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What's wrong with Vanguard's graphics?
Vhaln
Member Posts: 3,159
I've been trying to figure this out. I can run the game on the highest settings, and everything looks ok, like it should be picturesque - but it's just not. There's no wow factor. I'm an explorer and a big sucker for eye-candy, but I've yet to come across any scenery which I felt that I just had to take a screenshot of. and I have no idea why.
Now that LOTRO's NDA has been lifted, I can use it to compare - it's hardware requirements are lower, and yet, I found myself taking screenshots left and right. The graphics in that game are just so well done, lots of it was quite awe-inspiring. Yet put it side by side with Vanguard, and they look about the same quality. Some different strengths and weaknesses, but nothing so black and white.
Any thoughts on what the problem is? Is there some subtle difference in dynamic lighting style? Better placement of buildings, or cloud design? Any chance it's something Vanguard may be able to dramtically improve with patching someday soon? Or am I just biased in some way?
Now that LOTRO's NDA has been lifted, I can use it to compare - it's hardware requirements are lower, and yet, I found myself taking screenshots left and right. The graphics in that game are just so well done, lots of it was quite awe-inspiring. Yet put it side by side with Vanguard, and they look about the same quality. Some different strengths and weaknesses, but nothing so black and white.
Any thoughts on what the problem is? Is there some subtle difference in dynamic lighting style? Better placement of buildings, or cloud design? Any chance it's something Vanguard may be able to dramtically improve with patching someday soon? Or am I just biased in some way?
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Comments
eqnext.wikia.com
In vanguard you need Pixel shader 2.0 and in LOTRO you dont.That might make a diffrence. And i know this cuz my pixel shader is 0.0, and I cant play VG cuz its says i need 2.0, but i can still play LOTRO.
[size=16pt]The Scions[/size]
~A Mortal Online Guild~
www.scionsonline.com
Vhaln, not sure what's wrong with your set-up, but yes, something is amiss.
I too am drawn in by the environments of the games I play and I'll sacrifice frame-rates for the eye-candy. Vanguard is definitely one of those games where the environment is truly immersive and beautiful. There have been many instances already where I've just adventured around to take in the scenery and to see 'what's over the next hill'.
With settings on max, you should get all the detail, including swaying grass, trees etc. That coupled with the wind and other environmental sounds are awesome. In fact, when working my way up the mountain leading to the dorf city, I veared off just to plop down to look over a bluff that gave me a great view of the valley below.
My video card is nice, a 8800 GTX, but I don't think you need a card like that to experience how gorgeous this game is. One thought might be the area that you were looking around in. Some areas are not that scenic, while others are. I've found the landscape most beautiful between the dorf city and Tursh.
The trees are okay; there are many of them and they move around. I was standing next to one and it was moving vertically in and out of the ground as it waved. It's like someone said "look we can automatically place trees let's see how many we can put down!" They use SpeedTree btw.
I wish Vanguard had focused more on quality than quantity. There is a lack of attention to detail every where. Of all of the things that should work properly you run into several bugs crossing zone boundaries. Yes that's right zone boundaries. You'd think the people that worked on EverQuest would know how to handle zone boundaries by now.
I'm not saying LOTRO is a better game. I don't play it any more because I got bored and hate the game mechanics.
I can barely move if I try playing this game on it's highest settings, which don't look that impressive at all, but I can play EQ2 on the highest setting just fine and it looks fantastic!
Interesting that you mention that, I noticed the same thing, but wasn't sure. Some games do blur those sharp edges somehow? I've often wondered why some games seem to look more natural, while others look like they're made of plastic legos. Vanguard, despite all its GPU demands, has that lego look.
I've been playing with the settings, and have gotten some improvement, since my original post. Even took a few screenshots of Martok, but to use it as an example, I think maybe it's a lack of artistic design. What's with making the "city" a perfect circle of buildings like that? Do Sigil's coders double as thier level designers, or what?
