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City life: how node type and races affect town appearance.

ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
edited June 2017 in Ashes of Creation Design
I think it's time to talk about the elephant in the room. We've seen some footage of villages, towns, cities and freeholds in released videos and screenshots. For those that haven't seen them yet, I'll link them at the end of the post. However, we've only seen architecture and visual style of Kaelar humans and Empyrean elves so far. That's only 2 out of 8 races that are confirmed at this moment (not counting the Underrealm race that wasn't announced yet).

I remember reading somewhere that town appearance will change depending on what races participated in its development as a node. What this could mean is that a town/city could have a mix of buildings of different racial styles, with a percentage of buildings corresponding to the different races involved in its development. We also know that different nodes types will have an effect on town's appearance.

I'd like to hear your opinions on how buildings of other existing races will look like. Perhaps you've seen an artwork that reminded you of celestial Vek orcs, or you have a certain fantasy about a village of wild Pyr'ai elves. Feel free to share your opinions here: I feel like this is a rich topic to explore.

As promised, here are some videos about villages, towns or cities:
Kaelar/Empyrean freeholds: https://youtu.be/-VJkllNESnM 
Nodes (part 2), a lot of footage about cities: https://youtu.be/44HChA1Kkfk
Pre-Alpha gameplay footage: https://youtu.be/9b_hp9La78g

Some screenshots I found:






So what do you guys think?

Comments

  • I have a theory, that certain characteristic gets added to city if the population of that race reaches a %. Or just that you get the building techniques to your designated race, and by that you can build on your lot of land with these race locked building techniques. and if there is more people there will  be more of that race buildings.

    hopefully you can understand me, English aint my primary language
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited June 2017
    No worries @Zekima , I'm not from an english-speaking country either. As for the cities, I'm also really interested to see how different races build stuff. I've attached some pictures that make my imagination go wild (hidden in spoilers to avoid post stretching).

    For example, this could be a fun concept for the Vek orcs, since they're celestial and are really, really into stargazing:


    Here's a picture that feels very Empyrean to me. I feel like their cities are all about elegance and grace, even if we're talking about buildings made of wood and stone:


    And here's a little something that makes me think of Pyr'ai elves. Wild yet sophisticated, balanced, one with nature.


  • Kaelar is based on Tudor architecture - seen in Nodes Part Two.
    Vaelun is based on Arabian architecture - seen in Art of War and Nodes Part Two.
    Empyrean is the Elven architecture - seen in the Kaelar and Empyrean Freeholds vid.

    And we've seen some ruins.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited June 2017
    Zekima said:
    I have a theory, that certain characteristic gets added to city if the population of that race reaches a %. Or just that you get the building techniques to your designated race, and by that you can build on your lot of land with these race locked building techniques. and if there is more people there will  be more of that race buildings.

    hopefully you can understand me, English aint my primary language

    The type and race of the node will be determined when the first NPCs appear at Stage 1.
  • @Dygz , I suspected that the Vaelun might be the ones with arabian architecture. I'm really curious about other races that we haven't seen yet.
  • Dygz said:
    Zekima said:
    I have a theory, that certain characteristic gets added to city if the population of that race reaches a %. Or just that you get the building techniques to your designated race, and by that you can build on your lot of land with these race locked building techniques. and if there is more people there will  be more of that race buildings.

    hopefully you can understand me, English aint my primary language

    The type and race of the node will be determined when the first NPCs appear at Stage 1.
    So is it a single style for each town/city, or will there be cities with multiple styles at ones? Couldn't find any exact info on this one.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited June 2017
    Lilem said:
    @Dygz , I suspected that the Vaelun might be the ones with arabian architecture. I'm really curious about other races that we haven't seen yet.
    Yep. Really just those three that I'm aware of. There are a few glimpses in the presskit, I think, but they might be ruins rather than racial architecture.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited June 2017

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited June 2017

    This is probably NIKÜA!


  • Lilem said:
    So is it a single style for each town/city, or will there be cities with multiple styles at ones? Couldn't find any exact info on this one.

