Disliking Sunqua peak aesthetics

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Now reason I moan about this at all, let alone in general forum instead of fractal one, is the a-net's declaration that this fractal is the pre-taste of what 3rd xpac environment will be like. Well i hope it won't be **this** bland. Say what you want about gw2 engine, but the artstyle has been very strong in this game. Everything felt very vibrant,, and pulsing with vigor (save maybe shiverpeaks).

 

Now in sunqua everything feels very bland, desaturated compared to main environments. The volcanic portion feels way less "hot" and "vibrant" than zones like fireheart rise or ember bay. The mountain ascent part feels closest to Heart of the Mists map which by design is bland and desaturated - it's the damn afterlife zone in gw2. But that's not how the living and breathing Tyria should look like.

 

Asides from some core Tyrian maps (and maybe Kourna) I'd be hard pressed to find a map that's not amazing spectacle of architectural igeniuity, vibrant colors and bold themes. HoT maps, Ember Bay, Zephyrite Sanctum to name a few. I hope 3rd xpac won't be a collection of "Heart of Mists" lite maps...

[Kadsik.9281]

I think Sunqua has some nice foliage in a couple areas, and the lava while not as hot looking as the other maps you mentioned does look unique. But you are right. I thought it was odd that the temple structures(which there aren't really that much of) were made of stone and pretty much blended into the surrounding environment, giving it that bland look to me. I think it gets that heart of the mists map design because its a fractal, and I guess a lot of fractals incorporate that "floating island" look these days. Overall though I don't think that it looks anything like Sunqua Vale from Factions.

[Randulf.7614]

I largely agree with the OP, but I found it more glowy than desaturated. It wasn't a look I personally thought looked good

[Poormany.4507]

I also agree that it looks kind of bland, but it's probably because the devs were originally going to use a lot more new assets in the fractal but decided to save them for the expac instead, as they said on the Guild Chat iirc.

[nosleepdemon.1368]

Looks really good in my opinion. Mmmm, delicious, delicious verticality. Please ANet, give us more height to our maps again like in Verdant Brink!

[Randulf.7614]

> @"nosleepdemon.1368" said:

> Please ANet, give us more height to our maps again like in Verdant Brink!

 

This I can wholeheartedly agree with. Kaineng City and it's slums are well set up for it

[Ashen.2907]

I thought the map looked nice but I am colorblind so perhaps I do not see some of the issues bothering others.

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Ashen.2907" said:

> I thought the map looked nice but I am colorblind so perhaps I do not see some of the issues bothering others.

 

An interesting approach might be: **make the entire city of Kaineng non mount usable**. Blizzard does something similar with new expansions to make open world question more interesting. Maybe a **dedicated well thought-out zone or zone set which is designed from the ground up without mounts could be interesting**.

 

That is if Kaineng city is only part of the world. I would not advocate to an expansion without mount access.

[mikansei.5742]

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

>

> An interesting approach might be: **make the entire city of Kaineng non mount usable**. Blizzard does something similar with new expansions to make open world question more interesting. Maybe a **dedicated well thought-out zone or zone set which is designed from the ground up without mounts could be interesting**.

>

> That is if Kaineng city is only part of the world. I would not advocate to an expansion without mount access.

 

Arbitrarily grounding players for some vague sense of "immersion" is one thing GW2 really, _really_ does not need to adopt from WoW.

 

Kaineng is already supposed to be chock full of narrow, maze-like alleys, dotted by street vendors' stalls, boxed in on every side by wall-to-wall buildings - it's going to be cramped and slow whether you're mounted or not. Even the jackal that can turn on a dime is going to be horribly impractical because there will always be obstacles to run into.

 

Making it a no-mount zone just means I won't be able to climb up to the topmost roof and take a running griffon dive off the edge of the city for fun. And I like fun.

[Fueki.4753]

In my opinion, the aesthetics are the only positive aspect that Sunqua peak has going for it.

[Fenom.9457]

Anet said they actually ended up removing new expansion assets from it so as not to spoil anything much. So it was made to represent cantha without any assets actually made to be cantha

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"mikansei.5742" said:

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> >

> > An interesting approach might be: **make the entire city of Kaineng non mount usable**. Blizzard does something similar with new expansions to make open world question more interesting. Maybe a **dedicated well thought-out zone or zone set which is designed from the ground up without mounts could be interesting**.

> >

> > That is if Kaineng city is only part of the world. I would not advocate to an expansion without mount access.

>

> Arbitrarily grounding players for some vague sense of "immersion" is one thing GW2 really, _really_ does not need to adopt from WoW.

>

> Kaineng is already supposed to be chock full of narrow, maze-like alleys, dotted by street vendors' stalls, boxed in on every side by wall-to-wall buildings - it's going to be cramped and slow whether you're mounted or not. Even the jackal that can turn on a dime is going to be horribly impractical because there will always be obstacles to run into.

>

> Making it a no-mount zone just means I won't be able to climb up to the topmost roof and take a running griffon dive off the edge of the city for fun. And I like fun.

 

I guess that can be discussed and people might have differing opinions.

