ideas for concept drawings?

#1 oh yeah, to anyone in the know should i submit straight-on front and side shots so modelers can use them as reference if accepted, or should i go for coolness and "look and feel" type stuff? i guess i should go and double check for the art submission guidelines, eh?

#2 would you guys rather see 'standard' fantasy fare, or radical new ideas, or a nice blend of both. like new races, etc.?

#3 Heh, good luck to ya on the minotaur... that's gonna be a bitch to animate.

I think the best bet would be to stick with humanoid characters. At least until GG says otherwise. At least then you can guarantee your work won't be in vain.

#4 It depends on which way the RW idea is going. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of the fantasy thing, i dont mind orcs, but if it starts going all elves and hobbits and god knows what else, then it'll turn me off.

If its just a wargame (lets call it a steamhammer style, which is a cross between steampunk and warhammer) then thats fine by me.

I'd like to see a set of battle knights to challenge the orcs.

If you look at the orc proportions, it IS very suggestive of the warhammer style, so its a fair bet that RW is using a similar style.

Pascal had a good idea of trying to use an alternative power source to power different objects (much like steampunk).

Phil.

#5 yeah, ill hold off on those unusual walkers, matt.

phil, hate to break the bad news but Warhammer has all the traditional fantasy elements. sticking to just warhammer type stuff would include all the above, even pansy elves :)

i agree though, ill do some Warhammer type stuff for now. still open for suggestions though...

#6 i meant warhammer in the style of Space Marines and stuff.. i know there's some other fantasy warhammer things, but theyre not quite as pansy as all the gay elves and stuff of most RPG's :))

Phil.

#7 actually GW makes two warhammer table-top-miniatures battle games, Warhammer Fantasy Battle, which shares setting with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and Warhammer 40,000, which is set in the distant future. WHY they dont publish a W40K rpg is beyond me, as it would be very cool. but when most people say warhammer, they mean the fantasy battles game. Warhammer 40k is the name for the futuristic one.

#8 Phil,

We probably will keep RW in the "pansy" world of fantasy. Personally, I love Warhammer 40K, and if the entire community wants to go this direction, we may be able to do so.

As you can see from our Orc, we have chosen to go with a style that is not too far from the WH40K style. Just a little less cartooney.

I just want this to be the most fun on-line FPS game in history. We'll do whatever it takes to make it happen.

Just as a warning though, our next character is going to be an Elf Sorceress. Tried and true, I know, but we need the sex appeal, and we need a character that is weak in hand to hand so when the Orc (with his newly developed shield and one handed axe) gets close, she is dead.

As RW grows, I could imagine different scenarios on different servers that work all the way up to the 40K-type stuff you want to see.

Jeff Tunnell GG

#9 Oh yeah, I forgot to say. Our elf is not going to be pansy. She could kick your ass!

Jeff

#10 If we can get past the braided beards and square dancing, surely there's worth to be found in the fantasy genre.

Can't imagine why Orcs would escape your derision, Phil. Also, Warhammer40k has elves and dwarves (eldar and squats).

While fantasy isn't my bag, I'm curious as to how the number of races described by the GG folks could possibly not include elves, dwarves, and etc.

I can agree with you on the wizard front, what with the stated emphasis on squad based melee. Although games which make limited use of what is essentially magic (Wights, Warlocks, and Fetch in the Myth series come to mind), while focusing on melee, can certainly be fun.

#11 hehe, RW is gonna be sooo cool... and i agree, why should the difference between 40K and fantasy be any harder than a new weapon/model/class pack and a few scripts? look at both lines of miniatures and you can imagine how they would all look on the battlefield together. "get that wardancer a bolter, all he's got is an ork-sticker!"

and elves aint pansy till yer talking to dwarves and orks.


GG help me out a little here guys! this thread was for SUGGESTIONS?! at least throw me a bone, is the concept done for the sorceress? {yes} so whats next after her? is THAT concept done? do you guys want to see concepts from my head, or yours, or a combo? i got my scanner working, and im drawing up a few characters, but i want a little input/direction. ive got roughs for a warrior in full plate, a warrior in a hauberk with optional greaves, which could be skinned for chain mail, banded mail, splint mail, scale mail, brigandine, lamellar, etc., and im prolly gonna do a guy in a byrnie too.

im keeping the shapes basic for ubiquity, but ill have fun with the 'textures'.

