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Graphics are important to me.
PapaLazarou
Member Posts: 502
I mean a mix of both artisic and Technical because I can't play a game that has smudged nasty dated textures with triangles everywhere and I can't play a game which is bland and generic which has no personality to it. The reason is because I'm going to be spending hours each week playing a game and exploring the world then I want something to care about. I can't care about playing a character I think looks like shit like the Vanguard character models and I can't play a class which has bad looking armour and poor spell effects and animations because then that character isn't kool and badass. Another this is that I want to explore the world and find kool places to look at and I can't care about a world which is generic and boring because then I don't give a shit about exploring it.
So for me graphics are very important and I'm going to use two examples here.
World.
WOW
Beautifully made world which made me want to keep exploring it and seeing new areas just because Blizzard have done such a fantastic job on designing the world and the seemless transitions. I loved walking out of the Forest and going into Westfall and seeing the beaches and the mines. Then going to see the rocky landscapes of redridge and then into Duskwood with the horror woody feeling and finally into STV with a very Aztec jungle feel to it.
EQ2
I started on the Isle and it was really nicely made but had a real fake feeling to it because it felt more like a game map than a world like how WOW felt. I get into Qeynos and it was really nice again but had a fake feleing to it because of all the zoning which ruined it sooo much. Then I got into Boring antonica which was just bland and generic with horrible quests and didn't make you want to explore. Finally into TS which was even worse and probably the worst zone I've ever been into becuase it's soo barren boring. Me like lots of others quit the game at the level 20 - 30 point because of these poor zones and didn't make youw ant to explore the fake bland world.
Character and Class choices.
WOW
The races all looked nice and there was something for everyone, all felt different from eachother which is important and gave you something you could care about and want to advance through the levels. I thought the armour was all badass and really great looking for each class and now they have some crazy designs, I specially like the Warlock stuff and Blizzard have just done such a great job on it all.
With WOW I thought had done classes better than any other game because they all were unique from eachother and really simple to understand, you knew what you wanted to be from the moment you got into the game. They all played really fun and all had really kool animations and spell effects and were just perfect in my eyes. I could pick any class and have such fun with them but most importantly to me I could find one class I loved more than the others and want to play that with my character.
EQ2
The races all looked plastic with nasty skin textures and body shapes and aloty of the races had the most ugly faces I've ever seen until Vanguard. I remember there was only like two good looking races which were rantonga and Lizard Men things because they didn't look like dolls. However I didn't want to be one of those cause I don't want to be a rat or a Lizard lol. With the new models they brought in just look shite too because they have this horrible asain style look, only they don't look as good as proper asian games because it's SOE and they can't do art for some reason. For example look at the Dark Elf or the Ogre models because they just look terrible and even worse than what they already had in the game. The American model of the Human Female is the worst thing ever though it looks likes shes fat and on drugs.
EQ2 has something like 16- 24 classes and this is way too many because they all feel very bland and none of them are fun to play and its sooo frecking hard to play one you can have fun with. I ended up going through several and then thinking "fuck this game" because I couldn't find a good one and got bored of serching. The armour aswel is just soooo horrible in this game because while the original stuff was boring they've just added some stupid looking stuff in the game now trying to copy WOW's art style only failing because it all looks dumb and plastic.
This is a perfect example of how Graphics make or break a game for me.
Comments
graphics matter to me too. I see a lot of people say that graphics don't mean anything, but to me I want great game play and decent graphics. I want the full package and experience. If crysis had graphics of the original far cry, then I wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much as I did.
animations are also incredibly important to me too.
I understand what you're saying I too enjoy nice graphics but to use a dated game like WoW as an example is laughable.
Any of the newer mmo's that came out after WoW have a better looking game world and games like Lotro, AoC and TR kill wow in character graphics.
Maybe you don't like realistic graphics? then say you only like cartoon stylized graphics then.
WoW is a four year old game the graphics are terrible.
However graphics aren't everything in WoW the combat is really good and the game is really easy to get into this is why people play that game.
