WoW's graphics and animations are far superior to a lot of the stuff we see in other MMORPG's. So I'll take their graphics and animations any day as long as the game play is good.
Like in Mount and Blade. People QQ'd that the graphics were not all that great. Forget that! The game play is awesome!
while its true that gameplay should be the deciding factor in a game, its invariably the graphics that sway opinions and make a game more, or less enjoyable. Photorealism is impressive, and in some games it works really well, Dragon age, in particular, great game, and it looks awesome, then again, World of Warcraft, often disparaged because of its 'cartooniness' yet its immensley popular in spite of it, personally i really like the graphics of WoW, but that doesnt mean i particularly like cartoony looking games, Borderlands for instance, i couldnt stand the look of the game so i didnt buy it, how good, or bad, the game mechanics are became irrelevant, so for me, i would have to say, that even though, the deciding factor in a game should be gameplay, if the game looks terrible then chances are nobody is going to care too much about how well the game mechanics work, gameplay will just be a decider on longevity, take AoC beautiful graphics, but, for me at least, let down on gameplay, after seeing trailers of the game i couldnt wait to get my hands on it, in fact i would say graphically it is perfect, but the game was too frustratingly annoying to play (after leaving tortage anyway), closest analogy for me would be finding your date looked like claudia schiffer, but had the voice and manerisms of roy chubby brown.... so thats why at the moment, the only 2 games im really playing, is WOW and Eve online. though i am looking forward to APB, with any luck it won't be the schiffer/brown contrast..
Cartoon graphics are ok as long as they are good and not half done.
I do like the newer graphics but the thing that sells is if the game is fun and has lots to offer to keep me into it.
I still play WOW even though the graphics would now be considered dated; it is still very polished and are part of the WOW environment. The creators of this game hit gold when they designed it.
Lord of the Rings is another good game with good graphics. This game style is more reallistic looking compared to WOW graphics, but shows there is alot of varity out there for everyone.
There is VERY little limitations anymore since DX10+,it is all up to the games to deliver the bandwidth,good scaling,good compression,and best of all good net code.We need to have games utilize the full power of multi cpu's,multiple graphic cards ect ect.The new Ageia Phys X engine is amazing,it is faster and better than your graphics card,it does calculations much faster.
Unreal Tournament had a video floating around that showed how you could utilize hi end graphics and not lag the system,so all the tech is out there,if the developer has the knowledge/skill.
So yes we should be expecting hi end graphics and a great game along with it,anything less is just the choice of the developer to be cheap.Vanguard was a great attempt ,but it was still a DX9 platform,with huge bottlenecks for bandwidth,it was a great idea,but VERY hard to perfect under the circumstances.
A game like WOW could flourish for it's time because in all honesty,how many good looking games were there?Eq1 was weak,FFXI is all low poly,EQ2 only came about weeks before WOW,so it really had no competition other than EQ2,as all other games had poor low end graphics.In comparison however UT99 was released what 6 years before WOW?It was released with a hi res texture pack,and it really made a huge difference,the simplest ugliest textures soon looked real good.
So even when WOW was released there was no excuse for at least offering a CHOICE to the users,you could login at Hi RES or Low res,but Blizzard chose the cheap approach and just delivered a low end game.So if i do not accept it for WOW,i most certainly cannot accept it in the year 2010 with DX10 now a distant few years gone by and now the new DX libraries are getting better,and a ton of modern tech allows for better graphics,including different compression methods.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
WoW made its graphics system to work massively. I have seen the game run on p3 machines with crappy graphics cards. Majority of PC owners dont own high end machines, WoW runs on most of them. Thats why they have such a HUGE sub base. Sure they could beef up the graphics, but why? to apeal to a smaller crowd? they have it right. It's not broke, don't fix it.
I don't play WoW, I find it boreing. but I give props where they are due.
If graphics has nothing to say, why are'nt more people playing f-ex EQ1 then?
