Digital Products Assistant
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Discussion thread for Goblinworks Blog: Making Movies
Goblin Squad Member
|
I really, really, really like that music! It could seriously be playing on my Pandora station right now, I definitely would have given that Thumbs Up.
Does anyone else think the guy on the right at the 4:20 mark looks like Mark Kalmes?
Oh, and did I mention I really like the music?
Gotta run, but I'm sure I'll have more to say soon :)
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
This video inspired me to finally make an account and post.
Looks great, and I mean really great. For such an early build, having such smooth animations is a great sign. The overall design is exactly what I hoped this game would look like when I first read up about it.
Truly looks like a whole different world, like I expect a sandbox MMO to look like. I'm impressed.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Pure awesomeness and win. I think I just had a moment that's how great it's looking. xP
I really like the world map view and how terrain may play a part. That's something you never see in games really, forcing enemies to use your death trap bridge as the only land route has a special place in my heart. ^.^
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
The city plot looked a tad on the small side though. Anyone else think that?
Quite the opposite, actually.
Consider that the entire fly-through that begins at 0:42 and goes until 2:05 is all in the same Settlement. And that the scene from 2:40 to 2:52 shows a Settlement stretching all the way out to the out ring of rocks.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Very nice!
Are there plans for a color palette for buildings? What you've shown looks great and I know the three npc settlements will have very different looks but will player settlements have options?
I realize you can only do so much with stone and wood but even a little bit of variation goes a long way. Maybe custom flags billowing from rooftops would be enough.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Very nice!
Are there plans for a color palette for buildings? What you've shown looks great and I know the three npc settlements will have very different looks but will player settlements have options?
I realize you can only do so much with stone and wood but even a little bit of variation goes a long way. Maybe custom flags billowing from rooftops would be enough.
Im gonna say right here and now thats where I think this game makes its cash shop money. Pets and mounts are whatever, been there done that. The necromancer's skin for your settlement mage tower? The whole guild pitches in! KA-CHING!!!
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I'm going to make the artists cry now:
I want to see the various versions of those buildings: Normal, falling into disrepair, damaged by assault, under construction, and being repaired/renovated.
Well aren't you the party pooper! I think it looks better than any of us thought it would at this point. In one 5 min video all of our concerns about this game looking good have gone away and every last naysayer who said this was vaporware and called us fools for backing this can go suck a big, fat, grape, lollipop!
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
To be so early in the development process I am pleased at how everything seems to be getting attention and built as a whole as opposed to focusing to hard in on one aspect.
I also really liked the armor. Not only did it have a "lived in" or "used" look but it looked amazingly practical and realistic. Really looking forward to seeing the beginnings of spell animations since I only ever play a Wizard, so keep up the good work and great communication with us!
--Pharazon
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Wow, great job! I am loving the aethetic, and especially like the clothes and bodies - they feel like pathfinder.
The vastness of the world, even at this point is great to see.
Different settlements, and layouts - very cool. I really dig how the settlements were not layed out in a perfect fashion.
Kudos!
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
So just an observation. I see brightly colored hexes surrounded by six "normal" hexes with two or more "red" or "dark" hexes that have a tendancy to link to another honeycomb of the 1 bright and 6 surrounding normal hexes.
My assumptions is that the red hexes are wilderness hexes, the bright one is the settlement hex and the six surrounding are the points of interest hexes.
Can anyone on the dev team confirm this? And yes I know it's probably subject to change.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
My assumptions is that the red hexes are wilderness hexes...
It's hard to see them against the yellow background, but for the ones in the forest, it looks to me like the Red Hexes are probably Monster Hexes, and the Light Green Hexes are probably Settlement Hexes. It just looks like there are too many Red Hexes that are only one hex away from another Red Hex for them to be Settlement Hexes. And they're are far too few of them for them to be Wilderness Hexes, which make up most of the map.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I'm going to make the artists cry now:
I want to see the various versions of those buildings: Normal, falling into disrepair, damaged by assault, under construction, and being repaired/renovated.
Only need 3 versions. Construction (repairs would fall under this as well if needed at all), Normal, and Damaged (disrepair and assault).
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
1) I am impressed by the initial fighter animations. It will be worth the wait for monk animations if this is an early example of animation quality.
