Proposal Discussion Nice concept pictures, but the game doesn’t look the same.

[tucker]

Ok, with elite and elite 2 you use your imagination, but with today’s graphics you shouldn’t have too.
looking at the video's you have nice square asteroids and odd looking afterburners. I want to see ships being ripped apart, asteroids spinning and impacting against each other. Dust and small particles bouncing off your hull.
This is what I really expected to see from a game I have to wait another year to play.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewC4ov9HXBw
Simple but beautiful. Hope their hiring this Kris. I’ll still play it though, but I’m not impressed.
Look at the difference with the cobra and the docking sequence of this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg9k7E4ngFw

 

[Geraldine]

Hi Tucker
Firstly, welcome to the forum. What you have seen so far in the game would likely be work in progress builds and may not reflect how the game looks on actual release. Your are correct though that Kris's video was very good indeed. The talent within the Elite community never ceases to amaze me and if Frontier are recruiting, they could do a lot worse than check out their very own forums

Anyways, have fun in the forums!

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

Ok, with elite and elite 2 you use your imagination, but with today’s graphics you shouldn’t have too.
looking at the video's you have nice square asteroids and odd looking afterburners. I want to see ships being ripped apart, asteroids spinning and impacting against each other. Dust and small particles bouncing off your hull.
This is what I really expected to see from a game I have to wait another year to play.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewC4ov9HXBw
Simple but beautiful. Hope their hiring this Kris. I’ll still play it though, but I’m not impressed.
Look at the difference with the cobra and the docking sequence of this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg9k7E4ngFw

seriously? your posting dev diaries from the kickstarter that were created before the game was even funded? I think you skipped about 14 months of work there and labeled it a finished product - wait until we see the beta at the least before panning it, that was after all only an early days demo.

 

[Lestat]

It could also be due to the different graphics settings. Not everyone computer will be able to max out there graphics.

 

[metatheurgist]

There's a big difference between an what you can do with animated short film and what you can do in real time with a game graphics engine. That said, no-one knows what the final game will look like yet.

 

[Rafe Zetter]

There's a big difference between what you can do with an animated short film and what you can do in real time with a game graphics engine. That said, no-one knows what the final game will look like yet.

^^ This

Tucker what you have said is akin to comparing the FMV's in games of old like Baldurs gate and then complaining "why doesn't the rest of the game look like this?"

Seriously my friend, you need to go back 15 years, and start your gaming career from then, then you might have a better perspective of things now.

 

[Dark Star]

Ok, with elite and elite 2 you use your imagination, but with today’s graphics you shouldn’t have too.

It must be hard for a designer to pitch for first person shooters vs players who prefer something more cerebral? The temptation to do something just because others do it, rather than acknowledge you actually got it right the first time, it’s not broken, and doesn’t need fixing.

The short of the Cobra homage is great, except for parts being on the dark side (I like to see everything going on without cranking the brilliance up), and, if that was an impression of the console, sorry buts it’s awful – IMO. Too cluttered, too busy, and worst of all ‘orange’.

The old Elite film was very welcomed, brought back a lot of fond memories – ’nothing looks like it, or lasts like it’. The simple console is clear, functional and gives the information you need. I’ve always thought the 3D scanner was outstanding, and still do. I for one would be very, very happy to have it again. Smoothed and sharpened by modern resolutions of course, but essentially the same.

 

[Bingo Brewster]

I would not worry

Welcome Tucker

I would not worry too much until Alpha or Beta

As someone pointed out, Kriss' excellent film is a film, whereas the Cobra teaser is in-game. (@ Dark Star I quite liked Kris' take on the console, with a few tweaks perhaps)

As DB points out during the Kickstarter videos, much of what you see is placeholder, and that many things are not shown, because FD are simply not ready to show them.

Keep the faith, I'm sure ED will not dissapoint.

 

[SAB380]

Ok, with elite and elite 2 you use your imagination, but with today’s graphics you shouldn’t have too.
looking at the video's you have nice square asteroids and odd looking afterburners. I want to see ships being ripped apart, asteroids spinning and impacting against each other. Dust and small particles bouncing off your hull.
This is what I really expected to see from a game I have to wait another year to play.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewC4ov9HXBw
Simple but beautiful. Hope their hiring this Kris. I’ll still play it though, but I’m not impressed.
Look at the difference with the cobra and the docking sequence of this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg9k7E4ngFw

Pre alpha footage is not what to go by.

Quick comparison:
Check out the footage so far of ships in the videos and then look at the latest newsletter where it shows a pic of the ALMOST finished version of the Sidewinder ship. Looks like a totally different game and even generation of game, right?

