Graphics or gameplay? Which one is it? You can't have it both ways. Some people say you can have both. They are wrong. What people consider "good graphics" nowadays is something like what Age of Conan has. The problem is that with todays technology it's just not going to happen. There are no 300vs300 epic battles in AoC, or not even 100vs100. You know why? Because the engine, servers and users computers can't handle it. There would be huge lag and crashes, it would be unplayable. Seeing people here complain about DF graphics really pisses me off. I've seen many here say how they prefer gameplay over graphic but once we see a new video what is the first thing they complain about? Yes, graphics. This is so dumb. I do agree with most people that Aventurine needs to work on the animations. I hate it when in the videos all the characters had this "bounce" in their running. Hope they can fix that. If you want to see what happens when an MMO is all graphics and no gameplay, I suggest you go subscribe to Age of Conan. Sure the game looks pretty but is mostly a boring, instanced, single player game which has no soul. You really want that? We don't know much about the gameplay in DF but if they can make it fluid and fun, graphics are acceptable. At least for me.
Just what we needed, yet another apologist thread for why it's ok that Darkfall looks so sub-par. The reason the graphics are ugly in this game has less to do with the "physical impossibility" of having both decent quality art and decent quality fluidity with large numbers of players, and more to do with the fact that Aventurine is a small dev team with no MMO experience working with the old, clunky code they wrote eight years ago on an indie game designed to appeal to UO fans who'd be happy with 8bit sprites and flashing lights so long as they're still allowed to loot, skin, rape and dance gleefully on the corpse of the guy they just ganked.
AoC took MMO graphics to the extreme, presumably in an attempt to make a game that would stand the test of time visually and thus continue to hold appeal for potential new players for some time to come. They failed for a variety of reasons, and misread the processing power of contemporary gaming machines (which they would have been trying to predict some years in advance when writing their code). But there's no reason why some satisfactory middle ground can't be found without having to look quite as B-grade as Darkfall currently seems to.
The real tragedy here is that most DF fans seem willing to sacrifice visual appeal so long as it guarantees that gameplay will be smooth with these mass 300+ vs 300+ (or whatever) battles everyone keeps talking about, and while that's not my personal preference it's certainly a legitimate choice to make. Yet while we've seen plenty of evidence of the graphics and animation being low-poly and dated, we have yet to see anything that might suggest that the promised mass battles will in fact be smooth, or even possible. On the contrary, the amount of skipping and glitching on display from that Italian vid of the beta with just one player fighting against one NPC mob in a completely empty zone presumably across an internal network is most certainly cause for concern.
By mentioning AoC and pushing the envelope your answer = FAIL. Who cares how good a game looks if its gameplay is weak? DF can have crap WoW graphics for all I care but if the gameplay is good then its gtg.
Infact WoW is the perfect example of crap graphics, gameplay the masses like ( i think its MMORPG's for dumbies personally but thats me ).
EQ2, Vanguard, AoC and soon to come Warhammer are the perfect examples of why focusing on graphics instead of gameplay = FAIL.
Heh heh... by demonstrating that you can't read, perhaps it is you who has "failed". Yes I 'mentioned' Conan, but while I do admire the visuals they managed to create I also agreed that ultimately their approach was a failure. I do however stand by my belief that it is possible to have a game with smooth gameplay and the ability to host mass battles while also being able to achieve better graphics and animation than Darkfall has shown so far. The two don't need to be mutually exclusive.
Take a look at modern FPS games like the recently released Call of Duty World At War - a game that can manage flawlessly smooth gameplay and incredible graphics and effects all while hosting up to 96 players in a single battle. Even a fraction of the visual quality and immersive environment that such games display would put DF's graphics to shame, while still allowing far greater numbers of players and all the extra processing required for mob AI's, costume variation and whatever other elements an MMO requires. It's generally accepted that the long production times for MMOs mean that they will be at least a few years behind the latest technology visually, but Darkfall is really testing the limits of players' tolerance for dated, clunky graphics.
And once again you quote that same old fanboi mantra: "DF can have crap WoW graphics for all I care but if the gameplay is good then its gtg". Problem is we still don't know whether the gameplay actually IS good or whether, as many suspect/believe/fear, the low quality graphics and animation will be matched with equally low quality smoothness and optimization leading to frustrating, laggy and clunky gameplay. Sadly Aventurine's woeful lack of mass testing is making this outcome seem more and more likely.
By mentioning AoC and pushing the envelope your answer = FAIL. Who cares how good a game looks if its gameplay is weak? DF can have crap WoW graphics for all I care but if the gameplay is good then its gtg. Infact WoW is the perfect example of crap graphics, gameplay the masses like ( i think its MMORPG's for dumbies personally but thats me ). EQ2, Vanguard, AoC and soon to come Warhammer are the perfect examples of why focusing on graphics instead of gameplay = FAIL.
Heh heh... by demonstrating that you can't read, perhaps it is you who has "failed". Yes I 'mentioned' Conan, but while I do admire the visuals they managed to create I also agreed that ultimately their approach was a failure. I do however stand by my belief that it is possible to have a game with smooth gameplay and the ability to host mass battles while also being able to achieve better graphics and animation than Darkfall has shown so far. The two don't need to be mutually exclusive.
Take a look at modern FPS games like the recently released Call of Duty World At War - a game that can manage flawlessly smooth gameplay and incredible graphics and effects all while hosting up to 96 players in a single battle. Even a fraction of the visual quality and immersive environment that such games display would put DF's graphics to shame, while still allowing far greater numbers of players and all the extra processing required for mob AI's, costume variation and whatever other elements an MMO requires. It's generally accepted that the long production times for MMOs mean that they will be at least a few years behind the latest technology visually, but Darkfall is really testing the limits of players' tolerance for dated, clunky graphics.
And once again you quote that same old fanboi mantra: "DF can have crap WoW graphics for all I care but if the gameplay is good then its gtg". Problem is we still don't know whether the gameplay actually IS good or whether, as many suspect/believe/fear, the low quality graphics and animation will be matched with equally low quality smoothness and optimization leading to frustrating, laggy and clunky gameplay. Sadly Aventurine's woeful lack of mass testing is making this outcome seem more and more likely.
96 players in a seamless world , with weather forecasting and planetary movements or just multiplayer maps and instances?Can you build a city in CoD ? You know that in MMORPG chars data get saved on the server and not on the client ? You also know that the server handle any action and for any spell and skill used rather then the client for 50k - 100k people? you know that even you not online the server has to manage your house placed somewhere or the guard you hired ?
btw we are past to the point here that people who prefer better graphics over gameplay are idiots
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE-------------------------------------------------- $OE - eternal enemy of online gaming -We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
96 players in a seamless world , with weather forecasting and planetary movements or just multiplayer maps and instances?
btw we are past to the point here that people who prefer better graphics over gameplay are idiots
It's lucky we have geniuses like you around to tell the rest of us who is an idiot and who is not based on your own personal preferences, otherwise we might mistakenly believe that it's ok to have your own opinion.
Sadly it seems you too are unable to read. Let me spell it out for you in small words with big letters so you won't embarrass yourself again:
I do not prefer graphics over gameplay.
I think that we can and should expect to see both.
And I believe with Darkfall we will see neither, despite all of Tasos' empty promises and all your desperate hopes and dreams.
Graphics or gameplay? Which one is it? You can't have it both ways. Some people say you can have both. They are wrong. What people consider "good graphics" nowadays is something like what Age of Conan has. The problem is that with todays technology it's just not going to happen. There are no 300vs300 epic battles in AoC, or not even 100vs100. You know why? Because the engine, servers and users computers can't handle it. There would be huge lag and crashes, it would be unplayable. Seeing people here complain about DF graphics really pisses me off. I've seen many here say how they prefer gameplay over graphic but once we see a new video what is the first thing they complain about? Yes, graphics. This is so dumb. I do agree with most people that Aventurine needs to work on the animations. I hate it when in the videos all the characters had this "bounce" in their running. Hope they can fix that. If you want to see what happens when an MMO is all graphics and no gameplay, I suggest you go subscribe to Age of Conan. Sure the game looks pretty but is mostly a boring, instanced, single player game which has no soul. You really want that? We don't know much about the gameplay in DF but if they can make it fluid and fun, graphics are acceptable. At least for me.
1. You are wrong. No one says the graphics have to be ultra realistic -- just well done. You can have great graphics and still have great gameplay.
