I am not one for hyper-realism in 2D art generally, I recognize the craft involved but it always strikes me as the perfection of essentially, well, paint-by-numbers. My mom taught me to identify paintings that were done from photographs as opposed to those painted with the object in from of the artist, once you start seeing it, it’s hard not to have it overpower the painting.

I don’t know how to tell if the world team works from photos and how much time is spent going places and sketching, but the result is overwhelming and wonderful. With as little as I have seen so far, I am profoundly impressed.

I was riding around Eregion this morning before work and wound up riding through the wolf den, picking up aggro, enjoying how much it looked and felt like Enchanted Rock (Texas) one of the few places on earth the Mantle comes up through the crust.

The arroyos are wonderfully done, and the whole transition between Tal Bruinen and Gwingris is epic.

I understand that gameplay requires many things things to be made patently unrealistic, so the real skill is in making the patently unrealistic feel realistic and to not be so realistic as to be monotonous*

To my eye at least, you have completely succeeded, and on a massive scale.

Very well done, and thank you.

Caelavin,
Landroval

*From Next Week’s Inbox: Attn,World Team… The next area we are going to do will be modeled on Nebraska. Please present your ideas for keeping the experience constantly fascinating without losing the “Nebraska” feel. By next Tuesday. - Mgmt**

**My apologies to all those in Nebraska I may have just offended. I promise to make a camping tour of the state as soon as I can to show my support.

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