Wow, these are great screenshots. I can certainly see how the art direction is moving forward. I have to say I'm very impressed.
The Centaur-class ship looks great, as does the entire scene around it. However, the green details are kinda making me think twice. Don't get me wrong: I love green. But the scene is entirely blue otherwise. Hell, the ship is otherwise blue. I guess this kind of thing is just something I'll have to get used to when I encounter tasteless players and they're horribly colour misco-ordinated vessels.
The science officer looks great! I'm still impressed by Cryptic not turning all female characters into huge-busted fap targets, as I imagine the temptation must have been huge given typical MMO conventions. The updated uniform looks great -- although I would personally prefer a straighter, less-bitty division between the department colour and the main uniform. Still, this looks great and I hope there is sufficient customisation still to reverse the colours if I wish. Also, the texturing is perfect, I like the fact that the com-badge is 3D and not just part of the texture (unlike in all other Trek games), and the hair looks much improved from the last time we saw characters. I can't wait to see some more characters, and maybe some male characters up close again.
The Klingon outpost is, I'm sorry to say, my least favourite screen. I mean, the structure looks great, but there's something about all of that aggressive architecture in a beautiful summer day that really makes things look strange. It's the reason why we never saw Darth Vader in a meadow: lighting and surrounding matters. Perhaps an alternative colour scheme would be better. After all, the Klingons make good use of greens and browns too, which might fit in better. It also looks remarkably neat for something belonging to Klingons. Nothing the Klingons build or use should ever look this new. Also, I would have thought the Klingons would have paved the ground around the site, or something. Here it looks like the building has just been imported into a grassland scene -- which of course it has.
Overall though, excellent stuff. I'm really excited and I hope we get to see more soon!
The Centaur-class ship looks great, as does the entire scene around it. However, the green details are kinda making me think twice. Don't get me wrong: I love green. But the scene is entirely blue otherwise. Hell, the ship is otherwise blue. I guess this kind of thing is just something I'll have to get used to when I encounter tasteless players and they're horribly colour misco-ordinated vessels.
You never know, maybe the ship has/is been fitted with some anti-borg technology in the dock and thats what the green bits are :P . . ..actually tht would be cool if they were lol
I understand some people complaining about the animation style for the characters and the use of bright colors as opposed to more darks and stuff. I also understand that some people would like to have a photo-realistic style of animation for the game.
Problem is, graphics of that style will slow down the game. I don't have any doubt about it. I play three separate MMO's. High end graphics interfere with connectivity which leads to people getting booted in group events and battles. This frustrates everyone, and they eventually log off mad. If they log off mad one too many times, they might decide they aren't going to log back on... and that means a revenue loss for Cryptic and CBS/Paramount (or whoever is getting paid for the license).
The thing is, if you have a T1 line, an alienware (or better) tower, and an awesome monitor, you can always go to your game settings and crank them up all the way. If you have a more standard Dell and want to play, high end graphics would look wonderful... if you could get the game to run. But this game needs to be designed to run on all sorts of computers, as well as (apparently) a console system or two.
Cryptic is making the right move on this. Playability will benefit from it, and the majority of the graphics I've seen look incredible even in their current "cartoony" incarnation.
Ye i would go for Gameplay over graphics anyday!.......better a game that plays well and doesnt look as real as it could rather than a game that looks super real and plays like TRIBBLE, graphicaly and gameplay wise
I dunno, I go away for a couple of days and there are two big updates. Typical. Those screenshots do look great though, I especially like the look of the science officer. As Monty Burns once said, I don't know much about art, but I know what I hate and I don't hate this
looks like this games moving forward! good job Cryptic. However, i do have some concerns. I love the dry dock shot, but the green in there is a little odd. It doesn't seem like a federation colour to me. I would suggest that federation ships be limited to "federation colours" but then that would probably make some players quite angry.
The shot of the science officer is excellent and i like the new uniform design but it was after my third time viewing the pic when i realized it was a trill. I expect the people playing as trills will want their character to be recognized as trills right away. I know this would be hard considering trills look very similar to humans, but perhaps an exaggeration of some key trill features would allow a trill player to be recognized from afar.
The designs for the planet environments, space environments, and starships all are beautiful, creative and... very beautiful, but the building designs seem to be the same box design. I know we have only seen two examples of buildings, but they both are very boxy. Don't get me wrong. Boxes are awesome, but two much and its a lego world
Anyhoo, keep up the good work Cryptic. It would be nice to see some more building concepts.
