Merlkir

Except Morocco isn't in Europe and didn't have such an immediate contact with other European cultures. (compared to Spain) What clothing in such a culture would've looked like is a speculation, strongly based on the opinion of the person making it. Obviously the concept artist tried to make the clothes more colourful and lively. What you post is pretty cool, I like the patterns and shapes. But, even knowing all this, the world of Eternity is not exactly like Earth. While there are cultures on a similar evolutionary level as some on Earth, they're not the same and they're not nearly living in the same conditions. So drawing precise direct analogies won't work. Yes, the Vailians could've looked more exotic. Still, my point stands, someone would've complained about it just as well. The 17th century look is (I think) used in a contrast to the less sophisticated looking early/middle medieval cultures in the world of Eternity. It hints at the cultural relationship between Vailians and the others. That said, we've only seen a few examples of Vailian clothing. Who knows if their wizards won't wear something akin to the long flowing kaftans?

Obyknven, dude, can you read, or are you just wildly lashing out against random keywords? Moorish Spain, if the reconquista didn't happen, and also hundreds of years later. Also the Venetian Republic. Hence the much later period clothing. Good grief. Troll harder, man.

To get back to the Vailian issue - it's a no win situation really. If they were indeed dressed as pseudo-Africans, someone would come up and call this lazy design, stereotyping of black people and racist caricature. If I remember correctly, the Vailians draw inspiration from several Earthly cultures, one of them being Moorish Spain in the early medieval period, only if the reconquista didn't happen. What would that look like? You'd have this super scientific, advanced culture of dark skinned people, possibly at least partially adopting the dress of the renaissance. ie - The Vailians. Yes. There will always be someone to complain, without trying to understand why something is designed the way it's designed.

Good grief, obyknven, have you even read anything about who the Vilians are?

I appreciate the badass poses these armours are mounted in. )

\o/ \o/ \o/

Not a historical one. It's a fantasy design often sold as "viking", but in construction it's closer to late Roman or Romano-Briton spangenhelms. (fun fact - there aren't very many "viking" helmet finds, so much of what one sees in reenactment is speculation, mishmash of various helmets, or very often older Vendel helmets used as "family heirlooms" or something.) Also the riveted edges on the corinthian are somewhat odd. (and ahistorical I think)

That's a good looking suit that is! You don't see anything close to this in fancy lady shoots very often. Google tells me it's from here: http://www.wassonartistry.com/armor.php?w=15thcent

The vertical slice is finished and has been for some time. We are in production right now. In the past there's been talk of a video playthrough of the vertical slice (similar to what Shadowrun Returns did) being released soon. Is that still coming, or has it been scrapped since you're quite far in production now?

Looks very nice. Can't wait for that vertical slice gameplay video!

The equipment is standard medieval stuff, but the art is awesome. I've done a piece for the Medieval Warfare Magazine and felt pretty good about myself. Then I saw what this guy does for them. Derp. ;P

No no no, the game obviously starts with the PC's village being attacked by black riders. Duh!

That was a pleasant read, sure was. Especially great is the point about having a range of "mundane to epic" and starting "plain" so that the epic designs look suitably powerful in comparison. Games these days often forget about this. (MMOs, I'm looking at you! I think it's an attempt to give players something badass to wear from level 1, but it ends up being underwhelming and also a difficult job for the concept artists, because they need to invent insane levels of "epic-er" gear for the higher levels)

As always with armour or swords, it's not a simple yes/no matter. In my opinion, unavailability of gear was most often the reason, although some definitely chose to wear less or lighter armour for various other reasons. It really depends on the type of fighting you do. If we're talking just field battles, armour is the best option almost all the time. Guerilla warfare requires you to be mobile, to spend little time putting armour on and off, it often requires stealth and metal armour simply does make a lot of noise. It's a combination of various aspects of the situation you find yourself in - logistics, comfort, availability of gear and also custom and tradition.

That's simply preposterous. Everyone knows that all historical combatants, ever, simply wore the absolute heaviest armor they could possibly get their hands on, and that's that, u_u. They actually just ran through fields made out of sharp edges, so any spot not covered by full steel was instantly gouged out/severed. And the people who made it all the way across the field without dying won the battle. It had nothing to do with their ability to engage opponents and move freely, or stamina, or any of that malarky... Wow, what a fine example of a hysterical strawman.

