Design is a tricky thing, you either hit the nail on the head or you are completely wrong when you take a specific direction when designing something as complex as a futuristic environment.

Of course this holds true for every day products as well. Thus a few examples of what direction MechScape could take.

But first let's look at what can happen with what is called industrial design. In a way there are only two main stream directions: Man made and Nature made. Any design, be it a car, a motor cycle, a phone, or something mundaine as a knife, can take either direction or one that tries to follow set rules of both.

Man Made design can include something like this:


Rosenthal Dedalo

Angular, strait lines

An example of a design that follows the constraints set by nature:


Luigi Colani 1973

One of those in-between designs:


Rosenthal Studioline

A combination of strait and rounded lines

I know these examples are too limited to make the difference clear but this is not a design class

MechScape

The only reference we have is the picture of the Lava Harvester, and that seems to follow Man Made design. Not depending on what we see in nature but mearly the form follows function way of looking at things.

There are other alternatives for those: More flowing lines like those of a Vorlon Ship (Babylon 5 sci-fi series).



So, what do you think is going to happen?

There's an interesting idea for conflict in MechScape.

Perhaps there will be some sort of modern vs. natural controversy, conflict, or even all-out war, with one side desiring everything mechanized and the other wishing a more natural outlook on life, the universe, and everything. Perhaps this could extend to battles over mechanizing different planets, keeping the way of life simpler or turning the whole of Zeebilgadget Epilson into one giant industrial park.

Depending on the way this is portrayed, it could turn into either a RuneScape-ish conflict, where your character seems to be a free agent between godly battles, or a good vs. evil one, like C. Lewis's That Hideous Strength, or the penultimate chapter of LOTR.

I know, long shot, but if somehow I got lucky, you heard it from me first, right?

I think the flowing lines are unlikely due to what I've seen so far as an overall design paramater. What my real question about MS is regards the nature of combat in the game, weather it will be like the RS or a total freestyle gun game. I'd prefer the latter to be honest. Which bring up the question of movement. Freestyle requires a greater level of agility than the RS system can provide. And that will manifest in a fundamentally different game structure.

I think the designers will try to fall halfway between man-made and nature-made. Not so much in the design of any one item, but in the total look and feel of the game. If they went totally man-made, you’d probably have a planet like Trantor, from the Foundation trilogy by Asimov, a world in which the cites got so large that they eventually merged with each other with the result that the planet had an almost entirely man-made surface: Trantor

For this game, I think that would have a limited visual appeal after a while, due to lack of contrast.

A kind of opposite look would be something like the art of Roger Dean (the Vorlon ship reminds me of his style), the guy who did many classic album covers: Roger Dean album cover for ABWH

When I first saw Dean’s work, I didn’t realize that some of the things that look like huge natural formations actually represent cities. Again, though, while great for album covers, too homogeneous for the entire MechScape world, in my opinion.

The Lava Harvester looks so man-made (it reminds me of the style of the drones in the movie Silent Running) that it would benefit from a natural setting to highlight it by contrast. I can see it gliding over wheat fields on its way to a volcanic cone somewhere.

If planet surfaces play a big role (or maybe it takes place mostly in space?), I think we’ll see extremely man-made, angular-looking cities with areas of nature separating them. Even in the these cities, there will be a park or two.

As for players (as humans), sci-fi tech-armor almost inevitably, so they/we will have a combination nature-made/man-made look. And since it’s MechScape, we must be able to control machines (mechs, spaceships, etc.) either from within, or by remote control from without, and I think these avatars for our avatars will probably follow almost completely the man-made, straight lines design style.

I wonder if the giant avatars in Soul Wars are a feedback from some of the MechScape work. Did the inspiration for them spread (across the water cooler, or in the cafeteria) from the MechScape team to the RuneScape team, giant beings like giant mechs?

Im sorry to go off topic here, but what has "Red October 2: Sean Connery Is Pissed Off" got ANYTHING to do with Mechscape?