Ahoy everyone,
The Content Development team is back with an inside look at the design of our brand new cave: Funesto's Forge! For those unaware, Funesto's Forge is a new game area we recently added to the game as part of our 12 Days of Celebration event last winter!
The process for Funesto's Forge first began during the planning stages of our "Changing Tides: Hollowed Woods And A Look Ahead" post. We recognized the ocean consolidation would not be popular at first, but we were confident that with some new locations, it would work out in the end.
The need for more game locations provided us with the perfect opportunity to do something we have always wanted to do: Expand Raven's Cove with another cave!
The Location
Our process for Funesto's Forge began with scouting the perfect location. There were many different iterations and ideas on where the entrance should be.
Early on, we considered adding another hatch door, akin to the entrance to The Cave of Lost Souls, or the Rum Cellar on Rumrunner’s Isle. Other ideas included opening up an existing collapsed cave in El Patron's Mine, or to add an entirely new branch to the existing cave model, leading to Funesto's Forge.
Another idea was to open up the cave entrance adjacent to the South Idol, but we knew that would force players to walk through a popular looting and questing location, potentially causing interruptions.
(As a fun tidbit, the speculation is correct, the blocked entrance at the South Idol is supposed to exit out to the main Raven’s Cove docks.)
We finally settled on editing the existing El Patron's cave model and exchanged the “modular T section” for a “modular X section”, below is an image showcasing the change made.
This change was made to ensure the entrance would be as seamless as possible. The entrance would be out of the way for players participating in the Raven’s Cove Story Quest, while still being on the main path as a teaser for content to come.
Once the location for the Forge entrance was settled, it was time to decide how the Forge would look.
The Design
When it came to the design of the cave, we set out with a goal for the cave to be more gameplay-focused, rather than molding the cave to fit a specific story. By gameplay-focused, we sought to have the Forge mimic the Cursed Caverns' experience, but on Raven's Cove.
Essentially, this cave was going to be optimized for end-game looting. To accomplish this, our team worked really hard to create multiple “gold rooms” interspersed throughout the cave, in addition to designing a few routes that players can run laps on.
The Story
When it came to the story of the Forge itself, we wanted to create a story that fits the foundation of the Raven's Cove story, and use the Forge to provide further details on exactly what happened with the mutiny against El Patron.
While we don't want to provide too much detail on the story… yet… we can provide a general background of Funesto’s Forge.
Instead of yet another mutinous crew member of El Patron, we decided there had to be someone that was loyal to El Patron despite his faults, but also loyal to Patron for their own selfish pursuits.
Enter: Lieutenant Funesto
Funesto joined El Patron's crew as his blacksmith, traveling straight from Spain to the New World. Upon the discovery of the cursed blades of Isla Tormenta, El Patron became obsessed with hoarding such powerful blades. Funesto, in turn, became equally obsessed with forging his own cursed blades. Think of him as a mad blacksmith.
That’s where the Forge name comes from. Funesto's Forge is where resources from El Patron's mine were brought to be forged into Funesto's new weapons! If you take a look around the cave, you will notice various tools that Funesto and his crew used to both find resources, and to create his cursed weapons cache.
Anyway, that’s the short version of the story… keep an eye out for more recovered journal entries retelling the story from the mysterious “DDC”.
We hope you enjoyed an inside look at our process developing Funesto's Forge. We do have one more detail to share with you all though … we aren't done with the Forge yet!
Stay tuned.
-The Crew @ The Legend of Pirates Online