From looking at vids i am pretty sure the world will look fantastic. For the Avatars i have the highest demands regarding to the look and i am not sure at all that i am happy at all Some Videos, some Armors look very well and some still look plastic, unproportinal - big thing for me be skirts that stretch in a weird way and make the textures look extreme ugly and make the animation of running apear strange. Imho the best Male Avatar is Geralt (The Witcher) and i dont know if SWTOR gets them that good but i have no trouble to play a female Avatar if they look better (like in AoC). The Avatar-look is even more urgent than the world look, i.e. even i play LOTRO i still have the feeling the Avs look/move ugly all the time and in only chose dwarf bcs they dont disturb me so much.
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
Not sure this wall of text was needed as it's aready posted in the other thread at the top of this forum section.
BTW the yellow color is making my eyes bleeding.
I highly doubt that this was posted in some other thread at the top of this forum section. Just trying to be helpful here, you know, bring some balance to your tale, I gather you'd appreciate it. So you're welcome
If your eyes bleed, I'd suggest you close them or call 911, they're very helpful with weak eyes.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
It is funny, but I think the artwork of a game is kind of situational to be honest. By this I meant that it SWTOR was a single player game, I probably would not be very happy with the art style. Mostly because I know my particular computer can handle much more intensive graphics. SWTOR however, is NOT a SPG, it's an MMO and therefore, I am very happy with the graphics. I can just imagine the latency and lag issues that would cause problems if the graphics were pumped up on this game. Plus, everything I have seen so far shows a very smooth look, even if the art style isn't quite what I might have gone for.
All in all, I will play this game and be very happy with the art, animations, and graphics unless these have somehow been completely misrepresented. From what I have read from people that have actually played the game though, the game looks even better during play than it does in the videos, so I am not worried.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Art style does add a little to the looks/graphics,but there is more than just the artistic layout.The lighting and quality of the textures has a huge impact on looks,you can have the most elaborate high poly model/object but if you have poor textures and crap lighting,it will look like swg.
I play FFXI and of course the game has low poly models and in lots of places low quality textures,but they made sure the important things like armour/mobs have really detailed textures so it helps to make it look better.
When i look at a lot of swtor stuff,the texture quality looks poor,this also shows in many of their effects which also look like single texture/brushes.
Using that first picture as an example,you can see the various parts that went into making that what you called squarish bland looking object.The textures on the legs look really low grade,they barely look like realistic metal,which the yare trying to portray.That is not the worst part is the upper front with the red stripe,that is a really cheap ugly texture they pasted onto that.
In that same picture,i feel the background and the sky textures are not too bad,they look pretty good.In the rest of the picture,like that tower to the right,i would be more concerned if it is just a cheap static structure with no insides or animation than if it looks good from an artistic point of view and that i don't know just from looking at the picture.However i will mention again that lighting/shaders can really spiff up the looks,just having a pure artistic style alone doesn't mean much to me.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Shrug. A lot of pictures from a year or 2 before an MMORPG launches can be bad. I've seen alpha or early beta footage of GW that looked horrible with the objects and character models that were in it, while when GW launched I thought - and still think - it was the most gorgeous MMO around at that time.
Tastes can differ, personally I like the improvements I've seen over the months. Besides that, the vast majority of the demo players are satisfied or even ecstatic about the ingame graphics, sometimes to their own surprise, so my guess is the graphics are gradually shaping up to great quality.
Of course, if someone dislikes the stylised artstyle approach BW took for SWTOR - or generally dislikes SWTOR - then those graphics won't be to his taste as well.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Although they're starting to be very good with the scenery, the artstyle for the environments, Coruscant, Hoth, the other planets, I've no complaints about.
For the character models I wish they'd chosen another 'stylised' design. The graphics are starting to look very good, the artstyle for the character models doesn't always agree with me.
Models... well, here's some feedback from the UK event:
A brief note on the graphics as well (which I realize I haven't even mentioned yet; a sign of how important it is to me perhaps). I must say that I still don't really like the character graphics. The heroic proportions just aren't to my taste and playing a character who doesn't wear bulky armor makes it more visible. That said it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would either and I can see how with longer playing I might get used to it enough to not really notice anymore.
The cartoonish or stylised looked caused some issues with taking things seriously or giving the slugs the right level of menace, they looked good but they did look like stylised slugs. My mentor is imparting words of dire warning and its hard to take them seriously as I'm thinking about my half ogres mohawk.
The only slight down side at this point was the stylised graphics now I know this is a like it or lump it point but given the dark world and talk of blood by Sith did look a little cartoonish and not the dark forboding image of either the movies or the trailers. Propotions were fine and it is hard to put my fingre on it but the dark atmosphere of a repressive sith empire out for vengence against the galaxy weren't immidently apparant he looked like he would have been at home on the farm talking about corn or some such.
