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Originally Posted by Aradune
3. The more 'realistic' approach of Vanguard, EQ 2, etc. tend to use technology like bump mapping, specular lighting, etc. Sometimes a screenshot will look substandard but when the game is seen in motion these issues tend to not be present or nearly as present. Again, this stresses the importance of us releasing in-game movies of gameplay once we have our animations more up to snuff.
4. As addressed elsewhere, some of the 'too brown' comments and other similar comments stem from our world lighting model not being done. This is a priority for our graphics coders, but not as high a priority right now relative to getting beta 0 where we need it to be to transition into beta 1.
5. The specific style of our player characters. This is another item in the subjective realm. Again, the more realistic we try to make things when it comes to characters, the more our failures and/or current technology's failures become apparent because we are used to seeing real life. That said, there's still that subjective component to all of this. Personally, I love the style we've chosen for our player characters, but that's subjective from my standpoint. They're not going to majorly change outside of tweaks and such though.
6. Character customization is not in yet. When it is you will not only see faces look different on both player characters as well as NPCs that are of the same races you can play, but you will also see a lot more variation in the body (fat, skinny, etc.) that I think will make a huge difference. Right now, while customization is obviously important, we think getting beta 0 to beta 1 is more important and so I wouldn't expect to see a lot of progress there until late beta 1 or beta 2.
7. Shadows. Right now we have a temporary shadow solution in for player characters, and they also don't show up at all depending on the scene and how many characters are in that scene. So when you don't see shadows under characters they don't seem as 'planted' in the world as they will. What we're working on is a more universal shadow system that will not only work on characters but on the environment (buildings casting shadows, etc.). This is a work in progress that will take some time. It may not even show up until beta 3 or so. Until then the lack of shadows will detract from screenshots and movies. Shadows, btw, are really tough to do without slamming the frame rate hard. We're confident our solution will be quite nice, but like I mentioned, it will take some time to finish. In the meantime, we'll forge ahead with development in general as the shadow tech can be added at any time (obviously before launch is a necessity).
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08-19-2005, 11:27 AM
Awenyddion over at Vanguard Tentonhammer has published an article discussing what it might be like for the Vanguard development team trying to raise the bar on gaming in the wake of such a huge success with Everquest. Awenyddion also touches on the recent poll on what Vanguard fans would prefer as a death penalty and the ramifications of that poll on the development of the game. Enjoy the article.
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