Originally posted by daudur To me, animations and frames per second count more than "looks".
That is all part of graphics. Graphics = Textures, art direction, performance, animation and basicly any other thing you look @ on the screen.
Then EQ2 is crap i guess, becouse to most its like a slideshow. I still cant play it as well as i would like with my new pc. Its 4 months old now, but its still near the best on the market.
My biggest concern is with the game play instead of the graphics. If the game play keeps me coming back then it is a good game in my opinion. I enjoyed Asheron's Call for several years, but I always felt that the graphic engine needed to be upgraded. Too bad they waited so long to do a so-so engine upgrade.
Good graphics can enhance a game, but they can't make a poorly designed game good. Pretty pictures may attract some players, but its the featuresand content that attract me. There are 2 graphics factors that are significant for me:
The first is to have a decent variety of character appearances to choose between. Sliders are always preferable to fixed selections, but the main point is that the players should mostly look different. Having a good variety of armor is import here too.
The second thing is that the icons used for inventory and action buttons need to be recognizable and have a minimum of duplication. It really gets annoying when I have to check names to find the right item because the icons are identical.
However, its features and game content that ultimately make or break the game. A clasic example is the two version of Asheron's Call. AC1 has simple graphics, but the game play was great and the players were allowed to extend the functionality of the client. I played it for over 3 years before I decided that it was time to try something new. None of the games that I've played since then have held me for more than a year.
AC2 had some amazing graphics at the time of its release, but the game was so oversimplified that I lost interest after the first week of beta. AC1 is still doing well after 6 years, but AC2 couldn't maintain its subscriber base and has been shut down.
I'm currently playing WoW, but trying new betas as they become available. I've tried about half a dozen in the last year, and few have been impressive. Several had some interesting features, but none were as well rounded as WoW. I know some complain about WoW PvP, but that is not something that is important to me. If anything, non-consentual PvP is an annoyance for me.
One thing that I *really* like about WoW is the scripting language that lets you customize just about every aspect of the user interface. My main complaint is no user housing or player vendors like I had in SWG.
In conclusion, graphics are mainly window dressing. If you've got an ugly game, no amount of fancy decorations are going to change that. In fact, having too high a graphics requirement can be a detriment, because people with older systems won't even be able to play it.
I don't worry about the graphics. Unless is a bargain game then I don't pick up games in the store. I come to sites like MMORPG.com, the official sites and some of the fan sites for research. I don't agree with most people just going in and buying a MMO by graphics. At least not from my friends and others I know that buy. MMOs mean subscriptions so they either know about it already or go find out more. If there is people who can just spend the money on the games to try then that is great. Most people I know can't and the others generally don't just splurge like that. I remember all the discussions about WoW graphics and what they meant to people. I liked WoW graphics from the first shots I saw because reminded me of the Warcraft games. I play more tactic games than anything now besides MMOs because I am tired of the graphics looking great and gameplay not fun. SWG is a game I avoided just for that reason. It did not sound fun. Graphics looked great but I read all the information and realised the gameplay did not sound fun.
I understand why graphics can be something that will catch the eye. I don't let that decide things for me. The package for anything will always influence some things. I just know I try and make sure it is not what gets me. I won't say graphics can't be wonderful but I really do like to play a game that is fun because looks don't make fun to me.
Originally posted by daudur Then EQ2 is crap i guess, becouse to most its like a slideshow. I still cant play it as well as i would like with my new pc. Its 4 months old now, but its still near the best on the market.
What are you running for a PC? I played for about two months when it first came out, and I could run it almost at full settings with no problems. I built my comp about 2 months before EQ2 came out. Its a 3.0ghz p4 with a gig of ram, and a 128 mb gforce fx5700. Its a nice rig...but its nowhere near top of the line.
Don't get me wrong..I am not defending EQ2, it wasn't my cup of tea, but just curious as to what system you are running.
The graphics Vs gameplay argument has been around for more than 20 years. I remember the emergence of games on CDROM and lazy programmers just using all that extra disc space to put fancy cut scenes into the game. Back then the argument for gameplay over graphics was an important one.
But I feel it is no longer valid. Yes gameplay is always the MOST important part of development, but why must it be gameplay OR graphics? Why can we not now have both? Employ artists to design the look of the world, and writers to design how you interact with it. There need not be a choice to make in where to spend the money.
