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Gameplay must ALWAYS come first before graphics
Amarandes
Member Posts: 104
A lot of people criticizes WoW for its cartoony graphics. But do you really know why WoW has cartoony graphics? Because Blizzard is one of the few companies out there that actually puts gameplay first before graphics.
Its why they do not upgrade their graphics all at once, prefering to upgrade their engine gradually over time. They spend more time on the gameplay part such as quests and classes rather than upgrading character models. Graphics does not mean anything if the gameplay is crap. It such an important aspect of MMOs that its at the top of their mission statement.
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html
Gameplay first. Graphics second. We would have better games out there today if this philosophy is followed. It needs to be the number one rule that all game companies need to follow.
Comments
The problem with this post is that you are making a judgement that because WoW's art design is a bit more "cartoony" they did it so that they could concentrate on game play.
WoW's art design is not only a conscious decision (for a variety of reasons such as it runs well on lower end machines, it will wear well over time, etc) but it also is a bit inspired by warcraft III.
The art design has nothing to do with their decision to "do with less" therefore concentrate on game design.
Becuase their art design wears well over time they aren't compelled to upgrade their engine at the drop of a dime.
incidentally, WoW's art design leaves me a bit cold (not to mention some of the more whimsical aspects of the game) therefore, regardless of how well one says it plays or how good the game play is, I just can't get into it.
But then again I'm wired to be more of a visual person.
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I agree, gameplay should come after graphics and of course after marketing.
But even with a good gameplay if the game is low budgeted and has 2d or bad 3d graphics not many people will play it. Therefore wont be as big and popular as other games.
Graphics are necessary but you also need to have good gameplay which maps out most of small companies from market.
The problem with big companies is that they dont care about gameplay a lot, they just put shiny graphics and put a lot of money in marketing so the noob crowd buys the game.
And wow is not a real example, there are other reasons wow is more popular than its gameplay, its graphics are also like this for a reason
Gameplay should come before graphics yes, but only if the people who designed the game are able too upgrade graphics as time goes by.
Agreed. WoW is still a very visually interesting game despite being so old-school. But it's high time they updated their character models. Am I really to believe that they cannot find the time or money to do this? Everquest 1 had no where near the money coming in or staff on hand and this game enjoys yet they were able to update all the character graphics within the fourth year of their launch. Year six going on seven, Blizzard.
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http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/rejad
I actually read something on this where blizzard talked about what it woudl take to upgrade the models.
they want to do it but as they said they have to figure out what they are doing. Fixing mouths and things like that they said wouldnt be hard. But when u get into feet and things like that then u have to redisign gear and how things collide and how the characters react to the world.
They have stated they want to do this but its a 2-3 yr proecess.
Cata was about revamping the old world the meet up with the new tech they have. Plus the great thing about blizzards graphics which i like is they work on a huge number of computers.
Alot of newer games make the graphics so great forget gameplay and forget very few people have state of the art computers. So there games only work on like 5 pct of the populations computers and how much of the 5 pct actually play mmos.
this is another reason wow is succesful u can play it on cmps that are 4-5 years old pretty easy.
I don't think they will upgrade their character models anytime soon because the fact of the matter is, the gameplay in WoW still requires a significant amount of resources in order to run effectively. Ofcourse, when you have a decked our rig, you can probably run 2 WoWs with ease, but the vast majority of people do not have decked out rigs.
I updated my computer in 2008 with a 9600gt nvidia card and and E8400 Intel processor (6M cache, 3.00 GHz, 1333 MHZ FSB) and my computer still stutters occasionally in 25 man raids when theres a ton of shit going on.
My friends, who have never upgraded their computers and just use the basic package they got from dell and HP lag ALL the time and cannot do 25 man raids. I think a lot of people are in a similar situation.
P.S. I think the gameplay in WoW is the best in any fantasy mmorpg. All classes have very interesting and unqiue abilities that make pvp fucking nuts. I just wish the latest patch was more balanced so I would rage like I do now.
Now if only we can have an MMO with great gameplay but better art style than WoW. Hopefully GW2 and Rift live up to that.
I'm a very visual person and no matter how fantastic the gameplay may be, i cannot get into a game if i don't like how it looks. I still do agree that gameplay is the most important thing.
The OP's argument is a fallacy, using an unproven point to prove another point. One could, in like manner, proffer the point that the reason that Blizzard has not updated the graphics is because they have been constantly fixing bugs in the game - that it is not so much that they are focused on gameplay, but that they do not know what they are doing and are always chasing their tail trying to fix things...
...as has been stated by others, the graphics are about allowing low-end machines to handle the game.
The video card requirements have been updated to nVidia GeForce FX or ATI 9500 for Cataclysm.
The recommended card is an nVidia 8600 or ATI HD 2600.
The ATI 9500 is from 2002. The ATI HD 2600 is from 2007. Neither card was ever considered high end.
There are some painful issues with the graphics in WoW. Trees... trees are just painful. I mean, they are worse than trees were back in 2000. Then you have oddities like flying mounts... look at the wings on them, pretty nifty looking. High poly, flowing, etc. Then look at the bodies...low poly, kind of bad. Worst... look at the feet on those things - like something done by a kindergarten class using colored pencils and a ruler.
The water does look pretty lucious now. Kind of more oily than watery, but still damn nifty.
There are several games out there that offer different graphic levels to players. Whether it is what CCP used to do... whether it is what you see with Turbine offering their DX9 vs. DX10/11... you see companies that are addressing different hardware abilities of their playerbase.
