to work with. For example, maybe the new avenue made the prices hike, and John Doe decided to invest the rest of his money in developing a new retail store on his property. He pays $600,000 for the retail store, and has running expenses of $30,000 a month (that's right, business have expenses too!). Because of constraints in the budget, I decided to construct a hospital in another area of town and leave this area without a close school. Development does not pick up as expected, and John Doe makes only $40,000 profit a month, of which $30,000 go off as expenses. Instead of returning his money in 2 or 3 years, he's investment will only return his money in 6 or 7 years. Maybe he doesn't even break even.

This is important because although as the government, I will decide all, I will be using a formula to decide money issues such as sales, worth, etc. I will be following real life as close as possible in everything I do and in everyway I make the government work. That's basically the general premise. Please let me know what you think, and lets judge the interest level and see if we can get this thing off the ground.

[rooker1]

Hmmmm.....interesting idea.

And another great chapter, thanks.

Robin

[noahclem]

First off, I'm very sorry to hear about Cedar's demise. It was (and I still somehow hope is) one of my very favorite SC4 city tiles, carefully and patiently developed in an expert manner. Its organic growth over time (I LOVED that animation you made of its growth not too long ago) and its realistic feel with an excellent mix of buildings and realistic neighborhoods, transit networks, and more were really top-notch. It was obviously something you put your heart and ability into.

I once suffered something vaguely similar, losing most of the development of my MD's central tile due to some kind of plugin conflict (many months in the making), but I was learning SC4 rapidly then so the frustration was lessened by my assumption that the eventual recreation would be better--though 7 months later very little recreation has materialised.

I'm interested in your new concept, though I'm concerned about the amount of time I'd have to commit. I only have so much to spend on SC4 and that has to be divided, unequally between the variety of MDs I enjoy as well as my own work, so if it is a project with too much detail and/or complexity I don't want to waste your time by trying to commit to a role in your universe. I'll be following to see how the details of the project end up