 

Given how "immersion" is one of the main PvE aspects or goals, besides mindless gold farming, I think the decision to deny mounts with new expansions is one of the few things Blizzard has actually done well.

 

Then again, even in WoW players were unhappy they couldn't just skip all npcs and fly from quest giver, to target area, back to quest giver. So I guess it depends on how a player enjoys content, or simply wants to rush through it. I did mention the zones would have to be designed from the ground up with this design decision.

[Solanum.6983]

I love the design of it to be honest, The Assets are beautiful.

I think the Lighting and storm is what gave it a Desaturated feel, which makes sense. The same environment in sunshine would be just as vibrant as other places in game.

[Kichwas.7152]

> @"mikansei.5742" said:

>

> Kaineng is already supposed to be chock full of narrow, maze-like alleys, dotted by street vendors' stalls, boxed in on every side by wall-to-wall buildings - it's going to be cramped and slow whether you're mounted or not. Even the jackal that can turn on a dime is going to be horribly impractical because there will always be obstacles to run into.

>

 

Possibly.

 

Though I hope not.

 

Paris was once know for the same thing. So when Napoleon III took over, the after effects of one revolt where the citizens used those allies to make barricades and shoot soldiers from rooftops was to rip up all the narrow winding hidden alleys and make huge grand wide open avenues to all major points so that troops could easily move in and out. Something Germany later used to great effect (oops). That same renovation however gave us the 'City of Romance' we know today out of what was once known as a maze-like city of hidden 'vipers nests'.

 

Why that random note? Because it's been what... 300 years since Guild Wars 1? The city better have had -some- changes...

 

And in a realistic outcome any conqueror after Shiro is going to look at the city and think about what made it easy for people who opposed him to run around the city so hidden so well for long enough to organize resistance right underneath him.

 

I will be very disappointed if the Kaeneng City of 300 years later looks anything at all like the old one. If it does it will reveal a lack of an appreciation for the effects of history. That said - with Elona they made grand sweeping changes, as well as with Tyria and Ascalon... so I have hope that they won't fumble this one.

 

The 'future Kaeneng' has also had 300 years of the Jade Sea sitting next door - which has likely been mined and carved into like crazy. We might find huge opulent jade towers, trinkets and toys and other things made of jade might be common place everywhere. Attempts to bring soil in and put it over carved out 'bowls' of jade to turn it into farmland. Huge canals and trenches dug through the jade sea to bring in irrigation - the jade itself will erode so slowly (mountain rock essentially) that you can carve into it for such grand structures.

 

That at least, it what should happen...

 

If it's just a barren wasteland with 'jade fish frozen in midair' still, after 300 years... I will be as disappointed as I was when they did the Shannara Chronicles on TV a few years ago and a world that takes places tens of thousands of years after WWIII... you could see cars on the side of the road with plants growing in them... as if the metal of the car body would even still be there and not rusted away... given that if you abandon a car in the real world inside of 10-20 years most of it will have been carried away by the elements...

 

This is 300 years, in the middle of a city and the areas around it... stuff, had better have changed.

 

 

 

[mikansei.5742]

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> I guess that can be discussed and people might have differing opinions.

>

> Given how "immersion" is one of the main PvE aspects or goals, besides mindless gold farming, I think the decision to deny mounts with new expansions is one of the few things Blizzard has actually done well.

>

> Then again, even in WoW players were unhappy they couldn't just skip all npcs and fly from quest giver, to target area, back to quest giver. So I guess it depends on how a player enjoys content, or simply wants to rush through it. I did mention the zones would have to be designed from the ground up with this design decision.

 

Hard disagree. There was no problem whatsoever with reaching max level and buying flight with gold. You were grounded as you leveled; once you hit max you got to fly around on a dragon.

 

Reducing all player motivations down to either "enjoys content on the ground" or "wants to rush and skip all NPCs in the air" is, frankly, laughable. Players in WoW were unhappy with Pathfinder because taking away your ability to fly and making you grind irrelevant faction reputations to "earn back" flying _that you'd already bought_ felt awful. Could you imagine if, in GW2, Anet suddenly changed it so that none of your low-level alts could use mounts until they hit 80? That'd go over as well as a sack of bricks in a window factory.

 

Yeah, the availability of flying mounts in GW2 means that Anet has to design future zones with flying in mind. I don't see why that's a bad thing, or why designing them as 100% mount-disabled zones instead would be in any way better.

[mindcircus.1506]

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> Given how "immersion" is one of the main PvE aspects or goals, besides mindless gold farming, I think the decision to deny mounts with new expansions is one of the few things Blizzard has actually done well.

GW2 has a long proud tradition of favoring convenience and fluff over immersion at every design choice.

While I agree you are absolutely right, that restricting mounts would make for a far more enjoyable experience, a spoiled playerbase experienced in forcing the developers' hands would rebel immediately.

See: Core Tyria Mounts

See: Elite Spec Progression

See: Story Mission Difficulty

 

Anet knows where their bread is buttered. They will always favor providing a shallow milquetoast experience that keeps players who think cosmetic progression is best achieved in the cash shop happy.

This game gets a lot of things right but immersion has never been one of this game's strong suits or primary goals.

 

If you are looking for immersion, you are playing the wrong MMO.