3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

Hey guys Im excited about Dom II.
2 things what I dont like so far.

1. No diplomacy.
2. These 3d battle scenes are horrible, especially those units http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif . This graphics was ok like 10 years ago....
You guys should use a top-down view maybe? Example: The War Engine...
I know that this game isnt about good gfx, but one thing is for sure: a horrible 3d battle gfx wont make this game any better.......in fact it may scare away potential customers...

[ September 21, 2003, 14:51: Message edited by: Mortifer ]

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Whatever you think of the battles it is to late to change the graphics now. I myself think they are an improvement over the battles in dom1 at least.

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

What? I've been thinking that the new 3d battle looks great! Compared to the original, graphics are awesome. And as you said yourself, this game isn't about visual effects...

Matti

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

Hm I am not sure...at least the units there arent heavily pixelated..The terrain gfx and the overland map gfx is 'ok' in Dom II...the main problem are those units on the screenshots, those are damn horrible. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif
The closest units are like big pixel hills.

[ September 21, 2003, 14:19: Message edited by: Mortifer ]

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The units are small sprites, therfore they look pixelated when viewed close up, most of the time there is no reason to zoom in to that degree, but you can if you wish. Most of the beta testers that previously played dom 1 seem to think that the quasi 3D of dom 2 is an improvement over its predecessor. And illwinter doesnt have the resources to produce up to date 3D graphics.

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

Hmmmmm...
Before i say anything stupid, did you use 3d-accelerator better than some Voodoo card when you took the pictures?

My catch is, better hardware may reduce the pixelation. Or not.

[ September 21, 2003, 14:50: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

Ah those are zoomed in images? Well than maybe it wont be that bad afterall.

Johan may I have a question? It was necessary to change to 3d in the battle screen?
There are strategy games with awesome 2d/isometric gfx on the market!
Even the War Engine's top-down view would be awesome with a 16bit color and min. 1024x768 resolution!

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

Dominions II, like Dominions I, is much, much more than it's graphics. If i realy like a game, i don't mind about the graphics: i care about the content.

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No it wasn't necessery, but we thought it looked better than the previous battlefield, and JK had been working on a 3D engine for other reasons. Also the particle effects in the dom2 battles are significant improvement over the old spell effects from dom 1.

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

Spell effects REALLY look great guys. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
Terrain is also fully 3D and the only thing that is pixilated would be units, but considering how many of them are there its not wonder why devs can't make 3D graphics for them. I for one prefer to have more units then few 3D ones.

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

Oh, yeah, one more thing. Higher resolution will improve quality of unit images dramatically so it will all look so much better. People with better computers wont notice pixels so much as will people with lower-end computers.

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

Ah yes, i suspected something like that.
And i just love particle effects. Thy have their own unique beaty.

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

I saw some of the screenshots an I think that they look great. The top-down approach is ok for keeping track of your units in a tactical battle, but visually it tends to look like a bad tablecloth. And since this is just a replay of the combat the pseudo 3D is fantastic (the shots of Ermor storming the castle made me salivate just a bit). It gives you a better feel for the battle yet doesn't waste a lot of time. After all, by mid to late game you tend to ship through them rather quickly. It would be a shame to waste overdone 3D grafics on something that you will eventually just breeze past.

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

I'm waiting to see my first Dom II Orb Lightning...
The first casting Orb Lightning in Dom I was almost religious experience for me...

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

Having played Doms I, I must say that the 3D terrain rendering, along with the all new particles engine is a big overhaul.

I'm unable to figure what you can do with the camera though. Does you have a movable camera to start with? Which axe can you tilt? I suppose you always see the battlefied from a side, as the sprites are made like this, but is it easy to see where the units are positioned from the viewing angle we always see in the screenshots? The benefit of the top down 2D view was that you were seeing precisely the unit positionning as battle progressed. With this side view, I wonder if you dont just see a big pool of unit ???

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">What will be the max. resolution, what will be allowed? I have a 3Ghz P4 with an ATI 9800 Pro and 1 Gbyte RAMBUS + 21' monitor here, so higher = better for me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
I hope that 1600x is supported as well!

[ September 21, 2003, 21:35: Message edited by: Mortifer ]

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

Max resolution listed is 2048x1536. Those that your hardware can't support will be dimmed (unselectable) so no need to worry about messing up your system.

