No, "2D" sprite based is not the future. For one thing a lot of what looks "2D" is actually 3D. It's just that 2D isn't dead and isn't going to die anytime soon. It's a viable presentation method.
I think we need some space in the mmorpg game universe for experimentation with game play. Pushing the bleeding edge of graphics isn't as interesting as the bleeding edge of game mechanics.
They are not mutually exclusive. Both should be pushed. Why settle for only one of the two?
you just don't get it. we have been pushing graphics and not game mechanics.
You have limited resources. If you want to push something, you should choose one.
Imagine you want a fantasy pvp rpg but don't like 50 vs 50 players and want that higher. Having 2d with less bits to push around can allow you to work on larger battles to experiment with game mechanics. You might have to work on smaller than 50 vs 50 if you want to push graphics.
Finally: Did you miss the experiment part? Not all games, but at least one to experiment with.
Finally, you really need to stop it with all your crap. How about taking a couple months away from mmorpg.com to get a fresh perspective.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
Clearly it depends on the type of game, budget and general feel that the developers are trying to create. If its enough fun it will be played regardless of graphics.
Its just a bit of nostalgia for when things were easier and more simple.
2D lacks spatial element that adds to much to every game to be simply ignored. And as from my experience in game production , 3D is actually easier to produce and make these days.
Clearly it depends on the type of game, budget and general feel that the developers are trying to create. If its enough fun it will be played regardless of graphics.
While i agree that if it good enough , people will play . But people still mind the graphic , some graphic styles are acceptable while other not . Even if it fun to play , the bad graphic style will make people leave .
2D games have their own appeal. They are entirely different types of games from their 3D counterparts. For instance, I loved Ultima Online. If you were to completely remake UO with a third person, 3d perspective, it would be a great game, but it wouldn't be the same game. The entire mood would be different. Not better. Not worse. Just different.
So no, 2D isn't the future, but it's certainly here to stay.
I wouldn't play "2D" if they were the last games on Earth.
Yes you would.
God no! I have an 8 core PC with 16 gig of ram and twin graphic cards, not some ancient piece of **** from the 1990's. 2D games might be "retro" to some people but not me - I was there! I want something cutting edge, not pixellated **** that looked good decades ago on an Amiga or ST.
I wouldn't play "2D" if they were the last games on Earth.
Yes you would.
God no! I have an 8 core PC with 16 gig of ram and twin graphic cards, not some ancient piece of **** from the 1990's. 2D games might be "retro" to some people but not me - I was there! I want something cutting edge, not pixellated **** that looked good decades ago on an Amiga or ST.
90's is being a bit generous. The first 80286 16 bit CPU came out in early 1982. By the early 90's we had 386's and 32 bit processing.
Hopefully this will die off quickly and devs can make decent looking games again. They don't need to be cutting edge, just not look like utter shit.
I think 2d is absolutely rancid for an MMO especially one where you are attempting to immerse players in another world. Let's start making movies in black and white again because well it is the acting and story that should matter more.... ugh pretentious bullshiz.
I wouldn't mind 2D MMOs if the art was of high quality...more of like a pseudo 3D or a 2.5D.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
2D is fine if the gameplay works (hell, most MMOs are just 3D models on flat plane)... but the 16-bit pixelated look, which both these games seem to be limiting themselves to, while OK back when 640x480 was a thing, just looks like **** on a high res screen.
No real interest in 2D games, its already been pretty much done to death, the horrendous rpgmaker trash that infests steam just shows how bloated the market is with those games, the only thing that surprises me is that anyone buys them, and for MMO's they really don't have a future, so wasting my time in something i wouldn't enjoy = pointless.
That's a warrior fighting a zombie chicken in my new mmo, Hero's Browser. Now send me $80,000 on my kickstarter. You can get a mini zombie chicken of your own.
In short, I vote "no" to 2D.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I almost fell over with laughter because it is sooooo obvious.
Future...2D ummm need i say more? When you refer to the future in a sentence and referring to gaming you are proposing that something is about to happen in the near or distant future.
Well 2D is a thing of the PAST,should not be referenced as an idea of the future.
These developers and the people they hire are professionals who go to school ply their trade over many years.They like to think of themselves as skilled professionals.
A skilled individual in any aspect of life does not want to downgrade himself or his abilities,if anything they like to push themselves further,to become more skilled or to portray their skills.
GW2 is a perfect example to chime in on.They bragged a lot about that well known artist they have,they even went so far as to say they wanted to show off their art team.The problem is they did not do so,instead all they did was try to eliminate the more costly 3D video animation costs. Now don't get me wrong there are some nice sculpted artwork but on a whole most everything is of low quality from textures to the cutscenes,poor lighting ,low level detail of the models and textures so yeah they were doing nothing in practice to portray HQ art work yet that is exactly what they wanted to portray.
Point being developers are not going to try and portray a low end game be it 2D or just really bad animations or textures or sounds whatever.So if they have a CHOICE they are NEVER going for 2d,NEVER EVER,they simply do whatever their budget allows.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I'm sympathetic to wanting to make a cheap game with cheap graphics to focus on interesting gameplay. But I don't think that 2D necessarily advances your cause there. You're going to make the game using tools built to do 3D and it's going to run on hardware built to do 3D. It's not hard to hack 2D into that (which most games do for things like menus), but I don't think you necessarily gain anything in terms of production cost by trying to make the graphics as 2D as you can.
