A few weeks ago, we accidentally released a version of the top level interface that had a test option on the run button called ‘Rest’. Oops! That was my mistake. Still, now the cat is out of the bag, we might as well tell you about this project. When I looked at the forums you’d made some pretty good guesses about this feature - resting is a way to restore your run energy more rapidly.
When I got the original rest concept brief it had two parts:
1.Create a ‘rest’ function that the player can use anywhere that will restore run energy more quickly than normal.
2.Create benches that would allow players to sit on and restore run energy even more rapidly.
In planning what was going to be required, I quickly came to the conclusion that benches were not the way to go. We still encounter problems creating animations that work well in software mode for when players are sitting on furniture. Also, the technique to do this would have meant only one player could sit on a bench at a time. From a gameplay point of view this would have been a problem - the last thing I want is for players to have to queue for rest spots.
So I had to come up with another idea. I toyed with cushions and small glades and the like, but they all felt a bit weak. There needed to be a reason why one spot would be better for resting than anywhere else. Mod Ash suggested that using NPCs rather than locations might be a better approach, and from that the idea of buskers came to mind. People tend to gather round buskers in real life, so the rest spots wouldn’t look incongruous, and I thought they would add some extra flavour to the more well-populated areas where these are going to be placed.
Having cleared this idea change with Mod Mark and Andrew I talked to the Graphics team. These musicians were to be scattered all over the map, so had to stand out enough for them to be easily spotted, but also fit in with the theme of the area they’re in. Mod Zephyri came up with some lovely concept images of bards. They were dressed brightly, but in a renaissance style that fits in nicely with most city environments. They looked great, so Mod Brass, Mod Woody and some others got to work creating models and animations for them.