I think part of the problem with The Secret World is the uncanny valley effect. It is using our real world, we know what our world looks like, so trying to replicate it is going to be a hard sell.
Funny enough, I think they did a fairly good job except for the character models. AoC has the best character models in an mmo so I'm not sure why they couldn't make TSW's characters the same.
Originally posted by Foomerang I think ToR and GW2 have really really good graphics. But I dont think they hold a candle to games like ArcheAge, Tera, and Blade & Soul. Artistically, I think The Secret World is the best. All I can say is no matter what your poison, you'll be enjoying some very sweet looking mmos in the near future.
Archeage has good backgrounds, but from what I've seen so far (This is of course subject to change), the character modeling and animation part of graphics is sorely lacking. Blade & Soul, I really love the character design and modeling... it looks really good close up, but some of the environments seem sort of blah to me. I think they put more of their graphcis into having spiffy characters, rather than backgrounds. Might just have been the parts of the game I've seen though! (And yes, I mean graphics. As in higher poly counts and such) Oddly enough, other than the monsters for The Secret World, I'm not that impressed artistically... but that's a YMMV sorta' thing right there. It does have pretty sweet graphics though. All the current crop of AAA games are stepping up both graphically and artistically though. Which is good. Kind of embarrassing if otherwise, with the budgets they have.
Ive seen some jaw dropping landscapes in Blade & Soul. I'll have to dig around when Im not at work for youtube links. Cherry trees, waterfalls, sloped mountains, all look highly stylized and detailed. The characters look great but i think the skin is way too shiny. they look plastic heh
I guess TSW gets me on both mob design and settings. The Dragon faction city is so badass. Reminds me of Shenmue/Yakuza type games. But Id like to see a more work done on the actual player characters.
I agree on the archeage characters. They dont seem to fit with the hyper realistic landscapes.
IMO, the best all around art style and graphics has to go to Tera. Everything looks highly detailed, vibrant, sharp, and colorful. And the artstyle of the characters and mobs fit perfectly with the landscape design.
Ive seen some jaw dropping landscapes in Blade & Soul. I'll have to dig around when Im not at work for youtube links. Cherry trees, waterfalls, sloped mountains, all look highly stylized and detailed. The characters look great but i think the skin is way too shiny. they look plastic heh
I guess TSW gets me on both mob design and settings. The Dragon faction city is so badass. Reminds me of Shenmue/Yakuza type games. But Id like to see a more work done on the actual player characters.
I agree on the archeage characters. They dont seem to fit with the hyper realistic landscapes.
IMO, the best all around art style and graphics has to go to Tera. Everything looks highly detailed, vibrant, sharp, and colorful. And the artstyle of the characters and mobs fit perfectly with the landscape design.
About Blade & Soul... like I said, I might just have been watching the wrong videos. There were some backgrounds that I thought look nice, but when I watched gameplay videos tended not to see them. Also, so far as the characters looking shiny? To me, that just means they're doing an incredible job of replicating Hyung-Tae Kim's style. I swear, the way he draws women, he must make anybody who models for him bathe in oil. He is one of my favorite artists though, despite being such a freak.
I love Shenmue/Yakuza, so I might like that city. I've seen some videos, but not that one specifically. The characters were mostly what I was talking about, and I watched a couple videos where the backgrounds didn't really grab me. Again, just because I haven't seen amazing backgrounds for a game, doesn't mean they don't exist.
... and Tera reminds me of Lineage 3. Which makes a lot of sense really, ha. I have no problem with the art for it, but somehow the game hasn't managed to grab me. I guess it just feels SO fanservicey to me I almost feel guilty if I look at it at all. Not to mention the whole 'westernization process' makes me a little leery. That always seems to take forever, and not really work out great despite all the time.
