Where will graphics end up?

arcundo · November 2015

In the early YouTube videos there were mentions/"meetings" with Nvidia referring to different kind of gfx effects.
However right now ofc the game is a long way away from what it will look like at launch.
What game is the closest to what you think it will look like at launch?

Darkfall?
WoW?
AoC?
Guild Wars 2?
ESO?

JamesGoblin · November 2015

It will certainly not be DF/WoW level of quality.

Jakobmiller · November 2015

The nature looks a bit like DFUW, but not the character details.

time007 · November 2015

I'd be happy with Guild Wars 2 groundbreaking quality when its released. I dont want it to look like anything we have now, because what we are playing now was made 3 to15+ years ago. But when GW2 came out it looked fabulous and still does.

So I'd like the game to be, when its released, to look as good as GW2 did at its release, and also hold up just as well. (that is asking alot i know)

I DON'T want it to look like WoW or ESO or AOC. AOC and ESO were both and still are hideous to look at in terms of character models.

I actually like the way warhammer online looked because it didnt try to pull off the AOC or ESO realistic look. But it was cartoony like WoW is. Guild Wars 2's look is timeless kinda in that they didnt go full on realistic nor did they go cartoony but a different style that his holding up well.

Based on the character models posted above, it looks like they are going the ESO route (which sucks), i just hope the armor skins aren't as horrible as ESO. I mean, if a character had no armor on in ESO it looks fine, but once you put on one piece of gear it looks terrible. But once you go the realistic looking route instead of the GW2 Flashy style, you kinda lose the ability to have that outlandish super flashy flamboyant gear you see all glowing and bright in games like GW2.

So I actually, do like a bright color pallet (not as far as wildstar), but more along the lines of Warhammer Online and GW2 or FFXIV. Those 3 games had great color pallets.

But this game's graphics look like they are going to be about as similar as DAOC's were when they were released back in 2001. Not completely and utterly mindblowing and groundbreaking and not something that makes me want to live there (i.e. avatar the movie haha) but good enough to stand the test of time.

I remember DAOC when i played it first in 2001. I wasn't like "oh these graphics, characters, and environments are blowing my mind!" but more like "oh this game is enveloping me with its setting, universe, lore, and also the characters and environments". I mean i didnt particularly think the forests or spiders were awesome looking, but the game was big enough to get lost in, so it was fine.

Lets hope that CU will be big enough to get lost in but its graphics will hold their water throughout the years, and not be like Shadowbane, AOC, Archeage, or ESO.....

Basically this is how I feel:

What I want: Guild Wars 2 type stuff but only 2017ish, not 2012.
What I expect it to end up as: Dark Age of Camelot type stuff but 2017ish, instead of 2001.

JamesGoblin · November 2015

time007 said:

I'd be happy with Guild Wars 2 groundbreaking quality when its released. I dont want it to look like anything we have now, because what we are playing now was made 3 to15+ years ago. But when GW2 came out it looked fabulous and still does.

So I'd like the game to be, when its released, to look as good as GW2 did at its release, and also hold up just as well. (that is asking alot i know)

I DON'T want it to look like WoW or ESO or AOC. AOC and ESO were both and still are hideous to look at in terms of character models.

I actually like the way warhammer online looked because it didnt try to pull off the AOC or ESO realistic look. But it was cartoony like WoW is. Guild Wars 2's look is timeless kinda in that they didnt go full on realistic nor did they go cartoony but a different style that his holding up well.

Based on the character models posted above, it looks like they are going the ESO route (which sucks), i just hope the armor skins aren't as horrible as ESO. I mean, if a character had no armor on in ESO it looks fine, but once you put on one piece of gear it looks terrible. But once you go the realistic looking route instead of the GW2 Flashy style, you kinda lose the ability to have that outlandish super flashy flamboyant gear you see all glowing and bright in games like GW2.

So I actually, do like a bright color pallet (not as far as wildstar), but more along the lines of Warhammer Online and GW2 or FFXIV. Those 3 games had great color pallets.

But this game's graphics look like they are going to be about as similar as DAOC's were when they were released back in 2001. Not completely and utterly mindblowing and groundbreaking and not something that makes me want to live there (i.e. avatar the movie haha) but good enough to stand the test of time.

