What is your favorite natural enviroment in games?

[PsychoBlonde]

I generally love the spooky, oppressive feeling of swamps, but hate the annoying enemies that inevitably lurk there.

Remember the carnivorous plants from Witcher and the critters from Diablo 2, Act 3? I try not to.

 

Also swamps are generally the victim of bad level design, with annoying mazes of islands or long funnels of dry areas for you to follow.

 

All the swamps I've ever been in or near in RL are neither spooky nor oppressive. They're just soggy and filled with bugs the size of your head. Not to mention a ****load of other things that bite you, including but not limited to snakes, alligators, turtles, and leeches.

 

Swamps shouldn't be eerie and dark and ****. They should be DISGUSTING.

[JFSOCC]

I generally love the spooky, oppressive feeling of swamps, but hate the annoying enemies that inevitably lurk there.

Remember the carnivorous plants from Witcher and the critters from Diablo 2, Act 3? I try not to.

 

Also swamps are generally the victim of bad level design, with annoying mazes of islands or long funnels of dry areas for you to follow.

 

All the swamps I've ever been in or near in RL are neither spooky nor oppressive. They're just soggy and filled with bugs the size of your head. Not to mention a ****load of other things that bite you, including but not limited to snakes, alligators, turtles, and leeches.

 

Swamps shouldn't be eerie and dark and ****. They should be DISGUSTING.

I did enjoy the swamps they had in kourna in guild wars (nightfall) they weren't eerie, nor disgusting, they felt alive.

[Gorth]

We need more swamps in crpgs!

 

Support Swamps

 

You can never have too many soggy, gloomy places in games.

[LadyCrimson]

I liked the swamps in Dungeon Siege 3 amd the original Dungeon Siege. More specifically, I like splashing around in knee-high water, with the accompanying sound effects. They don't have to be gloomy tho. Just ... swampy.

[Milten]

Swamps FTW. Where else you can get this awesome gray-green colour all other the place? And don't forget about fog, you shouldn't see more ten steps around so you won't get this weird feeling of moving somewhere. That swamp in Witcher has the warmest spot in my hurt. Green water, green rocks, green ghouls, repeat. Marvelous.

On a serious note. Shorelines, I like shorelines.

[HansKrSG]

Any terrain can be interresting, if it is made interresting. Generally though, I usually like northern forests, and I usually dislike anything too drab, like empty deserts and the like.

[Rostere]

Northern coniferous forests:

[JFSOCC]

just browse http://www.reddit.com/r/earthporn/ for inspiration And I think I might have posted something earlier.

[JOG]

Like:

Deserts, ice-wastes, swamps and jungles, the inhospitable places where ancient structures, cults or even societies may still be found, undisturbed and forgotten by the civilized lands.

 

Dislike:

Nothing really, voted for dry mountains since I had to choose something

Edited November 19, 2012 by JOG

[Alexjh]

In general I like Icy/snowy places, its just easier to get a good atmosphere going with the crunch of snow beneath your feet and the sound of wind blasting through your party.

 

I don't exactly have a least favourite, but I feel that deserts and jungles I've never seen done really well in a fantasy game. Realistically, when doing a certain environment should be about is taking that environments characteristics and transmitting them to the player. Snow does this well because its bleak and its grim and it's cruel, and places which are snowy tend to have fairly difficult to navigate terrain and therefore more linear paths which are all add together for making "gamey" settings.

 

Deserts on the other hand are certainly cruel, but they are also lonely, empty and quiet, and don't tend to have that many paths. An ideally done desert in a game would be about wandering, not seeing another soul for days and days at a time, or finding anything but rocks and sand. Deserts should be a habitat about the slow build of tension and threat, getting progressively more menacing until a climax, they are not an environment of instant gratification and constant foes (I'm looking at you Diablo 3).

