Art focus much?

[Megakoresh]

I learned my lesson last time, so I am not getting into the whole community thing as hardcore anymore, but I'm still keeping tabs on what's going on.

I noticed lots of focus of these milestones are on art assets/animations/visual systems. Is that really a good idea? Art takes a lot of time, even if you have a good pipeline, and even if you take advantage of the newest UE4 features like in-engine animation editing and realtime geometry updates - still takes time.

Playing games for over 16 years now I noticed that if you have a fun core gameplay loop, you can put even rather coarse or minimalistic art assets in and people will still like it (Portal, Superhot, hell, even Nier: Automata - it's a super-ugly game). Alternatively if you put out fantastic graphics (and visual systems) and start thinking about the gameplay loop too late you end up with, well I don't want to mention it, but people will think of it anyway so - No Man's Sky). Graphics assets can be later patched without too many issues, as they don't break much, but gameplay mechanics are dependent on the initial codebase limitations, so they aren't as easy to improve.

Just an observation.

 

[Nack3rs]

I don't think that you are wrong that a fun, ugly game is better than a boring, pretty game. But I think that getting a good chunk of the modeling and rigging done is a good idea for the size of the team right now. Plus since I do believe they are still funding in small milestones, they can produce a rigged and animated model faster than they can add features to a game that doesn't really exist yet.

 

[NanoTechnician]

I hope the dramatic difference between the art style and the game is not as bad as project Genome was..

Spoiler: comparison between trailer and ingame

https://forums.em8er.com/threads/project-genom-review-oct-2016.586/

Usually, it's been that they started off as art tech demos then made it optimised for the average machine.

Game mechanics are a priority to get right, starting bugs become features and that can be unfortunate for the game and the players.

 

[Torgue_Joey]

HOW THE F*CK CAN ONE MAKE A GAME WITHOUT ANY ASSETS/ARTS/WHATEVER-VISUALS.

THE THMPR, FRAMES, ENEMYS. THEY ARE THE CORE ASSETS OF THE GAME.
WHEN WE GOT THE BASE ASSETS, THEN WE CAN WORK ON THE CORE MECHANICS AND MAIN GAMEPLAY.

 

[Despair]

I believe that everything should be in balance. But right now, as we need a community at first to fund and get this project going, visuals are pretty important.

 

[EvilKitten]

Do remember that we (meaning grummz and his backers) are not making a game right now, we are making a DEMO to illustrate some of the game concepts in order to raise money for the actual game. You can't make a demo without the art assets being designed.

 

[Astro]

I think Megakoresh has a fair point...
Build the thumping encounter first with some low poly objects to make sure that the event & the mechanics of the game are actually fun to play with, then make the pretty art assets after so you aren't spending money on something that may not be successful.

What if once the demo is done it looks amazing, but is only fun for 5 minutes? Or isn't fun at all?
Then again we all know the thumping was fun in Firefall, so as long as it resembles that and does it better, it *should* be fun...
Firefall thumping is the proof of concept, technically.

Speaking of thumping, will thumping events scale to the # of players, so that 1 person can solo a THMPR to completion to reap the max rewards possible, and if you want, have your friends join you too and reap the same rewards as you would solo? Or will max rewards only be possible with a group? We no longer have Thumpers I, II, or III..

 

[PlzBanMe]

Currently EM8ER is in pre-production. Getting an idea of what the game will look like is important. Art is just one of those easy things you don't need a full working team for. Funding is also an important part. With today's modern gamer they want something that looks cool an that can be done through unique gameplay or pretty graphics. A nice style will bring in more backers than a game with a promise of fun gameplay.

 

[Torgue_Joey]

Speaking of thumping, will thumping events scale to the # of players, so that 1 person can solo a THMPR to completion to reap the max rewards possible, and if you want, have your friends join you too and reap the same rewards as you would solo? Or will max rewards only be possible with a group? We no longer have Thumpers I, II, or III..

Mining

Mining in Em-8ER is an active, frenetic activity. Players use large MEK/A called THMPRs delivered via drop-ships to mine where players have located a caches of resources. These giant autonomous robots start drilling into the mantle of the planet and collecting the resources, rare elements and even alien artifacts exposed by drilling. Mining causes disruptions that attract Tsi-Hu and their various Kaiju who begin to attack the MEK/A and players.

Players must defend their THMPR MEK/A while increasingly difficult waves of enemies attack. The longer the mining continues, more and rarer resources are recovered. However, should the enemies overrun the players and THMPR, the resources will be lost. This creates a pushing dynamic where players can push their skill envelope to obtain more rewards, but can also opt out at any time to take what they have gathered so far.

I REALLY HOPE IT'S NO SOLO CRAP. THAT WOULD RUIN THE PURPOSE.
ESPECIALLY IF YOU CAN TAKE ON A KAIJU + A FEW FERAL RABBITS ALONE, THAT MEANS THE GAME WOULD BE UNBALANCED AS F*CK.
AND THE NEXT QUESTION: HOW MANY THMPR ARE ALLOWED TO MINE AT THE SAME TIME ON A MAP.
I KNOW WE CAN HAVE MULTIPLE THMPR IN A INVASION. BUT MINING IS LIMITED, THUS MAKING IT MORE A GROUP ACTIVITY.

 

[Grummz]

Sure, we've had over 5 years of pre-production, testing and knowledge called my work on Firefall. That part is done. I know what needs to be done. And a sad but true fact of modern crowdsourcing is that nobody funds a game on grey boxes moving around anymore. That ship has sailed.

But again, all the research is done. We know what was fun and worked, and what didn't. I spend 5 years figuring that out and see no need to go through it again. I am bee-lining towards the culmination of all this prototyping and see no need to start from scratch again and lurge from system change to sytem change.

I learned my lesson last time, so I am not getting into the whole community thing as hardcore anymore, but I'm still keeping tabs on what's going on.

I noticed lots of focus of these milestones are on art assets/animations/visual systems. Is that really a good idea? Art takes a lot of time, even if you have a good pipeline, and even if you take advantage of the newest UE4 features like in-engine animation editing and realtime geometry updates - still takes time.

Playing games for over 16 years now I noticed that if you have a fun core gameplay loop, you can put even rather coarse or minimalistic art assets in and people will still like it (Portal, Superhot, hell, even Nier: Automata - it's a super-ugly game). Alternatively if you put out fantastic graphics (and visual systems) and start thinking about the gameplay loop too late you end up with, well I don't want to mention it, but people will think of it anyway so - No Man's Sky). Graphics assets can be later patched without too many issues, as they don't break much, but gameplay mechanics are dependent on the initial codebase limitations, so they aren't as easy to improve.

Just an observation.