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During RTW there was talk among some communities about making a mod based on the Dragonlance series. It didn't go anywhere due to the obvious difficulty of making roman era units into mediveal style. I think that now with M2TW a Dragonlance mod would be very possible. Has anyone heard any other talk about this?
I honestly think RTW might be better... the structure of the game is better if you are going with the current theme in Dragonlance (Rise of Solamnia) since the three Orders of Knighthood are divided while the head (which would be Rome itself) on Sancrist Isle is trying to keep them semi-united.Quote:
Originally Posted by Heledir
I dont know though I'm not sure that the current series would allow enough civilizations. I mean you would get the Solamnics, Dark Knights, Minotaurs and maybe a few others but I as thinking more along the lines of a generic Dragonlance world. And with the time period I'm thinking of medevial style base units would be better than Roman style.
Solamnia- In the north(Solamnia). Heavy Cavalry probably the best in the game. Decent selection of Infantry. Probably the largest starting faction. Unclear whether or not the solamnics would have there gunpowder bombards yet.
Qualinesti Elves- In the southwest(Qualinesti). Archer units and units specialized in hiding. Poor selection of cavalry, average infantry. Starts with just the Qualinesti Forests.
Silvanesti Elves- In the southeast. Units same as Qualinesti's. Starts with Silvanesti forests.
Minotaur Nations- On the islands north east of the Mainland. Best naval units in the game. Very heavy infantry (Berserk), poor cavalry and archers. Starts with all of the islands in the Northeast.
Ergoth- On the islands to the west excluding Sancrist and the southmost half of Southren Ergoth. Naval units close to minotaurs. Very Similar structure to Solamnia except with less heavy cavalry and more heavy infantry. Kind of an older Solamnia.
Dark Knights- In areas such as Neraka and Sanction or farther North. Almost identical to the Solamnics.
Ogres - In the lands of Khur in the west between Sanction and Silvanesti. Very Heavy infantry. Would have "May charge without orders", and berserk.
Little or no archers or siege equipment.
I'll post more later as I think of them.:juggle2:
:oops: Just noticed a slight mistake, the ogres should be in Blodehelm south of Silvanesti. And a desert race much like muslim civs would be in Khur.
Hey this is a great idea.
Mt. Nevermind - Gnomish homeland. Exotic siege eq. and war machines. Alternatively, gnomes are minor enough to be handled as mercenaries and ancillaries.
Thorbardin - Dwarves. Solid infantry, crossbows and siege. Probably limited to mercenary horse or some basic pony riding scouts.
The minotaurs should have at least some decent crossbow troops (they use arbalests).
I think their should be some differentiation between Qualinesti and Silvanesti. Perhaps with Silvanesti having more of an emphasis on magic related troops and buildings, plus some cream of the crop elite units. On the other hand, Silvanesti units should probably be more costly to recruit and maintain.
I think those sound like some good ideas. I think the gnomes should be mercanary siege equipment that has a chance of blowing up the enemies or you. As far as magic troops i'm having mixed thoughts. They seem easy enough to make, take a model in robes and use arrow physics only with different textures and maybe an explosion. I'm not sure if they should be there own civ or just mercenary units because of how powerful they would be.
P.S. Good idea about the minotaurs with crossbowmen i never thought about that.
Despite having already posted too it, I started a different thread on the same subject. My bad. I had thought a bit more deeply about it, and this is what I came up with------------------------------------------------------------
I know someone was starting to get into this with Rome, but it never really went anywhere. I'd love to see it done, and I think the age to which Dragonlance has progressed would be the most appropriate for the Total War engine.
For one thing, Dragons are not very common in warfare anymore, so that wouldn't be a major issue. Next, many of the large united forces from the War of the Lance have become smaller, splintered forces, allowing for a greater number of factions. Minotaurs have invaded the southeastern portion of Ansalon, giving them a good starting point, the Knights of Neraka have splintered into 3 smaller sects and are allied but tension is high, the Ogre nations have become more organized and able to field Total War worthy units with the rise of the Titans, the Solamnics themselves have splintered as well, with both the Nation of Solamnia and the independent Solamnic Knights having little to do with each other (allowing for a "Solamnia" kingdom faction allied under King Jaymes Markham and a "Knights of Solamnia" faction based out of Sancrist).
