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Analyzing the ADW Convention Video
nathanpinard
Member Posts: 146
Like my last post, i wanted to do the same with the ADW Video. I've seen a lot of comments on various forums that are just blown out of proportion.
I think these people are just getting tunnel vision while watching these videos. Focusing on what sucks to them, and not looking at anything else that is remotely positive to the video. And I'm not even talking about trolls, I'm talking about people that have followed the game.
The following index games are based on the 30min ADW video. You must have the full video to get these right, not the 4 part Youtube video.
You can download the full video here: http://www.shimmergloom.org/index.php?topic=490.0
Some of you may or may not find this post useful, but I'd thought I give it a shot anyway.
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0:03 - You don't really see this in much MMO's except maybe for AOC and a few others. There a bit of barrels and cargo containers. Doesn't seem that special but adds to the detail. Also some nice textures on the wagon there.
0:10 - There is some significant reflection on the floor from the sun. Some people would find this annoying and overpowering, but I don't.
0:21 - Nice expansive, and big looking city shot here.
0:37 - Pause at this index. Now, look at the wood post on the left. Has texture, as well as shadowing on the underside, and it's just one big post. It even has a normal map effect to it. I like this kind of detail.
0:41 - Water looks clear, and you can somewhat see through it. On top of that it still has a type of layer on the top that gives it the impression it's moving.
0:50 - Another example of the post at a different angle.
0:59 - Will admit a slight drawback on the fire animations. They are really short, and are sync'd with every other torch in this shot. Doesn't really bug me THAT much though.
2:42 - More shots of how expansive things look, even though we haven't seen much of the city of course.
3:12 - It's very hard to see, but there is an insect buzzing around in front of the player.
3:27 - With these settings DFO appears to have that view distance that's Morrowind like, but with a more gradual fade. Looks more realistic in that case. Oh yeah, and the trees, although leafless in this area, look great.
5:12 - Hard to see, but the grass fades in as the player moves, much like any other MMO. Seem to be done a bit better in this case.
5:43 - Wind is light, but the grass is swaying in the breeze here. Here's hoping the distance and speed changes as the wind increases.
7:06 - View distance definitely seems to change based on weather I guess. You can see Flaming Skull quite a ways from this point.
7:15 - The big beaming clanstone beam in the back reminds me of Planetside.
7:23 - It's quite hard to see, but the sun is occluded by the clouds. The clouds look to be in front of the sun, and also have several layers (like real clouds) Aventurine has had experience in weather sims, so this could be a nice touch. Looks pretty damned good to me! The clouds themselves move as well.
8:15 - Flags are flapping in the wind. What remains to be seen is if they change direction based on wind direction.
8:21 - Hell of a shot. Sky moving, flags whipping with shadows, nice statue in the center. Shadows cast from every spike coming out of the columns as well.
8:42 - PAUSE. Pretty far view distance here.
9:13 - Another awesome shot of an expansive city. Does actually remind me of some of the AOC ruins.
10:37 - Quite a bit of detail when he turns, but you have to pause it to see.
11:20 - This is the kicker for me right here. The trees move in the wind, and cast shadows. On top of that, the shadows are cast on everything. Sounds simple, but so many MMO's and even single player games skip this. No doubt, they will require a nice comp to show correctly.
14:10 - I want a wallpaper of this. Flag moving, smoke billowing, you also see embers in the air.
14:25 - I'm impressed with the lava actually. It has embers coming out of it, and it moves as well. You can even see heat waves (you have to look hard though) The rocks also glow as well in a simple way.
17:35 - This is where I'm even more impressed with the stuff they are doing with the environment in this game. It's hard to see, but they are allowing a very far view distance, while at the same time showing the distant animations as well. There's a big glowing mounting in the back, as well as a lava waterfall. Stuff like this even trumps Oblivion. (within reason)
21:17 -The moon isn't sped up here, it's that fast. Probably because they want people to see it. And well, it's their own world. The other moon however, does not move as fast. The blue moon is just awesome.
26:47 - Hard to see, but the mountain range is expansive in this game. Bigger than most games I've seen period. Nice waterfall there too.
Comments
nice read. Thx!
Actualy if people dont join the game for animations or other non gameplay topics i will be ok, Better for me because the world would be less populated of casual gamers.
Post a youtube link that works. Jeezzzzz...
Hmm, my bad. I didn't see that.
Good post! Well analyzed and fair comments.
I've always thought DF graphics were pretty good, it's just the ADD crowd and trolls honing in on a couple of shitty animations or textures, crying about graphics, and missing all the good stuff. There is plenty to like, and some to dislike as well. All in all, it's well good enough considering the scale of the gameplay.
not really -- this is one of the big benefits of using relatively low polygon character models. in large battles, the engine will just reduce the quality of the shadows or just drop them entirely.
http://www.viddyou.com/viddstream?videoid=43966
not a youtube vid, but it works.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
Two quick things.
AOC has amazing graphics, look how that game turned out. Making grass move and having reflections is standard. MMORPGs have moved way past UO style graphics, what you are describing can be found in any MMORPG. But again, that is just graphics and doesn't say anything about gameplay. If you want to sit an look at landscape, might as well play AOC.
Second thing is the animations. Notice you didn't comment on how terrible they look. Not only are characters extremely stiff when moving, they are in unrealistic postures. So the game looks good if you are standing still, but terrible when you move.
But the real problem is stuff you can't see. Gameplay, balance and most importantly lag and server issues.
So yeah.. stand on a dock and zoom your camara in and DF is a 'great game'.
I have to agree here.
High quality Motion Captured Animations can be bought right of the batt these days.
