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Hyper realism will not make it in the MMO world _ the Truth
iamct2327
Member Posts: 162
Games like WOW and Guild Wars work well on older systems and newer systems alike. Generally I love both games because I login and I feel I have escaped to a different fantasy world. Wow looks like a painting, brushstrokes, not cartoony. People keep saying WOW is too cartoony, ummm no, there's no cel shading (which is how a cartoon is drawn) and its not a cartoon, its a work of art, brushstrokes.
Anyway the point is a game must be fantasylike and not too realistic to capture a gamer, it helps unless you are playing something close to reality. Lets say Americas Army, or Call of Duty 1 to 3 , BF 2 etc. These are games based on combat and military ideas, they must look realistc. A games based on elves, orcs, and anything pertaining to fantasy must look like a fantasy world. I like to escape and when I load up Eq2 or Vanguard I am seeing things that look too realistic (its a seller today lets make a game to resembles real life in a fantasy setting with crappy animations, etc etc and people will buy it). Its a shame that only blizzard or the boys over at arenanet could only think of something that looks fantasy like. Oblivion looks too realistic and I admit I got bored with that game. Face it blizz decided to make something unique looking and they won, they will continue to dominate the gaming world.
Flame on----- I know I am right lets see what happens the rest of this yr and next yr and the numbers will speak for themselves. WOW will still have millions playing, Vanguard will have thousands, EQ2 will still be stuck with thousands etc etc etc.
Anyway the point is a game must be fantasylike and not too realistic to capture a gamer, it helps unless you are playing something close to reality. Lets say Americas Army, or Call of Duty 1 to 3 , BF 2 etc. These are games based on combat and military ideas, they must look realistc. A games based on elves, orcs, and anything pertaining to fantasy must look like a fantasy world. I like to escape and when I load up Eq2 or Vanguard I am seeing things that look too realistic (its a seller today lets make a game to resembles real life in a fantasy setting with crappy animations, etc etc and people will buy it). Its a shame that only blizzard or the boys over at arenanet could only think of something that looks fantasy like. Oblivion looks too realistic and I admit I got bored with that game. Face it blizz decided to make something unique looking and they won, they will continue to dominate the gaming world.
Flame on----- I know I am right lets see what happens the rest of this yr and next yr and the numbers will speak for themselves. WOW will still have millions playing, Vanguard will have thousands, EQ2 will still be stuck with thousands etc etc etc.
Comments
I wont flame..I sort of see your point..I mean, you're playing a fantasy game and naturally you want some artistic flare other than just a polygon factory. I'm a fan of both really...I like the art style of WoW AND I like the realism of an EQ2 or Vanguard. The thing is, most said a 3D mmo game in general wasn't gonna work well when they took a risk at EQ1...but 13 going on what 14?expansions later, the bastard is still Live lol..yeah, blows my mind too.
Its just a matter of taste really. But I don't think that will be the doom of the game. If anything it'll be the "not as forgiving as WoW" gameplay that might turn some players away. I like the world so far so I'll stick with it for a while..I have the Station Pass anyway so it'll just be another game added to the list if they add it, so either way, works for me.
yay you for your opinion.
but thats all it is, Your opinion. I hate WoW's look. You call it "brushstrokes" I call it cartoony. My opinion over yours. Neither is right, both have thier merits.
Dont say a "realistic" game will fail cause, well, it's not the case. The only reason WoW did so well is because 1) it is a well put together game (I will give credit where its due) 2) because there was nothing else out there worth playing, at least not paying for to play.
Don't push your opinion on me and I wont push mine on you. Now go back to the WoW boards and praise how glorious of a game it is. I will continue to play Vanguard and be awe struck by the beauty of the world and the characters around me.
Thalos Vipav
Star Wars Galaxies: R.I.P.
Fantasy means fighting creatures like Dragons and such. The more they look like dragons, the more you believe you are fighting a dragon. So realistic is better. WOW is popular because its so well done, not because of the graphic style. Just the opposite.
There were lots of people who didn't want to play WOW because of the graphics. But after they tried it, the gameplay was so good that they kept playing, in spite of the graphics.
Just because it's a fantasy game doesn't mean it can't have a powerful graphic engine. Can you imagine how wow would look under the Unreal 3 engine like VG uses? The graphics engine is hardly what makes a game "fantasy". It's just a tool like a monitor or a powerful PC.
I don't mind the WoW artistic style but would really love to see them upgrade the graphics engine to something on par with at least EQ2/VG. Real shadows, more immersive looking areas, armor and weapons. That doesn't mean that the items have to look like real world weapons or armor, they could still have the over the top shoulder size armor and insanely large blades but have better looking textures and so on.