2. Not all games revolve around 100vs100 -- just the game you seem to be interested in, so it's not always an issue.
3. If you are getting pissed off reading the forums, I'd suggest you stop reading. You're taking this stuff way too seriously.
96 players in a seamless world , with weather forecasting and planetary movements or just multiplayer maps and instances?
btw we are past to the point here that people who prefer better graphics over gameplay are idiots
It's lucky we have geniuses like you around to tell the rest of us who is an idiot and who is not based on your own personal preferences, otherwise we might mistakenly believe that it's ok to have your own opinion.
Sadly it seems you too are unable to read. Let me spell it out for you in small words with big letters so you won't embarrass yourself again:
I do not prefer graphics over gameplay.
I think that we can and should expect to see both.
And I believe with Darkfall we will see neither, despite all of Tasos' empty promises and all your desperate hopes and dreams.
And then you mention CoD to compare to DF ...
DF has amazing graphics compared to the promised features ...They better then anyone expected who knows some bits about MMO...Some obviously have no idea what an MMORPG/FPS is about ..
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE-------------------------------------------------- $OE - eternal enemy of online gaming -We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
First of all, I know you will look at my post history, and likely assume I am a DF troll. This in a way, is correct- here's why.
I have been in the game graphics business for 10 years, and know a thing or two about what is workable and what isn't. The animations in DF, are sub par with today's standards, by any stretch of the imagination. Sure the models look better than WoW, but that is because they are higher rez. Personally, they look a little blocky still to me, but that is personal preference and doesn't influence my decision on the graphics issue of this game. You see, if you are going to do an MMO with high rez models, then you have to optimize the hell out of both the models and the animations that goes with them. The animations alone, show that they are either using ancient software, or are just that inexperienced in modeling/animating. I guarantee that the file sizes accompanying the gameplay, are huge right now. Therefore, unless they completely remodel and animate everything, you will have severe lag, innumerable memory leaks, and zone crashes. Oh yes, this game is also guaranteed instanced- just by the approach they have taken and the low quality optimization. This will not be the open sandbox, huge battle performing game that fanbois are expecting. While the ruleset might be more inline with hardcore sandbox hopes, the execution will be more like AoC, and possibly worse.
Graphics technique is the main reason you have the "openess" comparison between low poly games like WoW, and mid-high poly games like DF/ AoC/VG. It all depends on what kind of file load and execution you can handle, and the better the graphics, the bigger the files. But if you optimize it as good as you can, sometimes you can midicate some of the problems. AoC failed to do that at launch, VG failed to do that at launch, and you will see the same thing happen in DF.
Lastly, a company that has also been doing graphics on the game for a decade, should know better about this sort of thing- hell, it's even taught in school these days. The fact that they allowed such a move, shows their inexperience. Inexperience is always the excuse for poor performance, so I wouldn't expect Adventurine to "perform" well.
Waiting for- Tera, Jumpgate Evo, WH40K, WWE, WOD, TSW -- -- "Hey, if Activision liked it, then they should have put a ring on it," Double Fine President Tim Schafer said. "Oh great, now Beyonce is going to sue me too."
First of all, I know you will look at my post history, and likely assume I am a DF troll. This in a way, is correct- here's why. I have been in the game graphics business for 10 years, and know a thing or two about what is workable and what isn't. The animations in DF, are sub par with today's standards, by any stretch of the imagination. Sure the models look better than WoW, but that is because they are higher rez. Personally, they look a little blocky still to me, but that is personal preference and doesn't influence my decision on the graphics issue of this game. You see, if you are going to do an MMO with high rez models, then you have to optimize the hell out of both the models and the animations that goes with them. The animations alone, show that they are either using ancient software, or are just that inexperienced in modeling/animating. I guarantee that the file sizes accompanying the gameplay, are huge right now. Therefore, unless they completely remodel and animate everything, you will have severe lag, innumerable memory leaks, and zone crashes. Oh yes, this game is also guaranteed instanced- just by the approach they have taken and the low quality optimization. This will not be the open sandbox, huge battle performing game that fanbois are expecting. While the ruleset might be more inline with hardcore sandbox hopes, the execution will be more like AoC, and possibly worse. Graphics technique is the main reason you have the "openess" comparison between low poly games like WoW, and mid-high poly games like DF/ AoC/VG. It all depends on what kind of file load and execution you can handle, and the better the graphics, the bigger the files. But if you optimize it as good as you can, sometimes you can midicate some of the problems. AoC failed to do that at launch, VG failed to do that at launch, and you will see the same thing happen in DF. Lastly, a company that has also been doing graphics on the game for a decade, should know better about this sort of thing- hell, it's even taught in school these days. The fact that they allowed such a move, shows their inexperience. Inexperience is always the excuse for poor performance, so I wouldn't expect Adventurine to "perform" well.
They have mentioned some "automatic-scale resolution" to solve the problem you address and balance with the massive battles..Would like to see that myself ..
Some of the animation could be better executed but not all ...some are ok
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE-------------------------------------------------- $OE - eternal enemy of online gaming -We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
96 players in a seamless world , with weather forecasting and planetary movements or just multiplayer maps and instances?Can you build a city in CoD ? You know that in MMORPG chars data get saved on the server and not on the client ? You also know that the server handle any action and for any spell and skill used rather then the client for 50k - 100k people? you know that even you not online the server has to manage your house placed somewhere or the guard you hired ?
We'll have to wait to see just how "seamless" Darkfall's world is, or whether they suffer from the same crappy lagging and hitching every time you cross over into another shard as Vanguard had at launch.
Yes FPS games do have dynamic weather effects.
No they don't have planetary effects, and either does Darkfall, unless you mean a simple animated sun/moon that moves across the sky.
There is no evidence that you can build a city in Darkfall on any of the gameplay videos or trailers (except that one that springs out of nowhere) and no guarantee that this feature will make it into release. Same goes for the player housing, the NPC guards, and so many other things that are supposedly in this "feature complete" game.
I clearly understand the difference between FPS and MMO games, and I don't expect the latter to come nearly up to the visual standard of the former (I never said I did). I mentioned CoD to illustrate the huge gulf that exists between contemporary graphic capabilities (and hence player expectations) and that which Darkfall has presented, and to say that even a fraction of CoD's visual quality and immersion would be an improvement over what we've seen so far from Aventurine. DF graphics may well look better than anyone expected (that 17 minutes of in-game garbage they released back in August or whenever set everyone's expectations to a new low) but they sure as hell don't look good, or even good enough, to attract any but the most artistically ambivalent players... those like you who don't care (or perhaps don't even notice) how bad it looks.
I just hope for your sake that the 'gameplay perfection' you keep falling back to is actually there when/if the game eventually releases. It certainly doesn't look promising at this stage.
96 players in a seamless world , with weather forecasting and planetary movements or just multiplayer maps and instances?Can you build a city in CoD ? You know that in MMORPG chars data get saved on the server and not on the client ? You also know that the server handle any action and for any spell and skill used rather then the client for 50k - 100k people? you know that even you not online the server has to manage your house placed somewhere or the guard you hired ?
btw we are past to the point here that people who prefer better graphics over gameplay are idiots
Just to clarify because right now people is giving missleading info.
All the text in red have nothing to do with graphics. Graphics are managed in the client program not in the server. It's true that massive presence of characters in a given area is a difficult situation in the server side but it has nothing to do with graphics.
There is plenty of information about how MMORPGS work.
96 players in a seamless world , with weather forecasting and planetary movements or just multiplayer maps and instances?Can you build a city in CoD ? You know that in MMORPG chars data get saved on the server and not on the client ? You also know that the server handle any action and for any spell and skill used rather then the client for 50k - 100k people? you know that even you not online the server has to manage your house placed somewhere or the guard you hired ?
btw we are past to the point here that people who prefer better graphics over gameplay are idiots
Just to clarify because right now people is giving missleading info.
All the text in red have nothing to do with graphics. Graphics are managed in the client program not in the server. It's true that massive presence of characters in a given area is a difficult situation in the server side but it has nothing to do with graphics.
There is plenty of information about how MMORPGS work.
And just to clarify because people like to give misleading info..
Text in green has everything to do with game performance..
Let you 96 CoD players build a city and grow wheeds and have 50k of offline data of users managed and lets see if they can smoothly battle each other
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE-------------------------------------------------- $OE - eternal enemy of online gaming -We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
I don't get it. To me, Darkfall looks amazing and one of the better looking games in development. I don't understand how people think it looks bad.