And why doesn't it look like any of those buildings are dwellings? Where do orcs live? I don't need to be able to go inside and rummage through thier pantries or anything, but it'd be more "picturesque" to at least see some houses which serve no practical purpose, but to make the town look more like a town.
Also, I know one building is a tavern, but only because of a sign on the door and the barmaids. Doesn't look anything like a tavern- where are orcs sitting at tables, eating and drinking by a roaring fire, or something? I know, the game was rushed, but will they ever get around to adding that sort of stuff, or will it always be on the back burner, behind fixing bugs and balancing?
It's world design elements like that which create atmosphere, and Vanguard seems to be lacking there, IMHO. All the pixel-shading in the world isn't going to help with that. I'd even suggest that it isn't nearly as important as skilled artistic design.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
"Freedom is just another name for nothing left to lose" - Janis Joplin
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I feel sry for ya. I was amazed at some of the graphic in beta 3 while i was playing on my 6200. Now im playing on a 8800 gtx some of the stuff i see i better than anything ive seen in any other game. And i play alot of games. I'm not sure how you can be missing it really.
The night sky, the moon, the sun sets, the water, the buildings, seeing miles into the distance and the lighting effects all look amazing to me.
"Freedom is just another name for nothing left to lose" - Janis Joplin
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"Freedom is just another name for nothing left to lose" - Janis Joplin
.jpg)
The night sky looks very good - I find myself sometimes deliberately looking at the sky. The sunrises/sunsets seem to have that more 'real' feel to them as well - the light just doesn't affect what the landscape looks like, but affects your (ingame) eyesight too. There have been a few spots around Thestra (only place I've been) that I can admire, like meadow lake (esp seeing it for the first time from a distance), and especiall the expansive views, seeing the mountains, or views from them, seeing a dangerous griffon circling its prey 500m away.
That said, I agree that this game doesn't have the WOW! factor around every other corner that might have been expected (me amongst them), especially with the very steep system requirements - but after playing it a while I'm not sure that Sigil was trying for that with Vanguard.
Not having got in the beta for LOTRO, I can't comment about that, but one thing I have noticed with Vanguard is that I feel more 'in the world' than with any MMO since EverQuest. The game is not "wow look at this", "omg that looks cool" all the time, but with Vanguard I don't get as much of that sense that I'm always looking at little pockets/zones of art/design/content that I get with other games.
Maybe it depends on what one is after in an MMO - a fun game? a living world? immersion? freedom?. Certainly Vanguard is the first MMO I've had thats come close to emulating that first experience I had with EverQuest (way back in may '99) - being in this huge, exciting, dangerous other world, and I think the graphics has a lot to do with it (ie added realism).
Nothing AWESOME, but not a terrible machine. I find that I can get fairly decent fps. There is something thats mildy odd though which I just couldnt put my finger on originally as to what was wrong with the gfx?
Dont get me wrong, I think they are fantastic! the trees swaying, the HUGE draw distances you can see etc.
The trouble lies with shadowing i think.
I mean you get the shadows off trees, you get them off the characters and houses (i think).
The trouble lies in the open landscape. The only term I can come up with is fullbright (setting you used to be able to use on quake I believe which basically just made everything super bright)
I've messed around with gamma/contrast etc before you all jump on me, its not that the world is all too bright, its just that when going from one side of a huge area to another, you'd expect some changes in textures or when running through a valley, a shadow to be cast into the valley, there isn't anything like that. Its like they put it all in but forgot to add that part onto the map.
It sounds like I'm rambling and its hard to explain. I'm havign a real blast playing, but i've seen load of pictures people post as well of them running around and in open areas, its the same so it's not specific to my computer. Just wonder if the super high gfx cards dont get this or if they just have everything on such a high res and a high framerate that they dont notice it?
Dawn and nights are awesome,daytime... odd.
P.S as a sidenote, I love the game, I really do, waiting for patchnotes for the bugs they will no doubt fix up, but none of it other than performance randomness is ruining the immersion in this game, its awesome.
Should have my CE arriving today as proof of trust in game.
