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I'd like to talk about in-game boats, and more specifically their sails. This may seem like a pedantic topic to some (and may be!), but I suspect that the people who will care the most about how ships look in-game will also be the sort of people who care about how ships work in general. To that end, I think it's worth having a look at the details we've seen about ships so far, and how they compare to how actual ships are laid out. I'm going to be doing a lot of critiquing of concept art and WIP assets, which are clearly not meant to be 1-for-1 with the finished products. This is intentional though, because it is much easier for developers to implement feedback before their assets are finished than it is afterwards.
For brevity, the short version of my argument goes like this:
I would like to make an appeal in favor of historical accuracy with regards to the sail plans of ship assets being made for this game. This is not because historical accuracy to our world is particularly important for an MMO in a fantasy setting, but because sailing ships function much like complex pieces of machinery. It's not always intuitive or obvious why they look they way that they do, and therefor it is easy (and common) for game designers to end up producing sailing ships that don't make much sense from a functional perspective, or even with regard to the laws of physics. The easiest way to avoid this is to find reference images of real ships, and copy how their sails are arranged closely. There are a wide array of interesting sail layouts already out there, so this shouldn't hinder attaining visual variety.
The long version of my argument goes like this:
I was recently looking at the May 2022 dynamic weather showcase, which contained a sailing vessel that looks like this:
While it's pretty good aesthetically, I noticed an issue that I've seen before with video game ships. I'm going to try to be light with the nautical terminology (because it's all very silly, and there is a lot of it) but I'm going to have to use at least a little. In this case, here are the three types of sails you can see in the above image:
In addition a "spar" is a long piece of wood that sticks out from a ship, usually to tie a rope or sail to. Different types have different silly names, but I'm just going to call them spars.
The problem with the ship in the stream can be better seen with the concept art for a backer ship called the Dragonborne's Maid:
This is in general a good design for a ship. You'd call this a "topsail schooner", and you can see the inspiration from the real ship above. The problem comes from how gaff sails connect to a mast. Here's what it looks like up close:
Notice that the connection wraps around the entirety of the mast, and that it has roller bearings, because it needs to freely slide up and down the mast to raise and lower the sails. Now notice how the spars are located on our real and concept art ships:
In our real ship, the jaws of the gaff spar are below the square sail spars, because the square sail spars are pressed flush against the mast, and the gaff spar wouldn't be able to slide past. You'll consistently see this on every real ship that uses both gaff and square sails, it's just a matter of mechanical operation. On the Dragonborne's Maid you can see that the gaff extends above at least one other spar, which would make the gaff almost impossible to lower. One might argue that this is just a matter of the concept art being loose with the design, but the same issue is present in the weather showcase ship, which had at least made it to a 3d model.
The solution for the dragonborne's maid is simple: you move the spars a little to make it looks like the reference ship. For the showcase ship, you would probably need to change the design somewhat more. As best I can tell it was attempting to mimic a brig or brigantine:
In these the rear gaff is smaller, to fit under the square sails, and the forward gaff is replaced with "staysails", the (usually) triangular sails often seen in the front of ships.
So having noticed this issue with the showcase ship, I set off to the wiki to see what other ship design had been advertised over the years. I'm going to bring some up here, talk about their issues, and give some recommendations based on real ships.
These are the Glory Redeamed, the Gilded Galleon, the Trader Ship, and the Grimsail. The problem with these is all the same. They appear to be large, later european style ships, but only have square sails (the Grimsail might have a lateen at the back, it's hard to tell). This makes them look somewhat like a medieval Cog:
If the intent is to have these ships look like early medieval trade vessels, then these designs are mostly fine. If they are meant to look like real age-of-sail ships, then they have a problem. The problem with cogs is that square sails only work well when the wind is at your back, so these sorts of ships spent most of their time in port waiting for favorable winds. Unless the concept ships above are meant to be ponderous, unmaneuverable vessels, they would realistically have some staysails, which would give them a lot more versatility in different winds.