2) Very pleased with the elevation development (yah, I know Nihimon, more work ahead). It appears that the area west of the Sullen River is more extensive than the Thornkeep map indicated.
3) If elevation color is any indication, it appears that the Echo Woods is high elevation and fairly rugged. Maybe not mountainous, bur steeply hilled. However, it is not uncommon in a 3D elevation fly-through to exaggerate elevation by a factor of 10 to enhance elevation contrast.
4) The lakes seem to have significant drop-off to the water line, however, this may be an illusion due to x10 exaggeration of elevation (see 3 above).
5) I think the settlement sight at 0:45 might be at the location of Thordkeep.
6) It appears that there are many building sight locations (the flat brown areas) surrounding the settlement sight at 0:45. I don't know whether these are sights for buildings within the settlement, or structures outside the settlement. If the latter then we may see more opportunity to build structures than just 1 PoI per hex.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Well aren't you the party pooper! I think it looks better than any of us thought it would at this point. In one 5 min video all of our concerns about this game looking good have gone away and every last naysayer who said this was vaporware and called us fools for backing this can go suck a big, fat, grape, lollipop!
I wouldn't go quite so far as to say all of our concerns about the way the game will look are gone. While it does look like some nice progress has been made there are a few things to consider.
I would hope they add more flavor and options to the buildings, right now they look a bit cookie cutter, though that's not entirely to be unexpected at this point.
Going into town or walking down the street and having it look like a housing project with every building the same might work for EE, but towards release it would be nice if there was a little more flavor to the individual settlements.
As far as the armor, It's a good start but right now its kind of bland. Hopefully we can dye it or add patterns or decorative designs, especially to the plate and chain, to spice it up a bit. Also I am assuming this is tier one and better, rarer armor will also look more "epic"
Also keep in mind that most were only seen on a static dummy model. We have no idea how well they will animate & conform to various character types yet.
As far as being fools for backing this, well, there's a LONG way to go before that's decided. Keep in mind GW supposedly had the funds to make the game without the KS. All it was supposed to do was allow them to hire more people to get it done a lot quicker. If the game suffers a significant slip in delivery or is rushed out incomplete to meet an arbitrary date to satisfy the KS delivery date then yeah, we are all fools.
|
Goblinworks
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Thanks for the comments! Some responses, but keep in mind that I'm just the art director, so you can probably not trust anything I say with regard to the design ;)
Areks and Nihimon - yes, the light yellow/green hexes are the settlements and the pink/purple hexes are the monster hexes, which would be the source of your misery (or entertainment I guess ;) ). And it is definitely very subject to change!
Harad Navar - The elevations are very likely to change. Designing the whole world is a very tricky process, and I'll probably do another full pass before more areas are detailed out. It is over-magnified in height diversity to make the world more interesting. I am spending a lot of time talking to the Paizo team about striking a balance between the previously defined aspects of Pathfinder world and having a fun and interesting world to physically explore in the virtual world. Forested rolling hills sound awesome until you physically have to run through them for days on end with no changes. We'll probably end up striking a balance between the normal MMO world of constant micro-environment changes and the boring nature of 'realistic' environments. We want it to be believable, not far off of any existing descriptions of specific places, but also interesting from moment to moment for the players. The waterlines are far from anything I'm really developing at the moment, so they will almost certainly change completely.
Thornkeep is not really detailed on the terrain in the video yet, or much else other than a starting hex and the primary roads. The settlement hex and surrounding hexes that have been developed are for us to figure a lot of things out, but they are completely subject to change and not necessarily any point of focus for the actual game... it's just an area we are developing for testing.
The circle areas around the settlement are the initial test areas for encounter locations, which would be dynamically chosen and populated by the escalation system. They are all wilderness hexes. The settlement itself takes up a good chunk of the center hex. The terrain in the video is an older version and all of the encounter spots have been naturally integrated into the terrain and trees placed already, I just didn't have time to re-shoot that video. I will say that it's all a pretty huge amount of space. It's misleading to see it from the air and without the detail objects and vegetation in.
