I personally don't care for the game itself, but Eve Online blows me away every time I see a screenshot. Everything in space is simply fantastic to look at.
Granado Espada really has steped it up with there visual style - not the monst advanced use of texturing or polygons and shaders but by far some of the best artistic use in a game ive seen in forever -
I think the problem here is what is the artistic styles the OP finds appealing. For example, EQ2 may feel to some feel too plastic in the 'glossy' look of all the characters and monsters, but some folks may like WoW just because it has a seemingly warm fuzzy appeal of a Saturday morning cartoon. And etc. What I usually try to point out after that is looks are not everything. Some games look great, but have shallow gameplay, and other games look horrible, but have excellent gameplay. So, remember, looks are not everything, otherwise why do folks play MUDs? :-D
I personally favor EVE, tho I dont play anymore. Lineage 2 was also quite beatiful when it came out.
To be honest tho, there are quite a few visually astounding MMO's out there. There are very few mmos that are original in any other way.
I do not think its fair to include games that arent already in large scale beta yet . But since so many have I would say that PoBTS looks quite pleasing as does AoC. But ill hold off final judgement until they are actually games that I can play rather than topics on web sites.
I've always found that most games offer a least "something" visually pleasing at some point, some more then others.
Saga of Ryzom, IMHO, has by far the most visually pleasing environments of any game, modern or not. Do you want to know how to make a world look and FEEL alive, this game should be in the World Development 101. Everything from the weather effects, changing seaons, creature habbits, growth of fauna. No one, absolutely no one has done it better in a game.
Matrix Online is one of those game where you step into the world and the look tells you EXACTLY where you are. When you log in, you know your in the Matrix universe, period. There's no doubt, no hesistation and whatever the issues that game has your convinced that at least graphically, this is what the Matrix would look like. It's always been very impressive to me.
World of Warcraft has some really stunning visual moments, the first time you come into the main gates of Ironforge and see the giant statue of Titrus the chief dwarf bearing down on you or traveling to it's great forge center. Then theres the first time you see the bowels of undercity or the great plains of the barrens. For a none warcraft fan, anyone would probably only be minorly impressed for those that have pictured these places only in their minds before, it's actually somethign to be behold.
SWG, while almost by default, wasn't so much visually "stunning" but visually fun! It was fun to see Anchorhead, it was fun to run around the dune of Tat or to see the forests of endor. It was great actually live in cities, built on planets we'd only read about and watched in movies. The aristic team had done a wonderful job at rendering these also, so of the landscapes in SWG would absolutely blow you away as you walked over a hill or drove up over a dune, some moments you would swear you were in the SWG verse.
EQ2-still the best overall graphics. Has the whole package image quality, animations, some very interesting vistas and performs well on a reasonable system if you plan properly.
Vanguard-has some potential but needs a lot of work in places
WoW-if this were the 90’s it would be great. Image quality and art style are both severely dated. Even “cartoony” art styls have left what WoW is doing way behind.
Guild Wars – spectacular in places and makes for some great stills. Feels odd when you are in motion. (possibly due to the use of painting instead of rendering of backdrops? )
EVE- some incredible scenes, but it’s very hard to compare directly because they are so different from the other contenders. Overall image quality isn’t quite as high, but I’m not sure it matters in this setting.
Lineage II – Decent, but recognizes the strong role costume design plays in fantasy worlds even if it goes a little to far on the female costumes.
CoX – nice backdrops but is starting to feel dated in overall image quality. Spell effects are fantastic and character customization are amazing which is why it
Granado Espada – haven’t tried it, but looks good from the stills. Cityscapes and environments are comparable to EQ2 with the clothing design looking a lot more imaginative. I’d need to see what animations and spell effects are like.
LoTRO- looks great from what I have seen, another legitimate challenger for top spot.
I'm going to say something noone here will want to believe. But there once was a game that noone liked. That scammed people out of their money, that released a game not finished by any standard, and that was a flop alltogether. But they had 1 thing that everyone agreed on was decent. Graphics.
That game was : Dark and Light.