The Cygnus Galleon is the opposite, in that it's only appearing to use staysails, apparently to evoke the sense of "swan wings". This isn't actually much of a problem though. I've placed it next to a "Staysail Schooner", which also primarily uses staysails. The orientation of the staysails in the Cygnus is unusual, but I think they would still work even placed like that. It would probably want at least one other type of sail somewhere though, like how the above reference image has a "Bermuda" sail in the rear.
The "Eternal Guardian of the Dark Seas", and the Flamefin Frigate are both also trying to evoke the sense of wings, but their method is a lot less practical than the Cygnus. I'm pretty sure the extra masts protruding out the sides would snap under the forces they're placed under, and even if they didn't, they wouldn't be very effective at actually catching wind to move the ship forward (and I'm worried they would end up looking somewhat silly when fully in 3D). If you're trying to give a sense of "wings" I might suggest something like this:
This ship to the left here has a style of Chinese "junk" sails, which it has splayed out to the left and right in a butterfly style in order to catch the wind coming from behind it. It's about as close to dragon wings as you're going to get on a ship that actually sails. Notice that the right picture is the exact same ship though, just from a different angle and with sails reoriented. The ship still has its masts in the usual places, with the "wings spread" appearance only there when looking at it from the front or back. Mediterranean style "Lateen" sails can also do this if a slightly different look is desired:
(These might also go well on the Cygnus)
The Wind's Veil is obviously inspired after east-asian vessels. The frontal junk sail seems fine, though it's a little more crinkled than a real one, and it should have some sign of the characteristic rods which hold the sail in shape. In the rear there are two small junk sails, where a real ship would only have one (it is common to have a small one back there though). I think one reason you wouldn't have two sails out like that is that junk sails are usually "unstayed" which means that they don't have tensioning lines keeping the masts stable like in western ships. This means the masts on junks have to go through the deck and embed themselves into the keel of the boat in order to keep stable. I think the small sails in the concept might just snap off in a stiff breeze.
The Star Chaser and the Shimir both look to be galleys. It's difficult to make out the sails on the Star Chaser to the left there. I kind of looks like the sails are being held up without a spar on their top edges, but that could just be a trick of the light. Otherwise no complaints. For the Shimir, it looks like they're trying to evoke the sense of a pyramid for this Egyptian inspired ship. The only problem I can notice is that the rearmost sail looks like a lateen sail that's been flipped around and placed so that there's no way it could balance against the mast. There's an easy fix though: if you move the spar on the top of the sail to its bottom instead, it becomes a bermuda sail, which would work just fine while keeping the pyramid shape.
I'd like to give a shout out to a similar ship though, the Xebec (shown in model because they don't really exist anymore):
These were some of the most notorious pirate ships in history, and have an iconic, aggressive look to them. Note how the frontmost mast actually leans forward to let the lateen stick out farther.
The Grave Galleon is in fact a galleon, meaning it has two square rigged masts and one lateen rigged mast. The masts are in the wrong order though. The lateen is supposed to be the rearmost one so it can be used to steer.
Both the Twin Hunters and the Voyager Speed Skiff appear to be outriggers inspired by Austronesian vessels with crab claw sails. Unfortunately neither of these appear to have placed the sail correctly. The crab claw sail is a weird design, where to change direction you actually pick up and move the sail across the ship. The Speed Skiff appears have its sail fixed in place, and the wrong corner of the sail is attached to the hull. The Twin Hunter sails appear to be on the wrong side of the mast, and when there are multiple sails on one ship, I believe those sails should be on the same side of the boat. As an alternative, one could also take inspiration from the hawaian crab claw sail:
These ones actually function around a fixed mast, and don't require you to detach your sails to turn. They also look really neat. There is also the tanja sail:
Which is maybe the weirdest looking sail still in use. Don't ask me how though, I'm still surprised they work at all.
Lastly we have the Coral Corser, which appears to be based on a fever dream. The primary problem I see with this one is that a 3d modeler is going to have to model it in euclidean space. You might consider manipulating the local spacetime around this vessel into a hyperbolic curvature to make this more practical. Alternatively the sailplan as presented could be charitably interpreted as a "suggestion".
