Check out this week's "Green Theme" for your weekly Pantheon viewing pleasure! #PRF
Since this is a theme of Green, Does that mean the Ranger class info is around the corner? :)
Edit: The second picture with the weeds(?) in the pond/lake doesn't look naturally occuring, looks more like a planted field. I thought maybe it was a flooded farm, but then theirs the dock.
Man the details are just getting better and better. The different trees in the area stood out to me in the first pic. I think I can count 4-5 different types of trees at least. That is so important to me as I just know I will be telling people.
"Ya I died at the yellow tree between the two pines." or "Take a right at the third small tree on the right."
These screenshots are being put in my folder of places to visit :)
Looks great... altho, I'm not sure how much flow that watermill is getting with such a large (and planted) floodplain =P. Altho to be fair its pretty had to tell from picture. Otherwise it looks great. I just hope not everything will be as Green. I want some filthy dirty fields that have been trampled by packs of roaming animals too
that takes me to somewhere that's greeeeen <3 We are allowed to dream
HemlockReaper said:Since this is a theme of Green, Does that mean the Ranger class info is around the corner? :)
Edit: The second picture with the weeds(?) in the pond/lake doesn't look naturally occuring, looks more like a planted field. I thought maybe it was a flooded farm, but then theirs the dock.
It is a planted water farm :)
Yeah I like the 3rd one as well. Don't think we've seen that particular cabin before. Makes you wonder why it's there. Perhaps an abandoned hunting lodge. Looks pretty old and beat up - also has nice detail on the roof. Speaking of which, I also like the detail of boards nailed to the roof in the first one. Gives it some nice character and backstory.
Iksar said:Love it! Can't wait till we get to see other areas of the world too, I want to see some deserts :).
The second picture does look a bit off, perhaps tighten up the crop so they are in solid rows/lanes instead of a grid?
Ehh, keep in mind mechnized farming isn't really a thing in pantheon. Not saying it couldn't look like your picture but it has less reason to look like your picture if you aren't using mechnized methods.
I'm not saying the picture is perfect either, The waterwheel/watermill in the picture causes me issues. Reason being that if the waterwheel is there then my mind goes to that we're obviously looking at something with flow, ideally a stream, and in such conditions your crops & seed will wash away under flow conditions when planted in such a manner, while if there is no flow (pond) then the waterwheel isn't needed because there is nothing to power its motion.
That said, I think we might be over analysing here (or atleast I know I am). I just try to keep in mind that the devs aren't farmers, stream biologist, engineers or anything else. The buildings they construct don't need to bear their own weight nor be constructed in a manner that would be structurally sound. They are closer to artist as they place elements they like and designs they like into a picture (or in this case a game) and keep adding or removing until it looks great to them/others. Not everyone will have a keen eye or knowledge of these things and while my experience/knowledge typically makes me look at streams and buildings in games with a more critical eye and I see many things that could and often do break my immersion, I also don't necessarily think they need to go to such a level of design to create a world that could actually function if crafted in RL somewhere as a themepark. Just make something that looks good and seems right and the rest of us that see the details need to look past this a tad and accept that there is no way they'd get things done if they went to that level of detail on everything. I tend to cast much of the problems i see off as "Magical Forces" that keep things in check.
blockquote]Keldaria said:
Iksar said:
Ehh, keep in mind mechnized farming isn't really a thing in pantheon. Not saying it couldn't look like your picture but it has less reason to look like your picture if you aren't using mechnized methods.
To me, thats the issue, I'm assuming there isn't a mechanized farming method, so those lines shouldn't be that straight and those angles so square.
There's lots of obsessing over realism-based details in here. Whether one thinks the art style ought to be more stylized or more realistic, I don't think mega-zooming in on details is that useful at this point. Since it's so early, it seems higher priority to give feedback about higher level things like color palette.
My view is that ultra-realism should not be the goal for various reasons; in fact I'd like to see more saturated colors, e.g. more vibrant green grass. I think the world could use a touch more stylization in this way.
In terms of worldbuilding, I really like how much height variation there is in the terrain, it'll make exploration that much more interesting. That's something I've appreciated in a lot of the images and videos -- the devs seem willing to push the boundaries when it comes to terrain formation and height.
Honestly looks like a less attractive version of ESO to me, but I'm fine with that as long as performance is there to compensate.
We're rapidly approaching or have already reached the upper limits of realism we can expect in MMO, as far as I can tell. Stylization is great because you can compromise on realistic detail for performance gains, as well as giving your game a very distinct feel.
We won't know until we're actually in the world, but I have mixed feelings about most of the screenshots I see. The screenshots of the Tower of the Reckless Magician are among my favorites because they have such a distinct visual style. The open world shots are the least impressive to me. Buildings look somewhat too perfect, the skybox appears meh compared to other contemporary titles.
Then again, I'm playing Pantheon for the gameplay. EQ is very unimpressive both from a visual and performance perspective compared to modern titles. Gameplay matters more than anything else.
@Vylo
I sort of aggree with the saturation comment, but it might be due to the time of day the picture was taken, seems to be mid-day so not many shadows present. Also the 3d grass is missing from most of the 2nd picture because the photographer is to far away and the game doesn't render it that far out.
Fully agree with your comments on world building, it looks amazing, and it will look even better from close up!
@Liav
I agree that stylization can do wonders for the looks of a game, just look at Sea of Thieves, it's highly stylized but it still looks amazing. Ofc I don't want a complete change on the art style, because I enjoy this realistic aproach they're taking, but some stylization would be nice. The current character models they've shown so far are the type of stylization I would recomend aiming for, for the rest of the game world, it still looks realistic but you can clearly see it belongs to Pantheon. The mohwak dwarf and the armored dwarf from the last stream are amazing, the archai look fantastic and the gnomes are something I've never seen before in my life, the ogre look though and savage, and they all have their own stylized art.
The tower is also one of my favourite places, it looks so good in comparison to everything else, more than likely because it has loads of small art assests and NPC that make that place come alive! I also love the Wild's end ruins with the snakes and reptile people.
Some building do look a bit off and too perfect, the type of buildings I'm hoping to see should be similar to the ones on the 3rd picture, or the darker building in the first one, they look better to me because of all their irregularities that make them look handcrafted.
I loved the skybox they showed on the last youtube video and IMO looks much better than the ones in the pics above.
https://youtu.be/3pZ0Fxe-uKY?t=21