Possible explanation for change of art direction in Orta

Panzer Dragoon
61

Don’t forget that there’s an even longer gap between Zwei and Saga, though - Imperial Year 72 to Imperial Year 119 - and in that time the ship designs hardly changed. Not on the same scele, anyway: the biggest influence on the change in ship designs would seem to be the Empire’s merger with the Southern Peoples (as in that quote I mentioned earlier). Among other things, of course.

Yeah, this did cross my mind at some point. I think it’s likely that the ropes are meant to be there, but that the Saturn’s relatively basic graphics simply don’t portray them. Doesn’t some of the old concept art show the ropes?

Either that, or the Float Engine exerted a gravitational field to keep the body of the ship suspended below it, while simultaneously exerting an antigravity field against the ground to keep the whole thing aloft. That wouldn’t be too improbable.

62

Yep, this piece of official art shows that the “classic” Imperial Battlecruisers were indeed meant to have their float engines and hulls bound together by ropes. It must just have been a graphical ommission, then:

moonapples.com/lagi/pd2/images/pd2_a_end0029.jpg

EDIT: And the Zwei Episode 2 boss, as well (I don’t remember being able to see the ropes on that in the game, anyway):

moonapples.com/lagi/pd2/images/p … rtship.jpg

63

I meant that the deadliness of their ships has been optimised over time. I never noticed any Imperial ships equipped with beam cannons in the first two Panzer games, and while such weapons may simply be modified Ancient Age technology, the Empire has still learnt how to adapt them.

There’s no denying that the integration of the southern migrants has had a huge impact on Imperial society as a whole. I think over time, the human Empire will build bigger and more deadly ships regardless of culture. There’s no denying the driving force that is human nature either.

But damn it, I want my old-school ships with no ropes back in the next game where they belong! :slight_smile:

64

True; I can’t imagine the old Empire at the time of Zwei being able to put together something on the scale of the castle-flagship seen in PDO Episode 4. They’re definitely meant to be getting more advanced; the Southern Peoples simply seem to have inspired the new aesthetics (trailing flags, gaudy colour schemes, etc.)

Or rather - as lagi pointed out earlier - those are Smilebit’s official excuses to experiment with all these new airship designs :slight_smile:

65

I think the screen resolution in the original panzer ( somewhere around 320x200, 640x400 was only optional and very hires )was just to low, such tiny polygon ropes would have looked jaggy if at all visible.

66

Geoff you said u think the graphics are still panzerish, I agree with that but if you noticed in my post, I wasnt so much against the new designs we see (except for a few particular examples, ep4 ship, statue boss, claw ship boss), I was against three main things:
A) We don’t see many old designs (both for airships and monsters)
B) Some things we see existed in the previous panzer games and now have a different look, that’s not possible to be explained from any theory.
C) Enemy airship patterns, this was first mentioned by lagi in an old post and I totally agree that their movements were dull this time around, surely with better tech they should actually do better maneuvers(sp) as well, not worse

Point A), surely all the monsters we got to know in the previous games didn’t just die off by the time we play Orta did they? Especially all the pure types, they have lasted for millenia and yet dissappear within half a century? I understand them becoming rare-er but not totally dissappear…
Same goes for the ships, sure a large part of the empire got destroyed but they surely didn’t replace the WHOLE fleet within half a century? Just look at the crafts today’s armies use, a lot of them are used for much longer than that, it just wouldnt be efficient to replace everything every so often. Their other craft also didn’t really get obsolette did they? They should still be used, no other nation could stand up to them, becoming more powerful is fine but the old craft certainly were still powerful enough for any mission apart from Dragon Hunting (and either way the new craft aren’t powerful enough for that either heh)
Ok so we see one type of them in a FMV, big deal, as good as if they weren’t there since we don’t see them in game…

Point B) refers mainly to the float engines themsleves which like I mentioned now have a much much smoother and more symmetrical look even at those black “cracks” that go through them. That could only be explained if they found another place to excavate from and it had that kind of engines, but it doesn’t explain how EVERY SINGLE ship uses those, surely they still find engines of the other kind too… And it’s really off putting, I really loved the float engines’ look in PDZ and PDS and wanted atleast those to remain the same…

And yeah I never had a doubt that there were meant to be ropes attaching the engines on those crafts…

67

If you think back, every Panzer game actually has an almost totally unique selection of pure-types, barring a few cameo appearances. Although the Imperial ships have often resurfaced, the monsters - even between the Saturn games - were largely not the same, although admittedly some of them were pretty similar to earlier designs. I think there’s just meant to be a massive variety of pure-types left behind, with different designs being unique to different regions.

Personally I’m much happier with the way Smilebit designed the new pure-types than the way they handled the new airships: particularly the Fallen Ground enemies, I thought they were very authentically Panzer-ish.

