Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Visual Style in Regards to Creature Design
Sengarden
Member, Alpha Two
Hey everyone, I'll preface this by saying I don't have a particularly hardline stance on this issue, but I wanted to bring up some thoughts I've been having recently related to the topic of visual style in regards to creature design and see what other people's thoughts on the matter were.
Generally speaking, I've noticed quite a lot of contrast in creature design since the beginning of the game's development, mostly in regards to fantasy creatures, realistic animals, and the blend between the two. Over the course of the game's development, we've seen an array of mostly standard looking creatures: bears, wildcats, otters, arachnids, hippos, deer, etc. We've also seen a wide array of high-fantasy creatures: A polar rhino-ox with a huge tail, horses with tusks and a monkey tail, a bulldog with ram horns, an anteater with giraffe legs, a frog with rhinoceros-beetle horns, and a panther with scorpion-esque "toxin-tipped tarsals".
Given enough separation by landscape and logically consistent fantasy influence from a lore perspective, I think these two general types of creatures can coexist harmoniously without too distracting of a contrast, but the update we had today with the two farm animal models made me wonder again about how cohesive the visual style amongst these creatures is. We saw a model of a cow and a model of a goat. The cow looked completely standard, something totally ordinary that you'd see on Earth. Then the goat came up, and while it was beautifully modeled, the fantasy horns stuck out like a sore thumb to me after seeing the cow.
How do you all feel about the incredibly broad visual style that seems to be forming in regards to the creatures in Ashes of Creation? Do you think, when all considered together within the same game, they remain cohesive? Or do you think the vast differences between the high-fantasy mixed-animal creatures and the entirely generic (but also beautifully crafted) Earth-like creatures creates too great of a contrast? If you wish the game stuck closer to one or the other, would you prefer a heavier lean towards high-fantasy animal blending, or closer to realistic animal bases for slight adjustments to be made to?
Generally speaking, do you think the game currently has a consistent, recognizable visual style, or do you think it's becoming a bit too varied without rhyme or reason?
Generally speaking, I've noticed quite a lot of contrast in creature design since the beginning of the game's development, mostly in regards to fantasy creatures, realistic animals, and the blend between the two. Over the course of the game's development, we've seen an array of mostly standard looking creatures: bears, wildcats, otters, arachnids, hippos, deer, etc. We've also seen a wide array of high-fantasy creatures: A polar rhino-ox with a huge tail, horses with tusks and a monkey tail, a bulldog with ram horns, an anteater with giraffe legs, a frog with rhinoceros-beetle horns, and a panther with scorpion-esque "toxin-tipped tarsals".
Given enough separation by landscape and logically consistent fantasy influence from a lore perspective, I think these two general types of creatures can coexist harmoniously without too distracting of a contrast, but the update we had today with the two farm animal models made me wonder again about how cohesive the visual style amongst these creatures is. We saw a model of a cow and a model of a goat. The cow looked completely standard, something totally ordinary that you'd see on Earth. Then the goat came up, and while it was beautifully modeled, the fantasy horns stuck out like a sore thumb to me after seeing the cow.
How do you all feel about the incredibly broad visual style that seems to be forming in regards to the creatures in Ashes of Creation? Do you think, when all considered together within the same game, they remain cohesive? Or do you think the vast differences between the high-fantasy mixed-animal creatures and the entirely generic (but also beautifully crafted) Earth-like creatures creates too great of a contrast? If you wish the game stuck closer to one or the other, would you prefer a heavier lean towards high-fantasy animal blending, or closer to realistic animal bases for slight adjustments to be made to?
Generally speaking, do you think the game currently has a consistent, recognizable visual style, or do you think it's becoming a bit too varied without rhyme or reason?
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Comments
When the cataclysm was happening people just ran through the portals w/o grabbing any animals, so the ones who survived morphed into different fantasy shit (or maybe even was that way from the start). And sanctus had "earth" animals, which we then bring with us through the portals because we got 0 clue about the current state of fauna on Verra.
I like that! It'll be interesting to see where they take the origin storyline in terms of the impacts it had on flora and fauna.