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Why ubergrafics aren't important

- When I play a PvP game, I turn down the grafics to optimize the framerate- I do not want to loose a fight, cos my PC can't keep up. So I don't need uber grafics from new games, cos it will simply be turned off.

- I stop playing a PvP game, when my PC is nolonger competitative -  I don't buy a new PC, I buy a new/old game.

- Insanely great grafics games, is like watching a movie; You watch it, and discard it... Whereas games with focus on gameplay; you play it, get annoyed with lousy grafics...but you keep playing it, and playing it, and playing it.

- Entry cost; If I have to buy a new or upgrade PC, a game will be too expensive to enter.

I'm not saying games should all be Tetris or Pacman, just saying that uber-super grafics might be a waste.

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Comments

  • meddyckmeddyck Member UncommonPosts: 1,282
    One mistake this game can't afford to make is what happened with SWTOR and GW 2. The game engine must be able to handle huge fights well with no culling (invisible players) or massive framerate drops. So yeah it's not going to have the most amazing visuals of any MMO released in the next few years. But it also can't look bad or too dated either. Graphics at about the level of WAR would work.

    DAOC Live (inactive): R11 Cleric R11 Druid R11 Minstrel R9 Eldritch R6 Sorc R6 Scout R6 Healer

  • dimnikardimnikar Member Posts: 271

    I'm sorry, but no.

     

    Graphics are extremely important, especially in a genre that's supposed to be deeply immersive.

  • VoiidiinVoiidiin Member Posts: 817
    Originally posted by meddyck
    One mistake this game can't afford to make is what happened with SWTOR and GW 2. The game engine must be able to handle huge fights well with no culling (invisible players) or massive framerate drops. So yeah it's not going to have the most amazing visuals of any MMO released in the next few years. But it also can't look bad or too dated either. Graphics at about the level of WAR would work.

    I agree, i play alot of GW2 and i can't stand the culling aspect of it, why after 5-6 months they realize including 2d representations is better than invisible representations is beyond my reasoning.

    Just glad we can get a veteran like Marc Jacobs back into the RvR gameing where he knows what works (DAoC) and what does not (WAR).

    Lolipops !

  • ZinzanZinzan Member UncommonPosts: 1,351
    Originally posted by dimnikar

    I'm sorry, but no.

     

    Graphics are extremely important, especially in a genre that's supposed to be deeply immersive.

    Indeed, gone are the days of playability over looks, these days gamers want and expect both. PC's are powerful enough to deliver both and as long as the game has scalable graphics for lower-end PC's to balance lookks vs performance it'll all be good.

    Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy :)

  • xSyngexxSyngex Member Posts: 44
    Originally posted by Zinzan
    Originally posted by dimnikar

    I'm sorry, but no.

     

    Graphics are extremely important, especially in a genre that's supposed to be deeply immersive.

    Indeed, gone are the days of playability over looks, these days gamers want and expect both. PC's are powerful enough to deliver both and as long as the game has scalable graphics for lower-end PC's to balance lookks vs performance it'll all be good.

    PVE thats where I made friends..

     

  • ZinzanZinzan Member UncommonPosts: 1,351
    Originally posted by Voiidiin
    Originally posted by meddyck
    One mistake this game can't afford to make is what happened with SWTOR and GW 2. The game engine must be able to handle huge fights well with no culling (invisible players) or massive framerate drops. So yeah it's not going to have the most amazing visuals of any MMO released in the next few years. But it also can't look bad or too dated either. Graphics at about the level of WAR would work.

    I agree, i play alot of GW2 and i can't stand the culling aspect of it, why after 5-6 months they realize including 2d representations is better than invisible representations is beyond my reasoning.

    Just glad we can get a veteran like Marc Jacobs back into the RvR gameing where he knows what works (DAoC) and what does not (WAR).

    I think your right and a lot of people need to remember MJ made some great progress as well as some horrific mistakes along the way, many seem to be forgetting this.

    The question is, has he learnt from his experiences?

    Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy :)

  • VoiidiinVoiidiin Member Posts: 817
    Originally posted by Zinzan
    Originally posted by Voiidiin
    Originally posted by meddyck
    One mistake this game can't afford to make is what happened with SWTOR and GW 2. The game engine must be able to handle huge fights well with no culling (invisible players) or massive framerate drops. So yeah it's not going to have the most amazing visuals of any MMO released in the next few years. But it also can't look bad or too dated either. Graphics at about the level of WAR would work.

