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The Floating Gardens of Sosaria

Endrik

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Well, I have been asking for customizable castles and keeps for a while now. I'm not sure we will ever get them, but the devs have given us some awesome tools to build with. I figured instead of complaining about what we don't have, I would try my hand at using what we have been given. I have always wanted a nice garden in my castle, and could never think of a convenient and appropriate place to put one. Through some older methods, and in combination with some of the newer plants we have been graced with, I was finally able to achieve my vision. I have to tell you, although this took an insane amount of time and work, I feel it was well worth it. This is why I play UO, and why I will continue to pay for my account until the day the servers close. There is no other game that allows us the freedom to express ourselves and customize our experience as much as UO. I had more fun, and worked harder, doing this project then anything else I have done so far in game. I hope you all enjoy these screen shots as much as I do!

*** A special thanks to all my guild mates and the many vendors that helped supply me with everything needed. And thanks to UO and all the devs that work so had to provide us with such an amazing game! ***

***Thanks to Teeshy for splicing these together for me***


*** UO 2D ***


*** UO KR ***
 

DevilsOwn

Stratics Legend
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
beautiful, Endrik

now, I've looked for a ladder, but seem unable to find it, how do you get up there? it appears that it's a level higher than the actual roof?

you should post location if it's public :)
 

Endrik

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
There is a ladder going up in the south east corner of the center area, and a drop down in the north west corner of the center area. Both are covered by black cloth so that they are not visible to detract from the whole.
 
T

Teeshy

Guest
I just spliced them all together into one big image to see it in it's full glory - really really lovely job =D

*edits* I can post the spliced together one if you want me to Endrik?
 

Endrik

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wow, ya that would be great. I actually had help with the screen shots on there now... mine sucked. If you want to post it I would love that. Thanks!
 

ElvishArcher

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I think I might have to sue you because when I saw your post and the wonderful job you did I fell backwards in my computer chair and now I kinda look a little like this: :gee::gee::gee:
 

Sarsmi

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
That is very impressive!! And I'm dying to know how you placed goza mats (or anything really) on the same x,y coordinates as the grassy bits of the castle. That was always the problem I saw with customizing up a whole new goza floor for castles.
 
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Teeshy

Guest
I think perhaps is optical illusion Sarsmi?

If you look close, you can see grey stone floor, and walls, through the plants.

But to be honest, I hadn't noticed that AT ALL untill you asked that question! Is hidden REALLY well!
 
N

Ni-

Guest
I think perhaps is optical illusion Sarsmi?

If you look close, you can see grey stone floor, and walls, through the plants.

But to be honest, I hadn't noticed that AT ALL untill you asked that question! Is hidden REALLY well!
yes I believe it was done via optical illusion. Some items could be placed on the lower, actual castle, part for background fill. However, I think even more of the items are just really high above the places that are placable, like above the hedges that look like they are south east of where each plant currently is.
 

Endrik

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Ni and Teeshy are exactly right. Optical illusion FTW. Its not perfect, and it was pretty tricky getting it to the point its at now, but ya if you look really close you can still see holes. I actually tried filling one of the sections using mostly the heritage token tree deeds, and it looked AMAZING, the only problem is that many shadows absolutely ruined the rest of my house design down below. Looking at the pics I posted I also forgot to lock down one of the tables the north west beehive was on, so ill have to replace that today, lol.


//Edit: I posted Teeshy's spliced big picture view as the first image now. Thanks for doing that Teeshy, I absolutely love being able to see the whole thing!
 

Endrik

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
beautiful, Endrik

now, I've looked for a ladder, but seem unable to find it, how do you get up there? it appears that it's a level higher than the actual roof?

you should post location if it's public :)
Sorry, but its in Fel so its set to private. I have been looking to buy a secluded Tram castle for a while now, but haven't had much luck yet. If you want to hit me up through ICQ or PM I would be happy to arrange a time for you to come check it out in person.
 
L

Lord Drakelord

Guest
Tried to look at these on the PAS forum last night but had a hell of a time with my connections, seem to be better today and was able to see them all, but when you look at this big picture they put together for you, one can get lost in the vast sea of the garden

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x304/Talyda/big.jpg

well done!
 

Gheed

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Brilliant work! Just curious... how many times did you rip whole sections down to try a new idea? And how much time would you say you put into this all together?
 

