Art Direction and UI are extremely important factors that determine how much immersion a game has. If the user interface is full of 30 hotbars, a mini-map, a guild chat panel, inventory bags, and archaic /slash commands it becomes much harder to *forget* you are playing a game and get drawn into the world.
By the same token art direction has the same effect. If a game looks like a cartoon and/or has poor animation quality, it's not only hard to take it seriously, it can be hard to get engaged in the combat and content, even if it's of a high quality. The engagement is on a "game" level, and not on the *epic movie/book* level that a more realistic game art style can offer.
Personally, I'd love to see *highly playable* first person perspective in Pathfinder, although the cynic in me says it'll be all third person. I'd also love to see a less obtrusive UI, but most attempts to deviate from standards have met with failure.
So, what do you guys think? Would you prefer a more realistic or "cartoon" style in Pathfinder? How important is animation quality and art direction to your level of immersion?
/edit: Lagged while posting this and ended up with 4 copies, I deleted the dupes. As an aside I want to thank Goblinworks for making a sandbox fantasy MMO to begin with. With the recent extraordinarily disappointing announcement that TES online would be another "me-too" theme park this game has moved to #1 on my anticipated fantasy games list.
I would really enjoy voice-activation for spells by calling out their name and the option to disable or hide hot bars. That's not to insinuate that should be the only way to activate them, but thematically it would rule and would ease the hot bar issues for casters at least.
For martial characters, I would probably prefer something a bit keyboard heavy. My default position would be the T,F,G,H keys rather than W,A,S,D. I could then map various keys to various attacks depending on where I want them but I would map them such that they would make sense to the intended function. For example, strafe-left attacks would be on the left side, power attacks mapped to 5 or 6, upper-cuts or lower body strikes would be C,V,B,N, etc. This would similarly cut down on hot bar messiness.
Skill based would highly situation. The actions mapped to the keys would be different based on the situation. For example, Q and E may turn a lock left or right if picking a lock whereas A and D turn a piece of metal and S pounds a spot with the hammer, X puts it back in the fire, W dips it in water.
All this is a ton of work, mind you, but it *could* work to help reduce UI clutter by a lot.
Goblin Squad Member
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I plan on using AutoHotKey to activate most of my abilities directly, and hope I don't even have to use Hotbars. Hopefully, GW will support this by giving me some kind of UI element that shows me the Global Cooldown without requiring a Hotbar.
I would really like to see effort put into making it feasible for an expert to play with the UI disabled. This would require a lot of work in making sure that character models showed enough wounds that you didn't need a health bar, etc.
I would also really like the 3rd person perspective to ignore blocking objects, so that I could scroll back to a comfortable position even when my back is up against the wall and there's a short ceiling. This is probably impractical.
Finally, anyone who touch-types probably would prefer to see the default movement keys be ESDF rather than WASD or TFGH.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Tools for complete control over the UI. Give us access to every variable player "could" have access to and let us determine if it is important enough to have on our UI. Please provide us with definitions and data types for each.
Also, I mentioned this about 4 months ago...and was a bit ridiculed because I do not think anyone understood my suggestion, touch screen support. I am not asking for iPad or current tablet support, but with windows 8 coming out in a few months...true gaming slates will follow. After using a tablet, if the option was available, I would never go back.
I am also not suggesting the UI be designed for use with a touchscreen...perhaps only that the UI be able to support it. Players can develop their own UI.
As for art, Skyrim was very impressive (especially with the modified textures)...but Amalur ran so much more smooth and stable. As such, I would prefer a something similar. In the end, gameplay will trump any graphics...as long as graphics meet at least a minimum standard. If non-photo realistic graphics will allow the game to run smoother, that gets my vote. I do not support WoW type cartoony...preferably something in-between that balances strengths of each.
I also hope the final product borrows very heavily from the PF art that already exists in the books.
