PSA - PA's Aesthetic

I agree. I like it a lot too.

thx for posting this Mike very nice vid.

up top, for extra credits, I love these guys. Now with PA aiming to be a really mod-friendly (if not most mod friendly) game, we can imagine that PA's aesthetics aren't set in stone, maybe a guy makes a mod that looks so good, that Uber asks the guy if he's ok for them to make it the default and maybe he says yes and then in the next update you get the new aesthetics (we can imagine that last patch added a unit, the one before that a performance tweak and the one before that bugfixes, it could be anyhting).

I say having a solid engine (for the stuff that can't be modded in later) is key, as for aethetics, they can change, and I certainly hope they do, I hate stuff that are set in stone.

I actually get REALLY pissed off whenever someone rips on PA because it has "bad graphics" "lazy graphics" or such. Because if you make a remotely colourful game now, it's either a TF2 rip-off or is sh*t.

My suggestion is to not take others' differing opinions so personally (e.g. "getting really pissed off"). They're entitled to their opinions as much as you are yours.

For me, I think PA's graphics look more like TF2 than they do SCFA or even TA. That's the impression I get. I think PA's colors are partly responsible. But it's also the units design themselves.

And yes, I do wish that PA units styling looked more like TA/SCFA and less cartoonish (e.g. Borderlands, WoW, TF2) in style. I'd like PA to be a "serious" RTS sim, not a "beer and popcorn" casual RTS game.

While I see how graphic style is related to seriousness of the game theme and story, I don't think it can be connected to the game being casual or hardcore from gameplay standpoint. And gameplay is the only thing that really really matters.

I like current style, it looks good. I even think it would be worse if someone tried to make it look real: that would create dissonance between realistic models and textures and silly scope of the planets.

I know this is an old post, but since the thread got resurrected: I'd reserve minimalism for something like Eskill Steenbergs Moon

Great post Mike!

This is the reason Minecraft graphic are low resolution, yet the worlds are able to suck you and you feel very immersed in them. Extending on this, Aesthetics is the reason that OTA has that magic that BA was never able to capture.

On a related note. I wonder how we can work to try and match the style Steve developed with our own custom terrain for example. That way if you have multiple biomes on a single world when a custom one loads it won't break the experience.

Maybe it's just me but I can't get into an RTS game and consider it hardcore/serious if its units looked like cute, stuffed toy animals (just an example). Similarly, I feel the same way about units that have a cartoonish look to them.

For me at least, how units look conveys much more than just game theme and story. The aesthetic stylings convey a level of seriousness or frivolity to a game, whichever the case may be.

Realistic aesthetics would very much look off in this game, given the planet scale. It also helps gameplay a lot because the units are more readable.

Uber has commented about looking into adjusting the unit scale. Also, I'm sure an artist can make the units look realistic while still remaining "readable". They can also take a page form SCFA's book and use icon symbols when zoomed out from the action.

Don't forget that SupCom/FA had a LOT less unit variety, in any given stage you only used a handful of units so super high readability wasn't as critical, and doesn't change that more realistic units would look out of place given the scale of planets.

Mike

In that case, why bother making units even vaguely resemble tanks and aircraft and robots given the scale of planets?

Why not use military icon-like symbols or even "X"s and "O"s (or their equivalent) instead?

While I know that PA is in alpha and that anything down the line is possible, it's my opinion that the units just don't give PA the stylings of a serious RTS game.

I think it's quite sad how much colourful styles affects you negatively.

I think you should learn to develop a thicker skin. Either that or learn to tolerate others preferences in general.

I think then you'll find that others color preferences won't make you "sad" and others scaling preferences won't make you "really pissed and angry".

I'm neither "sad" nor "really pissed and angry" about Uber's decisions for PA since I know there will undoubtedly be others who will create a balance mod that will be to my liking. Plus, PA is still in alpha after all. Anything can change.