That is one of the reasons why it's so successful. It can run on just about any computer, and it runs well on them. With a minimum system requirement like OP said, even if you meet that minimum, the game will still play like a turd. This is where most new MMOs go wrong. It's completely possible to make super graphics, but they release the game with too low of minimum requirments for the game to play well. It'll play, but you'll get 10 fps, which is near unplayable. My laptop is much better than the GW2 min specs, but it plays with like 5fps in crowded areas with lots of players and npcs around. It is a laptop, but if you go to like the Isle of Thunder in WoW, the graphics are pretty good looking there, I can run everything maxed on my laptop, and pull off 20+ fps. In raids on max settings I finally get down into the 10-15 fps, but in raids you don't really care about what things look like, so I turn them down and get 60fps, which is my laptop's cap.
Edit: not picking on GW2, other recent mmos have done the same thing. TSW also did the same thing, with minimum requirements you'll get like 5 fps...yea that's really playable lol. Planetside 2 also has high system requirements, and they also excluded alot of graphics cards being supported. My laptop's gpu is alot better than thier "minimum" and has double the memory of thier minimum, but it's not supported by the game for some weird reason lol. Leave it to SOE to mess it up, and it'll probably never be fixed...look at vanguard, still has bugs the game launched with lol.
We need to go forward not backwards like you want you guys have had backwards era way to long now.
So my hope is that finally with consoles developers going DX11 and start pushing some pc specs upwards.
Another boring F2P wow-clone grindfest that looks REALLY AMAZING would still suck. I require that my games not look terrible, but beyond that Gameplay > All personally. If having high-end specs was necessary for some revolutionary gameplay then sign me up for an upgrade. If its only necessary to make this week's F2P clone look pretty, why bother?
Unless such a game would really be brilliant in many other respects, I wouldnt bother.
And games that put such a focus on graphics are almost never good games.
Only exception I can think of was original Tomb Raider. That was back in the day the top title in respect to graphics and an awesome game. Tomb Raider 2 also, in a lesser respect. An even better game, graphically improved too, but no longer challenging the ladership in graphics.
I remember Core Design, they used to make brilliant games, I used to work down the street from them. There were a lot of UK game makers that were bought over by multi-national, Ocean, Bullfrog, Psygnosis and Gremlin to name a few.
I don't think so. I've closely followed many MMO launches. I don't really feel like going into details, but in my experience, it always hurts. It hurts a lot. And the return you get from doing so is very minimal.
Here's how I look at it. You can go ahead and release a game with very high system requirements. The reviews will say, "It looks great, but it requires a hefty rig." For a little while. It will probably be considered very good-looking for less than one year.
Both EQ2 and Vanguard had really high system requirements at launch. And people praised the visuals of those games, if you had the rig for it. But that praise dried up very quickly. Within a very short time, newer MMO's were released that looked AND performed much better.
If you starve yourself of a playerbase early on, it's very difficult to recover. And that's exactly what happens with these kinds of games. And the prestige you gain for having "great visuals" tends to be rather short-lived.
Usually, "success" for these games comes only after they recover from a disastrous launch.
Comments
We need to go forward not backwards like you want you guys have had backwards era way to long now.
So my hope is that finally with consoles developers going DX11 and start pushing some pc specs upwards.
I remember Core Design, they used to make brilliant games, I used to work down the street from them. There were a lot of UK game makers that were bought over by multi-national, Ocean, Bullfrog, Psygnosis and Gremlin to name a few.
I don't think so. I've closely followed many MMO launches. I don't really feel like going into details, but in my experience, it always hurts. It hurts a lot. And the return you get from doing so is very minimal.
Here's how I look at it. You can go ahead and release a game with very high system requirements. The reviews will say, "It looks great, but it requires a hefty rig." For a little while. It will probably be considered very good-looking for less than one year.
Both EQ2 and Vanguard had really high system requirements at launch. And people praised the visuals of those games, if you had the rig for it. But that praise dried up very quickly. Within a very short time, newer MMO's were released that looked AND performed much better.
If you starve yourself of a playerbase early on, it's very difficult to recover. And that's exactly what happens with these kinds of games. And the prestige you gain for having "great visuals" tends to be rather short-lived.
Usually, "success" for these games comes only after they recover from a disastrous launch.
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