Vanguards graphics may be technically superior and I can see that in the texture closeups of the characters as I switch to the higher graphics,but.. Most of the time I log on it's either dark or gray or misty or bland or darkgray bland.
There's a fullness to LOTRo a richness and at night buildings and areas are lit to give you a feeling of life and vibrance.
Watching the sunrise in the Frogmorton swamp was pretty serene and gave you a kinda, " I want to live in this world feeling". The inside of the Inns are warm and embracing and the characters seem to have a more natural placement.
LOTRo scenery seems fleshed out and full of detail
I just don't get that in Vanguard, and I really hate the real-life looking mobs in Vanguard.
WoW had it, EQ2 after a lot of work got it, but what is it exactly that thing wich makes the "oh wow!" feeling?
This is a Fantasy game is it not? But it doesnt look nor feel like anything that came out of a story book- it is just a poor plastic looking rendering of the real world with some "fantastic' elements artifficialy planted in the middle of it.
And that makes things just worse- instead of the fantasy feeling implanted everywhere, it is dropped sporadically, like an afterthought- hey lets make this world look more fable like. And it just doesnt work.
It kind of reminds me of the old EQ2 zones like Antonica- big, same looking and boring.
It was the thing that put me off from playing after spending hours and hours trying to get into it. I could probably live with all the bugs, and poor animations, and standard mashing of 1-5 combat. I really tried. The feeling was just not there for me.
Heres my take on it, and I am no expert.
I was in the beta for AC3, I mean LOTR:O, And the art work in that game is very well done, (but it was pretty close to that good in AC2 and that didn't help that game survive, although I expext LOTR to do far better than AC2) but the grapfics engine "is what it is" and there is no room to improve. While VG, the art team, well, they need to get an art team. But the engine has the potential for some great things in the hands of the right people (evident by some areas they have done right). Now I didn't stay at the beta for LOTR for very long, but while I was there, I did notice that the animations sucked about as much as VG, but after gaining some lvls in VG and new abilities, I have noticed some very nice combat animations so I can only assume this will be true in LOTR.
But the feeling your talking about, I think its simply a lack of ability by the VG team to marry the Graphics engine with the Art design (or lack of art quality). But in any case, I wont be playing LOTR (My wife wants me to pick one game and stay with it, instead of bouncing between four or five) So, I have decided to go with VG due to its size and obvious potential, with its engine and what the game CAN look like after they fine tune it, and the open ended feeling I got back in the days of UO, along with the complex gameplay of EQ1 (when it came out) I think it will be a great game.
Heres something for you to try, if your comp can handle it. Go to Halgarad, go inside the crafting building where you get the smith WO's, set your Gama and Brightness to 90 and your contrast to 95, turn on the basic tourch (K) and stand in front of the forge with all names turned off. all lighting effects and shader quality need to be on high. You'll see how amazing the game can look. Thats where I spend most of my time, as a blacksmith, and the shadows and shimmers of the forge, man its amazing looking.
Now once the whole game is done that nice, we'll have the winner !!
If you try that test out, and your system can handle it ok, let me know what you think. I have not found anything like this in LOTR, although I didn't spend enough time in that one to give a fair opinion.
www.90and9.net
www.prophecymma.com
I'm not expert either, but I love how Vanguard looks. The world, the creatures, the characters, the armor and weapons; everything.
Trouble with almost all new MMOs, that are socalled preparing for the future.
The only way to get the good graphics is to have a machine that is quite a lot better then the average pc gamers have.
To get a good performance on the average pc, people have to tune down all kinds of things of those new futuristic graphics programming stuff, whatever you call it.
The result is often graphics, that look worse, then older graphics engines, that you can run on higher settings on that same pc.
So, in some new MMO games, what happens is: the people that spent a lot on pc hardware, really love the graphics, but the average gamer with his average game pc, quite often doesnt see the socalled better graphics, if he wants to play on the SAME PERFORMANCE as in an older game.
The game company says: but the hardware will get sooner cheaper. Suuuure.
