9 replies to this topic

[Jarvis Lancaster]

When you really think about it, in MWO all actions and dynamics in the game are move and shoot. Yes, we do have a new mechwarrior game with updated graphics and massive online play, but sometimes the attention to detail is lacking. we're supposed to feel big because buildings are small, but size and scale are two different things! they feel like small buildings when we're supposed to feel like big machines.

I'm glad to know i'm not the only one thinking this: the visual scale is all wrong. the angular-size of the environment and mechs around you make you feel either mechs are only eight feet tall, or your eye is as big as a VW beetle. Also, while I'm on how things look, could we not get more realistic visual details like mirages (especially on terra therma, i mean thats how you know something "looks" hot) or ice and snow on your mech and windshield on frozen city. or on river city night, what about adding effects to streetlights? they'll only light up our feet and probably flicker if we walk close by them.

More maps SHOULD reinforce that you are a MASSIVE walking war machine. Stop having hills we can't walk or see over. Have a patch of forest that comes up to your knee with a watchtower that crumbles if you touch it.

I'm tired of watching mechs walk like they're always on flat ground. hey, stand on this incline, where one foot is in the rock and the other is floating in the air. games from the 90s got over that hurdle.

With heat-vision, realistically, the environment should get warm where a mech shoots or even walks on it. Heat should also dissipate from a destroyed mech.

So many people owe their lives to a streetlight on river city; you'd think an AC/20 would penetrate it. Can I make my mech outa that stuff?

In the future I'd like to see more dynamic maps. Maps where small vehicles are moving around; destructible buildings; and map effects you'd only see from being 30-40 feet in the air. Think micro-effects. on foot we're worried about avalanches and rockslides, but a mechwarrior would look down on those things and think "heh, neat"

[990Dreams]

Keep in mind most games hold that an Atlas could topple a small forest, but full grown forests would be like what we have. And as for props and penetration, I totally agree.

[culverin]

Didn't Mech 4 have trees that broke when we walked across them?

The fact that mechs don't knock over trees and topple streetlamps somewhat breaks immersion for me.

[S3dition]

culverin, on 26 September 2013 - 10:55 PM, said:

Didn't Mech 4 have trees that broke when we walked across them?

The fact that mechs don't knock over trees and topple streetlamps somewhat breaks immersion for me.

They're working on it, but no ETA for rigid bodies, which is a bit odd at this point. Especially with an island map coming up that will probably have a lot of trees.

Also, the scale is fine, we just need more cities and smaller vehicles to compare our mechs to:

http://mwomercs.com/...active-mechlab/

Edited by S3dition, 28 September 2013 - 03:46 AM.

[Adridos]

S3dition, on 28 September 2013 - 03:45 AM, said:

Also, the scale is fine, we just need more cities and smaller vehicles to compare our mechs to.

You mean more recognisable things to compare our vehicles to. The closest we get to that are doors here and there on River City, but you have to look for those to notice them. The rest simply doesn't work as the trees are alien to us (andeven real ones vary greatly in height), the dropships and cars and buildings are all sci-fi designs and there's not much you could relate their size to.

That's why people complain aout the lack of immersion-y scale, even though the game is kinda packed with such things from the designer's perspective.

[S3dition]

Adridos, on 28 September 2013 - 04:24 AM, said:

You mean more recognisable things to compare our vehicles to. The closest we get to that are doors here and there on River City, but you have to look for those to notice them. The rest simply doesn't work as the trees are alien to us (andeven real ones vary greatly in height), the dropships and cars and buildings are all sci-fi designs and there's not much you could relate their size to.

That's why people complain aout the lack of immersion-y scale, even though the game is kinda packed with such things from the designer's perspective.

River City has cars and traffic signs headed towards upper city. It actually has a lot of detail, just not enough of it.

[Adridos]

S3dition, on 30 September 2013 - 01:16 AM, said:

River City has cars and traffic signs headed towards upper city. It actually has a lot of detail, just not enough of it.

Yes, but even through I've seen the map more than a thousand times and even went sightseeing through it, I've never once noticed those signs. As far as cars go, it's the issue I described above and all I see in them is those tiny sci-fi cars I loosely remember from some RTS game. Every time I've seen them, they were tiny and no matter how hard I look at them, I can't force myself to see them as real-sized cars. If those cars were some real ones (say, some nameless truck, since they probably can't use real ones due to licensing), or if you had some timeless designs for the sake of immersion (a simple boat would be a great example, like in the first mission of MW3), then they would actually do a much better job at giving people an idea of the scale.

[CyclonerM]

The scale in River City is something like this, remember that a Timberwolf is 12 meters tall i think, it is less than a average housing building..

Spoiler

And in a forest:

Edited by CyclonerM, 30 September 2013 - 04:59 AM.

[Mehlan]

maybe because those cars and etc can take weapons fire better than any of the mechs... :-)

[S3dition]

CyclonerM, on 30 September 2013 - 04:59 AM, said:

The scale in River City is something like this, remember that a Timberwolf is 12 meters tall i think, it is less than a average housing building..

Spoiler

And in a forest:

12m is about 40 feet... or the height of a 4 story building. It's also shorter than a warhammer/atlas. Remember that it's only 75 tons.