    I agree, i play alot of GW2 and i can't stand the culling aspect of it, why after 5-6 months they realize including 2d representations is better than invisible representations is beyond my reasoning.

    Just glad we can get a veteran like Marc Jacobs back into the RvR gameing where he knows what works (DAoC) and what does not (WAR).

    I think your right and a lot of people need to remember MJ made some great progress as well as some horrific mistakes along the way, many seem to be forgetting this.

    The question is, has he learnt from his experiences?

    I thought the exact same thing, but of all the people who could do a true RvR experience justice i think a man who had great sucess and a great failure could have a very good vision of what works.

    Lolipops !

  • XthosXthos Member UncommonPosts: 2,739
    Originally posted by xSyngex
    Originally posted by Zinzan
    Originally posted by Voiidiin
    Originally posted by meddyck
    One mistake this game can't afford to make is what happened with SWTOR and GW 2. The game engine must be able to handle huge fights well with no culling (invisible players) or massive framerate drops. So yeah it's not going to have the most amazing visuals of any MMO released in the next few years. But it also can't look bad or too dated either. Graphics at about the level of WAR would work.

    I agree, i play alot of GW2 and i can't stand the culling aspect of it, why after 5-6 months they realize including 2d representations is better than invisible representations is beyond my reasoning.

    Just glad we can get a veteran like Marc Jacobs back into the RvR gameing where he knows what works (DAoC) and what does not (WAR).

    I think your right and a lot of people need to remember MJ made some great progress as well as some horrific mistakes along the way, many seem to be forgetting this.

    The question is, has he learnt from his experiences?

    (mod edit)

     

    So....He has 4 wives?

  • CaldrinCaldrin Member UncommonPosts: 4,505

    Graphics are important as i have a pretty high spec PC so i want to use. But again the game needs to be able to handle a shit load of people ni the same place.

     

    I dont want them to ignore graphics as I want them to be good, but they also need to make sure the game runs as they want it to.

  • ZinzanZinzan Member UncommonPosts: 1,351
    Originally posted by Xthos
    Originally posted by xSyngex
    Originally posted by Zinzan
    Originally posted by Voiidiin
    Originally posted by meddyck
    One mistake this game can't afford to make is what happened with SWTOR and GW 2. The game engine must be able to handle huge fights well with no culling (invisible players) or massive framerate drops. So yeah it's not going to have the most amazing visuals of any MMO released in the next few years. But it also can't look bad or too dated either. Graphics at about the level of WAR would work.

    I agree, i play alot of GW2 and i can't stand the culling aspect of it, why after 5-6 months they realize including 2d representations is better than invisible representations is beyond my reasoning.

    Just glad we can get a veteran like Marc Jacobs back into the RvR gameing where he knows what works (DAoC) and what does not (WAR).

    I think your right and a lot of people need to remember MJ made some great progress as well as some horrific mistakes along the way, many seem to be forgetting this.

    The question is, has he learnt from his experiences?

     (mod edit)

    So....He has 4 wives?

    I laughed :)

    Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy :)

  • VoiidiinVoiidiin Member Posts: 817
    Originally posted by Caldrin

    Graphics are important as i have a pretty high spec PC so i want to use. But again the game needs to be able to handle a shit load of people ni the same place.

     

    I dont want them to ignore graphics as I want them to be good, but they also need to make sure the game runs as they want it to.

    I totally agree i got a nice new computer last October, it was made to run GW2 on max settings, while i would hate to play an uglified game, i would rather play an uglier game than say GW2, that has 1000's of players in the same space and its not culled or a complete lagfest.

    Not sure how EvE does it, maybe its the lack of terrain, but they get 1000's of players in the same sector of space all battling it out in a grand orgy of destruction, and it runs pretty damn smooth. I hope this can be achieved in some form with CU.

    Lolipops !

  • jedensuscgjedensuscg Member Posts: 209

    The issue with graphics is that they need to be:

    1)Set low enough that any computer in the minimum spec range can play without performance drops.  If they need to raise the minimum requirments, then do so.

    2)force a minimum graphical setting on EVERY player.  To many competetive games allow users to turn off shadows, ground object, jack up gamma, and other graphical things that make other players far easy to see.

    So what we get is a gap.  You have the hardcore players that will win at any cost(and in my opinion a deteriment to gaming in general, as they are the ones that will exploit every exploit, and never report them to the development team)  And you have the people that are competetive, but are also trying to have fun and enjoy the game for what it is, i.e keeping graphics up to where they can still run the game without performance drops, even if this means shadows and more ground clutter.