There you go

 

[Simon Brewer]

Hi guys,

As others have said, the footage in the Kickstarter videos is very early placeholder art, and obviously not anywhere near final quality. Rest assured, everyone here on the Elite team here is determined to make Dangerous a beautiful looking game, and the images that we have shown on the newsletters are an indication of where we are heading. We will have some new video footage to show soon, not to mention some new images in upcoming newsletters. Watch this space

Thanks,

Simon

 

[Patrick_68000]

Hi guys,

As others have said, the footage in the Kickstarter videos is very early placeholder art, and obviously not anywhere near final quality. Rest assured, everyone here on the Elite team here is determined to make Dangerous a beautiful looking game, and the images that we have shown on the newsletters are an indication of where we are heading. We will have some new video footage to show soon, not to mention some new images in upcoming newsletters. Watch this space

Thanks,

Simon

Ashley has also stated in "Feature Requests Update # 10 - A Tale For The Ages".

"But you can look forward to the next newsletter, which will be released next Wednesday and should be as good as ever"


---- There is no one who doubts the quality of the work of Frontier. Except, perhaps ... Tucker ...

 

[JeffRyan]

Hi Tucker,

Nice entrance! Welcome to the forums

 

[deej]

Ok, with elite and elite 2 you use your imagination,

And this is a bad thing?

but with today’s graphics you shouldn’t have too.

I totally disagree. Most games that go all-out on the eye-candy usually end up being nothing more than a glorified tech demo with near zero replayability. A good game can still (yes, even in todays day and age) look incredibly cheesy but still be a lot of fun to play (eg: minecraft). Ok, I'm not saying dangerous should throw back to CGA styled graphics but I happily take 'average' graphics for extra depth in the missions/storyline/universe/etc.

 

[dannysquid]

Back in the day, one of the things that made David Braben's games so eagerly anticipated was that they were leagues ahead of the competition graphically. He was doing things that other programmers weren't even considering.

That's a lot trickier now, with everything so dependent on libraries and graphics cards.

But I don't think ED will be a game with retro graphics.

 

[Geraldine]

But I don't think ED will be a game with retro graphics.

Agreed, I dont think it will have retro graphics, however I do hope it has tons of retro gameplay

 

[Captain N]

I'm still hoping for a wireframe mode.

 

[Geraldine]

That was talked about during the kickstarter wasn't it? I think FD said they would only consider it if there was enough of a demand for it. Perhaps that's something for the DDF to ponder over? Bare in mind though, it will add one more thing to do before release if it's taken up by the dev team.

 

[Karl]

I don't want retro graphics, I want something that looks realistic instead of the usual fantasy stuff we always see. If non realistic is there, to support those fans (which I guess is the majority), then provide that with ship upgrades.

If I want the darkside to be lit, it either have to come from the installation itself, or reflected light of major bodies (planets and moons). I don't want smashing asteroids, except maybe as a one time event, because those things have a really thin chance of happening. I don't want visible nebulae (and god forbid "fog"), or extremely colorful and/or bright skies out there, unless I'm inside an actual globular cluster. I want realistic exposures of space.

 

[dannysquid]

With concept art, the designer can choose where to put the light sources. You'll notice things are nearly always backlit in the paintings and trailer videos. It looks good. It's the same reason model shots are nearly always backlit in films like ALIEN and 2001.

You can't do this in the game because you can't cheat the position of the nearest sun.

But I think there's no crime in making things as beautiful as possible. Finding extra light sources, adding a few particle effects etc... Stanley Kubrick used cosmetic fill light in 2001. Nobody needs to be more nerdy than Stanley Kubrick.

 

[Slawkenbergius]

The only thing that left me feeling a tadge disappointed was some of the space-station concept art. A lot of them were very good, but I really didn't like the twiddly bits added to this one, or the other Stanford ring they showed. I guess the spirals are supposed to be like the caps on Roman pillars? Personally, I feel that space-stations should have cleaner lines and feel somewhat more monolithic. The extra detail actually seems to detract from that picture, making it a bit fussy.


Also, the docking port in the Cobra teaser video had some details I wasn't totally sure of.

• The whole thing seemed a bit too small in scale.
• I didn't really like the electrified pillar things. (There was something similar on the Anaconda in the Scavenger hunt video).
• I would like to have seen some kind of window onto a control room
• It was rotating the wrong way!

However, that's a pretty small list of complaints compared to the mass of positives I could have picked out. Hopefully as the design process for the space-stations continues, we'll start to see some big improvements, as has already happened with the ship design. If the rest of the assets match up to what we've seen with that Sidewinder render, then I will be very happy.

Edit: Actually, looking at the Sidewinder render, compared to the 'procedural aging' shot it does look like it may have been a little over-rounded at the edges. It may just be lighting - but I do prefer sharp edges. The Viper model has definitely been over-rounded, as the 'fangs' should be much sharper than they are at the moment.