Just because something is stylized and (drawn looking) doesn't mean it has to be of the awkward cartoon like proportions say, Elder Scrolls Online, or WoW is. The Walking Dead is a wonderful example of this.
http://thecontrolleronline.com/2012/04/the-walking-dead-episode-one-review/ #3
Eg, I'm not opposed to a much more stylistic look, except when that style is american Saturday morning cartoons or anime.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Just because something is stylized and (drawn looking) doesn't mean it has to be of the awkward cartoon like proportions say, Elder Scrolls Online, or WoW is. The Walking Dead is a wonderful example of this.
http://thecontrolleronline.com/2012/04/the-walking-dead-episode-one-review/ #3
Oh cool, thanks for pointing that example out. I would be happy with that...with a PF art lean.
Yeah, I would too. I'd be happy about most things. Honestly the game could be using 3rd person top down BG perspective in 2d and I'd still be interested, but I'd love a first person and more "realistic" art style. Not necessarily meaning it looks like Skyrim or something, but that things are drawn to realistic proportions. No chain mail bikinis, Rakhasas being anime cat girls, or GIANT SHOULDERS and hands.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well, the PF art from the book has exaggerations that I would prefer they keep. It is now what I think of when I play PF.
As for 1st person versus 3rd. I like the way Skyrim did it...let us choose which we prefer, but some things where definitely easier in different modes. For instance...and only as an example, in Skyrim I thought it was easier to interact with the environment and use ranged in 1st person, but melee for me was easier in third person. Being able to zoom back into third person simulates knowledge about our immediate environment.
I think that art wise, it makes the most sense to have a stylized world, with realistic art. Basically what I mean by this, is I want everything to be cartoon, but with decent proportions. Again, walking dead is a good example of this, or SOME of the original D&D art. You can't have super realism in an MMO, so cartoon is better, but that doesn't mean it has to look cheesy.
I'm all for a slightly darker, grittier look, btw, but that's another conversation altogether.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would really enjoy voice-activation for spells by calling out their name and the option to disable or hide hot bars.
I do like the option to hide hotbars. Infact I suggested many times that TOR implement a hidden hotbar for skills that I activated via hotkey and didn't need to see the cooldown on because I either had the timing memorized or it didn't have one.
While I think verbal spell activation sounds REALLY cool in concept I have reservations about its implementation. It would give a huge advantage to people using it if it worked properly, but I wouldn't want to be up at midnight yelling "FABERNUM MALENKOR!" to activate a spell.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think that art wise, it makes the most sense to have a stylized world, with realistic art. Basically what I mean by this, is I want everything to be cartoon, but with decent proportions. Again, walking dead is a good example of this, or SOME of the original D&D art. You can't have super realism in an MMO, so cartoon is better, but that doesn't mean it has to look cheesy.
I'm all for a slightly darker, grittier look, btw, but that's another conversation altogether.
Agree with darkrunner, nice consistent cartoon is better than failed attempt at hyper-realism. Also, something that doesn't require a dedicated gaming rig but can be played on a decent laptop.
What I absolutely would *not* like to see is the huge WoW style weapons, shoulderpads, boots, spikes - and monsters. That's a big immersion breaker to me, blowing things to unrealistic proportions in an attempt to make it look more powerful (or at least more visible for bragging). Like Darkrunner, I'd also prefer a grittier look with less 'special effects'.
The more cartoonish the style, the more 'unrealism' I can accept before immersion is broken.
With a hyper-realistic look, my immersion will be broken with every lag spike, every repetitive animation and every design flaw.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Mostly what randomwalker said^.
For me: The "ART DIRECTION, UI, PERSPECTIVE, AND IMMERSION" should just be about signifying interesting information about the characters and game world with a unifying style to it all. I think that's one reason isometric games appeal to me: They simplify the info on the screen and give a perspective that allows you to see the character and what they are currently in relation to, namely the important info at any moment. 3rd person view allows more perspectives and that helps immersion, but not sure it always helps gameplay? The diablo or other dungeon-crawlers have a useful perspective making the avatar a bit smaller on the screen to check your context to everything.