136 replies to this topic

[CyclonerM]

Pariah Devalis, on 27 April 2014 - 01:33 PM, said:

And that is where you fail. When you have an iconic image in your head, unless it is exactly like the image it will never live up to it. The very act of translating the mech into a game destroys any chance of it being the iconic mech you propped up in your mind's eye. Reality is he needed to change it. Not just for MWO's particular art style, but because a carbon copy of someone else's work is no bueno.

You may have quite some reason but i think it is not totally true. Pretty much all the concept arts look updated but also quite iconic and faithful to the classic designs, except for small details like the adding of torso twist or a slightly too long barrel. I also never complained about the Adder in-game model. It looks fine.

Punakettu's Timberwolf is pretty much my mental image of the Timberwolf. Who said copying something is always wrong? If PGI paid him to use his model (or at least his design) i may have preordered it ASAP ...

Also in MWLL the 'Mechs are always quite close to the classic images and they most often look fine. If i have a mental image of the Timberwolf and you say nothing can live up to it, why i like the Timberwolf design in MW2, MWLL, Punakettu's renders and others, all different? I even like the Timberwolf in Mech Commander Omnitech

Quote

Edit: In the future it might be nice if they went back and did a pass, but right now there is a crunch, and more mechs need doing before they should waste resources on altering the current model.

I never said it might happen..

Dredhawk, on 27 April 2014 - 01:50 PM, said:

I have found in this World people ***** about everything...It's impossible to please everyone why bother trying I don't....

Activision, Wandering Samurai and Punakettu all pleased me, but not PGI (regarding the Timberwolf)

Edited by CyclonerM, 27 April 2014 - 02:01 PM.

[pbiggz]

CCC Dober, on 26 April 2014 - 01:59 PM, said:

Let's keep in mind that the Marauder had 'pipe' arms as well (which shares design principles with the Timberwolf) and that did nothing to stop it from being acceptable either. Or at least I never heard people bash it for that like the Timberwolf. People have seen Timberwolfs before and those were never 'chunky' as far as I can tell. PGI went off the beaten path here, but not for the better.

Thin arms you were saying?

And no, i dont think any mech with twigs for arms looks good. Are you going to burn me at the stake for heresy?

I understand the desire to stick to what you love, I love mechwarrior 2 and 3, I loved mechwarrior 4 as well (not quite as much as 3) but if you come to me and tell me that THIS actually looked good, you're simply deluding yourself. THIS is 80s Japanese mecha, THIS is absurd, MWO's art style is gritty, (relatively) realistic western mecha, keep your dancing ballet mechs away from me, I do not care for them.

Edited by pbiggz, 27 April 2014 - 02:12 PM.

[ZachMan119]

116th NorskaFresh, on 11 April 2014 - 03:14 AM, said:

Why does the madcat not have the 45degree chicken legs it should that make the main torso look a reasonable size? Why instead does it have atlas legs with a tiny undersized torso thrown on top?

It has assault mech legs!! Give it in game locust legs!!!





Why does it look like this on the web page? The cockpit overhanging the thin legs?

I wonder if PGI even know what the are doing...

Edited by ZachMan119, 27 April 2014 - 02:19 PM.

[Pariah Devalis]

CyclonerM, on 27 April 2014 - 01:59 PM, said:

You may have quite some reason but i think it is not totally true. Pretty much all the concept arts look updated but also quite iconic and faithful to the classic designs, except for small details like the adding of torso twist or a slightly too long barrel. I also never complained about the Adder in-game model. It looks fine.

Punakettu's Timberwolf is pretty much my mental image of the Timberwolf. Who said copying something is always wrong? If PGI paid him to use his model (or at least his design) i may have preordered it ASAP ...

Also in MWLL the 'Mechs are always quite close to the classic images and they most often look fine. If i have a mental image of the Timberwolf and you say nothing can live up to it, why i like the Timberwolf design in MW2, MWLL, Punakettu's renders and others, all different? I even like the Timberwolf in Mech Commander Omnitech

I never said it might happen..


