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Why are mmo dev teams so unwilling to create entirely new graphics clients?
adam_nox
Member UncommonPosts: 2,148
Yes, a few have updated their engines. This is obviously cheaper, and does extend the life of the graphics. But usually by the time this happens, the graphics are already stale, and the updated textures, and addition of layered new graphic technologies (aftereffects essentially) don't even bring the game up to the current standards visually.
MMOs thrive on new blood, and any mmo that can bring in new players could keep surviving. Content in it's rawest form doesn't become dated the same way, or as quickly as graphics, and nothing will turn off new players more than feeling like they are walking in everyone else's shadow, and not playing the new shiney thing of the times.
Why then, do mmo devs refuse to plan for, and release entirely new clients that take the content of the game, and bring the graphics up to TODAY's standards. They can make a big re-release deal out of it, charge for the new client, enabling them to redistribute it as a new title in game stores, and revitalize the countless hours of work that went into all the other parts of game design, instead of letting it waste away.
Blizzard didn't go with the style they went with in order to be easier on older computers. In fact, when it first came out, it wasn't exactly a great performer on my computer at the time, with my 5900 nvidia card. No, they made a calculated decision to go with a style that wouldn't show it's age as bad as a more realistic attempt at graphics would have.
It's not just graphics. Controls, user interface, etc, should all be kept up to date, and for some reason developers aren't willing to do this. Do they just fire all the real programmers after release and decide to just write quest scripts and outsource tweaks?
I would love to play Dark Age of Camelot again, but with a new client (I've tried the latest one, it still shows it's age and is still as clunky), more responsive movement, and a few other tweaks. It doesn't matter that the content is 10 years old, it's a great game, and heck I'm sure I've forgotten most of it by now. But without an influx of new players to play with, and graphics that I can feel immersed by, I just get to keep hopping from failmo to failmo and the mmo genre gets to face a fate worse than death... transformation into freemium, instancing, and farmville.
Comments
Well it boils down to time and $$$$. Its way way cheaper to get the rights to say the Cry 3 engien then to make a whole new one. And its takes YEARS just to make a workable engien then you will need YEARS to make a mmo use it. And to say WoW was upto date when it came out is just a plain lie. FFXi was way better and looked about 1000000% times better and was out a good year before WoW. So like i said its all about $$$ and what ever is easy at the time.
Played Aoc/DDO/FFXI/WAR / LoTRo / CO / Aion
Playing Rift
Waiting for FFXIV to be the game it should. so sad =(
Very few games, MMOs or not, create their own graphics engines.
They are extremely complicated and cost a ton of money to produce. That's why even licensing another game's graphic engine is one of the largest single costs of any game.
The general public, really has absolutely no idea at just how complicated a graphic's engine is. I have messed around building my own basic ones, and they are no walk in the park.
If each MMO, used their entirely own graphic's engine, you could expect another 2-3yrs added on the already massive 4-6yrs it takes to develop them.
Controls and UI, are different. There is no reason for them to slack on that, except just another way the suits see to slash development costs. They take a little bit of time, but are usually worth it, especially for games that have slightly innovative designs.
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Better Graphics from CGI (computer generated image) = needs a better pc.
Better graphics from Art = not very demanding of a pc.
When games spend time on artwork and put them into the computer, and then draw them into the game, thats why Guild wars 2 will not be requiring the BEST computer, but needs a decent processor to run.
Graphical updates are definitely expected and planned for, but thereis a limit to how much and what kind of planning can be done. It's also a matter of how truly feasible it is to completely upgrade the graphics of your game as it's more than just a matter of porting all your models and textures to a new engine.
Depending on the style and design of the game, new tech may not offer enough benefit in either visuals or performance to warrant updating to it.
Compatibility is an issue. If the new tech raises the minimum requirements, how many of your currently players will you lose and how many potential players willit keep away. Vanguard looked beautiful for those that could run it when it came out. For example, if the new tech would add that extra shine to your game, but only the past three years of cards support that new tech, the next step for a developer is to find out what percentage of their playerbase has cards that will support it.
Here's a few examples:
EVE Online - during the transition to the upgraded trinity graphics engine, two clients were supported - premuim and classic. While this created extra work in the form of maintaining two distinctly different builds, it allowed time for the players to upgrade hardware for the new engine. CCP has also regularly put out blogs to let their fans know what changes are coming and how to prepare for them.
Asheron's Call - Back when a Trident Blade 3D or an ATI Rage 128 were decent video cards for gaming, AC supported both Software and 3D Acceleration modes for its client. Most laptops didn't have 3D support and many desktops were just starting to see it show up in both hardware and software incarnations. AC started phasing out the Software mode in 2004 when 3D cards were a lot more common in both desktop and laptop computers.
Pirates of the Burning Sea - Graphical upgrades are ongoing and the look of the game has changed a lot since it was released. Aside from epic redesigns of the capital cities, the textures and rendering of much of the rest of the game has either been improved or optimized (or both!) over the past couple years.
