In Progress Moria

[Wyattrox03]

~:~|~:~ Moria ~:~|~:~

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Head Builder: @barteldvn

Project Staff: @DoctorDaom @Joske50, @Wyattrox03




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Project Completion: 40%
Fellowship Path Completion: 65%​

Introduction:
Hello, welcome to the new and updated Moria Project progress post. I felt like another of these was needed considering the outdated nature of the previous posts in regards to what has been done, and that they no longer accurately reflect the current Moria game plan of what is next. As such I intend to document these things, as well as provide a more general look at Moria for those unfamiliar. What is written here will be of interest to the public, but is probably well known to those who frequent discord voice chats.

Moria

This is the current understanding of project breakdowns in Moria. Green indicates a project that is completed. Red indicates projects that are either unstarted or left significantly unfinished. And purple indicates projects that have been largely finished but no longer fit present understanding of Moria or conform to style and as such have a decent likelihood of revamp.

Order and Trade Path:
The idea with the order in which projects are completed is to tackle them from west to east. This was an idea initially proposed by LeBlancGandalf and executed by DoctorDaom. The idea is that with completed projects of consistent style bordering a new project it is easier to set boundaries and ensure consistency across projects. As such the next project to be undertaken will be Western Crossroads and after that Chamber of Light. The Chamber of Light is necessary because of the Trade Path. The Trade Path is the main commercial road through Moria which the fellowship initially follows but leaves after Moviecave. The Trade Path runs parallel to the fellowship’s path for most of Central Moria towards East, and leaving this stretch of the Trade Path unfinished would interfere with connections later on in Eastern Crossroads. So the plan for the next Moria projects will be this:

1. Western Crossroads
2. Chamber of Light
3. Eastern Crossroads

After these projects Western Moria will be complete and a new more ornate style and block palette can be attempted for East. This new style will be necessary because in West Moria the style has been mostly cave ceiling halls with a function usually oriented towards mining. East however is the place of the palaces of the Dwarves and the center of the kingdom of Moria, which will have a much fancier style.

Crossroads:
In terms of the western and eastern crossroads projects, I believe it is necessary that I explain the idea behind these here. We know from the book that the 21st hall is the fellowship’s first entrance into the Eastern City, but before this on our fellowship path is a long procession of very big and detailed builds starting with eastgold, going through donut cave, the goblin cave, and upper mines. This makes it hard to tell the border of the eastern city and it makes it seem like the city is nearly half the length of Moria when in truth it's just these really dense builds on the fellowship's path that go that far west. To fix this the Eastern Crossroads Project will be a large reorganization of the existing projects I listed above to make this passage feel both long and empty, therefore giving a clearer border to East. Tomb cave in this understanding will act as the border of the Eastern City on the fellowship's path. The western crossroads has a similar aim but fewer previous builds will need to be rearranged to do it. The western crossroads will be primarily cave connectors in the west gate /great mines style while the eastern crossroads will be covered in small tunnels and natural caves, which is a style we hope to make more pronounced in the East. So the crossroads projects are to be seen as highways and spacers between the more interesting projects to create a sense of distance and emptiness to the areas of Moria where that is lore accurate.

In terms of block palettes this is the current breakdown of Moria:

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For most of Moria’s build history, sandstone was the primary framing block which builds were made in. As of the Great Mines project however a newer darker framing block system was made in the blue sandstone or mud bricks. This was meant to show that great mines were deeper and in a different geological environment than westernmost Moria. As such there exists the sandstone area of western Moria and the blue sandstone region of central Moria. However when East Moria begins, several people are talking about a new framing block type which has not yet been developed. So these areas of East Moria are dependent on another large push to the Dwarven Resource pack.

RP:
And that brings me to another important topic: the Dwarven RP. During the last year and a half the Dwarven Rp has seen a lot of change. Many interior detail blocks have been added which later spilled out into mainworld, a new build palette was created, and many old textures and models were redone. A very nice rhythm has also developed in the process of creating this pack in which its pushes have come in small bursts at the requests of project leads. Ideally this system will remain in place with myself and barteldvn handling RP progress.

Conclusion
So this is the current understanding of Moria. The further east the project is the more subject to change it is, and changes will be made by whichever project lead takes up that area. If you have not already, then definitely check out the finished parts of Moria in game, especially areas like /warp moria west /warp great mines and /warp moviecave which are the most recently finished areas.

Post any questions below

-Wyatt