EVE General Discussion

I've made a post in the official feedback already, though I wanted to talk in a bit more detail about why I think the new lighting system is very unsatisfactory. I am running the game on maximum graphics settings.

The crisp, contrasting dark textures we used to have on the ships seem to have been replaced with a muted, characterless grey base that flattens the entire design of ships rather than lifting them out. I suppose this new grey stuff passes for metal, but to me it looks more like injected plastic. The contrast is very weak with these new shades of grey, making ships appear very unnatural in the space scene due to the lack of perceived depth. Detail has been lost on every hull.

Consistent colour schemes for races seem to have been completely thrown out of the window - replaced by a mish mash of discordant palettes for different ships, often completely changed from their original hue. Where the colours haven't been completely changed to something discordant, the game renders them with grossly desaturated and washed out alternatives. Some ships have very questionable new colour choices that clash, whilst others just seem like duller, flatter imitations.

Reflective surfaces and chrome has been used excessively where they needn't be - often forming half of the entire surface area of a ship (aka new Incursus model). This just seems like lazy texturing to me, replacing areas that should be richly detailed rather than looking like a chromed platinum ingot of spaceship-mass. The same goes for the chrome/gold shine more notable on Gallente/Amarr ships, which has been applied over generously to many random exterior parts of the ships.

Lastly, the way in which light is projected onto ships does not feel organic. A white sun in eve now casts what look like studio lights or a pre-render test onto the ship, often completely obscuring the colours + detail below. The effect is far too bright, and covers far more of the model than it used to. This effect is especially noticeable on older models with more flat surfaces and straight lines/shapes.

CCP, I understand that this new lighting system will pave the way for a multitude of cool customisation and graphical 'features' in the future. However, this upgrade needn't destroy years of focused, consistent art direction for the sake of perceived technical superiority.

I also understand that as of now, many of the ships have not been finished due to old textures rendering badly with the new system. Why release this on Tranquility when so many ships are displaying poorly?

IMO the overall look of ships in EvE has been greatly degraded by the new lighting system and I am bitterly disappointed by some of the choices the art team have made. I hope that major improvements will be made - pretty spaceships are what make this game desirable in the first place, their appearance is central to every player's experience.

TL;DR:

it depends per ship. I love the new look of my Harbinger, the golden plates really stand out.

But my Nightmare is just one drab block of greyness.

The grey base does look a bit like molded plastic. The ships look like replicas instead of hulking masses of titanium and glass.

I think your use of the word 'disaster' is a little off.

>implying excessive
>not having a chrome ass
>2014

No, really. Don't touch my shiny incursus.


You get that these ships don't actually exist, right? We have no standard for how they are supposed to look except for how they were before.

None of the ships I fly have had anything done except to remove all detail from the texures and add lots of chrome. Now, I'll keep the chrome, but I don't care how fancy the math you used to bleed the textures dry of detail was. The result is still just lack of detail.

But don't those 5 pixels look really bland and somehow worse than before to you?

Exactly!

Work is not finished, that was already mentioned by the developers.
Some ships like the drake look worse than before, but that will change. Even ships that are to shiny now might be scaled down.

Why cry about it? Because it's a work in progress and it's on Tranquility, not on Sisi where all of this unfinished stuff should be.

The new star map is wonderful, but I'm not forced to use it yet because it doesn't have full functionality. Should be the same for the game's art assets, right?

you seem mad.