Week 13 IGN Peek

[Myrd[SUN]]

Url to the page with thumbs and description:
http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/440/440691p1.html

[S|ain[-E-]]

Hmmmm nice sky.

No PvP.

[Gaintlord]

Looks like its something dealing with orks. maybe this is either a span point or a ork town. To small to be a city or maybe its a player made town just starting up??? :huh:

Can't wait to read the history when it's put on the site.

[Alaytes]

Those were super cool.

[Dozier]

love the trees

[Matriel]

Originally posted by Alaytes@Nov 17 2003, 09:39 AM
Those were super cool.
agreed

shit looks fat

[Gowel]

Thanks for posting and no thanks to my alarm not going off on time. :angry: Hehe, guess I can't catch em every week. Great pics though.

[Blade]

Wow, nice looking!! The treestumps and the sky look great. Cant wait to see that sky in movement!
And that is definitelly a Orkish feeling town! The whole atmosphere is dark and spooky!

[Darkmatter]

I love the updates! you've gotta love the updates!!! Good work! :lol:


Q:Will some forests be very dense, alot more than we've seen in recent pictures?

[kehmesis]

wow the "feel" is so nice. looks scary as hell with the trees and the sun going away. The alfars are comming! RUN!

[Gowel]

Well, great stuff as usual. It's nice to see an Ork village, but I just can't get the feel of a village or a city, without seeing NPCs walking or standing around and merchants selling stuff. Hopefully seeing that stuff isn't too far off.

I love the creepy dead moss-covered trees, they really add to the gloomy feeling of the area. The clouds also look excellent and dark, which adds alot to the overall atmosphere. I just wonder, will the clouds always look like that, in this area? Maybe there's so much ash in the air that the sun never shines through and in turn, does this mean that the Alfar won't take a penalty in areas like this? That would be a nice touch. Also, in the last screenshot, what is that red/orange stuff behind those buildings? Bushes? Fire? Lava?

Additionally, I really like the look of the Ork buildings, moreso than the Human structures. It's probably just that we don't have any race models to check the scale against, but compared to the trees and the props in the center of the village, those doorways seem awefully small for a big Ork or Mahirim to fit through. Though, I'm sure it's just my perception and a non-issue.

I can't wait for next week's shots, or any mid-week shots if they feel like showing off a bit more of the area.

[Jax]

It looks like the orange stuff in the back is where the ground is very, very hot (from some kind of vent maybe?). And the doors looking small is probably just an optics thing. every building in pic 4 is probably as tall as the building immediately to the right, and the doors are about as tall as the buildings.

[Myrd[SUN]]

Claus was in irc earlier and he said that he felt sorry that they didn't have the swamp layer ready intime to put them on this screenshots.

So for those that miss that small extras there will be more to it before release!

@gowel: i guess lava cause when i said to claus earlier in irc that it would be perfect if there was a vulcano. he Said the mountain to the north was a vulcano.

[Goblok Fastwit]

just great >8) I absolutely LOVE the colorsetting and the mood of the scene... The sky is so relaxing to look at, the mountains feels great to have there.. just... ah..

[Enemy]

things I liked:
the trees
the sky
the tower in the background of shot #3 (darkfall111703.jpg)

things I didn't like:
the size of the village (too small)
most buildings look identical
I've seen this village before in shadowbane
no npc's or player characters

and finally, something that's beginning to worry me about the "mountains" in their screenshots. Every "mountain" we've seen so far is really just a very large hill. When I think about mountains in this game I want to see a mountain at least 5-10 times larger than what we've seen so far. I want whole ranges of mountains to get lost in.

[Gowel]

What we've seen so far, are indeed, just hills. The mountains are said to be much larger, according to the developers.

[Porthios]

Why is it so dark? It does not look overcast, so there should be oranage light from a sun set.

And why are the trees so sparsely placed? That is in no way a gloomy forest.

[Darkmatter]

Well dwarves build large cities with huge honor halls in mountains, and we've got Dwarves in this game. I guess we'll be having large mountains to go as well then.

[malarkie]

i hope they add more variety to the buildings b/c those all looked the same and remind me of AC2 :unsure:

[Darkmatter]

They've promised us variety. Let's hope they bring enough of it in. But I really don't care that much about the variety of buildings, I would like to look at a building built by my race and be able to know what kind of building that is, and what it's function is with to much difference we wouldn't set them apart ourselves,hehe. We shouldn't worry about the territorial variety, they've stated that they have artists drawing territory by hand, and they they also said all areas would be different, and that we could learn to know a place from another by looking at special stones or landmarks that'll probably be scattered all around the place.

[Isha]

First of all, thanks for the update. You got to love the look of those trees, it just seems so spooky.
And in the 3rd screenshot, I`d really like to have a closer look, at that tower you can see in the horizon.
I`m really looking forward to seeing, how the mirdain buildings will look.
Once again thanks for the update.

[Gowel]

Just some things to point out from a different perspective. First, I don't know if it's RW or IGN that give the labels to the screenshots. Two of them are labeled as "gloomy forest" but the lore in the article clearly says the following.
The village lies just west of a large swamp, in an area that was covered in ashes and volcanic rock during a Flaming Skull eruption 300 years ago. While this is a barren and rock-strewn land where little life survives, many pre-eruption trees still stand, their naked husks gray and half-petrified.
So, it's obviously not really intended to be a "forest" in the sense that many of you are expecting. That kind of throws people off. I imagine we'll see the larger & dense forests that everyone keeps mentioning, when we see actual forested regions, like the Mirdain lands. As for it being dark, well, as the lore says, it's pretty much an area of dead land that lays beside a volcano and is covered with centuries worth of settled ash. In my opinion, that sort of locale shouldn't be a bright and happy place. I think they did it just right.

