Arelith

Subutai wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2019 8:46 pm This, combined with the extremely prevalent wrought iron spikey fences everywhere and the glass windows makes Cordor look to me like something more out of a Gothic romance than out of something roughly 14th-15th century.

This dark gothic look is something I have kept reading here isn't fitting to the Forgotten Realms.

But then of course, I was brought up on this.

https://youtu.be/hoSqDtky0pU?t=58

Baldur's Gate was a super bright game, though. Proof!:



That's Baldur's Gate, the city, as actually seen in game.

That's a lovely image, definitely brings back memories.

They did well matching the tower from the intro video with the one in game, and overall the city has a lot of more 'modern' (using the term loosely) buildings, and that image is 80% full of dark stone, compared to the featureless white on NWN vanilla city.

I felt compelled to compare the view of the city to the video from Baldur's Gate 3 trailer, which actually presents the city in a far more 'classical' theme, and I would say, closer to the style of NWN.

It's not the walls alone that I, personally, find too dark. It's the overall darkness. The walls are dark, the street is dark, the grass is dark, the trees are dark. Baldur's Gate might have dark walls, and even a darkish street, but the grass and trees are very vibrant. There's also a good mix of other vibrancy mixed in. Bright water, roofs, tents, some buildings.

I wouldn't mind if the walls of Cordor stay dark (although I really wish the windows were shuttered instead of paned with glass, and that there was less wrought iron). It's the fact that the walls and every thing else is so dark. Makes me feel like I'm playing Ravenloft or something.

The thing about scrutiny is definitely big, where people are looking at things that weren't even looked at before. I posted a picture of the docks near the beginning of the thread and pointed out broken geometry. But then when I went to Sibayad I noticed it had the base docks texture, and the geometry was broken on it too. I had never even noticed it was part of the base model in the past! Every time I looked at the docks before, I always thought to myself "That wood texture is stupid, the wood is pointing in random ways," and I never noticed the model itself was also weird.


The hak project is a giant undertaking, I'm really impressed with how things are going considering the scope of it. The entire server is being retouched. And I really appreciate the effort and testing the team is putting into it. Going and extracting only what is needed and applying it, and making sure it's efficient. That's a lot of time and effort and I like that you're working to make a curated experience.
Every time I hear people trash talk about it being untested, I think to myself, I've been on a server where after a hak update players could access nude models because they weren't disabled. CEP is full of so much garbage, and people just cram it into things when only using a fraction of it. I like the time and effort the dev team is putting into this, and I want to make sure they know because otherwise the only voices that are going to be heard are the angry people.

I also liked the long post about the thought process behind tileset selections too. Oh my god, those interiors with the loom or other awkward objects. You've got a lot more freedom to design areas without them, that's a solid reason to replace the tileset.

As players I think the best thing we can do is report problems. If something is weird, it's not the end of the world. The devs are talking about replacing models and textures on things, if something's ugly we can take pictures of it and show them and they can fix it up. That is really cool! I've never played on a server before where the devs actually talk about replacing textures on things if it's not working out. And so far it sounds like the devs are receptive to suggestions.

I've found a few floating objects in my travels, I'm going to go around screenshotting them so the team knows it's an issue. All of us play the server, we can help see things that'd be missed otherwise. I'm looking forward to seeing everything else that gets added.

Skull crags mountain druid grove menhirs. This is a good example of how the new textured items don't mesh well with some older ones! The older big square rock mixed better with these pillars!

Kuma wrote: Tue Aug 27, 2019 1:36 pm

Skull crags mountain druid grove menhirs. This is a good example of how the new textured items don't mesh well with some older ones! The older big square rock mixed better with these pillars!

That’s a good point for how it affects things sometimes. We’ll take a look at it, see if we can make it look like it fits.

Spyre wrote: Tue Aug 27, 2019 2:10 pm That’s a good point for how it affects things sometimes. We’ll take a look at it, see if we can make it look like it fits.

You dont need to Spyre, that area is getting removed at the next big update (as we lay the ground for the new city), and the replacement is stunning.

Irongron wrote: Tue Aug 27, 2019 2:49 pm You dont need to Spyre, that area is getting removed at the next big update (as we lay the ground for the new city), and the replacement is stunning.

Would seriously love a mountain grove with stones like that somewhere, though. All the menhirs ultimately leading to the forlorn old mountain grove is one of my favorite hikes on the server. It makes the path feel ancient and mysterious. I'm really, really excited about the new settlement, but I'll be sad to lose the druid trail!

Irongron wrote: Tue Aug 27, 2019 2:49 pm

Spyre wrote: Tue Aug 27, 2019 2:10 pm That’s a good point for how it affects things sometimes. We’ll take a look at it, see if we can make it look like it fits.

You dont need to Spyre, that area is getting removed at the next big update (as we lay the ground for the new city), and the replacement is stunning.

as a combination of fixtures it's pretty common tho. i'm going to keep posting these sorts of things as i find them.

Recently been playing a low lvl,

There is an insane amounts of in cave flight.

Reallylongunneededplayername wrote: Tue Aug 27, 2019 11:54 pm Recently been playing a low lvl,

There is an insane amounts of in cave flight.

This has already been fixed, and will likely be sent live tomorrow.

female statues didnt age well

Looks like scabbards, backpacks and quivers no longer scale to fit halfling models.

monkeywithstick wrote: Thu Aug 29, 2019 10:18 pm

Looks like scabbards, backpacks and quivers no longer scale to fit halfling models.

They never did.

We haven't touched creature or item models.

Irongron wrote: Thu Aug 29, 2019 10:37 pm

monkeywithstick wrote: Thu Aug 29, 2019 10:18 pm

Looks like scabbards, backpacks and quivers no longer scale to fit halfling models.

They never did.

We haven't touched creature or item models.

Wierd, the only overrides I had installed pre-haks were the arelith changes and graphic overrides. And the scabbards were absolutely scaled last time I checked that character.

In every area that uses the mines and caverns tileset, I now find myself "flying". A lot. The z-axis seems totally borked, and it makes gameplay really awkward, too.

And likely unrelated to haks, the new anacondas in the jungles seem to be halfway animated, at best. Might want to take a look at those.

Irongron wrote: Wed Aug 28, 2019 12:12 am

Reallylongunneededplayername wrote: Tue Aug 27, 2019 11:54 pm Recently been playing a low lvl,

There is an insane amounts of in cave flight.

This has already been fixed, and will likely be sent live tomorrow.

Still flying!

Um i don't know what new haks they put in just now but one of them is making half the objects in game to appear pure white.

Another new hak. More unexplored horizons of bugs.

Something's wrong here, boys:

Thank you for the new weapon, armor, and monster models... they look so much better.

And now they are gone...

There was a packaging problem with the attempted update tonight. Thus it was rolled back.

For information and assisting us find problems, seeing things in game that are solid white is usually caused by missing or corrupt texture file(s).

Can we be less snarky please. None of us are perfect. Not a single one.

Was not trying to be snarky?