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Character Comparisons (Stylized vs Realism)
krulux
Member Posts: 229
The image below is an at-a-glance look at the difference between stylized and realism character from a few different MMO's.
I think many of us forgot how blocky looking EQ was when it shipped. At the time most of us thought it was awesome, of course now it looks very dated. EQ2 took the realistic characterization look, it was a huge improvement over EQ but it come at the cost of having to use a beast of a machine to get it to play smoothly. To this day I feel that hurt EQ2 in the beginning... not everyone could run the game.
World of Warcraft on the other hand, the perfect example of stylized looks - whether you like the art style or not is near timeless. I added GuildWars 1 & 2 shots for comparison as well. The original GW looked very good at launch but is is starting to show its age a bit. GW2 looks fabulous and should hold up for many years with their "painterly" look.
Looking at Everquest Next, one can see SOE wanted to ensure a long shelf-life. The models are superb, whether you like the art direction or not. The game engine should run on a multitude of computers and we should be able to get many, many of these stylized characters on the screen at one time.
Looking at the image below at-a-glance... I don't see how anyone can say the characters will not be sufficient as avatars to allow us to enjoy EQN. I feel SOE made the right choice in their stylized look. It will ensure the games looks fresh years from now.
Judging by the reveal videos, the EQN engine is far advanced over anything we played - at least as much as having all the features in one game. And we as the players will get to help shape our game world. No other MMO have ever done that. EVER. I am looking for to EQ Landmark and trying my hand a making something worthy of being submitted to EQ Next.
With all that said, I think the game-play is where EQN is going to shine the most. I am looking forward to how the actual game will play. What rules will be in place etc... It will be a magical time for us MMO'ers - if you let it.
Comments
Nice comparison, OP !
Looking at those all side-by-side, EQNext gets my vote without a shade of a doubt.
You said rightly so "as it shipped". I don't know why you don't use the updated model then though.
It's like you're trying to make EQ1 look worse than it actually is.
This is the updated high-elf:
EQN (for the female models) and GW2, both have my votes for better looking characters
I found Waldo!
You're wasting your time you know. Those that like it, like it. Those that don't, don't. There is no reasoning here. It's a matter of taste or a matter of principle. You can't convince someone to change their mind in this regard.
There's those that just don't like the stylized look and there's those that think it's not true to the EQ IP.
I don't like it because I don't think it's Everquest anymore. I like plenty of games with stylized graphics; WoW, Borderlands 2.. etc. But EQ shouldn't be like this, even if I think it looks good.. it's not EQ.
That's where I stand anyway.
the female in EQN isnt anywhere near as bad as the Kerran..
Im shuttering to think what the ogres and trolls are going to look like.
I think this is less of a testament to EQN looking well and more of a testament to EQII looking horrific. I swear, EQI looks better these days...
But, yeah, I think more people take issue with the Kerra and his giant shoulderpads.
Favorite MMO: Vanilla WoW
Currently playing: GW2, EVE
Excited for: Wildstar, maybe?
The Deep Web is sca-ry.
I think, that there is a lot of animosity towards the sylised look of the character models, but what we should be focusing on is the amount of detail the characters have!
The fun we could have with armour creation, and hopefully the character creation could lead to massive variation between players, after all, the developers would have tried to make the "prettiest" looking characters for the tech demo that they could, as that is what the industry appears to indicate they are required to do.
But when you factor in the players ability to design their own character we could be looking at some great avatars being made, even possibly a more "realistic" look.
"Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys. Look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death!"
- Sun Tzu, the Art of War
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I knid of like the lion's head. But I hope and (think there will be) a customization for character creation to where you can play with facial features.
I would not say I'm wasting time. (except for the 5 mins I tried to remove the long empty space at the bottom of the picture... /doh)
I put the comparison up because I wanted to show the EQN character graphics are more than acceptable - if some would stop and consider what we have to work with. The engine used in this game is phenomenal... and they are letting us "have" it to play with. Seriously, did playing blocky characters take away from your EQ experience? Do you think WoW would have been more successful if it had realistic graphics?
What I'm getting at... graphics are nice, but they are not the game. How many good looking MMO's and single-players games SUCK?
I also get it that some folks don't think this will be EQ. Heck, I felt the same way when EQ2 launched.. but, it was EQ and is EQ - just an extension of the original. EQN will be Everquest. It's not the game that makes it Everquest... it is the people.
I'll be glad when the naysayers either move on or come to accept their vision for the next EQ. What they are tying to do is evolutionary. EQN will change the direction of the MMO genre. I plan to be their and enjoying it.
"Youre in our world now!"
I am ok with the character models, I have to see more character models, particularly the evil, darker, or brutish ones to render full judgement.
Although the lion head definitely makes me think of Chester the Cheeto mascot, and I wouldnt mind seeing a rework of him IF he is a main character for EQ Next...then again if they dont I wont start a petition, storm their gates, or anything like that.
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The above list is all of the games that have launched or released since Everquest. I've played quite a few of them. I'm sure there are several in the list that has better looking graphics than EQN.
But I ask, how many would you play based on that? If you find any in the list that you played that has better graphics than EQN... why leave?
I tell you why - game play. How about giving the EQN team the benfit of the doubt on the graphics and lets see how this game holds up with its game play. There are only a few games on that list that I played for more than a year. There are a shit-ton of ones that I loaded and quit in the same day/week.