WoW must have been your first mmo? my brother is the same way he's so used to WoWs cartoon network graphics he can't play a realistic looking MMO.
Thats fine, next time try to use a good looking game if you're going to argue about graphics being important.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
While graphics can be important, I think the one thing that needs more attention is gameplay; when everything plays pretty much the same, the genre gets boring.
Graphics are important, I mean when I first played the NES I thought it was amazing graphics compared to my Atari, but there comes a point where I prefer gameplay over graphics, as long as the graphics are decent and since decent graphics are more common nowadays it's easier to nitpick over gameplay, UO for example, for todays standards, horrible graphics, I won't be playing that game anytime soon but at the time it was great because it had a very realistic feel, non-cartoony, then when EQ and Asheron's Call came out all the trendites jumped on the bandwagon and left UO, well I never played those games except the AC beta, and they were okay but never really preferred the graphics because I was waiting for a 3d game that had realistic graphics, WoW never did that for me, it was still cartoony, but Warhammer looks to have amazing graphics and be a fantasy world with a good enough variety of races that I'll play it, but if it's gameplay sucks even the best graphics in the world can't fool me into paying 15 bucks a month.
--- Razimus
I've played around 10 MMO's and I have to say I thought FFXI had the overall best graphics i've seen. Not glitchy, very very polished and more realistic than WoW. People don't give WoW's graphics enough credit, while cartoony they are pretty good especially for what hardware is required to run them.
Current MMO: WoW/GW2
I played WOW, LOTRO and TR and i found that WOW has the best "graphics". Sure, TR/LOTR have models with higher polygon count but they don't look as pleasing to the eye. It is all about art direction, not raw processing power.
I agree with the OP. WOW characters, particuarly the animation, have a lot more "character" than the more generic looking, although more detailed, characters in LOTRO & TR.
Sorry but WoW looks like shit imo, if you couldn't play a game without good graphics you wouldn't be playing that.
Edit: In fact you wouldn't be playing any mmorpg.
2 different art styles. If that is hard to understand then let me make it more easy.
WoW=Cartoon Network(Billy and Mandy show or Dexters Laboratory)
EQ2, Lotro, TR, and AoC=Anime(Avatar, Samurai Champloo, Bleach, Naruto, Afro Samurai)
Now I hope that is understandable by all. They are both different in art styles, one is IMO done for little kids(Cartoon Network) and the other attracts both little kids and more adult people.
If we forgot about art styles and just talked about graphcs in general then WoW would be in the bottom of this short list:
EQ2, Lotro, AoC,TR
WoW, Wizard101, Istaria, Knight Online
Everyone has so many differant tastes on graphics it almost seems unreal, wow has its own style but many find the animations lacking while the graphic look great for the style, on top of that there are alot of the same skills over and over unlike games like lotro, but I think you might be wrong about the world, each area felt small and looked almost the same to me, I never was astonished by the landscapes you want real beautiful looking landscapes look at oblivion or even lotro for that matter.
Eq2 even has more interesting landscape then wow, now I cannot speak for the expansion so maybe they fixed that but the classic version I dont think so. But I agree the character models arent all that great but I think for many the world and animations are more important then the character models, lotro doesnt have the best looking character models either but I still love the animations, spells, and world.
Actually, graphics are important to all of us...even those who (for some absolutly idiotic reason) are ashamed to admit it - elsewise they'd be playing MUDs.
All MMOGs fail in the art department as far as I'm concerned! I'll be somewhat satisfied when MMOGs have graphics like those in Crysis.
In the future we'll see MMOG development teams of 1,000+ people...most of them artists and designers doing nothing but creating new content!
agreed.
Too bad Wow costs so dam much, but hey any 100% free game will have a graphic flaw if its 3d. after playing it for 3-5 years it seems like nothing comes nearly as close to it.
I like great graphics too but only if they don't interfere with the gameplay.......
Most of the new games with good graphics have run like crap.
