Lots of new Vanguard info released, plus videos & screenshots

[Mithrull]

Originally Posted by Gaereth

Yeah...but that is what is meh. The shinyness and cleanliness of many of the models/constructs in the game make it look like some fresh from modeler newb creations.

Damn near everything needs to get hit with a sandblaster and a bucket of mud so it looks less like a modeler model and more like a lived in world.

Dude, it's a statue. You want "lived in" statues coated with mud? That's not lived in. That's long since abandoned.

[gremlinz273]

too shiny?

[Laerazi]

The ultra shiny coating on the snakes doesn't look "right", imo. Also the heads look like a different material than the body, almost non-textured. I think if the heads were hand-painted, instead of just a mesh with a coating of blue on it, and the body showed more texture (imperfections in the material) than shine, it would look great...

That pretty much applies to everything I've seen in the game though; overuse of specular/normal-mapping and not enough focus on custom texture.

I guess the artists have a loose tolerance for unnatural looking additions to their game...

[Lyenae]

Originally Posted by Mithrull

Dude, it's a statue. You want "lived in" statues coated with mud? That's not lived in. That's long since abandoned.

No fucktard.

As someone who used to be a hardcore Warhammer miniature painter, it is and was common to take any model and lightly 'dry brush' (a dusting of a color that tended to cling to raised surfaces) with brown to add realism.

Structures got a similar treatment, but the dry brush color might have been different depending on the type of material composing the structure. A metal structure might have been given a reddish coppery rust dry brush.

Everything brand new, with no sign of wear, destroys believability. Statues are worn down by acid rain, metal rusts, and people/clothes get dirty.

Shiny/clean is just fake.

[Lost Ranger]

Yeah those heads dont look finished at all. I am going to assume thats cause they arnt though heh.

Overall I agree with the "make it dirtier!" crowd. The world needs its ass kicked a bit. Would go along way in making it look more real. Little dirt, rust and mold is just what the doctor ordered

Lyenae: Dude you seriously need to chill the fuck out. Your right I agree with what your saying... but handle it with a tad more grace and stop being such a dickhead.

[Asmadai]

It's a tad too shiny, yes.

My question is, why is it automatically assumed that any sort of geographical landmark in a fantasy MMO must look 'old' or 'worn and torn'. Did any of you think that it's possibly a new statue? Or maybe the building which houses the castle is relatively new?

And hell, are we calling it a statue because it's a giant stone looking thing in a still picture? What is it's a stone oval portal thing, and the snakes around it weave in and out? They might not be stationary, but might actually be alive. Just another possibility no one's mentioned yet.

And someone please help me. I've forgotten my glasses and can't read those gigantic red letters in the bottom right hand corner of that screenshot. Can anyone please tell me what they say?

[Daelos]

On that note, "New Targonar" in Thestra is actually a very new addition to the world of Telon, after the undead overran old Targonar not many years ago.

I expect it to look sparkling new and shiny.

[Mithrull]

Originally Posted by Lyenae

No fucktard.

As someone who used to be a hardcore Warhammer miniature painter, it is and was common to take any model and lightly 'dry brush' (a dusting of a color that tended to cling to raised surfaces) with brown to add realism.

Structures got a similar treatment, but the dry brush color might have been different depending on the type of material composing the structure. A metal structure might have been given a reddish coppery rust dry brush.

What the fuck is this all of the sudden? A lesson in miniature painting??? What gave you the idea the Lyanae's personal artistic style or that of the Warhammer Miniature Gay Painters Club serves as some relevant point of reference here? Please regale with fond memories of your silly little hobbies in places where it might actually be pertinent.

Hrm, acid rain in a indoors? Makes SENSE! How old is the statue? Brand new? Centuries old? Maybe its inhabitants keep the thing clean? Maybe its made of a magical material that protects it from all that nasty interior acid rain? Who the fuck knows what its made of? Maybe some little elvish workers wake up each morning and wax and buff the fucker to a high gloss or their God will smite them?

On that note, "New Targonar" in Thestra is actually a very new addition to the world of Telon, after the undead overran old Targonar not many years ago.

Bingo.

[Caocao]

Love the new pictures, not sure how people don't like this shit o.O.

[Grabbit Allworth]

Aradune/Brad,

I've never addressed you directly in the past, but I feel strongly enough about a few points to try and get your attention today.

I don't have my own beta access, but I do have a friend who allows me to use his every once in awhile.

First, I'd like to say, your game has come a long long way in the last 6 months. I liked what I saw in July and I really liked what I saw when I logged in yesterday....However, I have concerns that mirror many of the posters here.

My biggest concern is that the world in many places seems very "sterile" and lacks a "lived in" feel. I'm not necessarily saying it needs to be "dirtied" up (although some areas do in fact need it), but almost every place I visited was almost completely devoid of accessories.