Though characters do look a bit slow and stiff as they move around, that's my only complaint, but I'll wait and see how it plays out (if it plays out at all.)
First of all, I know you will look at my post history, and likely assume I am a DF troll. This in a way, is correct- here's why. I have been in the game graphics business for 10 years, and know a thing or two about what is workable and what isn't. The animations in DF, are sub par with today's standards, by any stretch of the imagination. Sure the models look better than WoW, but that is because they are higher rez. Personally, they look a little blocky still to me, but that is personal preference and doesn't influence my decision on the graphics issue of this game. You see, if you are going to do an MMO with high rez models, then you have to optimize the hell out of both the models and the animations that goes with them. The animations alone, show that they are either using ancient software, or are just that inexperienced in modeling/animating. I guarantee that the file sizes accompanying the gameplay, are huge right now. Therefore, unless they completely remodel and animate everything, you will have severe lag, innumerable memory leaks, and zone crashes. Oh yes, this game is also guaranteed instanced- just by the approach they have taken and the low quality optimization. This will not be the open sandbox, huge battle performing game that fanbois are expecting. While the ruleset might be more inline with hardcore sandbox hopes, the execution will be more like AoC, and possibly worse. Graphics technique is the main reason you have the "openess" comparison between low poly games like WoW, and mid-high poly games like DF/ AoC/VG. It all depends on what kind of file load and execution you can handle, and the better the graphics, the bigger the files. But if you optimize it as good as you can, sometimes you can midicate some of the problems. AoC failed to do that at launch, VG failed to do that at launch, and you will see the same thing happen in DF. Lastly, a company that has also been doing graphics on the game for a decade, should know better about this sort of thing- hell, it's even taught in school these days. The fact that they allowed such a move, shows their inexperience. Inexperience is always the excuse for poor performance, so I wouldn't expect Adventurine to "perform" well.
They have mentioned some "automatic-scale resolution" to solve the problem you address and balance with the massive battles..Would like to see that myself ..
Some of the animation could be better executed but not all ...some are ok
That might help somewhat if they scaled it. There are ways of helping this go even further which might end up being a method they choose. However, given what appears, at least on the surface, of their know-how on optimization, I doubt they will utilize it. What I am thinking of, is the scaled properties put into the software within the last couple or so releases, which more or less turns anything in a distance, be it placeholder models, like foilage/huts/mobs, etc to pc models- all into more or less 2d sprites. This has helped allow more massive cgi cinematics, and I have seen some recent games incorporate elements of it into the design. However, most of it is lost because everyone wants to tune their in-game settings to highest, and this method is given a wide range, with the highest being to not use the method. If they really want to accomplish anything remotely like they are promising, they will have to force it into the video settings, and cap off the high end setting at something that works, like a few hundred meters. Again, given how long they have been working on this, and then what they have actually shown, I am not holding my breath on them utilizing the latest techniques- at least not at launch.
Waiting for- Tera, Jumpgate Evo, WH40K, WWE, WOD, TSW -- -- "Hey, if Activision liked it, then they should have put a ring on it," Double Fine President Tim Schafer said. "Oh great, now Beyonce is going to sue me too."
My personal opinion is that if the gameplay is great, I can deal with subpar graphics... to a certain extent.
There are two big factors that I look at when I start a new MMO game.
1. Am I having fun?
- Simple enough. When I play do I lose track of time? Do I not want to log out? Can I not wait to log in when I have a chance to play again? Would I recommend it to my friends? Ect...
2. Do I feel immersed in the world?
- This one is a bit more complex and a lot more personal. When I log into a game I want to feel like I'm in the world. I've played PnP games for a long time, and this was always the deciding factor between a good DM and a Great DM. If I don't feel immersed in the world, I don't care how good the gameplay is, I won't stay for very long because I don't feel any emotional attachment to anything in the world.
Immersion for me relies on a number of things, almost all visual related. I won't go into detail, but the more "alive" the world feels, the more immersed I become. Right now, the animations (all of them, not just running. The attack animations are worse then the running in my opinion) are very unrealistic and jarring.
Right now I'm not sure if I can get past the horrible animations, even if the gameplay is fantastic.
UO is still the only game that has got both of these factors right for me. Some other games got one or the other, but never both.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
I don't get it. To me, Darkfall looks amazing and one of the better looking games in development. I don't understand how people think it looks bad. Though characters do look a bit slow and stiff as they move around, that's my only complaint, but I'll wait and see how it plays out (if it plays out at all.)
You aren't alone. Majority of people agree with you. It is just the very vocal minority that want any reason to bash this game because they enjoy being internet tough.
It drives them crazy that DF is comming out and that people are excited about it.
96 players in a seamless world , with weather forecasting and planetary movements or just multiplayer maps and instances?Can you build a city in CoD ? You know that in MMORPG chars data get saved on the server and not on the client ? You also know that the server handle any action and for any spell and skill used rather then the client for 50k - 100k people? you know that even you not online the server has to manage your house placed somewhere or the guard you hired ?
btw we are past to the point here that people who prefer better graphics over gameplay are idiots
Just to clarify because right now people is giving missleading info.
All the text in red have nothing to do with graphics. Graphics are managed in the client program not in the server. It's true that massive presence of characters in a given area is a difficult situation in the server side but it has nothing to do with graphics.
There is plenty of information about how MMORPGS work.
And just to clarify because people like to give misleading info..
Text in green has everything to do with game performance..
I agree, text in green does have everything to do with graphics. Even if the data files are stored on the client, the server has to execute said files, from each client- and then register that it has been found, loaded, and is executing. It is the load times that tends to cause lag in larger files, both texture maps and the models themselves, as well as the animation and sound files. Each swing of the sword has to be found/ loaded and executed by the server. Then it has to run the calculations on what exactly that swing did to the environment and you. That is really the easy part, since it is all spreadsheets that is stored on the server. Just thought I would give a more complete picture as to really what happens when you see a player and decide to do something. Now multiply all these things happening, with large files that are in this case likely unoptimized, over thousands of players. This is where you get zoning/instancing- in that the devs try to alleviate server stress by forcing it to only have to calculate small areas of the game world at a time. So all in all, while most of the files themselves might be stored on the client- the actual execution is based from the server, er go the text in green IS correct.
Waiting for- Tera, Jumpgate Evo, WH40K, WWE, WOD, TSW -- -- "Hey, if Activision liked it, then they should have put a ring on it," Double Fine President Tim Schafer said. "Oh great, now Beyonce is going to sue me too."
If a game has good graphics it means it has graphics that connects to it's theme very well and makes up for an extension of the gameplay.
Good graphics does not really mean lots of pixels or super advanced textures, but could simply just be that everything "connects" and looks smooth.
Darkfall, from what I've seen in videos isn't very smooth. Characters runs like if they have a fist-full of rocks showed up their #"!@%. Though it's just what we have seen so far, maby in-game it connects in a different way, who knows?
$OE lies list http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0 " And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
If a game has good graphics it means it has graphics that connects to it's theme very well and makes up for an extension of the gameplay. Good graphics does not really mean lots of pixels or super advanced textures, but could simply just be that everything "connects" and looks smooth. Darkfall, from what I've seen in videos isn't very smooth. Characters runs like if they have a fist-full of rocks showed up their #"!@%. Though it's just what we have seen so far, maby in-game it connects in a different way, who knows?
Funny that you mention it , from what i have seen DarkFall graphics connects perfectly to its theme, dark castles, misty swamps, icy mountains, slow flowing rivers, dark forrests. The tone of the graphics being mostly dark and try to give you more realistic feel about the surroundings..
You could be right about few animations tho , for example the running on the other hand on the ork it looked not bad ...
However MMO developers try (or should try in the case of AoC) to satisfy alot diversely player pc setups and try to let the healer with an average rig loading properly and heal you in time before you in your high end egoshooter rig die and propably your ego get some scratches...
Game developers of games like CoD know people who buy and play that game, much likely will have their high end egoshooter rig up and ready...
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE-------------------------------------------------- $OE - eternal enemy of online gaming -We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
96 players in a seamless world , with weather forecasting and planetary movements or just multiplayer maps and instances?Can you build a city in CoD ? You know that in MMORPG chars data get saved on the server and not on the client ? You also know that the server handle any action and for any spell and skill used rather then the client for 50k - 100k people? you know that even you not online the server has to manage your house placed somewhere or the guard you hired ?
btw we are past to the point here that people who prefer better graphics over gameplay are idiots
Just to clarify because right now people is giving missleading info.
