Hello my barbaric friends. I’ll start wishing Merry Christmas to all of you who follow the festivities and, if you’re not among the group, let me at least wish you… interesting dates. I will not follow the general idea of making top lists, or making balance of what’s already gone with the fading 2010, maybe another time. This week though, I bring you something I hope you’ll find as interesting as I do.
Have you ever wondered where the developers of a game get their ideas? I think I’ve stumbled across one of the sources that served to shape and give color to FunCom’s Age of Conan. Come sit with me and let us discuss this statement…
[singlepic id=2923 w=320 h=240 float=right]Obviously everything starts with Robert E. Howard’s stories about Conan The Barbarian; Howard is undoubtedly the original author and creator of the character and the world he lived in. But from that there came a series of comics written and ilustrated by different authors and artists with different visions of that same world; to add even more there’s the movie adding its own perspective.
Now, novels do not offer a good base for graphics and visuals, only descriptions that sometimes aren’t enough to create a whole world in detail; from landscapes, cities and keeps to the design of footwear, gear going through furniture, animals, different races etc., I guess you get the picture of the HUGE amount of work it is to create everything parsing from incomplete descriptions. It all comes down to the creativity of the concept artists, designers and developers to reflect, as reliably as possible, a world; with the added difficulty that it’s a world that already exists and we all have in our minds, probably with different visions of how it is. So, where do designers and artists got their ideas for Age of Conan in particular?
[singlepic id=2926 w=320 h=240 float=left]Recently, a friend of mine brought me the first 20 issues of the Conan The Legend comic series that I hadn’t read before. Not only I did enjoy them greatly, but I was amazed at the sight of many of the illustrations and the art; so much so that I went to check the publishing date. (The comics predate the Age of Conan release, specifically, published in USA in 2003.) I couldn’t stop seeing the resemblance and similarities of clothing design, races, equipment and the world in general. As a first example, take the picture to the left, a Grishnaki: anyone going to Field of the Dead in Cimmeria can see for themselves that the color, the clothing, and the height is really close to what you can see in the picture.
As second example I chose the Ymir’s sons in Ymir’s pass, where a sort of mini-event happens, where you wind up on the path leading into the mountains, with a woman who is extremely pale with bright red hair and scantly dressed -Atali, daughter of Ymir. She then runs ahead along the path until [singlepic id=2913 w=320 h=240 float=right]she reaches a certain point where her brothers come out of their hiding place and attack you. This also happens in Howard’s novels, but the resemblance from the art on the comics and in the game is really uncanny as you can appreciate on the pics following. But that’s not all, the words you can see in the picture to the left (it’s Spanish because I couldn’t find the English version of the comics) says the same almost word for word in the comic and in game. I didn’t have time to check the novels, but as far as I know, Kurt Busiek (the script author of Conan the Legend) did use the novels as base to create the comic series. And though Atali’s hair in the game is not as lush, there is no doubt where the artists of Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer got their inspiration to create the in-game version.
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[singlepic id=2914 w=320 h=240 float=right]One particular piece caught my eye while reading this series is a metal chestpiece that I had been seeing recently while farming The Catacombs for the culture armor base recipes. Some of you might know by looking at the picture to the right which one I’m going on about… I did some research and found in Yellow Goblin that the same skin has been used for various pieces with different names, with the same exact look to them: Battlehaunt Chestguard, Eidolon Chestguard, Heroking’s Breastplate and Chestplate of the Guardmaster. Yes, yes the shoulder part of the pieces from the game is slightly different, but you’ll agree with me that it’s soooo similar.
I find this particularly gratifying, it’s exciting encountering certain creatures in worlds you’ve adored for years. Maybe some of you would say that is a lack of imagination, or sheer laziness, on the developer’s and artist’s part, copying other’s work. But I can also hear people that would say completely the opposite and criticize them for not being accurate when giving shape to things we’ve already seen or imagined. As usual, it is difficult to satisfy a large number of gamers, particularly with an evolving work like the one Age of Conan, where many different authors and artists have added their own vision of things.
And to finish this week, (and not make a really large wall of text) I’ll leave you with another series of images taken from the comics; things that caught my eye and some of them I’m sure will remind you of people within the game. The bubbles were deleted on purpose as to not distract the watcher from the point addressed today.
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Note: Cary Nord is the creator of these images, along with Dave Stewart as the colorist. Credit as well to Thomas Yeates and Tom Mandrake, co-artists on some of the issues from where I took these images. All property of Conan Properties International LLC.
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Excellent article, Sema, really! Nice work. I want to read those comics as well, please :)
With regard of inspiration, seems clear that some comic research was made when the devs were designing AOC. The pics you show, prove it.
“Obviously everything starts with Robert E. Howard’s novel: Conan The Barbarian”
There is no such novel: Howard wrote 21 Conan stories, some of which were novellas, and one which was a novel.
“But I can also hear people that would say completely the opposite and criticize them for not being accurate when giving shape to things we’ve already seen or imagined. As usual, it is difficult to satisfy a large number of gamers, particularly with an evolving work like the one Age of Conan, where many different authors and artists have added their own vision of things.”
The Dark Horse comics were stated to be a primary influence on Funcom’s art design, along with Howard’s stories. Indeed, I’d actually say Dark Horse was a greater influence than Howard, since on the occassions when Dark Horse contradicts Howard, Funcom go with the Dark Horse interpretation.
I do think there’s ample opportunity to fill out an entire world using nothing but the literature as a basis – after all, isn’t that what the comics are doing in the first place? – but CPI appear to be attempting to “franchise” Conan, so that the comics, games, art and movies all have the same art style. Tough luck for those who don’t like the art style, but I can at least see the reasoning.
Thank you Al for your correction, regarding the novels and stories of R.E.H.
Regarding people not liking the art… well, even the Dark Horse comics have had different artist doing the drawing, Cary Nord being the first one, but also Thomas Yeates, Greg Ruth or Tom Mandrake did participate or took over some numbers of the series and bringing their own style and visuals to the comics;as with everything else, not everyone will like their style no matter what.
I personally greatly enjoyed Cary Nord and Tom Mandrake’s.
A great article and I can add my personal opinion that they seem to have been somewhat influenced, when it comes to armour design, by the films ‘Troy’ and ‘Gladiator’. Examples would be armour of the soldiers of Troy greatly resembles the vanquisher set and it’s tassets are ever present in the game. Another example would be the Armour of ‘Tigrus of Gaul’ in Gladiator (played by Sven-Ole Thorsen who appeared in both Conan films^^).