No other developer has tried what they are proposing with EQN. If it works, and I hope does, then we will have a bona-fide hit on our hands. I truly feel if they would have made EQ3 and had it play like EQ1 - I would have played it for years... but it would have been a niche game... because it has been done to DEATH.
Let's open our eyes a bit and see what's behind the curtain... please!
"Youre in our world now!"
Because i can.
I'm Hopeful For Every Game, Until the Fan Boys Attack My Games. Then the Knives Come Out.
Logic every gamers worst enemy.
LOL, could your post be any more biased? The ESO picture is super unclear and not at all representative of the detail and crispness of the character models. Here it is with a clear pic.
--->
There Is Always Hope!
Was hoping for this:
Instead we get:
I'll take realistic any day over stylized. Dev's have people convinced you need stylized graphics in order to achieve smooth looking animations & good performance. That's a lie. To each their own, enjoy the disney show.
Characters seems to be disappointing in comparition to other games. Maybe except Rift. Here are some of my characters from different games starting with EQ2:
EQ2 (dark elf, wood elf and human)
AoC
Aion
TSW
Rift
SWTOR
Sith Warrior - Story of Hate and Love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxKrlwXt7Ao
Imperial Agent - Rise of Cipher Nine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBBj3eJWBvU&feature=youtu.be
Imperial Agent - Hunt for the Eagle Part 1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQqjYYU128E
I really like how Black Desert looks (Minus the supermodel humans) but I cant imagine that the game will run on most of our machines to look like that...and it will probably will not perform very well in a live server environment or largescale events without serious drops in graphic settings, culling, or other tricks that pretty much take those graphics out of the equation.
That's part of the problem with PC gaming and MMOs. There are a wide range of comp specs, and they have to accommodate the average user comp specs to recoup the massive investment in building the game.
I hope Black Desert can prove that you can run a semi-realistic high end character model design without technical hiccups but I dont think we are 100% there yet. Unfortunately we can't prove or disprove either of our assumptions until a few months after Black Deserts release.
The only thing we can go on for high end graphics being possible in games is from previous MMO launches with high end graphics at the time of launch.
Then again I think the problem for most and EQ Next is more character model aesthetics and not the graphics anyhoo.
Great example, Also I love the new look, people seem to forget that MMO games that go the real look fail, and the reason is like you said, not everyone has a of beast computer, so in turn that means less players, less players means less money, less money means less content and so on.
Perfect examples are games like Age of Conan, that game failed due to needing a beast of a computer at that time to even run, it's doing better now 4 years later because now days most people have the computer to run it.
EQ2 could of beat World of Warcraft if they would of made the game more computer friendly, because of this WoW the new comer became the new King with more players, that made them more money in turn more content, SOE is not going to make that mistake again even if that means losing some players, so what if they lose the unhappy campers they will make up ten times more players for every one lost.
In the MMO world it's about the needs of the many that out weigh the needs of the few, ask the King World of Warcraft if I am wrong, I am glad Everquest Next sees it this time.
The whole Realism MMO always fail is a fallacy, there were TONS and tons of stylized MMO that failed miserably too, remember WARHAMMER online the god father of stylized fantasy? or Allods online? or dozen other heavily stylized mmo.
People always bring up Vanguard and EQ II, but seriously how many players left solely because of the "realism", not that i know most people left Vanguard (including me) because of various gameplay problems.
SWG was extremely realistic back then and imo it still looks miles ahead of SWTOR, Hell even prefer the good old KOTOR graphic over SWTOR. Shadowbane was realistic too and it looks alright.
WoW is cartoonish/heavily stylized because it is a WARCRAFT game, but on the other hand Everquest universe was never suppose to be cartoonish/Disney like.
I don't hate Cartoonized characters in mmo such as WoW or WildStar, just as you would expected fancy hair with giant swords in a Final Fantasy game.
In the end of the day i am just a grumpy EQ vet who was disappointed with SOE once again (but i still appreaciate certain direction EQN is going such as the improved AI )
There are only 3 MMO out today that have over 2 million players, all of them use a game engine that is easy on 90% of all computers, WoW, Gw2 and Neverwinter, not a single real styled MMO have even broken 1 million active players and the reason is not that they suck or that the game is bad, it's that most people do not buy computers to be gaming beast, they buy computers to just surf the internet, jump on watch Youtube, Netflix, Facebook, shop on Amazon & Ebay ect. the MMO companies that understand this seem to do well if the game if good.
Sure there were some suck ass stylized MMOs but they failed because they sucked not because they were stylized, a good personal example is when Age of Conan came out I was playing WoW, I wanted to play AoC so bad but at that time my computer could not run the game, same with EQ2 when that first came out I played it but I was lagging so bad that quit and moved to WoW when it came out and never looked back,.
Today I personally have a gaming computer that could run anything thrown at it but not everyone will buy or build a computer purely for gaming is my point, I am going to say "don't quote me" but 90% of all computer owners do not have gaming in mind, gaming is just something they would do if they could, and like I said because of this stylized MMO will always do better the any realized MMO, lets make another example, lets say World of Warcraft was a realized game, I am willing to bet my left arm that WoW would not be the game it is today.