The technical barrier of how much you need to know to make the graphics work is lower for 2D than 3D. But if you're trying to make a game without anyone who knows linear algebra, I don't think that's going to end well for you, even for reasons completely unrelated to graphics.
On a related note, when I first began designing X-Shift, it was me and one programmer. I chose to focus purely on gameplay, making 2d isometric graphics myself. Here is the first image ever of X-Shift Online.
Fortunately, the idea was solid enough, and I soon drew in some much more talented folk. Here is an image of X-Shift today.
NOTE: I'm still focusing entirely on gameplay. I just have more talented people doing the art.
The first image is credible, but the second one smells so badly like an image rendered in some 3D software that it's not even funny... :P
Of course those are renders. A lot of what we're doing still uses placeholder art, animations and sound, so I'm hesitant to post in-game work. I was just showing the difference in quality of the assets.
Here is an actual screenshot. This is us testing the audio and video players in the game world (the tv and stereo). But like I said, this is nowhere near the final quality, as we haven't finished work on the lighting or even the room itself. The character and weapon and such are all placeholders.
That's 2D. 1D would be just one pixel... hmm gives me an idea for a KS campaign... "Stare at this pixel long enough and all your questions will be answered!"
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Because once upon a time it was all 2D? ... final answer...
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Comments
you just don't get it. we have been pushing graphics and not game mechanics.
You have limited resources. If you want to push something, you should choose one.
Imagine you want a fantasy pvp rpg but don't like 50 vs 50 players and want that higher. Having 2d with less bits to push around can allow you to work on larger battles to experiment with game mechanics. You might have to work on smaller than 50 vs 50 if you want to push graphics.
Finally: Did you miss the experiment part? Not all games, but at least one to experiment with.
Finally, you really need to stop it with all your crap. How about taking a couple months away from mmorpg.com to get a fresh perspective.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Its just a bit of nostalgia for when things were easier and more simple.
2D lacks spatial element that adds to much to every game to be simply ignored.
And as from my experience in game production , 3D is actually easier to produce and make these days.
So its no, no for 2D
But people still mind the graphic , some graphic styles are acceptable while other not . Even if it fun to play , the bad graphic style will make people leave .
So no, 2D isn't the future, but it's certainly here to stay.
Hopefully this will die off quickly and devs can make decent looking games again. They don't need to be cutting edge, just not look like utter shit.
I think 2d is absolutely rancid for an MMO especially one where you are attempting to immerse players in another world. Let's start making movies in black and white again because well it is the acting and story that should matter more.... ugh pretentious bullshiz.
Help support an artist and gamer who has lost his tools to create and play: http://www.gofundme.com/u63nzcgk
DFO? Maplestory? Not to mention the other 100 Maplestory clones? Browser based MMO. There are probably even cellphone MMORPG.
2-D games are already here.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
We've got Waves of Time, Severed World, Nin Online and a few great 2D MMOs coming soon.
I I ----- <
-------+
_ _ - -
That's a warrior fighting a zombie chicken in my new mmo, Hero's Browser. Now send me $80,000 on my kickstarter. You can get a mini zombie chicken of your own.
In short, I vote "no" to 2D.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
"The Society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools."
Currently: Games Audio Engineer, you didn't hear what I heard, you heard what I wanted you to hear.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Future...2D ummm need i say more?
When you refer to the future in a sentence and referring to gaming you are proposing that something is about to happen in the near or distant future.
Well 2D is a thing of the PAST,should not be referenced as an idea of the future.
These developers and the people they hire are professionals who go to school ply their trade over many years.They like to think of themselves as skilled professionals.
A skilled individual in any aspect of life does not want to downgrade himself or his abilities,if anything they like to push themselves further,to become more skilled or to portray their skills.
GW2 is a perfect example to chime in on.They bragged a lot about that well known artist they have,they even went so far as to say they wanted to show off their art team.The problem is they did not do so,instead all they did was try to eliminate the more costly 3D video animation costs.
Now don't get me wrong there are some nice sculpted artwork but on a whole most everything is of low quality from textures to the cutscenes,poor lighting ,low level detail of the models and textures so yeah they were doing nothing in practice to portray HQ art work yet that is exactly what they wanted to portray.
Point being developers are not going to try and portray a low end game be it 2D or just really bad animations or textures or sounds whatever.So if they have a CHOICE they are NEVER going for 2d,NEVER EVER,they simply do whatever their budget allows.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
4k and VR, I believe, are driven by the hardware industry, far more so than by consumer demand.
Smedley has a very small studio, the choice to use 2D, might just be to get a game out of the gate, and go from there.
The technical barrier of how much you need to know to make the graphics work is lower for 2D than 3D. But if you're trying to make a game without anyone who knows linear algebra, I don't think that's going to end well for you, even for reasons completely unrelated to graphics.
Fortunately, the idea was solid enough, and I soon drew in some much more talented folk. Here is an image of X-Shift today.
NOTE: I'm still focusing entirely on gameplay. I just have more talented people doing the art.
Here is an actual screenshot. This is us testing the audio and video players in the game world (the tv and stereo). But like I said, this is nowhere near the final quality, as we haven't finished work on the lighting or even the room itself. The character and weapon and such are all placeholders.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Because once upon a time it was all 2D? ... final answer...
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED