Let's change the loading screen artwork

If I had to guess, a long time ago some decision was made that the loading screen artwork was to only use "concept art type" art for this. During the early development, this really worked fine, and gave that feeling that the game was still under development (and that early concept art is really beautiful).

We are now at Release 102 (on Thursday), and the game currently is far far from being in early development, and will continue to be further developed. We are also at the point where no new concept art is going to be created now. That time has now passed. We have hundreds of incredibly beautiful scenes and locations now. And many of these scenes have "official" screenshots for them, from the various Release Instructions.

I feel we now need to move forward from the past, and show off the various scenes within New Britannia in all their glory for the loading screen. A small selection of "official" scene screenshots could be used at first, as we don't want to increase the size of the game by too much. A selection of say 10 scenes could be used as a start. The criteria for which scenes to include for the loading screen should be a "wow" factor and give the feeling of "Where is that? I want to go there!"*, or a scene that seems to have a mystery, just something to this effect. You also might need to alter the image to include the scenes name (or perhaps not, to evoke.... mystery). Some suggestions would be like this:

Spoiler: Placed under a spoiler so I don't image spam this thread

Would this actually look better? I don't know. It could actually look completely terrible, or actually look really good. But I feel such a change would move our game to a more lively such feel, instead of using very old concept art.

I would like to propose this, but for only the QA Server (so we don't change anything on Live, for now). If that CAN actually be done. Just as a test, to just try something different. We could all evaluate this change then on there.

I'm a firm believer in just do something, anything. Because doing so might actually improve something (and sometimes it does not).

Just wanted to throw this out there and see what you all think. Thanks!

*"wow" factor and give the feeling of "Where is that? I want to go there!" is highly subjective for every single person playing this game, and I will leave such selection up to the capable hands of the Catnip Games development team. You could possibly (?) include the community on this, but not too sure about that.

 

Would be nice if the winners from the screenshot and deco contests could show off their work on the loading screens. Can show older and new players what can be done by the creative people who play the game.

 

+eleventy (at least)

 

This is a great idea! Let's do it!

 

I'd be wary of using actual screenshots over the artwork as I think seeing them can take a way some of the wow factor of experiencing the scene for the first time, I really enjoy running around a scene that's new to me it's why I avoid those spoilers during the live streams.

 

Perhaps a filter could be used to maintain that "live" experience impact.

 

i would not assume that screenshots saved for web publishing are of high enough resolution to look good stretched across some of the huge gaming monitors out there.

 

Every time I see the Lord British Castle scene screenshot with that filter applied I'm reminded of the universal neural style transfer.

 

That is actually a good point and something I forgot to consider. So what we then would need for this is then say 5-10 Very Good images of various scenes, but done at a high resolution.

I would prefer “Official” screenshots at these resolutions. But this would then be a very low priority. As you all have enough to do…

I was hoping to do this with assets we already had… :/

 

we might! i actually don't know what the requirements are for loading screens or whether larger versions of the ones you were looking at were made.

 

I would imagine even 2k images would scale nicely.

I'm sure the devs know the the player resolutions are and how likely it would to cause issues.

 

Where is this?

Spoiler: Pic

 

I definitely like the approach with using actual in-game places.

• Current Loadscreen reaction: Uhh, is that even in the game?
• Potential reaction: Oh!! I want to go kill/do/explore that.

You could also ask for user submissions from big community events and such and pick some of those. Some of the screenshots of like, LB's birthday garden party or any number of player events , POT features, amazing decorating jobs, etc...let's showcase all the stuff you could do. New players may not know where to go to see some of the coolness but the loadscreens can give an idea of the breadth.

Taking it a step further ....what if you cycled load screens from a user designated directory (client side)? As an option? So I could like, nostalgia my old screenshots or whatever. That'd be kinda cool.

 

The Crags, near Etceter
https://sotawiki.net/sota/The_Crags

 

Had an idea after i read Barugon's post...

Kinda thinking out loud here...but if these type of pics are used as a loading screen, then I think it would be a good idea to show the name of the zone in the image, so if a player wants to explore that zone, they will know the name of the zone and can go find it.

Also, I think it would be good to make it clear that the picture does not represent the zone they are entering/exiting, but it represents some other zone they can explore.

 

If you want to visit an interesting place. Visit Dara Brae! The fourth POT added to the game in Release 20 PLUS the first ever Yew tree is on display! Exciting!

* Dara Brae is in Mistrentur, to the left, two player POTs down from the Big Galleon on the middle island.

 

I think the concept art is generally a bit too sloppy to be in a finished game, so I support this request.

 

How about a live fixed camera view of a random scene in the game? If there is some action, so much the better.

 

That would require loading the scene.

 

this is true. they would have done that for the monitors in the main oracle temple, else.