The original quote seems to be a bit of a simplification (and an example at that) of the system by Sawyer himself. I'd wait for a more detailed explanation before talking about how a "general damage stat" is soooo retarded. /just sayan. edit: It does seem a bit strange that a single stat would influence damage from both physical attacks AND spells. Then again, how does soul magic work? Maybe you have to be fit to cast super impactful fireballs? ;P How is a "magic stat" usually handled anyway? Wouldn't "pump soul" be the ultimate "typical" approach to making a powerful mage?

Can someone better explain the outrage here? (I'm yet to read the full interview, but the posts here caught my eye) It sounds a bit like Mount and Blade to me. Your ability to fight with axes and spears is not based on two different attributes (strength for axes and agility for spears for example), rather strength determines how hard you hit and agility how fast you strike. Your ability to use the various weapons (technique we could say) is determined by a "weapon proficiency" level. Which makes sense, it's about HOW you use them, not just how strong or agile you are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqC_squo6X4

@Polina: She wasn't among your favourite CArtists,but I assume you know of Terryl Whitlatch? She's amazing with creatures both real and alien. (afaik she had a blog too, but now posts on Muddy Colors) http://muddycolors.blogspot.cz/p/art-of-terryl-whitlatch.html

Hmmm, the "spear" of a spear spider could be some kind of stinger, which it uses to poke you and suck your soul bits out. Or it just has spear-shaped front legs and uses them to stab its prey to death. edit: Oh and I'm very jelly of the awesome écorché Polina's hugging! Those man-dolls sure cost a fortune, but I can imagine they're pretty useful. Ah well, some of us have to make do with using a mirror for anatomy reference. )

What on earth is a spear (!) spider?! I do appreciate the alliteration, but good grief, giant spiders are my least favourite monsters in games. "You are poisoned by Massive Creepy Crawler. Ha ha." -1 HP -1 HP -1 HP "You cast the last healing spell you have after the big battle you just went through." -1 HP -1 HP -1 HP -1 HP -1 HP -1 HP -1 HP "You die. Ha ha." Every time.

Plate had evolved, of course. Optimized rather - taking away mass of metal from places of less importance, strenghtening those that needed it most. Most of this was against crushing blows and arrows. Swords are simply too light to pierce even bad quality plate and do any significant damage to the body. Making the plate armour even lighter? It wasn't really necessary, it was already very wearable for most men and most preferred the protection it offered. (better to overdo it and be safe than wear something that might potentially kill you) Still, there probably was a range of choice of protection, we know some knights sometimes preferred to fight with their visors open for example. Even though this exposed their faces to arrows and sword points, they traded that for easier hearing and visibility. I suppose that also not many armourers would make armour that might eventually come back to them, with a hole and a bunch of angry relatives of its former owner. Another important thing to consider is - the attitude and approach of fighters. If you're fighting someone in plate armour, you won't try to pierce his armour. Even if you thought it possible, the mainstream approach of the day was to get him on the ground and stab through gaps, visor etc. It's just safer and easier, everyone knew to fight like that. About wearing plate over mail - this wasn't typically done after the transitional period, for a simple reason - good plate by itself is lighter and more comfortable to wear than mail+light plate. Mail had been used to protect inner joints and other hard-to-plate gaps, you'd have mail patches (gussets) sewn onto the padded jack underneath. BIG picture: http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y110/Nephtys/Miscellaneous/EMS%208/EMS_8_83.jpg

Well, any short, tapered and rigid blade will be suitable for fighting armour of most types. If you have a very tapered point and a rigid blade, you can often pierce through the links of mail and slip into gaps in plate. Tapering is good for actually getting into the links first, rigidity allows for a firm thrust with all force focused in a single direction. One halfswords longer blades for the exact same reasons. Anything you might read or hear about actually piercing plate is totally off and supernatural. A fun related thing I never realized (until I heard about it on the Sword Geek podcast) is how often people are depicted using their daggers for eating and other daily tasks. Daggers are for fighting, one used all kinds of very different knives for other things.

Josh Sawyer on SA forums: What caught my eye - the 2d paintovers and how fine they interact with lighting. How does that work? Does the artist also paint a normal map (or any other passes?) while painting in the diffuse details?

I'm getting more and more excited about the game with every new update. The KS pitch actually made me feel nostalgic, but also a bit disappointed. It sounded very generic, like another Dragon Age. What they seem to be doing is far more interesting. And the fact they do deviate from the IE formula? GREAT! I liked the IE games a lot, but DnD is not my favourite system and replaying the IEs lately, there's a lot I don't enjoy as well. And they're doing things not often seen in games, like languages, or reasonably historical arms and armour. That's way cool.