As for graphics, and what they add to the game. It is not simply a matter of good or bad graphics. Graphics in a game cover many areas:
World design and layout.
Color pallet.
Realism.
Special effects such as wind blowing, smoke, fire.
Lighting.
Character/NPC/monster textures, both in terms of variety, detail and realism.
Animations.
Attention to detail in certain places, towns, cities.
Good graphics CAN add to the gameplay. For example; you should be able to tell what kind of class a mob is by the clothes they wear, and you should be able to tell how good their armor is, chain/plate, etc. You should be able to see if it will aggro on you, without the need for non immersive text messages, or symbols over the mobs head. The way it is animated should show how injured it is, or how skilled.
There are also natural effects. DnL claims to have real weather, that actually affects games play. You SHOULD move more slowly over snow than over grass, and more quickly still along a path. Wind SHOULD affect your aim, with bow. So you SHOULD be able to see leaves blowing from left to right and adjust your aim accordingly.
Up to now games have NOT been this clever, so we fall back on old tricks, but new games will hopefully start to do these sorts of things.
Mostly though graphics add to immersion, overall experience. To me the perfect blend would be a mix of the photo realistc textures of EQ2 with the more fantasy sytle of WoW. Take those forests in WoW, with great lighting, and various ruins, but give them more realistic textures. I like to feel I am actually in a real forest, but here and there fantasy elements emerge. That is how LOTR was written and how Peter Jackson shot the movies. A real looking meadow, but unreal looking hobbit holes dug into it, yet blended so well they look right.
Take the cartoony more fantastic player skins in WoW, but make the armor more realistic, leather or chain or plate. Metal objects that give off real reflections, platemail, swords and axes, leather that moves stiffly, creaks, cloth, especially cloaks, that flow, billow, ripple in the breeze.
The game should be about immersion, in ALL areas, sound, vision, interaction and gameplay.
Graphics are nice eye candy but do not make the game. It is the gameplay that makes the game. Take games like COH & L2 both very good graphics but poor gameplay (In my opinion). I am waiting on Dark & Light and it has ok graphics probably average grphx compared to games on market today but dark & light has so many features.
Finduilas nailed it. The graphics should be an aid to emmersion, not eye-candy. I want to "see" what characters are doing, thinking, and feeling - not read it in a comic-bubble or chat-pane. If photo-realism helps me feel like I'm in another world, then bring it on. But if it's just eye candy and I have to look away at my icons or chat screens to see what's going on in this other world, then it's wasted because the more you look at the eye-candy, the more you get killed.
I agree with Andree Ehrig's comments on "do graphics make a game?" But it's funny how past games addicted us all like the Fallout series (personal opinion) RPG. That game certainly didn't have graphics as good as WOW or EQ2 ; so what was it that grabbed so many people, causing them to rant and rave about the quality of the game??? What is it that makes a truly good game? I think it's the "newness factor." With each generation of games graphical improvements occur due to better video card technologies and gaming design philosophies. Also people are attracted to a "mood" or an intrinsic feeling that grabs them into the game. I see graphics as a vechicle/tool to created this, but if used alone without good game design then you get a beautiful looking car that you can't even drive?! I really think the next generation of game designers have to go far beyond the current games on the market to develope new games that are innovative and think outside-of-the-box; otherwise we'll all be eating the same "food" over and over again, just cooked differently.
Please note I used the above game Fallout as an example. There many other past games that can be applied to the same reasoning.