Originally posted by Meowhead About Blade & Soul... like I said, I might just have been watching the wrong videos. There were some backgrounds that I thought look nice, but when I watched gameplay videos tended not to see them. Also, so far as the characters looking shiny? To me, that just means they're doing an incredible job of replicating Hyung-Tae Kim's style. I swear, the way he draws women, he must make anybody who models for him bathe in oil. He is one of my favorite artists though, despite being such a freak. I love Shenmue/Yakuza, so I might like that city. I've seen some videos, but not that one specifically. The characters were mostly what I was talking about, and I watched a couple videos where the backgrounds didn't really grab me. Again, just because I haven't seen amazing backgrounds for a game, doesn't mean they don't exist. ... and Tera reminds me of Lineage 3. Which makes a lot of sense really, ha. I have no problem with the art for it, but somehow the game hasn't managed to grab me. I guess it just feels SO fanservicey to me I almost feel guilty if I look at it at all. Not to mention the whole 'westernization process' makes me a little leery. That always seems to take forever, and not really work out great despite all the time.
The Dragon headquarters is in Seoul and theyve only shown about 5 seconds of total footage of that place. But it definitely has a shenmue/yakuza look to it.
Tera to me looks complete. Perhaps because its the mmo that we're talking about that is complete heh. Maybe that gives it the edge. After looking at tons of videos this morning though. Id have to say that Tera is kind of hit n miss. Ive seen some of the best settings and worst settings in tera.
GW2 settings are also amazing especially that city with the airships.
Hmm. This is tough. But I love these kinds of topics. I keep flip flopping haha. Id say overall, Tera looks the most finished for obvious reasons. But The Secret World looks the most.. appealing I guess is the right word. I dunno, when I see TSW vids I just want to be there.
The character models were pretty good (although not my taste), but I wasn't impressed by the environment graphics from what I saw so far. I found SWTOR's and GW2's environment graphics the best looking, although TSW's environment graphics were in a class of their own: it didn't have the fancy fantasy stuff since it portrays modern day world, but it was very atmospheric in how well it managed to set the scenery for regular present day city environments.
ArcheAge had beautiful landscapes but the cities didn't do it for me, kind of bland looking.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
The character models were pretty good (although not my taste), but I wasn't impressed by the environment graphics from what I saw so far. I found SWTOR's and GW2's environment graphics the best looking, although TSW's environment graphics were in a class of their own: it didn't have the fancy fantasy stuff since it portrays modern day world, but it was very atmospheric in how well it managed to set the scenery for regular present day city environments.
ArcheAge had beautiful landscapes but the cities didn't do it for me, kind of bland looking.
So far as SWTOR vs. GW2 goes, I think SWTOR has some really nice environments.... like the planets and stuff? Tattooine seemed pretty neat. The landscaping seems well done for SWTOR (At least, the more recent videos), but I really like the setpieces of GW2... the cities specifically.
There's some really awesome stuff in GW2 cities. (Like the place in the human city with the planets, or the death-star thingy in the Charr city)
I haven't been looking at enough TSW videos to really talk about their scenery. Which is strange, because I'm really interested in it, but I think I'm more interested in the gameplay/setting than the actual art, if that makes any sense.
... and from watching the 'parkour' video of ArcheAge, I have to admit that their cities look like they were stamped out with a generic medieval city set. Like something you'd build using SimMedievalCity.
The character models were pretty good (although not my taste), but I wasn't impressed by the environment graphics from what I saw so far. I found SWTOR's and GW2's environment graphics the best looking, although TSW's environment graphics were in a class of their own: it didn't have the fancy fantasy stuff since it portrays modern day world, but it was very atmospheric in how well it managed to set the scenery for regular present day city environments. ArcheAge had beautiful landscapes but the cities didn't do it for me, kind of bland looking.
Yeah I think Tera is very sharp. The characters and mobs look like part of the scenery if that makes sense. Ive been watchin more and more TSW vids and I think the style of that game is my favorite.
I could also post leaked screenshots and get banned, but ill pass.