I remember DAOC when i played it first in 2001. I wasn't like "oh these graphics, characters, and environments are blowing my mind!" but more like "oh this game is enveloping me with its setting, universe, lore, and also the characters and environments". I mean i didnt particularly think the forests or spiders were awesome looking, but the game was big enough to get lost in, so it was fine.

Lets hope that CU will be big enough to get lost in but its graphics will hold their water throughout the years, and not be like Shadowbane, AOC, Archeage, or ESO.....

Basically this is how I feel:

What I want: Guild Wars 2 type stuff but only 2017ish, not 2012.
What I expect it to end up as: Dark Age of Camelot type stuff but 2017ish, instead of 2001.

Interesting read, I agree especially with the Warhammer parts

(thou I like AoC visuals and world overall). To me, it was very easy to get lost in the WAR world, an excellent example of god use of cartoony-and-less-than-Corean graphics to produce arguably better total quality.

What worries me more than graphics are animations, combat...how intuitive / fluid will it end up being? IMO that's crucial and I guess much harder to tune and implement right.

StylinLP · November 2015

I remember when DOAC first came out. One of the attractions was that it had better graphic quality than Everquest. It was the next step up. Also, the world was fantastic. I loved the atmosphere of the three realms. It felt like three different games if you started on each faction. The only hold back was the lack of content.

What im sick sick sick of is flashy cartoony Korean MMo's. Played Aion 4 years and now ArchAge. Each time I log in I think how much I cant wait to get away from those worlds. I really liked Conan Online but...lack of end game castle pvp was a huge let down. The character models were realistic and gritty European which I liked a lot. Much better than any Wildfire, Final Fantasy or Guildwars. Hate flashy. I DO NOT WANT TO PLAY AN ASIAN GAME. But AoC didn't have enough variation to allow anything but dark and gritty. The pallete was too bland and monotonous.

Wizardry · November 2015

To me this game is and always be a low budget game,so do not expect much.

I just saw videos of Square Enix upcoming console game FFXV and it looks like movie quality.Chances are both that game and this one get released around the same time,so it will be tough to fathom this game's graphics with those and think anything other than low quality.

Wizardry · November 2015

My lord the bugs on this website are frustrating,can't even edit a post now.
Anyhow if i was to wager a guess ,i would say it will look similar to EQ2 only with less lighting effects.

JamesGoblin · November 2015

StylinLP said:

I remember when DOAC first came out. One of the attractions was that it had better graphic quality than Everquest. It was the next step up. Also, the world was fantastic. I loved the atmosphere of the three realms. It felt like three different games if you started on each faction. The only hold back was the lack of content.
What im sick sick sick of is flashy cartoony Korean MMo's. Played Aion 4 years and now ArchAge. Each time I log in I think how much I cant wait to get away from those worlds. I really liked Conan Online but...lack of end game castle pvp was a huge let down. The character models were realistic and gritty European which I liked a lot. Much better than any Wildfire, Final Fantasy or Guildwars. Hate flashy. I DO NOT WANT TO PLAY AN ASIAN GAME. But AoC didn't have enough variation to allow anything but dark and gritty. The pallete was too bland and monotonous.

I also liked Conan's visuals and combat system ( fatalities!

), pity it was wasted on a mediocre game =(

Strange that you "DO NOT WANT TO PLAY AN ASIAN GAME" (I am also not a fan, to put it mildly) while you still pay AA, and have a long eastern history elsewhere... o,O

If you don't like it, just walk away and forget about it.

Squishydew · November 2015

time007 said:

I'd be happy with Guild Wars 2 groundbreaking quality when its released. I dont want it to look like anything we have now, because what we are playing now was made 3 to15+ years ago. But when GW2 came out it looked fabulous and still does.

I can't agree with this one personally, i thought GW2 looked great when it came out, but i went back to it when heart of thorns launched and I'd have to say it was already showing It's age pretty badly to me personally. ( Highest settings ofcourse )

In the end i dont care too much though, while i enjoy great graphics, aesthetic matters far more, not to mention gameplay ofcourse ;p

StylinLP · November 2015

I play ArchAge because its the only big MMO (with pvp) out right now besides Aion. But Ive played Aion for 4 years and tired of it. Plus, Archage has the coolest crafting, farming, merchant trade runs on wagons and ships I have ever seen in any MMO. Its really awesome. I can grow any plants/tree's, raise all sorts of farm animals and then load my wagon or merchant ship up and make a big profit across land or across the ocean. Ship to ship combat and pirates. The game still sucks with cash shop and the infamous RNG range random system of upgrading your gear. That also ruined Aion. You can actually spend hundreds of dollars real money at a cash shop and actually get NOTHING for it.