Originally posted by XoO_Endless I like my games to look good. MMOs and RPGs more so than any other type of game. And i'll tell you why, because MMOs and RPGs are all about the experience and the atmosphere of your undertakings while playing your role. For me gameplay should never be a visible element in a game where you play a role, let me explain. I play MMOs because i like to detach myself from my real life worries and commitments and play a rewarding intresting experience i can relate to. Gameplay is a part of this. Graphics are a part of this. Genre is as much a part of my gaming experience as gameplay and graphics, but is rarely mentioned because it is a property of a game that is solely personal preference based. WoW for me was nothing special, it was/is tired and dated at release date, nothing new. What it did do extremely well was bring in a portion of the gaming community that had barelyplayed an MMO before. It appealed to the masses far more effectively than any other MMO so far, and it didn't do it through gameplay, because the gameplay is the same as the majority of MMO with a few tweaks to make it more easilly accessible. WoW is a great game to start with as your first MMO. Ok i digress, i've strayed off topic a bit. WoW's looks, it's graphics. Are familiar, they are friendly visuals. The animation i personally thought was horrible, the number of frames in the animation was, for me, archaic and no better or worse than diablo2. WoWs graphical success shows in it's surroundings, the backdrops and atmosphere created in the areas you explore. It's ability to create a sense of wonder and involvement. There are a lot of games that do not do this. yes they have detailed landscapes and realistic trees etc. But they dont create an enjoyable atmospehere to be in. This is what WoW does best. Gameplay. Tied closely with content. If anything has bee clarified in this thread, it's that after the initial draw, gameplay keeps you in a game. Not the graphics. For the first half or 2/3 of your MMO experience, gameplay is barely a factor, it can be simple, it can be mundane. What it needs to be for me, is evolving. If my gameplay options barely change thoughout my adventuring career, im going to feel less inclined to keep developing my character and progressing in the game. WoW's main gameplay progression is with it's equipment, many other games share this thesis. And i personally dont like it. A development based on aquiring itamz is fickle and ultimately flawed. because it essentially means that to further character development is a simple fact of increasing the number of items in the game. Not for me i'm afraid. Countless games take this route and it is their downfall compared with the new titles that are up and coming in the next 6 months. The games on the horizon are heavilly focused on community and character development. Equipment is a factor but it isn't the focus. Gameplay is a double edge sword for me, because it can very easilly alienate your subscribers. The initial draw for a game being the visuals and the initial basic gameplay mechanics soon die out when the meat of the gameplay comes in halfway through your characters life. And it's nothing like what the gamer was expecting. To summarise, visuals are important for the first half of the game and to hook the gamer before the meat of the gameplay kicks in. The initial basic concept of the gameplay is just as important but gamers are often content with a 'hack slash' approach to the first half of the game. Once the game really gets going the visuals are more or less forgotten and the gameplay is what keeps the player intrested. The most successful games for me are games that have gameplay that is dynamically evolved by the players themselves. This includes things such as base development in CoV, the tactics employed by guilds in Guild Wars. The RvR in DaoC, the continuing fight to keep your territory and gain symbols of respect and power from your opposition. Thats what keeps me in a game.
Excellent. I totally agree with Xo0_Endless. Game developers need to break out of the "stale" repeated game design of "item based questing." Someone needs to come along and "re-invent-the-wheel" and produce game content that is NEW and innovative. Not just the hack and slash/leveling merry-go-round games we keep seeing. I'm not advocating scraping these game designs altogether because many people love, depending on your age, this type of game content. If I was a game designer I would try my best to break out of the old "paradigms" of game design that Endless points out and use the newest graphics technologies to produce awesome ground-breaking games. I could elaborate on my thoughts on game design but it would require hundreds of pages and would be off topic for this post.
Nice article. While I mostly agree with you, I disagree with you on 2 points.
Graphics are important, but not *quite* as important as you make them out to be. Graphics indeed matter a lot with first impression, but ultimately it's always gameplay that rules, and that goes for all games, not just mmogs.
besides that, the design and graphics of WoW are not the first reason it's such a hit (tho I agree it does help) it's brand reconition first and foremost that made it into a hit, and attracted so many new players to the mmog scene. a reasoning that's only confirmed by the endless sequels that're produced both by the games industry and Hollywood...
I do think this essay sums up the importance of graphics in an mmo quite well.
A perfect example of what's being said here is Guild Wars. I quite honesly doubt it would be seeing the success it has thus far if it didn't have the amazing graphics it does. Call it what you will, but with the current market for game development it couldn't really be any other way. Sure, GW would still likely draw a loyal croud of hardcore PvP fans, but the game would remain one-demensional in that regard. Who can honestly say they'd play through the PvE content of the game had it been made with poor / subpar graphics ??
( look at RYL as an example here ... a game released within the same timeframe with a heavy PvP focus, yet is so substandard in the graphics department that you can't honestly tell me hasn't done poorly on the sales end as a result )
Comments
That is all part of graphics. Graphics = Textures, art direction, performance, animation and basicly any other thing you look @ on the screen.
Then EQ2 is crap i guess, becouse to most its like a slideshow. I still cant play it as well as i would like with my new pc. Its 4 months old now, but its still near the best on the market.