One big reason I dont play WoW anymore, is because of its graphic. WoW is a great game, but I have become spoiled after playing on a good rig for a while now.
Well, Blizzard didn't think: graphics don't matter, lets do ours ugly. Blizzard thought: if we want to make as many people as possible able to play this game, how do we make something beautiful with the limits we have on performance?
At least as far as mainstream goes, during the 'oh so crucial' stage of building up a decent playerbase, after that the game can look like rubbish and still live because the community sustains it. If it's crap from the start it simply doesn't have enough attraction time to build up a workable playerbase.
Furthermore, it's not like the devs sit down and say 'ok, lets have crap graphics but good gameplay'. It just doesn't work like that, the departments are mostly unrelated and do their own thing, every game tries to be the best it can at the time, game development is not a stat slider where you get an automatic boost to gameplay upon tuning the graphics slider down.
Its actually pretty simple... MMO = lots of players, Crap graphics =/= lots of players thus Crap graphics =/= MMO At least as far as mainstream goes, during the 'oh so crucial' stage of building up a decent playerbase, after that the game can look like rubbish and still live because the community sustains it. If it's crap from the start it simply doesn't have enough attraction time to build up a workable playerbase. Furthermore, it's not like the devs sit down and say 'ok, lets have crap graphics but good gameplay'. It just doesn't work like that, the departments are mostly unrelated and do their own thing, every game tries to be the best it can at the time, game development is not a stat slider where you get an automatic boost to gameplay upon tuning the graphics slider down. - Shijeer
Not necessarily. Release the game on console, and you can have as good graphics as you want without sacrificing the playerbase in the process.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
cartoony graphic will still be there for decades to come and when we get 3d headset simulator cartoon will be bigger then ever
in 50 years there might be real looking 3 simulator but for now we often lag like hell and its only cartoon style in a screen we dont speak about virtual reality yet .lol!
and every game that tried to do insane looking graphic always look cartoony ,manga,sci-fi etc
technician can barely do 3d movie animation.so you ll be whinning for the next 50 years at least because the truth is
realistic looking game arent gona happen before then.
i dont mind cartoon ,they just up the quality of graphic and im happy ,like blizzard has been doing
better resolution of character in wotlk
me i would rater have massive multiplayer online game
unlike today !right now all online game are only multiplayer online game.
Its actually pretty simple... MMO = lots of players, Crap graphics =/= lots of players thus Crap graphics =/= MMO At least as far as mainstream goes, during the 'oh so crucial' stage of building up a decent playerbase, after that the game can look like rubbish and still live because the community sustains it. If it's crap from the start it simply doesn't have enough attraction time to build up a workable playerbase. Furthermore, it's not like the devs sit down and say 'ok, lets have crap graphics but good gameplay'. It just doesn't work like that, the departments are mostly unrelated and do their own thing, every game tries to be the best it can at the time, game development is not a stat slider where you get an automatic boost to gameplay upon tuning the graphics slider down. - Shijeer
Not necessarily. Release the game on console, and you can have as good graphics as you want without sacrificing the playerbase in the process.
But Console games doesnt usually come out Buggy and such, and require a monthly cost to play. So I kinda disagree with you both
But Console games doesnt usually come out Buggy and such, and require a monthly cost to play. So I kinda disagree with you both
I don't get your point. These days you can update the console game as well as you can update a PC game, unlike in the era of PS1, so it doesn't really matter if it's buggy. PC games once didn't require you to pay a monthly fee either, consoles just need to catch up. The rise of DLC is a good way to make the transition smoother anyway.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
Can we separate "low poly count shapes" from "crap colors and textures"?
Because I find that as long as there's good textures and colors, I don't mind low poly counts at all. CoH is a great example of this - they're famous for great-looking characters, but when you really look at the shapes, they're nowhere near as complex as you see in modern games. But, because the colors and textures look good, the characters very acceptable to me and the low quality shapes don't bother me at all.