     

    I think that the vast majority of players(and this is from experience of talking to guildies and such) that turn down their graphics, don't do it because they fear dying to a framerate drop, but they want the best possible chance to see the enemy first.  In fact, and in an ironic twist, most of these people I have talked to that turn their graphics down to min settings, have computers that are more then capable of running the game on maxed out settings.

    PS2 is notorious for this.  There are so many things you can do that will make you harder to see to players trying to find a balance between performance and quality, and while making that same players easier to see. Turning your settings low enough will make smoke that normally will obscure an entire sunderer, instead barely obsure one person.

    So graphics DO matter, in a sense.  For a truley competetive game, they need to be designed that they offer unique obsatcles  (i.e dark shadows, smoke and fog, grass and bushes) but not overly insane graphics that only the highest computers can run them.  Then when they find a balance that both looks good, offers these different aspects like dark shadows and lighting and all the rest, and performance, they need to ENFORCE these graphics on everyone.

     

    The only thing you should be able to adjust are texture resolutions, maybe poly counts on certain object, draw distance(lowering it, this handicapping yourself, not other players).  But never should shadows be turned off or down, never should ground clutter be turned off, the game needs to detect your windows gamma settings, so that if you try to bypass the games default settings to much the game will not let you proceed(of course, monitors will still be adjusted, but not to the same effect).

    Just saying.  If people are truly competetive and sportsmanship like, rather then the typical win at all costs fuck everyone else players, then they will WANT to have a balanced and fair baseline for the game, where skill will determine the winner.

    image

  • CaldrinCaldrin Member UncommonPosts: 4,505
    Originally posted by Voiidiin
    Originally posted by Caldrin

    Graphics are important as i have a pretty high spec PC so i want to use. But again the game needs to be able to handle a shit load of people ni the same place.

     

    I dont want them to ignore graphics as I want them to be good, but they also need to make sure the game runs as they want it to.

    I totally agree i got a nice new computer last October, it was made to run GW2 on max settings, while i would hate to play an uglified game, i would rather play an uglier game than say GW2, that has 1000's of players in the same space and its not culled or a complete lagfest.

    Not sure how EvE does it, maybe its the lack of terrain, but they get 1000's of players in the same sector of space all battling it out in a grand orgy of destruction, and it runs pretty damn smooth. I hope this can be achieved in some form with CU.

    yeah main thing is no terrain, no trees, grass and so on.. just black space with some asteroids and some slow moving ships hehe. I am sure there network tech is top notch as well :)

  • VariansVarians Member Posts: 10

    Im glad I brought this up, seems not all agree with me:-)

    I generally buy a new PC or upgrade massively every 5 years, and I haven't had issues with new MMO's, because I was able to scale the settings down. So when I reach the last year of my PC-lifetime, I'm dependant on the scaling.

    I totally agree on that whole culling issue that gw2 has. That helped ruin the game for me.

  • DavisFlightDavisFlight Member CommonPosts: 2,556
    Originally posted by dimnikar

    I'm sorry, but no.

     

    Graphics are extremely important, especially in a genre that's supposed to be deeply immersive.

    Gameplay mechanics do so SO much more to immerse you in a world than graphics do. There hasn't been an immersive MMO since Vanguard, and before that.. none since 2002. 

  • kosackosac Member UncommonPosts: 206
    Originally posted by Voiidiin
    Just glad we can get a veteran like Marc Jacobs back into the RvR gameing where he knows what works (DAoC) and what does not (WAR).

    WAR works.. BUT after Land Of Death was death... big inbalance, migration from rvr zones in to LoD zone, company dosnt fix errors with class mechanics but adds infantile events... ppl was bored by stagnation of game.. and engine of course.. engine for Fallout as engine for MMO was terrible idea :)

  • IcewhiteIcewhite Member Posts: 6,403

    We need another Vanguard opening.

    "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."--G. Santayana

    Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.

  • ShakyMoShakyMo Member CommonPosts: 7,207
    I disagree.

    You need pretty good graphics. I'm not talking ps2 or tsw quality that stops people on low end systems playing the game. But gw2 type quality is about right.
  • ShakyMoShakyMo Member CommonPosts: 7,207
    Kosac

    Daoc and rift also use gamebryo engine. In fast I think daoc was one of the first games to use it along with Morrowind. War uses the same version as fallout3 , oblivion and rift. Although all have modifications, e.g. war concentrated on large player groups, rift concentrated on post processing effects.