The game was a major flop, and i do not recommend anyone from trying it, because they are still charging my credit card for i don't know what (got them blocked though ), but the graphics we're grand. The viewing distance was huge, and if you came to parts of the world without graphical bugs (minor one's we're allmost everywhere), the game was really, really beautifull. The fact that you could fly through it freely helped a bit as well. But i can still remember going into that game expecting nothing but crap, but at least the graphics got a 9 by me .
I for one was not very charmed by the way EQ2's characters looked though. That took away a lot of the game's atmosphere.
Granado Espada also has a very distinct visual style that i'm currently enjoying. It's very "fresh" and original, and even though it may not be the most advanced engine ever, the game is a real gem graphics wise.
For game's to come i'd look out for Pirate's of the Burning sea. Some of them screenshots look very very good !
For me personally I like Lineage2 graphics.....it has been there for a while ( released since 2004) but the graphics is still stunning. The other thing is that with Lineage2 you don't need a very super computer system to run the game, with decent graphic cards you still can enjoy the visual quality, but of course with high end computer graphics card the quality will be even better. I also noticed that in each update ( each chronicle) they did improve the quality of the graphics. I know that there are many new games out there, but still L2 is the best for me especially their character models ( i.e. armors and weapons)
WoW hands down, and I don't even play the game lol. Every other MMO that tries to look "real" never looks good because the technology for a realistic looking game is quite a ways down the road. WoW is completely artistic, not meant in any way to be "real", highly polished in darn near every single detail, and runs like a champ on any decent computer (not to mention looks spectacular on a great computer).
As for the people claiming Vanguard, I have to wonder if they're smoking something real good or haven't even looked at other games. LOTRO does a much better job with the "oil painting" concept of Vanguard, and it will run on a lot more machines and looks a lot better overall. I saw some decent scenes in Vanguard, but those scenes are easily matched by LOTRO without the need for a God computer. IMO, LOTRO is what Vanguard designers meant their game to look like, but failed miserably in doing so.
Vanguard hands down, unfortunalty i have to play it on highest performance settings, as my coreduo and 8800gtx and 2gig aint up for the job, but stil looks fantasic, i just took this screen shot... looks fantastic.
LMAO! I know it's early but that's got to be post of the year.
hahah, great VG picture. Honestly though, have you played the game on the lowest setting? It looks pretty damn close to that, and I still get 25-30 fps, LOL. 7600GT should run it on highest performance super good, except vg of course.
Honestly, I would have to say WoW and EQ2, they both have great art directions in the game...plus I think EQ2 character models are a little more realistic compared to VG. VG characters are just...I dont know, weird in a way. Their torso's don't look human, their ass are long like a flat pancake asian chick, and the faces are just....gah. So boney. Wood Elves have huge jaw bones that you can't really get rid of. Like Michael Jackson.
EQ2 gets my vote.
/played-mmorpgs
Total time played:9125 Days, 21 Hours, 29 Minutes, 27 Seconds Time played this level: 39 Days, 1 Hour, 24 Minutes, 5 Seconds
i like WoW and Lineage 2, EQ2 looks good, but I only tried it for a couple days so I can't really judge. Vanguard seemed alright when I cranked my graphics up, but the avatars and npcs look pretty stupid, and I'd to spend like 5-6 bills on keeping the graphics cranked up all the time.
Eve is alright, but EVE is more of a slideshow when compared to games with avatars and npcs that move their arms. And I don't mean FPS slideshow, I just mean EVE has models that turn around and stuff, and blow up. You can't /dance in eve is what I'm saying. All the systems look the same too.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You? if I were to kill a titan tomorrow and no CCP employees showed up to say grats I would petition it. Waiting for: the next MMO that lets me make this macro if hp < 30 then CastSpell("heal") SpellTargetUnit("player") else CastSpell("smite") end
Now I never played EVE so maybe I'm wrong, but isn't like 99% of the game set with the backdrop of just stars and space? While the ships may look nice they didn't exactly have to worry about putting too much effort into anything besides those ships and a few space buildings. After only having to take a few minutes to draw up some stars and space dust I would really hope everything else would end up looking good due to extra attention.
For the people voting for L2 its not a bad choice, until Granado Espada came along. Its a similar style but basically the next-gen of L2's graphics with more detail and doesn't look blurry when zoomed in up close to something like L2 does.
