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View Poll Results: What do you think of Indar's shape?
I Like it 19 31.15%
I Don't like it 4 6.56%
I'm not really fussed 38 62.30%
Voters: 61. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 2012-03-09, 02:22 PM   [Ignore Me] #1
texico
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The shape of Indar


After seeing the GDC footage, I have to say that the landscape of Indar does look pretty spectacular - I particularly noted the scene with the Vanguards moving through the rocky terrain, beautiful.

However, did anybody else think Indar's shape was a little... dull? It forms roughly a square and doesn't look very natural either, I don't think I've seen any islands that square shape before and it makes it look kind of man-made.

Most of PS1's continents are noteworthy for having really well-designed shapes, if you think of Hossin, Solsar, Amerish, Esamir and Ceryshen.

Imo if you want feedback, I would suggest cutting some terrain out of some sides and adding some at others to give it a more inspired and natural shape around the edges without having to change most of the bulk of the continent


Btw, because I have a pretty bad perception of scale, how big is this continent compared to PS1's continents? Like, is it the size of Ceryshen for example? j/w.

Last edited by texico; 2012-03-09 at 02:25 PM.
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Old 2012-03-09, 02:30 PM   [Ignore Me] #2
Bags
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Re: The shape of Indar


It doesn't matter.
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Old 2012-03-09, 02:36 PM   [Ignore Me] #3
Warborn
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Re: The shape of Indar


Here's Indar: http://i.imgur.com/BpXFp.jpg

Here's Ishundar: http://i.imgur.com/9SImA.jpg

It is a travesty that the vaguely round blob was exchanged for a vaguely square blob. I am writing the President this instant.

On a more serious note, what matters is the terrain overall and how it affects the flow of battle. The edges are not such a big deal. All FPS multiplayer maps are squares or rectangles, but that doesn't say anything about how they actually play, does it?

Last edited by Warborn; 2012-03-09 at 02:40 PM.
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Old 2012-03-09, 02:39 PM   [Ignore Me] #4
DviddLeff
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Re: The shape of Indar


Its fine; as good as any of the PS ones tbh.
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Old 2012-03-09, 02:40 PM   [Ignore Me] #5
Arrow
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Re: The shape of Indar


Well seeing that it is a continent and not a island..
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Old 2012-03-09, 02:42 PM   [Ignore Me] #6
texico
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Re: The shape of Indar


^^^ Yeah, I saw it in the GDC, the continent is pretty much a square.

It's not a big deal/complaint for me, I was just giving feedback. Shape is still nice and important aesthetically - otherwise, you might as well just have three triangles as the continents

Last edited by texico; 2012-03-09 at 02:47 PM.
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Old 2012-03-09, 02:45 PM   [Ignore Me] #7
texico
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Re: The shape of Indar


Originally Posted by Arrow View Post
Well seeing that it is a continent and not a island..


Originally Posted by texico View Post
around the edges without having to change most of the bulk of the continent


how big is this continent compared to PS1's continents?


I know.

Also, how many continents are square either?

Last edited by texico; 2012-03-09 at 02:56 PM.
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Click here to go to the next VIP post in this thread.   Old 2012-03-09, 03:00 PM   [Ignore Me] #8
Malorn
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Re: The shape of Indar


The issue I have with the shape of Indar was that the faction at the north side of it has a lot of territory around its main warp gate, and a lot of open terrain with which they can use.

The lower two factions looked much more cramped. The TR side looked particularly bad as it appeared to be lots of rough terrain and canyons. That doesn't leave a lot of room for them to take alternate routes or spread out and attack different directions. The southwest looked similar with very little land right around the warpgate.

If an empire did get pushed back to the area around its warpgates I think the empires in the lower left and lower right would have a harder time pushing out due to the terrain and lack of territory to expand into. The Northern faction will have the easiest time - lots of territories, lots of terrain to spread out and take.

I'm not all that impressed with the continental layout of Indar from a tactical perspective. Looks like the factions will have clear advantages depending on which position they are in.

Yet another reason why I believe the warpgate bases need to be randomized and moved around once a month or so. That way each empire gets each position so it doesn't really matter if there's some continent imbalances and they can continue making asymmetrical continents. As long as the continent is asymmetrical, certain positions will be better than others.