Endrik

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Actually as for the gozas, I had the idea of what I wanted from the beginning, and went about it pretty logically so although I had to do some adjusting here and there, I never really had to tear anything down to redo it. The Hedges were pretty straight forward from the start. Filling in the holes with plants for the garden sections was about the only part I had to try a couple different ways before the final was complete. Over all, I would say it took me around 50 hours of play time. A lot of it was pretty monotonous, and there was a good number of tricky areas that took a bit of imagination to get things where I wanted them.
 
W

Wilde1

Guest
holy crap, that looks great! cant imagine the # hrs that went into it. thanks for sharing!
 

Sarsmi

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Ni and Teeshy are exactly right. Optical illusion FTW. Its not perfect, and it was pretty tricky getting it to the point its at now, but ya if you look really close you can still see holes. I actually tried filling one of the sections using mostly the heritage token tree deeds, and it looked AMAZING, the only problem is that many shadows absolutely ruined the rest of my house design down below. Looking at the pics I posted I also forgot to lock down one of the tables the north west beehive was on, so ill have to replace that today, lol.


//Edit: I posted Teeshy's spliced big picture view as the first image now. Thanks for doing that Teeshy, I absolutely love being able to see the whole thing!
Yeah I knew it was probably a vain hope that there was some way to lock down items on the grassy bits. :p

BTW having to finagle it that way really makes it doubly impressive - optical illusion effects are so difficult to manage, and you did such a fabulous job!
 

Gheed

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Yeah I knew it was probably a vain hope that there was some way to lock down items on the grassy bits. :p
Kinda funny... It appears that rubble does not decay. I know you wouldn't possibly consider just dumping any rubble plants on the ground in your courtyard. But I dropped this thing on the ground offloading rubble during the mag event. I decided I didn't want it. It's been months now and it's still there:

 

Hemisphere

Always Present
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
That's the coolest UO related anything I've seen in a long time!

Congrats!
 
C

Chiera

Guest
wow... this is just amazing. Congrats, really great job you've done here.
 

Sarsmi

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Yeah I knew it was probably a vain hope that there was some way to lock down items on the grassy bits. :p
Kinda funny... It appears that rubble does not decay. I know you wouldn't possibly consider just dumping any rubble plants on the ground in your courtyard. But I dropped this thing on the ground offloading rubble during the mag event. I decided I didn't want it. It's been months now and it's still there:

Yeah, rubble was made no decay so that it wouldn't poof during the fall of magincia and players could pick it up at any time. :)
 

TheChocolits

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Yeah, rubble was made no decay so that it wouldn't poof during the fall of magincia and players could pick it up at any time. :)

But wait, I just dumped all my dirt rubbles on the same spot of my private castle and they were gone the next day :(
 

AtlanticVlad

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I'm sad this is an illusion i thought finely someone gave me a reason to get a castle haha but thats nice... Good work
 

TheChocolits

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Just to appease my curiosity, I've got a question on how did u place goza mats on these spots I've circled below, they are the floors of the castle walls which I can't seem to raise above the castle roof. I'd be grateful if u could help me on that. You've clearly done a Great job on ur castle roof and I can imagine all the hard work, I salute u on that :)

 

TheChocolits

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Ok, I migh've found the answer to my own question :p ... and then I think I'm on to sumptin with this idea :D

Many thanks to Endrik Siege for this inspiration. Will post my construction when I'm done, might take awhile tho ;)

Cheers.
 

Endrik

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Chocolits Im excited to see what your working on. Those tiles you circled didnt give me much trouble as far as I can remember, I think they were all placed on the roof of each area. The NE tile of the SW tower gave me a little trouble for some reason. It took a little ingenuity on that one, but it sounds like you have it figured out. ;)

Pfloyd, My castle is in fel, so its set to private, but I only have one neighbor, and they have been a pleasure to live by. I have never had any trouble with PKs. If you would like to see it in person, just pm me and Id be happy to set up a time to show it off.
 

Endrik

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I have had a few people ask me if I have gotten any grief from GMs for this...The answer is no I have not had any problems so far...but if you do a project like this let me recommend a few things...

1) Do it only in remote locations. Heavily populated areas like Ice Island and Luna can get a little laggy with so many houses/castles in one place, and if somebody runs by and lags, the first thing they will blame it on is your design. (Now after having done this design, and having lived in my castle for a few years prior to doing this project, I dont believe it causes any extra lag. Castles can be a bit laggy to begin with because there is so much space, and they allow for so many items. Now and then I will lag for the first minute or so while everything is loading, but once every item in the castle has loaded, I can run laps around my garden without missing a step... and I play off a laptop that is too old to run KR, and uses wireless internet.) In the options on your paperdoll you can also adjust how many houses your client will cache. If you lower this to 1... it seems to help out a LOT. I think some peolpe unintentionally run around with it set to somewhere between 300 and 1,000, and then they wonder why it lags so bad when they enter houses or shop in populated areas.

