I have been watching Pantheon develop for a while and decided to pledge. The recent live stream on character models and animation/rigging was exciting and a lot more was delivered than expected. However, I do have some concerns.
Due to Pantheon's small team, I know that efficiency is important and the trend of proceduralism and modularity has been gaining popularity in the gaming industry. With that being said I hope that individuality is not lost.
With most of the current races, they are pretty much just different flavors of human (fish human, rock human, reptile human, etc.). This doesn’t bother me because humans are the most popular race choice in MMOs and it would be waste of time developing content that will not be neglected by the playerbase. I hope to see the "other" races to be developed similar to the Sylvari in GW2 and less like the Vierra in FFXIV for reference. I hope to see their features to be more incorporated than "attached" if that makes sense.
What would bother me the most would be if all races have the same animations. From the current lore, humans should be gregarious, dark myr being snobby, elves demure, skar aggressive etc. By animations I am not just talking about only emotes, but everything from their gait, casting, combat, and even idle animation should be individualized to that specific race.
Since the game is going for realism, there needs to be some novelty aspects, so it won't become too monotonous. When it comes to creature design, I am far less interested in things being anatomically correct but more so believable to the world/specific environment. This is a fantasy game, so I hope development really take risks in the silhouettes of the creatures that they are implementing. Same with environmental assets to the game.
For armor, I have no idea if it will all be crafted or dropped from mobs. I would prefer the most unique armor pieces are dropped by either rare mobs, dungeons, or crafted. For all the other armor in between, that can be done easily with a procedural workflow, from swapping out different colors to materials but preserving the silhouette, e.g a red vs blue top hat or a satin vs cotton top hat etc.
As someone who loves magic, I am sucker for the cinematic JRPG vfx. I feel that should be saved for specific dungeons/fights/abilities because clean vfx is extremely important so everyone can see what is going on their screen instead of a laser light show of clutter. I also would like to see melee with good vfx which could literally just be distortion from a powerful blunt/sound attack or blood splatter from a piercing/slashing attack.
So I can't speak on everything but I'm sure if you delve into the Library of Pantheon you can find some more answers.
I did a quick search of some things and as far as unique animations between races I got this from an article in 2019
"Q: Is there going to be racial specific animations?
A: Yes, our intention is to have race specific animations. Dwarves and Ogres should move and fight differently to Humans, as an example."
Source : https://www.pantheonmmo.com/newsletter/2019_january_dev_spotlight/
And as far as class specific animations I got this from a stream in 2020. It should play at the right time when you play the video.
Source: https://youtu.be/cxTAqcQ2K3Y?t=3063
Hope this alleviates some concerns!
Morraak said:So I can't speak on everything but I'm sure if you delve into the Library of Pantheon you can find some more answers.
I did a quick search of some things and as far as unique animations between races I got this from an article in 2019
"Q: Is there going to be racial specific animations?
A: Yes, our intention is to have race specific animations. Dwarves and Ogres should move and fight differently to Humans, as an example."
Source : https://www.pantheonmmo.com/newsletter/2019_january_dev_spotlight/
And as far as class specific animations I got this from a stream in 2020. It should play at the right time when you play the video.
Source: https://youtu.be/cxTAqcQ2K3Y?t=3063
Hope this alleviates some concerns!
This definitely alleviates some of my concerns and i will check out the Library of Pantheon. As long as every race has their own unique fighting/casting animations, I will be happy.
Considering the resources available, I would be happy with racial flourishes instead of completely different animations for most things. Unique animations per race would be better and players being able to choose from a variety of animation styles would be best, of course. But adding a unique flourish to the beginning, middle, or end of an animation adds variety without as much work.
I do feel that animations for movement (running, walking, sprinting, swimming, climbing, and falling) should be racially unique. It will be done right if we can tell which race it is just by silhouette. Distinct movement plus flourishes on everything else will be enough.