Mixing up the empire starting locations every now and then fixes the issue. And gives all empires variety. It's a fantastic idea that I'd love to see them commit to doing.
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Old 2012-03-09, 03:08 PM   [Ignore Me] #9
texico
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Re: The shape of Indar


Originally Posted by Warborn View Post
Here's Indar: http://i.imgur.com/BpXFp.jpg

Here's Ishundar: http://i.imgur.com/9SImA.jpg

It is a travesty that the vaguely round blob was exchanged for a vaguely square blob. I am writing the President this instant.

On a more serious note, what matters is the terrain overall and how it affects the flow of battle. The edges are not such a big deal. All FPS multiplayer maps are squares or rectangles, but that doesn't say anything about how they actually play, does it?


It's funny you should use Ishundar, which is the map I think has the worst design of the lot (apart from the battle-islands)

But even then, it's not really a "normal" shape. It's not a triangle, square, pentagon etc. or anything like that.


Definitely this doesn't really have anything to do with Battle, but then neither does the design of weapons or armour, but that's still considered important. It's fine for an FPS "map" to be a square because the point is it's usually a self-contained "piece of land" that the particular arena-style battle is taking place in. But when you design an island, you're essentially trying to make the point that it's a real island/continent, which usually means interesting naturally-looking shapes..

Hey, like I said I'm not complaining as such but offering feedback on what my impression was . But it seems like a pretty silly thing to dismiss, why would you want somebody to look at the island and their first impression be something like "this is a pretty much as square, that seems kind of amateurish"?
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Old 2012-03-09, 03:33 PM   [Ignore Me] #10
Graywolves
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Re: The shape of Indar


I'm more interested with what is inside the continent than its overall shape.
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Old 2012-03-09, 03:42 PM   [Ignore Me] #11
Warborn
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Re: The shape of Indar


Originally Posted by texico View Post
Definitely this doesn't really have anything to do with Battle, but then neither does the design of weapons or armour, but that's still considered important.
Totally ridiculous comparison. Armor and weapons are things you will be constantly looking at and which normal people care about for obvious reasons (aesthetics are important). The outline of a continent on a map is something you'll see briefly and which basically nobody will care about at all as it doesn't mean anything to their actual play experience. What matters is terrain features, not the general shape of the entire continent (barring continents with islands and bridges). You really have picked out something silly to take issue with.
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Old 2012-03-09, 03:49 PM   [Ignore Me] #12
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Re: The shape of Indar


i think it´s no problem, as long as the other continents have a more natural shape. one cont that looks like a square could actually happen, but if they all look like squares, it´s a little wierd.
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Old 2012-03-09, 04:31 PM   [Ignore Me] #13
DviddLeff
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Re: The shape of Indar


Flattened out the image:



As Malorn says the VS in the north have an advantage as they have what appears to be an Amp station in the NW which is far removed from the NC and TR gates. However the VS will have much larger defensive lines to hold compared to the others if they are being pushed back by both empires as the TR and NC gates are in the corners, allowing them to pack in more defenders per territory.

Now it is hard to see any terrain extremes such as canyons and hills clearly that would make ground movement impossible, so its tricky to tell exactly where the overall advantage would lie.
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Old 2012-03-09, 05:04 PM   [Ignore Me] #14
Grognard
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Re: The shape of Indar


Could be more "man-made" worse... 3 empires starting on a triangular continent...
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Click here to go to the next VIP post in this thread.   Old 2012-03-09, 05:21 PM   [Ignore Me] #15
Malorn
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Re: The shape of Indar


Originally Posted by DviddLeff View Post
As Malorn says the VS in the north have an advantage as they have what appears to be an Amp station in the NW which is far removed from the NC and TR gates. However the VS will have much larger defensive lines to hold compared to the others if they are being pushed back by both empires as the TR and NC gates are in the corners, allowing them to pack in more defenders per territory.

Now it is hard to see any terrain extremes such as canyons and hills clearly that would make ground movement impossible, so its tricky to tell exactly where the overall advantage would lie.
I like how they're not mirror images, but the only way to make that reasonably fair is to swap positions of the empires.

There's 6 possible configurations of the 3 empires. If it rotates them once per month on each continent we'll see each configuration 2 months out of the year and all empires get to experience each position with opponents in different places.

Don't see why they wouldn't do this, can't be that much work, lots of balance benefits to the game and would avoid all sorts of "Indar favors the VS" crap or "Indar shits on TR" and that sort of thing.
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