 

However, if I've never seen a desert done well, jungles are worse. The tension is jungles is about the unseen: things lurking in the shadows, ancient temples clad in vines and strange noises in the dark. They should have few wide open spaces, and you should spend a lot of your time up to the waist in swampy water with the constant threat of waking up from each rest having caught some new horrible illness. Foes should be stealth based and often poison based, and even seeing them should be a major event, though you might well hear them mixed in with the dozens of other strange noises. Perhaps even more fun, get to the point where you are used to all the strange noises, but then suddenly take it away except perhaps for the crack of a few dry twigs not caused by your party...

 

The problem is both would basically require a whole game to do justice and as project eternity looks rather temperate, it might be better to avoid these entirely and focus on doing interesting things with that.

[Gorth]

I don't think vast open spaces lend themselves well to 2d pre-rendered backgrounds. That is, unless you just tile a little sand square infinitely in all directions (would work for endless snow too)

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I dislike Jungles, am neutral about Deserts and Tropical Islands, and enjoy the rest.

[Failion]

In Rpgs I like coasts, forests and mountains. Real life, I love misty mountains and hiking them. It is a thrill never know if a pack of wolves or a grizzly going to pop out and maul you. I like forests with deep descents and dense bushes. Never know what can be lurking in them. Real life natural environments I find a lot of more interesting then what you see in video games but that is due to limitations that come with the media and the technology. I don't have a particular environment they all hold wonders and beauty.

[Chilloutman]

In general I like Icy/snowy places, its just easier to get a good atmosphere going with the crunch of snow beneath your feet and the sound of wind blasting through your party.

 

I don't exactly have a least favourite, but I feel that deserts and jungles I've never seen done really well in a fantasy game. Realistically, when doing a certain environment should be about is taking that environments characteristics and transmitting them to the player. Snow does this well because its bleak and its grim and it's cruel, and places which are snowy tend to have fairly difficult to navigate terrain and therefore more linear paths which are all add together for making "gamey" settings.

 

Deserts on the other hand are certainly cruel, but they are also lonely, empty and quiet, and don't tend to have that many paths. An ideally done desert in a game would be about wandering, not seeing another soul for days and days at a time, or finding anything but rocks and sand. Deserts should be a habitat about the slow build of tension and threat, getting progressively more menacing until a climax, they are not an environment of instant gratification and constant foes (I'm looking at you Diablo 3).

 

However, if I've never seen a desert done well, jungles are worse. The tension is jungles is about the unseen: things lurking in the shadows, ancient temples clad in vines and strange noises in the dark. They should have few wide open spaces, and you should spend a lot of your time up to the waist in swampy water with the constant threat of waking up from each rest having caught some new horrible illness. Foes should be stealth based and often poison based, and even seeing them should be a major event, though you might well hear them mixed in with the dozens of other strange noises. Perhaps even more fun, get to the point where you are used to all the strange noises, but then suddenly take it away except perhaps for the crack of a few dry twigs not caused by your party...

 

The problem is both would basically require a whole game to do justice and as project eternity looks rather temperate, it might be better to avoid these entirely and focus on doing interesting things with that.

 

Well I think that problem with outdoor enviroments in isometric games is that maps are not large enough to have that feel of space. I would like to have much larger areas even if it means that I will walk through forest for 30 seconds to spot somethink interesting ( of course it shouldn't be too large) and missing some viasual interesting effects. Like walking through grass should leave steps after party, wind should move snow or leafs. In swamps characters should soak into mud, in jungles lianas should move when characters walk beneth them and bushes should be stomped. These all viasual effects add much to feel of open space around character rather than colorfull monitor space. With deserts I got problem that its done too small to have feel of desert and anyway have not enough interesting locations (except cities or tombs of course but these are more urban areas). Good at that was Fallout 1,2 desert/wastelend was huge and you still have feel of it even when locations were quite small becasue most locations were cities or encampments or random wastland encounters (which wre just randomly generated rocks and trash)

 

On other hand thats why I just cant play F3, it was ridiculous where there was 'vilage' with 7 guys getting periodicaly raided by 20 Supermuties with rocketlaunchers which have camp behinde next hill. Or city build around nuclear bomb filled with 10 characters and 1 brahmin in WHOLE GAME.