Our artists do some amazing work. The first time I saw a ship in the dock it just blew my mind.
yes it really looks like I' ve seen it a hundred times in the Shows. You devs do a real great job and I can' t await to read the message that beta has just startet. The outpost has got a real klingon design and the uniform looks great. I would be glad to see some screens where klingons and klingon vessels are shown. Will we seen some klingon screens soon?
Really liked the screenshots. The Centaur class in dry dock was breathtaking! The close up of the trill science officer looked realy good too, and the detail in the screen shots are amazing. It can only get batter i say.
Kepp up the amazing job guys can't wait!
Can't wait to see more screenshots and information soon, maybe in time for christmas?
(Hope this gets released on the xbox 360 around same time as PC launch) (fingers crossed)
Maybe the hands are just a "morphose" option, giving us more possibilities in creating new species.
The new uniform is nice, i think it's an add to the others we already saw.
Good news for the Trill and femal body too, really nice.
Is this Centaure class has some Borg technologie on it ? (green lights)
I am not sure if I like the cartoon graphics...I never been a fan and it doesn't scream star trek to me going for the cartoon way of graphics? MMOs don't have to look like that, take MxO for example the graphics are brilliant and in a very realistic style.
Other than that, i like the style of the uniforms:P
It will take some time to acclimate myself with the cartoony character look. I may have to crack open my old WOW account and get use to the look. Hope I don't get sucked back into the fold.
Really liking the screenshots, making me drool in anticipation of playing.
I like the strong colors, the uniform, the ship looks very cool, and the architecture is great.
My only nitpick are the giant ham hands on the guy in the Klingon Stronghold or whatever picture. I do hope we can body slider them smaller, judging from past comments about Cryptic and customisability I am not really worried on that score. But yeah, that guy must be a crossbreed between a human and a new race called hamhandians.
It will take some time to acclimate myself with the cartoony character look. I may have to crack open my old WOW account and get use to the look. Hope I don't get sucked back into the fold.
Nice to see the art improving. As I thought it would. It already looked 10 ZILLION times better than what Perpetual did. Now it's looks even better. I'm sure it will improve even more. I cannot wait to see some of the UI. Please PLEASE implement the LCARS UI for this game. OR at least give us a choice to use it. Don't make it look like WoW. Don't be afraid to implement high end detailed graphics for those who can handle it. Don't be like that other sci-fi mmo and go to the "lowest common denominator" for maximum profit. Make something to last for this and the next gen of computer systems.
Overall
Generally, I like the look. There's a few design elements I take sception to, though ... primarily, the apparent "Blue = Fed, Red = Klingon" oversimplification. I'd rather installations got flags, banners, and painted-on-the-wall emblems to identify them, rather than "giant colored window-like things".
I agree completely. The glowing red stuff makes sense on the interior of a Klingon ship, but on the OUTSIDE of an outpost in broad daylight? My first thought when I saw that was, "is this a capture-the-flag map?"
My knowledge of graphics technical stuff is limited so I can't really articulate much on that. I do have some criticisms on the screenshots though, hopefully its useful.
I can say the artwork and detail in the spacedock screen shot is very good except a few parts, in my opinion. The ship texture seems to be non-reflective, while the spacedock seems to have some reflective textures, which would do very well on the ship I think.
The texturing on the ship also looks a bit 'shallow' or a bit simple, in contrast to the textures on the space dock, where it looks like you can almost see a patchwork of individual panels. I also don't particularly like those gigantic lights on the space dock, as I think I'd like to see them split up with some lines in there so it looks like they are a composite of several lines of lights or anything that makes them look less like a single entity. To put it another way, Star Trek is a universe with gigantic ships, put together and serviced by little people, and the larger it is, the more parts and components it ought to display in game in its textures.
I think the character art in the Trill screenshot is great. No complaints on her, however, the building behind her bugs me. Now, without knowing what the building is, its really hard to make a decent comment on it, however it's those neon blue panels that bug me. What are they for? I presume they are some kind of windows to show off some funky blue sci-fi energy thingy. They jump right out at me for how bright they are, and yet they don't appear to be anything interesting at all.
If it is supposed to be some energy thingy, they look too flat, no depth to them, as if the blue energy stuff is the window itself rather than behind the window. They are also identical, as if the blue blob fills up the whole window or whatever and is uninteresting to look at, yet very eye catching. If they were animated as if something was pulsing behind them, and the windows were in varying states of brightness based on the status of the energy thing, I think it would look better. The tower too could use similar treatment. Granted animations are nil in a static shot, but if the energy seemed to move around it would be more interesting.
Now if they aren't supposed to be anything special at all, just plain windows, then I think they are way too bright, and also ought to give the illusion that they are hiding something with that blue light. Maybe give them the illusion that something seem to be casting shadows against the windows from the interior.
