The Mana World Forums

What is the unified theme of Mana World's art intended to be? What makes it uniquely Mana World, instead of %insert name of existing CRPG/MMORPG here% ?

I believe the theme and style would be like those in Secret of Mana. Unfortunately, not many people have the skill to draw like that.

Secret of Mana is my second favorite classic RPG (first being Chrono Trigger). I may be able to scrap together a couple sprites in that style, if you want.

Because this is an open community we have a rich mixture of styles and influences and IMHO the best way to create a unified art theme is taking all the contributions from the artists and then find a common way of art, the actual server stage is giving us some time to reach that goal

Unified themes sucks. I am strongly against. This is the whole charm of free MMORPGs (as well as other free, community maintained things) - diversity.

Regards.

Platyna, I love you

Platyna wrote:Unified themes sucks. I am strongly against. This is the whole charm of free MMORPGs (as well as other free, community maintained things) - diversity.

Regards.

Okay. I won't worry about fitting into any particular style when I create some sprite examples, then.

I got a different opinion.

I think that the game should have a consistent graphic style. Otherwise it will look as if the graphics were ripped from a dotzend of different games like a cheap RPGMaker game and objects will stand out because their style diverts from their surrounding creating an alienating effect.

When you create NPC sprites then please base them on the player character sprite.

When you create monsters or map tiles then please try to mimic the style and techniques from the existing monsters and tilesets and please follow the guidelines found on the wiki:
http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/ ... evelopment
http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/ ... evelopment

Platyna wrote:Unified themes sucks. I am strongly against. This is the whole charm of free MMORPGs (as well as other free, community maintained things) - diversity.

Regards.

Crush has the right opinion.

"The whole charm of free MMORPGs" is not being a shoddy amalgamation of mismatch, poorly drawn elements that look like they were stolen from other games. Rather it's the lack of corporate and "design by committee" stultification that usually plagues commercial efforts - things like "oh, you can't do XYZ because it would offend this hypothetical group of people," or "you can't do that because that's not politically correct". It's the lack of "a manager who doesn't have a clue about how your job is done" breathing down your neck and mandating choices you know are bad.


Mismatching styles breaks the immersion in a game; it breaks the illusion that you're "in a fantasy world". The translation of an imaginary world into a set of symbols follows a transformation function. The human mind understands this instinctively, and is able to pair symbological representations with what they represent. However, it jars the mind when things don't consistently follow this transformation; when differences between those symbols don't correspond with the differences between things in the real world. For example, when some humans (like TMW's npcs) are much bigger than other humans for no apparent reason. That bothers the mind like a rock in your shoe, and it's instinctive.

For a simple example, imagine how bizarre Spawn would look in Hergé's Tintin. Imagine how bizarre Charlie Brown would look in "Ghost in the Shell." These things have to be consistent; it's not a issue of current fashion to be consistent, it's a basic function of how human instinct processes drawings. This is and has been constant for the entire human race, throughout history.

Jetryl wrote:Imagine how bizarre Charlie Brown would look in "Ghost in the Shell."

I smell a sequel.

Reminds me of: http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2006/05/ ... one-anime/

I understand we should have consistency in the graphics and I agree with the fact of a line in drawing,
but first we need a converge from we are now to a common point and in my opinion we are still far from there,
I would suggest a calendar, schedules, meetings, discussions (like this one) in order to reach our goal,
I would me more than glad of be part of the team trying to find our own identity

Jetryl wrote:

Platyna wrote:Unified themes sucks. I am strongly against. This is the whole charm of free MMORPGs (as well as other free, community maintained things) - diversity.

Regards.

Crush has the right opinion.

"The whole charm of free MMORPGs" is not being a shoddy amalgamation of mismatch, poorly drawn elements that look like they were stolen from other games.

And when I have said this, I mean that I support "shoddy amalgamation of mismatch and poorly drawn elements that looks like they were stolen from other games"? Quote where I have said this or re-think your post.

