Hello Everyone,
First off thank you HBTZ for doing a spectacular job so far on the game development!
I had one question/concern, and that is relating to the type of armor and clothing the Characters will be using.
In one video I saw the female character seemed to have tight clothing and a short top that is low-cut in the chest area. Is that just standard "lvl 1" gear or will other armor/clothing be the same amount of revealing texture? In my own opinion, it could be a lil more modest, possibly add a undershirt to show less.
What are your ideas on Armor in general? Are their going to be armor sets?
Is the armor going to have an affect on stats? (or profession specific Bonuses)
Do you have any ideas on implementing Profession Specific Armor? (such as Certain looks for farmers, blacksmith, hunter, etc...)
Armor/Clothing
Re: Armor/Clothing
Thank you for asking so politely. I have addressed this question before but am happy to explain to you again. The avatars that you see on the game menu currently and in some of the videos that feature the Bigworld engine (we are no longer using Torque for our engine but many of our old videos are still on YouTube) are showing the DEFAULT avatars that come with the Bigworld engine. They are a sort of futuristic Steampunk looking avatar, and certainly do NOT fit the Roman era. We are using them for testing because we know FOR SURE that they work with the engine. We are actually working on our own custom avatars. However, we have some bugs with the animations we haven't been able to get sorted out. And in light of this, we decided to postpone implementation of the custom avatars for now so that we could be sure that any bugs we encounter with other aspects of our code (like the mounts, and quests, and skills, etc.) were related to that code and not related to some unknown problem with our avatars. It's a lot harder to troubleshoot bugs when you have multiple variables. So for now, we have steampunk in Rome. It won't be like that always, it's just safer for troubleshooting.
Meanwhile, I've been trying to figure out how to make our Bigworld avatars more appropriately dressed without breaking them in the same way that using our custom avatars would break it. Still working on that.
As to armor and clothing in general, this is a really big deal in the design! We want to have MOST of the armor and clothing be player made (not drops from loot or merchant purchased, we want to keep that minimal). In this way, the clothiers become an important member of the society and their help is needed in the world. Likewise, the clothiers need the farmers to produce wool and flax and cotton and leather... and so on. We're aiming for an interactive society that new players are able to provide their basic needs on their own (we all hate it when we're new to a game and don't know anyone, and can't do anything because we can't find anyone to help us, so I designed the entry level of the game to be self sufficient with increasing dependency on society for the more complex features). At the same time, I anticipate that higher level people will need to seek out lower level players to help them with the lower level tasks. So we're creating an inter-dependency and building stronger relationships and stronger friendships through all levels of the game.
In short, yes, there will be custom armor.
God bless you,
-Sparkling
Meanwhile, I've been trying to figure out how to make our Bigworld avatars more appropriately dressed without breaking them in the same way that using our custom avatars would break it. Still working on that.
As to armor and clothing in general, this is a really big deal in the design! We want to have MOST of the armor and clothing be player made (not drops from loot or merchant purchased, we want to keep that minimal). In this way, the clothiers become an important member of the society and their help is needed in the world. Likewise, the clothiers need the farmers to produce wool and flax and cotton and leather... and so on. We're aiming for an interactive society that new players are able to provide their basic needs on their own (we all hate it when we're new to a game and don't know anyone, and can't do anything because we can't find anyone to help us, so I designed the entry level of the game to be self sufficient with increasing dependency on society for the more complex features). At the same time, I anticipate that higher level people will need to seek out lower level players to help them with the lower level tasks. So we're creating an inter-dependency and building stronger relationships and stronger friendships through all levels of the game.
In short, yes, there will be custom armor.
God bless you,
-Sparkling
Re: Armor/Clothing
Minor update (that should have been posted a few months ago probably, but it came up again on Facebook so I thought I would address it in a more accessible fashion here) on the female avatars in particular.
When we upgraded to Bigworld 2.1 last year, it included some changes to the armor on the female avatars that resulted in an even MORE risque appearance than before. We really do not want this! We still have the same issue with our previous avatars in that the animations work in the art program but they don't work quite right in the engine, and so we're concerned that perhaps they could cause more problems than they would fix while creating and implementing new code and functionality for the game. So the new custom avatars are still on hold. Meanwhile, we've found a way to remove the "anatomy enhancing" armor from the female avatars and dress them in painted-on longsleeve shirts and long shorts instead. The effect looks more like a wet suit than shorts and a shirt, which was disappointing, but still better than the steampunk armor in our opinion.
So you might see our Bigworld avatars with a "Visions" tshirt on them in the screenshots and videos. We are quite aware that they didn't have modern tshrits in Rome, and likely didn't have foam wetsuits either. This is not the final appearance of our avatars. But we feel it is an acceptable interim presentation that removed the steampunk armor from the females. (I have noticed that no one ever complains about the males, only the females.) We hope this helps to allow our Alpha Testers to enjoy the new game features we're implementing better, without being overly distracted by revealing steampunk armor.
So to recap, we are still looking for better solutions to the avatars, but in the meantime, this is the best we can do. Thanks for your support and understanding.
God bless you,
-Sparkling
When we upgraded to Bigworld 2.1 last year, it included some changes to the armor on the female avatars that resulted in an even MORE risque appearance than before. We really do not want this! We still have the same issue with our previous avatars in that the animations work in the art program but they don't work quite right in the engine, and so we're concerned that perhaps they could cause more problems than they would fix while creating and implementing new code and functionality for the game. So the new custom avatars are still on hold. Meanwhile, we've found a way to remove the "anatomy enhancing" armor from the female avatars and dress them in painted-on longsleeve shirts and long shorts instead. The effect looks more like a wet suit than shorts and a shirt, which was disappointing, but still better than the steampunk armor in our opinion.
So you might see our Bigworld avatars with a "Visions" tshirt on them in the screenshots and videos. We are quite aware that they didn't have modern tshrits in Rome, and likely didn't have foam wetsuits either. This is not the final appearance of our avatars. But we feel it is an acceptable interim presentation that removed the steampunk armor from the females. (I have noticed that no one ever complains about the males, only the females.) We hope this helps to allow our Alpha Testers to enjoy the new game features we're implementing better, without being overly distracted by revealing steampunk armor.
So to recap, we are still looking for better solutions to the avatars, but in the meantime, this is the best we can do. Thanks for your support and understanding.
God bless you,
-Sparkling