483 réponses à ce sujet

[LPPrince]

Ponendus wrote...

csfteeeer wrote...

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...

I would like some actual scenery...MotA showed they can actually do it with the engine they're using, when they want to.

But I wouldn't want to sacrifice travelling in a party for realistic grass.

MotA?

Really?

i thought MotA had horrible scenery, specially the Trees...*Shudders*

I think Shadow of Light Dragon meant that MotA showed that scenery was possible with the engine they are using. I suppose whether the actual scenery generated is quality is subjective. I didn't mind it so much, haven't seen anything green in Thedas since the Brecilian Forest, and even that was 'mossy' more than green.

So you get what I'm saying then about the vibrance and color. I want green, like the forest pictures I posted earlier. Bright blues like the shards in the first post. Bright colors that stick out and stand apart from the darkness of the rest of the game.

[Ponendus]

LPPrince wrote...

Ponendus wrote...

csfteeeer wrote...

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...

I would like some actual scenery...MotA showed they can actually do it with the engine they're using, when they want to.

But I wouldn't want to sacrifice travelling in a party for realistic grass.

MotA?

Really?

i thought MotA had horrible scenery, specially the Trees...*Shudders*

I think Shadow of Light Dragon meant that MotA showed that scenery was possible with the engine they are using. I suppose whether the actual scenery generated is quality is subjective. I didn't mind it so much, haven't seen anything green in Thedas since the Brecilian Forest, and even that was 'mossy' more than green.

So you get what I'm saying then about the vibrance and color. I want green, like the forest pictures I posted earlier. Bright blues like the shards in the first post. Bright colors that stick out and stand apart from the darkness of the rest of the game.

Yes I agree with that. I do still think the dark parts should be dark obviously (like the dungeons and castles in DAO), but when we are out in the world, it need not be beige beige beige all the time. Colour is nice and a sense of wonder and beauty always motivates you to care about the world you are in more. 

[LPPrince]

For example, Kirkwall. That was SOOOOOO BLAND. Ergh.

Reminded me of Assassin's Creed 1. Yeah, it was realistic that AC was pretty much brown(since it was in the Holy Land during the crusades), but after a while I get tired of looking at it.

Compare that to Assassin's Creed 2, which is during the Italian Renaissance. Color color everywhere.

Part of what is drawing me to KoA is all the color.

DA2 would've been at least SLIGHTLY better if Kirkwall was pretty to look at.

In my opinion, its not. I miss the Brecilian Forest.

[Ponendus]

LPPrince wrote...

For example, Kirkwall. That was SOOOOOO BLAND. Ergh.

Reminded me of Assassin's Creed 1. Yeah, it was realistic that AC was pretty much brown(since it was in the Holy Land during the crusades), but after a while I get tired of looking at it.

Compare that to Assassin's Creed 2, which is during the Italian Renaissance. Color color everywhere.

Part of what is drawing me to KoA is all the color.

DA2 would've been at least SLIGHTLY better if Kirkwall was pretty to look at.

In my opinion, its not. I miss the Brecilian Forest.

I was just going to say in my last post that I possibly wouldn't have shed a tear if Kirkwall had burned to the ground at the end of Act 2. Maybe they could build something grander off the insurance???

[LPPrince]

Please. If Kirkwall burned to the ground I'd have throw a party and I'd be celebrating.

Place is crazy. And ugly. Mainly crazy.

[LPPrince]

Heh, a 30 minute playthrough was done of KoA by I forgot who, and Dragon Age was brought up.

If I recall correctly, it was something about how loot was handled. DAO and KoA having a "junk folder" you can put any items into that you desire to get rid of quickly at a vendor, and DA2 having junk items who's sole purpose was to exist in a junk folder.

I'd go with DAO and KoA's systems over DA2's. Junk items just feel like a waste. You know, like junk.

[LPPrince]

Skyrim did color right. KoA isn't released yet, but from what I've seen, I like what its done with color.