    Skyrim uses a very heavily modified version of gamebryo, to the point where its almost a completely new engine. I suspect TESO will be using some modified version.of the skyrim engine (e.g. less pretty but better at crowd handling). There's nothing particularly wrong with gamebryo as a mmo engine.
  • VariansVarians Member Posts: 10
    Originally posted by ShakyMo
    Kosac

    Daoc and rift also use gamebryo engine. In fast I think daoc was one of the first games to use it along with Morrowind. War uses the same version as fallout3 , oblivion and rift. Although all have modifications, e.g. war concentrated on large player groups, rift concentrated on post processing effects.

    Skyrim uses a very heavily modified version of gamebryo, to the point where its almost a completely new engine. I suspect TESO will be using some modified version.of the skyrim engine (e.g. less pretty but better at crowd handling). There's nothing particularly wrong with gamebryo as a mmo engine.

    TESO guys did say that they were gonna focus on having hundreds of players battling it out, and still have it playable. So think your right here.:-)

     

  • SeariasSearias Member UncommonPosts: 743
    Originally posted by xSyngex
    Originally posted by Zinzan
    Originally posted by Voiidiin
    Originally posted by meddyck
    One mistake this game can't afford to make is what happened with SWTOR and GW 2. The game engine must be able to handle huge fights well with no culling (invisible players) or massive framerate drops. So yeah it's not going to have the most amazing visuals of any MMO released in the next few years. But it also can't look bad or too dated either. Graphics at about the level of WAR would work.

    I agree, i play alot of GW2 and i can't stand the culling aspect of it, why after 5-6 months they realize including 2d representations is better than invisible representations is beyond my reasoning.

    Just glad we can get a veteran like Marc Jacobs back into the RvR gameing where he knows what works (DAoC) and what does not (WAR).

    I think your right and a lot of people need to remember MJ made some great progress as well as some horrific mistakes along the way, many seem to be forgetting this.

    The question is, has he learnt from his experiences?

    The guys a fucking mormon he has "learnt" nothing look at his post...

     

    Wow, aren't you out of line there buddy? I am suprised you haven't been banned yet.

    <InvalidTag type="text/javascript" src="http://www.gamebreaker.tv/cce/e.js"></script><div class="cce_pane" content-slug="which-world-of-warcraft-villain-are-you" ctype="quiz" d="http://www.gamebreaker.tv"></div>;

  • OgreRaperOgreRaper Member Posts: 376
    The engine and character control need to be fluid, and capable of supporting a lot of players on screen. So obviously we can't expect top notch graphics. That said, a good art style is far more important to me than polygon count anyway.
  • GwapoJoshGwapoJosh Member UncommonPosts: 1,030
    Can't we have both?  High and low quality graphic options?  I don't think it's to much to ask for..

    "You are all going to poop yourselves." BillMurphy

    "Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone."

  • gregoryvggregoryvg Member Posts: 35
    Originally posted by Zinzan
    Originally posted by dimnikar

    I'm sorry, but no.

     

    Graphics are extremely important, especially in a genre that's supposed to be deeply immersive.

    Indeed, gone are the days of playability over looks, these days gamers want and expect both. PC's are powerful enough to deliver both and as long as the game has scalable graphics for lower-end PC's to balance lookks vs performance it'll all be good.

    PC's may be powerful enough to deliver both; but I don't know if small development houses (read City State) are able to deliver both.  I think we all need to temper our expectation for graphics, and realize at best they will be a few years behind state of the art.  But what CSE can do is deliver good graphics (probably a licensed engine) with a (hopefully) robust gameplay engine that will keep us engaged for years.

  • gregoryvggregoryvg Member Posts: 35
    Originally posted by dimnikar

    I'm sorry, but no.

     

    Graphics are extremely important, especially in a genre that's supposed to be deeply immersive.

    If you really feel that way go play Guild Wars 2 and let me know how immersive that game is.

    My point is an immersive game requires way more than state of the art graphics.  Graphics are important, but the gameplay is even more so.  I would rather have a game with a "7" for graphics and engaging gameplay, than a game like GW2 (for example) which is a "10" for graphics, but with gameplay that is rather blah.  

    It's all in how CSE decides to use their funding; pretty shiny graphics and sub-par gameply or good graphics and (hopefully) good gameplay.

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