v7 aesthetics

[R'as al Ghul]

I posted this in the "is this the worst..." thread in the Sword Dojo, however i should have done it here. After a few satisfying campaigns against the cunning AI, i would like to make a few comments/suggestions/questions relative to certain aesthetic aspects of the mod. I don't mean to be picky or anything; I enjoy the mod very much and seek to improve across the board.

Welcome to Samurai Warlords.
Suggestions are always welcome. Be advised that we can be stubborn, though.

I would be pleased if you could comment or guide on those as i would be interested in doing them myself if you regard them unecessary or out of the intended spirit/atmosphere of the mod.
So:
A few aesthetic notes relative to the (SWs beta 7) campaign (sorry but i'm a sucker for this kind of thing ):

Sure, I'll try to answer them all.

1. Princesses

Well, I thought we had a good mixture of good and bad girls. I've searched the web up and down, most of those portraits are cut from woodcut prints of japanese artists. There're just not enough of them to keep one line of drawing. However, the portraits now included may be subject to change. We could leave some out, put some others in. I don't think we're gonna change the strategy piece again, though. If you want to contribute some portraits you may post them here.

2. Unit Info pictures

Not sure which pictures do you mean? The info scrolls of the units should have the same unit info pics as Shogun (the coloured ones). They're quite nice I think and not pixelated. Then there're the small pics in the army-panel and the battlefield icons.
The last time I wanted to change something (apart from the parchment scrolls) barocca said he wanted to keep one line of style. As I said we can be stubborn.

3. Titles

So our title "No Kami Owari" has the wrong word order? Well, if that's true we need to change that. Thanks.

4. Sakura tree models

I don't want to belittle barocca's accomplishment here, but they're directly imported from Shogun. So editing would mean extra work (you may try if you want).

5. Units (coloured helmets)

I suppose that's a graphical glitch. I've had that, too, at some point.
I thought it was fixed. I'll look into it again. Could you tell me how many factions with how many units were in that battle you describe?

6. Experience Banners

Any ideas? Those triangular flags have about a dozen or so animation frames. We'd need to agree on a better design and then make/edit those animations.

and some ideas:
1. Castle maps

We'll change the castles to make them stronger and not as easily taken. Puzz does those. I think larger castles could have a more complex structure like the one you describe.

2. Music

Most of us import the music and sound files from Shogun, which is what I'd advise. Including them into the mod would seriously largen the download size and give us copyright problems.

3. Automn trees

Unfortunately, MTW knows only two seasons, Winter and Summer. We'll have winter trees but autumn is out of the question.

7. Sashimonos

We'd love to do that but that would mean editing 300+ animation frames manually for each unit. Great idea but hardly feasible. Sorry.

8. Wooden Castles

That can be done. I remember we had complaints about it before. I'll keep that in mind and see what can be done.

I'd like to add that we concentrate on getting the map textures and models to work in MP. Then there're some minor problems like unpassable terrain to be fixed. Once that's done (and we have a stable version) we'll proceed to add minor details like completing the huge list of historical names, etc.
Currently I'm still waiting for a special installer my brother promised me but fails to finish (I'll give him a call again).



R'as

P.S.: Your url avatar shows one of my Yakuza girls.