|
Maybe the Empress has a prosthetic leg? I got nothing, it looks like it's trying to escape.
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2014 19:40
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 00:14 |
|
|
I think it's obvious that the armors and postures, like the ghosts, are for seduction.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2014 19:47
|
|
|
What in the ever loving gently caress is wrong with them. Ignore me i'm retarded. Strength of Many fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Oct 15, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2014 19:48
|
|
|
Strength of Many posted:To better illustrate my point...
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2014 19:49
|
|
|
Strength of Many posted:I've just been made aware that the Exalted team has no actual art director. Not even Rich Thomas getting his hands dirty with it. Uh, Maria Cabardo is the art director? They've been pretty clear about that.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2014 19:58
|
|
|
 Kickstarter Update #69 posted:The 5 Dragon Throne: Love it. Only issue: Kejak's hand looks weirdly chunky. Can we get a small fix on that? 
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2014 20:07
|
|
|
I'd make scathing commentary about the others but they're all more bland than anything. 'The Divine Revolution Sketch' has a lot of line work issues and it doesn't read very well if that is suppose to convey the Primordial War.  What is the Solar battling? Is that a Lunar? It looks more like an animalistic beastman-monster-thing than an unknowable god who created the universe. What is that suppose to be on the bottom? Is THAT the Lunars and Sidereals and Dragon-Blooded? Why are they in entirely separate panels? Are they going for Egyptian hieroglyphics? If so, they're doing it wrong.. and isn't the First Age and preceeding era heavily Mesoamerican, thanks in part to the Dragon Kings? If so they should look something like this..  or maybe this  Strength of Many fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Oct 15, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2014 20:18
|
|
|
So I don't really know anything about Exalted and whether they got the colours of the dragons wrong or whatever, but that drawing is utterly appalling on a technical level and needs to be scrapped and done from scratch. Preferably by a different person. If I were the art director and got that as a submission I'd tell them they were off the project, unless it's supposed to be a first sketch draft and was accompanied by a note saying "I know this looks lovely, but is this the sort of thing you were going for?"
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2014 21:36
|
|
|
Strength of Many posted:Ignore me i'm retarded. Man, don't give me straight lines like that.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2014 21:38
|
|
|
The bottom-most carvings look like a child's scribblings, it's bad.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2014 21:50
|
|
|
Stephenls posted:Man, don't give me straight lines like that. I am not one to defend my stance well after I've been proven wrong.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2014 21:59
|
|
|
Strength of Many posted:I am not one to defend my stance well after I've been proven wrong.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 02:57
|
|
|
I think the black part on the Butt Exigent may be part of their "armor", which leaves their sex still unclear. I really want to see the artist's preliminary sketches to see where they put the Empresses other leg, though. (I suspect the answer is "they didn't", of course.)
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 03:11
|
|
|
Zereth posted:I think the black part on the Butt Exigent may be part of their "armor", which leaves their sex still unclear. I'm pretty sure it's a girl, since she has torpedo tits. I also think the butt behind the tabard thing is pants, because it isn't the same tone or color as the shoulder, but is pretty close to some of the offwhites on the mask.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 03:22
|
|
|
theironjef posted:I'm pretty sure it's a girl, since she has torpedo tits. I also think the butt behind the tabard thing is pants, because it isn't the same tone or color as the shoulder, but is pretty close to some of the offwhites on the mask. (That will be my epitaph)
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 03:25
|
|
|
I'm saying the green part goes right back and disappears into their back armor, which would mean their abdomen was totally flat. It does look like the black goes out to suggest breasts, if it's part of the clothing, but it might... Hm. Looking at it again, I think the black is just shadow and what I was looking at is supposed to be the shadow of the other arm. I was giving the artist too much credit, especially considering the Empress' missing leg.  As for the color, the shoulder appears to be not under the watermark, while the butt mostly is, but a few randomly placed spots aren't.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 03:29
|
|
|
Are y'all posting this in the kickstarter comments, too?
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 04:58
|
|
|
The angle on it is really awkward and the throne doesn't look like it has a seat. Like I think the idea here was to put Empress sitting on the throne but there's not a butt-part for her to sit on just the dragon coil, and the way she's got her leg up would make a lot more sense if she was sitting with one leg crossed but the lines in the cloth don't really give us a sense that she's sitting down so it just looks like she's standing up in a weird ballerina pose. I think the hieroglyphic one is kinda neat, even though it doesn't really fit the stated description like, at all. My favorite artist WTF is still how "Heaven has people on monkey god clouds flying around and there's flying chariots!" and this translated to: "Blimps. Lots of blimps."