But when the colors and/or textures suck, that's a whole 'nother thing to me. I loathe the comic-book colors of Champions Online and the glowy, unrealistic Star Trek Online look and wish to god there were (or will be, in STO's case) graphics settings to apply more realistic color settings.
All future MMOs should be fully built for DX11, require an i7 extreme overclocked to 6 Ghz with nitrogen and 2 HD5970(again, OC so hard that the extra voltage will burn them in a few weeks).
Because cartoony graphics are for casuals. And lol, most of your points are pretty wrong Tro, not to mention, photorealistic/cartoony isn't exactly black or white.
ask any guys that got monster computer playing mmo ,the problem is rarelly the gear,the problem is you got say a 614 kb/sec upload
and the more player there are the more lag you get ,yes dx11 can hell some for quality ,but for bandwith ?microsoft donnybrooks
can do way more then any computer upgrade.
my sister baught a new computer and its not faster then my amd x2 4600 .why?
reason above and the other biggest factor is hard drive
if you got w7 64 and say 6 gig of ram or more you can disable paging file and you ll gain computer speed
but it wont help network you will still be limited because of other player have 128 kb/sec upload
and that is the bottleneck right now .the bottleneck hasnt been on the computer side for a long while now
the bottleneck as been on the network for a very long time.
and whatever big monster computer you buy at the other end of the line you will still arive in the game at the same time as the other dude
only microsoft donnybrook can help to smooth the bottleneck a bit .
microsoft donnybrooks isnt ready for comercial or public release for a long while yet
with donnybrook your computer will work a bit harder ,not enough to make your computer go oom.
w7 64 bit is a great buy tho,and so is a dx11 graphic card in 2010.
Its actually pretty simple... MMO = lots of players, Crap graphics =/= lots of players thus Crap graphics =/= MMO At least as far as mainstream goes, during the 'oh so crucial' stage of building up a decent playerbase, after that the game can look like rubbish and still live because the community sustains it. If it's crap from the start it simply doesn't have enough attraction time to build up a workable playerbase. Furthermore, it's not like the devs sit down and say 'ok, lets have crap graphics but good gameplay'. It just doesn't work like that, the departments are mostly unrelated and do their own thing, every game tries to be the best it can at the time, game development is not a stat slider where you get an automatic boost to gameplay upon tuning the graphics slider down. - Shijeer
Not necessarily. Release the game on console, and you can have as good graphics as you want without sacrificing the playerbase in the process.
But Console games doesnt usually come out Buggy and such, and require a monthly cost to play. So I kinda disagree with you both
if graphic card maker made avail the trick game console use we would have better fps
check ps3 they lower the screen hertzto i believe 32 or 28 hertz
instead of locking it to 60 heartz like nvidiado and that help frame per second by a lot ,its not a new trick
we used that for years on old computer and now console use it and computer dont have access too it
thats why on console the can raise graphic quality ,because they lowered by half the the heartz value,half the load so you can raise quality on graphic card by a lot
Not necessarily. Release the game on console, and you can have as good graphics as you want without sacrificing the playerbase in the process.
What MMO (RPG) released on the console has good graphics, and a is a leader in playerbase?
FFXI. Compare it to other MMO's from that era; it's amazing how well it has aged compared to them.
Then we can compare FFXIV to other highly anticipated games like TOR and STO- all of those games would have benefited from being released on a console instead of trying to appeal to masses by making the graphics butt-fugly.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
Not necessarily. Release the game on console, and you can have as good graphics as you want without sacrificing the playerbase in the process.
What MMO (RPG) released on the console has good graphics, and a is a leader in playerbase?
FFXI. Compare it to other MMO's from that era; it's amazing how well it has aged compared to them.
Well, that is a PC Game (as well as a console game). So there is no advantage in graphics because it is console. Then again, the population for this does not make it a playerbase leader.
So, effectively it is a PC game, with mid level population... and that supports this point how?