There's a point where you have to ask whether you want realism or fun(that is, if you can't find fun in realism or you can't make realism fun).

I'd rather had Kirkwall be colorful and bright than be stuck in a dreary and ugly city for the entire game.

[Pzykozis]

simfamSP wrote...
But the thing is... how could Kirkwall be colourful? It's a city made of stone... why would it be colourful? One thing is to have colours, and the other is to make sense. Kirkwall is what I imagine it would be: a port city. There isn't much colour you can add to cities and the like without making it look silly.

You can easily add colour to that, sure stone might be stone but there's foliage, drapery, statues, markets, water features and all sorts of stuff that you can dress a scene with to make it visually interesting.

One weird thing that DA2 has is that for some reason you have drapery (there's red overhanging cloth in certain places) to a certain extent, but it's built as though you'd see the area from above, whereas the game is played from a normalish tp cam so really the detail and colour should be concentrated at eye level not up in the air (where you essentially don't see it).

[Das Tentakel]

simfamSP wrote...

But the thing is... how could Kirkwall be colourful? It's a city made of stone... why would it be colourful? One thing is to have colours, and the other is to make sense. Kirkwall is what I imagine it would be: a port city. There isn't much colour you can add to cities and the like without making it look silly.

Even Skyrim's cities are mostly set with one type of colour. But for the wilderness... well colour is needed, that is certain...but again, not to the point where it starts looking like a disney movie. I think the best example of well used colours and lighting is Skyrim, not KoA...

The lack of colour in Kirkwall is either a deliberate artistic choice, or an utilitarian one (saves on effort and memory/dvd/hard drive space).
While modern industrial-style architecture is often rather drab and colourless, historically this is NOT the case. If you look at pictures and/or reconstruction drawings of old cities (Europe and elsewhere) there is quite a lot of variation, not just in style but also in colour and decoration. Kirkwall has nothing of the variety and colour that real cities that evolved over several centuries have, unless you include modern industrial-style (20th and 21st century) urban neighbourhoods that were built in one go. This feels very unnatural and is very boring as well, as many people have remarked. Three pictures of old port cities:







Granted, a 'natural' city would not only be colourful, but also somewhat grimy (soot from burning fuel etc.). As it is, Kirkwall is not only colourless but also remarkably clean.

Modifié par Das Tentakel, 21 janvier 2012 - 09:55 .

[andar91]

simfamSP wrote...

LPPrince wrote...

For example, Kirkwall. That was SOOOOOO BLAND. Ergh.

Reminded me of Assassin's Creed 1. Yeah, it was realistic that AC was pretty much brown(since it was in the Holy Land during the crusades), but after a while I get tired of looking at it.

Compare that to Assassin's Creed 2, which is during the Italian Renaissance. Color color everywhere.

Part of what is drawing me to KoA is all the color.

DA2 would've been at least SLIGHTLY better if Kirkwall was pretty to look at.

In my opinion, its not. I miss the Brecilian Forest.

But the thing is... how could Kirkwall be colourful? It's a city made of stone... why would it be colourful? One thing is to have colours, and the other is to make sense. Kirkwall is what I imagine it would be: a port city. There isn't much colour you can add to cities and the like without making it look silly.

Even Skyrim's cities are mostly set with one type of colour. But for the wilderness... well colour is needed, that is certain...but again, not to the point where it starts looking like a disney movie. I think the best example of well used colours and lighting is Skyrim, not KoA...

There are ways. Granted, it could end up being overdone, but as the other poster said, things like statues, fountains, drapery, mosaics, more colorful clothing on the people, plants and flowers can all add color to the atmosphere. It shouldn't look like Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland or anything, but even cities don't have to be that drab. I'm not sure if it was the design of Kirkwall or simply being in it sooo much, but I got so sick of the place throughout the game, partly (I think) because of a lack of interesting visual setpieces.

