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Camelot Unchained: Graphics, Gameplay & Performance - Speed Matters
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
The latest Camelot Unchained developer blog has been posted. This time, Andrew Meggs chimes in with his thoughts about the importance of speed with regard to graphics, gameplay and performance.
It all starts with gameplay, but what does “gameplay” really mean? For some games, the graphics are the core of the gameplay. For those games, the thrill is exploring a gorgeously rendered, immersive new world. You may compromise on performance to create that, but for some people, tuning their system for the best possible experience becomes its own meta-game. You may compromise on certain aspects of gameplay — precomputing the world’s lighting gives you a prettier world and better performance, but to lock down the world’s lighting you have to lock down all the objects in the world. But if the main hook of a game is how pretty it looks, that’s all fine. I’ve played games for how beautiful they were, and I’ve enjoyed every perfect hand-crafted scene around every new corner. There’s not a tradeoff between graphics and gameplay when the graphics are the gameplay.
Read the full post on the Camelot Unchained site.
Comments
Of course theres alot of players like you. That said, they never once said they re after the masses. It will do decent as a niche game.
The problem is that the niche they seem to be stearing towards doesn't include their initial DaoC player base. So its great if they are after the Mortal Online folks... I guess. Even Shadowbane had PvE stuff, which made for some great betrayals after farming for a few hours.
I like the "idea" of a Camelot Unchained. Everything will depend on how well executed the game is and if it can survive, at all, as an RvR only title. Personally I don't think it ca, even with the goal to be a very small niche. If you want proof simply look at Mark's other products.
DaoC's RvR suffered from frequent dead times which resulted in the never ending relic, relic guard and the eventual PvE dungeon changes to fight over. Drawing people into RvR more since it consistently dropped off except for peak hours.
WAR suffered from the exact same thing, one side would have a spike in population for a set period of time, flip a ton of the RvR lakes and everyone would be off PvEing. Sure at peak hours there were amazing fights in both games, but it doesn't work as a 24hr game, not for something like a fantasy MMO. Even in more odern games like Planetside 2 they have peak hours where a ton of things go on and then those hours pass and people log off.
Either Mark has something up his sleeve and we'll all be in shock and awe with this innovation. Or the idea is just half-baked and will end up being a Darkfall/Mortal-Online disaster. Where grinding up skills over hours and hours is key and he'll have a niche group, it will just be in the 10,000 or less range.
What I get from this post is 'We are not even going to try and make it look good, mediocre is fine'.
Cynical? Maybe....
But if it looks mediocre/bad AND performs like crap at launch.. trouble. They best get it right.
Ty, I mean this is what I've been saying all along...
I didn't expect some huge PVE aspect but to have none at all?
It's gonna hurt em more then help em mark my words......
I just don't understand I mean why didn't he just go and remake DAOC 2 with better graphics that would have pulled in the masses instead hes going for strictly RVR and nothing else which is gonna basically be another Darkfall, Mortal Online I mean looked how they both turned out?
I know hes going for a niche and not millons of subs and blah blah blah whatever..........
I think one of the most intelligent decisions an MMORPG developer can make is to aim for a fairly low graphics game tech wise, but with a strong aesthetic/style.
High tech graphics are costly, make developing new content tougher, and limit the amount of people who can play your game. This is one of the things WoW knocked out of the park. It wasnt amazing graphics in the technical sense, but it had style, played smooth, and played on just about any computer.
For a game that's supposed to be around for years, it's always smarter to go for a strong, distinctive style than photorealism. "Realistic" graphics age much faster. Look at WoW. Lots of players criticized it's cartoony style, but let's be honest how many realistic looking games from 2005 still look good today?
@tom_gore WOW does not look good today and it didnt really look good back in 2005.
If this game turns out to have wow style cartoon graphics i will be very unhappy and certainly wont back it as much as if it had more of a realistic style similar to age of conan.. im not saying it had to have graphics to rival age of conan.. but i dont like cartoon style graphics in the games i play..
Now ill probally still back it as i love what they are saying about what they want the game to be.. but i wont put as much cash into it..
Simple graphics is not the same as cartoony graphics. The style/design of the game could easily be dark and gritty and mature without needing high polygon counts or advanced post processing, lighting effects and whatnot. Animations and overall responsiveness are usually better when the graphics aren't top of the line.
Personally I prefer a smooth experience and working mechanics to shiny graphics, especially in a PvP game. The trick is to make the game look good without masive amounts of hardware-demanding bling bling stuff. Of course, some people will always bitch about the graphics but thos people should just stick to their SP games anyway.
yeah I agree.. in a PVP game graphics are not top of the lsit. .tho it still needs to look decent.. i mean its 2013 PC hardware has come a long way and server hardware is a shit ton better than back in the days of age of camelot or even WAR..
Anyway as long as it dont have silly cartoon wow graphics ill be happy... tho ill probally end up playing it anyway haha