All the text in red have nothing to do with graphics. Graphics are managed in the client program not in the server. It's true that massive presence of characters in a given area is a difficult situation in the server side but it has nothing to do with graphics.
There is plenty of information about how MMORPGS work.
btw followed your link to "start about MMOPRG" and look what i found there :
"Differences Between FPS and MMORPG 3D
A lot of the what goes into designing a 3D world is the same between MMORPG and FPS games. However, one big difference is the huge number of models and texture maps that exist within an MMORPG as compared to an FPS game. Although many game computers today have more than a gigabyte of RAM, it’s still a challenge to cache the various models and texture maps that a player sees on their screen. In a given fantasy-themed MMORPG, there might be thousands of weapons and armor pieces that a character might wear, and it needs to be possible to quickly render the various appearances of characters regardless of who you might come across."
And here :
"The servers are the heart of any MMORPG: it is here that all of the rules are interpreted, and all the data on the location and movement of objects is maintained. All of this work must be done within the servers, and not the client, or else unethical players could hack their client software to give them advantages unavailable to others. Most MMORPGs consist of a variety of different servers for providing different parts of the game experience."
Sums it up why you can't have amazing graphics on an MMO seamsless world...and he just talks about weapon, armor and appearences and not the amazing number of objects flooding around the seamless MMO world that need to be stored and quick rendered...
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE-------------------------------------------------- $OE - eternal enemy of online gaming -We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
96 players in a seamless world , with weather forecasting and planetary movements or just multiplayer maps and instances?Can you build a city in CoD ? You know that in MMORPG chars data get saved on the server and not on the client ? You also know that the server handle any action and for any spell and skill used rather then the client for 50k - 100k people? you know that even you not online the server has to manage your house placed somewhere or the guard you hired ?
btw we are past to the point here that people who prefer better graphics over gameplay are idiots
Just to clarify because right now people is giving missleading info.
All the text in red have nothing to do with graphics. Graphics are managed in the client program not in the server. It's true that massive presence of characters in a given area is a difficult situation in the server side but it has nothing to do with graphics.
There is plenty of information about how MMORPGS work.
And just to clarify because people like to give misleading info..
Text in green has everything to do with game performance..
Let you 96 CoD players build a city and grow wheeds and have 50k of offline data of users managed and lets see if they can smoothly battle each other
I’m sorry you get it that way.
1. Let me say that I’m waiting to play Darkfall. And I have hopes it will be a very good game. I said it a lot of times in these boards you can check it very easily.
Not was my intention and still is not to attack Darkfall. I can’t say anything about it, I haven’t played it. Few low quality videos and screenshots are not enough to form my opinion about the visual experience in this game. If you think I’m trying to troll or attack Darkfall or whatever you are wrong. I don’t like misleading anyone.
2. I prefer game play over graphics, may be with some limits. I’ll love to have the opportunity to play again Asheron’s Call 2 and I’m sure Darkfall graphics will be way better than these ones.
3 I made my post because as you can easily see this thread, and not just this one, is full of wrong information about how an MMORPG works, people merge things that have nothing to do (sometimes I doubt about if it is on purpose or not), stand with misconceptions and so. I’m sorry you win my lottery. There is a post following yours full of wrong information. I’m not going to answer it. It’s pointless.
4 I understand that the fanbois of Darkfall (take it in the positive meaning) are tired of trolls coming here to bash his game. But I think the overreactions and the defence going over what is reasonably and true concepts is not the best way to deal with the trolls. Moreover gives to the rest of the MMORPG community the feeling that Darkfall community is not the best. Right now, Darkfall fanbois and trolls are the same thing in the eyes of a lot of people.
All this said, I’m back to the details.
This thread is about graphics and game play. Graphics don’t exist in the servers, objects are just vectors, positions and characteristics. Servers don’t process graphic information. Polygons, textures, particles, animation frames and so are in the client and managed only by the client.
The unique impact that graphics have in the performance of the servers is about the need to deal with the different delays coming from different clients. (When the client is sending the information too late because of bad performance caused by graphics processing) but it’s just an indirect impact that merges with the delay caused by communications and other things normally with bigger impact.
The problem with graphics happens in the client, happens in your computer not in the server. You merged things and this is misleading, sorry to say. That was the meaning of my post, the sentences I put in red were all talking about problems in the server side when we are talking here about graphics.
Yes I agree, high level graphics could compromise the situations of massive game play but only in the client side. Massive game play puts load in the servers, yes, but not due to graphic reasons. You can believe me or not, it’s not my problem.
Edit: i saw your last post too late. Is there any contradiction about what i said? You see graphics in client side not in server side.
96 players in a seamless world , with weather forecasting and planetary movements or just multiplayer maps and instances?Can you build a city in CoD ? You know that in MMORPG chars data get saved on the server and not on the client ? You also know that the server handle any action and for any spell and skill used rather then the client for 50k - 100k people? you know that even you not online the server has to manage your house placed somewhere or the guard you hired ?
btw we are past to the point here that people who prefer better graphics over gameplay are idiots
Just to clarify because right now people is giving missleading info.
All the text in red have nothing to do with graphics. Graphics are managed in the client program not in the server. It's true that massive presence of characters in a given area is a difficult situation in the server side but it has nothing to do with graphics.
There is plenty of information about how MMORPGS work.
And just to clarify because people like to give misleading info..
Text in green has everything to do with game performance..
Let you 96 CoD players build a city and grow wheeds and have 50k of offline data of users managed and lets see if they can smoothly battle each other
I’m sorry you get it that way.
1. Let me say that I’m waiting to play Darkfall. And I have hopes it will be a very good game. I said it a lot of times in these boards you can check it very easily.
Not was my intention and still is not to attack Darkfall. I can’t say anything about it, I haven’t played it. Few low quality videos and screenshots are not enough to form my opinion about the visual experience in this game. If you think I’m trying to troll or attack Darkfall or whatever you are wrong. I don’t like misleading anyone.
2. I prefer game play over graphics, may be with some limits. I’ll love to have the opportunity to play again Asheron’s Call 2 and I’m sure Darkfall graphics will be way better than these ones.
3 I made my post because as you can easily see this thread, and not just this one, is full of wrong information about how an MMORPG works, people merge things that have nothing to do (sometimes I doubt about if it is on purpose or not), stand with misconceptions and so. I’m sorry you win my lottery. There is a post following yours full of wrong information. I’m not going to answer it. It’s pointless.
4 I understand that the fanbois of Darkfall (take it in the positive meaning) are tired of trolls coming here to bash his game. But I think the overreactions and the defence going over what is reasonably and true concepts is not the best way to deal with the trolls. Moreover gives to the rest of the MMORPG community the feeling that Darkfall community is not the best. Right now, Darkfall fanbois and trolls are the same thing in the eyes of a lot of people.
All this said, I’m back to the details.
This thread is about graphics and game play. Graphics don’t exist in the servers, objects are just vectors, positions and characteristics. Servers don’t process graphic information. Polygons, textures, particles, animation frames and so are in the client and managed only by the client.
The unique impact that graphics have in the performance of the servers is about the need to deal with the different delays coming from different clients. (When the client is sending the information too late because of bad performance caused by graphics processing) but it’s just an indirect impact that merges with the delay caused by communications and other things normally with bigger impact.
The problem with graphics happens in the client, happens in your computer not in the server. You merged things and this is misleading, sorry to say. That was the meaning of my post, the sentences I put in red were all talking about problems in the server side when we are talking here about graphics.
Yes I agree, high level graphics could compromise the situations of massive game play but only in the client side. Massive game play puts load in the servers, yes, but not due to graphic reasons. You can believe me or not, it’s not my problem.
Edit: i saw your last post too late. Is there any contradiction about what i said? You see graphics in client side not in server side.
Well, sorry to have a server mentioned in need for a defense to qualify differences between Call of Duty type of games and DarkFall type of games...
Because you are right about graphic being rendered on the client , what do you think , will it matter if we are 200 or 2 people on a spot on the server fighting each other graphic wise ? will it matter if Aventurine then has put large complex meshs models or simple models to render on us ? Will it matter if there 20 armor pieces slots on a char to render or just 4 slots ?
