God of War - an inspiration for Entropia Universe on Unreal Engine 5?

oh, well spotted :)

 

It's barely noticeable under the headphones and such. Prob just something to read on his tea breaks and lunch break as a distraction from EU :)

 

Well might be a present or even a game he worked on previously. I've got a couple of game art books (Tomb Raider 2013, Cities of Gold and 999/Virtues Last Reward) and they are great.

 

Yeah could be either of those reasons but the impression it gives is that MA sort of condones nicking ideas from the opposition. it's available on pc and ps4 apparently.

 

Nah. I see it as a good sign. I'd be more concerned if they were not looking for inspiration TBH. Artists should be looking to fill their heads with stuff and inspiration etc.

 

They should be getting inspiration from EU/PE itself which has been going since the early 00's. If the devs can't find ideas and inspiration from the game's very long history and MA's own creation, then something's wrong. They shouldn't have to rely on other games for creative input.

 

For old stuff yes and indeed reproducing/improving on stuff from PE would ensure the familiarity is preserved which is important, but historically there wasn't the quantity for a dense diverse environment and also there's no harm in looking to other sources to work out how to improve or re-imagine older stuff. Case in point, the nature of tech back then didn't allow for a high level of detail either in the models or the textures so a lot of the old stuff just doesn't have the information in it to allow for a modern recreation. It might be that even the concept art didn't have that much detail in, as there may not have been much point. From what I remember too from reading interviews with Alf Svennsen, he didn't get to do much in the way of concept art and quite a lot of stuff was kinda "straight to 3D". While there is some old "Art of Entropia" there isn't really enough to produce a book say. Maybe a few posters or a leaflet and that's about it. At least as regards what was ever released publicly anyhow.

To illustrate what I mean, take a look at these two images, an original or early Bristlehog and the modern equivalent

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There's quite a bit of imagination interpolation going in there to go from one to the other and of course animations need to be done too.

Incidentally One of my favourite sources for alien looking life was this stuff at Kew Gardens I saw years ago. Tiny plants that they give you a magnifying glass to look at. All you need to do is take that stuff and imagine it 50 times bigger :D

Here's a good example. Chop the flowers and it would look pretty at home on Calypso

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Yes, it would look like a giant cactus tree if you chopped the flowers, good lateral thinking there. I went to Kew Gardens once I think a long time ago on a school trip... The bristlehogs though are unmistakably the same mobs but I agree that a lot of remodelling/reanimation work would have been needed.

 

If MA uses other games for ideas then no they won't have anything unique, but if they draw from their own past works then maybe they will. There's a lot about EU that's fairly unique imho, maybe not for every mob, vehicle, etc, but overall. For instance EU doesn't follow or adhere to a false storyline whereas many MMO's do, and you are not role-playing in EU. As to systems, etc, not being properly implemented or finished, that maybe the case and would be down to MA's management, but the basis for a unique mmo are there.
For instance, many times I've experienced landing on the roof of PA Mall just as a quad-wing goes skyward, whilst two or three AVs approach the TP. This is a very powerful and fairly realistic thing, compared to say SL where you can only fly unaided over a fairly unrealistic map. My main criticisms of EU however are that it's a closed system in terms of unique content and that there aren't enough affordable trading opportunities - and the missions system, I don't really understand why there even is one as it's totally false, in the sense I mean by false anyway.

 

OK I said I disagree, technically there's, not much here I disagree with but well... we were kinda talking about creative inspiration. Feels like the wrong time to start talking about MA's history of PA bandwagoning or unfinished features. I mean, we know this. Do we have to bring it to every conversation? That said. I'm not sure I'm aware of them ever obviously copying something from another game as regards mob design or flora? I mean, not that I've ever gone on an image hunt to do a comparison.