Activision, Wandering Samurai and Punakettu all pleased me, but not PGI (regarding the Timberwolf)

Activision's Timber Wolf, MicroProse's Timber Wolf, and Microsoft's Timber Wolf all looked very different. They were only related in general shape, which is what the MWO Timber Wolf does. Key features retained in all. All of them do not look like the Table Top miniatures. Wandering Samaurai and Punakettu did not make a for profit rendition of it. As soon as money comes into the picture, things need to be changed.

[FireSlade]

pbiggz, on 27 April 2014 - 02:09 PM, said:

Thin arms you were saying?

And no, i dont think any mech with twigs for arms looks good. Are you going to burn me at the stake for heresy?

I understand the desire to stick to what you love, I love mechwarrior 2 and 3, I loved mechwarrior 4 as well (not quite as much as 3) but if you come to me and tell me that THIS actually looked good, you're simply deluding yourself. THIS is 80s Japanese mecha, THIS is absurd, MWO's art style is gritty, (relatively) realistic western mecha, keep your dancing ballet mechs away from me, I do not care for them.

I like Japanese mechs like Full Metal Panic, Muv Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse, Gundam, and Armored Core but that does not mean that I want them in Battletech. To me they are completely different things and should stay separated.

ZachMan119, on 27 April 2014 - 02:17 PM, said:

I wonder if PGI even know what the are doing...

They do, it is just that they were saving money/time by reusing existing models to make it. If you look at the Cataphract the legs look very similar.



And this I believe is why the legs look off. The Cataphract is a shorter mech ingame so to fix this issue they had to resize them to make the Timber Wolf tall enough but this also made them out of proportion to the rest of the mech. Then rather than spend the manhours fixing this issue it was deemed "good enough" either that or no one noticed (I rather hear that it was because of money/time instead of incompetence).

[ZachMan119]

True, but its not like they don't get a lot of money though the Clan, and other packs

[lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol]

The problem I have is when you start combining 3025 boxy Inner Sphere design logic to 3050 Clan mech tech. It's supposed to be lighter, it's supposed to be more technologically advanced. It's not supposed to look like a damned box. The design team got lazy and half-assed the leg design.

Especially when you compare it to the Adder, the Timber Wolf looks rushed. Sorry if I expect it to look "good".

[FireSlade]

00ohDstruct, on 27 April 2014 - 03:01 PM, said:

The problem I have is when you start combining 3025 boxy Inner Sphere design logic to 3050 Clan mech tech. It's supposed to be lighter, it's supposed to be more technologically advanced. It's not supposed to look like a damned box. The design team got lazy and half-assed the leg design.

Especially when you compare it to the Adder, the Timber Wolf looks rushed. Sorry if I expect it to look "good".

They could reuse models with the Timber Wolf and less with the Adder. From what I have seen they do a much better job when they have to recreate things from scratch and when they recycle objects they just look rushed. The Adder could use bigger ERPPCs in the arms.

[pbiggz]

The next person who says pipe cleaner arms are the result of fancy clan tech will be clan LRM 20'd in the face at point blank range. Pipe cleaner arms are 80s art style. ART STYLE

30 year old art style doesn't fly in a modern video game.

[Strum Wealh]

00ohDstruct, on 27 April 2014 - 03:01 PM, said:

The problem I have is when you start combining 3025 boxy Inner Sphere design logic to 3050 Clan mech tech. It's supposed to be lighter, it's supposed to be more technologically advanced. It's not supposed to look like a damned box. The design team got lazy and half-assed the leg design.

Especially when you compare it to the Adder, the Timber Wolf looks rushed. Sorry if I expect it to look "good".

"More advanced" does not always mean "rounded"...

M4 Sherman (debut in 1942) - note the use of rounded surfaces, on both the turret and the body


M48 Patton (debut in 1953) - note the use of rounded surfaces, especially on the turret and less-so on the body (in comparison to the Sherman)


M1 Abrams (debut in 1980) - note the absence of curved surfaces, especially on the turret (in addition to the absence of curved surfaces on the body)

Edited by Strum Wealh, 27 April 2014 - 03:36 PM.

