Vanguard Saga of Heroes
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Vanguard Saga of Heroes

Tursh is a town in Thestra south-west of New Targonor, and occupied predominately by Humans.


Developer Comments[]

6/6/06- Brad Stokan Artist: Our goal for Tursh was to depict a very naturalistic environment, and to convey the ambience of a warm and inviting agrarian community with a bustling center of adventure. In creating the environment, we strove to ground the players in the more realistic side of our world, before they ventured out into the truly fantastic corners of Telon. The many points of interest were made purposely simple and familiar to quickly communicate a medieval human style of village with all the trappings, including a monastery, farms and windmills, barns, and a stone keep. In many ways, Tursh is the fundamental medieval human village, but with the heart of a wholesome, earthy people.

The buildings and built features really communicate the warm and earthy human touch. The architecture is relaxed and soft, with leaning wooden beams and thatched roofs, and crooked windmills gently turning high above rustic split-rail fences. Further, the natural materials used and the lack of any fancy colors or ornamentation ties the village more closely with nature. Then, the environment itself becomes a part of the village and reinforces the naturalistic ambience. The village is open to nature, with no walls or gates, and its farms and barns are naturally nestled among the hills. While the rest of the world can be harsh and foreboding, Tursh is a welcoming ‘home’ for starting players to return to and to remember fondly. It is simple and human in its features, but has charm to spare.

The most difficult part of creating Tursh was in laying out the village itself. It was difficult to find a balance between the sense of a rural, farming community and a busy town center and keep. There was a challenge in keeping the buildings close enough to feel connected, but not so close that the village became ‘urban.’ After some trial and error, we decided on dividing the village into distinctly themed areas; farms and windmills, crafting barns, the keep, monastery and town center all had their own ‘home.’ Yet each was woven into the larger community by lazy country roads dotted with cottages; also, each area was visible from anywhere in the village thanks to lots of open spaces. This created a good balance between a rural farming community and distinct village elements.

My favorite part of Tursh is the central farming area. Nestled in the hills and spotted with farms, windmills, and barns, this radiant heart of Tursh serves as a thematic backdrop to the town center, and can be either enjoyed from a distance or explored at leisure.

Jeff Damron, Artist: Tursh is one of the starting villages for humans. It is sort of the big brother to Brennan’s Stead. We wanted this place to feel like a cozy little town, a place that people would call home that has everything one might need. It has everything from a keep, an inn, every kind of shop imaginable, stables, homes, crafting barns and much more. It’s an area where its people would feel safe and would not have to worry about getting attacked. To me, it feels like a laid back farming town where life is simple.

Tursh has a central area where the keep, inn, and shops are, and then fans out and trails off. The keep is the only defensive structure of the starting village. Everything else is out in the open and unprotected. This combined with the architecture of the buildings help really give this place a cozy, safe feeling.

Time was a factor so the number of buildings we could create were limited. It was necessary to create as few buildings as possible and to re-use them but make them look different and not just a repeat of each others. Shaders helped us out a lot here. It was also a challenge to populate all of the different buildings with objects and make them unique from one another to satisfy the needs of Design.

I think Tursh is a simple place and sometimes, simple just works better. The area has a nice feel to it and has everything a player might need to start getting familiar with Vanguard.

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