Further, King Jaymes' development of Black Powder can give the game some semblance of technological progress, something that wouldn't be easy to come across in a War of the Lace era mod.
The religions would represent the old unity, with the Knights of Neraka all under one, the Whitestone Council, made up of Solamnia, Ergoth, Knights of Solamnia, and the dwarven nations of Thoradin, Thorbardin, and Kaolyn. Perhaps the Free Cities of Abanasinia as well. These alliances are a lot looser than they once were.
Potential factions are the following...
Whitestone Factions (Using Islamic religion)
- The Solamnic Empire (Good heavy cavalry, weak archery)
- The Knights of Solamnia (Sacrist and Sanction being starting provinces, Lord Tasgal. Knights cheaper than as Solamnia, but not as good supporting units)
- The Ergothian Empire (Similar to Solamnia, but more economically driven.)
- Thorbardin (good heavy infantry, slow troops, few cavalry)
- Thoradin
- Kaolyn
- Abanasinia (Legion of Steel, light cavalry, few heavy cavalry)
- Kharolis (Tarsis, great navy, light infantry, very little cavalry)
- Qualinesti Elves
- Kagonesti Elves (west Southern Ergoth)
Nerakan Factions (using Catholic religion)
- Neraka (including Knights of Neraka)
- Onyx Order (Knights of Neraka faction, Qualinesti)
- Knights of Darkhaven (Knights of Neraka faction, Desolation)
The reason to use Catholic for this faction is to account for the Cabal of the Code, which are inquisitors within the Nerakan Knighthood that act similar to the Catholic inquisitors. The "Neraka" faction would replace the papal states.
Other Factions (using Orthodox religion)
- Blode (ogres)
- Throtl (goblins)
- Khur (ogres)
- Mithas and Kothas (Minotaurs, also holds Silvanesti)
- Estwilde (humans, tribal, probably similar to Aztecs)
- Teyr (Draconians, might be difficult to impossible to pull off with reasonable accuracy, but insignificant enough to ignore)
- Qualinesti Goblins
(Qualinesti is mostly occupied at this time, splitting into 3 regions, held by Onyx Order, Qualinesti elves, and goblins would make most sense)
Location and types of mercenary units, just a few suggestions
- Silvanesti Longbowmen (Silvanesti, Sherwood archers)
- Qualinesti Longbowmen (Qualinesti, Sherwood archers)
- Kaolyn Bombards (Garnet, only powder artillery in the game)
- Blood Oath Archers (Abanasinia)
- Freemen (ex Knights of Solamnia in Palanthas province)
- Rogue Knights (Ex-Knights of Solamnia and Neraka, available in any Knightly province)
I would do this myself, but my understanding and aptitude with all-things-computer is pretty pitiful. I'm willing to act as a consultant (my knowledge of Dragonlance qualifies me firmly as a geek), however.
I do realize this is unlikely, but I figured I'd throw it out there, see if anyone bites.
A few more notes...
Knights of Solamnia would be capable of producing three types of heavy cavalry... Knights of the Crown, Knights of the Sword, and Knights of the Rose. These would translate roughly into the various Knightly Orders (Teutonics, Templars, etc.) but with progressive improvement.
Priests within Solamnic lands would be called "Clerists", after the spiritual branch of the Order of the Sword.
Being that few rulers employ mages directly, they would have to be hirable mercs at major population centers... I would suggest making them small artillery units, basically replacing the majority of gunpowder units.
I don't remember seeing any mob formations in MTW, but if possible, that's how goblins and ogres should act. I would think these would be mixed... Blode, Throtl, and Lemish all making use of all types... light cavalry worg riders, light infantry goblins, heavy infantry ogres, medium infantry hobgoblins etc. Blonde would have cheaper Ogre units, Throtl cheaper goblin units, and Lemish a fairly good balance.
Minotaurs are highly organized have have an immensely strong navy, balanced on the "good" side only by Ergoth. Silvanesti has already been overtaken by the Minotaurs in 420 PC, but one could make the starting date immediately following the War of Souls, thus putting the Knights of Solamnia in shambles, and the Silvanesti still in place just about to be invaded by Mithas/Kothas.
The few remaining dragon territories could be represented by dragon spawn units along with mercenary humans and some Dark Knights, but I don't think they're viable enough to worry about, nor do I think dragon spawn (or draconians) are reproducible.