While I think Origins was too drab, at least they offered variety. You had the soaring architecture of Ostagar to the wet and muddy expanses of the Korcari wilds. Haven was tinged in blue with a large mountain lake and flakes of snow, and the ancient temple ot Andraste, while possessed of generic architecture, had slants of brilliant light coming in through the windows. Then there's the fiery light in Orzammar coming up from the lava. In many cases, if you were shown a screenshot of a location in DA:O, you would instantly know where it was because they tended to have a unique identity. Not always, and many things were reused and I think they needed more color and variance, but they certainly seemed more distinctive than DA2's.

[Shevy]

I think that DA definitly needs more setting variation, but not in a brightness like KoA. It should use a darker colour scheme.

[Pzykozis]

simfamSP wrote...

Thanks for the replies hehe :-)

@LPPrince

I've been looking at the KoA videos, I'm sorry, but that's not what I think Dragon Age should look like, not even a 'similar' appearence would do. Infact, it should stay far away from that colour scheme... BUT... depending where it is ;-)

If DA3 is in Orlais then YES! 10000000 TIMES YES! If it's in the Anderfells then No... NO NO NO NO NO hehe.

Bioware wants to create this gitty Low/High fantasy, and it has in my eyes. Granted, from the posts above I think Kirkwall could have used more colour in Hightown atleast. Lowtown and Darktown felt as it should have.

Realism has nothing to do with it, it's more about the feel the game gives. Dragon Age should be doing the opposite of that. It should take inspiration from The Witcher and Skryim... darker more saturated colours. Blacks, browns, darkgreens and greys...

But once again this depends on where in the game it's located and what vibe the devs want from it. For example: The Witcher.

Vizima had many different colour schemes depending on where you were. The Temple Quarter was dark, gloomy, gritty and dirty. Yet the Trade Quarter was colourful, rich, happy and vibrant. But that all changed at night...

So I can see how colour can affect the mood and feel from an area, but still, the overall effect should keep more towards 'gritty' than KoA.

I don't really see much of a push towards gritty visuals to be honest, though I see a lot of fan support for that.

For me Darktown was actually the worst offender in the game in terms of visuals indicating a sense of place, the lore and just general "ness" of the place is supposed to be this scummy, dark, terrible place yet the visuals weren't emoting that at all, there was very little difference visually between darktown and lowtown, the main point was that it wasn't even really dark at all nor did it really feel like the poorest place in Kirkwall it just didn't really emote that at all. Lowtown was alright but could have done with far more personality, the market in lowtown in particular seemed like a massive missed opportunity, unlike the witcher in that respect, where were the bright colours of the traders and hawkers selling their wares and stuff meh.

Heh colour effecting mood, I wrote a Thesis on that.

Modifié par Pzykozis, 15 janvier 2012 - 03:34 .

[culletron1]

I vote for moving to a more gritty and realistic direction...

[Das Tentakel]

simfamSP wrote...

...from the posts above I think Kirkwall could have used more colour in Hightown atleast. Lowtown and Darktown felt as it should have.

Realism has nothing to do with it, it's more about the feel the game gives....

So I can see how colour can affect the mood and feel from an area, but still, the overall effect should keep more towards 'gritty' than KoA.

I respectfully disagree concerning Lowtown and Darktown. Both locations suffered from exactly the same problems as Hightown: A location consisting of corridors (streets...) and rooms (squares...) with boxlike buildings with exactly the same textures. Random piles of debris in corners and ubiquitous scaffolding (somebody at Bioware must really, really love wooden scaffolding) and uniformly dirty wall textures do not make for grittiness. They certainly do not make for immersion: realism (and thus the need for a degree of variety and colour) is a means to an end, meaning suspension of disbelief and all that. 
Not every game does it well, and Skyrim and certainly The Witcher I and II (heck, even Fable) do this better when it comes to depicting cities.

Colour has its place, so do NPC's, lighting, weather, music. It's a total package. A superficially 'dirty' look, especially an exceptionally monotonous one, is not enough. Colour can actually reinforce a dirty impression, if done well, as in HBO's Rome TV series.





