WoW ...... at this point the only hope I have for the game is that it brings new ideas to the genera. I can certainly respect the risks associated with the sandboxy direction they have taken. I cannot however get past the stylized art direction they chose.
Perhaps another company can take some of the good ideas and create a game geared more towards adults.
Perhaps another company can take some of the good ideas and create a game geared more towards adults
This statement suggests it would not be a game aimed at you. Seriously if you think this graphic style is meant for children you are just being silly. Judging a game off of a few pre alpha screenshots also suggests a lack of maturity.
Originally posted by DMKano look at the size of the EQN team, its TINY - a major AAA game would have over 200 devs
when has any SOE mmo had 200 devs?
you claiming that SOE has never made a AAA mmo?
Look at the EQ2 credits - more than 200 folks
Also a AAA today and a AAA game 14 years ago are *vastly* different.
To get a AAA MMO done today it takes a much smaller team and less devs because games have gotten a lot more complex and technology is made easier to use, and the devs make a lot more today.
So don't make a mistake that a major AAA can not be done with a small dev team.
This is why we can't have nice things in the MMO genre and we are on Generic MMO #23. Seriously... They are giving us all kinds of super interesting systems and mechanics; they had to compromise on the graphics so people could actually run the damn thing.
Or would you all rather have FFXIV 1.0 again? Where they spend more on graphics than actually gameplay.
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
Seriously, If no one told me its from eqn i would think its from wow. Someone said eq2's graphics are awful for today's standard, but i'd rather have an in game house with eq2's graphic instead of these things.... actually i wouldnt want to stay in the house at all if it will be looking like this.. even if the gameplay is good.
Originally posted by Vunak23 This is why we can't have nice things in the MMO genre and we are on Generic MMO #23. Seriously... They are giving us all kinds of super interesting systems and mechanics; they had to compromise on the graphics so people could actually run the damn thing. Or would you all rather have FFXIV 1.0 again? Where they spend more on graphics than actually gameplay.
Yep. They have given us so many great snippets of info about true next generation things they are trying to do with the game. Yet some people are saying I won't play because I didn't like the pre-alpha picture of the wall that someone that isn't even in the art design department drew with the alpha version of landmark. It is just silly.
People are getting bored of the unimmersive cartoony graphics in the same way that they are getting bored from the repeatable linear premade content.
Too bad SOE failed to see that.
And lets just don't hear again that ppl are still playing wow for the graphics... lol. Get your facts straight.
Cartoony type of graphics tend to last a lot longer than ultra realism.
Say SoE went the route of realistic graphics, that they really wanted to make EQN look beautiful with realistc characters, as soon as the next video card comes out and the photorealism can go up, what will end up happening is the game will instantly look dated.
If you take as an example GTA IV and GTA V, i think that you will get the point. They said they want EQN to last many many years so you could say that this is a smart move.
I can honestly say I joked about the graphics but the 2 cartoony characters didn't REALLY annoy me. They weren't ideal but they were livable.
But these look terribad. I am pretty turned off by them. Hopefully they will jack up the quality over the dev cycle.
Now that sounds like someone without any vision or imagination, just like my wife. I took my wife to see an old rundown house, she saw an old rundown house, I saw Potential.
It seems so many ppl have lost thier imaginations, Landmark has endless possibilties, yet some ppl are judging it by some screenshots!! For heavens sake get your hands dirty first before writing it off.
I am really looking forward to trying my hand at this standalone EQ product, and I know many of my guild friends who play other MMO's are just as intrigued to see what they can do with it, alot of them already run Minecraft servers and are already dreaming up concepts to create.
If people don't like the way the game looks, then it's a legitimate issue for them. Not exactly kosher of you to deny them validity of their own tastes. Normally, I would just say to heck with it and give it a try anyway, no matter how ugly it looks, but after so many years in World of Warcraft, the last thing I want is a look-alike game. I want something fresh to look at on my gaming screen, so I've already written off both EQN and Wildstar and I'm anxiously awaiting Star Citizen and Archeage.
