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best city design seen so far
Tsais
Member UncommonPosts: 20
I've been wondering for long, why game designers didn't get it on how to design some decent "ancient" looking cities.
Look at EQII All this effort in recreating historical buildings, giving them outstanding textures, but then, when it comes to the layout of the city, it seems like they gave the job to a 1970 Texas city planner responsible for countless chessboard towns with numbered street names... I found myself looking for A street, B street, C street in EQII's main city. Way to waste excellent photorealistic texturing and lighting with completely insensitive layout. Even the landscape outside was lame... you gotta wonder about the designer if even the algorythm generated areas of Oblivion's landscape had better placement of land scape elements (rocks trees etc.)
Vanguard's city design doesn't look to be any better... all too straight, even, symetrical, too many 90 degree angles... It all looks like models built separately from the landscape were just dropped in.
WoW designers did a far better job of that, their cities and landscapes were moody and organic. But WoW has a low tech cartooney engine, and its ridden by end -game problems like being an absolutely static world with nothing for the player to achive, except an endless grind for more better gear.
All the more do Age of Conan screenshots stand out!
It looks like the art direction in Age of Conan will set the new standard in mmo landscape and city design.
Kudos to Age of Conan designers, such an excellent job. Your graphics engine will probably be state of the art too, but obviously that's not where the music is playing. Great design can compensate for lesser technology, but great technology can't compensate for poor design. Conan looks to have great design with a great engine... I'm sure looking forward to its release.
Hope you design gameplay to match!
Comments
have you seen the screenies for the player made cities too? they look amazing also
they dont look like they were player made at all, which i guess doesnt have to be the case as you could more than likely design them differently, but i like how they look a lot
For a teaser:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway
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DAoC did a nice job with their city planning as well. Camelot versus Tir na Nog versus the Midgaard main city (I forget its name) all had a distinct style and architecture. Running up to Camelot is a true experience.
It's been widely accepted that hibernia was rushed, no doubt about it (and perhaps abit starwberry shortcake too ; ' ). I agree it was the weakest but still spent much of my time playing champions and archers ( ' : Still, we're not really here to argue about historical or mythological references so to speak. Mythic chose three locations to be the centers of the factions, Tir Na Nog being the quivalent for the hibernians.
The styles and layouts were all unique in those cities, particularly Camelot itself.