Everything in those screenshots looks like crap, the armors, the characters, the ground, the grass... everything.
The screenshots don't really do the game justice. The world design is actually some of the best I've seen in an MMO to date. It looks nothing like WoW. Give it about a month, in september more people will have had their shot in the weekend testing, and I'm sure you'll hear the same then. Long story short, after some first hand experience, its easy to see that the art style may not mesh well for all of the character models, one of the things they do exceedingly well is the detail of their world design.
I could also post leaked screenshots and get banned, but ill pass.
Everything in those screenshots looks like crap, the armors, the characters, the ground, the grass... everything.
Those are some of the worst shots I have seen posted here in the last 1/2 year and are not AT ALL representative of some of the more useful dozens of screen shot posts we have seen here lately. In fact one of your screen shots looks ancient. The beta sites you reference without mentioning names..guess what..I see those too....and from the look of what I see, they are usually WAY BEHIND the times with regard to the build they are posting about. At first I was excited to see some leaked beta, but after seeing over time what does get posted, all it becomes is a bunch of misinformation on outdated stuff.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I could also post leaked screenshots and get banned, but ill pass.
Everything in those screenshots looks like crap, the armors, the characters, the ground, the grass... everything.
Actually, giving your opinion in any way warants a ban under their NDA. The only thing you are allowed to say is that you are in the Beta Testing. So if I draw the proper conclusions from your statement here, then you are in fact either breaking the NDA or you are lying and not even in Beta Testing. Based upon your apparent lack of knowledge, I think it is probably the later reason.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
MMO.Maverick, thanks for proving my point. I was too worn out from work to find the same pictures that have been posted recently that would show how ridiculous those other ancient pictures were. Yours were AWESOME!!!
Ok trolls who see images of the game and flip out don't know anything when it comes to swtor graphics. Watching videos can give you a decent idea, but the game itself is way cooler to play than it appears in the videos. I played it at PAX 2010 and this year at PAX 2011, the graphics are now amazing. The swtor team has gone back and drastically improved the environments and character models. The stylized look now gives way to more realism, but it still retains a unique, smooth, and quality look. It kills GW2 graphics wise, although GW2 hasn't had its graphics redone yet. Even on a huge tv, swtor's graphics remain perfect, while GW2 and every other game except for Wild Star have all their flaws and poorly done textures in plain view. Sure the animations might be slightly clunky, but with so many variables you can only except so much from such a gigantic game. Don't be fooled by the seemingly slow and odd looking fighting, when you actually play the game it feels natural and there's constant excitement and things to do while in battle. After playing it at PAX I went straight to the site and preodered it, it really is a fun game and its got my money.
It might be a toss up between TOR and AOC. AOC maxed looks pretty good. I think fully maxed I was getting about 30 fps in AOC. Not sure on that, it's been a few months since I played it. It will be interesting to see how well TOR runs fully maxed, and what fps I will be getting. I'm probably buying a new computer 3 to 6 months after launch, assuming the game is really good.
AOC maxed looks dated now when you max it out when you come from a game like Witcher 2, but for MMO looks a lot better than most. There new MMO's coming out in next few years that are matching single game gfx of just a year ago, which still leaps ahead of current MMO gfx.
It might be a toss up between TOR and AOC. AOC maxed looks pretty good. I think fully maxed I was getting about 30 fps in AOC. Not sure on that, it's been a few months since I played it. It will be interesting to see how well TOR runs fully maxed, and what fps I will be getting. I'm probably buying a new computer 3 to 6 months after launch, assuming the game is really good.
AOC maxed looks dated now when you max it out when you come from a game like Witcher 2, but for MMO looks a lot better than most. There new MMO's coming out in next few years that are matching single game gfx of just a year ago, which still leaps ahead of current MMO gfx.