EDIT: Actually I read your post wrong, so that doesn’t really address your point. Whoops :slight_smile:

I agree that it’s improbable, but apparently it’s the explanation. It seems that almost all of the old Imperial Fleet was decimated during the annihilation of the Imperial Capital and the awakening of the Tower (which released all of those monsters), and the new Empire has just rebuilt from scratch, with new designs being influenced by the Southern Peoples. But yeah, the time frame is a bit on the short side.

I agree that the Float Engines (and pure-types, and pretty much everything else) look very shiny and new in PDO. I remember Shadow once saying that he thought this made it look like everything was “made out of plastic”, or something along those lines. I agree that it does look odd.

If you look closely though, some of the Float Engines in PDO are actually the same shapes used in earlier games, just with different metalwork attached to them. (I think.) Again, that would seem largely down to the new industrial designs inspired by the Southern Peoples. The shiny new visuals really do cast things in a different light, though.

68

I’ve read through about half the posts so far (on limited time here), so I’ll post a response in regards to the first half of this thread. I’ll finish reading it tonight from home, so my apologies of this was clarified later in the thread.

Not all the Seekers say is the absolute truth. Remember, they are gathering whatever information they can, from the sparse sources available. Thus, they do not have a complete view of the Ancients and their technologies (just as we do not have 100% accurate knowledge of ancient civilizations here on Earth). That is why there are some mistakes, some grossly exaggerated things, etc.

The encyclopedia in PDO shows discoveries that the new Empire claims to have made, based on new research. You can take that as you will. There is still room for mistakes in their research as well, but you have to imagine that they are also expanding on whatever knowledge already exists.

That being said, I think Geoffrey is getting hung up on the term “organic.” Organic does not have to mean “fleshy.” Take a look at insects. Their chitinous exo-skeletons are very similar-looking to the black and white materials used in the creation of ancient technology. Is that not “organic”?

Very loosely defined, “organic” can mean anything that contains carbon (there are exceptions, but I don’t want to have to dig out my organic chemistry books… please don’t make me). Therefore, it is quite feasible that the ruins, Towers, etc. are constructed out of some sort of carbon-based material, or something similar to insect chitin. Thus, it could be designed via genetic engineering… which could then either be grown or produced in a laboratory (all DNA and RNA are are basically the blueprints on how to manufacture proteins).

It seems to me that Geoffrey isn’t believing all the things that are being brought up just because it doesn’t fit into his plans, rather than actually looking at the clues.

The creatures are made out of the same materials as the Towers (or it would appear so), and you don’t think they could be organic?

(Oh, and btw, yeah… the big statue thing is possibly the most out of place thing in the entire game. However, it was built using the Islanders’ motifs, and reflects their culture. And yes, it is purely mechanical, using their own technologies.)

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That;'s one powerful beam gun they managed to create…unless you mean it’s created by them but still utilizes unearthed ancient tech inside it…

And Lance, in my point (B) I did not mean the actual shape of the engines, but rather the material they seem to be made out of, like I explained they all look smoother now and even those “Cracks” on them look smooth, it was not at all how they were presented in their previous panzer games. That’s what I meant by saying they look as good as new, not that they are shiny/plasticky, but that it seems they were manufactured recently rather than unearthed…I really don’t like the new “smooth black cracks”, I hope they will revert to having them a bit more uneven in the next game…And yeah a little roughter looking “shell” material would be good too…imo
Oh and assuming the new empire is created from scratch so no old ships are left then half a century is WAY too little time to have developed so much and have gathered so much more knowledge (enough to use bio-weapons) And again they still should have found “old” engines too assuming these new looking float engines ARE really new (perhaps manufactured by the craddle too?)

70

Yeah, that’s the lines I was thinking along earlier on: the idea that something can be organic whilst still looking completely alien from a normal point of view. All of the “organic” things created by the Ancients are tailored to fulfill a specific function, after all; but they’re tailored to the extent that they don’t look like anything typically organic anyway.

What made me stop and think was when I remembered that there are Ancient Age technologies which do seem genuinely non-organic. The golden mechanical core of Panzer Dragoon Orta’s Episode 6 ruin is probably the biggest example that springs to mind. To me, that really did look like pure metalwork (although admittedly the strange globe artifacts in there did look organic in their own right).

I’ve noticed other places in the previous games where that mechanical theme can be noticed, too. Those golden gears could be seen inside the Float Engine of the PD1 Episode 1 boss, which seemed to imply that a Float Engine is constructed of organic matter surrounding a mechanical core.

The golden mechanisms can also be seen in the walls of the ruin from the PD1 opening sequence. That would bring it in line with PDO’s Episode 6 ruin to some extent; in the first area of that ruin, the golden mechanisms could be seen through gaps in the white walls.

Other relics and pure-types throughout the games subtly feature those mechanisms too. It’s actually occured to me that all this “metalwork” could be organic matter as well, though, just in an extremely reconstructed form. The most obvious answer seems to be that it’s simply mechanical, however; so for the moment I’m open to the idea that the Ancients were both masterful bio-engineers and masterful artificers.

