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NEWS UPDATE!
mike470
General CorrespondentMember Posts: 2,396
Enjoy:
Update on game building progress
25 June 2008
- We haven't posted a news article here recently, so we thought we would at least add an update on progress.
1. There have been some delays in the programming of the tool set for building the A.I. net for the NPCs of the world. We got side tracked with some other problems, but work will be back on track this week. We're very excited about this portion of the game building tool. Once Phase 1 is complete we can build our A.I. nets in the world and then toss in NPCs who will immediately go about living their lives within the game world. This system will bring unprecedented realism to our NPCs. We'll release more on this when Phase 1 is completed.
2. Animation Pipeline. We've had some success in our new animation pipeline, which is automating our system for bringing character models into the world with a full set of animations ready to go. Once completed this system will shorten the time it takes to get a completed NPC model into the game. With the numbers of NPCs we need living in our world we had to have a pipeline like this in order to quickly populate the game. This pipeline is still in progress at this point, but we have gotten the basic system functional and we're testing with the first NPC output by the system. If this works out like we hope we will soon be abandoning the old slow hand done system completely and starting to mass produce NPCs for the game.
3. Game Design. Going along with the recent revamp of our Quest system (see earlier news post) we have been adjusting the system further. Quests are a hybrid of human written story, hand made portions and generated Quest segments. All of this within a system that allows the player's decisions to change the course and outcome of each quest to thousands of possibilities. We currently believe that a typical quest in our system will take average players between one and two weeks (real time) to complete. Don't worry about that long of a quest, there are lots of 'chapters' along the way so you can have some satisfaction in the short run before reaching the grand climax.
4. Art continues to improve, though at a slow rate. We are not concerned with the aesthetic side of the game at this juncture, but plan to attack that at a much later date when we can assign more assets. For now the game art is certainly functional enough to play test the world, and that is all we need while we develop the game play, which IS our primary focus.
5. We will be addressing the CoS web site with a redesign and overhaul. Not sure when this will go live, but work will get started on this soon. (It's low priority though).
That's what's happening at MMO Magic, Inc. on Citadel of Sorcery.
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In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on Aug/13/08 - Rest In Peace; you will not be forgotten
Comments
Nice update but some how I already new about it.
Glad to see CoS is moving forward. Cant wait to see a video of in game footage and the different landscapes.
Sooner or Later
hehe, mabye you can see into the future.
And I would love to see some ingame footage as well...
You're lucky though, you get to see the footage before any of the fans
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In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on Aug/13/08 - Rest In Peace; you will not be forgotten
Sorry, but you will be waiting some time before we release any in game footage. You have to understand the nature of the world right now, it's built out of a lot of placeholder art (mixed with a few real pieces). This makes for a patchwork look in the world right now. Since people are SO visually oriented, and judge games too harshly (when they are looking at something this early in development) it is just much easier NOT to show something that isn't finished.
We've stated before, the technology and design are very far along, the art is not. It is unlikely we will show much of the visual side of the game for some time. There is an article on the game coming out in a major game magazine in the next few months with some additional screenshots, but even those were pried from our grasp under protest. However, they were so interested in the game play that they talked us into it. No, I'm not telling you what magazine yet, we'll release that when it comes out.
Until then, you'll have to be satisfied with all the information on the game design we have released, which we believe is far more than most game companies are willing to do this far out. The thing is, we have so much MORE that we haven't told you. It may seem like we are revealing a lot of details, but more is actually held back for later
What we have released is our way of getting people excited about the game play BEFORE we get to the visuals. Understandably, once excited you want to 'see' more. That will happen, but you'll need to be patient. We will continue to keep people informed as to our progress so that they understand what we are doing, and why visuals are not yet forthcoming. Game play first.
Ahh yes, very true. Graphics are the least important feature in any game, as long as the gameplay is good. So many games put too much time into graphics, and not enough time in getting the actual gameplay correct. It's nice to know you go for gameplay first.
I'm tired of all this eye candy on the market..
AS I always say:
Gameplay over graphics.
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In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on Aug/13/08 - Rest In Peace; you will not be forgotten
I agree with you! However, I don't want to imply that we don't intend to make the game look awesome. We do. It's just a matter of order. First we make sure the game play is the best we can possibly manage, and once that is in and tested, at that point we turn to the artwork and make the world more beautiful.
One thing you should know is that the engine behind Citadel of Sorcery is cutting edge. This means that once we turn artists lose with our engine they have the technology to make a great looking world. This rendering technology is already in place and ready to go. But it would be premature to spend a lot of art time making assets before we nail down the game play.
So, as I said, Game Play first... but we WILL get to the look of the world and make it as stunning as possible. Personally, I like a great looking game... just not at the expense of bad game play.
Great gameplay and stunning graphics...doesn't get much better then that
I always love good gameplay, and graphics are just a little bonus. I play games to have fun, not to stare at graphics.
Although I won't lie, I love just stopping in a game like Vanguard and looking at the amazing landscape. I look forward to doing that in CoS as well
I've played games with bad graphics and don't mind at all. Of course, there are people who disagree with me. I have seen people judge a game solely by graphics, without even trying the game first. Which is why it's great to have both good gameplay and good graphics (which CoS seems to be going in the direction of). This way, it suits everyone
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In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on Aug/13/08 - Rest In Peace; you will not be forgotten
As far as I am concerned as the gameplay is spectacular the graphics could be like diablo II. Keep it up CoS dev team and make a fresh game!
Their NPC tech and quest system sounds very exciting. I like games that give the impression that the NPCs do at least one tiny bit of something, anything, other than waiting in one spot for me to click them.
Guild Wars 2 is my religion