IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview

[Sombre]

Considering it's concept art released to the public, I think it's an absolute garbage. If a paid artist did that I hope they had a deadline of 30 minutes for 10 sketches or something, because I think there are 13 year olds doodling on their desks that could do a better job than that.

If I was in their marketing team I would be demanding they take that **** offline.

[happygeek]

The last couple dozen or so remarks seem to me exceptionally odd -- not because I have different aesthetic tastes than most of you, but because we are all here playing Dominions3, arguably one of the best MP fantasty TBS games around -- and (arguably) the game I have played longest with the worst sound and graphics I have experienced since 1990.

I cannot imagine anyone liking Dominions and caring a whit about its looks or sound (I have to turn the sound off).

Originally Posted by Sombre

I think it's an absolute garbage. I think there are 13 year olds doodling on their desks that could do a better job than that.

[Foodstamp]

I still disagree. I think it is hard to concept for the final look they are going for. The art team chose an artist, Alfonso Mucha, who would be very difficult to mock up starting art for. His style is completely different than anything we have seen in a game before and I could see how the concept art team could run into an issue of the concept art being more detailed than the abstract finish.

Keep in mind too that at the very least Stardock's space games have looked terrible all the way up until a few months before release.

To give you some examples of the final result they are going to go for, here are a couple of pictures by the artist whose style they are trying to mimic:

Here is my favorite painting by the artist:



and here is one from the seasons panel:



The concept art may not be pleasing to the eye, but how do you ask someone to mock up something in this style? Especially considering I have only ever seen one piece Mucha has done that portrays a man, and all of his images are very basic, the artistic styling primarily being the flowing of the bodies and color.

Finally, who cares what the concept art looks like as long as it conveys the point to the 3d artists? Probably the only mistake Stardock made was publicly displaying the concept art for fan critique.

They should have just had a guy come in and do some Warcraft looking stuff for the publicly released concept art.

[LDiCesare]

Much as I think the guys in armor don't look good for a 2D drawing, they are certainly ok for a 3D artist to work from.
However, the guy with a shovel has a real problem in terms of proportions. If the 3D guys model a shovel that small, it will look ugly.

[Foodstamp]

I agree with you on that, and the more i look at the concept art, the more I agree it could have been done a lot better, even for the end style they are going for. Maybe it is like sombre said and they were under a ridiculous deadline, or maybe the guy doing the concept art normally doesn't do that kind of stuff.

I think I know which guy is doing it, if you go to stardock's website, there is a gallery of guys working on games, and one of the guys is working on 2d icons that look similar in style to this concept art. Maybe they told him to do it even though it is not his normal field of expertise?

[Sombre]

Dom3 graphics (those actually made for dom3 rather than relics) are much, MUCH higher quality than those sketches. It's true that it doesn't look amazing. But it doesn't look horrible either. It just looks low budget and basic.

That concept art looks horrible. Not low budget. Just terrible. I mean it would be a fine effort for a random fanart amateur with no training or skill as an illustrator, but to come as publically distributed concept art for a game?

[Fantomen]

I´m with Sombre. Those concepts are unbeleivably crappy coming from a proffesional artist.

My expectations for this game aren´t high at the moment, the whole thing seems very uninspired.

I actually think Dom3 has good looking units, but the game as a whole (though my favourite game) isn´t beautiful. If those basic but very inspired unit sprites were accompanied by matching battleground, a slick GUI and good handdrawn images in the descriptions, it could have been a very beautiful game.

[romis]

I found their website to be very uninformative, and these two articals next to useless. short of wading through their forums, which didn't look too promising anyways, where are you all getting the information that has you salavating over this game... you know, those that are. The first artical mentions an 'impressive feature list', can't find it.(bear in mind, i turn off everything on my webbrowser, as such it could be there and i just can't see it, if thats the case, please let me know where)

so far i know i can play it 2D for slow machines, zoom in till i see people working in buildings(why would i want to, especially in a turn based game...), change the terrain with magic, oh and the initial land grab was removed because they believe it often decides the game... personally i find the game is often decided before it starts by strategic placement, availability of essential resources for my nation, neighbors strength, etc. etc. i mean, he who grabs the most land is the one in the best position to do it. Its the nature of random generation, how has that changed?

[Tolkien]

I suppose I third Sombre. While bad 2-D Concept Art doesn't always translate into bad 3-D Units, nonetheless, the concept art is atrocious.

And yes, we are playing Dominions 3: but the graphics aren't horrible. And at the moment we aren't talking about graphics, we're talking about concept art. Completely different things.

[Illuminated One]

I guess happygeeks point was not that the concept art is beautiful, but that it's nothing to care much about. Take a note "concept artist sucks" and look at more important things like gameplay.