Edited November 20, 2012 by Chilloutman

[clippedwolf]

I'm partial to stream beds and riverbeds. In Infinity Engine all but shallow streams were impassable. Not to brag, but I've walked through slow flowing rivers brown with sediment up to my collar bone, waded waist deep for a few miles in a still stream covered with flowered lily pads, forced my way through a pond with mud sucking at my feet and kicking up black foul smelling muck in my wake, hiked hills using trickling streams in pebbly river beds carved deeply into hard rock with steep cliffs on either side. And there is something to be said about standing in awe watching an impassible raging mountain river right after the spring melt; it roars and you feel that power in your bones.

No game can capture the wonder of being there, but it can present some fantastic tactical situations. If you were being shot at by arrows on the other side of a river do you break off the engagement, or do you wade through waist deep water (in armor nonetheless) to try to engage? If the party was traveling a deeply carved riverbed what do you do when enemies are appear on cliffs ten feet above you and begin showering the party with missiles and falling rocks?

 

Summed up: I love wondering waterways and mountains. These were not originally listed, but the ones I'm most familiar with are in the pine forests of the United States southwest (Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona).

[JFSOCC]

However, if I've never seen a desert done well, jungles are worse.

I thought guild wars did exceptionally well with both the maguma jungle and the crystal desert. have you played that?

[Chilloutman]

However, if I've never seen a desert done well, jungles are worse.

I thought guild wars did exceptionally well with both the maguma jungle and the crystal desert. have you played that?

 

I am playing it and I dont like their enviroments. Jungle is not dense, crystal desert is not desert. MMOs are worst thing to show well made enviroment

[JFSOCC]

However, if I've never seen a desert done well, jungles are worse.

I thought guild wars did exceptionally well with both the maguma jungle and the crystal desert. have you played that?

 

I am playing it and I dont like their enviroments. Jungle is not dense, crystal desert is not desert. MMOs are worst thing to show well made enviroment

guild wars 1 or 2? I'm talking about 1, and the crystal desert is undeniably a desert there.

[Augusta Corvina]

Honestly I can't single out any of these as I pretty much enjoy all environments mentioned to some degree. It's more about how it is presented ingame than the actual location. If it is done badly then we get the sewer level syndrome, but when it's done well then it doesn't matter what it is because it's -awesome-. Vague I admit, but it is the best way I can put it.

[Karranthain]

Snowy landscapes are, by far, one of my most favourite. Icewind Dale, need I say more?

[mcmanusaur]

This poll is horribly biased toward the Northern hemisphere. But agreed that swamps/jungles are boring. Snowy also tends to be overdone. But I suppose there has to be some of both of those for variety's sake. Didn't vote in the poll because I didn't like how you divided things up.

Edited November 22, 2012 by mcmanusaur

[Chilloutman]

This poll is horribly biased toward the Northern hemisphere. But agreed that swamps/jungles are boring. Snowy also tends to be overdone. But I suppose there has to be some of both of those for variety's sake. Didn't vote in the poll because I didn't like how you divided things up.

 

Where exactly? Barren mountains, tropic islands, jungles or deserts are horribly biased toward Northern hemisphere? Ok then... and as I stated before poll can contain only 10 answears thats why we missing savanas and plains. Other than that I think I capture most of enviroments (of course not all)

[TMTVL]

Whaddabout caves/caverns, valleys, rolling green Irish hills,...

 

There's a whole world out there. But I don't have the resources to go explore it all, so I want as much in my video games as possible.

[kenup]

This poll is horribly biased toward the Northern hemisphere. But agreed that swamps/jungles are boring. Snowy also tends to be overdone. But I suppose there has to be some of both of those for variety's sake. Didn't vote in the poll because I didn't like how you divided things up.

Hey, don't put swamps on the lower level that jungles are in.

[Tauron]

Just realised that I dont have one particular, but mix of all mentioned. I do like good dungeon or cave and I like good diversity of some mentioned above in my games. Hope in our journeys we will experience several climates and different type of dungeons.