Well, that is a PC Game (as well as a console game). So there is no advantage in graphics because it is console. Then again, the population for this does not make it a playerbase leader. So, effectively it is a PC game, with mid level population... and that supports this point how?
D'oh. The point is that instead of having to buy an expensive PC the players can instead get a cheaper PS3 which in turn makes it able for the developers to make the graphics better when the players don't have to buy a high end PC to even get to play the game.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
MMO = lots of players, Crap graphics =/= lots of players thus Crap graphics =/= MMO
The problem with that statement is that any stylized graphics or graphics not using the latest graphics tech (even if it isn't needed) is often rejected by a certain very large demographics of MMO gamers. If it isn't latest tech then it's 'crap graphics' .
It really is to the point of absurd that the quality of the water - the only area of the game world almost guaranteed to have little or no use or content - can be such a point of comparison and criticism between MMOs.
Using anything but the latest version of an engine? Crap graphics
Using anything but the latest layers and sharders? Crap graphics
Cell shading? Cartoony graphics? Anything other than nest attempt at photorealistic? Crap graphics.
When something actually comes close to what that crowd wants, they complain about the system reqs.
Meanwhile the rest of the world is concerned with gameplay first. Graphics are completely secondary, especailly when the lower end graphics means lower barrier to entry and playability on almost any current machine.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Not necessarily. Release the game on console, and you can have as good graphics as you want without sacrificing the playerbase in the process.
What MMO (RPG) released on the console has good graphics, and a is a leader in playerbase?
FFXI. Compare it to other MMO's from that era; it's amazing how well it has aged compared to them.
Very true. As we've seen from games like GTA3 and other releases on both platforms, it's common for a game to run smooth on console but stutter and chug on a PC. FFXI however pulled off smooth gameplay on both platforms. Add to that, it attracted and maintained sub numbers that kept it a top ranking MMO for years.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
MMO = lots of players, Crap graphics =/= lots of players thus Crap graphics =/= MMO
The problem with that statement is that any stylized graphics or graphics not using the latest graphics tech (even if it isn't needed) is often rejected by a certain very large demographics of MMO gamers. If it isn't latest tech then it's 'crap graphics' .
It really is to the point of absurd that the quality of the water - the only area of the game world almost guaranteed to have little or no use or content - can be such a point of comparison and criticism between MMOs.
Using anything but the latest version of an engine? Crap graphics
Using anything but the latest layers and sharders? Crap graphics
Cell shading? Cartoony graphics? Anything other than nest attempt at photorealistic? Crap graphics.
When something actually comes close to what that crowd wants, they complain about the system reqs.
Meanwhile the rest of the world is concerned with gameplay first. Graphics are completely secondary, especailly when the lower end graphics means lower barrier to entry and playability on almost any current machine.
I should have made it clear that I used them concepts quite literally, crap = really crap. I didn't even mean the pointless bickering you mention. And of course your points are valid. In essence I was merely attempting to dispute the silly assumption that a reduction in graphics quality cleanly translates to improved gameplay.
Comments
WoW's graphics and animations are far superior to a lot of the stuff we see in other MMORPG's. So I'll take their graphics and animations any day as long as the game play is good.
Like in Mount and Blade. People QQ'd that the graphics were not all that great. Forget that! The game play is awesome!
