What's been the most fun part of the game to work on? (either current or upcoming content)
From Carsten, Senior Artist:
"Carsten: The new African animals (giraffe, hippo and rhino) were a lot of fun. You can even ride the elephants, when you click on them in first-person mode 😉 And if this is new to you check some other vehicles."
I have to add I have absolutely no idea what Carsten is talking about with the "first-person mode".
Questions for the visual designers:
When creating concepts for buildings and objects, do you guys start out with tiny designs before "zooming in" and fleshing out?
I would assume the focus is on tiny but clear silhouettes, but how do you work? How do you present ideas when the buildings are so tiny in the gameplay? What kind of perspective do you work with?
What do you guys use for texture work? Somehow related to the previous question: are there any challenges in creating textures meant to be seen from far far away?
Also how does one get a position on your team? ;)
Coming back to you with a reply from our two Art guys :)
"We start with blocking out rough, interesting shapes and we then go focus on the following steps of defining the details. The attached GIF can explain the different steps quicker than I can do 😊 (https://anno-union.com/content/uploads/2017/10/ConceptArtFrameAnimation-1.gif)
We use modern PBR Tools like Substance Designer and Substance Painter where we also have our own material libraries. For the very final touches and adjustments, we also use Photoshop.
I do not know which position exactly you are interested in, but we are always looking for new, talented ...
Read moreCan you please confirm that the coming Empire Building will not just be a copy of the Empire State Building. Which is about the only big and probably unwarranted worry I have for that DLC
Coming back to you with a reply from our two Art guys :)
"We always look at historical references for inspiration and adapt ideas before we start creating new content. But the final assets in the game are not just a copy of these historical references, they are our own interpretation fitting the Anno World."
Oh, by the the way, could I interest you in our fine range of asphalt and other "top of the modernity™" road liners, if they were by any chance added to that wonderful game?
I would understand you'd not be interested in those, so instead, have you considered our vast range of bridges? Bricks, stone, marble, gold, steel, you've named it, we've got it !*
* : sous réserve d'ajout. La compagnie se dégage de toute responsabilité concernant l'état, l'apparence, l'utilité ou le fonctionnement des produits susmentionnés.
Coming back to you with a reply from our two Art guys :)
"That is a very good input. At the moment, we are focusing on creating the content for Season 3. But maybe this is something we can take into account for the future 😊"
Which game do modern designers draw their inspiration from? Is Anno 1602 considered to be the baseline that is expanded upon or did you look at another Anno title to determine the "essence" of Anno?
Which parts of older games were deliberately left out? Were there any older features that were planned for 1800, but were canceled later during development?
How were the building dimensions and effect ranges decided on? Was the size chosen that just "looked right" or did you create hypothetical layouts and tried to fit everything of relevance in?
Personally, do you build roads on islands based on a square layout or do you let the spaghetti flow freely in all directions?
I'll leave the first 2 points for Game Design but can give you an answer for point 3 from Art:
"Defining the dimensions and the effects ranges is always a team decision where art and gameplay comes together. On art side it is important the create believability within the dimensions of building and support the building’s function."
And regarding the personal point: I'm a block person :D
Art Question: Where do you get inspiration from? What is the process you went through?
Coming back to you with a reply from our two Art guys :)
"We always look at historical references for inspiration and adapt ideas before we start creating new content. But the final assets in the game are not just a copy of these historical references, they are our own interpretation fitting the Anno World.
A good example is the World Fair Monument World Fair which is inspired by the historical Crystal Palace in London."
Thank you for letting us know, we'll have a look. Are you using any mods which might interfere?
Please also verify the game files and see if any issues are found.
Originally Posted by Joe_Colada066The previous Complete Edition only contains the Season 1 and 2 Pass as stated in the store when you pur... Read more
Hi! I am a proud owner of Anno 1800 Complete Edition from a previous sale last 2020; I just wanted to confirm, hoping this is the right tagging, on the Season 3 Pass of the game.
As I checked the store item, it describes that "owners of Complete Edition will automatically have access to Season 3 Pass of the upcoming DLC content".
I was wondering, before I commit to the Dockland DLC coming this week, if I need to buy the Season 3 Pass or not?
Any feedback or advice would be greatly appreciated.
There is a massive performance problem with Anno and the latest nvidia drivers. Is this something you can fix/will fix/have fixed, or is it up to Nvidia?
We have seen reports but haven't always been successful in reproducing the issue. Might in the end be a thing that has to be fixed by Nvidia directly via a driver update, but we're working with them on this matter.
So, we're aware of the issue and are investigating it, but I can't give you any ETA.
Can we expect some skins for investor and engineer building roofs?
The idea of adding skins not only for ships but also houses was something we also discussed internally, basically to further spice up your cities in addition to ornaments. By popular demand we're planning to develop additional Cosmetic DLC this year and if we test it and think it works, building skins might happen.
Expect more news on the Cosmetic DLC topic in spring, we thought letting you vote on their themes would be a good idea ;)
Question for dev and players :
- Would you like to see a fantasy based Anno ? / Do you think it could work ?
If yes in which fantasy world ?
(Question inspired by the sucess of total war Warhammer, and the antiquity period evoked here)
Btw Anno 1800 is a fantastic game !
Personally, as both a fan of Tolkien's universe as well as Warhammer (40k, though, not fantasy) I'm always happy when either of the two brands gets a great new title.
Would it work for Anno, though? Tricky, especially Warhammer really isn't known for its city-building and economic details but more for destroying said cities and waging war in grand scale.
And while war and destruction has always been in Anno to varying degrees, it has never been at the core of it. Would you play a game that has "Warhammer" in the title but only offers a little bit of war? Unlikely ;)
General fantasy, though, outside of any brand: I think that could work for Anno and I think there's even a city-builder of sorts in development right now with such a premise, even though I can't remember the name.
More of a feature request, but would be nice to stack items to be researched.. Similar to how we can choose to build multiple boats at a ship yard.
This request has come up a few times, yeah, and we'll have a look if it's feasible from a technical and time/resources point of view.
how much did Anno1800 and the amount of fans/response of the community exceed your own expectations?
While we as a team of course always hope for the most praising reception, we've been especially happy when it comes to your reactions to both the approach we took when it came to community interaction (Anno Union) as well post-launch support which we've never done in this manner with previous titles.
We're also especially happy about a growing international community for which, I think, this subreddit serves as a great example.
With regards to that, let's assume season 3 is a repeat of season 2, that is, great sales and we get a season4. Would that then delay a new anno by a year?
While we are a small team, the early development of a new title (design vision, prototyping etc etc) does not require the full team so to a certain degree it's always possible to do these kind of "2 projects" at the same time. In fact, that's part of most studios' project planning, cause you don't want anyone to be bored without anything to do but at the same time don't want to overburden your team with work.
Also, why can you only copy the whole palace, while it is a unique placement item?
You should be able to copy wings, not the whole palace.
You will be pleased to hear that this will be addressed with tomorrow's update.
Full release notes later today :)
What evil person decided the palace would be uneven and not line up with the worlds fair resulting in a asymmetrical city?
I think that was u/com_raven, he's just not into palaces
Have you guys started working on the next Anno game yet?
We are focussed on the content for Season 3 right now ;)
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