Where do you think comes the server into play if it doesn't has any impact on the client graphic wise ?
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE-------------------------------------------------- $OE - eternal enemy of online gaming -We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
Well, sorry to have a server mentioned in need for a defense to qualify differences between Call of Duty type of games and DarkFall type of games... Because you are right about graphic being rendered on the client , what do you think , will it matter if we are 200 or 2 people on a spot on the server fighting each other graphic wise ? will it matter if Aventurine then has put large complex meshs models or simple models to render on us ? Will it matter if there 20 armor pieces slots on a char to render or just 4 slots ? Of course all of it matters. But if it is causing problems or not will depend on several things (in a given span of computer levels), like the skill of the programmers, how far they are pushing the technology and what the game design requires and some more i'm probably missing. I’m sorry but I think is pointless right now to try to get conclusions about how is it going in Darkfall. I don’t see any reason to adopt this defensive position. I have hopes about Darkfall delivering a good compromise. Where do you think comes the server into play if it doesn't has any impact on the client graphic wise ? I'm not sure if i understand right your question. As you have yet noticed i'm a non native english speaker and probably i'm missing something. But as far as i know, and you posted some information about it coming from and independent and expert source, really the impact of the server on graphics in the client is probably nule.
I said before that I have hopes on a good compromise game play - graphics in Darkfall. If the compromise is good for someone will be a question of tastes. Not just graphics technology is important about the visual experience. A good artwork, care for the detail,... can make miracles.
I have not seen recently any game that could be comparable to Darkfall in massive game play and delivers a good compromise.
But it was done at least once, really the only one I had experienced and it was 5 years ago. In October 2003 (April 2004 Europe/NA) NCSoft launched Lineage II. The client program was using the Unreal 2 (FPS game launched in 2002) graphic engine the rest was developed by NCSoft.
At that time the visual impact was really amazing comparing it with any other MMORPG around. You can like or not the style but cannot be denied that it was at very high level of quality and polish (always talking about graphics). With this graphic setup Lineage II was able to run really massive sieges. With some problems server side in the first occasions but it was fixed very soon. In the client side you just need to disable some things to play the siege in smooth way, and when the siege finished you got back to the good graphics. If you got a good computer no needs for adjustments but hiding names and it was more for confusion and targeting.
I don't see why the same success can't be attained by a game developed these days.
Then I’m not sure at all that what you and some other people said about the impossibility to have a good game play and good graphics is really true or not. I hope not.
Personally never understood people's obsession with graphics. Thats whats wrong with games today... we have all this gamers who arent true "Gamers" and are more along the lines of "Art Appreciaters" Yet the gaming companies make games for them since there are more of them.
A true "Gamer" cares about the gameplay over the gfx. Wow better looking pixels.. who cares??
gameplay, gameplay and gameplay. I'm really pissed of "cutie-looking" carebare bullshit with eternal boring gear/level grinding. I'm too busy and have no time to grind, though want to play. Hope the Darkfall will be the game it was promised to be...
Comments
Just what we needed, yet another apologist thread for why it's ok that Darkfall looks so sub-par. The reason the graphics are ugly in this game has less to do with the "physical impossibility" of having both decent quality art and decent quality fluidity with large numbers of players, and more to do with the fact that Aventurine is a small dev team with no MMO experience working with the old, clunky code they wrote eight years ago on an indie game designed to appeal to UO fans who'd be happy with 8bit sprites and flashing lights so long as they're still allowed to loot, skin, rape and dance gleefully on the corpse of the guy they just ganked.
AoC took MMO graphics to the extreme, presumably in an attempt to make a game that would stand the test of time visually and thus continue to hold appeal for potential new players for some time to come. They failed for a variety of reasons, and misread the processing power of contemporary gaming machines (which they would have been trying to predict some years in advance when writing their code). But there's no reason why some satisfactory middle ground can't be found without having to look quite as B-grade as Darkfall currently seems to.
The real tragedy here is that most DF fans seem willing to sacrifice visual appeal so long as it guarantees that gameplay will be smooth with these mass 300+ vs 300+ (or whatever) battles everyone keeps talking about, and while that's not my personal preference it's certainly a legitimate choice to make. Yet while we've seen plenty of evidence of the graphics and animation being low-poly and dated, we have yet to see anything that might suggest that the promised mass battles will in fact be smooth, or even possible. On the contrary, the amount of skipping and glitching on display from that Italian vid of the beta with just one player fighting against one NPC mob in a completely empty zone presumably across an internal network is most certainly cause for concern.
By mentioning AoC and pushing the envelope your answer = FAIL. Who cares how good a game looks if its gameplay is weak? DF can have crap WoW graphics for all I care but if the gameplay is good then its gtg.
Infact WoW is the perfect example of crap graphics, gameplay the masses like ( i think its MMORPG's for dumbies personally but thats me ).
EQ2, Vanguard, AoC and soon to come Warhammer are the perfect examples of why focusing on graphics instead of gameplay = FAIL.
Heh heh... by demonstrating that you can't read, perhaps it is you who has "failed". Yes I 'mentioned' Conan, but while I do admire the visuals they managed to create I also agreed that ultimately their approach was a failure. I do however stand by my belief that it is possible to have a game with smooth gameplay and the ability to host mass battles while also being able to achieve better graphics and animation than Darkfall has shown so far. The two don't need to be mutually exclusive.
Take a look at modern FPS games like the recently released Call of Duty World At War - a game that can manage flawlessly smooth gameplay and incredible graphics and effects all while hosting up to 96 players in a single battle. Even a fraction of the visual quality and immersive environment that such games display would put DF's graphics to shame, while still allowing far greater numbers of players and all the extra processing required for mob AI's, costume variation and whatever other elements an MMO requires. It's generally accepted that the long production times for MMOs mean that they will be at least a few years behind the latest technology visually, but Darkfall is really testing the limits of players' tolerance for dated, clunky graphics.
And once again you quote that same old fanboi mantra: "DF can have crap WoW graphics for all I care but if the gameplay is good then its gtg". Problem is we still don't know whether the gameplay actually IS good or whether, as many suspect/believe/fear, the low quality graphics and animation will be matched with equally low quality smoothness and optimization leading to frustrating, laggy and clunky gameplay. Sadly Aventurine's woeful lack of mass testing is making this outcome seem more and more likely.
Heh heh... by demonstrating that you can't read, perhaps it is you who has "failed". Yes I 'mentioned' Conan, but while I do admire the visuals they managed to create I also agreed that ultimately their approach was a failure. I do however stand by my belief that it is possible to have a game with smooth gameplay and the ability to host mass battles while also being able to achieve better graphics and animation than Darkfall has shown so far. The two don't need to be mutually exclusive.
Take a look at modern FPS games like the recently released Call of Duty World At War - a game that can manage flawlessly smooth gameplay and incredible graphics and effects all while hosting up to 96 players in a single battle. Even a fraction of the visual quality and immersive environment that such games display would put DF's graphics to shame, while still allowing far greater numbers of players and all the extra processing required for mob AI's, costume variation and whatever other elements an MMO requires. It's generally accepted that the long production times for MMOs mean that they will be at least a few years behind the latest technology visually, but Darkfall is really testing the limits of players' tolerance for dated, clunky graphics.
And once again you quote that same old fanboi mantra: "DF can have crap WoW graphics for all I care but if the gameplay is good then its gtg". Problem is we still don't know whether the gameplay actually IS good or whether, as many suspect/believe/fear, the low quality graphics and animation will be matched with equally low quality smoothness and optimization leading to frustrating, laggy and clunky gameplay. Sadly Aventurine's woeful lack of mass testing is making this outcome seem more and more likely.
96 players in a seamless world , with weather forecasting and planetary movements or just multiplayer maps and instances?Can you build a city in CoD ? You know that in MMORPG chars data get saved on the server and not on the client ? You also know that the server handle any action and for any spell and skill used rather then the client for 50k - 100k people? you know that even you not online the server has to manage your house placed somewhere or the guard you hired ?
btw we are past to the point here that people who prefer better graphics over gameplay are idiots
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
96 players in a seamless world , with weather forecasting and planetary movements or just multiplayer maps and instances?
btw we are past to the point here that people who prefer better graphics over gameplay are idiots
It's lucky we have geniuses like you around to tell the rest of us who is an idiot and who is not based on your own personal preferences, otherwise we might mistakenly believe that it's ok to have your own opinion.