Indeed. Only problem is they won't be able to run on a lot of computers. That is the problem with designing a game for MMO vs SPG. The extra design time and costs means you need to reach a wider audience with an MMO to see a nice profit. Who knows, these games that come out might end up better designed to run on a larger range of computers, but to date, the higher end graphics means the lower end of sales and continued patronage.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Ok trolls who see images of the game and flip out don't know anything when it comes to swtor graphics. Watching videos can give you a decent idea, but the game itself is way cooler to play than it appears in the videos. I played it at PAX 2010 and this year at PAX 2011, the graphics are now amazing. The swtor team has gone back and drastically improved the environments and character models. The stylized look now gives way to more realism, but it still retains a unique, smooth, and quality look. It kills GW2 graphics wise, although GW2 hasn't had its graphics redone yet. Even on a huge tv, swtor's graphics remain perfect, while GW2 and every other game except for Wild Star have all their flaws and poorly done textures in plain view. Sure the animations might be slightly clunky, but with so many variables you can only except so much from such a gigantic game. Don't be fooled by the seemingly slow and odd looking fighting, when you actually play the game it feels natural and there's constant excitement and things to do while in battle. After playing it at PAX I went straight to the site and preodered it, it really is a fun game and its got my money.
That's a very encouraging sign so thank you for sharing. Its the first time I've heard that it kills GW2 whose graphics look very nice to me from the videos. I realize its all subjective, but your feedback seems to be in line (maybe not so much to that degree) of others since even earlier conventions that have stated there is nothing like seeing the game in person.
Um.. The Best MMORPG out there withthe best Gerphic by far is Final Fantasy 14 hands down it's the only MMO out there take even one gerphic card can't even handle alone with max settings you need two cards to even play FFXIV at the highest settings man swtor can be ran on 7800 GTX card min while FFXIV min needs 9800 max settings for FFXIV you need 2 460 series or so to even run it at max settngs while you only need 1 200 series to run SWTOR at max settings. art style and gerphics are too toltally differnt things man no mmo out yet has better gerphics then FFXIV GW2 comes close but still no mmo holds a candle to FFXIV gerphics man. so please learn gerphics from art style of games .
Um.. The Best MMORPG out there withthe best Gerphic by far is Final Fantasy 14 hands down it's the only MMO out there take even one gerphic card can't even handle alone with max settings you need two cards to even play FFXIV at the highest settings man swtor can be ran on 7800 GTX card min while FFXIV min needs 9800 max settings for FFXIV you need 2 460 series or so to even run it at max settngs while you only need 1 200 series to run SWTOR at max settings. art style and gerphics are too toltally differnt things man no mmo out yet has better gerphics then FFXIV GW2 comes close but still no mmo holds a candle to FFXIV gerphics man. so please learn gerphics from art style of games .
Could somebody tell me what gerphics are? Is this some new technology I missed out on?
Comments
I think part of the problem with The Secret World is the uncanny valley effect. It is using our real world, we know what our world looks like, so trying to replicate it is going to be a hard sell.
Funny enough, I think they did a fairly good job except for the character models. AoC has the best character models in an mmo so I'm not sure why they couldn't make TSW's characters the same.
I guess TSW gets me on both mob design and settings. The Dragon faction city is so badass. Reminds me of Shenmue/Yakuza type games. But Id like to see a more work done on the actual player characters.
I agree on the archeage characters. They dont seem to fit with the hyper realistic landscapes.
IMO, the best all around art style and graphics has to go to Tera. Everything looks highly detailed, vibrant, sharp, and colorful. And the artstyle of the characters and mobs fit perfectly with the landscape design.
About Blade & Soul... like I said, I might just have been watching the wrong videos. There were some backgrounds that I thought look nice, but when I watched gameplay videos tended not to see them.
Also, so far as the characters looking shiny? To me, that just means they're doing an incredible job of replicating Hyung-Tae Kim's style. I swear, the way he draws women, he must make anybody who models for him bathe in oil. 