People are getting bored of the unimmersive cartoony graphics in the same way that they are getting bored from the repeatable linear premade content.
Too bad SOE failed to see that.
And lets just don't hear again that ppl are still playing wow for the graphics... lol. Get your facts straight.
Cartoony type of graphics tend to last a lot longer than ultra realism.
Say SoE went the route of realistic graphics, that they really wanted to make EQN look beautiful with realistc characters, as soon as the next video card comes out and the photorealism can go up, what will end up happening is the game will instantly look dated.
If you take as an example GTA IV and GTA V, i think that you will get the point. They said they want EQN to last many many years so you could say that this is a smart move.
That is a false assumption. No one had problems with SWG, despite its age, it was a great looking game that was realistic. I'll take EQ2's dated realism over WoW's anyday. Whether a game looks dated or not is all in the eyes of the beholder and no style has an edge in that regard.
I don't want to rain on some good ideas but does it not look like everything is just an EQ2 update they thought they could turn into a new game adding in a couple new ideas?Don't the graphics still look like they were made in EQ2?
There is the mention of architecture but all the pics show flat ceilings with the ONLY architecture being in the doorways but even those are really cheap because they have no moving doors.This is really a throwback to before even EQ2 was released ,so imo they are trying to pawn off old material with the added gimmicks of Voxel and some new emotes when travelling.
Obviously it is still way too early,i have not given up hope because i was quite happy when EQ2 came out,i thought it was a great advancement in the 3D MMORPG genre but so far i am very skeptical on everything NEXT.
So far for me at least Next is a lot of hype/talk but they have shown me nothing that makes me anticipate the game,it just has me on the fence.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Ok ask yourself this: how many times did you see the graphics of a MMO change CONSIDERABLY from beta to launch?
I mean, honestly.
I can't remember one single time.
And we had this discussion 200 times, like "oh it's just beta, it will look better".
No. It won't. And sorry I am a visual person, and I do not feel like gameplay trumps graphics. Can I haz actually both? Sorry, but at least I can't play a visually unappealing game, no matter now great the "gameplay" may be. If that were so we all still play text adventures!
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Yeah it's a bit cartoony, a bit chunky, a bit clean, and does remind one of WoW... so what's the problem? If they deliver on gameplay even people who don't like the graphics will give it a shot. If your complaint is on art-style... well now would be a good time to move on, it's not gonna suddenly look like AoC.
Ok ask yourself this: how many times did you see the graphics of a MMO change CONSIDERABLY from beta to launch?
I mean, honestly.
I can't remember one single time.
And we had this discussion 200 times, like "oh it's just beta, it will look better".
No. It won't. And sorry I am a visual person, and I do not feel like gameplay trumps graphics. Can I haz actually both? Sorry, but at least I can't play a visually unappealing game, no matter now great the "gameplay" may be. If that were so we all still play text adventures!
Well.. then i am really astonished that you have played MMOs at all. Because graphically they were all behind the cutting edge graphical single player games.. like any of the crysis games at their time.
For me graphic is important, but not that much, that i would not play a game with unique or superior gameplay.. games like Minecraft, Dwarfen Fortress, Ultima Online(at their time) and other. But thats me.
And for EQN.. it looks a lot better than Minecraft, and not really worse than any other recent MMO. Look, i always favoured games with a more seamless world over heavily instanced and limited (Age of Conan) just because of graphical reasons.
Edit:
And just a sidenote/question. Does EQN really look worst than Wildstar? Which do both have a similar graphical style? And although ESO is realistic, but does it look better? My answers to both are no, neither Wildstar looks better, nor ESO from a graphical standpoint.. of course you can always favor realistic over stylized, but that is a different question.
I'm sure there are people at SOE laughing their asses out loud at all the educated posts by business gurus in these fora; SOE out of money for EQN? Are you serious man? This is their flagship and you think they would be short of money? They'll keep pumping as much as it takes till launch. And yes, Sony CAN PUMP AS MUCH AS IT TAKES.