The Klingon outpost shot has the same problems with its bright red panels. They appear to be static and bright for no discernible reason. Animation would greatly help there too, for example the red strip could pulse or something.
I also think its a reuse of the same eye catching color too many times. Why are they all the same bright red? Why not different shades of red? They don't all look related in function for how different the various bright red spots are. Granted, again its sci-fi and there is always a need to hide how things work since we don't really know, but I think they don't quite look like they have a purpose, nor do they look like part of the same system. More details in general could help with that, if the various spots had some more obviously technical things that helped to show they do stuff, like wires and pipes connecting them to somewhere, or whatever. Now they could all just be decorative to the Klingons, but I think for us, shiney, glowy things just shout interesting sci-fi technology, so it would be nice to be able to study them and try and guess at their purposes.
Another problem I notice is that while they all appear to glow bright red, they don't seem to be casting any light at all. For how bright they are, most of the walls should be bathed in a red glow, which they aren't.
As for the hands, what I see in the screenshot for his hands is a blur. The lack of resolution in that area really just doesn't give much to go on to say they are too large or whether its merely an optical illusion based on how little detail came through the screenshot in that area. I do, however, find conspicuous his lack of any equipment for a Federation officer being near a Klingon outpost. No phaser or tricorder or portable taco replicator, or anything else that ought to be hanging from a belt. I smell traitor.
Comments
The Centaur-class ship looks great, as does the entire scene around it. However, the green details are kinda making me think twice. Don't get me wrong: I love green. But the scene is entirely blue otherwise. Hell, the ship is otherwise blue. I guess this kind of thing is just something I'll have to get used to when I encounter tasteless players and they're horribly colour misco-ordinated vessels.
The science officer looks great! I'm still impressed by Cryptic not turning all female characters into huge-busted fap targets, as I imagine the temptation must have been huge given typical MMO conventions. The updated uniform looks great -- although I would personally prefer a straighter, less-bitty division between the department colour and the main uniform. Still, this looks great and I hope there is sufficient customisation still to reverse the colours if I wish. Also, the texturing is perfect, I like the fact that the com-badge is 3D and not just part of the texture (unlike in all other Trek games), and the hair looks much improved from the last time we saw characters. I can't wait to see some more characters, and maybe some male characters up close again.
The Klingon outpost is, I'm sorry to say, my least favourite screen. I mean, the structure looks great, but there's something about all of that aggressive architecture in a beautiful summer day that really makes things look strange. It's the reason why we never saw Darth Vader in a meadow: lighting and surrounding matters. Perhaps an alternative colour scheme would be better. After all, the Klingons make good use of greens and browns too, which might fit in better. It also looks remarkably neat for something belonging to Klingons. Nothing the Klingons build or use should ever look this new. Also, I would have thought the Klingons would have paved the ground around the site, or something. Here it looks like the building has just been imported into a grassland scene -- which of course it has.
Overall though, excellent stuff. I'm really excited and I hope we get to see more soon!
You never know, maybe the ship has/is been fitted with some anti-borg technology in the dock and thats what the green bits are :P . . ..actually tht would be cool if they were lol
Problem is, graphics of that style will slow down the game. I don't have any doubt about it. I play three separate MMO's. High end graphics interfere with connectivity which leads to people getting booted in group events and battles. This frustrates everyone, and they eventually log off mad. If they log off mad one too many times, they might decide they aren't going to log back on... and that means a revenue loss for Cryptic and CBS/Paramount (or whoever is getting paid for the license).
The thing is, if you have a T1 line, an alienware (or better) tower, and an awesome monitor, you can always go to your game settings and crank them up all the way. If you have a more standard Dell and want to play, high end graphics would look wonderful... if you could get the game to run. But this game needs to be designed to run on all sorts of computers, as well as (apparently) a console system or two.
Cryptic is making the right move on this. Playability will benefit from it, and the majority of the graphics I've seen look incredible even in their current "cartoony" incarnation.
I can't wait for this game. :cool:
Wallpaper please.
I agree 100%. the first thing that i noticed when I saw that pic.
The shot of the science officer is excellent and i like the new uniform design but it was after my third time viewing the pic when i realized it was a trill. I expect the people playing as trills will want their character to be recognized as trills right away. I know this would be hard considering trills look very similar to humans, but perhaps an exaggeration of some key trill features would allow a trill player to be recognized from afar.
The designs for the planet environments, space environments, and starships all are beautiful, creative and... very beautiful, but the building designs seem to be the same box design. I know we have only seen two examples of buildings, but they both are very boxy. Don't get me wrong. Boxes are awesome, but two much and its a lego world
Anyhoo, keep up the good work Cryptic. It would be nice to see some more building concepts.