He is one of my favorite artists though, despite being such a freak. 
I love Shenmue/Yakuza, so I might like that city. I've seen some videos, but not that one specifically. The characters were mostly what I was talking about, and I watched a couple videos where the backgrounds didn't really grab me. Again, just because I haven't seen amazing backgrounds for a game, doesn't mean they don't exist.
... and Tera reminds me of Lineage 3. Which makes a lot of sense really, ha. I have no problem with the art for it, but somehow the game hasn't managed to grab me. I guess it just feels SO fanservicey to me I almost feel guilty if I look at it at all.
Not to mention the whole 'westernization process' makes me a little leery. That always seems to take forever, and not really work out great despite all the time.
Blade & Soul watch from about 8:45-9:20
The Dragon headquarters is in Seoul and theyve only shown about 5 seconds of total footage of that place. But it definitely has a shenmue/yakuza look to it.
Tera to me looks complete. Perhaps because its the mmo that we're talking about that is complete heh. Maybe that gives it the edge. After looking at tons of videos this morning though. Id have to say that Tera is kind of hit n miss. Ive seen some of the best settings and worst settings in tera.
GW2 settings are also amazing especially that city with the airships.
Hmm. This is tough. But I love these kinds of topics. I keep flip flopping haha. Id say overall, Tera looks the most finished for obvious reasons. But The Secret World looks the most.. appealing I guess is the right word. I dunno, when I see TSW vids I just want to be there.
TERA, really?
The character models were pretty good (although not my taste), but I wasn't impressed by the environment graphics from what I saw so far. I found SWTOR's and GW2's environment graphics the best looking, although TSW's environment graphics were in a class of their own: it didn't have the fancy fantasy stuff since it portrays modern day world, but it was very atmospheric in how well it managed to set the scenery for regular present day city environments.
ArcheAge had beautiful landscapes but the cities didn't do it for me, kind of bland looking.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
So far as SWTOR vs. GW2 goes, I think SWTOR has some really nice environments.... like the planets and stuff? Tattooine seemed pretty neat. The landscaping seems well done for SWTOR (At least, the more recent videos), but I really like the setpieces of GW2... the cities specifically.
There's some really awesome stuff in GW2 cities.
(Like the place in the human city with the planets, or the death-star thingy in the Charr city)
I haven't been looking at enough TSW videos to really talk about their scenery. Which is strange, because I'm really interested in it, but I think I'm more interested in the gameplay/setting than the actual art, if that makes any sense.
... and from watching the 'parkour' video of ArcheAge, I have to admit that their cities look like they were stamped out with a generic medieval city set.
Like something you'd build using SimMedievalCity.
Well, SWTOR has trees and rocks that look exactly like in wow, a 7 year old game.
The enviroment of SWTOR is sub-par at best, there are 2006 games with better enviroments.
And the character models are borderline deformed.
Archeage as the best engine and great graphics, but the animations and character models need a lot of work.
I played both Tera and B&S and both have amazing graphics, the enviroments aren't like Aion or SWTOR at all.
GW2 looks great and the character models are IMO the best i have ever seen in MMORPGs.
Fortunately so many who actually sit in front of the game and experience a recent build tend to disagree, like the person who just wrote this article from PAX--> http://www.askajedi.com/2011/08/27/pax-2011-hands-on-huttball/
There Is Always Hope!
I could also post leaked screenshots and get banned, but ill pass.
Everything in those screenshots looks like crap, the armors, the characters, the ground, the grass... everything.
The screenshots don't really do the game justice. The world design is actually some of the best I've seen in an MMO to date. It looks nothing like WoW. Give it about a month, in september more people will have had their shot in the weekend testing, and I'm sure you'll hear the same then. Long story short, after some first hand experience, its easy to see that the art style may not mesh well for all of the character models, one of the things they do exceedingly well is the detail of their world design.