Just because Blizzard has gone with a certain style for their graphics, does not mean they cannot improve the look of that style for the machines that can handle it while leaving the low poly fugly stuff for those that cannot.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
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Can somebody give me an example of a MMORPG where graphics came before its gameplay?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
As much as I am enjoying the game right now, FFXIV.
Great graphics, but a sizeable chunk of gameplay seems to have been unfinished by the time the game came out, including more variety in Leve's, quests, mounts, and monsters (specifically NM's)
One of the 4 major cities also appears to be locked off, though it's unclear whether or not it's accessed through a quest, or is simply unfinished at this point. My guess is if access was granted through a quest, someone would've have been in by now.
Hopefully after these large version updates they have planned these will all be in-game.
I cannot see any reason why a gamme cannot have both.
Good game play does not mean that you can not have good graphics and vice-versa. So in an ideal world they should go hand in hand, not one being first and the other second.
Exactly, saying a developer sacrificed one for the other is a cop out. There is no excuse to not have both in todays games.
People should not need a 2500 dollar system to run a good game.
Exaggerate much? We aren't talking about everyone being able to run at max settings all the time, even WoW cant be run at full by most players systems these days. Unless you are blindly handing over your wallet and don't have a clue about what you need in a computer for gaming, then yeah, maybe you could spend that much thinking thats what you need.
Gameplay is obviously very important but let me ask you this. If game had good gameplay but had the look of a 1990 game would the masses play it ? Chances are probably not so I am what I am saying is that graphics is just as important as gameplay is. Gamers hate playing in worlds that dont look good.
I think the graphics and gameplay needs to be on par with each other. If the game play is awsome, but sucks to look at (bad art design and/or bad animation), then I wont play it for long. Vice versa is true too. If the game looks great but plays like crap,..well the answer is obvious.
Instead of one HAVING to be a priority over the other, I say horseshyt. They need to be equal in this day and age or it just cant compete.
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I agree to the TC, but graphics should not be left behind either. These days, both should move together, but what I saw was a huge leap in graphics, and a really slow crawl in gameplay. (not only in mmos)
The worst example of this was doom 3. It was the exact same game, except the graphics were next gen... I still remember the amazing eye candy followed by a very sour taste after 3 minutes of playing.
Meh
I liked WAR's gameplay, but the game looked like pooh, bigtime, so i quit.
I loved AoC's look, but the gamplay was terrible.. so i quit
Games really need both, gameplay first ofcourse, but there is no excuse for releasing a 10 year old looking game today.
The argument about games need to run on older machines is understandable, and going all out doesnt make sense from a selling point of view, but where do you draw the line? people who are sitting on 5 year old average machines, and expect to run a brand new games at high are just silly, every game offers graphic tweaks so it'll run acceptable.
noone would buy new machines if 5 year old computers ran everything perfectly, if you want to enjoy games at their full graphical potential, well then you gotta fork out, and if you don't, you'll always be able to run it on low settings.
Regarding wow, the graphics are getting terribly outdated, and a graphic update is seriously needed by now imo, I know that they're keeping it in line with the WC games, but there are so many character glitches, cliping etc. that it's just crazy, people are used to it by now though, but it's 1 point where WoW arent very strong. Heck even SWG were alot better looking, and that's like 8 years old.
The Wii has outsold both the Xbox 360 and PS3, proving your theory wrong.
This train of thought does have some merit to it, I for one have always been bothered by the people who are so quick to come into the forums to defend games like AOC, and FFXIV which both were accused of being heavy on graphical quality while light on gameplay.
I agree with the op's opinion that gameplay is more important than graphics but the problem is that we all as individuals determine how much these elements mean to us and while it boggles my mind when people talk about how great AOC looks while ignoring all the problems it had it's really not up to me to decide for that person what is acceptable.
What I think folks need to remember is that the better graphics tend to be on pc games the more powerful graphics you need to be able to run in general, and while you may have a system that can do that don't expect games like this to have very high populations because (believe it or not) most people don't even think buying a new pc just to play a single game is a viable option, and even if you would consider it even newbies like myself realize you could go out and spend a few thousand on a new pc and the game still might not run good if at all.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
good gameplay + good graphics > good gameplay + bad/mediocre graphics
It's an equation. If a game looks like shit, then the gameplay better be stellar to compensate.
If the game looks awesome, but the gameplay sucks majorly, then it's still a bad game.
If the gameplay has passed a certain acceptance threshold, then other things will start to count, among them visuals.
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."
Minecraft has graphics from the 1990s yet a lot of people are already playing it.
The sales figures for the Wii do not prove his theory wrong. Though they do provide interesting evidence in regard to WoW's numbers.
As for the games themselves, the #1 selling game Wii Sports has had around 7.7m sales YTD (total of 205 weeks). Halo: Reach for XBOX 360... 6 weeks, 5.8m.
For this past week, the two of the top 5 games were actually four of the top 5 games - available on the PS3 and XBOX360. Fallout: New Vegas and Medal of Honor.
My favorite part about offering up the Wii in an attempt to prove him wrong is the price point on the Wii. It has run $100-$200 or more cheaper than the other consoles...
...too funny, if you ask me.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Cyphers for president!
Seriously, what's up with the whole "I'm a fanboy of a game that looks like crap, so let's pretend that games that have good visuals aren't any good"?.
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Then build one. Very nice systems can be built for less than half of that.
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