Now if it fails AFTER launch (I doubt it), that's another issue.
SOE never pumped as much as other AAA mmo developer into their games.
Originally posted by Nadia
Originally posted by DMKano look at the size of the EQN team, its TINY - a major AAA game would have over 200 devs
when has any SOE mmo had 200 devs?
you claiming that SOE has never made a AAA mmo?
Look, you have to differenciate. Games like WoW($200 million), SWTOR(above $200 million), GW2(above $100 million), and at the moment Wildstar (around $150 million) all have staff of 150 and more working on their titles.
As much as i know no SOE game does have cost more than $60 million, with a staff below 100 ppl. Is a game with development cost of $50 million AAA? Most probably i would say, as all SOE games, although a lot of SOE games were cheaper than that. But it is nevertheless not the same as recent extremely high production value titles like the one listened above.
I could have added ESO on that list, too. But i don't have any numbers for ESO, but i guess it is another $100 million + title.
Originally posted by shass It's really good that these environments can be destroyed... they need to be. All the anticipation for a release that should appeal to seven year olds with a cheap tablet. It does bring a nice sense of nostalgia - graphics circa 1999 -
Seriously. I haven't seen a single screenshot or video of EQ:N where I felt in awe of the graphics. I mean, it looks functional. But nothing I'd make screenshots because I am so awed by what I see.
For me, TESO and EQ:N represent the opposing extremes, TESO being way TOO realistic with only brown and grey tones like someone sucked out all colours; and EQ:N like WOW 2.o. I am REALLY not one touting into the horn of "WOW clone" usually. But sheesh. Why do so many games try to emulate the WOW cartoony style? Oh and spare me the "but it ages better" crap. top graphics from 2013 are supposed to be good enough to be good at least 5-6 years. Look at Age of Conan. I mean, what good does "ages better" do, when the graphics look 10 years old from the ge go!
The textures are totally bland, I see zero atmosphere in there, total lack of detail. I can even live with the characters. But the landscapes are just horribad. I don't feel whelmed.
You know that Age of Conan is restricted to below 100 players.(every zone is rather tiny, and with player cap). It is much more like a usual multiplayer game(read Battlefield series, 64 or 128 players per map) as a massive multiplayer game.
Age of Conan is always a extremely bad comparsion, at least as long as you want to play with more than 100 players at a zone/map.
And people seriously have to understand, that that is a huge difference with what is possible. That does not say, that EQN could not look better, or different. They have choosen the stylized art style(and i do not have a problem withit), but please compare apple with apples.
And about the completely out of the context comment about 1999 graphics.. the picture below is from a game from 2002.
Developers have 1 limitation that has, does and most likely will effect them and that is server size. Everything in an mmo requires space, choices have to be made regarding what they will include. Do they make the graphics so life like you can see the chest hair flowing in the wind and limit other things like world size, character abilities, environment interaction, so on and so on.
Servers obviously are much larger now compared to 10 years ago and the processors running them are much faster and more efficient but the games are so much bigger as well, not to forget that the mmo player base is vastly larger also.
I think the choice of going with a simpler form of graphics is a smart 1, it allows so much more to be put into the game world and the game play.
In a game I want fun quality engaging game play with enough content to keep me busy for a long time, NOT a beautiful ultra realistic graphic extravaganza thats over in a week.
I suggest people devote 30min of their time and watch the SOE-live "creating worlds" panel. Explains a lot about why they chose the specific art style, and it's not a technical limitation that forced them, more like a limitation (or potential, depends how one views it) of the destructibility feature.
Ok when i saw the character models i didn't think it looked that cartoony and i liked the environments, but this just looks like something out of disney. I can see why they did it this way though. I went back to everquest 2 a week ago just to check out the new level 85 characters and the games looks really dated now. What was once a beautiful looking game is now really ugly looking. Wow on the other hand still looks modern.