I'm sorry but I just can't vote for WoW at all here. While it does do a nice job of creating an atmosphere, I just can't get over how plain, cartoony, and blocky the world is. I really hope WAR does better with it considering its their own design Blizzard copied.
EQ2 has a nice combination of everything. While some places (freeport area) are dull, it makes up for it in some nice realistic armor designs (I said some, not all) and zones like the Labratory of Lord Vyemm.
Vanguard I was only able to play on the lowest settings and it looked like EQ1.5. Maybe a bit better than EQ1, but not as good as EQ2.
Final Fantasy XI hasn't been mentioned at all here... but I won't be the first to give it any consideration because I'm not gonna pay 20 bucks just to try it out and no one ever seems to have a buddy pass. If its one thing Square Enix can do though its impressive visuals.
I would have to give the nod to Granado Espada because it creates an amazing classical atmosphere with great detail. They just need more graphics for equipment. EQ2 would follow in second place.
Comments
yeah gotta agree,
Granado Espada really has steped it up with there visual style - not the monst advanced use of texturing or polygons and shaders but by far some of the best artistic use in a game ive seen in forever
-
I think the problem here is what is the artistic styles the OP finds appealing. For example, EQ2 may feel to some feel too plastic in the 'glossy' look of all the characters and monsters, but some folks may like WoW just because it has a seemingly warm fuzzy appeal of a Saturday morning cartoon. And etc. What I usually try to point out after that is looks are not everything. Some games look great, but have shallow gameplay, and other games look horrible, but have excellent gameplay. So, remember, looks are not everything, otherwise why do folks play MUDs? :-D
-- Bridget
slight adjustment for me
Current : Eve (even if I did not get into the game itself, graphicaly it was just flat out stunning)
I personally favor EVE, tho I dont play anymore. Lineage 2 was also quite beatiful when it came out.
To be honest tho, there are quite a few visually astounding MMO's out there. There are very few mmos that are original in any other way.
I do not think its fair to include games that arent already in large scale beta yet . But since so many have I would say that PoBTS looks quite pleasing as does AoC. But ill hold off final judgement until they are actually games that I can play rather than topics on web sites.
I've always found that most games offer a least "something" visually pleasing at some point, some more then others.
Saga of Ryzom, IMHO, has by far the most visually pleasing environments of any game, modern or not. Do you want to know how to make a world look and FEEL alive, this game should be in the World Development 101. Everything from the weather effects, changing seaons, creature habbits, growth of fauna. No one, absolutely no one has done it better in a game.
Matrix Online is one of those game where you step into the world and the look tells you EXACTLY where you are. When you log in, you know your in the Matrix universe, period. There's no doubt, no hesistation and whatever the issues that game has your convinced that at least graphically, this is what the Matrix would look like. It's always been very impressive to me.
World of Warcraft has some really stunning visual moments, the first time you come into the main gates of Ironforge and see the giant statue of Titrus the chief dwarf bearing down on you or traveling to it's great forge center. Then theres the first time you see the bowels of undercity or the great plains of the barrens. For a none warcraft fan, anyone would probably only be minorly impressed for those that have pictured these places only in their minds before, it's actually somethign to be behold.
SWG, while almost by default, wasn't so much visually "stunning" but visually fun! It was fun to see Anchorhead, it was fun to run around the dune of Tat or to see the forests of endor. It was great actually live in cities, built on planets we'd only read about and watched in movies. The aristic team had done a wonderful job at rendering these also, so of the landscapes in SWG would absolutely blow you away as you walked over a hill or drove up over a dune, some moments you would swear you were in the SWG verse.
Important Information regarding Posting and You
#1 EVE - But the game belongs to Sci-Fi genre and most people don't like Sci-Fi genre
#2 Guild Wars - The best in High-Fantasy genre
#3 WoW - Big difference from the previous 2, not even half as good
#4 Lineage 2 - About the same level as WoW
If I have to pay to play Vanguard, it's worse than Runescape
That game was : Dark and Light.
