Discuss! Game Director Letter - September 2014

[AngryBarb]

If we don't get to fight a Cthulhuesque type boss in cetriss I'll be pretty disappointed.

Oh I think we will, but that part of Cetriss will be T6 country, so don't expect that anytime soon.

[Mellaus]

I'm not too worried about Lovecraftian influence being over.
Nyarlathotep being at the center of the entire dragon spine plot, we'll obviously see more of him and his twisted plot in the palace of Cetriss.

[Bibik]

Cross-quoted Nusquam from TSW forums :

The TSW version of the engine, 2.0. Dreamworld 3.0(Lego version) does have a new animation system.

Can we expect the same update for AoC Dreamworld engine and animations ?
Any possibilities (i said possibilities, not promises) about this ?

[Slith]

I think Lovercraftian stuff needs to go. I am not a huge fan of it.

REH also freed himself from Lovecraft's influence around the time he wrote "A Witch Shall Be Born". Many specullate that anticlimactic death of "main" monster in "A Witch Shall.." (aka Conan just ordered soldiers to shoot it down with bows) was symbolizing REH taking Conan to a different places (Beyond the Black River, Red Nails, Hour of the Dragon all very different from previous works).

[Mellaus]

Can we expect the same update for AoC Dreamworld engine and animations ?

I hope not, TSW animations look like crap, AoC stands miles above on every single aspect of animations, character designs and combat.

[Bibik]

I hope not, TSW animations look like crap, AoC stands miles above on every single aspect of animations, character designs and combat.

I'm not talking about that, i'm talking about Dreamworld 3 with new features/updated stuff (like animations) of Lego to AoC.
The source post for clarification Nusquam evocated the past work (cancelled) and the Dreamworld 3 update for Lego opening possibilities for other Funcom titles.

EDIT : anyway i've read again the thread and esp Nusquam's answer but it seems i overlooked it and missed that this work to update Dreamworld 2 to 3 in TSW (who need it badly, like you said) was cancelled due to the past ressources restrictions, so i have without doubts my answer about using it for futures AoC animations process :/ "Unlikely" is the expected answer !

[hepp]

The animations for one of the bosses for last years haloween event in aoc was clearly taken from one of the monsters at the beach in TSW.

[Greyloins]

Can we expect the same update for AoC Dreamworld engine and animations ?

I'd seriously doubt this, considering the engine update for Anarchy Online was promised back when AoC was released IIRC, and still hasn't happened. Not to mention how delayed craft revamp Cetriss is.

The animations for one of the bosses for last years haloween event in aoc was clearly taken from one of the monsters at the beach in TSW.

Beach? As I recall it was Jack O'Lantern (http://wiki.crygaia.com/view/Jack_O%27Lantern), a monster who appears in pumpkin patches, that got ported for the Halloween event.

I hope not, TSW animations look like crap, AoC stands miles above on every single aspect of animations, character designs and combat.

As I recall, Bylos explained that this was because the developers who did animations for TSW weren't the same as the ones who did it for AOC and didn't have the experience, and so animations turned out worse. Might not be because how the engine was updated as much as because of less motion capture etc.

I think Lovercraftian stuff needs to go. I am not a huge fan of it.

REH also freed himself from Lovecraft's influence around the time he wrote "A Witch Shall Be Born". Many specullate that anticlimactic death of "main" monster in "A Witch Shall.." (aka Conan just ordered soldiers to shoot it down with bows) was symbolizing REH taking Conan to a different places (Beyond the Black River, Red Nails, Hour of the Dragon all very different from previous works).

Well, like it or not, Funcom are obviously huge fans of it, and they do "Lovecraftian" very well, unlike some other developers I could mention, like Trion, Bioware or Blizzard. When Dragonspine gets finished (if we're still alive by then ^^ ), maybe they could do something more sword and sorcery and less crazy gods turning people crazy.

[hepp]

You are right. It was the world boss in atzels approach that used the animation from the beach. The one where a spike comes up from underneath you.

[Nusquam]

I think Lovercraftian stuff needs to go. I am not a huge fan of it.

REH also freed himself from Lovecraft's influence around the time he wrote "A Witch Shall Be Born". Many specullate that anticlimactic death of "main" monster in "A Witch Shall.." (aka Conan just ordered soldiers to shoot it down with bows) was symbolizing REH taking Conan to a different places (Beyond the Black River, Red Nails, Hour of the Dragon all very different from previous works).

Slith you have to provide sources for such commentary.

As for the animation system - Dreamworld 3.0 (Lego) uses a new render engine (Hunter). That is why the game will run on many platforms including tablets.
Dreamworld 2.0 (TSW and AoC and the new AO engine) use a different rendering engine (Cheetah).

Pretty much porting anything between 2.0 and 3.0 is not going to happen, though 3.0 inherits all the features from 2.0. As the coders like to put it "Hunter slays Cheetah".