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.
Comments
I generally prefer the less saturated look, it looks more natural. That said, they're definitely still making adjustments and the game does have actual dynamic seasons which I would fully expect them to take into account with the lighting system and adjust according to the season (the sun should be at different locations in the sky and should also be different distances from the actual planet) which will affect the light pretty significantly.
Typically I’ll boost saturation by 3-6% in game with ReShade and increase contrast by a similar amount, and that’s enough for me to enjoy without turning much from the default aesthetics. (Sort of like comparing your yard right before rain vs right afterwards)
It’ll be nice to see how the game looks going through the seasonal changes for snow, rain, and the general day/night cycle. More variety in terrain and vegetation will go a long way for the world’s visual interest too once that starts getting expanded upon
I'm not sure if you've seen this but they did have a showcase of the weather and seasons a couple of years ago that was incredible:
Seasonal Update:
Bard Showcase:
There's something to be said about comparing a screenshot composed specifically to showcase visuals versus the visuals in an actual gameplay screenshot, but I still agree to an extent.
The foliage in the bard showcase definitely looks dialed down, it's less dense and shorter. Could this just be because of the differences in location? Maybe. I also haven't noticed any wind effects in the bard showcase, so hopefully the environment looking sparser is just because the seasons/weather system is turned off.
Comparing to the gathering showcase, the foliage in the bard showcase is also missing plant variety. No flowers, ferns, mushrooms, etc. The lack of colorful flowers may be contributing a lot to the sense that the game looks worse. Maybe the area isn't very far along in asset placement? Or the flowers and mushrooms are tied to the seasons/weather system. I imagine they'd be dynamically placed based on season.
The overall color palette is for certain blander, though. Hopefully that improves as they further tune the lighting.
Actual in-game screenshots from prior showcases. The difference in color, contrast, foliage and level of detail compared to bard showcase is day and night.
This can all make a huge deal i have 2 images one with basic lighting and one with light + post process and such + polish and u can see a huge difference in colors and such.
They are working towards A2 you shouldn't be expecting things to look mint all the time. Based on the the sun position and setting, you really should not be expecting huge contrast in compared to a forest. By the time they fix lighting adjustments they are doing + you being able to adjust your contrast and saturation i have a good feeling it will be fine.
You can't really compare their bigger showcases to general gameplay as there is a huge different element of polish between the two showcases. Your argument would be better if the same area looked much worse, than comparing 2 different areas. Though also understanding things can be downgraded do to optimization somewhat.
I do have to say that you've picked a very bad example from the bard showcase. This is from the same stream:
This looks much closer to the other showcases, maybe less saturated but to me that's a good thing.
Wind affecting foliage is definitely there in the bard showcase. There just isn't a lot of tall, straight foliage in the areas they were playing in. You can see it pretty clearly at 39 minutes in