Dark Knights priests would be Thorn Knights, Dark Knight artillery would be Skull Knights, heavy Cavalry would be Lily Knights. That's pretty simple.
Mages of High Sorcery are tough to replicate, but they should certainly be mercenaries.
I still think that are more generic world closer to the War of the lance (but with a smattering of the new series mixed in) would be better. I think that it would give a more dragonlance feel to the game. But I think that the new era would be good too because it would incorporate whats happening right now.
Something I was thinking about that would probably be hard to pull off is a progressive World. Start before the Cataclysm then when that hits have a new map and go through post Cat, then war of the lance and return of the gods. then the arrival of Chaos and loss of gods, then through the war of souls and return of gods, then into the current age. This would be very hard to do but it would be amazing because it would bring the entire dragonlance world into play.:knight:
I can see where it'd be possible to start at the Cataclysm and move through War of Souls, etc., but it's unlikely that we'd be able to start pre-cataclysm. I know next to nothing about modding, but I don't know that you can actually *change* maps. The cataclysm is an absolute redraw of the entire map.Quote:
Originally Posted by Heledir
There are a few advantage of starting post-War of Souls rather than War of the Lance.
First off, the War of the Lance is far too short a conflict to really fit into the epic scale of Total War. It's five years long. If you wanted to change the time scale to, say, weeks instead of years, it might make for a game unto itself (considering the relatively small size of the continent, then perhaps that might actually be fairly logical).
Also the introduction of new factions and elimination of old factions might be tough to pull off. Again, I know nothing about modding so maybe this is easier than I'm thinking. To start off with, you'd have 5 Dragonarmy factions which are united through the War of the Lance but then become separated afterwards. This is easily done... have them start play allied, or perhaps even have the White, Green, Black, and Blue Dragonarmies start play as vassals of the Red Dragonarmy (as Ariakas was Emperor, and he was head of the Red Dragonarmy as if I remember correctly). But then you have the Dragonarmies basically die out when Kitiara dies, and then the rise of the Knights of Takhisis, which eventually become the Knights of Neraka, and then fragment into the Knights of Neraka, the Knights of Darkhaven, and the Onyx Order.
To start at the beginning of Fifth Age might work, as the early hints of that fracture are already starting to occur after the death of Lord Ariakan (I hope I'm not mixing up Ariakas and Ariakan here). In the month leading up to the Chaos War, the Knights of Takhisis capture most of the northern half of the continent, while the Dragon Purge places the Desolation and Qualinesti in the Knighthood's hands. One could place the Nerakans in Taman Busuk under the Governer-General or Targonne, depending on the precise date you want to start with, Onyx Order in Qualinesti under Marshal Medan, and the Knights of Darkhaven in the Desolation (I can't remember who lead this sect at that time). How you'd deal with the coming of Mina would be interesting. The Silvanesti Shield might also be problematic. Turning Qualinost into the Lake of Death... dealing with the death of the Great Dragons... etc.
War of the Lance wouldn't be the War of the Lance without dragons, and it seems unlikely that a good representation of Dragons will be able to be made. The only thing I can think of is to make them extremely powerful artillery units, with an animation that shows them taking off, and then you watch as a unit is pretty much wiped off the map. I'm not sure even this is practical.
However, during the Dragon Purge, the majority of Ansalon's dragons are killed, and during the War of Souls, the Great Dragons are pretty much rendered a non factor as the truly powerful among them are killed (Beryl, Malys, Skie). This leaves only a few, and I can't really imagine that too many of the remaining Great Dragons are particularly interested in getting personally involved in combat... the black south of Sanction is lazy, the red on Sancrist is insane, and the the ones in the Plains of Dust wipe each other out during the Linsha trilogy. Thus, the absence of Dragons is not a deterrent to a Post-War of Souls setting at all.
Furthermore, during the War of the Lance, you have to clear sides... Whitestone and the Dragonarmies. It would be really odd to have Solamnia invading Qualinesti, and that might be what you end up with in a War of Souls based game. On the other hand, things are less clear cut in the Age of Mortals. You could easily justify the three orders of Solamnic Knights actually going to war against each other (read Rise of Solamnia trilogy if this doesn't make sense to you). The Nerakans are split into up to five groups (three major ones), and while allied for now, are in the midst of a power struggle that could lead to war. The Minotaurs are actively pursuing their "destiny", the Ogres have the Titans now, so are organized well enough to be considered a cohesive fighting force (and what an interesting army that would be! Goblin-warg light cavalry, Hobgoblin infantry, and ogre heavy cavalry, and hill giants acting basically like elephants in the vanilla game).
