New Event, no new art.

flyingfinn

Usually when CO gets new content added, it get's some cool art from JAG added, loadscreens, consept art and stuff. Now that Forum Malvanum Event came, no new art.

maleb666

New art?? That's madness!! :eek:

No time for that!! They need to do moar unwanted vehicles!!!

crypticbuxom

Leviathan was over a year in the making right around when On Alert was applied. The Until Carrier Defense got art though because it had more planning and had months of time to be worked on before release. The idea to do the Forum Malvanum was almost literally pulled out of nowhere a month ago. So no time or lengthy design stage to produce art for it.

Except for that small preview image in the event window in game, of course.

itsbrou

crypticbuxom wrote: »

Leviathan was over a year in the making right around when On Alert was applied. The Until Carrier Defense got art though because it had more planning and had months of time to be worked on before release. The idea to do the Forum Malvanum was almost literally pulled out of nowhere a month ago. So no time or lengthy design stage to produce art for it.

Except for that small preview image in the event window in game, of course.

That was yanked right out of the PnP book.

Concept art was already made years in advance. It was incorporated into the sourcebooks.

crypticbuxom

So no concept art for Forum Malvanum made in advance to back it up.

battybattybats

Aren't we just at the start of this event? When into the Lemurian event did they give us the art? I don't recall seeing any at the point we were getting our free helmets, and isn't that the same stage we are in, the foreshadowing stage that sets up the stuff to follow?

cellarrat33

battybattybats wrote: »

Aren't we just at the start of this event? When into the Lemurian event did they give us the art? I don't recall seeing any at the point we were getting our free helmets, and isn't that the same stage we are in, the foreshadowing stage that sets up the stuff to follow?

I believe that is where the confusion lies.

Is the race the event? Or is it a prelude of things to come in the Malvanum Event story arc?


My bet...

It is the event.


If there is more to the Malvanum Event, it's just indicative of how poorly CO communicates/markets itself.



Welcome to the new "Event" driven Champions Online.

flyingfinn

We had the 'Vehicles blasting, drills drilling' load screen way before anything about Lemurian Invasion Event. We had 'Kraken' way before the Event.
I love JAG's comic panels, concept art and the load screens.
Where did the Lemurian Event comic panels went?

matixzon

After checking JAG i wonder if that "Creatures of Night" thing is cryptic's secret project.

flyingfinn

No. That's the abandoned project. Cancelled 2011.

http://bradstokan.com/CofN1_ArtStyle.html

http://www.nickduguid.com/

matixzon

Damn. That looked pretty cool

meedacthunist

http://bradstokan.com/CofN1_ArtStyle.html

What is ironic, this way of cell shading would be perfect for Champions Online as it really resembles a comic book, not unlike this watered down wanna-be-comic outlining we have now.

The only things to change would be this Noir color palette and too much black.

http://bradstokan.com/CofN1_Characters.html
http://bradstokan.com/CofN1_Environment.html

Just compare it with CO graphics.
Now, that's a real style, unlike CO has.

zahinder

You know, try turning down Gamma a little in CO.

It can strangely change the mood and look of the game rather dramatically...

crypticbuxom

That half-tone was to be used exclusively while in Vibora? That would have made the zone much more appealing to be in. Making more zones have its own lighting dynamic could really make each zone more unique esthetically.

meedacthunist

zahinder wrote: »

You know, try turning down Gamma a little in CO.

It can strangely change the mood and look of the game rather dramatically...

It cannot.
Tried it and it still looks like a Toy Story, not like Marcel/DC of any period. Comic outlining is a joke, characters are deformed and the only really good thing being environment.
This game needs at least change in body proportions of every human npc, a saturation slider, and a proper cell shading.

crypticbuxom wrote: »

That half-tone was to be used exclusively while in Vibora? That would have made the zone much more appealing to be in. Making more zones have its own lighting dynamic could really make each zone more unique esthetically.