Not much negative points I have to say, the only thing that bugged me a bit was graphical, as I had the slight feeling the area was a bit "monochromatic". Not in the strict sense of the term, but on Hutta where I played, everything was pretty much a shade of brown, including NPCs and Animals. It wasn't displeasing to see by all means, and I unserstand there has to be some sort of main colour related to each planet, but that's the feeling I was left with.
I found the Consular to be fun. My only grievance would be that the same bacta tank is pulled from the ground each time you cast Project. I'm sure this is a beta issue and come release we'll be flinging all manner of different shaped rocks and underground parts at our adversaries.
Running with my weapon unsheathed still looked a bit stiff as well.
Flight cut-scenes were the most dissapointing part of the game for me, the take off and flight seemed very clumbsy and unrealistic.
The big issue though was the character sheet screen which looked more like a trading card from some cartoon. Star Wars falls into a category of space fantasy which is a hard place to be
Very nice inputs Maverick, I agree that the screenshots you posted looked awesome. The quality seems inconsistant through the different screenshots but I'm sure they will work this out.
I REALLY agree with the guy who posted the text above. The graphics look too perfect and not natural enough also, not just "cartoonish". It's true that the monsters and weird creatures of the star wars world will not create an immersive experience if they look funny instead of scary...
When i look at a lot of swtor stuff,the texture quality looks poor,this also shows in many of their effects which also look like single texture/brushes.
Using that first picture as an example,you can see the various parts that went into making that what you called squarish bland looking object.The textures on the legs look really low grade,they barely look like realistic metal,which the yare trying to portray.That is not the worst part is the upper front with the red stripe,that is a really cheap ugly texture they pasted onto that.
In that same picture,i feel the background and the sky textures are not too bad,they look pretty good.In the rest of the picture,like that tower to the right,i would be more concerned if it is just a cheap static structure with no insides or animation than if it looks good from an artistic point of view and that i don't know just from looking at the picture.However i will mention again that lighting/shaders can really spiff up the looks,just having a pure artistic style alone doesn't mean much to me.
Really? For me I personally don't really like the 'art style'. The SS's in the OP, I feel in some ways demonstate one of the many issues in taking on an existing IP. If they are more creative in their interpretation of the universe they are always going to get a number of pureists who hadn't pictured it that way, being SW my guess those pureists can kill with nerdrage. It's a rock and a hard place.
That said I do like a lot of the environments and I can see the objective (within the contraints) in the avatars, as that pony guy above posted there is a specific 'look' they are going for and I feel they have achieved that pretty well, that would include what you feel are poor textures, I think that's on purpose to give that 'feel', the lighting etc in nearly everything I've seen has been top class or at the very least not distracting.
So while I can appreciate what they are going for, I just don't like it too much, but as others have said I will reserve final judgement for when it's released and I'm playing it. With the look of the environments I can live with it easily.
(Sorry for snipping your post so much)
----- The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
I think we all agree that art style is about your personal taste, so we'll all like, and appreciate different things.
Some (not all) of the screenshots appear to be of earlier builds (screenshots released back in '08 and '09) so I think they will naturally look a lot different than some of the ones we see from more recent builds, the Hoth shots were more recent, and I think that shows.
I'm definitely a fan of some of LogunOne's videos. They are definitely from a fans point of view, but he definitely does a good job illustrating where things were, and where they are now.
I think they are definitely worth taking the time to see, especially the first one, as it really does illustrate how far things have come in the past couple of years, and actually how much polish gets applied.
The artstyle is not one I want to see in a virtual world, but I think it will be fine for a casual friendly video game. To compete with WoW they don't need a great looking game, just something that runs smooth on 6 year old computers.
The artstyle is not one I want to see in a virtual world, but I think it will be fine for a casual friendly video game. To compete with WoW they don't need a great looking game, just something that runs smooth on 6 year old computers.
Generally I would agree with you, but the Warcraft IP has always been cartonish/funny (inspired by Warhammer) so WoW graphics are perfect.
Star Wars is an IP based on movies, hence a cartonish graphic is not best suited for this IP.
When i saw the first CGI trailer i was interested. The moment i saw the first ingame shots i removed the game from my bookmarks.
LOL
You may polish and decorate a turd but in the end that s what this style is for me: a turd and that s enough for me to not play this game or WoW.
LOL
Personal preference. I just cant play a serious game with such stylized graphics.
Are you serious? Did you see the screenshots Mav posted, lower on page one? I can't possibly imagine that you have. Please do so if you haven't, then return and tell us what you think.
There's been a tremendous improvement of graphics so far in the development proces (See what I did there?)