Sadly it seems you too are unable to read. Let me spell it out for you in small words with big letters so you won't embarrass yourself again:
I do not prefer graphics over gameplay.
I think that we can and should expect to see both.
And I believe with Darkfall we will see neither, despite all of Tasos' empty promises and all your desperate hopes and dreams.
1. You are wrong. No one says the graphics have to be ultra realistic -- just well done. You can have great graphics and still have great gameplay.
2. Not all games revolve around 100vs100 -- just the game you seem to be interested in, so it's not always an issue.
3. If you are getting pissed off reading the forums, I'd suggest you stop reading. You're taking this stuff way too seriously.
96 players in a seamless world , with weather forecasting and planetary movements or just multiplayer maps and instances?
btw we are past to the point here that people who prefer better graphics over gameplay are idiots
It's lucky we have geniuses like you around to tell the rest of us who is an idiot and who is not based on your own personal preferences, otherwise we might mistakenly believe that it's ok to have your own opinion.
Sadly it seems you too are unable to read. Let me spell it out for you in small words with big letters so you won't embarrass yourself again:
I do not prefer graphics over gameplay.
I think that we can and should expect to see both.
And I believe with Darkfall we will see neither, despite all of Tasos' empty promises and all your desperate hopes and dreams.
And then you mention CoD to compare to DF ...
DF has amazing graphics compared to the promised features ...They better then anyone expected who knows some bits about MMO...Some obviously have no idea what an MMORPG/FPS is about ..
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
Don't read forums go play Taikodom , you will rest your smart brains and have fun.
First of all, I know you will look at my post history, and likely assume I am a DF troll. This in a way, is correct- here's why.
I have been in the game graphics business for 10 years, and know a thing or two about what is workable and what isn't. The animations in DF, are sub par with today's standards, by any stretch of the imagination. Sure the models look better than WoW, but that is because they are higher rez. Personally, they look a little blocky still to me, but that is personal preference and doesn't influence my decision on the graphics issue of this game. You see, if you are going to do an MMO with high rez models, then you have to optimize the hell out of both the models and the animations that goes with them. The animations alone, show that they are either using ancient software, or are just that inexperienced in modeling/animating. I guarantee that the file sizes accompanying the gameplay, are huge right now. Therefore, unless they completely remodel and animate everything, you will have severe lag, innumerable memory leaks, and zone crashes. Oh yes, this game is also guaranteed instanced- just by the approach they have taken and the low quality optimization. This will not be the open sandbox, huge battle performing game that fanbois are expecting. While the ruleset might be more inline with hardcore sandbox hopes, the execution will be more like AoC, and possibly worse.
Graphics technique is the main reason you have the "openess" comparison between low poly games like WoW, and mid-high poly games like DF/ AoC/VG. It all depends on what kind of file load and execution you can handle, and the better the graphics, the bigger the files. But if you optimize it as good as you can, sometimes you can midicate some of the problems. AoC failed to do that at launch, VG failed to do that at launch, and you will see the same thing happen in DF.
Lastly, a company that has also been doing graphics on the game for a decade, should know better about this sort of thing- hell, it's even taught in school these days. The fact that they allowed such a move, shows their inexperience. Inexperience is always the excuse for poor performance, so I wouldn't expect Adventurine to "perform" well.
-----------------------
Tried- L2, Ryzom, WAR, DDO, PWI, Tab Rasa, Requiem, Champs, AA, JD, PWI, SUN, Dawntide
Played- SWG (pre-cu), AoC, VG, WoW, LoTRO,CoX, EQ2, DAOC, GW, PotBS, Aion, MO,APB, NASA, Fallen Earth, DCUO, Rift
Playing- EVE, Black Prophecy, TOR
Waiting for- Tera, Jumpgate Evo, WH40K, WWE, WOD, TSW
--
--
"Hey, if Activision liked it, then they should have put a ring on it," Double Fine President Tim Schafer said. "Oh great, now Beyonce is going to sue me too."
They have mentioned some "automatic-scale resolution" to solve the problem you address and balance with the massive battles..Would like to see that myself ..
Some of the animation could be better executed but not all ...some are ok
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
96 players in a seamless world , with weather forecasting and planetary movements or just multiplayer maps and instances?Can you build a city in CoD ? You know that in MMORPG chars data get saved on the server and not on the client ? You also know that the server handle any action and for any spell and skill used rather then the client for 50k - 100k people? you know that even you not online the server has to manage your house placed somewhere or the guard you hired ?
We'll have to wait to see just how "seamless" Darkfall's world is, or whether they suffer from the same crappy lagging and hitching every time you cross over into another shard as Vanguard had at launch.
Yes FPS games do have dynamic weather effects.
No they don't have planetary effects, and either does Darkfall, unless you mean a simple animated sun/moon that moves across the sky.
There is no evidence that you can build a city in Darkfall on any of the gameplay videos or trailers (except that one that springs out of nowhere) and no guarantee that this feature will make it into release. Same goes for the player housing, the NPC guards, and so many other things that are supposedly in this "feature complete" game.
I clearly understand the difference between FPS and MMO games, and I don't expect the latter to come nearly up to the visual standard of the former (I never said I did). I mentioned CoD to illustrate the huge gulf that exists between contemporary graphic capabilities (and hence player expectations) and that which Darkfall has presented, and to say that even a fraction of CoD's visual quality and immersion would be an improvement over what we've seen so far from Aventurine. DF graphics may well look better than anyone expected (that 17 minutes of in-game garbage they released back in August or whenever set everyone's expectations to a new low) but they sure as hell don't look good, or even good enough, to attract any but the most artistically ambivalent players... those like you who don't care (or perhaps don't even notice) how bad it looks.
I just hope for your sake that the 'gameplay perfection' you keep falling back to is actually there when/if the game eventually releases. It certainly doesn't look promising at this stage.
96 players in a seamless world , with weather forecasting and planetary movements or just multiplayer maps and instances?Can you build a city in CoD ? You know that in MMORPG chars data get saved on the server and not on the client ? You also know that the server handle any action and for any spell and skill used rather then the client for 50k - 100k people? you know that even you not online the server has to manage your house placed somewhere or the guard you hired ?
btw we are past to the point here that people who prefer better graphics over gameplay are idiots
Just to clarify because right now people is giving missleading info.
All the text in red have nothing to do with graphics. Graphics are managed in the client program not in the server. It's true that massive presence of characters in a given area is a difficult situation in the server side but it has nothing to do with graphics.
There is plenty of information about how MMORPGS work.
Here http://radoff.com/blog/2008/08/22/anatomy-of-an-mmorpg/ is a good place to start.
96 players in a seamless world , with weather forecasting and planetary movements or just multiplayer maps and instances?Can you build a city in CoD ? You know that in MMORPG chars data get saved on the server and not on the client ? You also know that the server handle any action and for any spell and skill used rather then the client for 50k - 100k people? you know that even you not online the server has to manage your house placed somewhere or the guard you hired ?
btw we are past to the point here that people who prefer better graphics over gameplay are idiots
Just to clarify because right now people is giving missleading info.
All the text in red have nothing to do with graphics. Graphics are managed in the client program not in the server. It's true that massive presence of characters in a given area is a difficult situation in the server side but it has nothing to do with graphics.
There is plenty of information about how MMORPGS work.
Here http://radoff.com/blog/2008/08/22/anatomy-of-an-mmorpg/ is a good place to start.
And just to clarify because people like to give misleading info..
Text in green has everything to do with game performance..
Let you 96 CoD players build a city and grow wheeds and have 50k of offline data of users managed and lets see if they can smoothly battle each other
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
I don't get it. To me, Darkfall looks amazing and one of the better looking games in development. I don't understand how people think it looks bad.
Though characters do look a bit slow and stiff as they move around, that's my only complaint, but I'll wait and see how it plays out (if it plays out at all.)
They have mentioned some "automatic-scale resolution" to solve the problem you address and balance with the massive battles..Would like to see that myself ..