Also, about the lack of variety in buildings. This stumps me because I'm not sure exactly what you're seeing that I'm not. There is quite a bit of variety. Most MMORPGs, if they have housing at all, only have one type of housing per race(or planet in SWGs case), but Darkfall has a distinct and different style for each of it's 6 races. Additionally, all we're seeing right now are small villages. We haven't seen anything large, like a capital city. Many of these small villages are intended to be starter cities. As I understand it, players will be able to add shops and structures in and around them, to make them larger, more diverse and better protected. And speaking of player created structures, we also get to look forward to the lego-block system. So, unless that has changed, once players get into the game and start building, we're going to see alot more variety in structures than just what's been seen in these handful of screenshots. For now, I would just consider what we've seen of the buildings for the Orks & Humans, as your basic and generic shops, keeps, pubs, etc.

From reading what the devs have said about the game world and city building, I never expected to see even small starter villages like this. I was assuming for a long while, that there would be just 6 capital cities and that players would have to build everything else. But, now that I see how they are doing it and the reasoning behind it, it's great. I really like that they've gone through the world and strategically placed these type of hotspots to war over. It's going to add alot more depth than many people think, because while there's still going to be random small scale and relatively pointless PVP, there's also a whole other layer on top of that, which is the struggle for control of land and resources while clans attempt to build their empires.

[Froam]

Gowel: You're very good at what you do :)

As for me... Wow, very nice. Sure hope I make beta ;)

[Dozier]

i've noticed that in all the pics of towns and such they seem pretty small, maybe this is to allow players to expand them? hopefully

[GhostCow]

Originally posted by Gowel@Nov 17 2003, 12:52 PM
Thanks for posting and no thanks to my alarm not going off on time. :angry: Hehe, guess I can't catch em every week. Great pics though.
heh, he does it to me at pker.org too :)

[Darkmatter]

Good post Gowel :)

[Ren]

Originally posted by Porthios@Nov 17 2003, 05:40 PM
Why is it so dark? It does not look overcast, so there should be oranage light from a sun set.

I have noticed that many recent screenshots are dark. I have assumed that lighting is not complete, and as it is developed hopefully things will improve.

[Jax]

i think it is that dark because the ork lands are supposed to be "covered in ash" and thus less light gets through.

[Ren]

The darkness is present in many of the Human screenshots as well.
For example....

Trinwood (http://mediaviewer.ign.com/ignMediaPage.jsp?media_id=1852858&object_id=16821&channel_id=227&page_title=Darkfall+Peek+of+the+Week+%23 9&adtag=network%3Dign%26size%3D468x60%26ch annel%3Drpgvault%26site%3Drpgvault_hub%2 6channel%3Dfeatures%26type%3Dpartner)

Human and buildings (http://mediaviewer.ign.com/ignMediaPage.jsp?media_id=1845493&object_id=16821&channel_id=227&page_title=Darkfall+Peek+of+the+Week+%23 8&adtag=network%3Dign%26size%3D468x60%26ch annel%3Drpgvault%26site%3Drpgvault_hub%2 6channel%3Dfeatures%26type%3Dpartner)

[Gowel]

Well, there is a different kind of "darkness" in the Human shots than there is in the Ork shots. The darkness of the Ork areas, has already been explained to us and the darkness in the Human screenshots, as far as I can see, is just shadow. Look at the sky, the leaves on the trees, the ground, the grass and anything else not in the path of a shadow and it's all very well lit.

Aside from that, even if it is a little darker than other games, I think it might be intentional. They once explained, probably in the old lore, the reason for naming the game Darkfall and from what I can recall, it was because a darkness had fallen over the world of Agon, though I'm having a hard time locating that quote/article, so it may not be exactly as I'm remembering it.



EDIT: Found one of the quotes about the "darkness" of the game.
Question: Are you aiming for a dark and gloomy game?

Answer: Yes, we are. Even the game's website has a gloomy look, and that is the way we want the game to be. It is actually incorporated into the title as well.

[Myrd[SUN]]

I am truely sorry for that ghostcow....hmmm or maybe not :D :P

[GhostCow]

:rolleyes: :P

[Exmortis]

Everything Enemy said on the first page, plus --

try to get away from the everquest/DAoC look if possible. Less flat, simple-textured ground. See if you can program some kind of random ground cruncher, so that there are smooth rolling hills and a bumpy ground. Otherwise, it looks like dirt textured carpet that a bunch of boxy buildings are sitting on. I've always felt like the buildings in these games don't have any solid mass, just look like boxes in a semi-circle. Likewise, towns shouldn't be comprised of 7 or 8 boxes that look kind of randomly dispursed.

I always felt like there was simply too much of that in DAoC -- no real design for why a town would be where it is. There needs to be dynamic NPCs, walking about doing real things, not standing in one position about to tell you about the fabled golden amulet hes heard that has come to rest in the hills east of here, or to sell you the same junk over and over again. NPCs should go about their business, working and building things, hunting and foraging, cleaning and chatting with each other (as simple as having an NPC walk up to another and gesture back and forth for a few minutes), lighting torches and building fires at night, herding sheep and building fences. Make the NPCs do something and be worthwhile.