The new GQ mmorpg

[Construed]

First town of floorinville, mid production:
First draft:


Second draft:


Third draft:


This is a brand new project starting from scratch, looking for critique on every aspect of art, including textures, perspective such as the location of the camera throughout the game.
How the screens will transition and which portion of it will be shown per screen.
We are still in search of team members of every type of trade involving game design.

As usual my multiplayer system is ready to be implemented quite easily, so the main goals is constructing a fun productive gaming enviroment.
thanks for reading, and thanks for the patience you've all shown me throughtout the years.




Grim Quest design document


Main game features

1. Point and click interface.
2. In-game graphical GUI.
3. Simple but intriguing combat system.
4. Multiple player capabilities via TCP/IP "Wyz's agsirc plugin."
5. In-Game chat system with moderating and security capabilities.
6. In-game trading and PK, Player killing.
7. Mining and crafting for materials to craft armor and weapons.
8.user profiles.
9.Many upcoming ideas and innovations to further differentiate our game.

Storyline

Your a young boy or girl growing up in the small town of floorinville.
One day you start to notice the townspeople are acting a lot more worried and frantic so you ask your mother why and she replies, Dont worry son, Their just believing strange rumors.
You ask her what rumors and she simply does not reply.
You have your diner and hit the hay ready for a long day of working the crops.

When you awaken in the morning you see your mother standing in the doorway shaking and you run to her and ask what is wrong?
She stares at you for a few seconds, tears pouring out of her eyes.
Theres no easy way to say this "Hero name here", Your father died on the way home from the market last night.

Enraged you grab your grandfathers sword off the wall and rush out of the door into the morning haze towards the market.
On your way to the market you hear a rustling in the bushes then a terrible shriek, almost demonic sounding and in an instant you see a fearsome creature with bluish pale skin, almost human in existence but shorter and much more smelly, It instantly rushes you and you have no choice but to battle.
Now you are left to find your fathers true whereabouts and the source of this demonic infestation!


Immediate project needs

Medevil style artwork, either 3d or vga, "In need of a vga artist" otherwise I'll have to do the 3d art myself.

Need complete graphical re-design of gui interface "also depending on artist"

Character design of 2 main EGO's and multiple various npc's, skills and objects.

Sierra style music, Object sounds such as footsteps, gold clinking, drinking water, rustling in the bushes NPC voices and all other associated sounds.

Testers to help test the player movements, online capabilities and multiplayer functions.

Replies and constructive criticism are desperately needed as my frail state of mental game design is at an all time low and I may venture to other avenues in life if i cant get some team spirit going on.

Thanks a mill...


-Jar

[Anian]

For starters - can you show how the player's sprite is going to look here? Just an example of the size and style.

How big is this town going to be (population)?
What kind of a terrain is it going to be?
How many roads come into town and are there any landmarks (roads, rivers, hills) and what type of terrain is it?
Add some variation to the look of the city, don't make it just a square with 4 walls, the more you break up the walls the more interesting the scene will look
Keep the style of buildings (medieval, fantasy etc.) and of textures (for example realistic or cartoonish), it will make or brake the scene even if the modelling is not so good.

From technical aspect:
- your shadows are too dark, you need to have a main light (like a sun), but it'd be nice to add more softer and less brighter lights around (especially if it's a night scene)
- don't add textures until you are done with modelling - it is hard to texture stuff when you don't know if you're gonna change the sizes of items and maybe you won't use some items so you'd waste time texturing them
- don't use such a flat surface (plane) for the whole town, it looks kind of boring or at least don't use one big texture, you'll need to place all the items and then draw surfaces on the plane (for example a muddy square, cobbled roads, grass etc.)
- and this is important - watch the ratio of textures, the plane texture is very stretched and the roof one is also a bit stretched, again, don't texture till you're done with modelling
- the wheel cart is a bit big (compared to the wall, it seems like it's 2m high), ratios are important

That's about it for starters. Show some sketches if you have of the town, if you don't make them, planning the scene might seem silly, but it will save you A LOT of time.

[Icey]

I can help with concept art.

[Construed]

@Anian
Took some of your advice as you'll see above in the second draft.
Let me know if i missed anything, Going to bumpmap the terrain in a few minutes as well

@icey
Thanks, that would be most welcomed.

[Monsieur OUXX]

I'm not an expert on 3D, but I recommend you work on your textures. Adding a texture layer of bump-mapping (especially for the bricks and the rooftiles) in your materials would probably help achieve a much greater level of photo-realism (also commonly known as "awesome non-amateurish-looking-3D") without too much effort. by that, I mean: Without requiring overdetailed meshes.


Apart from that, what anian said : non-flat town, and work on the light : try to google for a tutorial on sunlight. Maybe a final little "outdoors lighting" shader could help as well.

fianlly, try to have a different texture for the ground inside of town, where people walk and grass doesn't grow.


Small comment: I can see from the round towers that you don't master the cylindrical texture mapping yet -- you need to work on that. Once you know how to apply a flat texture to a round object, it's easy.

[Anian]

Just do yourself a favour and draw a 2d map of this town (btw so far it's not a town it's just a castle with a courtyard) - just a regular top down map with squares instead of buildings (market stands, stables, blacksmith, bakery etc.), draw roads, city gates, wells and other static landmarks. Post it here, so people know the general idea of how it is supposed to look.
When you do that, it'll be much easier to model stuff, again, don't skip this step it will help you a lot.

You still haven't explained what kind of a setting this is supposed to be, what kind of races/creatures are suppose to live and how many of them are living in this town. What kind of an atmosphere is of this town, is it good human town, is it evil empire town, a trading post. What style are you going for high fantasy (Lord of the rings) or low fantasy, urban fantasy, regular medieval (again there's European (French or British) or Middle Eastern style like Assassin's creed for example), or maybe "sword and sorcery" style (like Conan the barbarian).
When you answer all these questions it will make it easier to think of buildings, style, textures, lighting and general atmosphere of the place.

And yes, you need to switch the UV mapping of cylinders, they look strange. On that note, don't use cylinders until later for now put 8-12 sided cylinder objects, it will be less strain on the pc and it will help you if you're placing details and textures on those cylinders.
And you still haven't changed (reduce) the plane texture, again I suggest you leave it for when you're done with modelling.

[Construed]

thanks for the great replies.
Here is a diagram of what I'm basically trying to do:

Thinking i may have to increase the scaling to fit everything properly.

The style is going to be realistic medevil.
I'm working on taking some of your advices and continuing now.

Thanks-
Jar

[Monsieur OUXX]

*medieval.

Just sayin'