I feel like this game is suffering an identity crisis, the original concept was for a semi-realistic war game that could support massive battles, but it seems it's becoming some form of silly self-parody. You've gotta pick a theme and stick with it, TF2 worked because it set out from the very begining to be 'fun' in nature, whereas this game started out with these in mind: What do you think? I'm kinda conflicted on the topic.
This game doesn't have a "serious" art style at all. That went out the window very early in the game with skull masks and hockey masks. IMO it's trying too hard to have customization MMORPG style character customization. But it's far too late to turn back now, unless they give us a client side option to disable cosmetics.
The visual style is already nuts, now I just wish the vehicles, weapons and equipment would be crazy as well instead of generic FPS arms because making them to crazy would be 'unbalanced' or whatever. Gimme 20mm Miniguns, Sonic Blasters and Giant Laser Cannons dammit.
Man that alpha screenshot. I can't believe we went from that to what we have now. It's almost like SOE had a moment of clarity and went "ok wait, if they look like that right out of the gate, how are we going to get them to buy overpriced helmets and armor? Give them like a foam hat with some Walmart goggles or something."
I've never been a fan of the PS2 style as a whole.. I agree, things looked a lot better in early alpha. I disagree though that it was necessary to change it to allow customization. For example, see Blacklight: Retribution. It has a really great art style, lots of customization while remaining more on the serious side of asthetics (there are some goofy customizations allowed, but nothing quite as bad as you see in PS2)
The cosmetics, especially the camos, are the culprit. And IMO the era we live in, this game doesn't have the best graphics, sounds, physics, and animations... because if it did we would have to cull a large chunk of the players that wouldn't be able to run the game.
It's not just the player models that have suffered, the entire game looks like garbage when compared to early beta. There is also this bug that makes the LOD on objects go way too low for the distance depending upon which direction you look, and it's somewhat random. Totally irritating and immersion breaking.
I would love if the TR had a more military-style look that is oriented at present military stuff with some future-touch. Personally, I think the "rounded" style doesn't fit the TR that well. I'd love some massive edgy tank. But then you have to remind where the game comes from and what stuff looked like in the original Planetside.
I wish this game had a more serious tone. It doesn't matter that much but still... By the way the N.C. armor is way too bright to me. They are supposed to be using salvaged/older gear than the T.R./V.S. yet the colors on their armor looks so bright. It looks chipped and worn but it is so bright it looks like it was painted yesterday. Especially the yellow, it gets too bright when it clashes with the blue. I understand that yellow/gold and blue are their main colors but I think it goes too far. Makes them look kind of like toys. (The vehicles too...for all factions). The V.S look nice because the faction colors are not dominating the armor just some spots are there. The TR look alright too because red goes well with white/gray. Here are some Alpha/Beta images. The Yellow is still there but the armor looks a lot better gray/deep blue. It blends better and seems more logical to me. The armor looks more industrial I guess/ more worn out. As you can see the faction colors don't dominate, you can still clearly see that those are N.C. fighters.
I agree I liked all the graphics from the alpha footage I've seen. Also the Reaver form alpha looked a whole lot better than the current Reaver.
alpha footage looks more sharper and detailed what we have now feels like a majority of it was removed.
http://www.roblox.com/RUSH-2049-BATTLE-item?id=40972799 Top Screen. Gimme the boombox for my harasser!!
I meant sonic blasters as in shotguns that rip people apart with high-powered sound waves....but those are cool too.
People might freak if their camo/helmets/bells and whistles on vehicles and so on didn't show vs. some players but damn if that wouldn't be a great option and also remove the minor "pay to win" aspect of some camos that do make players harder to see/harder to determine faction. Would be nice if the default gear looked better first though. It's kind of lame for all factions really. The alpha gear does look way better.
Such is the nature of F2P gaming. You can't have "super serious MLG tryhard' aesthetics in a game where your income is based on selling people funny hats. So long as Higby's dinner is dependent on people buying day-glo codpiece skins, you're never going to see that alpha feel come back.
