Flat graphics?

Vashra

Ok what's the deal with the new MMO's having such flat graphics?

The majority of my experience is from the old Everquest, which has seen a couple of major graphics updates since its lauch back in '99. So far, this game (and pre-nerf SWG) has graphics that *look* 3-D -- not so much in the smoothness of facial features or the detail on armor, but in the ground-meets-sky sense.

By contrast, I've been quite disappointed with EQ 2 and Vanguard. The graphics are *amazingly* detailed, but they seem to blend together *too* well -- looking less 3-D than they could look otherwise.

Anyone else see this trend or is it just my old eyes?

0k21

I have noticed this too, I'm a 3D modeller and I can safely say that it isn't your imagination a lot of armour and clothing in WoW clearly has been UV Mapped or Textured over, you can tell because the clothing and armour doesn't move seperately from the body, giving the impression that it's just been 'stuck' there. Some stuff I've noticed like the helmets and the like have been modelled seperately from the characters, but yes, it is not just you, even Everquest 2 from what I remember have done this, it's rather sad I find because the graphics in MMORPG's could look awesome but they clearly have just been lazy in doing it. Also, I'd just like to point this out, but Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is actually using the same games engine as Everquest's updated graphics engine, I noticed this because I played Everquest in it's classic days before it was taken over by SOE, the other older players will probably know what I'm on about, after having the classic graphics there was a new update introduced that made the graphics in Everquest better.