Lord of the Rings Online is actually a decent MMO. But I need my PVP as well.

JamesGoblin · November 2015

StylinLP said:

I play ArchAge because its the only big MMO (with pvp) out right now besides Aion. But Ive played Aion for 4 years and tired of it. Plus, Archage has the coolest crafting, farming, merchant trade runs on wagons and ships I have ever seen in any MMO. Its really awesome. I can grow any plants/tree's, raise all sorts of farm animals and then load my wagon or merchant ship up and make a big profit across land or across the ocean. Ship to ship combat and pirates. The game still sucks with cash shop and the infamous RNG range random system of upgrading your gear. That also ruined Aion. You can actually spend hundreds of dollars real money at a cash shop and actually get NOTHING for it.
Lord of the Rings Online is actually a decent MMO. But I need my PVP as well.

Ah, we are in the same boat then; Just, I decided to play nothing and spend my PvP energy on spreading the word about CU/CF.

PS of course, I'd play vanilla WoW or Warhammer Online * cough * if only it was somehow possible.

Shadanwolf · December 2015

I prefer detail...the more the better.Not playing any game. Waiting for CU beta.

MarkJacobs · December 2015

Folks,

Thanks for the comments, concerns, etc., all appreciated.

I'd say we are not even halfway there for where I think we will be in terms of the final look of our game on the average machine. By the opening of Beta 1, we will be a lot closer, but still not there. One of the disadvantages of building our own engine is, of course, that we can't just pull assets in from Unity/Unreal/etc. repositories to help spiff up the look of our game. And rather than spend money on doing the art ourselves early in the process (and most likely having to change it during the process, thus spending more money), we decided to wait until the engine was further along. Now, this has definitely cost us some donations, but I was and remain, willing to continue down this path because it's the right thing to do in the long-term and that's what I care about.

Now, if the game looks like the build does now, yeah, that would be quite disappointing but the chance of that happening is 0%.

A lot more visual improvements are coming while we march till Beta, and of course, beyond. That's why we hired the senior graphics engineer and between Andrew, George and Dave, the rendering part of our engine will improve a lot faster now.

In terms of art assets, those are coming before Beta 1 opens as well.

Thanks all!

Mark

Bellomo · December 2015

I hope AOC style

Bellomo · December 2015

MarkJacobs said:

Folks,

Thanks for the comments, concerns, etc., all appreciated.

I'd say we are not even halfway there for where I think we will be in terms of the final look of our game on the average machine. By the opening of Beta 1, we will be a lot closer, but still not there. One of the disadvantages of building our own engine is, of course, that we can't just pull assets in from Unity/Unreal/etc. repositories to help spiff up the look of our game. And rather than spend money on doing the art ourselves early in the process (and most likely having to change it during the process, thus spending more money), we decided to wait until the engine was further along. Now, this has definitely cost us some donations, but I was and remain, willing to continue down this path because it's the right thing to do in the long-term and that's what I care about.

Now, if the game looks like the build does now, yeah, that would be quite disappointing but the chance of that happening is 0%. A lot more visual improvements are coming while we march till Beta, and of course, beyond. That's why we hired the senior graphics engineer and between Andrew, George and Dave, the rendering part of our engine will improve a lot faster now.

In terms of art assets, those are coming before Beta 1 opens as well.

Thanks all!

Mark

Whatever just hurry the f*** UP.

I just want to give you my money

JamesGoblin · December 2015

Tyler, one of the CU artists just spoke about CU visuals on Massively OP:

Beta should be a time to show off. So far we've been mostly working with one environment set of assets that I made, mostly, some time ago. We've also had the character textures @ what is right now, half the size we plan on supporting. Moving forward we'll be adding several new environments, and bumping up character fidelity.

Along with that we'll be working on turning this into a game. So there will be plenty of new stuff to show off. We still have some bells and whistles planned to improve visuals, but as they are not the most important part to delivering a fun game in the near term, they will probably be pushed over some core things like working on combat, sieging, large maps, etc. We'll have more time for "sparkles" once we are in beta.

