Hopefully PC players will get the option of quality resolutions and art that's adapted to the capabilities of PC's.... Rather than the dull ported slob that's made for consoles.
But the most imporant part is still gameplay and the stories for this type of game.
The biggest problem with DA:I's CC was that all those buzz cuts ended up being used for NPCs. While the Furiosa vibe worked well for a character like Clarel who kills darkspawn for a living, it was not a good fit for pampered Orlesian noblewomen. It also was at odds with how Val Royeuax was described as Thedas' fashion capital or Leliana's dialogue about Orlesian noblewomen being fond of elaborate hairstyles.
The character design for TW3's Blood and Wine looks like is doing a better job with that game's medieval / Renaissance France expy:
-snip-
Those women look a bit closer to how the highborn ladies of Val Royeaux were described.
Hopefully Andromeda does a better job with character design. Good character design tells a story just as much as dialogue or codex entries do.
Those designs are impressive, both when it comes to costumes and hair. The DAI styles were too general and too few to remotely live up to the hype.
It's such a shame, too. Leliana described Orlesian hair and costumes as so outrageously extravagant in DAO. It would have made the Orlesian ball such a spectacle if they had been able to follow through with that.
It's such a shame, too. Leliana described Orlesian hair and costumes as so outrageously extravagant in DAO. It would have made the Orlesian ball such a spectacle if they had been able to follow through with that.
It was a spectacle though.
Those designs are impressive, both when it comes to costumes and hair. The DAI styles were too general and too few to remotely live up to the hype.
It's such a shame, too. Leliana described Orlesian hair and costumes as so outrageously extravagant in DAO. It would have made the Orlesian ball such a spectacle if they had been able to follow through with that.
I think that those two make for a better interpretation of Gaspard and Celene than their actual DA:I characters...
The "Blood and Wine" art simply blows my mind.
<snip>
I was just coming here to generically blab about what would be cool is to see less maybe gritty/sci fi punkish or just kind of militaristic and go in a more spiritual/religious direction with more like plain colors and monochromes and stuff. But I see you kind of beat me to that!
I was thinking about Egypt a lot recently, so many awesome costumes they had like this simple flair to them for like the priestesses and all that.
A lot of kind of military stuff can get pretty busy with the amount of colors/badges/etc IMHO. Anyway, I'm just saying I'd totally a Space Old Kingdom Egypt game.
I think that those two make for a better interpretation of Gaspard and Celene than their actual DA:I characters...
The "Blood and Wine" art simply blows my mind.
That is what I imagined when it came to appearances in Orlesian society, I didn't mind them but I think I was just expecting a little more or hoping to see a little more. Blood and Wine already looks like it's doing great in the visuals and aesthetics areas.
The biggest problem with DA:I's CC was that all those buzz cuts ended up being used for NPCs. While the Furiosa vibe worked well for a character like Clarel who kills darkspawn for a living, it was not a good fit for pampered Orlesian noblewomen. It also was at odds with how Val Royeuax was described as Thedas' fashion capital or Leliana's dialogue about Orlesian noblewomen being fond of elaborate hairstyles.
The character design for TW3's Blood and Wine looks like is doing a better job with that game's medieval / Renaissance France expy:
Those women look a bit closer to how the highborn ladies of Val Royeaux were described.
Hopefully Andromeda does a better job with character design. Good character design tells a story just as much as dialogue or codex entries do.
Completely agree, character design can really benefit a story. Hopefully Andromeda improves in that area.
I was just coming here to generically blab about what would be cool is to see less maybe gritty/sci fi punkish or just kind of militaristic and go in a more spiritual/religious direction with more like plain colors and monochromes and stuff. But I see you kind of beat me to that!
I was thinking about Egypt a lot recently, so many awesome costumes they had like this simple flair to them for like the priestesses and all that.
A lot of kind of military stuff can get pretty busy with the amount of colors/badges/etc IMHO. Anyway, I'm just saying I'd totally a Space Old Kingdom Egypt game.
A lot of the clothing worn by ancient cultures would work as a good starting point for designing clothing for fictional aliens. They'd just need to change a few details so it isn't exact, and give it a Sci Fi spin.
I'd love an RPG actually set in ancient Egypt, except with all their mythology being treated as a real thing in the game universe.
I kind of just wouldn't mind a generalized exploration of less common cultural settings and motifs, even just like Assyria and stuff and like,
Of course, they would be spun into something sci-fi ultimately by necessity but some kind of different root.
I know it's "Andromeda" but I daresay the Greco-Roman perspective has possibly been a bit played out at this point.... as well as generic militaristic Sci-Fi. I mean why is space always so hostile? It could be a new galaxy of exploration and uncertainty, people living vivid and colorful lives, it's not always "hostile aliens" and all that.
I think ME in general is kind of good from moving away from those things in general, so it would be a logical extension. My suspicion is they probably won't be moving in that direction but it is nice how threads like this exist to just kind of spin the yarn anyway.