When i saw the first CGI trailer i was interested. The moment i saw the first ingame shots i removed the game from my bookmarks.
LOL
You may polish and decorate a turd but in the end that s what this style is for me: a turd and that s enough for me to not play this game or WoW.
LOL
Personal preference. I just cant play a serious game with such stylized graphics.
Are you serious? Did you see the screenshots Mav posted, lower on page one? I can't possibly imagine that you have. Please do so if you haven't, then return and tell us what you think.
There's been a tremendous improvement of graphics so far in the development proces (See what I did there?)
See now, I am going the exact opposite way as that original poster. The first shots I saw were not exactly impressive to me. Adequate, but not immpressive. The newest stuff I have seen is actually impressing me quite a bit. I think I am actually on the side of prefering it to the hyper-realistic CGI stuff I have seen lately that just never looks quite right (IMHO) in the end products.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
I have to say it looks just plain fantastic, especially in the newer builds. Great detail, high texture resolutions and beautiful art direction. I'm also very glad they dropped the over-the-top style they initially showcased when the first screenshots started appearing, with huge hands, massive lightsaber hilts etc.
I REALLY agree with the guy who posted the text above. The graphics look too perfect and not natural enough also, not just "cartoonish". It's true that the monsters and weird creatures of the star wars world will not create an immersive experience if they look funny instead of scary...
Reminded me the fat sith NPC master/lord we saw in a few videos:
I don't mind having fat characters, to the contrary it can really add to the atmosphere, however in this case it felt wrong. I'm not either very fond of the anorexic characters we saw here and there. Still for a Sith character, drained by the dark side of the force, that would be really nice. Well, as long as they don't have a baby's skin texture nor female have oversized chests too
To continue on characters proportions, contrary to some other I don't mind that much the oversized hands. It isn't beautifull either but they don't get that much in my way either.
Comments
From looking at vids i am pretty sure the world will look fantastic.
For the Avatars i have the highest demands regarding to the look and i am not sure at all that i am happy at all
Some Videos, some Armors look very well and some still look plastic, unproportinal - big thing for me be skirts that stretch in a weird way and make the textures look extreme ugly and make the animation of running apear strange.
Imho the best Male Avatar is Geralt (The Witcher) and i dont know if SWTOR gets them that good but i have no trouble to play a female Avatar if they look better (like in AoC).
The Avatar-look is even more urgent than the world look, i.e. even i play LOTRO i still have the feeling the Avs look/move ugly all the time and in only chose dwarf bcs they dont disturb me so much.
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
I highly doubt that this was posted in some other thread at the top of this forum section. Just trying to be helpful here, you know, bring some balance to your tale, I gather you'd appreciate it. So you're welcome
If your eyes bleed, I'd suggest you close them or call 911, they're very helpful with weak eyes.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
You can't please everyone. I hate the artstyle of WoW, obviously millions of players like it.
I like the artstyle of Star Wars The Old Republic. Looks good to me.
It's subjective. If you don't like it you don't. If they did something else, other people woldn't like that.
It is funny, but I think the artwork of a game is kind of situational to be honest. By this I meant that it SWTOR was a single player game, I probably would not be very happy with the art style. Mostly because I know my particular computer can handle much more intensive graphics. SWTOR however, is NOT a SPG, it's an MMO and therefore, I am very happy with the graphics. I can just imagine the latency and lag issues that would cause problems if the graphics were pumped up on this game. Plus, everything I have seen so far shows a very smooth look, even if the art style isn't quite what I might have gone for.
All in all, I will play this game and be very happy with the art, animations, and graphics unless these have somehow been completely misrepresented. From what I have read from people that have actually played the game though, the game looks even better during play than it does in the videos, so I am not worried.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Art style does add a little to the looks/graphics,but there is more than just the artistic layout.The lighting and quality of the textures has a huge impact on looks,you can have the most elaborate high poly model/object but if you have poor textures and crap lighting,it will look like swg.
I play FFXI and of course the game has low poly models and in lots of places low quality textures,but they made sure the important things like armour/mobs have really detailed textures so it helps to make it look better.
When i look at a lot of swtor stuff,the texture quality looks poor,this also shows in many of their effects which also look like single texture/brushes.
Using that first picture as an example,you can see the various parts that went into making that what you called squarish bland looking object.The textures on the legs look really low grade,they barely look like realistic metal,which the yare trying to portray.That is not the worst part is the upper front with the red stripe,that is a really cheap ugly texture they pasted onto that.
