Much imagery is shown in those few Steam screenshots. I wanted to share a few observations and thoughts I had, when viewing them.
Is brown all around the best fashion choice of any landed aristocracy? Will wardrobe be an in game feature? Why is the event window sitting on a cloud of charcoal smoke?
I've chosen these two, because they better illustrates what I'll try to get across.
My main concern is in regards to the lack of colours, which applies both to the geographical map and to characters.
(top left): can someone open a window or something? Oh, the one in the background seems open, so I guess it's night time. Maybe a brazier? A torch? A match? No? Do we need to discover fire in the revamped tech tree or wait for Prometheus to bring us some?
I love the new terrain over the ck2 vanilla, but the lighting seems to be that of a cloudy day and I'm not taking about the fog of war, which looks like Mordor.
I doubt weather (I hope climate is though) will be a thing in the game, so why does I:R basks in sunlight and colour, while the middle ages must be filtered through grey?
The sun hasn't changed in the past 3000...
Though I never liked much the ck2 city sprawl, I hope they'll add something around castles or whatever settlement will be, because they seem as desolate as the Apostolic Palace in the heart of Rome.
See the first picture attached? The one with two characters standing.
It has a few problems regardless of possible preferences over art style and raises a few questions. I'm not criticising the art style in itself as that's a too subjective an opinion to make constructive criticism. Anyway here they are:
1. The light is behind the characters, rendering the figures much darker. This could work for an intrigue event, where the people are literally working in the shadows, but there is no reason why those two characters couldn't stand in front of a lit table themselves.
2. The background is fine, however how much variation are we going to see with backgrounds and clothing in regard to cultures? Ck2 always had more generic art and plenty of portrait packs, so it was easier to ignore what didn't fit, but here it is more specific, from setting to clothing, which makes me worry we'll see this at least from Ireland to Byzantium, the usual pan-European art style we all love. <3
3. Characters are more than just a head! Cool in theory, in practice we'll meet the same problem with backgrounds in terms of variety.
Disclaimer: the following are not dumb concerns...
What about breast size? (damn, could have phrased that better)
Bubs come in different shapes and sizes and some people, sometimes myself included, when marrying in ck2 wasn't necessarily to get the best claim or the best eugenics, but simply because our wife looked good!
(This sounds bad. Really bad. I swear I know irl there's more to a woman than her cookies, I'm married if that helps me look less like a cookie monster. But you get my point, yes? How deep am I digging this hole?
)
4. Will "ugly" and "attractive" remain as character traits or can I actually breed goblins?
5. Showing the character body from head to hip will probably never deliver the body type variety, for both men and women, because of the huge amount of work necessary. As a consequence characters will look too similar, and you see this from the screenshots. I'll stay optimistic, but I'm being realistic.
In conclusion I hope the game is not in its final stage, because in terms of looks I'm really not sold. Thankfully graphics are usually changed without altering the checksum.
In the meanwhile I'll await those dev diaries, but I hope some artistic choices are really addressed.
Is brown all around the best fashion choice of any landed aristocracy? Will wardrobe be an in game feature? Why is the event window sitting on a cloud of charcoal smoke?
I've chosen these two, because they better illustrates what I'll try to get across.
My main concern is in regards to the lack of colours, which applies both to the geographical map and to characters.
(top left): can someone open a window or something? Oh, the one in the background seems open, so I guess it's night time. Maybe a brazier? A torch? A match? No? Do we need to discover fire in the revamped tech tree or wait for Prometheus to bring us some?
Geographical Map
I love the new terrain over the ck2 vanilla, but the lighting seems to be that of a cloudy day and I'm not taking about the fog of war, which looks like Mordor.
I doubt weather (I hope climate is though) will be a thing in the game, so why does I:R basks in sunlight and colour, while the middle ages must be filtered through grey?
The sun hasn't changed in the past 3000...
Though I never liked much the ck2 city sprawl, I hope they'll add something around castles or whatever settlement will be, because they seem as desolate as the Apostolic Palace in the heart of Rome.
Characters
See the first picture attached? The one with two characters standing.
It has a few problems regardless of possible preferences over art style and raises a few questions. I'm not criticising the art style in itself as that's a too subjective an opinion to make constructive criticism. Anyway here they are:
1. The light is behind the characters, rendering the figures much darker. This could work for an intrigue event, where the people are literally working in the shadows, but there is no reason why those two characters couldn't stand in front of a lit table themselves.
2. The background is fine, however how much variation are we going to see with backgrounds and clothing in regard to cultures? Ck2 always had more generic art and plenty of portrait packs, so it was easier to ignore what didn't fit, but here it is more specific, from setting to clothing, which makes me worry we'll see this at least from Ireland to Byzantium, the usual pan-European art style we all love. <3
3. Characters are more than just a head! Cool in theory, in practice we'll meet the same problem with backgrounds in terms of variety.
Disclaimer: the following are not dumb concerns...
What about breast size? (damn, could have phrased that better)
Bubs come in different shapes and sizes and some people, sometimes myself included, when marrying in ck2 wasn't necessarily to get the best claim or the best eugenics, but simply because our wife looked good!
(This sounds bad. Really bad. I swear I know irl there's more to a woman than her cookies, I'm married if that helps me look less like a cookie monster. But you get my point, yes? How deep am I digging this hole?
)4. Will "ugly" and "attractive" remain as character traits or can I actually breed goblins?
5. Showing the character body from head to hip will probably never deliver the body type variety, for both men and women, because of the huge amount of work necessary. As a consequence characters will look too similar, and you see this from the screenshots. I'll stay optimistic, but I'm being realistic.
In conclusion I hope the game is not in its final stage, because in terms of looks I'm really not sold. Thankfully graphics are usually changed without altering the checksum.
In the meanwhile I'll await those dev diaries, but I hope some artistic choices are really addressed.
.png){kind=avatar}