I think in many ways the fact that ME pushed away from the frequent association of Sci-Fi with Cyberpunk and all that was a pillar of the franchise, and thus the ability to kind keep pushing that block into a different sphere of associating Sci-Fi with kind of high progress and such could be quite cool.
Too often I think Bioware has kind of settled and gone to other trends or games to find their identity, I think if they just let the floodgates open and ignore existing kind of socio-architectural references for their franchises they can turn it into a pretty amazing thing, if it wasn't already.
The biggest problem with DA:I's CC was that all those buzz cuts ended up being used for NPCs. While the Furiosa vibe worked well for a character like Clarel who kills darkspawn for a living, it was not a good fit for pampered Orlesian noblewomen. It also was at odds with how Val Royeuax was described as Thedas' fashion capital or Leliana's dialogue about Orlesian noblewomen being fond of elaborate hairstyles.
The character design for TW3's Blood and Wine looks like is doing a better job with that game's medieval / Renaissance France expy:
Spoiler
Those women look a bit closer to how the highborn ladies of Val Royeaux were described.
Hopefully Andromeda does a better job with character design. Good character design tells a story just as much as dialogue or codex entries do.
I think that those two make for a better interpretation of Gaspard and Celene than their actual DA:I characters...
The "Blood and Wine" art simply blows my mind.
Spoiler
*sheds a tear of happiness*
They sure do know how to make their characters look gorgeous!
I just got my Blood and Wine pre-order in--it's a right bummer that they're not selling the physical Gwent card limited edition of this one where I live. I've got Scoia'tael and Monsters, but my favourite deck is Northern Realms.
Anyways, I just thought I'd chuck this .gif from the new Star Trek: Beyond trailer in here. This new warp effect is possibly the one thing from all nuTrek that I actually like--it's exciting and interesting to look at, but retains the serene, almost regal dignity a starship at warp in Star Trek ought to have.
Relating it back to Andromeda, I feel like the whole 'distorted space' look could fit pretty well with what we know about how FTL works in the Mass Effect universe, if BioWare were looking to change things up from the fairly generic blue glowiness we've had in past games.
Anyways, I just thought I'd chuck this .gif from the new Star Trek: Beyond trailer in here. This new warp effect is possibly the one thing from all nuTrek that I actually like - it's exciting, and interesting to look at, but retains some amount of the serene, almost regal dignity a starship at warp in Star Trek ought to have - and I feel like the whole 'distorted space' look could fit pretty well with what we know about how FTL works in the Mass Effect universe, if BioWare were looking to change things up from the fairly generic blue glowiness we've had in past games for Andromeda.
The effect looks incredible, and at the same time it's also amazingly simple conceptually.
It looks almost exactly like air compression in front of a bullet.
The effect looks incredible, and at the same time it's also amazingly simple conceptually.
It looks almost exactly like air compression in front of a bullet.
As a bullet is to the air, the Enterprise is to the fabric of reality, I suppose.
The other thing you could do with these kinds of effects is go for a "less is more" approach. This is a rather extreme example, but check out Looper's fancy-schmancy time travel effects:
The other thing you could do with these kinds of effects is go for a "less is more" approach. This is a rather extreme example, but check out Looper's fancy-schmancy time travel effects:
Eh, there's a place for ships pretty much appearing out of nowhere - it worked really well in a few episodes of nuBSG and, much as I hate to admit it, there's a pretty cool action scene in the first nuTrek film that relies on it - but I'd rather some visual splendour to my making mockery of the laws of physics, personally.
[snip]
Eh, there's a place for ships pretty much appearing out of nowhere - it worked really well in a few episodes of nuBSG and, much as I hate to admit it, there's a pretty cool action scene in the first nuTrek film that relies on it - but I'd rather some visual splendour to my making mockery of the laws of physics, personally.
Speaking about space ships, I loved the design of Spock's little ship in that one, it was different as well as being aesthetic af! And on that note here's a few ship designs I found rather interesting.
These first ones are more of a fighter type vessels, it'd be interesting to have various models of fighters reflecting the cultures and aesthetics of the various alien species unlike previous ME games where all fighters had the rather same bland design.
The next set is for slightly larger vessels, more like small space ships, frigates or dreadnoughts.
Speaking about space ships, I loved the design of Spock's little ship in that one, it was different as well as being aesthetic af! And on that note here's a few ship designs I found rather interesting.
These first ones are more of a fighter type vessels, it'd be interesting to have various models of fighters reflecting the cultures and aesthetics of the various alien species unlike previous ME games where all fighters had the rather same bland design.
Spoiler
The next set is for slightly larger vessels, more like small space ships, frigates or dreadnoughts.
Spoiler
I wasn't massively keen on the Jellyfish, to be honest, but the design itself was pretty interesting. I just didn't like that it was supposed to be a Federation ship from the original timeline... And - though this may sound daft - all the random hyperactive spinniness was kinda emblematic of some of my problems with that film.
