MMOs and persistent worlds in general are clearly more than just a reflection of the sort of environments most developers are confined to, but a lot of subtleties of a natural world get fuzzy somewhere along the way. I happens to everybody at one point or another down the pipeline. An example that comes to mind is while Rockstar is a leader in making sandbox environments, there's usually something that gives away that the artist lives in a big city. The night sky in Red Dead Redemption is gorgeous, but when you get away from all the light pollution out into parts of Arizona it's pretty clear that whoever did the sky for the game didn't quite realize how visible the milkyway is. Instead it's more like what you would hope to see on a really clear night just a ways outside of LA.
I'm lucky enough to live in an area where I can walk outside and in two minutes hear over half a dozen different birds, bees flying around, trees creaking, and the occasional limb snapping. If PRF can emulate 10% of those natural sounds, I'll be very happy. It's something I notice most MMOs don't just neglect, but downright don't include on any level outside of drawing attention to specific pockets of environment. Just focusing on aesthetics, what are some things you would want to see in PRF that usually get missed in world building, specifically fantasy settings?
Yelta said:Worn pathways in commonly traveled areas is one that comes to mind.
That's something I haven't given much thought to but yes, there's a need for that sort of thing. It's sort of like some people think you can only make details pop by making things look new. Then you end up with this sort of pristinely clean setting that doesn't sell the immersion at all. Really though more detail probably has to go into making things look well used is the ironic bit.