My biggest bitch about VG's graphics are the animations and those are separate from the engine.
http://www.greycouncil.org/
Im still gonna play the game and see if it improves because I actually like the gameplay..but with that said, you're right...the animations can bite my ass lol...hopefully there is more "polish" to come.
Mirrim
Chanter, Spatalos Server
Real or not real, animations or no animations.
The game runs like crap on mid range machines wich is what 6 million of the 7 millions wow users have.. or less.
not wise to make a game that you want millions to play.. yet you made it only run the way it was indended on 1% of the machines out there.
Not wise at all.
WoW was consistent... the detail of the world matched the detail of the characters and mobs. Because of bigger and softer textures, they were able to get away with more modelling, so the hills were curved and rounded. I played for about 6 months when wow was released, and I honestly can't remember ever seeing a long edge from adjoining polygons. The consistency and higher modelling detail resulted in 'suspension of disbelief'... which is the only real goal in gaming graphics imo.
They'd be happy with 400k? Awesome. I will know everybody, everybody will know me, and immature jerks will be few and far between.
Few Intelligent People > Alot of Stupid People
FFXI was pretty realistic (except for Taru's lol) and that game is doing pretty good still. EQ2 is actually a little more cartoonish than I care for and WoW graphics I really can't deal with.
It is personal preference. The bright colors and cartoony graphics grab people's attention (young and old) and they probably run smoother since they are "simpler".
It is probably eaiser to develop those "cartoony" styles, the problem with realistic is if you try to get it realistic, and you don't, people really notice because they see similar stuff every day in their lives. If you go a stylized look, you can play with it a bit because it is your creation and there may not be real-life examples to compare it to.
Or look at this from G&H
www.tentonhammer.com/modules.php
that are all ingame screenshots, nothing rendered here. I mean its somehow realistic but with alot of colors, I wouldnt call it cartoony I would call it fantasy style :P thats at least how I love it, or Guild Wars for that matter. My bet is that G&H will be the next top MMO this year, but thats just maybe me.
Cant comment yet on Vanguard, still downloading the client.
Thats fine - but where are they going to find their 400K people since they just threw away a large chunk of the mmorpg gamers. If they dont mind waiting until those gamers upgrade (and for non hardcore thats what a 2 to 3 year cycle) then they are ok. Guess they are hoping to start off smaller and grow. Kind of the opposite of Blizzard who had so many problem because they underestimated how many people would play and the servers couldnt cope with the load.
WoW isnt so popular because of its style, it is popular because it is so easy to get into. Its like the sims, anyone of any age, of any background can pick it up and play easily. The game guides you through everything with quests and death is extremely forgiven. it is the perfect MMOs for people new to the genre or dont want anything complicated.
unless they are counting on everyone with a SOE station pass I doubt they will brealk 100K. Word has hit the street now that this game is a dud. I know about 2 dozen MMORPG players on a personal basis and of the 4 that were planning on purchase 3 have decided not to after seeing what it was like.
I miss DAoC
Anyone that says WoW is not cartoony is on crack. I will allow you your opinion though, I just think you're way way wrong about the cartoony thing lol look at the human male model. It looks like something out of bugs bunny.
If they don't break 100k after the first year, I will personally never post on the internet again, period.
Word has hit the street for idiots, but some of us try things before we believe someone on the internet and at the same time have a half decent system. If you don't have 2 gigs of ram you're just not trying to have a gaming rig. Ram is cheap now too.
Thalos hit it right on the head. He wrote, "The reason WoW has done well is because there's nothing else out there worth playing". He also added ,"Wow is cartoony "which is also correct. Not only cartoony but everyone looks the same. But I disagree, though, I don't think it's well put together but that's another story.
WoW is played in many, many more countries, unlike many other games so naturally more people have the chance to try it. But notice that it generates more hate and dislike then any other game out so it can't be all that.
Vanguard isn't playing well atm but like all games, this usually happens in the begining.
Vanguard looks great during the day outside, beautiful. Some of the inside areas are a bit dark, but you do have a pretty bright torch. If you are on Qalia, it is a desert, lots of browns there. I never thought it looked to dull, maybe some people are getting that after playing WoW, since it is much brighter in color? Go outside and look around in nature, not everything jumps out at you super bright. There may be colors, doesn't mean it is bright though.
Agreed.
Until now WOW has the best art style i seen in fantasy games (bit on comic side in characters, but thats ok)
Most importantly it runs good while looking good.
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
Agreed.
Until now WOW has the best art style i seen in fantasy games (bit on comic side in characters, but thats ok)
Most importantly it runs good while looking good.
Realities of PC gaming in 2007 101!