[FireSlade]

pbiggz, on 27 April 2014 - 03:18 PM, said:

The next person who says pipe cleaner arms are the result of fancy clan tech will be clan LRM 20'd in the face at point blank range. Pipe cleaner arms are 80s art style. ART STYLE

30 year old art style doesn't fly in a modern video game.

Thanks to Paul that will tickle at most.

[FireSlade]

Strum Wealh, on 27 April 2014 - 03:28 PM, said:

"More advanced" does not always mean "rounded"...

M4 Sherman (debut in 1942) - note the use of rounded surfaces, on both the turret and the body


M48 Patton (debut in 1953) - note the use of rounded surfaces, especially on the turret and less-so on the body (in comparison to the Sherman)


M1 Abrams (debut in 1980) - note the absence of curved surfaces, especially on the turret (in addition to the absence of curved surfaces on the body)

That was because the engineers figured out that that 2 inches of armor could act as 3 inches of armor if struck at an angle.
"For efficiency, the heaviest armour on an armoured fighting vehicle (AFV) is placed on its front. Tank tactics require the vehicle to always face the likely direction of enemy fire as much as possible, even in defence or withdrawal operations.

Sloping and curving armour can both increase its protection. Given a fixed thickness of armour plate, a projectile striking at an angle must penetrate more armour than one impacting perpendicularly. An angled surface also increases the chance of deflecting a projectile. This can be seen on v-hull designs, which direct the force of an Improvised explosive device or landmine away from the crew compartment, increasing crewsurvivability.^[5]"
http://en.wikipedia..../Vehicle_armour

So while curved armor would be able to absorb greater impacts, they are less resistant to penetration than angled armor.

Edited by FireSlade, 27 April 2014 - 04:04 PM.

[101011]

While that is all well and good, how much do you want to bet that sloping your armor will help reflect that laser?

[FireSlade]

101011, on 27 April 2014 - 04:08 PM, said:

While that is all well and good, how much do you want to bet that sloping your armor will help reflect that laser?

Depending on the angle would depend on the thickness and the thicker the armor would defeat the laser more than thinner. Also we are just entering the age of energy weaponry and when they can shrink it enough to fit on tanks and other vehicles then we will see if rounded armor is better than sloped when a laser beam hits it.

[Strum Wealh]

FireSlade, on 27 April 2014 - 03:55 PM, said:

That was because the engineers figured out that that 2 inches of armor could act as 3 inches of armor if struck at an angle.
"[color=#252525]For efficiency, the heaviest armour on an [/color]armoured fighting vehicle[color=#252525] (AFV) is placed on its front. Tank tactics require the vehicle to always face the likely direction of enemy fire as much as possible, even in [/color]defence[color=#252525] or [/color]withdrawal[color=#252525] operations.[/color]
Sloping and curving armour can both increase its protection. Given a fixed thickness of armour plate, a projectile striking at an angle must penetrate more armour than one impacting perpendicularly. An angled surface also increases the chance of deflecting a projectile. This can be seen on v-hull designs, which direct the force of an Improvised explosive device or landmine away from the crew compartment, increasing crewsurvivability.^[5]"

http://en.wikipedia..../Vehicle_armour



[color=#252525]So while curved armor would be able to absorb greater impacts, they are less resistant to penetration than angled armor. [/color]

Still, the point is that the argument of "Clan 'Mechs are 'more advanced', so they cannot use flat/sloped/squared-off surfaces instead of curved surfaces" is complete and total rubbish, and the fact that that argument is rubbish is amply demonstrated by the fact that real-world main battle tanks actually follow the opposite trend in becoming less curvy as time passed and they became "more advanced".

----------

101011, on 27 April 2014 - 04:08 PM, said:

While that is all well and good, how much do you want to bet that sloping your armor will help reflect that laser?