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Now, what was the point of all of this nit picking? You could take it as just a collection of suggestions for the specific vessels as presented, and I suppose that would be fine. On the other hand I think both these and future issues could be addressed with a change in methodology. Ships are complicated. I don't expect the development team to get a degree on the matter (although, contacting a consultant with one might be useful). What I'm trying to express is that it's very difficult to invent a new way for a ship to function and have it appear reasonable to anyone who cares. The best way to avoid these kinds of issues for sails in particular is simply to copy a design that we know people in the real world have used. If it's been in use, then obviously it works to some extent. Hopefully I've shown that there are enough real sailplans out there that physics defying ones aren't entirely necessary.
And that way the boat nerds can remain mostly quiet and mostly happy.
While it's pretty good aesthetically, I noticed an issue that I've seen before with video game ships. I'm going to try to be light with the nautical terminology (because it's all very silly, and there is a lot of it) but I'm going to have to use at least a little. In this case, here are the three types of sails you can see in the above image:
In addition a "spar" is a long piece of wood that sticks out from a ship, usually to tie a rope or sail to. Different types have different silly names, but I'm just going to call them spars.
The problem with the ship in the stream can be better seen with the concept art for a backer ship called the Dragonborne's Maid:
This is in general a good design for a ship. You'd call this a "topsail schooner", and you can see the inspiration from the real ship above. The problem comes from how gaff sails connect to a mast. Here's what it looks like up close:
Notice that the connection wraps around the entirety of the mast, and that it has roller bearings, because it needs to freely slide up and down the mast to raise and lower the sails. Now notice how the spars are located on our real and concept art ships:
In our real ship, the jaws of the gaff spar are below the square sail spars, because the square sail spars are pressed flush against the mast, and the gaff spar wouldn't be able to slide past. You'll consistently see this on every real ship that uses both gaff and square sails, it's just a matter of mechanical operation. On the Dragonborne's Maid you can see that the gaff extends above at least one other spar, which would make the gaff almost impossible to lower. One might argue that this is just a matter of the concept art being loose with the design, but the same issue is present in the weather showcase ship, which had at least made it to a 3d model.
The solution for the dragonborne's maid is simple: you move the spars a little to make it looks like the reference ship. For the showcase ship, you would probably need to change the design somewhat more. As best I can tell it was attempting to mimic a brig or brigantine:
In these the rear gaff is smaller, to fit under the square sails, and the forward gaff is replaced with "staysails", the (usually) triangular sails often seen in the front of ships.
So having noticed this issue with the showcase ship, I set off to the wiki to see what other ship design had been advertised over the years. I'm going to bring some up here, talk about their issues, and give some recommendations based on real ships.
These are the Glory Redeamed, the Gilded Galleon, the Trader Ship, and the Grimsail. The problem with these is all the same. They appear to be large, later european style ships, but only have square sails (the Grimsail might have a lateen at the back, it's hard to tell). This makes them look somewhat like a medieval Cog:
If the intent is to have these ships look like early medieval trade vessels, then these designs are mostly fine. If they are meant to look like real age-of-sail ships, then they have a problem. The problem with cogs is that square sails only work well when the wind is at your back, so these sorts of ships spent most of their time in port waiting for favorable winds. Unless the concept ships above are meant to be ponderous, unmaneuverable vessels, they would realistically have some staysails, which would give them a lot more versatility in different winds.
The Cygnus Galleon is the opposite, in that it's only appearing to use staysails, apparently to evoke the sense of "swan wings". This isn't actually much of a problem though. I've placed it next to a "Staysail Schooner", which also primarily uses staysails. The orientation of the staysails in the Cygnus is unusual, but I think they would still work even placed like that. It would probably want at least one other type of sail somewhere though, like how the above reference image has a "Bermuda" sail in the rear.