When you show your friends, remind them we're going for 500 player battles. To do that effectively we can't go the Crisis route. Our goal is managing the art in a middle range where it looks great, but can support the core tenants we layed out in the Kickstarter. Granted, I'll still be working my butt off to get pretty but still runs Thankfully I've got some great engineers in my corner that know how to do looks good but still cheap. Doing that is really hard, which is why we've put so much effort into hiring the right people and building the engine from the ground up to support this game.

MarkJacobs · December 2015

Bellomo said:

MarkJacobs said:

Folks,

Thanks for the comments, concerns, etc., all appreciated.

I'd say we are not even halfway there for where I think we will be in terms of the final look of our game on the average machine. By the opening of Beta 1, we will be a lot closer, but still not there. One of the disadvantages of building our own engine is, of course, that we can't just pull assets in from Unity/Unreal/etc. repositories to help spiff up the look of our game. And rather than spend money on doing the art ourselves early in the process (and most likely having to change it during the process, thus spending more money), we decided to wait until the engine was further along. Now, this has definitely cost us some donations, but I was and remain, willing to continue down this path because it's the right thing to do in the long-term and that's what I care about.

Now, if the game looks like the build does now, yeah, that would be quite disappointing but the chance of that happening is 0%. A lot more visual improvements are coming while we march till Beta, and of course, beyond. That's why we hired the senior graphics engineer and between Andrew, George and Dave, the rendering part of our engine will improve a lot faster now.

In terms of art assets, those are coming before Beta 1 opens as well.

Thanks all!

Mark

Whatever just hurry the f*** UP. I just want to give you my money

LOL, working on it. That's one of the reasons our next few Stretch Goals are just for hiring additional staff/outsourcing to speed things up. I don't care about additional features right now, for launch or otherwise, with the last SG of that type, we're in really good shape.

It's about delivering the game, nothing else matters.

arcundo · December 2015

Jakobmiller said:

The nature looks a bit like DFUW, but not the character details.

Wow finally this thread woke up! :-)

Yup I think so too.

The models posted by JamesGoblin looked awesome, but they are a bit to much to hope for aren't they?

I like others in the thread liked the graphics in AoC a lot. I havent seen that quality since. also it worked very well for different types of landscape, tropical, subtropical, winters etc. I do not agree about the palette to much, just that granite stone (Old Tarantia) wasn't the engine's strongest side.

The graphics was one reason I didn't play Warhammer. I felt WoW was too cartoony and Warhammer was made even more cartoony. (also it seemed combat was to stationary..). So I hope for a lot more realistic look than Warhammer.

arcundo · December 2015

JamesGoblin said:

[snip] Just, I decided to play nothing and spend my PvP energy on spreading the word about CU/CF.

Speaking of graphics and CF. Don't you like CU's graphics style so much more?

Calex · December 2015

arcundo said:

JamesGoblin said:

[snip] Just, I decided to play nothing and spend my PvP energy on spreading the word about CU/CF.

Speaking of graphics and CF. Don't you like CU's graphics style so much more?

I like the direction CU is going with their type of art instead of the cartoon stuff CF is using. I also backed CF so I will also be playing that when it launches or beta 1, whatever the $60 tier was, but still have doubts they will be able to do anything amazing with Unity at its core regarding huge battles. I wouldn't be surprised if they condense the instanced battle zones down to like a 64 person population or maybe even less.

JamesGoblin · December 2015

arcundo said:

Jakobmiller said:

The nature looks a bit like DFUW, but not the character details.

The models posted by JamesGoblin looked awesome, but they are a bit to much to hope for aren't they?

First image, the faces - out of combat, with good comp on max settings, why not? Of course, in RvR you wont care much about nose hair and shine in the eyes

arcundo said:

The graphics was one reason I didnt play Warhammer. I felt WoW was too cartoony and Warhammer was made even more cartoony. (also it seemed combat was to stationary..). So I hope for a lot more realistic look than Warhammer.

My little Goblin heart is bleeding while I read these cruel words...in order to not do something silly, I went downstairs, drank a glass of water, counted to 13435367 and returned to continue, with my hand still trembling...

arcundo said:

Speaking of graphics and CF. Don't you like CU's graphics style so much more?

Yep. CF actually doesn't have much choice with visuals, since they are using Unity 5 and not custom made engine. Still, it will be an uphill battle...