    The devs don't want a haphazard mishmash of styles, so I highly doubt that there will be any cities that have architecture from multiple races. Pretty sure it's going to be set with one style once the first NPCs appear.
  • Fair enough. Can't wait to see how does the architecture of other races looks like. So far it's been fairly standard stuff, to be honest, common human buildings and classic "elvish" style. The differences between the subraces look promising, though.
  • Dygz said:
    Lilem said:
    So is it a single style for each town/city, or will there be cities with multiple styles at ones? Couldn't find any exact info on this one.

    The devs don't want a haphazard mishmash of styles, so I highly doubt that there will be any cities that have architecture from multiple races. Pretty sure it's going to be set with one style once the first NPCs appear.
    Even if a city used different architectural styles, I don't believe there would be a miss match.
     I believe if they've commented on this, it's because they are coming at the design inspirations with the view that they are all complementary to each other, as if you put them all side by side, there isn't an obnoxious clash...

    But just my view and opinion on the styles we've seen so far

  • Even Dünir and Niküa styles are too disparate to work together in the same city.
    A Dünir or Kaelar house in a city can't suddenly become a Niküa mansion in a metropolis.
    And a Niküa Library would clash horribly with the architecture of an Empryean metropolis.
    Grass huts don't fit with statuesque grand cathedrals.
  • @Megs I'm interested as to how they could implement this and still make a city look both 1. believeable (not a mish-mash of buildings without anything in common but the place they're built in), and 2. unique. If evey town/city potentially can have a wide variety of architectural styles at once, they won't really look that different. In real world this happens too, but we're all humans after all, and out culture is similar on large scale, and even here are some major differences.

  • Ashes of Creation Kickstarter Livestream May 19, 2017
     mark 34:22
    STEVEN:
     You're going to see that when nodes develop, they're going to have a base style template that's reflective of a few things:
    It's going to be reflective of the race that is the primary founders of the node - and that's going to determine the architecture design and and the types of buildings you're going to see; it's going to be determined by the type of node - whether it's a Military, Economic, Divine or Scientific, and those types of factors are going to come into the way that the node appears initially.

    The player-run government is going to have sectored-out zones within the node that are unbuilt and are going to require direction from the mayor and from the government to determine what do we build here: Is it going to be an apartment complex? Is it going to be a merchant house? Is it going to be a thieves guild? Is it going to be a market place? Is it going to be a barracks?

    There's a whole bunch of determining factors of what types of buildings are going to get constructed and then once that is determined, the community is going to have to come together to driving resources, through caravans and bringing them into the node and actually constructing that building through questing and stuff like that.
  • Lilem said:
    I think it's time to talk about the elephant in the room. We've seen some footage of villages, towns, cities and freeholds in released videos and screenshots. For those that haven't seen them yet, I'll link them at the end of the post. However, we've only seen architecture and visual style of Kaelar humans and Empyrean elves so far. That's only 2 out of 8 races that are confirmed at this moment (not counting the Underrealm race that wasn't announced yet).

    I remember reading somewhere that town appearance will change depending on what races participated in its development as a node. What this could mean is that a town/city could have a mix of buildings of different racial styles, with a percentage of buildings corresponding to the different races involved in its development. We also know that different nodes types will have an effect on town's appearance.

    I'd like to hear your opinions on how buildings of other existing races will look like. Perhaps you've seen an artwork that reminded you of celestial Vek orcs, or you have a certain fantasy about a village of wild Pyr'ai elves. Feel free to share your opinions here: I feel like this is a rich topic to explore.

    As promised, here are some videos about villages, towns or cities:
    Kaelar/Empyrean freeholds: https://youtu.be/-VJkllNESnM 
    Nodes (part 2), a lot of footage about cities: https://youtu.be/44HChA1Kkfk
    Pre-Alpha gameplay footage: https://youtu.be/9b_hp9La78g

    Some screenshots I found:






    So what do you guys think?
    The City in the Art of War video is Vaelune human
  • this is from my rpg, but I sure would love to see this realized in some sort of capacity...dwarves of course! =) Yeah, if you look close enough you can see tiny people walking around in this pic. =D
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