Those are some of the worst shots I have seen posted here in the last 1/2 year and are not AT ALL representative of some of the more useful dozens of screen shot posts we have seen here lately. In fact one of your screen shots looks ancient. The beta sites you reference without mentioning names..guess what..I see those too....and from the look of what I see, they are usually WAY BEHIND the times with regard to the build they are posting about. At first I was excited to see some leaked beta, but after seeing over time what does get posted, all it becomes is a bunch of misinformation on outdated stuff.
There Is Always Hope!
Instead, you're posting images from a long time ago?
Ok, let's post some other images, shall we, to balance things out, showing how SWTOR also can look like:
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Those are old screens, mav. The game looks even better than that now =O
Actually, giving your opinion in any way warants a ban under their NDA. The only thing you are allowed to say is that you are in the Beta Testing. So if I draw the proper conclusions from your statement here, then you are in fact either breaking the NDA or you are lying and not even in Beta Testing. Based upon your apparent lack of knowledge, I think it is probably the later reason.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
well, hey, I post what I am able to post, those were the ones I found the fastest
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
It kinda looks like fallout 3, except with better distance blur and high dynamic range lighting.
MMO.Maverick, thanks for proving my point. I was too worn out from work to find the same pictures that have been posted recently that would show how ridiculous those other ancient pictures were. Yours were AWESOME!!!
There Is Always Hope!
I have to say that the environments do look very nice indeed. I'm still not a fan of the character models though or their animations.
Ok trolls who see images of the game and flip out don't know anything when it comes to swtor graphics. Watching videos can give you a decent idea, but the game itself is way cooler to play than it appears in the videos. I played it at PAX 2010 and this year at PAX 2011, the graphics are now amazing. The swtor team has gone back and drastically improved the environments and character models. The stylized look now gives way to more realism, but it still retains a unique, smooth, and quality look. It kills GW2 graphics wise, although GW2 hasn't had its graphics redone yet. Even on a huge tv, swtor's graphics remain perfect, while GW2 and every other game except for Wild Star have all their flaws and poorly done textures in plain view. Sure the animations might be slightly clunky, but with so many variables you can only except so much from such a gigantic game. Don't be fooled by the seemingly slow and odd looking fighting, when you actually play the game it feels natural and there's constant excitement and things to do while in battle. After playing it at PAX I went straight to the site and preodered it, it really is a fun game and its got my money.
AOC maxed looks dated now when you max it out when you come from a game like Witcher 2, but for MMO looks a lot better than most. There new MMO's coming out in next few years that are matching single game gfx of just a year ago, which still leaps ahead of current MMO gfx.
Indeed. Only problem is they won't be able to run on a lot of computers. That is the problem with designing a game for MMO vs SPG. The extra design time and costs means you need to reach a wider audience with an MMO to see a nice profit. Who knows, these games that come out might end up better designed to run on a larger range of computers, but to date, the higher end graphics means the lower end of sales and continued patronage.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
That's a very encouraging sign so thank you for sharing. Its the first time I've heard that it kills GW2 whose graphics look very nice to me from the videos. I realize its all subjective, but your feedback seems to be in line (maybe not so much to that degree) of others since even earlier conventions that have stated there is nothing like seeing the game in person.
There Is Always Hope!
Um.. The Best MMORPG out there withthe best Gerphic by far is Final Fantasy 14 hands down it's the only MMO out there take even one gerphic card can't even handle alone with max settings you need two cards to even play FFXIV at the highest settings man swtor can be ran on 7800 GTX card min while FFXIV min needs 9800 max settings for FFXIV you need 2 460 series or so to even run it at max settngs while you only need 1 200 series to run SWTOR at max settings. art style and gerphics are too toltally differnt things man no mmo out yet has better gerphics then FFXIV GW2 comes close but still no mmo holds a candle to FFXIV gerphics man. so please learn gerphics from art style of games .
Could somebody tell me what gerphics are? Is this some new technology I missed out on?