2) Keep your house set to private. I know we all love to show off our hard work, but there are a couple of reasons for doing this. First it will prevent the casual passerby from seeing your design, getting a case of the "Its not fair that they have that and I dont even though they put in the work and I didnt" bug, and paging a GM on you just to be a jerk. Second, it prevents all the art and lockdowns from displaying/loading for anybody who is casually passing by. This, to me, is more of a courtesy to other players. I am more then happy to show my castle off to anybody who wants to see it, but by keeping it set to private, I dont cause any extra lag for anybody who is not there specifically to see it.

3) Dont do more then 1 floor. It may be tempting, but keep it to one. The reason for this is simple... dont abuse what we have been given and it will not be taken away. There has been one case where a player tried to make a "Skyscraper", and eventually had his work torn down by a GM. Now my information on this matter is second hand at best, but from what I understand it was done in Luna, it was public, and he made as many levels as he could. While I dont think the player was being intentionally inconsiderate or abusing the system, and even though this is technically not illegal, if you have enough people page on you saying that they lag around your house, and your in a heavily populated and visited are like Luna, well then your kind of at the mercy of the GMs.(I stated in #1 that I dont feel this design has created much extra lag, but if you double or triple it, it is VERY likely you will start to notice a difference.) Gozas were designed to give us a way to customize our floors. If you keep it to one floor only, its the exact same as if you had simply "recarpeted" one level of your castle. I dont think the devs or the GMs are out to get anybody, and I think that they actually appreciate artistic design and ingenuity. But there is a difference between art and abuse. I think the Devs and the GMs are more likely to respect your design if you're responsible about it and show restraint, instead of being irresponsible and seeing how much you can "get away with". Trust me, after you do the amount of work it takes to make one level, the last thing your gonna want to do is risk it all just to push the envelope.


In closing, please realize that I am not speaking for the Devs or the GMs. This is all just my view or opinion on the matter. But from my experience in life and in game... if your responsible, considerate of those around you, and dont try to abuse the system, you should be ok.

***I will be adding this to my original post for those who have yet to read or see it***
 
L

Lady Red

Guest
Endrik you did a fabulous job!
Even seeing it in person was amazing!
You did a fantastic job!!!
 
A

archite666

Guest
I was there when it was torn down.....

His name was Jerimiah and no the house wast public.

Basicly an enemy factioneer was on the luna wall and because of the extra level, it appeared to him as though he could hit me with melee, so he attacked me and couldnt hit me, but I could cast on him. Nothing wrong with that, on a normal house in luna you can cast on people on the wall, but because it looked to him that he should be able to hit me, he paged.... gm made jerimiah remove it...

It was awesome, it was done in that luna sand stone, and he actually built walls out of all the rubble, poor jerimiah bought all the rubble around the shard and made his 5 level luna castle, it was soo great looking, someone had pics of it, they even logged on to KR and took pics.

I miss it soo much.
 

Endrik

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I was there when it was torn down.....

His name was Jerimiah and no the house wast public.

Basicly an enemy factioneer was on the luna wall and because of the extra level, it appeared to him as though he could hit me with melee, so he attacked me and couldnt hit me, but I could cast on him. Nothing wrong with that, on a normal house in luna you can cast on people on the wall, but because it looked to him that he should be able to hit me, he paged.... gm made jerimiah remove it...

It was awesome, it was done in that luna sand stone, and he actually built walls out of all the rubble, poor jerimiah bought all the rubble around the shard and made his 5 level luna castle, it was soo great looking, someone had pics of it, they even logged on to KR and took pics.

I miss it soo much.
Ah, thats good to know.
 

Tiny Dancer

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
No doubt one of the most imaginative and beautiful designs that I have ever seen!

Endrik, what shard do you play?
 

RoseBlue

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Beautiful indeed !!!

May I ask you a question?

How did you manage to put the statue & fountain (which are deeds) on raised gozas (if that is the case) ???...
 

Endrik

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Yep, one of the many wonderful things about gozas is that you can in fact place other deeded items on them. You just have to be sure you have enough gozas at the same level to cover the bas of the item your trying to place. Some would surprise you. Like the new ankh... it needs a bas of 6 tiles (2x3)
 
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