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Will the graphics engine be finished any time soon?
Vhaln
Member Posts: 3,159
One of the problems I have with VG's graphics is that the engine simply doesn't do a lot of what its competitors can do. I think a lot of complaints people have about the graphcs really boil down to the engine being unfinished, or maybe more accurately, partially unutilized.
Reflective water being the most obvious to me, and a lot of people notice the lack of anti-aliasing. Another big one people might overlook is the lack of shadows cast by static geometry- but they arent really overlooking that, as that's a big reason objects often look like they aren't part of the environment (as I've seen some people put it). Plus I wonder if they'll be adding things like fog, for those deep forest areas, or colored lighting, and major atmospheric touches like that, which would make the graphics feel more vibrant and alive.
So, has anyone heard from Sigil on this? Are they working on it, or is the engine as close to finished as it's going to get for a while? I realize they'd probably need to clean it up and get it working more optimally before bogging down our systems even more, but I guess that's part of finishing the engine, too.
Have any of the devs posted about this anywhere, aside from saying that optimization is thier priority these days?
Reflective water being the most obvious to me, and a lot of people notice the lack of anti-aliasing. Another big one people might overlook is the lack of shadows cast by static geometry- but they arent really overlooking that, as that's a big reason objects often look like they aren't part of the environment (as I've seen some people put it). Plus I wonder if they'll be adding things like fog, for those deep forest areas, or colored lighting, and major atmospheric touches like that, which would make the graphics feel more vibrant and alive.
So, has anyone heard from Sigil on this? Are they working on it, or is the engine as close to finished as it's going to get for a while? I realize they'd probably need to clean it up and get it working more optimally before bogging down our systems even more, but I guess that's part of finishing the engine, too.
Have any of the devs posted about this anywhere, aside from saying that optimization is thier priority these days?
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Comments
There's talk of a patch in the works. According to some devs, the patch should have been implemented some time this week but due to other bugs, they decided to postpone.
Apparently, its suppose to fix a lot of things like graphic glitches, armor/weapon designs, AA, etc.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
I mean, i's one thing to add new skins and animations, but another to add shadows and fog.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
You wan't to add things like Shadows, Fog , Reflective water , colored lighting to an engine that allready runs like a Pig ? you made need to buy 2 Mainframes to run the damn thing if they add that stuff .. Best thing for them to do is give the engine to turbine for 6 months & have them fix it ...
Too little, too late. I wont be going back and I will never purchase another SOE game as long as I live. I gave it a month and I staunchly defended it but its quite obvious that this game will be "carebeared" in short order. As of March 2nd, the game will lose at least some of its population. Gelenia is in such a mess as it is overpopulated (I believe that is at least part of the problem in my case) and now with SOE's trademark "Double XP" weekend I can only imagine what an unmitigated disaster it will be. The dungeons are already "like London tube stations at 5:30 p.m. on a Friday before Xmas". Instead of addressing the performance issues, Sigil insist on nerfing characters and other non essential fixes while I am still CTDing every 30 mins.
Its quite irionic that you need a high end rig to get the most out of Vanguard, but it has huge problems with the top of the line graphics hardware (8800). Sigil will have no choice but to dumb this game down in order to keep it alive. Don't get me wrong, if it had been released in 6 months as a "finished" product, it would have done fine but at least 30% of my 115 strong guild are not resubbing as a direct result of the game being in an atrocious state. Its a terrible shame as it has such great potential but the ludicrous decision to release it in it's current state is going to be its downfall. Whether it flat out fails or is drastically changed to encourage subscriptions, I will not be investing my time. I went down that road with SWG. It is definitely a route I will not be taking again.
S
The future will be here soon my friend! SOOOOOON!
Gawd, I hope so at least. It'll fix most of the problems.
Yes!
Mysterious art patch (we cant say what it will include , but it will be awsome) will come exactly day after your 1 month of sub expires!Than other patch that fixes enigine optimisation will come exactly 1 month later.
Etc....
Keep tuned for more mysterious patches , that will fix everything we didnt manage to do in 5 years of development in 5 months.
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
Sadly all those things you mention do exist in other games on the market today and would make VG a much less artifical looking enviroment then it is now; but there was never any word of them being implemented.
There is also no justification for that as much older game like EQ2 use amazing light/shadow/reflect and fog effects to add to the much needed imersivness and an organic feeling that VG currently lacks.
And no it is not the question of Unreal engine- Tcos uses the same engine yet they have managed (at least from all the movies i have seen so far) to do wonders with all the things mentioned above. So what exactly is the problem, and why cant they add it in VG?
I am guessing it is the combination of UT and excessive polgons that the engine just cant handle- ergo the crappy preformance.