I am all for fantastic graphics but if your game runs like crap you can keep those beautiful pixels all to yourself.
Most of the new games with good graphics have run like crap.
I am all for fantastic graphics but if your game runs like crap you can keep those beautiful pixels all to yourself.
Well, that can oly be because 2 things:
1. Your computer (Hardware, setting, drivers or something like spywares that sucks resources) or
2. Bad programming.
MMOs need to give us the same graphics as all other games give us. Yes, Blizzard are minimalistic, took them quite long to move into 3D graphics and they are not in the race to brig us good graphics now either eve though they are great o cocept art. The best looking game I seen yet is AoC (but it only runs really good on Vista because it really need more than 2 gigs to run at good fps and you have to tune your xp to allow that quite a bit). And it's not really enough either, games should look better tha AoC.
Someone also said that avatars aren't that importat and I don't agree, avatars are. Also details, both with characters and ladscape are important. Like finding something in the middle of nowhere that's just there to add flavor, not something to do with any quest.
And I prefer EQ2 before wow, just look on a detail like water. I would say that wows concept art is better but eQ2 still wins. And anyways both of the game are really old ad wow didnt have that great graphics from the start, just look on Guildwars that was released the same year, it looks a lot better.
I like great graphics too, but not at the expense of crappy peformance or heavily instanced worlds. Also, for some reason when games try to be 'realistic' they end up looking flat, bland and just boring. I think realistic can be done well, we just haven't seen it yet.
Uh huh. What about the ones who do play MUDs? Or the ones who recognize that a well designed clickable 2d interface can communicate information faster both ways than walls of text, regardless of how pretty it looks?
No matter what, most of the game takes place in your imagination. Graphics are just symbolic. Have you all considered that ten years from now, the graphics you insist are so awesome and realistic might look as fake to you as the graphics from ten years ago do now? We construct the game world in our imagination. The graphics are just an aid. They may help some people, but they're hardly the most important thing. I have no idea why people will play and enjoy a game for months, then the next year laugh at a game that has similar graphics. What happened to your imagination in that year?
If you're building an mmorpg, or if you'd like to share ideas or talk about this industry, visit Multiplayer Worlds.
It's true that everyone likes different art styles. I also enjoy the WoW art a great deal even though it uses lower poly models then games like EQ2 and others. Blizzard artist took what they were give and made the most of it. Others were given higher poly models to work in their games, but ended up making not so appealing models (at least to me). The great thing about this is Blizzards game does not take a lot of power to run and it still looks more appealing then most of the MMOs out there IMO.
Graphics can blow me. I'd rather play a mud than any of these trash games that come out now days.
Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics. Screw graphics.
I've seen movies before, they are cool, but I want to play a game. Bottom line, anyone with enough brains to tie their own shoes will have more fun with a game in which the developers spend 90% of their time on gameplay and the rest on graphics than in a game where they spend 10% of their time on gameplay and the rest on graphics.
If you can make something amazing looking with that 10% then fine, that's even better, kudos to you, but it better have only been 10%
"It is in your nature to do one thing correctly; Before me, you rightfully tremble. But, fear is not what you owe me. You owe me awe." ~Francis Dolarhyde
I have tryed so many really nice looking MMOs. But i have always gotten the same problem: There is nothing to do with the graphic. Almost as the developers have thought that i should be pleased with the graphic..and nothing more!
Ofcourse do i want good graphic, but never for the price of the gameplay.
WOW has outstanding graphics. Of course not everybody will like them, but from an artistic point of view, being as objective as one can be, the art style of WOW is outstanding.
I strongly agree with OP.
Great .. why don't u just leave and go back to the MUD-land? This is MMORPG site, not a MUD site.
SOE has bad art because SOE's HR department is run by idiots who cannot select candidates. They select more based on personality and personal relationships then actual skill and dedication. The models you see are a joke and incredibly wasteful. Its like they have no design put into them. The models shouldn't even be that hard since its only 3 texture maps. They lack in all areas including detail.