There will also get new games out then, with new graphic engines and all.
Vanguard is claiming, you can look VERY far in this game, well its truth, but rofl, barely any pc can handle it.
I also play other mmo games and one of them, you can look that far already for several years, the only difference is, that game company makes sure the performance for the average gamer also stays ok. So their graphics look bit more outdated, but the performance is way smoother, when looking far.
So the question about graphics of new MMO's is: are the game companies and the advertisement sites/reviews/magazines not fooling us gamers? Do we really need those futuristic graphics stuff already? Or should companies focus more on performance?
I personally think they should spent more time on performance instead of making a game, advertising with graphics, that only maybe 15 a 20 percent of the people can play on with GOOD performance.
Customization is severely lacking, but that's something they'll be adding soon, right? Four hairstyles, and four face types - I just assumed they didn't get to that, but will very soon. Like, realistically soon, I hope.
LOTRO actually has a similar problem. Not as many sliders, but looks like plenty of choices - problem is, most of those choices are so subtle, you hardly notice in-game. Most of the elves look the same, most of the hobbits look the same. Only way to look different is to make your character fat and bald.
I think what both games need to add are more dramatic appearance options. Hairstyles are important, they can make for very different looks, but too often most of the choices are too similar, bound too tightly by a racial theme. Also, rather than one painted face and one scarred face, they could add a variety of face paint / makeup, scars, piercings, etc, to mix and match. Those sorts of options would be a lot more discernable than sliders for high or low cheekbones.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Your post is a good discription of the problem EQ2 had when it launched, most reveiws gave it low grades for graphics simply because in order to get the game playable for them, they had to drop the graphics so low they looked terrible. But now, ask anyone and they will tell you that EQ2 graphics are about the best out. That whole planning a game engine for the future worked out for EQ2 I believe, at least it did for everyone I know. Had they done what your saying, they would be outdated only two years in. As it is, going the route you say is wrong, a game that is two years old has graphics FAR better than that of a game like LOTR:O (AC2 with some minor tweaks) which is yet to launch. And EQ2 runs as smooth as LOTR:O on most systems now.
I think the same will be said of Vanguard in a year, people that call it unplayable now will talk about how great it looks and runs in a year from now. I know that I run EQ2 with all the bells and whistles now, with no lag problems, but when it launched I had only my Char and 5 other models on high and everything else was as low as it could go. Systems improve and the general gamer catches up to the game engines, if you plan your engine for who is up to par when you launch, then you are out dated in only one year. I think SOE did the right thing with EQ2, and I think sigil did the right think with VG. But thats only my opinion.
I do understand that many folks will agree with you Nervi, but I think overall, a game company is smarter by planning ahead, when making an MMO, after all, they want us still playing their game and enjoying their graphics two years down the road, not look at all the pretty new graphics of games coming out then.
I have spoken, it is so, simply /agree !!!
www.90and9.net
www.prophecymma.com
"Freedom is just another name for nothing left to lose" - Janis Joplin
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ummm, EQ2 just past its two year mark, and its along ways from dead, in fact its stronger than ever so that claim has no standing. And to say that VG won't last 5 years? well, we cant know that for another, well 5 years, however I have played almost all the MMORPG's that have come out, some more than others. Most of them were not my kind of game, but I could always tell which ones would do well and which ones would not based on the community that was in-game around the launch. I was on the money with DAoC, was wrong about SWG (but who could have seen what they would do) I was right about AC2 and AO as well as WoW (though thats one I didn't like personally). And I see no indication that VG will struggle at all. the in-game community is remarkablly strong, and it seems to be growing each day.
I have no idea what tomorrow holds, nor do you, but if the launch of every other successful MMORPG thats out is any hint to what the future holds for VG, I'd say its starting out pretty good.
**WARNING** *The above statements do not reflect the veiws or opinions of Heinz Ketchup and or its aqffiliates*
www.90and9.net
www.prophecymma.com
"Freedom is just another name for nothing left to lose" - Janis Joplin
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