Basically it comes down to this... Age of Mortals may not be quite how people know Dragonlance best, but it's the best age to fit into how M2:TW works.
At any rate, I think I'm the only person who would be in love with this setting enough to do this.
I've gone through the 'learn to mod' forums, and it's so fragmented... anybody know where I should start?
I realize my chances of finishing a project like this are slim to none, but it'd be fun just to get started... maybe make enough to recreate a historical battle or something.
You do make some good points, but whoever said that the game would have to follow the exact plot of the books? If you put the progressive world starting after the cataclysm and just went from there with the civs it wold still be a really good game. You could have the Solamnics invade qualinesti who cares? I mean look at MTW2 how you play it isnt necessarily historicaly accurate and it could be the same for a dragonlance mod. As far as dragons go i'm looking into possible ways to make a good representation of them. If there is a way to mod at what height they walk then you could have them "walk" above the field and make their walking movement flapping wings and their attack could be shooting a whole bunch of flaming arows or a flamming canonball etc. Dont get me wrong though I think that a mod set in or around the fith age would be good too. I just think that by setting it post cataclysm(early) then War of Lance era(middle) and war of souls/fith age(late) it would make for a better play than just fith age peroid.
Hang out on dragonlance.com as much as I do, you realise how picky DL fans are... I don't want to become imfamous because of this:P I can just imagine them showing up here and flooding this thread with "I can't believe you let the knights invade my qualinesti! This is SO non-canon... may lucifer take your soul!"
Regarding dragons... don't know... if there's a way, I'd love to see it. The only evidence for a z-axis I've seen is the fact that one unit can walk under another when entering through a castle gate.
I'm not sure... I guess I'm not expert on any of this, but my guess is you'd have to build in an elevated invisible walk-mesh somehow, which would require completely custom battle maps for every tile. The game's already going to require custom battle maps for High Clerist Tower, Palanthas, and perhaps a few other sites.
At any rate, my mod 'attempt' is going to start circa 425pc, for the sake of not having to include so many emerging factions. If I become good at this, maybe arrange a team of sorts, yeah, I'd love to start immediately post cataclysm (or even pre-cataclysm, around the formation of Solamnia if it were possible!) but that's a bit of a pipe dream. If I can build three working factions and a campaign based around the Sanction/Jelek area, I'll call it a win, even if I've got next to no scripting. It'll be something where you'll sit down, spend a few hours on, win, and back to vanilla, but something to build on for the future.
I've got some great ideas for gnomish units though *g*.
Good luck to you on your project :2thumbsup: any thing dragonlance is gonna be great I've started a little work on a post cataclysm mod and I'm working on the dragons, hopefully I can make them work, No succses so far though. Maybe sometime down the road we can combine our work and create some sort of super mod...:charge:
What are you specifically skilled in? Maybe we can sort of work from opposite ends toward the middle.Quote:
Originally Posted by Heledir
The only thing that I am skilled in right now is doing 3-D models. I'm using several different modelong softwares to try and create accurate models of several of the harder to create units ie wizards, dragons etc. I am not the best 3D modeler im still learning. Beyond that I'm learing how to mod the map and different civs.
I have a skinner, and I'm picking up text-file editing fairly quickly... the thing I'm really lacking is a modeler, so let me know what you come up with, perhaps we can exchange resources. I know you want to start at an earlier date, otherwise i'd say we should just do this together (unless I can get a handle on emerging factions and scripted events, then I'll probably start immediately post-Cataclysm).Quote:
Originally Posted by Heledir
I'm nearly done with a small map that'll cover central ansalon for an initial release... just covering the jelek-sanction area. I'm going to include 3 factions for that, then expand to the rest of the map. I'm hoping that first release will generate enough interest to pull together a decent sized team. Kinda following the Forth Age team's model in that respect. I am working on a full-continent map, but that's for when I get bored with other stuff:P
I would love to work with another person on this considering how big a project it is. But some bad news here I just went to turn on my work computer:computer: , the one with all my modeling software and data, and its toast:furious3: Im not sure what happened but I may have lost everything~:( . Im on my laptop right now but I cant do anything from here. If I manage to recover stuff i'll let you know.
