Newsfiend
05-20-2009, 08:13 AM
Alandross wrote:
Dev-Ngreth wrote:
Alandross wrote:
Dev-Ngreth wrote:
I so wish we could, but until all player models are re-done this is not feasible http://www.mapfiend.net/eq/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif
Well since you mentioned it, any news on this http://www.mapfiend.net/eq/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif Is this in the range of the next 6 months, or the next 6 years? (if you can say anything at all that is).
I really think re-done player models could win a lot of new and old people to EQ. Possibly one of the biggest potential wins in fact.
the biggest issue is it is about a man year per model, That is a HUGE amount of resources. And even then players seem to object strenuously to the new models. There is a HUGE cry against the new human models, which are available on beta and at least were at one time available on test if not now. And if we have to spend another man year in revisions it is going to really take a huge amount of time. And then, I expect players will not be able to come to an agreement on what is "acceptable" for new models.
All that said, there has been some progress, but I really do not know where it is in the progress nor how long it will take to complete, nor even if it will be completed. I cannot comment on progress past the human model.
We want it done for memory saving, but in order to get those memory savings, we may NOT be able to do the other player request of allowing players to be able to "choose" older models, as that will just continue to make the memory problem worse, as the players would then be keeping three huge memory hog models in memory.
Fair enough. Now at a man year per model I would argue some dev/art -> tech pipeline work needs to be done (it should never take that long for resources), but that's out of my concern.
You definitely will not please anyone and in fight might upset others, so I would definitely go in the direction of looping the community in early (as someone else suggested). Feedback taken and handled right can be a very useful thing or it can be a deterent, it's definitely all in how it's done. I think getting new players into EQ is probably one of the biggest concerns and I think new models done with that target could really help the game re-flourish a bit. Obviously there's a lot of complexity to bringing in new players and any one thing won't do it and I definitely won't pretend it's that simple http://www.mapfiend.net/eq/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif
As far as tradeskills, for me the biggest benefit would be revamping the stats on all of the outdated items. I mean there are a lot of great weapons and items that one can make, but the mass majority of them are useless compared to even defiant (nevertheless the many other options). Many times over I've started to work tradeskilling up just to get bummed at the grind with no benefit. I think a revamp of all the old items to be a step up from the defiant gained at that same level would go a long way.
the "1 man year" comes from the time to make the model, (not trivial when we see how-opinionated opinions on them are) plus 127 animations... With some large amount of extra animation required if the model has robes. And it is entirely possible that changes to the base model will require at least tweaks to animations (to avoid clipping where possible) making it an even longer process. The animations take TIME...
That said, a good chunk of time can be saved on the animation if the models are similar enough (I.E. humans and Drakkin)
Now these were numbers I heard. I am not an animator or artist... so I am going a bit on hearsay here.
Int he end, this topic may be new to some players in this conversation, but it is something we have gone over many many times.
We want new player models
New player models are a HUGE MASSIVE time-resource hog, and we have often put other things for the players with a higher priority because of the massive amount of resources character models take.
More... (http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=149990&post_id=2201750#2201750)
Dev-Ngreth wrote:
Alandross wrote:
Dev-Ngreth wrote:
I so wish we could, but until all player models are re-done this is not feasible http://www.mapfiend.net/eq/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif
Well since you mentioned it, any news on this http://www.mapfiend.net/eq/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif Is this in the range of the next 6 months, or the next 6 years? (if you can say anything at all that is).
I really think re-done player models could win a lot of new and old people to EQ. Possibly one of the biggest potential wins in fact.
the biggest issue is it is about a man year per model, That is a HUGE amount of resources. And even then players seem to object strenuously to the new models. There is a HUGE cry against the new human models, which are available on beta and at least were at one time available on test if not now. And if we have to spend another man year in revisions it is going to really take a huge amount of time. And then, I expect players will not be able to come to an agreement on what is "acceptable" for new models.
All that said, there has been some progress, but I really do not know where it is in the progress nor how long it will take to complete, nor even if it will be completed. I cannot comment on progress past the human model.
We want it done for memory saving, but in order to get those memory savings, we may NOT be able to do the other player request of allowing players to be able to "choose" older models, as that will just continue to make the memory problem worse, as the players would then be keeping three huge memory hog models in memory.
Fair enough. Now at a man year per model I would argue some dev/art -> tech pipeline work needs to be done (it should never take that long for resources), but that's out of my concern.
You definitely will not please anyone and in fight might upset others, so I would definitely go in the direction of looping the community in early (as someone else suggested). Feedback taken and handled right can be a very useful thing or it can be a deterent, it's definitely all in how it's done. I think getting new players into EQ is probably one of the biggest concerns and I think new models done with that target could really help the game re-flourish a bit. Obviously there's a lot of complexity to bringing in new players and any one thing won't do it and I definitely won't pretend it's that simple http://www.mapfiend.net/eq/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif
As far as tradeskills, for me the biggest benefit would be revamping the stats on all of the outdated items. I mean there are a lot of great weapons and items that one can make, but the mass majority of them are useless compared to even defiant (nevertheless the many other options). Many times over I've started to work tradeskilling up just to get bummed at the grind with no benefit. I think a revamp of all the old items to be a step up from the defiant gained at that same level would go a long way.
the "1 man year" comes from the time to make the model, (not trivial when we see how-opinionated opinions on them are) plus 127 animations... With some large amount of extra animation required if the model has robes. And it is entirely possible that changes to the base model will require at least tweaks to animations (to avoid clipping where possible) making it an even longer process. The animations take TIME...
That said, a good chunk of time can be saved on the animation if the models are similar enough (I.E. humans and Drakkin)
Now these were numbers I heard. I am not an animator or artist... so I am going a bit on hearsay here.
Int he end, this topic may be new to some players in this conversation, but it is something we have gone over many many times.
We want new player models
New player models are a HUGE MASSIVE time-resource hog, and we have often put other things for the players with a higher priority because of the massive amount of resources character models take.
More... (http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=149990&post_id=2201750#2201750)