Rather it's the lack of corporate and "design by committee" stultification that usually plagues commercial efforts - things like "oh, you can't do XYZ because it would offend this hypothetical group of people," or "you can't do that because that's not politically correct". It's the lack of "a manager who doesn't have a clue about how your job is done" breathing down your neck and mandating choices you know are bad.

That, actually was the issue I was talking about, but your and Crush's posts sounds like: "we can either have chaos and sucky stuff that looks from taken from other games or design by comitee".

Oh my, oh my, all our characters and NPCs has to be based on that big eye anime alien, because otherwise the world will collapse!

Mismatching styles breaks the immersion in a game; it breaks the illusion that you're "in a fantasy world".

Does it? So, what do creates the illussion of fantasy world for you? Reality taken from Orwell's 1984 or this one taken from "Equilibrium" movie? Filthy unitarism.

The translation of an imaginary world into a set of symbols follows a transformation function. The human mind understands this instinctively, and is able to pair symbological representations with what they represent.

This is pseudoscientific gibberish. Is it supposed to prove, that if I wear victorian style jewelry to modern Matrix-like clothes (and I love doing so) is wrong?

However, it jars the mind when things don't consistently follow this transformation; when differences between those symbols don't correspond with the differences between things in the real world. For example, when some humans (like TMW's npcs) are much bigger than other humans for no apparent reason. That bothers the mind like a rock in your shoe, and it's instinctive.

There are storylines to give the reason.

For a simple example, imagine how bizarre Spawn would look in Hergé's Tintin. Imagine how bizarre Charlie Brown would look in "Ghost in the Shell." These things have to be consistent; it's not a issue of current fashion to be consistent, it's a basic function of how human instinct processes drawings. This is and has been constant for the entire human race, throughout history.

Making the world to follow the common sense is a different issue, and I agree with it.

Regards.

Platyna wrote: That, actually was the issue I was talking about, but your and Crush's posts sounds like: "we can either have chaos and sucky stuff that looks from taken from other games or design by comitee".

Oh my, oh my, all our characters and NPCs has to be based on that big eye anime alien, because otherwise the world will collapse!

Well, the NPC should be changed if they stand out like sore thumbs among other objects.

Platyna wrote:

Mismatching styles breaks the immersion in a game; it breaks the illusion that you're "in a fantasy world".

Does it? So, what do creates the illussion of fantasy world for you? Reality taken from Orwell's 1984 or this one taken from "Equilibrium" movie? Filthy unitarism.

The translation of an imaginary world into a set of symbols follows a transformation function. The human mind understands this instinctively, and is able to pair symbological representations with what they represent.

This is pseudoscientific gibberish. Is it supposed to prove, that if I wear victorian style jewelry to modern Matrix-like clothes (and I love doing so) is wrong?

How does 1984, Equilibrium, Matrix and Victorian relates to your points?

Saphy wrote:

Platyna wrote: That, actually was the issue I was talking about, but your and Crush's posts sounds like: "we can either have chaos and sucky stuff that looks from taken from other games or design by comitee".

Oh my, oh my, all our characters and NPCs has to be based on that big eye anime alien, because otherwise the world will collapse!

Well, the NPC should be changed if they stand out like sore thumbs among other objects.

I think they are nice.

Platyna wrote:

Mismatching styles breaks the immersion in a game; it breaks the illusion that you're "in a fantasy world".

Does it? So, what do creates the illussion of fantasy world for you? Reality taken from Orwell's 1984 or this one taken from "Equilibrium" movie? Filthy unitarism.

The translation of an imaginary world into a set of symbols follows a transformation function. The human mind understands this instinctively, and is able to pair symbological representations with what they represent.

This is pseudoscientific gibberish. Is it supposed to prove, that if I wear victorian style jewelry to modern Matrix-like clothes (and I love doing so) is wrong?

How does 1984, Equilibrium, Matrix and Victorian relates to your points?

I hoped that I have stated my points clearly even when I dared to use some metaphores and parallels to do so.


Regards.