Originally posted by nerovipus32 Ok when i saw the character models i didn't think it looked that cartoony and i liked the environments, but this just looks like something out of disney. I can see why they did it this way though. I went back to everquest 2 a week ago just to check out the new level 85 characters and the games looks really dated now. What was once a beautiful looking game is now really ugly looking. Wow on the other hand still looks modern.
^this.
EQ2 is great, but it looks extremely dated.
"There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play." Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
Ok ask yourself this: how many times did you see the graphics of a MMO change CONSIDERABLY from beta to launch?
I mean, honestly.
I can't remember one single time
Every single one of them. Not a single game that I beta tested looked the same at release unless it was one of those silly betas that were just meant to load test. This game isn't even in beta yet either and those weren't even gameplay screenshots. The stuff they have shown us from the actual gameplay look fine. What they are working on is getting the structures to look better and they have already shown us it is still a work in progress. The graphics usually don't have graphic filters even set yet in early stages of beta. The lighting isn't done etc.
I went back to everquest 2 a week ago just to check out the new level 85 characters and the games looks really dated now. What was once a beautiful looking game is now really ugly looking
EQ2 never had good graphics. WoW looked better at release than EQ2 did and WoW has stayed better over time as well. Failed realistic graphics are just the worst and that is what we usually get. These games can't handle large crowds and true realistic looking graphics yet, and certainly not zoomed out realistic.
Meh, art style is art style. Still intrigued by the ideas the game has presented, also still heavily doubting itll make good on most of them. Not just because that's become the norm in the business (Our game is SO DIFFERENT....not), but because of the company.
Personally I think this is a good direction to go. At the end of the day performance trumps realism after all.
-The only sure thing about the future is uncertainty
Ok ask yourself this: how many times did you see the graphics of a MMO change CONSIDERABLY from beta to launch?
I mean, honestly.
I can't remember one single time.
And we had this discussion 200 times, like "oh it's just beta, it will look better".
No. It won't. And sorry I am a visual person, and I do not feel like gameplay trumps graphics. Can I haz actually both? Sorry, but at least I can't play a visually unappealing game, no matter now great the "gameplay" may be. If that were so we all still play text adventures!
Well.. then i am really astonished that you have played MMOs at all. Because graphically they were all behind the cutting edge graphical single player games.. like any of the crysis games at their time.
For me graphic is important, but not that much, that i would not play a game with unique or superior gameplay.. games like Minecraft, Dwarfen Fortress, Ultima Online(at their time) and other. But thats me.
And for EQN.. it looks a lot better than Minecraft, and not really worse than any other recent MMO. Look, i always favoured games with a more seamless world over heavily instanced and limited (Age of Conan) just because of graphical reasons.
Edit:
And just a sidenote/question. Does EQN really look worst than Wildstar? Which do both have a similar graphical style? And although ESO is realistic, but does it look better? My answers to both are no, neither Wildstar looks better, nor ESO from a graphical standpoint.. of course you can always favor realistic over stylized, but that is a different question.
As I said, I see both TESO and EQN as extremes of the spectrum. I really need not photorealism. Look at Guild Wars 2, just in terms of graphics. That is a visual I find pleasing. It is as colourful and EQ2, but way more detailled. Not photorealistic, but realistic enough. The EQN screenshots look like barebone textures, totally flat. No dirt, no details of any sort.
I mean, I will certainly play both TESO and EQN just to see them. I always give MMOs a chance to convince me, and I am enough of a fan to try them out. But SO FAR, I find the EQN visuals bland and overly simplistic.
(Wildstar is so far out of my radar, I don't even consider it. I am sure it has it's target audience, but it just looks too "girlish" to me.)
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I suggest people devote 30min of their time and watch the SOE-live "creating worlds" panel. Explains a lot about why they chose the specific art style, and it's not a technical limitation that forced them, more like a limitation (or potential, depends how one views it) of the destructibility feature.
Comments
WoW ...... at this point the only hope I have for the game is that it brings new ideas to the genera. I can certainly respect the risks associated with the sandboxy direction they have taken. I cannot however get past the stylized art direction they chose.