#12 er, i just read back through the milestones, and the other stuff for RW. i think i kind of got a mistaken impression about the art end of the project from the way the forums were talking about contributions. i dont want to apply for the lead artist position, my color work is too weak, but i would love to try some concepts for RW. maybe i should have said that first :). if im putting the cart too far forward just say so, and ill relax. im just charged up about character design, its one of my favorites - narrative art doesnt come into games too much.

#13 oh yeah, theres no reason you cant have a fantasy setting without orcs, elves, dwarves and halflings. take a gander at talislanta for inspiration. that had exactly 0 cliches, but it was fantasy. but yeah, throw an orc in there and the road leads straight to the 'big four' of fantasy.

#14 Why not create new species? Everyone's been complaining about the lack of creativity, I'd personally like to see RW prove otherwise. With World of Warcraft, Everquest, and the bazillion others, the common RPG species seems rather bland for something of this magnitude. But that's just me. :-) Maybe add new flairs to the cornerstone species to liven them up?

#15 i agree, using different races is a good idea. for purely selfish reasons, i would like to see a fantasy setting for RW, but really id rather see something more like WH40K. a far future setting with a fantasy flavor, with lots of bizzare/cool futurofantasy models. ie, keep things like laser swords, power armor, etc., but move away from the army lists used by GW. this could be good too because the tightfisted boys at GW would have nothing to sue about.

Jeff, i think you should give this more thought, i think this would go a long way towards making RW the standout game you want it to be. maybe im biased bc i pay more attention to fantasy games than sci-fi games, but i think theres more open territory in sci-fantasy than fantasy. for that matter, sci-fantasy beats sci-fi too...

#16 ok, went ahead and put my first concept online, if anyone wants to critiqe the design id appreciate the feedback. i know its not really polished, but i wanted to put something up tonite and i still want to rough out another character.

necromancer

#17 I always push for creativity, but not here. This is straight forward fantasy. We at GG have wanted to do this type of fantasy ever since we read Tolkien. Our creativity will come from game play. There will be no grunting, no rabbit killing, no frog killing. Every player is a hero.

So, RW will have the usual races, i.e. Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, Human, etc. For now, each of these races will be able to be played in two different ways. We need conceptuals for all of the races. Once we have approved the concepts, then we need to make the color key and the three different views so the modellers and textuere guys can do their thing. Keep in mind the Shawn Sharp direction that has already been set. That is where we are going.

I could imagine that once we have the infrastructure up, there would be no reason teams could not branch off on different servers to play Space Marines or giant fighting robots as mods.

Jeff Tunnell GG

#18 As to creativity in the characters, an Orc is an Orc regardless of what you call it. If you come up with a big barbaric berserker character, it is an Orc, even is you call it, say, a Nimco. This is what happened in Asheron's Call. They used wierd names, but the characters were essentially the same as standard fantasy.

We are going to do traditional fantasy. We've always wanted to do it, and now we don't have a big corporation telling us we can't. There will be nothing like running down a hill into a huge hand to hand combat melee screaming your Orcish battle cry. Nobody has done this right yet. We are going to.

Jeff Tunnell GG

#19 So there'll be no new species created for RW? (Just making sure I caught where you're going with this) So you'll only want character concept art that is along the standard fantasy lines, such as an elf, human, gnome, dwarf, troll, etc?

#20 "As to creativity in the characters, an Orc is an Orc regardless of what you call it. If you come up with a big barbaric berserker character, it is an Orc, even is you call it, say, a Nimco. This is what happened in Asheron's Call. They used wierd names, but the characters were essentially the same as standard fantasy."

huh? a big barbaric berserker is a viking is an orc? that doesnt hold up. now, i will agree with the idea that nothing is new under the sun, that is, try as hard as you want, you wont make up anything truly original. at best you can recombine old ideas in fresh new ways (hence my sci-fantasy argument). but saying that a brute is an orc if its an ogre is overgeneralizing. if you took that orc model, changed his clothes, skin color, added some horns, and changed his name and story, you no longer have an orc, youve got - something else.