Calex said:

I like the direction CU is going with their type of art instead of the cartoon stuff CF is using. I also backed CF so I will also be playing that when it launches or beta 1, whatever the $60 tier was, but still have doubts they will be able to do anything amazing with Unity at its core regarding huge battles. I wouldn't be surprised if they condense the instanced battle zones down to like a 64 person population or maybe even less.

@Calex I have the same concern, thou they already have such numbers in tests, that is - as early as pre-Alpha. My guess would be that they will manage to optimize Unity to, say, 200 (slideshow) to 300 (crash) or something alike, but still these numbers seem kinda lowish if one wants to support "continent sized servers" with "thousands of players".

A single siege can easily have more than that, maybe even on just one side. OFC, unless one limits them artificially in some way, but then we are talking rather MMOBAs than MMORPGs. Anyway, I am very much interested to see what the "server crash" numbers will look like, since essentially the whole game design depends on these.

waynejr2 · December 2015

Chasing the bleeding edge or even just high quality graphics is using too many resources. Resources that could be used to experiment with game play features.

arcundo · December 2015

JamesGoblin said:

arcundo said:

The graphics was one reason I didnt play Warhammer. I felt WoW was too cartoony and Warhammer was made even more cartoony. (also it seemed combat was to stationary..). So I hope for a lot more realistic look than Warhammer.

My little Goblin heart is bleeding while I read these cruel words...in order to not do something silly, I went downstairs, drank a glass of water, counted to 13435367 and returned to continue, with my hand still trembling...

I am a bit surprised that goblins finds this cruel (and frankly I do not think it was) as the developers (or should I say artists) must take the responsibility of how you are portrayed. And my taste in graphics has nothing to do with how I like goblins. Anyway I am glad you handled it so well and did not escalate the situation . ;-)

JamesGoblin · December 2015

arcundo said:

JamesGoblin said:

arcundo said:

The graphics was one reason I didnt play Warhammer. I felt WoW was too cartoony and Warhammer was made even more cartoony. (also it seemed combat was to stationary..). So I hope for a lot more realistic look than Warhammer.

My little Goblin heart is bleeding while I read these cruel words...in order to not do something silly, I went downstairs, drank a glass of water, counted to 13435367 and returned to continue, with my hand still trembling...

I am a bit surprised that goblins finds this cruel (and frankly I do not think it was) as the developers (or should I say artists) must take the responsibility of how you are portrayed. And my taste in graphics has nothing to do with how I like goblins. Anyway I am glad you handled it so well and did not escalate the situation . ;-)

Trust me, it was a close call...My doc says I'll be allright.

PS I wouldn't consider it cruel earlier, but in my Goblin life I took some severe blows - such as discovering that CSE has no playable Goblins. I thought to myself: "The only logical explanation is that, since Goblins are the most challenging and subtle, CSE artists left them for the very end. Anyway, nothing else makes sense."

Then I discovered they will be adding more humans...

arcundo · December 2015

JamesGoblin said:

arcundo said:

JamesGoblin said:

arcundo said:

The graphics was one reason I didnt play Warhammer. I felt WoW was too cartoony and Warhammer was made even more cartoony. (also it seemed combat was to stationary..). So I hope for a lot more realistic look than Warhammer.

My little Goblin heart is bleeding while I read these cruel words...in order to not do something silly, I went downstairs, drank a glass of water, counted to 13435367 and returned to continue, with my hand still trembling...

I am a bit surprised that goblins finds this cruel (and frankly I do not think it was) as the developers (or should I say artists) must take the responsibility of how you are portrayed. And my taste in graphics has nothing to do with how I like goblins. Anyway I am glad you handled it so well and did not escalate the situation . ;-)

Trust me, it was a close call...My doc says I'll be allright.

PS I wouldn't consider it cruel earlier, but in my Goblin life I took some severe blows - such as discovering that CSE has no playable Goblins. I thought to myself: "The only logical explanation is that, since Goblins are the most challenging and subtle, CSE artists left them for the very end. Anyway, nothing else makes sense."

Then I discovered they will be adding more humans...

You mean your shaman or alchemist, right?

Yes, I can see how you easily can feel a bit shelved there. However there should be some comfort in knowing elves and dwarfs aren't in either.

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Where will graphics end up?

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