while its true that gameplay should be the deciding factor in a game, its invariably the graphics that sway opinions and make a game more, or less enjoyable. Photorealism is impressive, and in some games it works really well, Dragon age, in particular, great game, and it looks awesome, then again, World of Warcraft, often disparaged because of its 'cartooniness' yet its immensley popular in spite of it, personally i really like the graphics of WoW, but that doesnt mean i particularly like cartoony looking games, Borderlands for instance, i couldnt stand the look of the game so i didnt buy it, how good, or bad, the game mechanics are became irrelevant, so for me, i would have to say, that even though, the deciding factor in a game should be gameplay, if the game looks terrible then chances are nobody is going to care too much about how well the game mechanics work, gameplay will just be a decider on longevity, take AoC beautiful graphics, but, for me at least, let down on gameplay, after seeing trailers of the game i couldnt wait to get my hands on it, in fact i would say graphically it is perfect, but the game was too frustratingly annoying to play (after leaving tortage anyway), closest analogy for me would be finding your date looked like claudia schiffer, but had the voice and manerisms of roy chubby brown.... so thats why at the moment, the only 2 games im really playing, is WOW and Eve online. though i am looking forward to APB, with any luck it won't be the schiffer/brown contrast..
Cartoon graphics are ok as long as they are good and not half done.
I do like the newer graphics but the thing that sells is if the game is fun and has lots to offer to keep me into it.
I still play WOW even though the graphics would now be considered dated; it is still very polished and are part of the WOW environment. The creators of this game hit gold when they designed it.
Lord of the Rings is another good game with good graphics. This game style is more reallistic looking compared to WOW graphics, but shows there is alot of varity out there for everyone.
It is more of an Art style.
There is VERY little limitations anymore since DX10+,it is all up to the games to deliver the bandwidth,good scaling,good compression,and best of all good net code.We need to have games utilize the full power of multi cpu's,multiple graphic cards ect ect.The new Ageia Phys X engine is amazing,it is faster and better than your graphics card,it does calculations much faster.
Unreal Tournament had a video floating around that showed how you could utilize hi end graphics and not lag the system,so all the tech is out there,if the developer has the knowledge/skill.
So yes we should be expecting hi end graphics and a great game along with it,anything less is just the choice of the developer to be cheap.Vanguard was a great attempt ,but it was still a DX9 platform,with huge bottlenecks for bandwidth,it was a great idea,but VERY hard to perfect under the circumstances.
A game like WOW could flourish for it's time because in all honesty,how many good looking games were there?Eq1 was weak,FFXI is all low poly,EQ2 only came about weeks before WOW,so it really had no competition other than EQ2,as all other games had poor low end graphics.In comparison however UT99 was released what 6 years before WOW?It was released with a hi res texture pack,and it really made a huge difference,the simplest ugliest textures soon looked real good.
So even when WOW was released there was no excuse for at least offering a CHOICE to the users,you could login at Hi RES or Low res,but Blizzard chose the cheap approach and just delivered a low end game.So if i do not accept it for WOW,i most certainly cannot accept it in the year 2010 with DX10 now a distant few years gone by and now the new DX libraries are getting better,and a ton of modern tech allows for better graphics,including different compression methods.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Wait- you're implying they were once acceptable?
WoW made its graphics system to work massively. I have seen the game run on p3 machines with crappy graphics cards. Majority of PC owners dont own high end machines, WoW runs on most of them. Thats why they have such a HUGE sub base. Sure they could beef up the graphics, but why? to apeal to a smaller crowd? they have it right. It's not broke, don't fix it.
I don't play WoW, I find it boreing. but I give props where they are due.
If graphics has nothing to say, why are'nt more people playing f-ex EQ1 then?
One big reason I dont play WoW anymore, is because of its graphic. WoW is a great game, but I have become spoiled after playing on a good rig for a while now.
Make us care MORE about our faction & world pvp!
Well, Blizzard didn't think: graphics don't matter, lets do ours ugly. Blizzard thought: if we want to make as many people as possible able to play this game, how do we make something beautiful with the limits we have on performance?
Lost and depressed, where are the good MMOs at?
Blizzard made World of Warcraft graphics in the style of the Warcraft realtime sims they had developed earlier with Warcraft I, II, and III.
So Blizzard's style is consistant, which is a good thing, imo.
And what many of you are calling realistic, I call claymation because that's what it looks like to me. Stop motion, claymation.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
Its actually pretty simple...
