I think Soft 75 looks the least 'harsh', and the dark side is appropriately gloomy. The grassland however looks like it's gonna rain any moment and could use a bit of sunshine

I'm split. I actually like the enviroment (grass, wasteland, river, mountain) in "No HDR" better, but certain doodas (the trees, the nodes) look better in Soft 75.

Soft 100 made me uncertain if I should go to the optician or not and gave me an instant-headache.

NewSoft100 is a bit too blurry. You can barely make out the details of the knight in the picture.

NewSoft75 is much better. But just a tad bit too dark for me. Could do with a bit more vibrant colors. Especially for the important objects like the knight and the fortress. More contrast needed on the knight. The fortress could do with more reds on its surfaces and more blues for the glowing magical circles.

NoHDR looks very sharp and 'brighter'. But the odd thing i feel is that the clump of forest to the right has such strong outlines, but the tress 'closer' to the viewer has very little outline or definition to it. I wonder if this was intentional to make the items further look like it was 'painted'?

NewSoft75 is probably the better among the 3 but a lot of the colors and contrast is lost compared to NoHDR.

Soft 75 for me, it's slightly too dark for the fertile lands, but the contrast it provides makes the trees an mountains etc. look more "natural".

The soft 100 is too bright for me, giving a slightly "plastic/old computer game" feel and making things somewhat blurry.

As an aside: would it be possible to brighten up the fertile lands slightly while leaving the dark lands as is? (soft 75 being the "baseline")

Soft 75 definately. So much is lost without HDR in terms of the 3D feel of the landscape.

Ah, much better comparison pictures than the other thread. In this comparison it is obvious which one is best.

Yes, definitely Soft 75. The picture is more crisp than 100 and less blurry.
I don't know if HDR has anything to do with it, but the no HDR picture looks much more flat than the other two.

The HDR adds great stuff like shadowing on the hills which make the picture MUCH more 3D

No HDR is more "happy and friendly" because the brighter colors - the green and orange especially - are less dull than in the other images.  Soft 100 is a little too blurry, as others have said.  The Soft 75 gives it a nice look except for the detailed objects like the castle, which end up losing detail and feel less... defined.   I think I like the mountains of soft 75 combined with the rest of the image in No HDR.  I don't know if there is any way to combine them like that, however.

I have two suggestions on these. Overall, I like Soft 75.

As far as happy and friendly enough, I completely agree. My first suggestions is possible some kind of bloom effect and some objects of contrasting colors to fill some of the empty space. Lava cracks on the evil side or light colored flowers, tall grass, or plant life on the good side.

The other reason I think it looks gloomy is the fog of war. It looks like a haunted graveyard fog. Can you make this fog of war a little more friendly, or is the super mystery/fear factor of the darker, scarier fog intended? If not, I suggest looking at a game like Anno 1404: Dawn of Discovery. The colors are really vibrant and the environment is relaxing, even when corsair ships hunt you down. Their fog of war is light beige parchment color, with compasses and sea monsters and navigational lines on it. Here's a picture:

Perhaps if the fog of war was lightened up, too, you could add drifting, fluffy clouds (Or dark, stiletto clouds on the evil side).

The Soft100 en Soft75 pictures seem to give more depth to the world, but also seem to remove a lot of detail. I like the dark tower / castle (the building itself) in the NoHDR picture the best, but the effect around it look better in the Soft pictures.

I'd like something between the Soft75 and the NoHDR one...

For the looks, I'd prefer the no HDR then 75 then 100.