In that same picture,i feel the background and the sky textures are not too bad,they look pretty good.In the rest of the picture,like that tower to the right,i would be more concerned if it is just a cheap static structure with no insides or animation than if it looks good from an artistic point of view and that i don't know just from looking at the picture.However i will mention again that lighting/shaders can really spiff up the looks,just having a pure artistic style alone doesn't mean much to me.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Shrug. A lot of pictures from a year or 2 before an MMORPG launches can be bad. I've seen alpha or early beta footage of GW that looked horrible with the objects and character models that were in it, while when GW launched I thought - and still think - it was the most gorgeous MMO around at that time.
Tastes can differ, personally I like the improvements I've seen over the months. Besides that, the vast majority of the demo players are satisfied or even ecstatic about the ingame graphics, sometimes to their own surprise, so my guess is the graphics are gradually shaping up to great quality.
Of course, if someone dislikes the stylised artstyle approach BW took for SWTOR - or generally dislikes SWTOR - then those graphics won't be to his taste as well.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Very nice inputs Maverick, I agree that the screenshots you posted looked awesome. The quality seems inconsistant through the different screenshots but I'm sure they will work this out.
I REALLY agree with the guy who posted the text above. The graphics look too perfect and not natural enough also, not just "cartoonish". It's true that the monsters and weird creatures of the star wars world will not create an immersive experience if they look funny instead of scary...
https://i.imgur.com/Dc8dU3M.png
Really? For me I personally don't really like the 'art style'. The SS's in the OP, I feel in some ways demonstate one of the many issues in taking on an existing IP. If they are more creative in their interpretation of the universe they are always going to get a number of pureists who hadn't pictured it that way, being SW my guess those pureists can kill with nerdrage. It's a rock and a hard place.
That said I do like a lot of the environments and I can see the objective (within the contraints) in the avatars, as that pony guy above posted there is a specific 'look' they are going for and I feel they have achieved that pretty well, that would include what you feel are poor textures, I think that's on purpose to give that 'feel', the lighting etc in nearly everything I've seen has been top class or at the very least not distracting.
So while I can appreciate what they are going for, I just don't like it too much, but as others have said I will reserve final judgement for when it's released and I'm playing it. With the look of the environments I can live with it easily.
(Sorry for snipping your post so much)
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
I think we all agree that art style is about your personal taste, so we'll all like, and appreciate different things.
Some (not all) of the screenshots appear to be of earlier builds (screenshots released back in '08 and '09) so I think they will naturally look a lot different than some of the ones we see from more recent builds, the Hoth shots were more recent, and I think that shows.
I'm definitely a fan of some of LogunOne's videos. They are definitely from a fans point of view, but he definitely does a good job illustrating where things were, and where they are now.
Graphic Evolution/Comparison
Compilation of combat animations
Comparing Quests & Combat -the relevant part is the combat segment which follows the quests.
I think they are definitely worth taking the time to see, especially the first one, as it really does illustrate how far things have come in the past couple of years, and actually how much polish gets applied.
Looks like clone wars to me with smaller cheekbones.
"I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"
The artstyle is not one I want to see in a virtual world, but I think it will be fine for a casual friendly video game. To compete with WoW they don't need a great looking game, just something that runs smooth on 6 year old computers.
Generally I would agree with you, but the Warcraft IP has always been cartonish/funny (inspired by Warhammer) so WoW graphics are perfect.
Star Wars is an IP based on movies, hence a cartonish graphic is not best suited for this IP.
SWG graphics fits better Star Wars.
SWTOR just looks like a kids game
Are you serious? Did you see the screenshots Mav posted, lower on page one? I can't possibly imagine that you have. Please do so if you haven't, then return and tell us what you think.
There's been a tremendous improvement of graphics so far in the development proces (See what I did there?)
My brand new bloggity blog.
See now, I am going the exact opposite way as that original poster. The first shots I saw were not exactly impressive to me. Adequate, but not immpressive. The newest stuff I have seen is actually impressing me quite a bit. I think I am actually on the side of prefering it to the hyper-realistic CGI stuff I have seen lately that just never looks quite right (IMHO) in the end products.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
I have to say it looks just plain fantastic, especially in the newer builds. Great detail, high texture resolutions and beautiful art direction. I'm also very glad they dropped the over-the-top style they initially showcased when the first screenshots started appearing, with huge hands, massive lightsaber hilts etc.
Reminded me the fat sith NPC master/lord we saw in a few videos:
I don't mind having fat characters, to the contrary it can really add to the atmosphere, however in this case it felt wrong. I'm not either very fond of the anorexic characters we saw here and there. Still for a Sith character, drained by the dark side of the force, that would be really nice. Well, as long as they don't have a baby's skin texture nor female have oversized chests too
To continue on characters proportions, contrary to some other I don't mind that much the oversized hands. It isn't beautifull either but they don't get that much in my way either.