We all know by now they have spend over 20 million euros on game development.
So I am pretty baffled why they didn't spend some of it to buy decent quality Motion Captured Animations
Cheers
Granted they are not blizzard quality but they are really not *that* bad. as it is, animations are really the only thing going for WOW, the standard of graphics in the rest of the game are seriously outdated. most of DF's animations are perfectly fine, it's just that *some* of them are poor.
eg: try watching the 2008 sites and cities video, all the animations in that video are really good.
Understood. The thread wasn't stating that DFO is great and all because of what I stated. What I'm stating is that everyone is like "well the graphic's suck, but graphics < gameplay anyway" and I believe the graphics are being overlooked in that sense.
Character animations aren't as important to me as enviromental graphics, but that is just a preference of my own.
Granted they are not blizzard quality but they are really not *that* bad. as it is, animations are really the only thing going for WOW, the standard of graphics in the rest of the game are seriously outdated. most of DF's animations are perfectly fine, it's just that *some* of them are poor.
eg: try watching the 2008 sites and cities video, all the animations in that video are really good.
But DF is going to be compared to other games on the market now. WOW, LoTRO, WAR and AOC. Those games all have much better animations and AOC has better graphics and animations.
The OP wanted to analyze the video, yet all he talked about was basically still-shots of the game.
If you really want to analyze the game, comment on that little 'goblin' encounter. Look at how difficult it seemed for the players to navigate into a fighting position... that is a major gameplay issue. When you have a party of 5, and 3 of them can't get themselves positioned to actually hit the single monster, it shows that game controls are not very good.
Understood. The thread wasn't stating that DFO is great and all because of what I stated. What I'm stating is that everyone is like "well the graphic's suck, but graphics < gameplay anyway" and I believe the graphics are being overlooked in that sense.
Character animations aren't as important to me as enviromental graphics, but that is just a preference of my own.
It's indeed each to their own. I love great environments, but I find decent quality animations just as important.
Next to the rampant bugs in Vanguard... it were actually the horrible animations that chased me away from that game.
Even the old classic Unreal Tournament from 1999 had better animations then Vanguard
Like I said in my previous post in this topic. High quality Motion Captured Animations can be bought right of the batt these days.
There are companies out there these days dedicated in making them and selling them to movie and game studios!
Cheers
Understood. The thread wasn't stating that DFO is great and all because of what I stated. What I'm stating is that everyone is like "well the graphic's suck, but graphics < gameplay anyway" and I believe the graphics are being overlooked in that sense.
Character animations aren't as important to me as enviromental graphics, but that is just a preference of my own.
It's indeed each to their own. I love great environments, but I find decent quality animations just as important.
Next to the rampant bugs in Vanguard... it were actually the horrible animations that chased me away from that game.
Even the old classic Unreal Tournament from 1999 had better animations then Vanguard
Like I said in my previous post in this topic. High quality Motion Captured Animations can be bought right of the batt these days.
There are companies out there these days dedicated in making them and selling them to movie and game studios!
Cheers
I wouldn't actually put it past the devs that the animation department is working on them now. I know Natacha is still working for them, so there IS still graphic improvements being made.
Actually, in the AOC beta the animations were not nearly as good.
Also, just so you know mocaps are great for high quality CG animations, but they are very hard to thin out for video games for optimal framerates.
i like those analyses of the environment... and i like the DFO graphics a lot.
to be honest i like them much better then AoC..and the number of polygons menace nothing to me, i can ...in my opinion AoC looked a bit "artificial", and the bigest problem was he immersion breaking with NPC pop up like 10 meters in front of me...no mater how high graphic settings i use, and constant zone loading screens.
So AoC has better graphics only on paper.. i was not able to enjoy them in game. The aoc models and animation are very good though...but thats all.
Chronicles of Spellborn for example has even more terrible characters loadin, as when you look at other character from a relatively close distance you see skeleton like transparent figures that became human when u approach them... sucks
DFO models < AOC models
DFO textures and lighting > AOC textures and lighting (yeah i know some will argue)
DFO environment >>>>>AOC environment
DFO animations <<<< AOC or any other recent games
and lastly
DFO overall >>>>>>>>>> AOC overall
offtopic:
I really hope the horse riding animation and physics is like in Mount and Blade.
The horse dont start and stop immediately when you pres "W" or "S". It takes a little time for the horse to react as in RL, and once you gain some speed on horse you dont have to keep pressing forward button, but insted let the horse ride alone and concentrate on hitting enemy with the weapon. Awesome!
so you decided to create a new forum acocunt just to spit shit over the game?
i see you are realy dedicated to flame the game..there must be something in the game that you realy like but dont want to admit
anyway..keep posting with this account and bump the DFO threads
tnx
so you decided to create a new forum acocunt just to spit shit over the game?
i see you are realy dedicated to flame the game..there must be something in the game that you realy like but dont want to admit
anyway..keep posting with this account and bump the DFO threads
tnx
just so you know, this guy has been getting banned and recreating account solely to troll Darkfall for at least 2 years, under numerous different usernames of course.
many of the trolls you read here in this forum are indeed this same guy -- basically any trollish post on the Darkfall forums here from a poster with less than 50 posts to their name has a very high chance of being this same guy.
it's truly hilarious. he just keeps getting banned and recreating accounts, *just* to troll Darkfall. apparently it's because he was once involved in developing some other crappy MMO that failed badly in the past. he just can't let go.
in the end, gameplay will always trump graphics. why do you think people still play solitaire
MMORPG Characters immortalized!
LLyncu: Star Wars Galaxies (Chimaera)
Xiode: Age of Conan (Mannanan)
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