A propos colour and KoA, one professional reviewer here in Europe commented that KoA's colour scheme suggested a 'kiddie' or at least kid-friendly game to him. A somewhat more generous interpretation might be that they are going for a 'fairy tale' look as in, say, the action puzzle platformers Trine I and II. 

Minor addition: 
One thing DA2 does well, is induce a feeling of hopelessness and ennui by virtue of the dreary monotony of Kirkwall's visual design. If that was the intention, hats off to Bioware. Maybe a questionable decision, but if this was the case they certainly succeeded. 

Modifié par Das Tentakel, 21 janvier 2012 - 09:57 .

[Pzykozis]

simfamSP wrote...
Well I was generalising a bit there. Darktown could have been dark for one, but for what the game gave us it's alright. 

The push for a more gritty atmosphere is really the whole point of Dragon Age no? I mean, all this blood and gore, politics and ****heads around, plus this advertising of a 'dark' fantasy.

Aye but I meant visual wise, DA:O was more gritty than DA2 but even DA:O was fairly poor at gritty visuals, then we have DA2 which moves away from gritty visuals, so the idea that they're going to move towards a more witcher / skyrim palette seems kinda the opposite way Bioware is pushing at the moment.

Atmosphere wise I can agree but the visuals and atmosphere so far haven't really matched up, hence my criticism about darktown being not very dark at all, it sounded like a hive of scum, the downtrodden and the broken (via the lore and the way people spoke about it), but it wasn't really like that at all visuals wise.

Though to be honest, DA hasn't really ever seemed that dark to me anyway, has elements of it but it adheres to a more heroic note than dark.

[Das Tentakel]

Pzykozis wrote...

...I meant visual wise, DA:O was more gritty than DA2 but even DA:O was fairly poor at gritty visuals, then we have DA2 which moves away from gritty visuals, so the idea that they're going to move towards a more witcher / skyrim palette seems kinda the opposite way Bioware is pushing at the moment.

Atmosphere wise I can agree but the visuals and atmosphere so far haven't really matched up, hence my criticism about darktown being not very dark at all, it sounded like a hive of scum, the downtrodden and the broken (via the lore and the way people spoke about it), but it wasn't really like that at all visuals wise.

Though to be honest, DA hasn't really ever seemed that dark to me anyway, has elements of it but it adheres to a more heroic note than dark.

Personally, I think this is more of the DA games failing to convincingly depict that atmosphere. A failure of successfully executing the intention.
The heroic aspect is definitely there, and DA2's trailers in particular (but some of DA's as well) stressed how Ueber Badass the hero(es) are. I am not sure if they entirely succeeded in implementing this intention in DA2, though. <_<

In KotOR, Jade Empire, DA:O my character felt like a real hero. Hawke is some dude or dudette up in Kirkwall. Even if he can jump like Spiderman and wields a sword that should weigh a ton as if it's made from paper mache.

 

Modifié par Das Tentakel, 15 janvier 2012 - 07:57 .

[turian councilor Knockout]

That remains to be seen but if it's succesful and really good why not most games have good ideas but they have to executed well too.

[LPPrince]

Lets be honest, has DA ever felt like dark fantasy? Or even high fantasy?

It seems like DA is kind of middling between the two. Or as said earlier, poorly portraying whichever of the two they are actually trying to get the game to be.

But hey, even the dark places have to have some light somewhere.

[LPPrince]

That implies high fantasy isn't cool, hahaha.

Well, if you consider it high fantasy, why not add more color to it?

[Sylvius the Mad]

simfamSP wrote...

DA is a high fantasy :-) it's no where near dark.

Those aren't the only two options.

DAO had a low fantasy mood, with some elements of high fantasy.  But it wasn't straight-ahead high fantasy like a D&D setting is.

I'd call DAO mainstream fantasy, pretty much in the same place on the spectrum as LOTR (which is a fairly low-magic environment by modern fantasy standards).