"A projectile hitting a plate at an angle other than 90° has to move through a greater thickness of armour, compared to hitting the same plate at a right-angle. In the latter case only the plate thickness (the normal to the surface of the armour) has to be pierced; increasing the armour slope improves, for a given plate thickness, the armour's level of protection at the point of impact by increasing the thickness measured in the horizontal plane, the angle of attack of the projectile. The protection of an area, instead of just a single point, is indicated by the average horizontal thickness, which is identical to the area density (in this case relative to the horizontal): the relative armour mass used to protect that area." - (source)

Since the effective thickness (relative to the laser striking at a non-perpendicular angle) is greater for the sloped armor than for a perpendicular strike against a plate of the same actual thickness, sloping may actually prove quite helpful against that laser weapon.

[lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol]

pbiggz, on 27 April 2014 - 03:18 PM, said:

The next person who says pipe cleaner arms are the result of fancy clan tech will be clan LRM 20'd in the face at point blank range. Pipe cleaner arms are 80s art style. ART STYLE

30 year old art style doesn't fly in a modern video game.

Settle down, take a breath, and ease your finger off the shift key. No need to yell.

Besides, and not to burst anyone's bubble regarding realism, but no one ever brought up the physics or spatial reasoning regarding where or how the hell everyone is stuffing the ammunition for all those LRM's you're gonna pretend to fire. What about the realism of storing ammo in the legs when the weapon is in the arms? Arguing realism about a game is moot, but picking and choosing? Really?

As far as 80's style, maybe you've never seen an 80's cellphone.

[FireSlade]

Strum Wealh, on 27 April 2014 - 04:15 PM, said:

Still, the point is that the argument of "Clan 'Mechs are 'more advanced', so they cannot use flat/sloped/squared-off surfaces instead of curved surfaces" is complete and total rubbish, and the fact that that argument is rubbish is amply demonstrated by the fact that real-world main battle tanks actually follow the opposite trend in becoming less curvy as time passed and they became "more advanced".

Oh I agree and find the concept art for the Timber Wolf to look quite advanced and I love it.

The in-game model on the other hand......... Eh I will take it because it is the Timber Wolf but I am not satisfied with it.

Edited by FireSlade, 27 April 2014 - 04:32 PM.

[Daneiel]

Pariah I have great respect toward you ( i fought against and you gain my respect) , but in that case you are wrong . When you selling something you don't expect to revisit later , that product must be released finished and polished or you not released it , other way you will be kicked in the guts by the "market". PGI dropped the ball with the Timber Wolf - rushing that mech and reusing parts from their other mechs even without rescaling them properly is really sloppy work. Paul can say that all of the team is on the clan content , but that don't mean to be lazy in their work especially to the most iconic mech after the unseens ( Warhammer and Marauder ).

P.S. Creating new model of the legs for the Timber Wolf will pay back at the Mad Dog , so if PGI read that part of the forum please send that mech back to design team to do their work properly , same goes for the arms they also can be used on other clan mechs which share the same arms .

[Pariah Devalis]

If they spend time totally recreating, retesting, re-tweaking, and then replacing the model both for the normal model and the pre-order prime model, you essentially tie up two mechs worth of effort to fix the legs of one mech. If there was no schedule to keep, I would agree. It is a bit sloppy of them to release something that, aesthetically, is not quite what some of us expected to get. It is, however, outright inappropriate, inconsiderate, and against fair business practices to potentially delay the release of another mech in what is no doubt an incredibly rough period of rapid prototyping, modeling, and actualization of the remaining Clan mechs in time for the release date that they set.

If they do not produce the full list of mechs on the stated date of release, for services paid, that is the bigger disservice and something that can and, given some of the playerbase in this game, will get them in trouble with appropriate business commissions. It is fuel for fire. Right now we have an aesthetics "problem" that a portion of the community does not like, a portion likes, and yet another portion is ambivalent about. It is far from a big enough issue to warrant such a gross misappropriation of resources and effort at this particular point in time.

The TL;DR version of it?

Regardless if you like it, love it, or could take it either way, be happy you even GET to have the Timber Wolf. Marauder and Warhammer fans would KILL to have anything. IF there is enough dislike for the design, and that is a pretty big if, then in the future, when time allows, they might fix it.

They will not now. So either take it or do not, but for the moment we are stuck with it.

[ramp4ge]

I saw this redesign of the T-Wolf a and it reminded me of the ingame redesign.

I like it a lot.



Sauce