Should make for an interesting tailoring material! And indeed another one that MS9 will like. I wonder if they'll have enough for an art book at the end of this... or at the very least a new creature poster like the one from days of old.
Why the heck are they wasting time on concept drawings they don’t need to make any new content like that. why do they even have a concept artist on staff? They’ve never used one before and really don’t need one for an engine swap. They have no idea what they are doing with the engine and are flailing around trying to pretend they have progress
One gets that impression. It would be more opportune if they used their time and resources for producing actual 3d renderings of what we'll see in-game come the implementation of UE5, or at least approximations, rather than concept art.
Not sure I'd totally agree but I can see where you are coming from and indeed the thought did cross my mind. My view is that they seem to be taking the engine change as a chance to sit back and smell the roses. Have a good old ponder about the future and what they want rather than plowing straight in with a "lets just copy what we have". I know such an idea probably won't sit will with the old guard but well if they think they have the luxury of time to do it then more power to them. I don't think it hurts to take a step back once in a blue moon and ask yourself if what you have or are planning to do is actually sensible. I seem to remember this is a core part of project management best practice even. There is evidence of this in their dev diary. It sounded kinda vague but it seemed they really did clean the white board and start with some top level questions about what they want. Probably not a bad idea and they seemed to pull out their core values and they seemed to align with what I think everyone else thinks too. But yes, concept art, I get what you are saying, they have an entire catalogue of concept art in the form of actual in game assets and tons of cool mobs already. I doubt, if asked, any player would ever say what Entropia really needs is more mobs or even redrawing the old mobs (the Sabakuma concept art was cool and all but the sabakuma model that already exists is already awesome so just copy that). Most would probably say keep the old ones but make them more interesting, with new animations, properties and behaviours. For example an idea such as mobs that are more or less sensitive to different attack types might make life more interesting although is bound to piss off the botters of course. Or mobs that only come out at night say... stuff like that would be good for a fresh perspective on the existing game. What I Hope they are not doing is having the over paid higher ups feel they are doing something useful by brainstorming something that doesn't need to be brainstormed. A good practice they'd do well to put in place is mentally tot up the salaries of everyone in the meeting and ask if the total value expended on the meeting would have been better spent on a programmer with a bug list. Wistrel
Thanks @GeorgeSkywalker for the updates Here's the latest from 15th of July, they are taking a break till "later this year":
This form of marketing communication is extremely bizarre. What is the idea of revealing such info in an unannounced live event without automatic recording in some private space in a third party platform when you actually have your own website? At the time when writing this exactly the same event is going on again at exactly the same place without any announcement on their offial website. And I don't understand people running from hype to hype, from forums to social media to Discord... Seems like nowadays everything is on Discord, no matter how shitty it is. Why not info on wikis, discussions on forums, live chat on Discord, live streams on Twitch...
My favourite bit about those images was that MA asked for feedback and the community voiced concerns that MA's programming would likely see them get stuck on it!! X'D