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 05:02
|
|
|
Okay, here's my proposal for Exalted Kickstarters ever getting good faith again: make one to hire the guy who does Kill Six Billion Demons as a permanent, on-staff artist.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 05:10
|
|
|
Mile'ionaha posted:Are y'all posting this in the kickstarter comments, too? I would if 1.) I wanted to get into a knock-out-drag-out fight with a few hundred people and potentially the devs with no eye for art or anatomy and 2.) if I actually care about the product. I don't. I have no intent of ever playing this pile of dog poo poo nor owning it unless some miracle happens and they completely change literally everything about it from the alpha leak, which I don't see that ever happening. I gazed into their design with objective lenses readily ignoring any potential fluff attached to them for the sake of numbers (and given the quality of some Exalted fluff, that's the only sane way to operate) and I found Ex3 wanting. Extremely wanting. Besides, my shelves are already stuffed with all of the 1e books and a plethora of other WW products I'd rather (not) revisit. I'd argue I am not a bitter grognard but I also don't really feel like defending myself on that point either. Basically, its not worth any of our time. Go support other TTRPGs you like written by better, more creative, transparent, honest, earnest and trustworthy developers. Strength of Many fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Oct 16, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 07:52
|
|
|
Strength of Many posted:Basically, its not worth any of our time. Go support other TTRPGs you like written by better, more creative, transparent, honest, earnest and trustworthy developers. Yeah this seems the best course here. We might love exalted for some stupid reason but this project in general is so lovely that caring enough about it to try and fix it as a consumer is completely pointless. I'd be ashamed to read that thing on the subway, which is my way of measuring if an art piece is offensive. I don't really get why they keep hiring DA artists but there we go.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 08:00
|
|
|
Hugoon Chavez posted:We might love exalted for some stupid reason I got into Exalted shortly after getting into WtA Revised through a guy I knew at a local bookstore. They were my first TTRPG experiences, though I was familiar with roleplaying prior to that. It was.. an interesting and compelling setting, not as dragged down by the nihilism and cynicism of its WoD counterpart. It encouraged you to be an underdog, THE underdog, especially as a Solar. And who doesn't love an underdog? Ironically my favorite Exalt type was and continues to be the Dragon-Blooded. It had a sort of spirit and player prerogative I didn't see in other products at the time, like Dungeons and Dragons, and a handful of artists I really liked from WoD books were working on it so what was not to love? I used to be very protective and grumpy about Exalted but the Ink Monkeys era of 2e* beat all of it out of me. The fighting, the arguments. Its not worth it and was never worth it. Their whole consumer base got swept up in some kind of idiotic furor, a zeitgeist, and I'm not sure it hasn't stopped (I wouldn't know, I stay the gently caress away from RPG.net, WW forums and everywhere else discussing it.) Needless to say for me, 3e has just served as a long litany of the most strained, depressed sounding 'I Told You So'. So uh.. sorry ya'll got duped, I guess?? *edit: If I had to be really specific it would probably be DotFA and Infernals that wrecked that sentiment, though the revenge nerfing and awful handling of Sidereals and Dragon-Blooded, and the completely half assed state of Abyssals didn't loving help. Oh and don't get me started on how they presented Solars half way into its life cycle vs how they are portrayed in 1e and early 2e. That whole tone shift was unsettling and frankly disgusting to watch. Strength of Many fucked around with this message at 08:20 on Oct 16, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 08:13
|
|
|
Strength of Many posted:*edit: If I had to be really specific it would probably be DotFA and Infernals that wrecked that sentiment, though the revenge nerfing and awful handling of Sidereals and Dragon-Blooded, and the completely half assed state of Abyssals didn't loving help. Oh and don't get me started on how they presented Solars half way into its life cycle vs how they are portrayed in 1e and early 2e. That whole tone shift was unsettling and frankly disgusting to watch.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 08:35
|
|
|
Nessus posted:Can you elaborate how you mean here? er, with regards to which? Strength of Many fucked around with this message at 08:41 on Oct 16, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 08:39
|
|
|
You could not post in the thread about the thing you don't like and don't plan to buy, instead of making everyone else miserable by ranting incessantly about it. Just sayin'.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 08:56
|
|
|
mistaya posted:The angle on it is really awkward and the throne doesn't look like it has a seat. Like I think the idea here was to put Empress sitting on the throne but there's not a butt-part for her to sit on just the dragon coil, and the way she's got her leg up would make a lot more sense if she was sitting with one leg crossed but the lines in the cloth don't really give us a sense that she's sitting down so it just looks like she's standing up in a weird ballerina pose. No you see, this is all because of the new engine. They switched to Gamebryo for the third installment, and the seat and the Empress' other leg just aren't finished loading yet.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 14:04
|
|
|
Thesaurasaurus posted:No you see, this is all because of the new engine. They switched to Gamebryo for the third installment, and the seat and the Empress' other leg just aren't finished loading yet. A Gamebryo Exalted MMO would be aces. mistaya posted:You could not post in the thread about the thing you don't like and don't plan to buy, instead of making everyone else miserable by ranting incessantly about it. Well we don't have much to talk about and it's kinda fun to see how much Ex3 can suck. There's a tiny and stubborn part of me that still wants Ex3 to somehow end up like a cool game.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 14:29
|
|
|
Nessus posted:Can you elaborate how you mean here? Not to put words in his mouth, but what I, personally noticed was a shift in setting assumptions from "Solars as grand, operatic figures, representing both the figurative and literal 'last rays of light' in Creation whose greatness and tragedy are two sides to the same coin and might either save the world or seal its doom (and maybe indulge in a little old-skool murderhobo-ing either way)" to "Solars as the ultimate, uncontested strongmen in a Hobbesian dialogue, so no matter how awful they are you should throw in your lot with them because unless everyone else is just too petty to acknowledge their rightful masters once more, they will very definitely Save Creation Forever. Through murderhobo-ing. Unless they, like, all botch their SAN Checks again, but hey, what are the odds of that happening twice?"