It was supposed to be used in some kind of new game early version making heavy use of recycled CO assets.
But it's a nice demonstration that CO could look kinda right.


http://bradstokan.com/CO_ArtStyle.html

This is the most hilarious, when he explain why CO looks that way. One can ask - do you ever saw any comic book?

I. Clean Vibrant Colors, Comic Shading

To represent a comic-book world come to life, we use clean textures without excess noise, vibrant colors, and a simple black "comic shading" outline to render the boundaries of characters and environment objects.

Except colors weren't that vibrant in classic comic books because of limitations of printing technique. So if CO is supposed to look like Gold/Silver/Bronze/Early Iron Age - it's wrong. Same goes for shading - all shape definitions should be done only with comic outlining and black flat shadow for environments - shades of colors were beyond printing technique of Gold/Silver/Bronze/Early Iron Age books.

So what kind of hero comic books CO exactly is simulating? Besides - Silver and Bronze Age comic books have mostly realistic character proportions.

II. Larger than Life Characters

We try to ensure that enemy encounters represent big, bold threats - from technological masterminds, to giant killer robots, to intergalactic aliens, and interdimensional demons. We go the extra mile to give players villains who are EXTREME embodiments of classic comic book traditions.

Larger than life doesn't mean slapstick cheesy joke. Lex Luthor, Dr. Doom, Thanos and HYDRA aren't laughable. But every villain how it's depicted in CO is (save maybe for Crowns of Krim and Edom). Another fail at stylisation.

III. Over the Top FX

To give the players a real sense of power, we always try to crank our FX up to 11. This ensures that players feel the maxiumum impact when dispatching their foes, whether firing fantastic fireballs, loosing chain-lightning, or even engaging in a good old-fashioned punch-up.

That's the best one. Power FX in comic books, especially Gold, Silver and Bronze Age ones with their clean and sharp lines, are almost never obstructing characters. So exactly which comics inspired those highly invasive FXes almost always interfering with costumes?

dantheiceman1

because we all know that it costs too much money to hire an artist....

flyingfinn

JAG is allready working for Cryptic.

But, he is doing art stuff for STO also.
Maybe we get something cool later.

meedacthunist

Thing is, Cryptic already has artists and a good ones. Brad Stokan is also a good artist and his portfolio proves that he can do this kind of stylisation just right.

This is also the same game studio which originated CoX with better writing style and less goofy artistic direction (and I'm NOT talking about graphic engine because it's obvious that CO has better graphics than old CoX, only stylisation of it is terrible).

This is why I'm surprised - what happened? Being burned with superhero genre? Trying to outsmart competition? Well, whatever happened, it harmed the game. Badly.

wraithshadow13

meedacthunist wrote: »

Thing is, Cryptic already has artists and a good ones. Brad Stokan is also a good artist and his portfolio proves that he can do this kind of stylisation just right.

This is also the same game studio which originated CoX with better writing style and less goofy artistic direction (and I'm NOT talking about graphic engine because it's obvious that CO has better graphics than old CoX, only stylisation of it is terrible).

This is why I'm surprised - what happened? Being burned with superhero genre? Trying to outsmart competition? Well, whatever happened, it harmed the game. Badly.

I'm kind of in that same boat. This game wasn't supposed to be THIS cartoony during development. I remember talks of being able to kill your nemesis if you wanted as well as being a darker Punisher style vilgilante. I've been an advocate for years about revamping this game to make it less cartoony (if they modeled like they do with sto). Had they done that and gone with that really cool comic outline effect, this game would have been a LOT better.

Frankly it's always bugged me just how cartoony this game is, but not in a fun way, just in a "we wanted to do better but didn't" kind of way. It really wouldn't take a lot of effort (in developmental terms) to make this game a lot better, Cryptic just doesn't put in the work.

wraithshadow13

ahhh, how i would love to have a darkness power set that actually looked and felt DARK....