Ouch, man, that hurts!Quote:
Originally Posted by Heledir
Well, progress update, I'm pretty much done with the campaign map... three of them, in fact. One a focus on the Sanction area, two are full maps of Ansalon... of the two full maps, one is 295x196 and has 80 regions, the other is 510x337 and I haven't cut out the regions yet. I'm thinking of progressively going through a release of all three, where as the big map will be the final version with 200 regions.
Starting date will be between Rise of Solamnia's books 2 and 3, immediately prior to Ankhar's second invasion, while Markham is still in the process of reuniting Solamnia under his rule.
The factions (capital city, location of capital city) I have planned for the final release, and this is not a definitive list, there's still many to be added. None of the names are final, I'm still working on what I'm going to call some of them. Anything marked with an * is probably going to be a rebel faction.
The word 'hoard' indicates the faction is made up of some of the barbaric evil races of Ansalon... Lemish and Throtl are goblin nations, Blode, Kern, and Morgash are primarily ogres. Each has ogres, goblins, and hobgoblins, but each consists of a different focus... ie Throtl will focus on light cavalry, warg riders, while Lemish will have good light infantry hobgoblins, while Kern will focus on heavy infantry (ogres), Blode on REALLY heavy infantry (Ettins), and Morgash will have the added bonus of White dragonspawn.
Kingdom of Solamnia (Palanthas, Northern Vingaard Range)
Empire of Ergoth (humans, Gwynned, Ergoth Proper)
Gunther (Castle uth Wistan, Sancrist)
Morgash Hoard(Daltigoth, Southern Ergoth)
Eastern Elven Exiles (Inath-Wakenti, Khur)
Western Elven Exiles (Qualimori, Southern Ergoth)
Onyx Order (Onyx Tower, Qualinesti)
Taman Busuk (Neraka, Taman Busuk)
Darkhaven (Darkhaven, the Desolation)
Minotaur Empire (Nethosak, Mithas)
Kharolis (Than-Khal, Soughshire)*
Ankhar's Hoard (Lemish, uhh, Lemish)
Throt Hoard (Throtl, Stormshire Forest)
Kern Hoard (Hag's Dirk, Kern)
Blode Hoard (Bloten, Blode valley)
Khurish Caliphate (Khuri-Khan, Sierra-Khur range)
Nordmaarian Tribal Confederation (North Keep, Sahket Jungle)
Onyx Dragonrealm (Shrentak, The Great Swamp)*
Pyrothraxus Dragonrealm (Mount Nevermind, Sancrist) *
Well good news and bad news. I got my computer back up and I didn't lose everything. Bad news is that their is still something wrong and its acting really buggy so I dont dare do anything on it that I might lose. It looks like I either had or have a virus thats messing with stuff and my antivirus is just blissfully unaware of it :wall:
Well, at least you can help me out with this aspect:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Heledir
I'm deciding on where to focus my first release...
I'm following the Fourth Age model, since they are pretty much the model for great total conversion mods. I'll release a small campaign including 3-4 factions that are not that dissimilar to the vanilla factions, centered on a relatively small section of Ansalon...
Option number 1: central Ansalon, with Sanction as one faction, with Solamnic Knights, Neraka, with Nerakan Knights, and the third faction being Khur, based in Khuri-Khan, circa 430 AC.
Option number 2: Rise of Solamnia campaign, focusing on Jaymes Markham's reunification of Solamnia, circa 425 AC, with factions being the various city-states of Solamnia (Caergoth, Solanthus, Vingaard, Thelgaard, Palanthas, etc.).
Option number 3: The War of Ice Tears, circa 1799 PC, with factions being the Ergothian Empire and its rebelling eastern states (The Rose Rebellion) plus the founding of Solamnia. Vinas Solamnus' turning on the Empire being a scripted event (this is the option I'd go with if I end up using Rome:TW for this mod, since it would require virtually no reskinning compared to modern Ansalon).
Any thoughts?
