Looking at Age of Conan screens

Kind of pretty, but leaving me skeptical.

Will it take one real day to walk across a so huge city? And how many NPCs it will need to look believable? And how many of those will be just walk-ons? And how many NPC functions you can add to give that kind of environment a purpose?

Or maybe it’s like Guild Wars, and what I’m seeing is a passive backdrop. The cardboard city.

Look at all these towers. Will I be able to enter in every one and look outside those tiny windows. Or they are just zone walls with nothing past them?

It feels like the world builders and artist are going in a direction, while the game designers in another. Creating an environment isn’t just about making it look great, but also making it PLAY great. And those screenshots show environments that aren’t meant to be played.

Give the world back to the players.

Interesting the use of distance fog and bloom. On this aspect there’s also Dawn of War which implemented an effect that I suggested years ago and that is about making objects not just “fade”, but also becoming translucent. Maybe one day we’ll have perfect transitions, without any apparent glitches.

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