2 Gigs of Ram
At least an X1800/7xxx series GPU
AMD64/Intel equivalent
Thats not just for Vanguard, thats for most next gen games. I'm not sayin thats the absolute minimum but it is a starting point for decent performance. I also realise that some people have it working well on older rigs and more power to you, this is just a general observation and is directed at the people who call foul about poor performance on their outdated equipment.
Never mind that YOU think it should run well on your 3 year old PC, it's not a reality and you can whinge all day and it still won't be.
WoW not cartoony? Come on, is that the best you can do? That's sort of like "Superman isn't strong".
Tell me something , How long have you been playing or even heard of MMO's ?
The thing is this before the big bomb was dropped (WoW) there was a HUGE success in a game that had 200-400k subscribers , these are also the numbers most developers worked with..So EQ2 had these numbers and HAD a huge success..The thing with WOW is more of an epic event in MMO history than anything else...
Trust me when I say that majority of the WoW playerbase has never even seen a MMO before or found it to odd to even try one, so what you get is this a couple of million MMO virgins running around in a game they "practically" think is the first of it's kind..
Everywhere I go I get met by this, ask any kid age 13+ Why he doesn't try any of the other MMO's out there, what other games ?..So for them this is something completly new, and ofcourse reminds me of the days I ran around in Ultima Online drooling and was so impressed i almost pissed my pants..These players are at that stage now, where i was 6 -7 years ago(not really sure here)..That is also why the "older" fanbase of MMO's tend to say that WoW isnt really that good etc etc, because it frankly isn't, sure it is polished and lagfree/stable. But if you get to the bottom with it it's a rather plain and simple game, that has no real challange to it(part from the horrendous end game raids)
You may think it has to do with the "artstyle" and all that, but i beg to differ, WoW's loyal crowd is something of a miracle created by it's own followers and/or Diablo/warcraft/starcraft fans that grew to an incredible hype, even today I see Blizz advertising this game everywhere, do they really have to do that ? No Its so self adverticeing, and when the expansion comes they will sell even more boxes and increase the hype even more..And whats even more sad in this case is that other MMO developers almost choose not to advertice at all since it's a waste of funds that will only drown in this huge WoW campaign, just walk inside any store and look, Warcraft is everywhere taking up all the shelfspace with T-shirts, card games, boardgames, and ofcourse presales of the expansion, all other games drown in this, I think its so very sad..
The good thing with this is that it creates a potencial for the MMO market that is now greater than before, people that wants a bigger challange than WoW will seek other games and the developers now know this and can react to that..The sad part is that any developer can only dream of creating such a game that WoW is, the only company that will be able to recreate this success is as I forsee Blizzard with maybe Diablo online or WoW2..The others may make clones but it will never reach this hype even if they have the exact same artistic graphics style.
So..and the thing with Guild Wars, well the success here is that "there is no fee"..This is the MMO for the "kids" that has been begging to play an MMO(WoW) but got the cold hand by the parents, but now they could play "atleast" a semi MMO or one that resembles one, Guild Wars is no MMO it's a hub with adventures for you and your friends, but it's close enough in some parts...So the success of GW can even be accounted to the success of WoW in a sence, because I think the kids that didnt be allowed to play WoW ened up in this game.(This is ofcourse a huge guess)
Well..Hope this was atleast some fun reading
/Thark
I agree... and disagree.
The part I agree with is, under current computer technology hyper-realism won't work in MMO games. The little things that are off and uncorrectable because of the horsepower it would take on each machine are jarring if the graphics are hyper-realistic otherwise.
At some point in the next few years (say next 10) hyper realistic graphics will hit a point where they are feasible and some will greatly enjoy them. If a game looked like say, the lord of the rings movies... I'd be willing to play that :P Visually those were quite impressive.
Edit: Until then somewhat less realistic games will be king, just because they internally blend nicely, there is nothing that jars you and looks "wrong".
Shadus
Note to Brad:
Dear Brad,
I once played your game called Everquest (it was fun) a long time ago, had my fun escaping from reality. When I heard you were coming out with your own new MMO I flipped and said "This is going to be massive, amazing blah blah blah". Sorry to let you down dude but your game is a dud, I mean nice world though it should run better on certain systems especially with graphics turned down. Also what is up with the rediculous animations, spell effects are horrendous as well. If you wanted to let the public know how good your game is, make the game good before releasing it in Open Beta form. I mean upgrade the damn animations to a game that looks like today , and do something about the terrible emotes and char and mob sounds as well and you got yourself a nice game there. Otherwise I am not buying and nor will thousands of other people. Now you will get a maybe a few hundred thousand subs and make a little money but you will not have millions of subs. To tell you the truth I see this game going down in about 6 months to a yr, unless you fix your graphics engine to look decent on older PC's, fix those retarded 1992 animations, char sounds, spell effects and sounds.