Greetings all,
First of all I want to take a moment to thank Obsidian Ant, as always, for his highly constructive and positive way of addressing these points and seeking feedback.
I'm sorry for the delay. I wanted to wait until one of the senior members of the rendering team were available to discuss the thread in question. I know this has been raised before and we understand it's an important topic.
Some areas of the game, as mentioned previously, have been removed for optimisation. As an example, asteroid shadows were removed because they caused significant frame rate and stability issues.
Other changes have happened because they themselves rely on other things that have seen changes. For example envmpas/lighting. Some areas of the game have seen development (which is likely the areas you are mentioning) and some, such as asteroids are still awaiting some additional work.
The team are reviewing a number of ares such as fog, lighting, shadow and loading. It's not possible to give an exact answer as to when these areas will see fixes will be exactly or give more detail on those fixes but I can certainly assure you all that the development team are actively working on them.
Thanks,
Zac
Well, just imagine an extraordinary state of affairs called graphics settings for such things. "Ring shadows on/off". Oh, that would be terribly unfair on low-end users, having to go into the menus and press a button.
Being involved in games production, one would rather like to imagine you were aware of this strange alien concept we call 'differing system specifications'
Significant fps and stability issues on low-end systems and Xbox One perhaps. Essentially you are admitting that high-end users can go and walk off a cliff-- because we are not going to be looked after at all. As evidenced by your increasing efforts to reduce graphics, so you have to deal with fewer settings and variables.
Admit it, be honest (for the first time in history for a company mouth), you are doing this because if you can make work easier for yourself, it is ok to neglect a minority group in your community.
Because after all, high-end users didn't also pay money for the game, just like everyone else.
One would rather imagine developers would have pride in showing off the game in a fashion to which it can really shine. Alas, that depends on a rare commodity in this day and age called integrity.
Don't you people want your game to look breathtaking with this amazing cutting-edge feature called multiple light sources? To have a galaxy simulator, in which we now know the majority of stars are binary, and to only support a one-star light source system, is still a source of disbelief and comedy.
Oh, as a supplement: I expect tiresome responses from people who think I can't stay fixed within the context of this being a game (because there's always a few people like that). I am aware of this; and it's why I won't be contacted The Human Rights Convention in Geneva.
One can argue passionately about a matter that in the full world scope, isn't a serious one.