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

Ah, nice http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">How is that ? I mean, if the engine use sprites for units the pixellation comes mainly from the 2D sprite bitmaps themselves... If they are say 32 pixels high they'll look awful from close, whatever your CPU and GFX card !
For example look at Medieval TW compared to Shogun TW (the previous game) : units in MTW look much better than STW just because they have "hi res" sprites instead of low res ones. Same for Combat Mission 2 vs CM1 (but there is hi res mods to close the gap). If the engine allow modders to make and use higher res sprites (as in CM), it'll be fine http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif , but else, that'll be a limiting factor.
I agree with you for the "3D" part though, it will be more or less good according to the graphics card.

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

All I know is that when I play 800x600 resolution units and icons are much more pixilated then on 1024x768 resolution. How exactly, I can't explain but devs probably could.
But as far as I know higher resolution = smaller pixels so you don't notice them.

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

Well, it might as well be 256. Or not.
I would place my bet on 16-bit or 32-bit personaly.

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

I seriously doubt that the game would be running with 256 colors. Thats pretty impossible to get a good (understand usable for everything) color table for particles if you have only 256 colors.

16 bits has always been a bit messy to use, so I guess strongly in favor of 32 bits (well 24 in reality, 8 being used for alpha channel).

the higher the resolution, the smaller the graphics, so I guess this is what Daynarr is implying with his remark. If you zoom, you get pixated sprites again in this case. On the other hand, with a high quality screen you can zoom with less crenelation (aliasing) visible, because you will have more dots on your CRT/flat screen for the same amount of pixels (this depend of the highest resolution that your crt can do, and also I think you must use a special feature of your video card to activate this hardware anti-aliasing).

for what its worth,

[ September 22, 2003, 13:47: Message edited by: Pocus ]

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

Also, Mortifer, why should Dominions II cost less than AoW? If you answer because of the GFX, i pity you.

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

Well if it will be 16 bit, I can convert and modify awesome unit gfx from other games, just like the civ3 modders are doing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Well it should cost less imho, since dont forget that making AoW was lot harder than making Dom II. A huge dev team worked on that game, and only a few on DoM, if am I correct.
The AoW team put in lot more work to release that game, and its not just because of the gfx.
Just think: gfx, sounds, music, effect etc are all superior there, not to mention the awesome gameplay!
Anyways I will buy DoM II. regardless of the price, as I said it wont scare away me from buying, but Im sure that lot of people will think twice before ordering it, if it will be 45 or 50 bucks..

PS. I noticed that you rated me of 1 star Nerfix. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Thanks for it... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

[ September 22, 2003, 14:46: Message edited by: Mortifer ]

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

Yah, sure they can make GFX work but they can't make map editor stable before they relase it and they can't make concealment work so that AI won't see your units. I have played a game that has been made with effectively 1 man team, and "concealment" works in that game. In fact "concealment" works in Dominion too.
Dominions I earned Illwinter nothing but pocket money, it's about time for them to get some money for their work.

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

I hope that they will. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

PS. Im getting lot of bad votes, LOL!

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

I was referring to AoW 2 team...
AoW 2 gave me te bitter lesson of "NEVER TRUST THE HYPE, ALWAYS PLAY THE DEMO!"

[ September 22, 2003, 15:04: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

side topic : Where you do see **who** voted for you?

To be fair with Mortifer, it is true that the AOW2 team (at least 3 devs , 4+ artists and surely more persons, all this full time for 2 years) has surely made the game costly to produce that dominions.

but in our society, thats not the amount of works which is of importance, but the end result. For example Master of Orion III is a flop, and the sells are low enough to prevent any hope of MoO IV... still the game asked far much in manpower than AoW II.

Daikatana also, the infamous game, was a black hole in money, and was total failure (from a selling stand point, I never played it).

so I dont think we should use the amountofwork-o-meter as a measure to the selling price of a game. I prefer to have the price in accordance with the pleasure we get from it. True, AoW II graphical engine is a pleasure to behold. But I prefer in the end the gameplay, and simultaenous multiplayer ability of Dominions.

no need to start a flame war about the fact that dominions do not deserve 45$. Your milleage may vary as the proverb says. I have paid 45$ for the ugly graphics of dominions I, because, as I have played it several hundreds of hours, the price paid is small compared to the pleasure it gave to me. The most beautiful scenes of any game are in your head. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

I totally agree....AoW2 totally sucked....then, Shadow Magic came out, and everyone on the Boards said that it fixed everything in AoW2...so, I bought it...30 bucks down the drain...meanwhile, a gem called Dominions was waiting for me to discover it.

