No space battle screens?

[Mahdimael]

I'm curious why we haven't been shown any current pictures of the space battles (or land battles, for that matter). I noticed in the interview that it was said that they would like to add a "hardware accelerated" space combat renderer:

"Honestly, it depends on how well MOO3 sells. I'd certainly like to do an expansion pack and bring back some of the better features that were cut; add a scenario/mod editor, more races and a hardware-accelerated space combat renderer."

Now, this may not indicate something bad (graphics can look good without rendering, if enough care is taken). Even so, it's troubling to me that the only screens of space battle I've seen were from the gamers.com preview (I believe it was them).

Yes, the screens we've been shown so far have looked great. But I think there is some concern to be felt until we see some current space battle screens.

[MarkG]

have you seen?

http://apolyton.net/dir/index.php?cat=208&t=sub_pages

[Mahdimael]

Yep, I've seen those. Thanks for putting them up here, btw. Looks like they were posted back in May, though. I remember reading that some of those had placeholder art, and I was just curious what progression had been made in that area.

Looking at the screens again, I'm reminded why I asked this question. To me, the ships look like different sized blobs, though some look better than others. I just like the clean looking interface of the rest of the game, and it seems like the ship combat graphics are somewhat muddied. Also, the graphics look less bright in ship combat, as opposed to the bright and contrasting colors used in the interface.

Certainly, it could be the odd resolutions, the fact it's not on my own screen, the game may have low graphics settings enabled, or any number of other things. But I would think that the developers would be more willing to show us current combat screens in the best resolution possible if they weren't concerned about the reaction. If I were a developer, I would want to show off the good - I just hope that they aren't hiding something bad.

[H Tower]

i foudn that a little strange too. and then i remembered the negative backlash about how bad the civ3 in game graphics looked when they were first released. Could be that Quicksilver wants the graphics DONE, before they start releasing them, actually makes sense to me

[Grumbold]

Read the Constantine interview. MOO3 has been designed for PC's with no video acceleration. An XPack including a much higher spec combat graphic is a possibility if the game sells well.

edit: typo

[Atragon]

Originally posted by Grumbold
Read the Constantine interview. MOO3 has been designed for PC's with no video accelleration. An XPack including a much higher spec combat graphic is a possibility if the game sells well.

I certainly hope it does, I'd love to be able to zoom way in and watch one ship serve up large quantities of death to other ships.

[MariOne]

Then, I would say, buy an action/shooting game...

I'd be content with graphics that just effectively convey useful information, like telling *at first glance* which kind of ship and weapon I'm facing.
Everything else is just an optional plus, which I won't refuse, as long as it doesn't make cutoffs on other useful features, delays the delivery or rises the game price.

After all MoO is not a space combat game.
It's a space STRATEGY game....

[moomin]

But we want expansion packs, MariOne. Which depend on how much the game sells. Which in its turn depends on a) how good it is anf b) how good it looks.

[Rantz]

Originally posted by H Tower
i foudn that a little strange too. and then i remembered the negative backlash about how bad the civ3 in game graphics looked when they were first released. Could be that Quicksilver wants the graphics DONE, before they start releasing them, actually makes sense to me

that would exactly be the case and we're doing a lot of visual tweaking to Space combat right now to give it the biggest 'bang' we can.

Most likely in two weeks, we'll be posting combat shots

[Mahdimael]

Absolutely. I don't care about pretty graphics, necessarily. I just want the graphics to be clean and informative (like the rest of the game appears to be). Sure, it would be nice to have high quality textures on 3d ships, but that's obviously not going to happen (yet) ).

I don't know about you, but the space combat is one of my favorite parts of the game- all the ships that I painstakingly designed and built going toe to toe with the enemy. Without combat, the game would be pretty much devoid of tension.

I look forward to the upcoming screenshots, though!

Originally posted by MariOne
Then, I would say, buy an action/shooting game...

I'd be content with graphics that just effectively convey useful information, like telling *at first glance* which kind of ship and weapon I'm facing.
Everything else is just an optional plus, which I won't refuse, as long as it doesn't make cutoffs on other useful features, delays the delivery or rises the game price.

After all MoO is not a space combat game.
It's a space STRATEGY game....

[H Tower]

Originally posted by Rantz
Most likely in two weeks, we'll be posting combat shots

can we hold you to that? The game must be nearing completion then if your doing the final tweaking of graphics.

Care to let slip what the beta testers have been saying?

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Rantz


that would exactly be the case and we're doing a lot of visual tweaking to Space combat right now to give it the biggest 'bang' we can.

Most likely in two weeks, we'll be posting combat shots

I'm delighted to hear it. If this is what it takes to get the reviewers to look past the interface and really notice that the underlying game is solid I'm sure it will pay off in spades. I'm not averse to a bit of eye candy myself

[Rantz]

Originally posted by H Tower


can we hold you to that? The game must be nearing completion then if your doing the final tweaking of graphics.

Care to let slip what the beta testers have been saying?

about two weeks out from gold master at this point. Beta tester reaction seems to be pretty good. Lots of good suggestions and ideas that have made it in to help push along the 'one more turn' syndrome.

[Master Marcus]

impressive work. You and the workaholics from MoO3's team never sleep this fall....