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 14:49
|
|
|
I'm always surprised to hear people talk about the tenor of the 1e material being optimistic, when by the default assumptions, it's a doomed setting. The Great Curse means that even if the good guys win, they lose - and this was backed up by Geoff Grabowski's word of god. The main thing is that they don't overemphasize or enforce that outcome, since Grabowski realized that wasn't for everyone, but it fits with the heavy Moorcock influence on the game. It is a game line filed under "Age of Sorrows", after all. Perhaps the most hopeful supplement was Autocthonians for 1e, which provided the possibility of Autochthon undoing the Great Curse, but that also had an adventure where Autochthon becomes a Neverborn and threatens all of Creation as FaFL's Death Star. So it goes.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 15:13
|
|
|
Exalted is great because of its not all that subtle messages of not glorifying the past, holding onto old grudges or being Imperial fucks that nearly all players not only ignore, but then go on to do all three unironically but "Properly this time".
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 15:13
|
|
|
"The setting is doomed, but we're not going to talk about that almost at all because we assume you don't dig on the same sort of epic tragedy that we do" was much better than "The setting is doomed, and we are going to harp on it all the Goddamned time."
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 15:14
|
|
|
Thesaurasaurus posted:Not to put words in his mouth, but what I, personally noticed was a shift in setting assumptions from "Solars as grand, operatic figures, representing both the figurative and literal 'last rays of light' in Creation whose greatness and tragedy are two sides to the same coin and might either save the world or seal its doom (and maybe indulge in a little old-skool murderhobo-ing either way)" to "Solars as the ultimate, uncontested strongmen in a Hobbesian dialogue, so no matter how awful they are you should throw in your lot with them because unless everyone else is just too petty to acknowledge their rightful masters once more, they will very definitely Save Creation Forever. Through murderhobo-ing. Unless they, like, all botch their SAN Checks again, but hey, what are the odds of that happening twice?" Their ex-advisors could totally teach them the error of that plan... if it wasn't impossible to remember anything they said for more than five minutes because reasons. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Oct 16, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 15:19
|
|
|
Stephenls posted:"The setting is doomed, but we're not going to talk about that almost at all because we assume you don't dig on the same sort of epic tragedy that we do" was much better than "The setting is doomed, and we are going to harp on it all the Goddamned time." I never really got the sense everyone else did that the Setting was doomed. It was about to be doomed sure, but a lot of the threats were kind of nebulous and on stand by. There wasn't really anywhere in Creation where poo poo was going down RIGHT NOW. Thorns had been crushed but the Mask of Winter was just kind of hanging out. He was probably up to something sure, but he wasn't really doing anything. The Lion had an army but nowhere to go. Infernals exist but they're not really doing anything. The Fair Folk are there, but they haven't invaded. The civil war is brewing, but no one's thrown a punch. It even spread into the rest of things. Of all the nations of Creation, none of them are at war with each other except Halta and Linowa two Countries in the middle of nowhere. The Bull of the North had beaten the Legions, so the fight up there was on hold. Lookshy and the Realm were eyeballing each other, but not fighting and .... that's it. I can't think of anywhere in Creation who actually had a hot war going on. It was all kind of flat really. Like sure, the setting is doomed but only because it told you. There wasn't much showing. Fans fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Oct 16, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 15:19
|
|
|
Fans posted:Exalted is great because of its not all that subtle messages of not glorifying the past, holding onto old grudges or being Imperial fucks that nearly all players not only ignore, but then go on to do all three unironically but "Properly this time". I want Exalted 3E to frame this quote and hang it on the first page of its corebook.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 15:27
|
|
|
Well, if the Exalted setting doesn't seem hosed, it's because it's hard to get a proper sense about how things are "supposed" to be run. But when you have Deathlords openly marching out and running city-states and nobody is trying to stop them, when you have the Guild willingly selling people to the Fair Folk, when you have gods extorting humanity for their sole benefit- poo poo is hosed up. Wyld mutants are being gathered in enough numbers to threaten humanity. The biggest stabilizing force in the worst is headed into a Civil War. While a lot of the worst things are still on the cusp of crashing down, it's a world that's in pretty bad shape compared to how things should be.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 15:35
