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[Survey] How do you feel about the artistic direction for Everquest Next?
Kureal
Member Posts: 3
Hi all,
Link to survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1qidxdaZKQFV25yqlSgmcn14H_vbqWZvOQDCqKSI0z_w/viewform
I put together this survey in the hopes of gathering everyone's impressions about the artistic direction for Everquest Next based upon what we've seen so far. I will be posting the survey to a few different websites and will be publishing the results on reddit.
Link to reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/EQNext/comments/1lhnkc/survey_how_do_you_feel_about_the_artistic/
Thank you for your participation!
Kureal
Comments
over 20 years of mmorpg's and counting...
A poll about EQ Next art direction? This is unique.... Not a bad list of questions though.
Honestly, I like it. I've never disapproved of "cartoony" styles as long as they weren't too derivative or over the top.
When you look at EQ2's "art style" it becomes apparent that a realistic style was a very bad decision.
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
Not bad as long as there is game play graphics come second in my book,buts still say that tiger fella looks like Tony the tiger from the frosties ads,it did not have the raw primal power that the Charr convey in GW2.
Other than that
They're Gr-r-reat!
Well put together survey. You can't really tell any bias from the question or answer wording. You however forgot to set up the survey properly. To be fair to SOE you should point out the limited amount of information released. You should point out that some of the images are concept drawings and may not look the same once rendered. And most of all you forgot to point out that all we have seen thus far is a single human female character build and a single male kerran character build.
Now they have not released any information about the character build process but I highly doubt that the world is going to be completely full of copies of the single female character build and the single male kerran character build. Or I am sure that we will be able to customize our own character build to make it unique.
I thought the survey was rather biased, even though it tried to be unbiased. All the questions needed to have had the same basic answers -- many of the questions didn't have the response for 'looks like art from another game / universe.' And the survey didn't really address my issues with the images seen so far.
I'm not thrilled with the art work that we've seen so far. To me, it looks more like there were three distinct art styles (directors) at work. The human looked like some anime, the kerran looked decidedly disneyish, and the backgrounds looked vaguely Warner Brothers, especially the desert. The pallet choices for each of these elements don't seem to share many colors, making them look like they don't belong together. Some of the mobs appeared to have less style and maybe were only placeholder graphics, but some looked to be influenced by other works. Specifically, the big golem-thing looked a lot like a softened version of the rock creature from Galaxy Quest. There wasn't much in the way of a cohesive art direction.
The newer images (from PAX) seem to continue this odd mishmash of styles. The female dwarves looked like a combination of cute and realistic and Disney. The male dwarves appear to have stepped out of WoW with the impossibly big beards and broad shoulders.
If I had to guess, I would say that each of the major elements that have been released to the public were created by independent teams of artists with minimal communication between the groups. There doesn't appear to be a single hand guiding the artists, and the resulting assets don't seem to mesh together. If SOE wants to make something that appeals to the masses, fire the current art staff, discard all existing art, hire someone like a Matt Groenig or a Brad Bird and start over.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Hi all,
I wanted to post a quick update. I was initially planning on playing it by ear as far as how long the survey would run for. If it loses steam I'll probably stop it and compile the results by the end of tomorrow. Otherwise, if there is still a steady stream of responses coming in, I will let it run until the end of next weekend (September 8th). Also, my initial plan was to post the results on this reddit thread that I made:
http://www.reddit.com/r/EQNext/comments/1lhnkc/survey_how_do_you_feel_about_the_artistic/
Once the results are ready however, I could probably add them to this forum's thread too for the sake of convenience. Additionally, the same applies to EQNforum that the survey is also on. As a side note, the survey has only been up for about 20 hours and has already received over 600 responses.
I wanted to also thank you all for taking the time to look at the survey and share your thoughts on there as well as on this forum. You have raised some really interesting points and I couldn't have asked for more.
Thank you,
Kureal
FAKE SURVEY !!! This is not an EQN survey but a stupid home made survey made by the EQ player trying to press the EQN devs. This thread should be deleted as it a fraud.
EQn surveys are placed on their web site not in any bs googl docs account.
Sad
Good thing EQ/EQ2 players != majority.
You do realise everyone in the thread already knew that it was a survey done by a random and not SOE? Otherwise you must have a strange outlook on the world.
"Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys. Look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death!"
- Sun Tzu, the Art of War
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The general artwork that I've seen is good. It uses Voxels, which can't make ultra realistic graphics because of the destructibility aspect. It's rather impressive to see billions of tiny "pieces" of the world in each frame, rather than a bunch of flat polygons to give the 3D illusion.
Not to be confused with the combat animations though, which look unappealing to me .. the combat is far too flashy / arcade'ish and breaks immersion. Also the latest movement video with the parkour demonstration isn't helping things either.
The SOEmotes demo made me drool however. Nice advance there for roleplayers.
So it's hit and miss I guess.
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
Oh the voxels can't create realistic graphics?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aTsZGAK8Lo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Btc7gFIjJco
It's the same engine that is going to handle voxel creation and editing in EQN.
Where do you guys get your info from?