This was an early engine test. The guys made me promise to put a disclaimer that the final game will not look like this and that it’s MUCH better looking than this.
I don't think it's diversity; it's probably the "zoom out/zoom in" detail changes. When you're out on the cloth map, it's just a castle showing the location (and maybe relative size). Then you zoom in and see that
And I'm with everyone else - no need for "early" disclaimers, I really like that art!
I'm not going to say anything about overall graphics, since I figure I'm to biased to do that (if Stardock showed anything above pong graphics I would probably say they are great)... But as far as specifics, I see the 'cotton candy' trees people were complaining about are gone and replaced with more detailed versions. Also, are the objects in the bottom left corner (rocks I think) tilted? If not it appears some of their shadows are going at the wrong angle... Unless of course there are multiple suns?
@Ephafn, Why is it weird to have farms inside the walls? Minas Tirith had the wall which fenced off the Pelenor Fields. And in an old game I have, 'Stronghold 2,' I always built my farms in walls to keep them from being pillaged and burned by every passing armed peasant...
Man, that looks great. I've got a hard time imagening how you're going to make that look BETTER without ruining the impression!
Like it.
Agree with earlier post about the shadow angles (multiple light sources?).
Most medieval cities had the fields outside. However, there were exceptions.
My main interest will be the flexibility of the building customisation (can we have buildings made of crystal / flesh / mud / trees) ?
Are all these buildings customised then?
@Ephafn, Why is it weird to have farms inside the walls? Minas Tirith had the wall which fenced off the Pelenor Fields. And in an old game I have, 'Stronghold 2,' I always built my farms in walls to keep them from being pillaged and burned by every passing armed peasant.
It quickly becomes extremely inefficient to grow but a handfull of crops inside the city walls. Now if you add more "modern" inventions such as irrigation and crop rotation, it quickly starts to be a huge waste of space. In "reality", a random armed peasant isn't going to spoil your crops. If it's a high-risk area, it's much easier to have one-two men guarding the fields than to build a mote and wall around it.
Really, have you ever tried to spoil a field of crops? Trust me, if you take a sword and whack at it, there's not much that is going to happen. And if you're going to try to light it on fire on a hot summer's night, good luck hiding that torch of your in a world that's not a light-polluted hell-hole (like ours).
Edit: That the worst thing we have to complain about is the placement of a crop field, I think that Brad and the others can rest assured that they're doing a great job. It's like balance issues in World of Warcraft. When everyone is whining about how underpowered they are, there is balance. When one side starts whining about their icons, they are clearly overpowered.
Hmmmm...
I only have one gripe. The black egdes around every object makes it look a tad bitmappy, or maybe like stickers on a frigde.
The french diablo clone silver fall had the same cartoonish effect but to me it seemed like all objects where sort of not part of the enviroment.
Man I keep looking at this picture, and I get all giddy. That looks absolutely perfect. Absolutely gorgeous. A small gripe is the trees, now that I look on them. They look a bit pastel-ish and not at all like the rest of the art. But man, I love it, I love it, I love it.
I love the screenie too! My only concern is if it will be nice and 3 dimensional. As it stands, it looks a bit Paper Mario-ish.
Great work DEVs. Thanks for the glimpse!
Personally, I like the look of the trees.
Looking forward to more treats.
Hmmmm... I only have one gripe. The black egdes around every object makes it look a tad bitmappy, or maybe like stickers on a frigde. The french diablo clone silver fall had the same cartoonish effect but to me it seemed like all objects where sort of not part of the enviroment.
Read the disclaimer. It won't look like that when its released, those are probably just placeholders until they've got the full graphics up and running
Wow, that looks great. Honestly I'd be happy even if that's the end of the graphical evolution of the strategic portion of the game - but happier still if it just gets better
I actually like the black oultines in almost every case, but I do see a few places where something about them looks off. For example, the outline at the bottom of the big building in the middle makes it look a little strange to me. But all in all I hope you guys stay with the outline. And I agree with other people that making the ground more detailed, so it doesn't look so smooth, would go a long way.
The only thing I really want in terms of city aesthetics that I don't see the makings of in this image is for city graphics to reflect populations. I want a settlement of 100 people to be small, simple, and dominated by a few central structures; and I want a settlement of 20,000 people to look like a thriving, busy populated area with houses tucked tightly together.
I am exciiited!
P.S. does anyone else think the roadside barriers look like wooden power lines? Especially on the far side of the town.
Very pretty already, IMO.
My first thought about those was "magical telegraph lines?" But the ones on the left kind of look like fences maybe?
True, but putting them inside the walls makes sense due to the setup of most games... Farm has X hp, soldier does Y damage. So a single soldier can come along and destroy a farm and often times destroy it within 30 seconds. Most games do not take into acount that farms, unlike other buildings, have both a standard building/cluster which can be burned/razed very quickly, as well as the fields which would take much longer to destroy. And unfortunately, one does not have to hide their torch... The AI often are not smart enough to leave the garison of the nearby town to go kill that lone soldier before he razes your food production to the ground. So until these problems are solved (standard hp system for farms and unresponsive gaurds), I think farms will continue to be found primarily inside walls out of convenience. There is nothing worse than having to check your towns every 5 minutes to rebuild farms a few enemy scouts decided to raze.
Although I wouldn't be suprised if the reason they are in the walls in Elemental is because the walls mark out the town's boundaries and putting stuff outside the town would clutter up the map to much.
Looks good so far. Now show the place being ransacked and put on fire cause thats how my bandits roll... which lead to my army taking over the place.
