Geometric Inconsistency was AC2 was RE: [MUD-Dev] Total...

[Dave Rickey]

From: "Martin Bassie" <martin at lyrastudios.com>
> On Tue, Dec 17, 2002 at 10:21:28AM -0800, Marc Fielding wrote:
>> [Amanda Walker]

>>> Oh, geez.  Not just fighting.  The scale is often wrong overall.
>>> My first impression of DAOC was that I was playing miniature
>>> golf or visiting Disneyland.  Don't get me wrong--gorgeous art,
>>> but the terrain was way out of scale with the characters and
>>> buildings.  EQ, AC & AC2 have less of the problem, though they
>>> still suffer from the "short jog up to the top of the mountain"
>>> problem.  AO is fairly reasonable.

>> I've always been curious about this. Aren't scales (X units per
>> "foot") locked down early in development? It's not just
>> MMOGs. Many other games seem to have this issue to some
>> extent. Is it a result of poor communication between level
>> builders and characters modelers? Poor specifications? Varying
>> builder/modeler skillsets?B

> I'd say it mostly seems to be a combination of these, although I'd
> expect an attempt to make the world seem "impressive" may also
> play a part. Huge planes and fantastic buildings are a convenient
> way of overwhelming people, and it's easy to slip up and get the
> scale "just wrong". Even if it's all documented and locked down in
> the design specs, you could still see some of these
> inconsistencies - different tools and human error can easily cause
> this.

Ahh, I misunderstood the original point.  On this side of it,
realistic scaling feels too cramped/confining.  Our models are
scaled in the human range (Highlanders are 72 units tall by
default), buildings are scaled up about 20-25% from that, the
original dungeons were scaled 150%.  We learned from that mistake
(too close for fighting) and scaled later dungeons to 200% or more.
Other things were adjusted as well, real polearms should run from 8
to 14 feet, ours range 6 to 8.  Realistic scaling just looked odd
and awkward (yes, I know the real weapons *were* awkward).

If realism conflicts with gameplay, too bad for realism.

--Dave


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