The game was a major flop, and i do not recommend anyone from trying it, because they are still charging my credit card for i don't know what (got them blocked though
I for one was not very charmed by the way EQ2's characters looked though. That took away a lot of the game's atmosphere.
Granado Espada also has a very distinct visual style that i'm currently enjoying. It's very "fresh" and original, and even though it may not be the most advanced engine ever, the game is a real gem graphics wise.
For game's to come i'd look out for Pirate's of the Burning sea. Some of them screenshots look very very good !
Oh and AoC for the above stated reasons.
If it wouldn't have to be an MMO, I'd pick "Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines".
Vanguard's graphics blow ... unless you like playing with plastic dolls (Real looking? ya. Right.)
------
Played - UO, FFXI, WAR, WoW, EVE
Currently - Bored.
...the animations do still need some work though.
I havent played LOTR online yet, but some of the screenshots I have seen look pretty sweet (though the characters look a little dodgy IMO).
edit - that AOC screenshot looks great! Mmm...will definately have to install my copy of vista just before that gets released
WoW hands down, and I don't even play the game lol. Every other MMO that tries to look "real" never looks good because the technology for a realistic looking game is quite a ways down the road. WoW is completely artistic, not meant in any way to be "real", highly polished in darn near every single detail, and runs like a champ on any decent computer (not to mention looks spectacular on a great computer).
As for the people claiming Vanguard, I have to wonder if they're smoking something real good or haven't even looked at other games. LOTRO does a much better job with the "oil painting" concept of Vanguard, and it will run on a lot more machines and looks a lot better overall. I saw some decent scenes in Vanguard, but those scenes are easily matched by LOTRO without the need for a God computer. IMO, LOTRO is what Vanguard designers meant their game to look like, but failed miserably in doing so.
img521.imageshack.us/img521/5223/screenshot00010ry5.jpg - Took this on my own PC, LOTRO! Not saying I'm a big fan of the game, but this shot in particular was fantastic
nuffs said
FFXI: Gauhar - Odin
My youtube MMO gaming channel
Honestly, I would have to say WoW and EQ2, they both have great art directions in the game...plus I think EQ2 character models are a little more realistic compared to VG. VG characters are just...I dont know, weird in a way. Their torso's don't look human, their ass are long like a flat pancake asian chick, and the faces are just....gah. So boney. Wood Elves have huge jaw bones that you can't really get rid of. Like Michael Jackson.
EQ2 gets my vote.
Total time played: 9125 Days, 21 Hours, 29 Minutes, 27 Seconds
Time played this level: 39 Days, 1 Hour, 24 Minutes, 5 Seconds
Eve is alright, but EVE is more of a slideshow when compared to games with avatars and npcs that move their arms. And I don't mean FPS slideshow, I just mean EVE has models that turn around and stuff, and blow up. You can't /dance in eve is what I'm saying. All the systems look the same too.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
if I were to kill a titan tomorrow and no CCP employees showed up to say grats I would petition it.
Waiting for: the next MMO that lets me make this macro
if hp < 30 then CastSpell("heal") SpellTargetUnit("player") else CastSpell("smite") end
For the people voting for L2 its not a bad choice, until Granado Espada came along. Its a similar style but basically the next-gen of L2's graphics with more detail and doesn't look blurry when zoomed in up close to something like L2 does.
I'm sorry but I just can't vote for WoW at all here. While it does do a nice job of creating an atmosphere, I just can't get over how plain, cartoony, and blocky the world is. I really hope WAR does better with it considering its their own design Blizzard copied.
EQ2 has a nice combination of everything. While some places (freeport area) are dull, it makes up for it in some nice realistic armor designs (I said some, not all) and zones like the Labratory of Lord Vyemm.
Vanguard I was only able to play on the lowest settings and it looked like EQ1.5. Maybe a bit better than EQ1, but not as good as EQ2.
Final Fantasy XI hasn't been mentioned at all here... but I won't be the first to give it any consideration because I'm not gonna pay 20 bucks just to try it out and no one ever seems to have a buddy pass. If its one thing Square Enix can do though its impressive visuals.
I would have to give the nod to Granado Espada because it creates an amazing classical atmosphere with great detail. They just need more graphics for equipment. EQ2 would follow in second place.
---