Character Animations need to take a cue from Aion

[ozz1376]

Ummmmm... ok, maybe I missed the memo but...

What is a console?

I honestly don't know, this is not a derail.

PS3, Xbox, etc.

[Caerylwyn]

PS3, Xbox, etc.

Oh... Thank You for the answer.

I hope they don't go that route.

[Elbereth_V]

Character Animations need to take a cue from Aion

I hope not, I saw that Aion looks completely arcadish, in graphics, animation and sound. :/

[Khafar]

they really should take a queue from Aion with regard to the animations

Maybe it would help if you explained what you think is great about Aion's animations. I watched a gameplay video (here), and I just don't see it. The animations I see there are faster and more acrobatic, but that wouldn't really fit in this game IMO. Is there another clip that shows off what you like better?

Khafar

[Kraggy]

Hey, watch out, the sky is falling!

Because making an observation of fact based on the Company's own statements has an emotion attached?

[Avalon1000]

I will add my two cents since I have played AION from the first day of CB and LOTRO for a year and a half. The two games are quite different. Yes the Character creation and animation in AION has LOTRO beat (I like to watch the different facial expressions on my Assassin). The world modeling is better in LOTRO (the details). Combat in AION is faster paced (but that will be somewhat fixed by SoM). The music in AION is awesome. Performed by the Japanese Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Symphony it truly is great music. I actually leave my background music on in AION....it's that good. AION is a PvPPvE Game and LOTRO is a PvE game with some PvP thrown in. The PVP on AION is awesome...up to 100 players or more on the screen and no lag.

The player base in LOTRO is one of the best in MMO's. The player base in AION can be ......well WoW brat kids, although Nezekan, the server I play on, has mostly really nice players. Turbine controls bots and gold spammers MUCH better than NCSoft and I really appreciate that! Both games have grind...in different forms. The storyline is good in both games. AION will be big for a time (until the next great game comes out), but LOTRO has loyal fans that will stick with the game. I am playing both right now (mostly AION till SoM comes out) and a group from our kin has formed a Legion on AION.

I kind of think LOTRO should have been done in two games. LOTRO one being the version we play now and LOTRO 2 being the upgraded engine for the finish of the books. I saw SoM at PaX and liked what I saw and Patience said they are moving the game back to the SoA style of play and are listening to the player base so hopefully this will come about and the forums will be full of good things in the future.

[Mikowise]

I really would like to see improvements in object draw distance... that's the real problem in LOTRO, objects changing/poping/disapearing while you run thru the map is realy annying.

Hopefully something will change in Q1 of 2010 becouse ATI have LOTRO on the list of first games supporting DX11, so maybe we will see some improvements in the game client.

And I can keep dreaming for LOTRO to look like that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY0xeCYFpI8

[Khafar]

I really would like to see improvements in object draw distance...

This is harder than it sounds. Their architecture is heavily tied to landblocks, an invisible grid that defines all of Middle-earth. Each block is 160x160m, and they use that as the trigger for loading high-def textures (as well as deciding when spawns need to be loaded, etc). That's why you'll sometimes see a cliff face which is half fuzzy and half crisp, with a vertical line separating the two areas. Landblocks are also used to help decide when to load structures that aren't flagged for FarView (terrain features and structures that are "landmarks", and can be seen much further away).

Basically, you can see high-res textures within the landblock you're standing in, and also within the next "ring" of 8 landblocks adjacent to that. So if you're standing on the east side of a landblock looking east, the fuzzy textures show up a bit over 160m away, while if you turn around and look west from there... they don't show up until nearly 320m away (and they look fine at that distance).

One option they might be able to offer for really high-end PCs would be to extend that "ring" out by one (for rendering static stuff only, not NPCs or MOBs). Only Turbine knows if that's feasible, but it's a possibility. That basically doubles the land area covered, so it's going to need more CPU, GPU, memory, disk I/O, etc. They're not going to be able to extend out the draw distance for NPCs/MOBs, because that would mean also doubling the requirements on the server, and not just on the client.

Khafar

[Snogirl]

I will add my two cents since I have played AION from the first day of CB and LOTRO for a year and a half. The two games are quite different. Yes the Character creation and animation in AION has LOTRO beat (I like to watch the different facial expressions on my Assassin). The world modeling is better in LOTRO (the details). Combat in AION is faster paced (but that will be somewhat fixed by SoM). The music in AION is awesome. Performed by the Japanese Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Symphony it truly is great music. I actually leave my background music on in AION....it's that good. AION is a PvPPvE Game and LOTRO is a PvE game with some PvP thrown in. The PVP on AION is awesome...up to 100 players or more on the screen and no lag.

The player base in LOTRO is one of the best in MMO's. The player base in AION can be ......well WoW brat kids, although Nezekan, the server I play on, has mostly really nice players. Turbine controls bots and gold spammers MUCH better than NCSoft and I really appreciate that! Both games have grind...in different forms. The storyline is good in both games. AION will be big for a time (until the next great game comes out), but LOTRO has loyal fans that will stick with the game. I am playing both right now (mostly AION till SoM comes out) and a group from our kin has formed a Legion on AION.

I kind of think LOTRO should have been done in two games. LOTRO one being the version we play now and LOTRO 2 being the upgraded engine for the finish of the books. I saw SoM at PaX and liked what I saw and Patience said they are moving the game back to the SoA style of play and are listening to the player base so hopefully this will come about and the forums will be full of good things in the future.

/agree

I've played both and they both have a lot of good things to offer. But I am attached to Middle Earth in a way I never could be to Elysea. I'm not even sure how to spell it. LOL.

I have a sorcerer on Aion... combo of LM and RK in a way (I can use an orb or a spellbook, lol), and I have an RK main on Lotro, and let me tell you, the combat effects in Aion NO WAY compare to the RK ones. Aions are just colored jet's of light-blue for ice and orange for fire, with the occasional firework type thing. But every RK skill is so different with ice shards exploding or snow blowing around... fire encircling to target or flaring up on it... way cool. RK's FTW!

I LOVE flying though! It's awesome!!

[speaksoftly]

I LOVE flying though! It's awesome!!

NO! no flying mounts in this game!

Oh, you meant in Aion, nm, carry on.