My biggest concern is with the game play instead of the graphics. If the game play keeps me coming back then it is a good game in my opinion. I enjoyed Asheron's Call for several years, but I always felt that the graphic engine needed to be upgraded. Too bad they waited so long to do a so-so engine upgrade.
Good graphics can enhance a game, but they can't make a poorly designed game good. Pretty pictures may attract some players, but its the featuresand content that attract me. There are 2 graphics factors that are significant for me:
The first is to have a decent variety of character appearances to choose between. Sliders are always preferable to fixed selections, but the main point is that the players should mostly look different. Having a good variety of armor is import here too.
The second thing is that the icons used for inventory and action buttons need to be recognizable and have a minimum of duplication. It really gets annoying when I have to check names to find the right item because the icons are identical.
However, its features and game content that ultimately make or break the game. A clasic example is the two version of Asheron's Call. AC1 has simple graphics, but the game play was great and the players were allowed to extend the functionality of the client. I played it for over 3 years before I decided that it was time to try something new. None of the games that I've played since then have held me for more than a year.
AC2 had some amazing graphics at the time of its release, but the game was so oversimplified that I lost interest after the first week of beta. AC1 is still doing well after 6 years, but AC2 couldn't maintain its subscriber base and has been shut down.
I'm currently playing WoW, but trying new betas as they become available. I've tried about half a dozen in the last year, and few have been impressive. Several had some interesting features, but none were as well rounded as WoW. I know some complain about WoW PvP, but that is not something that is important to me. If anything, non-consentual PvP is an annoyance for me.
One thing that I *really* like about WoW is the scripting language that lets you customize just about every aspect of the user interface. My main complaint is no user housing or player vendors like I had in SWG.
In conclusion, graphics are mainly window dressing. If you've got an ugly game, no amount of fancy decorations are going to change that. In fact, having too high a graphics requirement can be a detriment, because people with older systems won't even be able to play it.
I don't worry about the graphics. Unless is a bargain game then I don't pick up games in the store. I come to sites like MMORPG.com, the official sites and some of the fan sites for research. I don't agree with most people just going in and buying a MMO by graphics. At least not from my friends and others I know that buy. MMOs mean subscriptions so they either know about it already or go find out more. If there is people who can just spend the money on the games to try then that is great. Most people I know can't and the others generally don't just splurge like that. I remember all the discussions about WoW graphics and what they meant to people. I liked WoW graphics from the first shots I saw because reminded me of the Warcraft games. I play more tactic games than anything now besides MMOs because I am tired of the graphics looking great and gameplay not fun. SWG is a game I avoided just for that reason. It did not sound fun. Graphics looked great but I read all the information and realised the gameplay did not sound fun.
I understand why graphics can be something that will catch the eye. I don't let that decide things for me. The package for anything will always influence some things. I just know I try and make sure it is not what gets me. I won't say graphics can't be wonderful but I really do like to play a game that is fun because looks don't make fun to me.
What are you running for a PC? I played for about two months when it first came out, and I could run it almost at full settings with no problems. I built my comp about 2 months before EQ2 came out. Its a 3.0ghz p4 with a gig of ram, and a 128 mb gforce fx5700. Its a nice rig...but its nowhere near top of the line.
Don't get me wrong..I am not defending EQ2, it wasn't my cup of tea, but just curious as to what system you are running.
The graphics Vs gameplay argument has been around for more than 20 years. I remember the emergence of games on CDROM and lazy programmers just using all that extra disc space to put fancy cut scenes into the game. Back then the argument for gameplay over graphics was an important one.
But I feel it is no longer valid. Yes gameplay is always the MOST important part of development, but why must it be gameplay OR graphics? Why can we not now have both? Employ artists to design the look of the world, and writers to design how you interact with it. There need not be a choice to make in where to spend the money.
As for graphics, and what they add to the game. It is not simply a matter of good or bad graphics. Graphics in a game cover many areas:
World design and layout.
Color pallet.
Realism.
Special effects such as wind blowing, smoke, fire.
Lighting.
Character/NPC/monster textures, both in terms of variety, detail and realism.
Animations.
Attention to detail in certain places, towns, cities.