Perhaps another company can take some of the good ideas and create a game geared more towards adults.
~Hairysun
http://www.straightdope.com/
This statement suggests it would not be a game aimed at you. Seriously if you think this graphic style is meant for children you are just being silly. Judging a game off of a few pre alpha screenshots also suggests a lack of maturity.
fixed
This.
People are getting bored of the unimmersive cartoony graphics in the same way that they are getting bored from the repeatable linear premade content.
Too bad SOE failed to see that.
And lets just don't hear again that ppl are still playing wow for the graphics... lol. Get your facts straight.
This is why we can't have nice things in the MMO genre and we are on Generic MMO #23. Seriously... They are giving us all kinds of super interesting systems and mechanics; they had to compromise on the graphics so people could actually run the damn thing.
Or would you all rather have FFXIV 1.0 again? Where they spend more on graphics than actually gameplay.
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
Yep. They have given us so many great snippets of info about true next generation things they are trying to do with the game. Yet some people are saying I won't play because I didn't like the pre-alpha picture of the wall that someone that isn't even in the art design department drew with the alpha version of landmark. It is just silly.
Cartoony type of graphics tend to last a lot longer than ultra realism.
Say SoE went the route of realistic graphics, that they really wanted to make EQN look beautiful with realistc characters, as soon as the next video card comes out and the photorealism can go up, what will end up happening is the game will instantly look dated.
If you take as an example GTA IV and GTA V, i think that you will get the point. They said they want EQN to last many many years so you could say that this is a smart move.
If people don't like the way the game looks, then it's a legitimate issue for them. Not exactly kosher of you to deny them validity of their own tastes. Normally, I would just say to heck with it and give it a try anyway, no matter how ugly it looks, but after so many years in World of Warcraft, the last thing I want is a look-alike game. I want something fresh to look at on my gaming screen, so I've already written off both EQN and Wildstar and I'm anxiously awaiting Star Citizen and Archeage.
Everything is so big!
So CHUNKY!
You stay sassy!
That is a false assumption. No one had problems with SWG, despite its age, it was a great looking game that was realistic. I'll take EQ2's dated realism over WoW's anyday. Whether a game looks dated or not is all in the eyes of the beholder and no style has an edge in that regard.
I don't want to rain on some good ideas but does it not look like everything is just an EQ2 update they thought they could turn into a new game adding in a couple new ideas?Don't the graphics still look like they were made in EQ2?
There is the mention of architecture but all the pics show flat ceilings with the ONLY architecture being in the doorways but even those are really cheap because they have no moving doors.This is really a throwback to before even EQ2 was released ,so imo they are trying to pawn off old material with the added gimmicks of Voxel and some new emotes when travelling.
Obviously it is still way too early,i have not given up hope because i was quite happy when EQ2 came out,i thought it was a great advancement in the 3D MMORPG genre but so far i am very skeptical on everything NEXT.
So far for me at least Next is a lot of hype/talk but they have shown me nothing that makes me anticipate the game,it just has me on the fence.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Ok ask yourself this: how many times did you see the graphics of a MMO change CONSIDERABLY from beta to launch?
I mean, honestly.
I can't remember one single time.
And we had this discussion 200 times, like "oh it's just beta, it will look better".
No. It won't. And sorry I am a visual person, and I do not feel like gameplay trumps graphics. Can I haz actually both? Sorry, but at least I can't play a visually unappealing game, no matter now great the "gameplay" may be. If that were so we all still play text adventures!
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
O_o o_O
Well.. then i am really astonished that you have played MMOs at all. Because graphically they were all behind the cutting edge graphical single player games.. like any of the crysis games at their time.
For me graphic is important, but not that much, that i would not play a game with unique or superior gameplay.. games like Minecraft, Dwarfen Fortress, Ultima Online(at their time) and other. But thats me.
And for EQN.. it looks a lot better than Minecraft, and not really worse than any other recent MMO. Look, i always favoured games with a more seamless world over heavily instanced and limited (Age of Conan) just because of graphical reasons.
