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The Upside of Cartoon Graphics
CaesarsGhost
Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 2,136
I sat with my kitty earlier and ranted about watching some videos for upcoming expansions for some MMOs. It became instantly, and painfully, obvious that the cartoon like graphics of WoW and WAR have a HUGE upside when it comes to graphics in comparison to the "realistic" graphics of their bretherin.
When you look at expansion packs for games like DAoC or EverQuest 2, they continue to up the ante on what graphics they can process through their new rendering cycle. That's all well and good, but if you don't go back and remake the graphics in some of the older areas... how will they match?
That's when WoW immediately popped into my mind. Their creative direction allows for multiple expansions that never require increase in graphics. This means that all their graphical standards could remain the same throughout the furthered reaches of expanded areas.
Beyond the Dark Portal has the same graphics processing as Azeroth or Kalimor... why is this important? Continuity!
How would immersion feel if you left your starter City and the graphics got better as you went along? Would you ever go back to that city? What if you had no choice... how much do you want to look at the older, dated, graphics in comparison to what you just experienced on a quest?
The cartoony graphics of thees games allow for a continuity, making it look like these new sections of the world "fit" together... as if they were always part of the same world.
It's the feeling that everything in the world seems to match and work together. It's the flow of the whole gameworld as apposed to "wow, look how great the graphics are in this new expansion"... how important are the graphical upgrades if the rest of the world remains in the past?
When you look at expansion packs for games like DAoC or EverQuest 2, they continue to up the ante on what graphics they can process through their new rendering cycle. That's all well and good, but if you don't go back and remake the graphics in some of the older areas... how will they match?
That's when WoW immediately popped into my mind. Their creative direction allows for multiple expansions that never require increase in graphics. This means that all their graphical standards could remain the same throughout the furthered reaches of expanded areas.
Beyond the Dark Portal has the same graphics processing as Azeroth or Kalimor... why is this important? Continuity!
How would immersion feel if you left your starter City and the graphics got better as you went along? Would you ever go back to that city? What if you had no choice... how much do you want to look at the older, dated, graphics in comparison to what you just experienced on a quest?
The cartoony graphics of thees games allow for a continuity, making it look like these new sections of the world "fit" together... as if they were always part of the same world.
It's the feeling that everything in the world seems to match and work together. It's the flow of the whole gameworld as apposed to "wow, look how great the graphics are in this new expansion"... how important are the graphical upgrades if the rest of the world remains in the past?
- CaesarsGhost
Lead Gameplay and Gameworld Designer for a yet unnamed MMO Title.
"When people tell me designing a game is easy, I try to get them to design a board game. Most people don't last 5 minutes, the rest rarely last more then a day. The final few realize it's neither fun nor easy."
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Show me a game that went from realistic looking graphics, added and expansion and went to cartoony? Show me a game that started with cartoony graphics, and added an expansion and went more realistic?
If they did this, they would look like idiots, which is something they do not want.
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Dev-wise, I'm sure both ways of doing the graphics have their complications, and I'm sure both take as much time to think through and maintain coherence during the whole "life" of the game.
and maybe the graphics processing is the same, but the art direction has definitely taken a crappy turn...
When I started out in Teldrassil, it was cartoony but tasteful and beautifully done. Areas like Darkshore and Ashenvale were moody and georgeous, regardless of vertice count.
However, Outland in WoW looks like mechbot land, everything is candy colored, and it just makes my eyes bleed.
So, graphics change or not, I think wow has really taken a turn for the worse on art direction, looks like it was all made for 13 year olds.
Maybe that's the player base, what do I know...
Good art direction doesn't really depend on the latest technology and highest vertex count anyway. Codemasters' Blade of Darkness, which is way old now (late 90's) had great art direction and the best combat of any hack and slash I've ever seen.
Even the high tech photorealism games sometimes afford themselves blunders that ruin the whole effect. Like Vanguard has beautiful landscape design, but someone in charge of designing the keeps and castles seems to be the same city planner from Texas who laid out all those square chess board towns with A street, B street, C street, etc...
Don't they realize that all old castles and keeps where always designed into the landscape, and very few of them were square, or even had anything resembling straight walls? I see so many wanna be keeps in Vanguard that are all perfect squares and were obviously designed independent of the landscape and just plopped in, resulting in a 1970's Las Vegas look... lacking any charm whatsoever.
Those MMORPGs that try so hard in the realistic department are dooming themselves to a rat race that will never stop until computer graphics are as real as you and me. So what happens to the gameplay then? Go with stylized graphics, save yourself the headache of meeting the expectations of realism, and developers can start doing creative things with games.
Pity the developers who make it their daily job to satisfy the 'realistic fantasy' of hundred K's.
Doktar - 70 Troll Priest - Perenolde
Then you must be perfectly happy in WoW. I would rather have a game with more realistic environments than blocky cartoonish elements such as Blizzard's bouncing baby MMO.