We're working on ways to create a lot of building variants both for visual variety, settlement and structure customization, and indications of game state, but our first job is to make sure there's enough content in the world to satisfy all of the core game design needs, at which point we will certainly add everything humanly possible to make it more full of life, variety and awesomeness. I promise you we are squeezing out every bit of quality content we can, optimizing our pipeline as much as possible, and coming up with inventive ways to make our work count.
And of course, as you know, all of this is very subject to change ;)
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Really loved the vid. :)
It's really cool that the different materials are visible so that the world doesn't start to look like kitsch. So you always know, oh this is made of canvas, oh this is made of wood, leather, stone, metal, jewel etc. I know you can paint and dye stuff but it should still retain the feel of the material.
Really love the houses, gothic, medieval, nothing too fancy, just something to keep the storm away and a place to keep the horses and those marquees always remind me of baldur's gate. I'm very excited. :) Those artwork sketches are worth a billion bucks. :P
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Great, great, great work!
Loved the video, loved the music as well!
Dev blogs are fine, but a video of work in progress really does wonders to us waiting fans :)
Not only did I like the artwork, but I felt a little better that I saw the game progressing and developing - and there is still 1 year to go!
Did I mention how happy you made me today? *stupid grin*
Thank you Mike, and all the team at GW
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Love it, I'm so excited to be a potential BETA-tester for this game! GIMME!
Currently forwarding this to all my gaming-buddies and everyone I have on Steam.
Loved that the Armor looks functional and 'worn', but also no 'Breast'-Plates or Bikini-Thong-mail. WOO!
Love the graphics, looks like Skyrim-quality textures at the least, which is badass!
Loved that the Dwarves aren't just smaller Humans, but are physically powerful-looking when compared to the other race-models.
The Buildings LOOK SOLID. Not just "oh, hey, here, have a two-pixel-thick wall, with an 'inner' side and an 'outer' side.". They look like they are actually solid, sturdy walls. I love how the Settlements go from tents and a longhouse to an actual city.
Overall .... /drool
Cannot wait!
To mr Dancey and the rest of Team Goblinworks, you rock! Thank you for showing us this!
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
-snip- Harad Navar - The elevations are very likely to change. Designing the whole world is a very tricky process, and I'll probably do another full pass before more areas are detailed out. It is over-magnified in height diversity to make the world more interesting. I am spending a lot of time talking to the Paizo team about striking a balance between the previously defined aspects of Pathfinder world and having a fun and interesting world to physically explore in the virtual world. Forested rolling hills sound awesome until you physically have to run through them for days on end with no changes. We'll probably end up striking a balance between the normal MMO world of constant micro-environment changes and the boring nature of 'realistic' environments. We want it to be believable, not far off of any existing descriptions of specific places, but also interesting from moment to moment for the players. The waterlines are far from anything I'm really developing at the moment, so they will almost certainly change completely.-snip-
As some comments have put it so well already: The sweeping wilderness, tolkien-esque even of large tracks of forest, mighty rivers and of course snow-capped mountainous areas. I think this grand-sweep makes a the map become more of a virtual world. I really liked the map from vids in DayZ with steep hills and contours. Making travel in wilderness (off the beaten track) a challenge is imho a good gameplay element considering the amount of "legging it" around, avatars do in these games. I think if you do add some micro-environments, I hope obviously they conform to natural habitat changes. Maybe Yellowstone is a good model for eg:
Snow and elevation - grassy/lichen/heath uplands, pine forests, decidious, swampy riverbed areas with larger grasses. Changes around water sources and so on. Possibly different soil/geological areas resulting in different flora and rock types and general landscape shape?
I hope you keep the sense of depth/elevation that the current vid shows off. You want the world rising out of the ground as opposed to the game sinking into the box.
The thing that makes me so impressed initially, is the sense of wilderness and the including the artwork, the space for players to carve out tiny pockets of protection amid all this grandeur!!
*Edit*: To comment on the design: The extra land to the West of the River Sellen, I like a lot as adding very interesting possibilities and dynamics. Also if terrain and elevation are very significant towards travel time (along with constructed roads) I really hope then prospecting players can look at an area and determine how remote or how accessible it is and that being a big variable. Going on a Hike for a few weeks really brings home how important terrain is for transport (slower, longer, bigger: more sense of time).