MMO = lots of players,
Crap graphics =/= lots of players
thus
Crap graphics =/= MMO
At least as far as mainstream goes, during the 'oh so crucial' stage of building up a decent playerbase, after that the game can look like rubbish and still live because the community sustains it. If it's crap from the start it simply doesn't have enough attraction time to build up a workable playerbase.
Furthermore, it's not like the devs sit down and say 'ok, lets have crap graphics but good gameplay'. It just doesn't work like that, the departments are mostly unrelated and do their own thing, every game tries to be the best it can at the time, game development is not a stat slider where you get an automatic boost to gameplay upon tuning the graphics slider down.
- Shijeer
Not necessarily. Release the game on console, and you can have as good graphics as you want without sacrificing the playerbase in the process.
cartoony graphic will still be there for decades to come and when we get 3d headset simulator cartoon will be bigger then ever
in 50 years there might be real looking 3 simulator but for now we often lag like hell and its only cartoon style in a screen we dont speak about virtual reality yet .lol!
and every game that tried to do insane looking graphic always look cartoony ,manga,sci-fi etc
technician can barely do 3d movie animation.so you ll be whinning for the next 50 years at least because the truth is
realistic looking game arent gona happen before then.
i dont mind cartoon ,they just up the quality of graphic and im happy ,like blizzard has been doing
better resolution of character in wotlk
me i would rater have massive multiplayer online game
unlike today !right now all online game are only multiplayer online game.
there ias no massive yet.
Not necessarily. Release the game on console, and you can have as good graphics as you want without sacrificing the playerbase in the process.
But Console games doesnt usually come out Buggy and such, and require a monthly cost to play. So I kinda disagree with you both
I don't get your point. These days you can update the console game as well as you can update a PC game, unlike in the era of PS1, so it doesn't really matter if it's buggy. PC games once didn't require you to pay a monthly fee either, consoles just need to catch up. The rise of DLC is a good way to make the transition smoother anyway.
Can we separate "low poly count shapes" from "crap colors and textures"?
Because I find that as long as there's good textures and colors, I don't mind low poly counts at all. CoH is a great example of this - they're famous for great-looking characters, but when you really look at the shapes, they're nowhere near as complex as you see in modern games. But, because the colors and textures look good, the characters very acceptable to me and the low quality shapes don't bother me at all.
But when the colors and/or textures suck, that's a whole 'nother thing to me. I loathe the comic-book colors of Champions Online and the glowy, unrealistic Star Trek Online look and wish to god there were (or will be, in STO's case) graphics settings to apply more realistic color settings.
ask any guys that got monster computer playing mmo ,the problem is rarelly the gear,the problem is you got say a 614 kb/sec upload
and the more player there are the more lag you get ,yes dx11 can hell some for quality ,but for bandwith ?microsoft donnybrooks
can do way more then any computer upgrade.
my sister baught a new computer and its not faster then my amd x2 4600 .why?
reason above and the other biggest factor is hard drive
if you got w7 64 and say 6 gig of ram or more you can disable paging file and you ll gain computer speed
but it wont help network you will still be limited because of other player have 128 kb/sec upload
and that is the bottleneck right now .the bottleneck hasnt been on the computer side for a long while now
the bottleneck as been on the network for a very long time.
and whatever big monster computer you buy at the other end of the line you will still arive in the game at the same time as the other dude
only microsoft donnybrook can help to smooth the bottleneck a bit .
microsoft donnybrooks isnt ready for comercial or public release for a long while yet
with donnybrook your computer will work a bit harder ,not enough to make your computer go oom.
w7 64 bit is a great buy tho,and so is a dx11 graphic card in 2010.
What MMO (RPG) released on the console has good graphics, and a is a leader in playerbase?
Not necessarily. Release the game on console, and you can have as good graphics as you want without sacrificing the playerbase in the process.