Personally, I think that illwinter has pulled off something harder than the folks that did AoW...just compare the size of the teams involved...

Sure, Shadow Magic might be pretty, but that only gets you so far (at least with me)...gameplay is what matters...Shadow Magic i played, but every game seemed the same....gameplay to me sucked....really really really bad....

Dominions, the gameplay is infinite....(or near to)...and Dominions II only builds on that....no, I would pay 50 dollars for Dominions II (hell, I would pay 40 or more for Dominions I, now that I know what the game has to offer)...If I could go back in time, I wouldn't give a nickel short of dollar for it...

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

Bah,
Entertainment economy doesn't work on a "quality price" basis, crappy movies and books cost as much as good ones !
It's just a matter of Return on Investment : how many copies will sell regarding development effort.
Dom2 costed something like 2-3 man/years, and will sell maybe 5,000 : that's only 250,000 bucks for Shrapnel and Illwinter to reward their work. not that much. Before that Illwinter sold the games but didn't expect to make a linving of it.

OTOH, a big hit can sell 1,000,000, and so generates 50M money : even if half of that is going to the retail stores, there still is 25M for publishers and devs ... That's more than enough even for a 2-year 20 devs teams !
AoW2 falls somewhere inbetween, I don't have the sales figures, maybe in the 100,000 range or more.

Anyway, Mortifer, I gave you 3 stars http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

cpbeller - you are very unique I must say. I know like 40 players who cannot stop playing Shadow Magic, because it is so good. To me Shadow Magic is lot better than Dominions, but that not means that I wont play Dom II. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

i just didn't like AoW2, or Shadow Magic...everything in the game(s) pointed to that I would enjoy it...but I never did...and couldn't force myself to play it for very long...It does have good production values and all...but for me...the game is just too boring...

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

Its all cool! We are different in every way, that is making the world wonderful! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

AoW 2 cost $50 or more didn't it? AoW SM cost significantly less, as it was more of an addon to AoW 2, even though it is a stand alone product. I'm a big fan of the AoW series though, I've played them all, but I have to say that AoW 2 was seriously flawed in many ways, and SM, while correcting alot of the issues that 2 had, still seems to be lacking in some regaurds. Of course its all personal opinion, if you want the more epic feel Dom is the direction to go, if you want a more beer and pretzels game AoW is still the best in its class.

The big issue for me is and always will be SP, as I really don't have the time for MP, and PBEM is too slow for my tastes, though in Dom it is less of a problem as the turn mechanics and overall pace seem a better fit for me. SP in AoW SM is ok for a while, then it rapidly decends into utter boredom as you are forced to micro your cities and armies to a horrible extent. Dom may not be much better, but hopefully Dom2 will fix some of the micro hell that Dom1 contains. Another problem bedeviling AoW SM is the lack of variety in composing your armies. Most races have 3-4 units that simply never get built ever, and once you pass a certain point in the game lvl1 units are never built either (other than the occasional ranged unit for garrison duty). Eventully even the lvl2s are never built. That is a failling of many games though, not having a place for every unit in the game. Dom seems to do better at this, though I'm sure there are some units for some nations that are rarely built.

The gfx and sound for AoW are excellent though, and the game does deserve credit for that, no matter how unimportant it may be to some individuals. The reality is that a game with excellent game play but poor gfx will remain a cult classic, never gaining the acclaim it deserves. Sad to say that perhaps, but what can you do? There is always a crowd that can't get past the gfx, and they are a larger crowd than the grognards who value gameplay over eye candy.

I think that Dom2 looks quite good (much improved over Dom1), and though I can't comment on the sound or music, I don't really care (I normally turn it all off anyway). Hopefully Dom2 will get the praise and sales it deserves, in the end only the total quality of the game will determine what that should be http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

Dominions SP is better than Shadow magic SP for sure...fighting the shadow magic ai is basically just killing lots of level 1 units and getting hit by random damage spells. Also as mentioned before there are only a few useful units despite attempts to fix the issue in shadow magic. And with the "AI ignores concealment" and protections being pretty much worthless there really arent many special abilites per unit. It looks like a lot until you realize fire protection, walking, and strike all mean nothing...charge is a generic attack boost more or less...with a few exceptions of pure non-physical damage the game basically becomes "stronger units beat weaker ones" with very little subtelty....and the magic is all add to stats, summon, or do damage...nothing really interesting to add strategic complexity
Maybe MP is better, but it just seems to add more time inbetween the boring turns to me
I admit the graphics are nice...but the music all sounds too similar for me. Honestly I find AoW more micro as you need to do combat after combat to keep your stupid ai from killing your units, without much thought in each of the battles.

