[RIVERS] - looking to barren

[Belboz]

Not the highest priority on the in-game landscape updates.

I recently had the opportunity to get an under-the-surface view of a nearby river that was receding post flood stage. While I do have heartfelt emotions for all who had to struggle through this horrific event, getting to view the river under the surface was, for me, a personal healing endeavor. I wanted to know that despite the events to the surrounding terrain there was a positive side below the surface. What I saw both made me ill and hopeful. I won't describe what I saw as this is not the point of the thread. What came to my mind though, was how barren the rivers in the game are (no excuses, it was just where my head was). I've seen the improvements to the shores themselves, but since the rivers are mostly clear water, looking into them and seeing a barren bottom is emotionally unsatisfying.

Is there a possibility of doing some improvements to the river bottoms themselves (plants, debris, logs, ducks diving along the banks, crayfish crawling near the shore, etc...)?

B

[Aleziana]

Do you ask for devs to give love it the game?? tell me is that it????? :O

[Valakircka]

long ago i was swiming Brandywine from east to west, was the shipwreck event i recall,
i saw a fish swimming out of the water above my head, took a photo n sended to Devs. i believe it must be 10 years ago..........
in the mail i asked to give some love to the water areas but nothing happen...........
i m not expecting something to happen now..... rivers, lakes n sea, just exist in the game.......
in n other universe we should be able to have our own boats n travel in every river lake n sea the game has!

[Scenario]

It's definitely something we are interested in figuring out - the edges of the Anduin River in Vales of Anduin are a bit of a first step, and are more lush with marsh/river-edge foliage than we've done before. While there are opportunities to hand-place some decorations below water level, our ideal solution would be to utilize our engine to generate those things, and we are in the process of relearning how to do that since forming SSG.

[Belboz]

Thanks for the positive reply Scenario! I hope the difficulties you are experiencing end soon. I look forward to seeing the results in the distant (if not near) future.

B

Edit: Can loading issues and the presumed hit to performance be mitigated with low resolution distant imposters to give the illusion of life under the water? Also, could there be a check box added to the UI options to turn off underwater landscaping?

[HappyCappy]

A lot of games have this problem. In a recent alpha game that I was a player in they decided to cover the ocean bottom as it rather is in real life. The problem though was all it did was add a ton of items on the landscape that most people never saw. It lagged the server and the players for almost no benefit. Eventually, they removed all the underwater objects. Immediately the problems of lag were solved.

Every time you add something to an area you take a performance hit. The question an area designer needs to ask is, "Is it worth it?" In most cases it simply isn't worth it. Most player have learned to turn down the graphics in this game even though they may have brand new computers running it. This game is NOT well optimized at all.

Solutions:

The best solution that I have seen to this problem was solved by Neverwinter Nights 2. What they did was create a pirate area. But instead of adding a ton of objects under the water in the regular landscape, they instead created an underwater instance that a player can go to. They put on a special helmet that allows breathing under water and the area has atmospheric effects that simulate being under the ocean. All in all it worked out pretty well and it was surprising just how many objects they could use underwater that were already created. However, if you think about it, most objects that would be underwater are already made above water. So the effect was mostly achieved by slowing down chars movement a lot and adding creatures in that didn't have legs (sharks, fish, squid, etc). No the players didn't swim. Instead, they were forced to walk around upright as if in a very stiff diving suit. By doing this, they could give players what they really wanted, which was an underwater area without lagging the basic landscape and lagging the server over all. Instead, the underwater area would only be created when needed by players.

[Valakircka]

It's definitely something we are interested in figuring out - the edges of the Anduin River in Vales of Anduin are a bit of a first step, and are more lush with marsh/river-edge foliage than we've done before. While there are opportunities to hand-place some decorations below water level, our ideal solution would be to utilize our engine to generate those things, and we are in the process of relearning how to do that since forming SSG.

tks for the answer mate!

A lot of games have this problem. In a recent alpha game that I was a player in they decided to cover the ocean bottom as it rather is in real life. The problem though was all it did was add a ton of items on the landscape that most people never saw. It lagged the server and the players for almost no benefit. Eventually, they removed all the underwater objects. Immediately the problems of lag were solved.

Every time you add something to an area you take a performance hit. The question an area designer needs to ask is, "Is it worth it?" In most cases it simply isn't worth it. Most player have learned to turn down the graphics in this game even though they may have brand new computers running it. This game is NOT well optimized at all.

Solutions:

The best solution that I have seen to this problem was solved by Neverwinter Nights 2. What they did was create a pirate area. But instead of adding a ton of objects under the water in the regular landscape, they instead created an underwater instance that a player can go to. They put on a special helmet that allows breathing under water and the area has atmospheric effects that simulate being under the ocean. All in all it worked out pretty well and it was surprising just how many objects they could use underwater that were already created. However, if you think about it, most objects that would be underwater are already made above water. So the effect was mostly achieved by slowing down chars movement a lot and adding creatures in that didn't have legs (sharks, fish, squid, etc). No the players didn't swim. Instead, they were forced to walk around upright as if in a very stiff diving suit. By doing this, they could give players what they really wanted, which was an underwater area without lagging the basic landscape and lagging the server over all. Instead, the underwater area would only be created when needed by players.

yes indeed lagging is a big problem n since we have nothing to do underwater surface, there is no reason adding things........
on the other hand som things could have had been created such as rocks n fishes, not too much but enough to make it more real!
i dont believe there is a reason of creating an underwater instance in LotRo........
but someone never know..........
giving some life in the water n let us using boats its n other thing thow!

[auximenes]

It's definitely something we are interested in figuring out - the edges of the Anduin River in Vales of Anduin are a bit of a first step, and are more lush with marsh/river-edge foliage than we've done before. While there are opportunities to hand-place some decorations below water level, our ideal solution would be to utilize our engine to generate those things, and we are in the process of relearning how to do that since forming SSG.

Thanks for the response. I love this kind of information.