Desert arches: cool

[Martyn van Buren]

How cool are the big arches in the deserts?  I really like them.  I'm wondering, are we ever going to get climbable pieces of scenery?  I would really like to be able to fight my way up open towers with the chance of falling off, I guess platform-style.

[tigersfan]

Chris has said that he'd like to have some degree of this at some point. But, it may be a while yet.

[Martyn van Buren]

Great, missed that one.  Anyway, in the meantime those are my favorite piece of art from the game so far.

[x4000]

Glad you like it!

And in a lot of respects there's already areas with vertical aspects: obviously the caves, but also things like the forest.  But having more vertically-oriented outdoors areas is a goal.

In terms of literally climbing stuff -- not jumping from platform to platform -- that's unlikely to ever happen because it requires a lot of extra art.  So freeclimbing a wall wouldn't be a thing, is what I mean.

[zebramatt]

Well, maybe not in 2011 or 2012, but who knows what he future holds! 

[x4000]

Well, that is true enough.  Adding lots of animation frames to every character (out of a planned 120+ characters) is something I'd want to have a dedicated artist to do, though, because I certainly don't want to do it.

[Tayrtahn]

They are cool! I think the deserts are my favorite regions so far (of those that I've seen, anyway). The graphics all really work together and I love the music.

[arcee]

Well, that is true enough.  Adding lots of animation frames to every character (out of a planned 120+ characters) is something I'd want to have a dedicated artist to do, though, because I certainly don't want to do it.

optimistic translation: if I buy AVVW for all my friends for Christmas, climbing will happen.

[coconutpete]

Haven't been to the deserts yet.. but at the moment I like the caves the most, since they're filled with all those plants and stuff. Gives an idea how pretty all the building interiors will be when Arcen is adding furniture. Can't wait!

One more thing, I was thinking of. In the background of every regional map, you mostly see just blue or something. It would be awesome if there's something more to see there. For example some buildings you also see in the front, but then a bit farther away.. I think it would add a bit of depth to every map.

So far the game looks and plays fantastic. Haven't had this much fun with a game for a long, long time. It's really unique.

[x4000]

Thank you!  That's always awesome to hear.

And yeah, for the backgrounds in regions, I do want to get to adding parallax backgrounds that have a lot of interesting things to them.  Same sort of thing for the caves, too, actually, to make it look like they have some neat depth in them.  But that might not work as well, we'll see -- definitely on the exteriors.

[Underfot]

The parallax idea is one I'd love to see.  Having 'holes' in the caves where you can see a background with distant light sources would make the underground seem more like a cavern.

[x4000]

The parallax idea is one I'd love to see.  Having 'holes' in the caves where you can see a background with distant light sources would make the underground seem more like a cavern.

Ooh!!  That's a really good idea, why didn't I think of doing it that way!

[zebramatt]

It'd give slightly more opportunity for light sources in the big sections of cavern between the ceiling and floor, too. At the moment all the light sources are very much clustered along the floor, with the occasional floaty bit dotted about.

[Martyn van Buren]

Oh, just got to the forest, that is pretty much what I was hoping for!  Though for regions like that, that are mostly free-floating platforms, might we eventually see chunks stacked on top of each other instead of next to, so you have to climb to move forward?

[x4000]

Oh, just got to the forest, that is pretty much what I was hoping for!  Though for regions like that, that are mostly free-floating platforms, might we eventually see chunks stacked on top of each other instead of next to, so you have to climb to move forward?

Oh yeah, more vertical ones for sure at some point.