Those designs you've posted are fantastic, though--I particularly like that second frigate. And the last fighter looks like something from WipEout, which is always good. Oh, and the idea of having a sub-style 'starship pen', with the ship launching through the 'floor', has always appealed to me--I loved the way they launched fighters in Babylon 5:
I wasn't massively keen on the Jellyfish, to be honest, but the design itself was pretty interesting. I just didn't like that it was supposed to be a Federation ship from the original timeline... And - though this may sound daft - all the random hyperactive spinniness was kinda emblematic of some of my problems with that film.
Those designs you've posted are fantastic, though--I particularly like that second frigate. And the last fighter looks like something from WipEout, which is always good. Oh, and the idea of having a sub-style 'starship pen', with the ship launching through the 'floor', has always appealed to me--I loved the way they launched fighters in Babylon 5:
[snip]
I'm not a big fan of the new trek flicks myself but of the two things I liked about the movie, one was the jellyfish and the other was Zoe Saldana. I liked the spinning aspect of the ship though, it reminds me of the mass relays from Mass Effect and how perhaps individual ships could have localized mass relays for travelling across Andromeda. Speculation of course but fun to think about.
Yes the second frigate is rather unique in design isn't it. Not the usual pointy end spaceship look which is refreshing. I also love the sub style hanger design which was why I linked it. It'd also be more interesting to see slightly worn and rugged design for spaceships like the submarine in picture.
Also has anyone here played Homeworld, the old 3 dimensional space strategy game. They had some cool concepts for spaceships as well as great space battle settings!
Yes the second frigate is rather unique in design isn't it. Not the usual pointy end spaceship look which is refreshing. I also love the sub style hanger design which was why I linked it. It'd also be more interesting to see slightly worn and rugged design for spaceships like the submarine in picture.
The general cigar shape of a submarine isn't too far fetched for starship design, the opposite, you don't have wings and protrusions that can perhaps be more easily damaged by anything from a meteor shower, to the pressures of re-entry, to weapon fire.
All the important bits are protected via the thick external armor (again, somewhat like a submarine), and of course like with a submarine you will have easily sealed bulkheads in case of a hull breach.
The shape of a cigar is also (relative to other designs) very efficient when it comes to the maximum utilization of available space vs. surface area.
Surface mounted weapons like GARDIAN laser blisters are also going to be more efficient when it comes to their available firing arcs.
The advantages are so many that I start to wonder if more "traditional" aesthetic design like the Normandy have any technical advantages at all.
Speaking about space ships, I loved the design of Spock's little ship in that one, it was different as well as being aesthetic af! And on that note here's a few ship designs I found rather interesting.
These first ones are more of a fighter type vessels, it'd be interesting to have various models of fighters reflecting the cultures and aesthetics of the various alien species unlike previous ME games where all fighters had the rather same bland design.
IMO during the design process they should think more intensely about the evolutionary/historical background of the species. A lot of sci-fi designs are still based on the basic shape of a bird - a pointy shape with wings on the sides, a good example here:
It does even remind quite a lot of Normandy due to its shape.
But what if some species took their inspiration to flight from creatures with a very different shapes and developed aerodynamically efficient forms from those? Maybe something like this:
Or when thinking about the general proportions of spacecraft, let's consider possible differences between species from high g and low g worlds. Would spaceships from high g worlds be somewhat smaller, more "aerodynamic", with more prominent engines due to the necessity of weight savings during earlier stages of their space travel development, with such a design prevailing even after further advances in technology were made and certain restraints became obsolete in deep space?
What about species that for some reason invented highly efficient energy sources and durable materials way before they decided to develop aircraft? Would their aircraft try to emulate their local wildlife much closer than other species, simply because they could due to available technology right at the start of this thecnological development? A bit like was done in "Oblivion", just maybe with proper wings for atmospheric flight:
ps.: While browsing some sci-fi art a picture came up, that made me think that it would be pretty interesting to visit a large planetary spaceport or a military base with a lot of traffic going on to and from space. Lots of technical personell checking the air-/spacecraft, (un)loading cargo, tall towers and maybe deep vertical tunnels/shafts leading to underground facilities.
Here is the picture:
Currently the Star Citizen has pretty good aesthetics in it's space ships.
The advantages are so many that I start to wonder if more "traditional" aesthetic design like the Normandy have any technical advantages at all.
Makes sense for Normandy itself at least, since it goes into atmosphere frequently. Not so much for bigger ships.
Now I've remembered Battle for the Citadel, where cruisers were opening their "wings" on engagement. What was the purpose of it? We'll never know I guess. 
It was a spectacle though.
The building design was pretty at least, but the Orlesian hairstyles Leliana described to the Warden in DA:O were more reminiscent of Marie Antoinette's extravagance. Part of that could be hand waved by the fact that she was explaining Orlesian fashions from over ten years before the Inquisitor went to the winter palace (and not during a time of civil war), but it still seems unlikely that all these haughty Orlesian nobles would tend toward the same hairstyles as your average Ferelden soldier.
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