Some of the animation could be better executed but not all ...some are ok
That might help somewhat if they scaled it. There are ways of helping this go even further which might end up being a method they choose. However, given what appears, at least on the surface, of their know-how on optimization, I doubt they will utilize it. What I am thinking of, is the scaled properties put into the software within the last couple or so releases, which more or less turns anything in a distance, be it placeholder models, like foilage/huts/mobs, etc to pc models- all into more or less 2d sprites. This has helped allow more massive cgi cinematics, and I have seen some recent games incorporate elements of it into the design. However, most of it is lost because everyone wants to tune their in-game settings to highest, and this method is given a wide range, with the highest being to not use the method. If they really want to accomplish anything remotely like they are promising, they will have to force it into the video settings, and cap off the high end setting at something that works, like a few hundred meters. Again, given how long they have been working on this, and then what they have actually shown, I am not holding my breath on them utilizing the latest techniques- at least not at launch.
-----------------------
Tried- L2, Ryzom, WAR, DDO, PWI, Tab Rasa, Requiem, Champs, AA, JD, PWI, SUN, Dawntide
Played- SWG (pre-cu), AoC, VG, WoW, LoTRO,CoX, EQ2, DAOC, GW, PotBS, Aion, MO,APB, NASA, Fallen Earth, DCUO, Rift
Playing- EVE, Black Prophecy, TOR
Waiting for- Tera, Jumpgate Evo, WH40K, WWE, WOD, TSW
--
--
"Hey, if Activision liked it, then they should have put a ring on it," Double Fine President Tim Schafer said. "Oh great, now Beyonce is going to sue me too."
My personal opinion is that if the gameplay is great, I can deal with subpar graphics... to a certain extent.
There are two big factors that I look at when I start a new MMO game.
1. Am I having fun?
- Simple enough. When I play do I lose track of time? Do I not want to log out? Can I not wait to log in when I have a chance to play again? Would I recommend it to my friends? Ect...
2. Do I feel immersed in the world?
- This one is a bit more complex and a lot more personal. When I log into a game I want to feel like I'm in the world. I've played PnP games for a long time, and this was always the deciding factor between a good DM and a Great DM. If I don't feel immersed in the world, I don't care how good the gameplay is, I won't stay for very long because I don't feel any emotional attachment to anything in the world.
Immersion for me relies on a number of things, almost all visual related. I won't go into detail, but the more "alive" the world feels, the more immersed I become. Right now, the animations (all of them, not just running. The attack animations are worse then the running in my opinion) are very unrealistic and jarring.
Right now I'm not sure if I can get past the horrible animations, even if the gameplay is fantastic.
UO is still the only game that has got both of these factors right for me. Some other games got one or the other, but never both.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
You aren't alone. Majority of people agree with you. It is just the very vocal minority that want any reason to bash this game because they enjoy being internet tough.
It drives them crazy that DF is comming out and that people are excited about it.
---sig---
Click this for lulz: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/173737/page/6
96 players in a seamless world , with weather forecasting and planetary movements or just multiplayer maps and instances?Can you build a city in CoD ? You know that in MMORPG chars data get saved on the server and not on the client ? You also know that the server handle any action and for any spell and skill used rather then the client for 50k - 100k people? you know that even you not online the server has to manage your house placed somewhere or the guard you hired ?
btw we are past to the point here that people who prefer better graphics over gameplay are idiots
Just to clarify because right now people is giving missleading info.
All the text in red have nothing to do with graphics. Graphics are managed in the client program not in the server. It's true that massive presence of characters in a given area is a difficult situation in the server side but it has nothing to do with graphics.
There is plenty of information about how MMORPGS work.
Here http://radoff.com/blog/2008/08/22/anatomy-of-an-mmorpg/ is a good place to start.
And just to clarify because people like to give misleading info..
Text in green has everything to do with game performance..
I agree, text in green does have everything to do with graphics. Even if the data files are stored on the client, the server has to execute said files, from each client- and then register that it has been found, loaded, and is executing. It is the load times that tends to cause lag in larger files, both texture maps and the models themselves, as well as the animation and sound files. Each swing of the sword has to be found/ loaded and executed by the server. Then it has to run the calculations on what exactly that swing did to the environment and you. That is really the easy part, since it is all spreadsheets that is stored on the server. Just thought I would give a more complete picture as to really what happens when you see a player and decide to do something. Now multiply all these things happening, with large files that are in this case likely unoptimized, over thousands of players. This is where you get zoning/instancing- in that the devs try to alleviate server stress by forcing it to only have to calculate small areas of the game world at a time. So all in all, while most of the files themselves might be stored on the client- the actual execution is based from the server, er go the text in green IS correct.
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Tried- L2, Ryzom, WAR, DDO, PWI, Tab Rasa, Requiem, Champs, AA, JD, PWI, SUN, Dawntide
Played- SWG (pre-cu), AoC, VG, WoW, LoTRO,CoX, EQ2, DAOC, GW, PotBS, Aion, MO,APB, NASA, Fallen Earth, DCUO, Rift
Playing- EVE, Black Prophecy, TOR
Waiting for- Tera, Jumpgate Evo, WH40K, WWE, WOD, TSW
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"Hey, if Activision liked it, then they should have put a ring on it," Double Fine President Tim Schafer said. "Oh great, now Beyonce is going to sue me too."
If a game has good graphics it means it has graphics that connects to it's theme very well and makes up for an extension of the gameplay.
Good graphics does not really mean lots of pixels or super advanced textures, but could simply just be that everything "connects" and looks smooth.
Darkfall, from what I've seen in videos isn't very smooth. Characters runs like if they have a fist-full of rocks showed up their #"!@%. Though it's just what we have seen so far, maby in-game it connects in a different way, who knows?
$OE lies list
http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0
"
And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
Funny that you mention it , from what i have seen DarkFall graphics connects perfectly to its theme, dark castles, misty swamps, icy mountains, slow flowing rivers, dark forrests. The tone of the graphics being mostly dark and try to give you more realistic feel about the surroundings..
You could be right about few animations tho , for example the running on the other hand on the ork it looked not bad ...
However MMO developers try (or should try in the case of AoC) to satisfy alot diversely player pc setups and try to let the healer with an average rig loading properly and heal you in time before you in your high end egoshooter rig die and propably your ego get some scratches...
Game developers of games like CoD know people who buy and play that game, much likely will have their high end egoshooter rig up and ready...
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
96 players in a seamless world , with weather forecasting and planetary movements or just multiplayer maps and instances?Can you build a city in CoD ? You know that in MMORPG chars data get saved on the server and not on the client ? You also know that the server handle any action and for any spell and skill used rather then the client for 50k - 100k people? you know that even you not online the server has to manage your house placed somewhere or the guard you hired ?
btw we are past to the point here that people who prefer better graphics over gameplay are idiots
Just to clarify because right now people is giving missleading info.
All the text in red have nothing to do with graphics. Graphics are managed in the client program not in the server. It's true that massive presence of characters in a given area is a difficult situation in the server side but it has nothing to do with graphics.
There is plenty of information about how MMORPGS work.
Here http://radoff.com/blog/2008/08/22/anatomy-of-an-mmorpg/ is a good place to start.
btw followed your link to "start about MMOPRG" and look what i found there :
"Differences Between FPS and MMORPG 3D
A lot of the what goes into designing a 3D world is the same between MMORPG and FPS games. However, one big difference is the huge number of models and texture maps that exist within an MMORPG as compared to an FPS game. Although many game computers today have more than a gigabyte of RAM, it’s still a challenge to cache the various models and texture maps that a player sees on their screen. In a given fantasy-themed MMORPG, there might be thousands of weapons and armor pieces that a character might wear, and it needs to be possible to quickly render the various appearances of characters regardless of who you might come across."
And here :
"The servers are the heart of any MMORPG: it is here that all of the rules are interpreted, and all the data on the location and movement of objects is maintained. All of this work must be done within the servers, and not the client, or else unethical players could hack their client software to give them advantages unavailable to others. Most MMORPGs consist of a variety of different servers for providing different parts of the game experience."
Sums it up why you can't have amazing graphics on an MMO seamsless world...and he just talks about weapon, armor and appearences and not the amazing number of objects flooding around the seamless MMO world that need to be stored and quick rendered...
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
96 players in a seamless world , with weather forecasting and planetary movements or just multiplayer maps and instances?Can you build a city in CoD ? You know that in MMORPG chars data get saved on the server and not on the client ? You also know that the server handle any action and for any spell and skill used rather then the client for 50k - 100k people? you know that even you not online the server has to manage your house placed somewhere or the guard you hired ?
btw we are past to the point here that people who prefer better graphics over gameplay are idiots
Just to clarify because right now people is giving missleading info.