Good graphics CAN add to the gameplay. For example; you should be able to tell what kind of class a mob is by the clothes they wear, and you should be able to tell how good their armor is, chain/plate, etc. You should be able to see if it will aggro on you, without the need for non immersive text messages, or symbols over the mobs head. The way it is animated should show how injured it is, or how skilled.
There are also natural effects. DnL claims to have real weather, that actually affects games play. You SHOULD move more slowly over snow than over grass, and more quickly still along a path. Wind SHOULD affect your aim, with bow. So you SHOULD be able to see leaves blowing from left to right and adjust your aim accordingly.
Up to now games have NOT been this clever, so we fall back on old tricks, but new games will hopefully start to do these sorts of things.
Mostly though graphics add to immersion, overall experience. To me the perfect blend would be a mix of the photo realistc textures of EQ2 with the more fantasy sytle of WoW. Take those forests in WoW, with great lighting, and various ruins, but give them more realistic textures. I like to feel I am actually in a real forest, but here and there fantasy elements emerge. That is how LOTR was written and how Peter Jackson shot the movies. A real looking meadow, but unreal looking hobbit holes dug into it, yet blended so well they look right.
Take the cartoony more fantastic player skins in WoW, but make the armor more realistic, leather or chain or plate. Metal objects that give off real reflections, platemail, swords and axes, leather that moves stiffly, creaks, cloth, especially cloaks, that flow, billow, ripple in the breeze.
The game should be about immersion, in ALL areas, sound, vision, interaction and gameplay.
Graphics are nice eye candy but do not make the game. It is the gameplay that makes the game. Take games like COH & L2 both very good graphics but poor gameplay (In my opinion). I am waiting on Dark & Light and it has ok graphics probably average grphx compared to games on market today but dark & light has so many features.
The graphics suck you in, but the gameplay keeps you there.
I'm sorry, but if a game looks like crap most people aren't going to give it a second look. I can't get into a game I think looks like hell.
Joined - July 2004
Finduilas nailed it. The graphics should be an aid to emmersion, not eye-candy. I want to "see" what characters are doing, thinking, and feeling - not read it in a comic-bubble or chat-pane. If photo-realism helps me feel like I'm in another world, then bring it on. But if it's just eye candy and I have to look away at my icons or chat screens to see what's going on in this other world, then it's wasted because the more you look at the eye-candy, the more you get killed.
'nuff said.
I agree with Andree Ehrig's comments on "do graphics make a game?" But it's funny how past games addicted us all like the Fallout series (personal opinion) RPG. That game certainly didn't have graphics as good as WOW or EQ2 ; so what was it that grabbed so many people, causing them to rant and rave about the quality of the game??? What is it that makes a truly good game? I think it's the "newness factor." With each generation of games graphical improvements occur due to better video card technologies and gaming design philosophies. Also people are attracted to a "mood" or an intrinsic feeling that grabs them into the game. I see graphics as a vechicle/tool to created this, but if used alone without good game design then you get a beautiful looking car that you can't even drive?! I really think the next generation of game designers have to go far beyond the current games on the market to develope new games that are innovative and think outside-of-the-box; otherwise we'll all be eating the same "food" over and over again, just cooked differently.
Please note I used the above game Fallout as an example. There many other past games that can be applied to the same reasoning.
Nice article.
While I mostly agree with you, I disagree with you on 2 points.
Graphics are important, but not *quite* as important as you make them out to be.
Graphics indeed matter a lot with first impression, but ultimately it's always gameplay that rules,
and that goes for all games, not just mmogs.
besides that, the design and graphics of WoW are not the first reason it's such a hit (tho I agree it does help) it's brand reconition first and foremost that made it into a hit, and attracted so many new players to the mmog scene. a reasoning that's only confirmed by the endless sequels that're produced both by the games industry and Hollywood...
I do think this essay sums up the importance of graphics in an mmo quite well.
A perfect example of what's being said here is Guild Wars. I quite honesly doubt it would be seeing the success it has thus far if it didn't have the amazing graphics it does. Call it what you will, but with the current market for game development it couldn't really be any other way. Sure, GW would still likely draw a loyal croud of hardcore PvP fans, but the game would remain one-demensional in that regard. Who can honestly say they'd play through the PvE content of the game had it been made with poor / subpar graphics ??
( look at RYL as an example here ... a game released within the same timeframe with a heavy PvP focus, yet is so substandard in the graphics department that you can't honestly tell me hasn't done poorly on the sales end as a result )