71

I see what you mean now; yeah, the black crack/line designs running over the ships did seem a bit more symmetrical this time around. The whole visual style of the game seems (understandably) different to me though, and I’d largely put this down to the overall shift in artistic style. It’s the same effect as when any new artist comes to interpret an established design or character, it seems: the result almost always has a different feel to it.

I’ve been thinking about this, and the time-frame might not be so unrealistic after all. Remember that the Imperial Academy is meant to have survived intact, so all of the former Empire’s knowledge of shipbuilding would be good to go as soon as more float engines could be found. This in itself wouldn’t be so hard to do with the massive influx of troops from the southern islands. I got the impression that most of the new engines were being excavated from that massive network of ruins beneath the new Imperial Capital, so all the Empire would need to do would be to set up the factories which would graft the metalwork to the engines.

Thinking in those terms, a third of a century doesn’t seem so short a time to me: bearing in mind that the Empire would presumably still have some of its old factories operational to kick-start the process.

As I said before, I really suspect that the different looking float engines are just due to changing art design and stylistics. If I remember correctly, Abadd only made the Cradle produce those five dragonmares before he disappeared, so I’d doubt that the Cradle was the explanation.

72

One thing I found odd (and was overjoyed about), was how the still pictures in Iva’s scenario, were very similiar to the artwork in the previos Panzer Dragoon manuals - it felt like it was done from a completely different artist than the one who did the in-game graphics. Iva’s scenario was basically PDO’s only saving grace, in my opinion…with the exception of the excellently written Panzer encylopedia.

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Thats what im saying Lance, it’s a style change I do not like and a style change that doesn’t fit in no matter what way you try and think about how it could be done… They shouldn’t have messed atleast with the float engines :frowning:

And just to reply to Kadamose, IMO PDO is a great game, it just has a little “washed out” panzer feel compared to the previous games in the series, still it’s a good effort from a new team and also Iva’s story certainly wasn’t what saved it, it might have been a bit more panzery but the gameplay deffinitelly wasn’t up to the standards of the rest game even tho still fun with some neat features (like the first level’s tricky to use pod). Imo :slight_smile:

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[quote=“Al3xand3r”]
And just to reply to Kadamose, IMO PDO is a great game, it just has a little “washed out” panzer feel compared to the previous games in the series, still it’s a good effort from a new team and also Iva’s story certainly wasn’t what saved it, it might have been a bit more panzery but the gameplay deffinitelly wasn’t up to the standards of the rest game even tho still fun with some neat features (like the first level’s tricky to use pod). Imo :)[/quote]

Oh, I agree. And when I was refering to Iva’s Scenario…I was refering to the anime stills, not the actual gameplay.

I think the entire third stage was great too - including the excellent boss. It was definitely a step in the right direction…too bad that atmosphere was ruined by the fourth stage.

75

yeah- I think the old music really helped as well- it felt more panzer than anything else in the game.

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On the contrary, I’m open to the possibility. I’m not exactly what you’d call a science geek, so this area of the games is a veritable greener pasture of unfamiliar territory to me.

I simply don’t agree with the notion that the Towers were grown. Some of the pieces might’ve been grown, but it is far more likely that the Towers were constructed piece by piece.

The anti-gravity engines do look organic, as Lance pointed out, but they still have sails/rudders to push and steer them through the sky. I’d bet that most of the ancients’ technology was bio-mechanical in the same vein as many of their bio-weapons.

77

I think that the Towers and the monsters were almost certainly made from the same bio-technology but that doesn’t mean that they had to made in exactly the same way. I doubt that the Towers were grown as, although they do look organic in the same way that the pure-type monsters do, they seem to be much more mechanical (although its never easy to tell in Panzer)

As for Orta, I thought it was a great game and I did like quite afew of the enemy designs, especially the medium-sized ships in episode 4, Assault Carrier Vermana(which in my opinion was the best example of them changing the style slightly to show the southerners influence, but keeping it close enough to the origional to be recognisable as something from Panzer Dragoon) and the pure-type monsters in episode 3. But the guardian statue sucked and should never have been put in the game, IMO.

(BTW Abadd, I was under the impression that “organic” meant something constructed of organs)

78

The fact that the Towers and ruins remained on the planet for so long could mean they were able to grow and renew their “exoskeleton”. However, it’s perfectly possible that the Towers were constructed from different parts that were grown separately. The Ancients seemed to be able to create virtually anything they imagined through the use of bio-engineering, so I can imagine they just used bio-reactors like the Cradle to construct all the parts they needed for the Tower.

79

Though there is little evidence to back this up, I believe that the Towers were built using advanced Nanotechnology - if this were the case, then technically, they were made almost instantaneously.

80

And suddenly I’m in a field.I see a bull and it seems it finished digesting its’ lunch.