And although more man hours were probably put into AoW, you have to consider that with the large number of copies that sell compared to Dominions 2 the profit/man hour ratio is going to be signifigantly higher even if they are the same price. And all because people want to stare at the nymph.
And I also believe in paying for quality http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif If somebody made a 6 hour long movie would you pay 3 times as much to watch that as a 2 hour long movie just because it took longer to make? I might pay more in the theory it offers more enjoyment, but not 3 times as much.

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

And AoW is generic on the top of all other things!
Dwarwes, Elves(URGH!) and Orcs... Blargh...
Dominions has creative, pseudo-historical nations, i realy like the idea and perhaps thats why Dominions "hit me so hard". And no alignment system! For gods sake, i HATE it when alignment system gets mixed in strategy games!

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hmm, perhaps AoW is generic in terms of the names of the races, but within the races are interesting units with interesting abilities. Unfortunately many of those units are not worth building, and many of the abilities don't quite work the way they should...

If you ask me Dom is also very 'generic', but the gameplay does a better job perhaps at covering that up. There is simply 'more' in Dom though, but realistically HI from one nation (or independant) isn't always *that* much different from HI from another source. The same for most units and commanders. Granted each nation has some unique units or commanders, but for the most part, I don't feel any greater attachment to them than I did to unique units in AoW (the Glutton is just a wicked cool creature, though somewhat underpowered for its level).

Well either you like one or the other better, or you try not to get too hung up on the outer shell and really enjoy the game play.

Heh, I had a looooong debate over on the AoW forums about this type of topic. It was more about how much immersion and suspention of disbelief mattered in playing a computer game. Obviously thats a personal matter, but for the sake of that discussion we were talking about game elements, and one side was trying to attack them using realism arguments. I just don't think that it makes sense to attack a game element you don't like simply because it 'isn't realistic'. Better to address how the game mechanic effects gameplay, rather than any individuals ability to rationalize its inclusion in the game in the first place http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

The problem is I find most of the aow abilities not interesting. Most of the decent units have no useful abilities except for the druid and entangle which is just WRONG. Entangle is far too powerful.

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Are you talking about entange in AoW2 or in AoWSM? In 2 it is overpowered, in SM its not nearly so bad, mostly becasue the druids are more fragile.

Abilities that are interesting...
Swallow Whole
Strangle
Web
Grasp
Round Attack (though its a bit underpowered)
Whirlwind (only on one unit though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif )
Seduce/Dominate/Possess (and drain will by extention)
...

I dunno, there are some broken abilities, the resistances and immunities. Willpower is a bit funky as it pertains to surrender (depending on your point of view). Flyers are still wicked tough, if you know how to use them, but they've been significantly toned down from AoW 2. Overall AoW SM is much better balanced than AoW SM, and has added alot of new content (not all of it good maybe). I can agree that Dom is more satisfing on many levels than AoW is, but AoW is hardly devoid of 'intersting' abilities. The problem is more that only units with 'interesting' abilities are worth building, and even then some units are still a waste of resources. Thats an issue with the game design though, and to change it they'd have to fundamentally change how you go about creating your forces, something I wish they would add, but I doubt we'd see.

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

Can't help but notice that this thread has turned into AOW2 thread. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

The color depth is 16 or 32 bit? I hope that it isnt 256!
If its at least 16 bit, we can add units with awesome gfx. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yeah. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

Back to putting the thread on its tracks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Looking again at the D2 screenshots, IMHO the problem with the graphics come from the units sprites : they look pixellated even from somewhat afar, as if the bitmaps were quite (too) small...

To get a better aspect they should be doubled in pixel size...But this involves redoing the 500+ units sprites http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif !
Unless the gfx are moddable (in external common format files) to allow fans to do them I don't expect Illwinter to be able to do it quickly ... but maybe I'm wrong (who am I to doubt http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ) ?

Re: 3d battle scenes are looking horrible! :(
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">2000 sprites.