All the text in red have nothing to do with graphics. Graphics are managed in the client program not in the server. It's true that massive presence of characters in a given area is a difficult situation in the server side but it has nothing to do with graphics.
There is plenty of information about how MMORPGS work.
Here http://radoff.com/blog/2008/08/22/anatomy-of-an-mmorpg/ is a good place to start.
And just to clarify because people like to give misleading info..
Text in green has everything to do with game performance..
Let you 96 CoD players build a city and grow wheeds and have 50k of offline data of users managed and lets see if they can smoothly battle each other
I’m sorry you get it that way.
1. Let me say that I’m waiting to play Darkfall. And I have hopes it will be a very good game. I said it a lot of times in these boards you can check it very easily.
Not was my intention and still is not to attack Darkfall. I can’t say anything about it, I haven’t played it. Few low quality videos and screenshots are not enough to form my opinion about the visual experience in this game. If you think I’m trying to troll or attack Darkfall or whatever you are wrong. I don’t like misleading anyone.
2. I prefer game play over graphics, may be with some limits. I’ll love to have the opportunity to play again Asheron’s Call 2 and I’m sure Darkfall graphics will be way better than these ones.
3 I made my post because as you can easily see this thread, and not just this one, is full of wrong information about how an MMORPG works, people merge things that have nothing to do (sometimes I doubt about if it is on purpose or not), stand with misconceptions and so. I’m sorry you win my lottery. There is a post following yours full of wrong information. I’m not going to answer it. It’s pointless.
4 I understand that the fanbois of Darkfall (take it in the positive meaning) are tired of trolls coming here to bash his game. But I think the overreactions and the defence going over what is reasonably and true concepts is not the best way to deal with the trolls. Moreover gives to the rest of the MMORPG community the feeling that Darkfall community is not the best. Right now, Darkfall fanbois and trolls are the same thing in the eyes of a lot of people.
All this said, I’m back to the details.
This thread is about graphics and game play. Graphics don’t exist in the servers, objects are just vectors, positions and characteristics. Servers don’t process graphic information. Polygons, textures, particles, animation frames and so are in the client and managed only by the client.
The unique impact that graphics have in the performance of the servers is about the need to deal with the different delays coming from different clients. (When the client is sending the information too late because of bad performance caused by graphics processing) but it’s just an indirect impact that merges with the delay caused by communications and other things normally with bigger impact.
The problem with graphics happens in the client, happens in your computer not in the server. You merged things and this is misleading, sorry to say. That was the meaning of my post, the sentences I put in red were all talking about problems in the server side when we are talking here about graphics.
Yes I agree, high level graphics could compromise the situations of massive game play but only in the client side. Massive game play puts load in the servers, yes, but not due to graphic reasons. You can believe me or not, it’s not my problem.
Edit: i saw your last post too late. Is there any contradiction about what i said? You see graphics in client side not in server side.
96 players in a seamless world , with weather forecasting and planetary movements or just multiplayer maps and instances?Can you build a city in CoD ? You know that in MMORPG chars data get saved on the server and not on the client ? You also know that the server handle any action and for any spell and skill used rather then the client for 50k - 100k people? you know that even you not online the server has to manage your house placed somewhere or the guard you hired ?
btw we are past to the point here that people who prefer better graphics over gameplay are idiots
Just to clarify because right now people is giving missleading info.
All the text in red have nothing to do with graphics. Graphics are managed in the client program not in the server. It's true that massive presence of characters in a given area is a difficult situation in the server side but it has nothing to do with graphics.
There is plenty of information about how MMORPGS work.
Here http://radoff.com/blog/2008/08/22/anatomy-of-an-mmorpg/ is a good place to start.
And just to clarify because people like to give misleading info..
Text in green has everything to do with game performance..
Let you 96 CoD players build a city and grow wheeds and have 50k of offline data of users managed and lets see if they can smoothly battle each other
I’m sorry you get it that way.
1. Let me say that I’m waiting to play Darkfall. And I have hopes it will be a very good game. I said it a lot of times in these boards you can check it very easily.
Not was my intention and still is not to attack Darkfall. I can’t say anything about it, I haven’t played it. Few low quality videos and screenshots are not enough to form my opinion about the visual experience in this game. If you think I’m trying to troll or attack Darkfall or whatever you are wrong. I don’t like misleading anyone.
2. I prefer game play over graphics, may be with some limits. I’ll love to have the opportunity to play again Asheron’s Call 2 and I’m sure Darkfall graphics will be way better than these ones.
3 I made my post because as you can easily see this thread, and not just this one, is full of wrong information about how an MMORPG works, people merge things that have nothing to do (sometimes I doubt about if it is on purpose or not), stand with misconceptions and so. I’m sorry you win my lottery. There is a post following yours full of wrong information. I’m not going to answer it. It’s pointless.
4 I understand that the fanbois of Darkfall (take it in the positive meaning) are tired of trolls coming here to bash his game. But I think the overreactions and the defence going over what is reasonably and true concepts is not the best way to deal with the trolls. Moreover gives to the rest of the MMORPG community the feeling that Darkfall community is not the best. Right now, Darkfall fanbois and trolls are the same thing in the eyes of a lot of people.
All this said, I’m back to the details.
This thread is about graphics and game play. Graphics don’t exist in the servers, objects are just vectors, positions and characteristics. Servers don’t process graphic information. Polygons, textures, particles, animation frames and so are in the client and managed only by the client.
The unique impact that graphics have in the performance of the servers is about the need to deal with the different delays coming from different clients. (When the client is sending the information too late because of bad performance caused by graphics processing) but it’s just an indirect impact that merges with the delay caused by communications and other things normally with bigger impact.
The problem with graphics happens in the client, happens in your computer not in the server. You merged things and this is misleading, sorry to say. That was the meaning of my post, the sentences I put in red were all talking about problems in the server side when we are talking here about graphics.
Yes I agree, high level graphics could compromise the situations of massive game play but only in the client side. Massive game play puts load in the servers, yes, but not due to graphic reasons. You can believe me or not, it’s not my problem.
Edit: i saw your last post too late. Is there any contradiction about what i said? You see graphics in client side not in server side.
Well, sorry to have a server mentioned in need for a defense to qualify differences between Call of Duty type of games and DarkFall type of games...
Because you are right about graphic being rendered on the client , what do you think , will it matter if we are 200 or 2 people on a spot on the server fighting each other graphic wise ? will it matter if Aventurine then has put large complex meshs models or simple models to render on us ? Will it matter if there 20 armor pieces slots on a char to render or just 4 slots ?
Where do you think comes the server into play if it doesn't has any impact on the client graphic wise ?
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
I said before that I have hopes on a good compromise game play - graphics in Darkfall. If the compromise is good for someone will be a question of tastes. Not just graphics technology is important about the visual experience. A good artwork, care for the detail,... can make miracles.
I have not seen recently any game that could be comparable to Darkfall in massive game play and delivers a good compromise.
But it was done at least once, really the only one I had experienced and it was 5 years ago. In October 2003 (April 2004 Europe/NA) NCSoft launched Lineage II. The client program was using the Unreal 2 (FPS game launched in 2002) graphic engine the rest was developed by NCSoft.
At that time the visual impact was really amazing comparing it with any other MMORPG around. You can like or not the style but cannot be denied that it was at very high level of quality and polish (always talking about graphics). With this graphic setup Lineage II was able to run really massive sieges. With some problems server side in the first occasions but it was fixed very soon. In the client side you just need to disable some things to play the siege in smooth way, and when the siege finished you got back to the good graphics. If you got a good computer no needs for adjustments but hiding names and it was more for confusion and targeting.
I don't see why the same success can't be attained by a game developed these days.
Then I’m not sure at all that what you and some other people said about the impossibility to have a good game play and good graphics is really true or not. I hope not.
Personally never understood people's obsession with graphics. Thats whats wrong with games today... we have all this gamers who arent true "Gamers" and are more along the lines of "Art Appreciaters" Yet the gaming companies make games for them since there are more of them.
A true "Gamer" cares about the gameplay over the gfx. Wow better looking pixels.. who cares??
gameplay. i game for entertainment, i go to the Art Gallery to look at pretty pictures
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
gameplay, gameplay and gameplay. I'm really pissed of "cutie-looking" carebare bullshit with eternal boring gear/level grinding. I'm too busy and have no time to grind, though want to play. Hope the Darkfall will be the game it was promised to be...
Proud and Wild