:eek:
It's Craig's choice to make it that style.
yes it really looks like I' ve seen it a hundred times in the Shows. You devs do a real great job and I can' t await to read the message that beta has just startet. The outpost has got a real klingon design and the uniform looks great. I would be glad to see some screens where klingons and klingon vessels are shown. Will we seen some klingon screens soon?
Kepp up the amazing job guys can't wait!
Can't wait to see more screenshots and information soon, maybe in time for christmas?
(Hope this gets released on the xbox 360 around same time as PC launch) (fingers crossed)
The new uniform is nice, i think it's an add to the others we already saw.
Good news for the Trill and femal body too, really nice.
Is this Centaure class has some Borg technologie on it ? (green lights)
Other than that, i like the style of the uniforms:P
I like the strong colors, the uniform, the ship looks very cool, and the architecture is great.
My only nitpick are the giant ham hands on the guy in the Klingon Stronghold or whatever picture. I do hope we can body slider them smaller, judging from past comments about Cryptic and customisability I am not really worried on that score. But yeah, that guy must be a crossbreed between a human and a new race called hamhandians.
Nooo! Don't succumb to its evil!
Centaur Mark II or something.
end of rant.
I agree completely. The glowing red stuff makes sense on the interior of a Klingon ship, but on the OUTSIDE of an outpost in broad daylight? My first thought when I saw that was, "is this a capture-the-flag map?"
I can say the artwork and detail in the spacedock screen shot is very good except a few parts, in my opinion. The ship texture seems to be non-reflective, while the spacedock seems to have some reflective textures, which would do very well on the ship I think.
The texturing on the ship also looks a bit 'shallow' or a bit simple, in contrast to the textures on the space dock, where it looks like you can almost see a patchwork of individual panels. I also don't particularly like those gigantic lights on the space dock, as I think I'd like to see them split up with some lines in there so it looks like they are a composite of several lines of lights or anything that makes them look less like a single entity. To put it another way, Star Trek is a universe with gigantic ships, put together and serviced by little people, and the larger it is, the more parts and components it ought to display in game in its textures.
I think the character art in the Trill screenshot is great. No complaints on her, however, the building behind her bugs me. Now, without knowing what the building is, its really hard to make a decent comment on it, however it's those neon blue panels that bug me. What are they for? I presume they are some kind of windows to show off some funky blue sci-fi energy thingy. They jump right out at me for how bright they are, and yet they don't appear to be anything interesting at all.
If it is supposed to be some energy thingy, they look too flat, no depth to them, as if the blue energy stuff is the window itself rather than behind the window. They are also identical, as if the blue blob fills up the whole window or whatever and is uninteresting to look at, yet very eye catching. If they were animated as if something was pulsing behind them, and the windows were in varying states of brightness based on the status of the energy thing, I think it would look better. The tower too could use similar treatment. Granted animations are nil in a static shot, but if the energy seemed to move around it would be more interesting.
Now if they aren't supposed to be anything special at all, just plain windows, then I think they are way too bright, and also ought to give the illusion that they are hiding something with that blue light. Maybe give them the illusion that something seem to be casting shadows against the windows from the interior.
The Klingon outpost shot has the same problems with its bright red panels. They appear to be static and bright for no discernible reason. Animation would greatly help there too, for example the red strip could pulse or something.
I also think its a reuse of the same eye catching color too many times. Why are they all the same bright red? Why not different shades of red? They don't all look related in function for how different the various bright red spots are. Granted, again its sci-fi and there is always a need to hide how things work since we don't really know, but I think they don't quite look like they have a purpose, nor do they look like part of the same system. More details in general could help with that, if the various spots had some more obviously technical things that helped to show they do stuff, like wires and pipes connecting them to somewhere, or whatever. Now they could all just be decorative to the Klingons, but I think for us, shiney, glowy things just shout interesting sci-fi technology, so it would be nice to be able to study them and try and guess at their purposes.
Another problem I notice is that while they all appear to glow bright red, they don't seem to be casting any light at all. For how bright they are, most of the walls should be bathed in a red glow, which they aren't.
As for the hands, what I see in the screenshot for his hands is a blur. The lack of resolution in that area really just doesn't give much to go on to say they are too large or whether its merely an optical illusion based on how little detail came through the screenshot in that area. I do, however, find conspicuous his lack of any equipment for a Federation officer being near a Klingon outpost. No phaser or tricorder or portable taco replicator, or anything else that ought to be hanging from a belt. I smell traitor.
Great stuff though, can't wait to see more!