Graphical upgrades also have a chance of breaking or changing existing gameplay. What works under one system may not necessrily work under another, especially after countless vines of code have woven their way through the existing system. A very basic example would be if tech at the time of development allowed for static buildings and newer tech for both graphics and hardware would support usable buildings. The code for managine collision, how the new buildings are entered or used and a variety of other design, network and graphics code would all have to be factored into a redesign. It can become a daunting process that would eat up a good amount of resources and dev time - time that many players would probably prefer was spent on bug fixes and new content.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Creating an engine is a timely and extrememly costly process. To update a graphics engine would cost around the same to just create a more modern one. That is why Unreal is so expensive. They are constanly updating and putting out more modified versions. It just doesn't fit into a game budget to update. Yes, some have like CCP. But genre-defining World of Warcraft won't even update theirs. That is because it is to bulky and they have already created their new engine.
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Companies don't update graphic clients becuase the cost to update a game a little bit, would be more expensive then restarting from cratch and not to mention the company would never get its money back. Besides many mmo players don't care that much about graphics, they care more about unique gameplay, lots of content, fun combat, and communities then Graphics, so it doesn't make sense for them to update graphics if it will only cost them money and nothing to show for it.
I agree, DAoC and UO did large graphical updates it and helped them retain and regain subs.. more games should try to do this as I personally find it very difficult to play n64 looking games.
"Sometimes people say stuff they don''t mean, but more often then that they don''t say things they do mean"
Besides the obvious cost issue I think the main reason graphics are not completely redone in these games is stability. Consider that it typically takes 3-5 years to build a new MMO and then in many cases it take another year or two to work out the rmaining bugs, balancing issues and other gameplay issues. After all that time and investment you're going to be very reluctant to engage in a major overhaul which may very well destabalize what you just spent so long trying to get right.
After an MMO has been out for a few years, are you really going to drag new long-time subscribers based on how the game looks? Seems doubtful. And you risk driving away some of the most loyal fans they log in one day and their character no longer looks the same. For the amount of money it would cost, I don't think there's much reason to do it.
Client upgrades do not always end well. UO has twice tried to create new clients (three times if you count the Stygian Abyss client as seperate from the Kingdom Reborn client) and each time it was rejected by the majority of the player base.
A client change is very disruptive if you fail to optimize performance to be comparable in speed to the one you are replacing.
Well, actually theres plenty of game companies that do their own game engines, like Bioware.
I dont know if SWTOR itself uses the typical Bioware engine setup, but Dragon Age, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights etc did.
OTOH Bioware never had top notch graphics in their engine.
Advantage of an own game engine : you get something specifically made for your own needs.
Disadvantage: its a lot of work.
There is an open source game engine if you would like to play around with such a thing: http://www.ogre3d.org/
SWTOR uses the Hero engine.
The basic engine looks solid and the screenshots/video coming out looks awesome.
Bioware had several engines over the years and even licensed the Aurora for 'The Witcher1'.
Back on topic: Creating a new client usually means a new engine which is basically creating the game again. Way too many downside with virtually no upside.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
This is the exact OPPOSITE of what needs to happen !!!!
People screaming for good graphics are whats ruining the mmo gaming experience !!!!!
1) MMO's are no longer a new market. People are divided by over 100 MMO's
2) Graphics are not there yet, I'm by far a dev but I can tell you for sure that it's hard to make a living world that can compete with over 100 mmo's and put the game out in a timely manor.
3) Band-with became more expensive.
4) Game play experience is suffering from dev teems trying to give the graphic hounds what they want.
It's still like a slide bar ( you can have one or the other ) It's like this :
Great graphics......../.........................................................................................Game play experience.
My friend and I both have power rigs, we are both playing Vanguard. I turned my graphics down and it plays great. He REFUSES to turn them down and crashes. Every two days he is frustrated and would like to quit, but he knows it's a great game. HOWEVER and I stress HOWEVER he absolutely refuses to lower the game's graphics from max settings. That for him is not an option !
WHATS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE. you people are the ones that are killing MMO's !!!!!!
My guess would be that creating new graphics engines and such is just a truly gargantuan undertaking.
Imagine having to build tens- if not hundreds of thousands of objects. Then imagine having to re-texture all those objects.
Those objects need to interract with each other properly.
Then there's new coding. Does the new engine or client support your database and other various code systems? Would you end up having to re-write your whole backend.
Does the new engine function correctly on end-user systems?
You have to re-assemble the QA team to re-test everything on multiple system setups.
I'm by no means an expert, nor even a professional, in this field, but this is just a small list of things I know are required. Imagine what else there must be..
So yeah.. hugeness.. mucho moolah.. For example, how long have Funcom been working on the new graphics engine for AO? Years, right?
better yet: $$$$...how stupid to think every game should dedicate itself to it's own new graphics engine...if they did, don't complain when that new game cost $125.00...
The practical reason is that it costs too much, and would end up adding that much more time onto a genre of games that already take years to develop by definition. The romanticized explanation is that the one gem of wisdom that developers still retain, is that graphic quality is moot in the face of meaningful content. Imagine how much of a crutch it would become if the Blizzard-types had the resources to re-release clients every so often, it would give them even less incentive to release content updates when they can just keep the masses distracted with shinies.