The "Eternal Guardian of the Dark Seas", and the Flamefin Frigate are both also trying to evoke the sense of wings, but their method is a lot less practical than the Cygnus. I'm pretty sure the extra masts protruding out the sides would snap under the forces they're placed under, and even if they didn't, they wouldn't be very effective at actually catching wind to move the ship forward (and I'm worried they would end up looking somewhat silly when fully in 3D). If you're trying to give a sense of "wings" I might suggest something like this:
This ship to the left here has a style of Chinese "junk" sails, which it has splayed out to the left and right in a butterfly style in order to catch the wind coming from behind it. It's about as close to dragon wings as you're going to get on a ship that actually sails. Notice that the right picture is the exact same ship though, just from a different angle and with sails reoriented. The ship still has its masts in the usual places, with the "wings spread" appearance only there when looking at it from the front or back. Mediterranean style "Lateen" sails can also do this if a slightly different look is desired:
(These might also go well on the Cygnus)
The Wind's Veil is obviously inspired after east-asian vessels. The frontal junk sail seems fine, though it's a little more crinkled than a real one, and it should have some sign of the characteristic rods which hold the sail in shape. In the rear there are two small junk sails, where a real ship would only have one (it is common to have a small one back there though). I think one reason you wouldn't have two sails out like that is that junk sails are usually "unstayed" which means that they don't have tensioning lines keeping the masts stable like in western ships. This means the masts on junks have to go through the deck and embed themselves into the keel of the boat in order to keep stable. I think the small sails in the concept might just snap off in a stiff breeze.
The Star Chaser and the Shimir both look to be galleys. It's difficult to make out the sails on the Star Chaser to the left there. I kind of looks like the sails are being held up without a spar on their top edges, but that could just be a trick of the light. Otherwise no complaints. For the Shimir, it looks like they're trying to evoke the sense of a pyramid for this Egyptian inspired ship. The only problem I can notice is that the rearmost sail looks like a lateen sail that's been flipped around and placed so that there's no way it could balance against the mast. There's an easy fix though: if you move the spar on the top of the sail to its bottom instead, it becomes a bermuda sail, which would work just fine while keeping the pyramid shape.
I'd like to give a shout out to a similar ship though, the Xebec (shown in model because they don't really exist anymore):
These were some of the most notorious pirate ships in history, and have an iconic, aggressive look to them. Note how the frontmost mast actually leans forward to let the lateen stick out farther.
The Grave Galleon is in fact a galleon, meaning it has two square rigged masts and one lateen rigged mast. The masts are in the wrong order though. The lateen is supposed to be the rearmost one so it can be used to steer.
Both the Twin Hunters and the Voyager Speed Skiff appear to be outriggers inspired by Austronesian vessels with crab claw sails. Unfortunately neither of these appear to have placed the sail correctly. The crab claw sail is a weird design, where to change direction you actually pick up and move the sail across the ship. The Speed Skiff appears have its sail fixed in place, and the wrong corner of the sail is attached to the hull. The Twin Hunter sails appear to be on the wrong side of the mast, and when there are multiple sails on one ship, I believe those sails should be on the same side of the boat. As an alternative, one could also take inspiration from the hawaian crab claw sail:
These ones actually function around a fixed mast, and don't require you to detach your sails to turn. They also look really neat. There is also the tanja sail:
Which is maybe the weirdest looking sail still in use. Don't ask me how though, I'm still surprised they work at all.
Lastly we have the Coral Corser, which appears to be based on a fever dream. The primary problem I see with this one is that a 3d modeler is going to have to model it in euclidean space. You might consider manipulating the local spacetime around this vessel into a hyperbolic curvature to make this more practical. Alternatively the sailplan as presented could be charitably interpreted as a "suggestion".
--------
Now, what was the point of all of this nit picking? You could take it as just a collection of suggestions for the specific vessels as presented, and I suppose that would be fine. On the other hand I think both these and future issues could be addressed with a change in methodology. Ships are complicated. I don't expect the development team to get a degree on the matter (although, contacting a consultant with one might be useful). What I'm trying to express is that it's very difficult to invent a new way for a ship to function and have it appear reasonable to anyone who cares. The best way to avoid these kinds of issues for sails in particular is simply to copy a design that we know people in the real world have used. If it's been in use, then obviously it works to some extent. Hopefully I've shown that there are enough real sailplans out there that physics defying ones aren't entirely necessary.
And that way the boat nerds can remain mostly quiet and mostly happy.