Poligons in MMOs should be used wisely, more is NOT better in the genre, especially when most of it could be done with bumpmapping at a much lesser preformance cost.
The future will be here soon my friend! SOOOOOON!
Gawd, I hope so at least. It'll fix most of the problems.
I dont think you understand the concepts in play here. DX10 is already part of Vista and has NOTHING to do with Vanguard. Vanguard is a DX9 game and always will be. DX10 will do nothing to fix it.
Yeah, they have yet to supply a proper game so I think it's safe to say a "graphical overhaul" is a year or 3 away
The future will be here soon my friend! SOOOOOON!
Gawd, I hope so at least. It'll fix most of the problems.
I dont think you understand the concepts in play here. DX10 is already part of Vista and has NOTHING to do with Vanguard. Vanguard is a DX9 game and always will be. DX10 will do nothing to fix it.
Well that's not entirely true, DX10 will add depth that DX9 can't, but as far as performance issues go, your right, it won't fix shit.
WHAT? This isnt a DX10 game JFYI.
The future will be here soon my friend! SOOOOOON!
Gawd, I hope so at least. It'll fix most of the problems.
I dont think you understand the concepts in play here. DX10 is already part of Vista and has NOTHING to do with Vanguard. Vanguard is a DX9 game and always will be. DX10 will do nothing to fix it.
Well that's not entirely true, DX10 will add depth that DX9 can't, but as far as performance issues go, your right, it won't fix shit.
Since when can't games be upgraded to better suit higher levels of Direct X?
I do remember a time LONG LONG ago when EQ went from DX8 required to DX9 and I noticed a HUGE DIFFERENCE in gameplay performance.
I stand by my previous statement based on past experiences.
The future will be here soon my friend! SOOOOOON!
Gawd, I hope so at least. It'll fix most of the problems.
I dont think you understand the concepts in play here. DX10 is already part of Vista and has NOTHING to do with Vanguard. Vanguard is a DX9 game and always will be. DX10 will do nothing to fix it.
Well that's not entirely true, DX10 will add depth that DX9 can't, but as far as performance issues go, your right, it won't fix shit.
Agreed, It may add some nice bells and whistles but I was speaking purely from a stability/performance standpoint. As Vanguard is several 1000 miles from needing any kind of peripheral effects, DX10 is not an issue here.
Here I thought it looked gret already dang you mean its going to get even better sweet!
The graphics engine *is* finished. The graphics in V:SoH are on an already 'mature' version of the Unreal engine. There will be fixes, one can only hope, to correct some of the more visible graphics bugs. But in terms of performance, quality, overall stability : what you see is what you got.
Do not believe for even a second that anyone is going to put a dime into upgrading V:SoH graphics to any other engine. Or that the graphic performance or quality is going to improve one bit. It is done. Cooked. Finished.
And having played many hours in both worlds, I feel the graphics in LotRO are superior to V:SoH in every way. Both the engine and the implementaion of the World and NPCs and Quality and Stability, etc.
I appreciate your distaste in the game as I am not the biggest fan of Vanguard either.
But SOE didnt make the game nor or they patching or developing it. SOE only distributed the games and provided Sigil with a launch platform and support forums. They have no other hand in this game. So blame it on Sigil....not SOE on this one
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
I appreciate your distaste in the game as I am not the biggest fan of Vanguard either.
But SOE didnt make the game nor or they patching or developing it. SOE only distributed the games and provided Sigil with a launch platform and support forums. They have no other hand in this game. So blame it on Sigil....not SOE on this one
Very true but the "cheap tricks" that are surfacing now have SOE's marketing department written all over them. I do blame Sigil equally mind you.
For me the AA issue is a big one. I find the lack of it extremely noticeable and actually spent quite a while looking for a method of enforcing it but to no avail. Also I agree with the OP that the lack of static object shadowing gives a plastic feel and detracts from immersion. On the other hand the lack of reflective water doesn't really bother me at all - after i recently upgraded and turned the water effects up to 100% I was really impressed with the way the water looks, especially the surface texture and the translucent effects/coloring when you watch yourself swim.
I completely missed the rumour about an art/graphics patch in the works but Im very happy to hear about it. Numero uno for me would be AA suport (i remember the first time i turned AA from 0 to full in Half Life - I was gobsmacked...but thats another story...
). Fingers crossed the patch comes sooner rather than later. 
The future will be here soon my friend! SOOOOOON!
Gawd, I hope so at least. It'll fix most of the problems.
I dont think you understand the concepts in play here. DX10 is already part of Vista and has NOTHING to do with Vanguard. Vanguard is a DX9 game and always will be. DX10 will do nothing to fix it.
VG will not always be a dx9 game atleast according to the devs, they stated in the past the a dx10 version is possible in the future more than likely in an expansion.
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
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How are you?" -Me