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Then you must be perfectly happy in WoW. I would rather have a game with more realistic environments than blocky cartoonish elements such as Blizzard's bouncing baby MMO.
To the OP. Theres an upside? Only good thing about it is that it lowers the requirements of the game, or it atleast can.
But to the one I quoted.
I totally agree. If the game itself doesnt really have a valid reason then theres no need to resort to cartoonish graphics. When I say valid reason im talking about a game like warhammer online which tries to look like the boardgame so thats a valid reason IMO. But WoW's graphics are just too cartoonish for my taste, it also lends to the notion that WoW is for kids.
"I cherish the memories of a question my grandson asked me the other day when he said..Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?...No, but i served in a company of heroes"
Sgt. Mike Ranney E-company 506PIR 101'st airborn
Not all cartoon games are for kids, there have been numerous titles with outright cartoon graphics that have had mature ratings. I think there's something in US culture in particular that associates cartoons with children, but really the cartoon market is much bigger than that, and I know many adult folks who watch rather adult cartoons. I think this perception clouds the issue about graphics, because it transfers what should be a simple discussion over stylistic preferences into one about maturity levels, which is just bizarre.
To me, it's simply a question of style. I don't see WoW as a childish game because it has cartoon-like graphics, in fact the graphics are nearly perfect for the Warcraft world, they are colorful, fanciful and eye-catching, as opposed to the dark greens, dark browns and greys, together with plasticene character models, I have often encountered in self-described "realistic" graphics games.
It's a simple question of style preferences above all else, and it's very culturally driven. I think a lot of people have FPSs as the standard for what they consider good graphics in Western countries, and that has an impact on what they want to see in any video game world. In Asia, FPSs are less popular, comics and cartoons are hugely popular, people have no "maturity" hangups about them, and so their games tend to favor the kind of artistic style that reflects that cultural heritage. It's very simple to understand, really, and it has much more to do with culture than with loaded words like "maturity".
Quoting people doesn't make you clever, in fact, it makes you all the more stupid for not bothering to read the quotes you post in the first place.
That's not how I feel... but WoW's population is full of children. Whether or not it's because of the cartoony graphics or not is irrelevant to me... it's the fact that they are there, and their impact on the quality of the community.
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That's not how I feel... but WoW's population is full of children. Whether or not it's because of the cartoony graphics or not is irrelevant to me... it's the fact that they are there, and their impact on the quality of the community.
I always hear that, and yet in the guilds I played in 60% or more of the people HAD children, and were not children themselves. I played exclusively on RP servers, so maybe that's what makes it different, but I guess everyone has their own experiences.
That's not how I feel... but WoW's population is full of children. Whether or not it's because of the cartoony graphics or not is irrelevant to me... it's the fact that they are there, and their impact on the quality of the community.
I always hear that, and yet in the guilds I played in 60% or more of the people HAD children, and were not children themselves. I played exclusively on RP servers, so maybe that's what makes it different, but I guess everyone has their own experiences.
Most of the guilds I've played in were adults as well. It did have children, but they were often the children of the adults.
After some thoughts I think cartoon graphics is quite a misnomer here, if cartoon equals immaturity in the West. We should start calling them stylized graphics and non-photorealistic rendered styles. Realism should be the exception in games for people to appreciate it, not the other way round IMO. Loses market value if everyone does it.
Same way how people call avatars toons, all these is reinforcing an anti-stylized graphics atmosphere. Perhaps we should start calling it differently?
I used to make myself think about the "realistic versus cartoon" approach for as long as I can remember. Recently, however, I suddenly realized that I shouldn't bother. Whatever I think, developers will always do what they want (well, based on the sales of other games too, of course). So as a player I can only do one thing - decide if I want to play the actual game or not. Thinking along the lines of "I like cartoon approach" or "I like realistic approach" doesn't always work. For instance, I had always thought I liked realism more. Well, then Vanguard came out and Warhammer Online was announce and I suddenly realized I liked WAR style much better. Still, when I tried to play WoW for more than two hours, my head hurt thanks to the crazy colours. And still many people keep saying WoW and WAR look very similar. Not to me, obviously.
Bottom line is - there's no sense in trying to decide for yourself which style you like better, just play whatever games you prefer.
Oh, and I don't think there's such problem as continuity in adding expansions. Usually if the same team works on the expansions they can easily manage to retain the original style of the game.
I cannot explain the sadness
That's fallen on my breast.
An old, old fable haunts me,
And will not let me rest.
All that matters is the art. It doesn't matter if that house is "cartoony" or realistic, the question is.. how detail is it and can it be believable in such a game? Art catches my eyes, a simple bloom shader on the same old green grass does not. Maybe just me, but that's how I look at it. WoW is a good example of art (or atleast in some locations... poor orcs).. Runescape.. is not.