Blood, dirt & pageantry

**Tamur** · 10-10-2006, 22:58

Should be a band name...

In one of the first interviews for M2:TW, Bob Smith made the claim that "We've captured both the colour and pageantry of it, yet still made it gritty and real."

Now that some of us have had the demo for three days & doubtless played it quite a bit, do you agree that they have done this in the demo?

Let me give the obvious disclaimers in case the bolding wasn't enough: 1) the demo is a beta build and so not indicative of the final game, and 2) the demo does not include many, many things like the main game screens, campaign starts, event videos, campaign map &c, &c that could affect this feel in the final product.

**Bob the Insane** · 10-10-2006, 23:02

With out trying to come over all fanboyish i would have to say they have achieved that...

See all the pretty, shiny and colourful troops before the battle. See the dirty, bloody piles of corpses with the colours muted and the shine lost after the battle...

Just had a thought, bridge battles are going to look truely horrific now!

**shifty157** · 10-10-2006, 23:21

Im really pleased with all the different types of banners that actually wave in the wind. That area is improved like a million times better now.

**hoom** · 10-11-2006, 02:07

Certainly its a massive improvement over the bland RTW.

With the towns/camps & high valour units (more banners) in the demo, I'd say they did pretty well.

Full game I expect to be somewhat less immersive though because I doubt there will be that much detail in the real game battlefields.

**Polemists** · 10-11-2006, 03:28

Well the one does have entrenched artillery and a mansion which you may not encounter. Still I think 3 wall castles will be quite the challenge.

Still not impossible to think there wont' be a muddy feild.

My main curiousity is if the pc ai will know how to launch waves. It's a good tactic and I enjoy the combat aspect of it. Seems even when ai was in control in paxia it knew how to do that.

Banners are cool, colors are cool, and different looking guys are cool.

yes i am a fanboy, love this game :)

**RtkBedivere** · 10-11-2006, 04:08

I must say im a little worried that graphics may have been put to far forward sand elft tactics in teh dust. I dont play because i like to look at the pretty lines i play cause i want to think. Its a little worrysome that it might not be that way in MTW2.

**Incongruous** · 10-11-2006, 04:12

Since it is only a demo and its mostly scripted and some of the graphical effects are not there I can only say how great it looks and feels.
And boy does it look great, but yeah I'm more interested in the campaign.

**Dooz** · 10-11-2006, 05:06

Loving the splatters when those little dudes are hit by arrows or musket shots. Overall loving pretty much everything I saw. I've been hooked by the look of the game already, now we'll see how the gameplay is. Either way I'm getting the game though

.

**Tamur** · 10-11-2006, 06:22

Thanks for the thoughts all.

I must say im a little worried that graphics may have been put to far forward sand elft tactics in teh dust. I dont play because i like to look at the pretty lines i play cause i want to think.

True, there could be that worry. Since we won't have the game for another month or so, though, I asked this question about atmosphere since that at least can be judged on its merits rather than its reputation or hopes/fears.

To me there is a very large difference between RTW and M2TW in atmosphere. As one simple example, the corpses are not nice shrink-wrapped corpses that look put in place as unblemished showpieces. I didn't notice this till I got to the end of a run at Agincourt and paused as the old fellow was going on about the French fleeing. I "walked" about the field taking in the routers, and noted the details of the dead for the first time. The carnage was a bit frightening -- bodies strewn about quite realistically, blood spots where they had been stabbed, slashed or shot, etc.

Emotional reactions to battles are usually limited to "yay, we won" or "ouch, we lost". This, on the other hand, was a "we won, but what a horrible price to pay for it", which was new to me.

I think this comes from all the realism touches that add up to a really different experience: the different faces and suits of armour, the way the dead fall, arrows not just disappearing after hitting their victims, the unsaturated textures on everything from the buildings to the horses, the glorious atmosphere of the landscape blending really perfectly with the lighting of the armies, and so on.

Some of you may know or know of Chris Crawford, whose talks at E3 (almost) always centre on designing games not just to give people hand/eye or brain exercise. His take is that games should challenge people's mindsets and open people up to new views on real-world issues. I somehow doubt that CA have consciously gone at this game with that goal in mind, but I think they have achieved it in a measured way via all these realistic touches. To do that with a major title takes some serious talent.

**Incongruous** · 10-11-2006, 09:05

Do you know what would be even cooler?

If soldiers cried out to their friends while in combat, such as a pikeman goes down and you hear from somewhere close by his freind call out his name "Edward!".

That would be awsome

But perhaps in the next generation game?

**Subedei** · 10-11-2006, 09:41

Originally Posted by Bopa the Magyar

Do you know what would be even cooler?

If soldiers cried out to their friends while in combat, such as a pikeman goes down and you hear from somewhere close by his freind call out his name "Edward!".

That would be awsome

But perhaps in the next generation game?

Yeah, or something like "goddamm it!", if other troops flee and yours are
still in battle. That would add to atmosphere.

Subedei would love to see MORE IN-BATTLE-COMMUNICATION!!!!!

**Ituralde** · 10-11-2006, 09:41

First off I like the atmosphere a lot and just to pick up on what has just been said one of the most gruesome moment I recently had while playing the Agincourt demo was zooming in on one unit in melee and suddenly the guy next to me goes up in flames and screams something along the lines of: "I'm burning!" pretty convincable, combined with his horrified scream. Made me think a moment if using flamin projectiles was really necessary.

Cheers!

Ituralde

**Subedei** · 10-11-2006, 09:54

@Ituralde:
Oh that does sound like atmosphere....

I don´t get to play the demo before tonight...so i am looking forward to this even more now....

**hoom** · 10-11-2006, 11:11

Another atmospheric touch, check out the clouds :)

I really really hope to see battle maps that big & army camps etc in the full game, that would be great if they plonk you down with a camp & in the middle of a really big field, no cowering up in a corner like previous games.
I'm doubtful though.

At the same time, I do expect there to at least be more strategic spots that you can actually use to anchor a flank/otherwise take advantage of instead of just fighting on rolling hillsides army vs. army like RTW.