![]() Hollywood gives us great stereotypes for what people expect. Additionally, the game is so much about exploring the New World and experiencing this epic time period, it just deserves rich visuals to go along with it.Ĭombat is certainly affected by the time period. We already wanted to go high-end with the graphics, but the time period gave us a little more freedom to push the graphical sizzle to round out the game's appeal. The time period is the logical follow-on to Age 2, plus it covers some of the best events in human history. IGNPC: How has the time period impacted the engine design? Has the type of combat from that era influenced the engine development?ĭave Pottinger: Good question. I'd wager that we've probably spent as much time on those lower-end parts of the renderer as on the super high-end components. Age 3 easily has the largest compatibility spectrum of any game that we've ever done. That's a tough challenge given the breadth of hardware out there right now. But, since our games sell a bunch of copies, we also have to make the graphics gracefully degrade if you don't have an uber box under your desk. The Age 3 renderer is built to be cutting-edge and take advantage of the latest technology. The renderer changes are the most sexy, of course. We've done wholesale replacement on everything with the renderer, the animation system, the model system, pathing, movement, and the multiplayer systems (client and server). How much of the original engine remains? What were the key changes you needed to make?ĭave Pottinger: We started with the AOM engine, but it's been very, very heavily modified by now. IGNPC: We understand you've built on the existing engine from Age of Mythology. I certainly hope that Age 3 is considered the bar-setter for RTS games. As we look at PC gaming as a whole, I think you'll see less and less graphical distinction between genres in terms going forward. The results speak for themselves, I think. There were several folks who were concerned that we were shooting too high. Age 3's graphical vision was even a tough sell inside Ensemble for a while. I'm actually a little surprised at how many folks are surprised by statements like that, to be honest. In terms of importance, I think Age 3 shows that RTS games don't have to be stuck with nasty graphics. The programmers and artists working on this project certainly solved several "Add Magic Invention Here" problems along the way. It's very rewarding to see our team's work turn out so well. We took a huge risk shooting for such a high level of graphical quality. I find myself happy on a daily basis about how great the game looks. Are you sure this game looks that good? Why is it important to include cutting edge graphics in an RTS game?ĭave Pottinger: Yes, it does look that good. The screenshots we've seen look too good to be true.
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