|
|
|
I don't think Exalted ever presumed the existence of a stable status quo which would ensure perpetuity if maintained. Like, a lot of fantasy settings have this stable feudal system going on where they assume the tech level's gonna stay stagnant, and beyond that, society "should" look like a set of succession wars and political squabbles in perpetuity while the peasants grow crops and bards sing in taverns, and if you can just stop the evil wizards or scheming demons or crazy gods from loving it up, that'll keep going forever, or at least for the next two thousand years. Creation's never had that, especially not since the fall of the First Age. Things are going to change, the question isn't how to keep things on course the way they're supposed to be but how it's going to change.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 15:42
|
|
|
Alien Rope Burn posted:Well, if the Exalted setting doesn't seem hosed, it's because it's hard to get a proper sense about how things are "supposed" to be run. But when you have Deathlords openly marching out and running city-states and nobody is trying to stop them, when you have the Guild willingly selling people to the Fair Folk, when you have gods extorting humanity for their sole benefit- poo poo is hosed up. Wyld mutants are being gathered in enough numbers to threaten humanity. The biggest stabilizing force in the worst is headed into a Civil War. Yeah but it's still a lot of "Look at all this interesting stuff that might be about to happen" rather than "Look at all this interesting stuff that is actually happening"
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 15:42
|
|
|
Stephenls posted:I don't think Exalted ever presumed the existence of a stable status quo which would ensure perpetuity if maintained. Like, a lot of fantasy settings have this stable feudal system going on where they assume the tech level's gonna stay stagnant, and beyond that, society "should" look like a set of succession wars and political squabbles in perpetuity while the peasants grow crops and bards sing in taverns, and if you can just stop the evil wizards or scheming demons or crazy gods from loving it up, that'll keep going forever, or at least for the next two thousand years. Creation's never had that, especially not since the fall of the First Age. Things are going to change, the question isn't how to keep things on course the way they're supposed to be but how it's going to change. This is really where I'd like to see the gameline do some show-don't-tell, because 2E really seemed unable to find that happy medium between "Sunshine and Daffodils" and THOUSAND stepwise DOOMS. Hell, I'd like to see it spelled out that the First Age wasn't all that stable or sustainable so that players stop thinking of "Revive the First Age" as a panacea, but I'll settle for leaving it a big ol' black box as a concession to narrative necessity.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 15:50
|
|
|
Stephenls posted:I don't think Exalted ever presumed the existence of a stable status quo which would ensure perpetuity if maintained. I'm not saying anything like that that I can tell, but there is at least an ideal that Creation is far from, at the very least defined by heavenly law and the roles of the Exalted. Fans posted:Yeah but it's still a lot of "Look at all this interesting stuff that might be about to happen" rather than "Look at all this interesting stuff that is actually happening" Well, that's standard for game worlds. The issue with having a game open in media res like that is that you're basically opening on a conflict that isn't defined by the players. If you did a game that starts in the middle of the Realm civil war means you have to define who all the power players are, what their plans are, what previous events have taken place, etc. It's the issue a lot of the 90s metaplots fall into, and the deeper you define such conflicts, the less they end up being about the players. An example would be Heavy Gear, which started with a conflict in progress and defined it through its supplements so tightly that it actively sneered at the idea of PCs affecting the grand narrative in player. Rifts faced similar issues where it had a lot of potential conflicts waiting in the wings, but once they got around to writing Coalition Wars, it became a narrative script with little or no room for PC agency. It's a difficult act to juggle and there are reasons most games keep their conflicts in potentia instead of immediate.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 16:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 00:14 |
|
|
Alien Rope Burn posted:I'm not saying anything like that that I can tell, but there is at least an ideal that Creation is far from, at the very least defined by heavenly law and the roles of the Exalted. I can think of at least three power blocs who would argue against the legitimacy of Heavenly law, at least one of which might have a legit position.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2014 16:17
|
|