The harbor city, Khal is one example of an area that completely lacks life of its own. It's pretty, and the graphics are great, but it looks computer generated.

There is a VG loading screen art splash that shows a major dock and it's teaming with life and personality. Crates, barrels, sacks of trade goods, ropes, nets, lanyards, seabirds, bottles, trash, etc are all things that I should be seeing in a major harbor like Khal. Also, there are very few NPC's that aren't quest givers or merchants. Where is everyone else? Where are the dock hands, carpenters, seamen, fishermen, etc?

I'm not sure if this area (and nearly every locale I have visited) is still in an early art stage, or if many of the "flavor" accessories/population have not yet been added because of the extra load on GPU's in your unoptimized engine.

Khal is just one example of the sterility that bothers me, but I'll provide another small example. There's an area outside of Khal that serves as some sort of primitive jail. It looks neat, and after my initial "Wow, that's cool." I realized it looked completely out of place. There's really nothing there, BUT the jail and a few NPCs. Soooo much could be done to make that little area very cool and believable.

VG has a massive world, and points of interest are going to be very key to the immersion when we're having to walk, run, ride, fly, or sail relatively large distances. If the "points of interest" aren't very interesting or easily forgettable....well, it's not exactly a point of interest is it?

Please tell me your art team has hundreds of dungeon, city, wilderness, religious, industrial, commercial, residential, and military accessories/templates/flavor NPC's that you're waiting to add once your game is optimized enough to handle the additional GPU strain.

I hate to reference WoW, but even though you may see the same candelabra, patch of spider webs, or bookshelf many times over, they're there, along with the hundreds of useless NPC's that say nothing more than.."Hey, there." yet bring the game to life.

My only other real concern is performance. It still sucks. I play on an AMD 3500+, overclocked 7800GT, X-FI sound card, and 1G of DDR 400. Not the best system, but something you'd expect to run the game on low to medium settings with 30ish fps. Ha, wrong.

I'm relieved that Nvidias new G80 tech is so damn powerful and by the time VG actually releases, 7950GTX's will be affordable to the general population since it appears that's probably going to be an entry level card for VG.

[Kaxmax]

Originally Posted by Daelos

On that note, "New Targonar" in Thestra is actually a very new addition to the world of Telon, after the undead overran old Targonar not many years ago.

New Targonar...sure, I can buy that. Khal, which is supposed to be a bustling, grubby port city? Not so much. I agree completely with the sentiment that the game needs to be "dirtied" up, it's entirely too sterile at the moment.

[Tolanin]

Originally Posted by Kaxmax

New Targonar...sure, I can buy that. Khal, which is supposed to be a bustling, grubby port city? Not so much. I agree completely with the sentiment that the game needs to be "dirtied" up, it's entirely too sterile at the moment.

the fact that most doodads dont even load until you are almost on top of them doesnt help either... looking across khal and seeing nothing but the walls and maybe the tents doesnt help make the city feel lived in... shit needs to load farther out and there needs to be more npc on npc interaction like in oblivion (preferably girl on girl npc action)

[Gaereth]

'New' is quite different from clean and shiny.

For example....take a brand new car and just sit it outside. After a week does it look as bright and shiny as it did on the showroom floor?? Its still 'new' it is just a bit dusty and dirty now.

The vast majority of VG looks like it has cleaners come by every 5 minutes and polish it up to a shine. These indoor places aren't climate controlled like our offices today....they are lit with torches most of the time and probably covered in dust just because things can't be sealed like we are used to.

Its just odd that everything has the Mr Clean shine on it.

[Itzena]

Originally Posted by Daelos

On that note, "New Targonar" in Thestra is actually a very new addition to the world of Telon, after the undead overran old Targonar not many years ago.

Orgrimmar, Darnassus, Thunder Bluff, most of the Undercity and also most of Stormwind are new additions to Azeroth as well, but they look lived in.

[Rythonn]

Originally Posted by Grabbit Allworth

My only other real concern is performance. It still sucks. I play on an AMD 3500+, overclocked 7800GT, X-FI sound card, and 1G of DDR 400. Not the best system, but something you'd expect to run the game on low to medium settings with 30ish fps. Ha, wrong.

I'm relieved that Nvidias new G80 tech is so damn powerful and by the time VG actually releases, 7950GTX's will be affordable to the general population since it appears that's probably going to be an entry level card for VG.

Just to add to what Brad has been saying all along, the game performance is more then just vid card and cpu. It has a ton of info being moved around and slapping a good vid card on an old motherboard and ram won't cut it. Alot of the hitching you see in videos has to do more with memory access and HDD seek times then the GPU processing.