First Impression of DEMO

[FrostyBoy]

MxM, you are quite wrong. All animations can be achieved in 2D Rendering, all you do is make the unit in 3D, then render each frame in 2D, thats what they did in AoE and AoK.


I actually think that IS what BHG did with RoN, except they've cut down on the polygons for some reason.. But then again, I honestly have no idea what has happened. And hey, they have all the files, they could just re-do them all, right?

I think the buildings are perfect btw.

[One_Dead_Villy]

exactly...and if u really think about it.....its ALL 2D really I mean even in 3D u're rendering on a 2D screen. Anything that can be done in 3D can be done in 2D its just a matter of animation. If u dont have camera rotation, other then say the ease of modelling in 3D vs 2D art maybe your own advantage if that is an advantage at all.

[fluffy_ferret]

Who cares how the graphics look... go buy some fireworks...

[wilebill]

"Who cares how the graphics look... go buy some fireworks..."

Hmmm! Good idea! Like every time you advance to a new age you get fireworks over your town centers?

[Alex]

I don't mind so much about graphics, I don't have the hardware to fully enjoy graphics maxed out, anyway... I'm more interested in gameplay, how the game plays and how much fun it is to play it.

[One_Dead_Villy]

Originally posted by wilebill
"Who cares how the graphics look... go buy some fireworks..."

Hmmm! Good idea! Like every time you advance to a new age you get fireworks over your town centers?

that would be cool

maybe thats a mod possibility

[STING]

Downloaded the demo version yesterday.
I was hoping RoN would have the same 3D-engine as AoM, but then I discovered Ensemble Studio's aren't the developers of the game I discovered that further when I entered the game..

I am kind of disappointed with the graphics. It isn't as sharp and crisp like AoE-2-C & AoM. But what bothers me the most is that the units don't move smoothly! All you have to do is compare it with AoE,AoM or EE and you know what I mean.

However, the disappointing graphics are somewhat compensated by the game play. I am already addicted to the game and I am going to buy it whenever it comes available here.

One thing I noticed, and other people noticed that as well, is that the ages go very fast. Resources are very easy to collect and before you know it you are in the information age.

Perhaps with some patches BHG can fix the general game balance and make it somewhat harder to advance in ages.

The graphics can't be improved with patches I think, because of the engine. We can just hope they will not make that same mistake in RoN II. (if it ever comes out)

My post sounds very negative, but overall I am very excited about this game and I can't wait to play the full version!

Btw.. has anyone noticed that GameSpy Arcade gets installed with the demo while you can't play multiplayer? I find that odd.

[One_Dead_Villy]

hmmm why is so many people mentioning the animation smoothless beinbg a problem? Its completely smooth for me....

[Snotty]

After a quick run through, I wanted to pop in here to see if any of my observations matched up with other peoples experiences. The game seems top, although I am worried that the very early game is going to get somewhat repetetitve. Also in the mid to late game, I seem to be rushing around clicking things to research and upgrade. Heaven forbid a big war kick off. And then my laptop ran out of power.
Back to it now then........

[STING]

Originally posted by One_Dead_Villy
hmmm why is so many people mentioning the animation smoothless beinbg a problem? Its completely smooth for me....

As smooth as AoE II Conquerors or Empire Earth?

[One_Dead_Villy]

ya i have no problems

[Nethog]

I am a hard-core turn-based simulation (TBS) Civ game player (Civ1, Civ2, Civ3/PTW, SMAC/X) but in the last couple of years have started to play RTS as well, primarily since my two young boys find RTS more exciting. So I have played Age of Kings/TC, and I am currently playing Age of Mythology. When the RON demo was posted a couple of days ago, I downloaded it and tried it, and here is my assessment:

Overall assessment: a fascinating, captivating, interesting RTS game that I definitely plan on buying when it comes out next week. Gameplay is definitely different from AOE/AOK/AOM and makes for extremely interesting gameplay.

I found that my knowledge of Civ games greatly helped me understand how to play RON, whereas I would guess that a person who has never played civ TBS games would have to make a big adjustment from what they knew playing AOK/AOM/etc. Having said that, although RON is supposedly a RTS Civ game, it definitely does not have the "feel" of a Civ turn-based game, and in my opinion no RTS ever will. Although strategy plays a big part in RTS, and a much bigger part in TBS games, ultimately quick reflexes, and memorization of hot-keys/hot key sequences will be the differentiator in RTS games - not strategy, all things considered. So in conclusion, although RON does not "feel" like a TBS Civ game, it has a much different feel from the AOE/AOK/AOM series of games, and I say this in a very positive sense since the gameplay is excellent.

On the graphics of RON - I must say after playing Age of Mythology for the last 3 weeks or so, when I fired up RON I was disappointed. As I played the demo more and more, the excellent gameplay makes up for the graphics, but the graphics are still a disapointment if you compare them to Age of Mythology. If you zoom in in RON, the quality of graphics dramatically improves with an amazing amount of detail/animation on the various game objects, but of course it is not practical to play zoomed in for any length of time. By the way I am running a 3GHz P4 system with a 21" monitor, Radeon 9700 Pro card, with the RON resolution set to the highest (1600x1024, 32 bit color I think).

With respect to the 2D vs 3D debate for RTS - I too at one time thought being able to rotate graphics on a RTS game to be useless, but I have grown to absolutley love the capability in AOM, and rotate all of the time in order to better see around objects and/or select a viewing angle that just "feels" better. By the way, rotation in AOM can be done with the mousewheel so it is very easy to rotate even in the heat of a battle.

So BHG, bring on the game I can't wait to buy it!

[GodSpawn]

With regard to the "jerky animation": I've checked it out, and it might be that the people complaining about it are running at slow or slower speeds. If you go to the slowest speed, you can see the individual frames in the animation.

This is no problem to me; I had previously played the game at slowest speed, and I hadn't noticed any jerkyness. It was only when, as a result of reading comments in the thread, I went to explicitly look for it that I noticed it - it's really no problem for me.

If I play at normal speed, the animation looks smooth. I guess that BHG are using the same number of frames for an animation cycle for all speed settings, so this is going to happen. If they were to have more frames at the lower settings they could fix this "problem", but it doesn't seem worth it to me.

[Mahdimael]

I haven't noticed any jerkiness in the units- again, at normal speed.

I think the units look pretty fantastic. I've played as the germans and the british and there are incredible details- the regular german "industrial age" infantry look different from the british "industrial age" infantry. In the modern era, it's even more exacerbated.

And is it just me, or do the German classical infantry (solduri) look like conan the barbarian?

[FrostyBoy]

yeah its cool

artwork is better than AoM by a long shot, except they're not as crisp as AoM's.