Maybe we should come up with a specific artistic direction when it comes to characters, weapons and levels, considering whether or not they are aliens or humans. For instance, human weaponry and characters tend to be more streamline and have a rustic metal quality while alien weaponry is big, uses undefined materials, and has lots of little lights on them. Humans can have the conventional weaponry like the shotgun, machine gun, and bazooka while the aliens can have the odd weaponry like the nex, electro, and cylink. The characters and arenas could reflect those ideas. It would be cool if people would start a game and quickly identify whether it is an alien or human arena.

I think that this would be a good idea to consider down the road when people are making new stuff for the game, what do you think?

Cough *halo* cough

Sorry, I had a bit of mimicry in my throat.

what do you think this is, quake? Plus, nobody chooses the strogg as their models, let's face it. Every one wants to be a human on team deathmatch.

Um, are we talking about Nexuiz here? Because everyone uses the same weapons in this game...

Sounds like someone is confusing Nexuiz with Alien Arena?

interesting idea, and yes ts been done a few time too. I think something like that would take Nexuiz to far away from its roots. It would undoubtedly change the basics of the game.

ok whatever, we'll all just go willy nilly with the art direction

It's great how new players with no knowledge of Nexuiz's history and objectives come onto these forums and tell its community how their game be changed to make it better. Not that they offer their own, noob perspective in the hope of adding something useful; not that they are giving professional advice; just, they come in and tell us, "This is what you need to do."

Thank heaven for the internet.

If it werent for the undeniable cuteness of that fox, I would resent that statement. I wouldnt say that this is ordering people around:

Maybe we should... The characters and arenas could reflect... It would be cool if... I think that this would be a good idea... what do you think?

For the precise reason that he hasnt been on this forum too long, that he doesnt know the "direction" Nexuiz is going, whatever that may be. You nor I have been on the forum particularly long either. Dont scare away the young'uns.

Merp! The fox saves the day!

If you edit what he says enough, sure, it looks very humble. I just got the distinct impression otherwise from his use of the word "we" in the beginning (as if he's one of the developers; yes, I know, "everyone's a developer in open source," yada yada, but no, they're not really), and from his sarcastic response to being disagreed with: "ok whatever, we'll all just go willy nilly with the art direction."

Bnonn, possibly, wrote:what he says... looks very humble— the distinct impression... from... one of the developers... I know.. in... being... willy nilly

El torus the spin doctor.

Heh, plonker :D

While I might be new to the nexuiz community I am not foreign to art. If you had not read my first post, I am an art student at the Cleveland Institute of Art. I will be finishing my third year and I am majoring in digital art. However that does not give me authority to mess around with the game, but I think I do deserve a bit of respect when it comes to art. In the same way I would respect a programmer on his programming skills.

I have done group projects before and I can tell you from experience that your team needs a clear idea of what direction you should take. Right now, your art direction isn't particularly exciting. All of your characters and weapons are artistically cohesive right now, but that's because they were all done by the same couple of people. Further down the road as you accept new models from the community that cohesiveness will break down and certain items in the game will look out of place and that will make your game look amateur. I see lots of potential in nexuiz but if you want to take the game seriously than you'll have to look at every detail and facet with a keen eye. Right now you've done that with the game play but now the you have to address the art direction.

I am not enforcing any sort of "way". Those were simply just suggestions and examples. And your probably right about the halo thing. It is a bit tiring to face the typical human vs. alien setup. I just wanted you guys to come to a common agreement on how to take this game.

My model that I am creating for this game will be radically changed to fit it, but I am still confused about how we (the community<-------who are the people that play the game and the most important part) want the game to look. I understand that you make liberal use of little lights, big guns and monsters but that is pretty vague. So I ask for your co-operation or I can go else where.

Your avatar isnt working.

Yeah I know, It might be because its a .png w/ alpha. Whatever, i'll just upload a fixed one sometime soon.

See, if you'd said that before, Ivan, I would have been much more charitable (: So allow me to apologize for any misunderstanding.

Having an art background also, I know that you are right in what you say. But, it does tend to assume that a large number of different people will be contributing models, maps, and textures in the future—and I'm not sure if this is likely. I know that the community is fairly involved with Nexuiz development as compared to closed source games (obviously), but there still seems to be a fairly tight core team who direct things. Also, the community tends to critique any new models which are suggested, and there are quite a few threads on ways to improve Nexuiz which mention more, better models for both players and weapons, and which have some examples of what the community likes. So, from what I have seen, it appears that we are fairly self-regulating in regards the direction that Nexuiz is taking, because we are comprised of a group which includes people who've been here from the beginning who can direct the new people who have fresh ideas. Further, most of those new people can still see what will fit with Nexuiz and what won't.

What you're proposing sounds like a HIG for the game. An Art Direction Guideline, if you will. It's a good idea, especially for the long term, and I would support your efforts in developing it. But I'm not certain how necessary it will turn out to be. Still, better safe than sorry?