But Console games doesnt usually come out Buggy and such, and require a monthly cost to play. So I kinda disagree with you both
if graphic card maker made avail the trick game console use we would have better fps
check ps3 they lower the screen hertzto i believe 32 or 28 hertz
instead of locking it to 60 heartz like nvidiado and that help frame per second by a lot ,its not a new trick
we used that for years on old computer and now console use it and computer dont have access too it
thats why on console the can raise graphic quality ,because they lowered by half the the heartz value,half the load so you can raise quality on graphic card by a lot
What MMO (RPG) released on the console has good graphics, and a is a leader in playerbase?
FFXI. Compare it to other MMO's from that era; it's amazing how well it has aged compared to them.
Then we can compare FFXIV to other highly anticipated games like TOR and STO- all of those games would have benefited from being released on a console instead of trying to appeal to masses by making the graphics butt-fugly.
What MMO (RPG) released on the console has good graphics, and a is a leader in playerbase?
FFXI. Compare it to other MMO's from that era; it's amazing how well it has aged compared to them.
Well, that is a PC Game (as well as a console game). So there is no advantage in graphics because it is console. Then again, the population for this does not make it a playerbase leader.
So, effectively it is a PC game, with mid level population... and that supports this point how?
I don't my self like cartoon looking graphics. I do like animated movies, but not cartoons.
That's one reasons why I don't play Champions online or WoW.
So, every aspect of the game is important, that includes graphics.
MMORPG.COM has worst forum editor ever exists
D'oh. The point is that instead of having to buy an expensive PC the players can instead get a cheaper PS3 which in turn makes it able for the developers to make the graphics better when the players don't have to buy a high end PC to even get to play the game.
The problem with that statement is that any stylized graphics or graphics not using the latest graphics tech (even if it isn't needed) is often rejected by a certain very large demographics of MMO gamers. If it isn't latest tech then it's 'crap graphics' .
It really is to the point of absurd that the quality of the water - the only area of the game world almost guaranteed to have little or no use or content - can be such a point of comparison and criticism between MMOs.
Using anything but the latest version of an engine? Crap graphics
Using anything but the latest layers and sharders? Crap graphics
Cell shading? Cartoony graphics? Anything other than nest attempt at photorealistic? Crap graphics.
When something actually comes close to what that crowd wants, they complain about the system reqs.
Meanwhile the rest of the world is concerned with gameplay first. Graphics are completely secondary, especailly when the lower end graphics means lower barrier to entry and playability on almost any current machine.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
What MMO (RPG) released on the console has good graphics, and a is a leader in playerbase?
FFXI. Compare it to other MMO's from that era; it's amazing how well it has aged compared to them.
Very true. As we've seen from games like GTA3 and other releases on both platforms, it's common for a game to run smooth on console but stutter and chug on a PC. FFXI however pulled off smooth gameplay on both platforms. Add to that, it attracted and maintained sub numbers that kept it a top ranking MMO for years.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
The problem with that statement is that any stylized graphics or graphics not using the latest graphics tech (even if it isn't needed) is often rejected by a certain very large demographics of MMO gamers. If it isn't latest tech then it's 'crap graphics' .
It really is to the point of absurd that the quality of the water - the only area of the game world almost guaranteed to have little or no use or content - can be such a point of comparison and criticism between MMOs.
Using anything but the latest version of an engine? Crap graphics
Using anything but the latest layers and sharders? Crap graphics
Cell shading? Cartoony graphics? Anything other than nest attempt at photorealistic? Crap graphics.
When something actually comes close to what that crowd wants, they complain about the system reqs.
Meanwhile the rest of the world is concerned with gameplay first. Graphics are completely secondary, especailly when the lower end graphics means lower barrier to entry and playability on almost any current machine.
I should have made it clear that I used them concepts quite literally, crap = really crap. I didn't even mean the pointless bickering you mention. And of course your points are valid. In essence I was merely attempting to dispute the silly assumption that a reduction in graphics quality cleanly translates to improved gameplay.
- Shijeer