Well they all sound good but if I had to choose I would probablly pick option 2. I really like the new series and I do think it would make for a fun mod. On the other hand though option three is pretty cool. It would have to be a pre-cataclysm map and I like that but ovwerall I'd probably say option 2.:knight:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Heledir
You know, that's the one I was initially leaning towards, but it wouldn't be quite right without Ankhar's hoard... one of my main goals with the initial release is speed, and part of that is just using human factions that are similar to existing vanilla factions.
Still, I want to do that one... perhaps as the first expansion. Think I'm going to go ahead and kick off with one of the other two, being that either can be done without humanoid factions... probably the War of Ice Tears, since a good representation of the Nerakans would require brutes.
Speaking of brutes (and ogres and minotaurs, for that matter), can models be rescaled? They don't necessarily have to be massive, just noticably larger (or in the case of goblins, kender, and dwarves, smaller) than the basic models... can this be done?
Yeah units can be rescaled to larger or smaller sizes. Iv'e never done it but I have seen some models done by other people who had large swordsmen running around. Update on my computer situation, got a new antivirus program and it found the virus that the old one missed :rifle: but the damage is already done and I've got to replace just about everything :furious3: ~:mecry: :wall:
Ouch... well, still, that's good news on the ogre/dwarf/minotaur front... still gonna need mino models though... I guess I don't really know how that who aspect of it works... I'm sure Paula can skin 'em, but I don't know how detailed the models themselves can be nor how exactly the system lays the skins on...Quote:
Originally Posted by Heledir
Well some more good news. I'm actually able to use my PC again without it going all buggy on me ~D My friend is getting me some new modeling software which is actually better than my previous one, so some good might actually come out of this. It should'nt be long before I am able to start making some models. :knight:
I'm taking it kind of slow at the moment because I want the new patch, for one thing, plus the possibility that the expansion might be out by July... so no real hurry at the moment. Your help would be greatly appreciated... need some damn sword and buckler men with better helms.Quote:
Originally Posted by Heledir
Okay, map is nearly complete (except for regions), Empire of Ergoth faction is reskinned and ready to go... still tweaking Solamnic Knights (although I'll want a bit of a remodel for their footmen)...
I was thinking... we should probably concentrate on the AoM mod first... since expanding to cover the War of the Lance wont be tough if that gets out (Dragonlance: Total War- Dragonarmy Invasion!) Your thoughts?
Dragonarmy invasion. I can see it already :knight: :charge: :duel: I think you might be right. by releasing the AoM mod first and the doing war of the Lance we may be able to build up some excitment for it. Now here's something that I might have to ask around about Is it possible to have towns appear/ disappear at scripted times? I'm thinking like Istar being small becoming big then disappearing(Cataclysm). in other news still waiting on my modeling software (my friend can be pretty unreliable) I might have to go and get some myself If he doesn't come through.
Now about wizards how do you think they should be incorperated i'm thinking mercanary troops but they could actually be there own faction, having the tower/towers of high sorcery and maybe some towns/schools. Your thoughts?
One more thought for palanthas we should see if it's possible to create a permanent loss of morale field around the Tower of High Sorcery. Something like what the rotting cows do.
Regarding the orders of High Sorcery, I was thinking mercs, yes, but perhaps also guild halls...Although the possibility of making them a faction, with the ability of building a magocrasy sounds interesting.
As for the towers... well, that's tough... the Palanthas tower (which is actually in Nightlund now) can be a settlement I guess, but I was thinking Wayreth should not be considering you can't even find it unless it wants you too.
I'm not really thinking about pre-cataclysm atm... too much stuff that I'm not so sure can be done at all. I have, however, figure out how I might be able to pull off a fairly decent pre-chaos war Blood Sea.
I'm thinking we should get hosted so we can discuss thing in their own forums... I'm not sure how to go about that though.
Oh yeah I forgot about the ToHS in Palanthas being moved to Nightlund, so it could actually be a settlement and i think that Wayreth should be too because It's more the mages wanting you to find it not the woods themeselves although I think they help a bit. Then again though how would the towers be attacked? i mean no army(besides Mina's) is gonna march into Nightlund or Wayreth. So I think envitably the mages are gonna have to be mercs. i know you're doing fith age but these are just some thoughts for doing a pre-cat mod, just some thoughts to have later on. Yeah I don't know how to go about getting hosted you'll have to ask around a bit.