Edit:
And just a sidenote/question. Does EQN really look worst than Wildstar? Which do both have a similar graphical style? And although ESO is realistic, but does it look better? My answers to both are no, neither Wildstar looks better, nor ESO from a graphical standpoint.. of course you can always favor realistic over stylized, but that is a different question.
SOE never pumped as much as other AAA mmo developer into their games.
Look, you have to differenciate. Games like WoW($200 million), SWTOR(above $200 million), GW2(above $100 million), and at the moment Wildstar (around $150 million) all have staff of 150 and more working on their titles.
As much as i know no SOE game does have cost more than $60 million, with a staff below 100 ppl. Is a game with development cost of $50 million AAA? Most probably i would say, as all SOE games, although a lot of SOE games were cheaper than that. But it is nevertheless not the same as recent extremely high production value titles like the one listened above.
I could have added ESO on that list, too. But i don't have any numbers for ESO, but i guess it is another $100 million + title.
You know that Age of Conan is restricted to below 100 players.(every zone is rather tiny, and with player cap). It is much more like a usual multiplayer game(read Battlefield series, 64 or 128 players per map) as a massive multiplayer game.
Age of Conan is always a extremely bad comparsion, at least as long as you want to play with more than 100 players at a zone/map.
And people seriously have to understand, that that is a huge difference with what is possible. That does not say, that EQN could not look better, or different. They have choosen the stylized art style(and i do not have a problem withit), but please compare apple with apples.
And about the completely out of the context comment about 1999 graphics.. the picture below is from a game from 2002.
Developers have 1 limitation that has, does and most likely will effect them and that is server size. Everything in an mmo requires space, choices have to be made regarding what they will include. Do they make the graphics so life like you can see the chest hair flowing in the wind and limit other things like world size, character abilities, environment interaction, so on and so on.
Servers obviously are much larger now compared to 10 years ago and the processors running them are much faster and more efficient but the games are so much bigger as well, not to forget that the mmo player base is vastly larger also.
I think the choice of going with a simpler form of graphics is a smart 1, it allows so much more to be put into the game world and the game play.
In a game I want fun quality engaging game play with enough content to keep me busy for a long time, NOT a beautiful ultra realistic graphic extravaganza thats over in a week.
I suggest people devote 30min of their time and watch the SOE-live "creating worlds" panel. Explains a lot about why they chose the specific art style, and it's not a technical limitation that forced them, more like a limitation (or potential, depends how one views it) of the destructibility feature.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR3NEsJzP_o
^this.
EQ2 is great, but it looks extremely dated.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
EQ2 never had good graphics. WoW looked better at release than EQ2 did and WoW has stayed better over time as well. Failed realistic graphics are just the worst and that is what we usually get. These games can't handle large crowds and true realistic looking graphics yet, and certainly not zoomed out realistic.
Meh, art style is art style. Still intrigued by the ideas the game has presented, also still heavily doubting itll make good on most of them. Not just because that's become the norm in the business (Our game is SO DIFFERENT....not), but because of the company.
Personally I think this is a good direction to go. At the end of the day performance trumps realism after all.
-The only sure thing about the future is uncertainty
As I said, I see both TESO and EQN as extremes of the spectrum. I really need not photorealism. Look at Guild Wars 2, just in terms of graphics. That is a visual I find pleasing. It is as colourful and EQ2, but way more detailled. Not photorealistic, but realistic enough. The EQN screenshots look like barebone textures, totally flat. No dirt, no details of any sort.
I mean, I will certainly play both TESO and EQN just to see them. I always give MMOs a chance to convince me, and I am enough of a fan to try them out. But SO FAR, I find the EQN visuals bland and overly simplistic.
(Wildstar is so far out of my radar, I don't even consider it. I am sure it has it's target audience, but it just looks too "girlish" to me.)
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Lol.
"Who do you believe, my words or you own lying eyes?"
- Groucho Marx
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert