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I am playing SKYRIM on my pc with a high end nvidia graphic card. The graphics in the game are amazing!! The attention to detail, the trees, rocks, water all come alive in this game. Then I saw a video demo of SWTOR. Now before you post the usual responses of --- "Hey dummy it's a single user game and not a MMO, a MMO couldn't handle those type of graphics", let me say this...
Why the hell not!!!!
Honestly, figure out a way around the lag issues with high end graphics and change the game. The graphics in SWTOR are horrible, cartoonish, and appear outdated. People, my dad survied a complete heart transplant. Scientist are on the age of discovering particles that travel faster then the speed of light. IT'S 2012 and we continue to accept that mmo's have to have low end sub par graphics because why exactly? I've read excuses like, "it would not be profitable for the gaming company to invest in expensive server and graphics cards to sustatin their MMO so they design their games with low end graphics, and also becasue most pc's can't play high end graphics."
Well, if a people still have VCR's, does that mean we don't use DVD'S.
COME ON GAMEING COMPANIES, STOP IT WITH THE CARTOONISH GRAPHICS TO SAVE MONEY! WE DEMAND BETTER IN 2012. STAR WARS IS AN AWESOME IP, AND IT'S A SHAME TO CREATE AN MMO USING THIS IP BUT WITH CARTOONISH GRAPHICS. ABSOULUTELY HORRIBLE!!!!
It's time for the MMO graphics to evolve with the rest of the gaming world, otherwise, it may go the way of the VCR.
Comments
It's 2011.
What can be done with technology and what can be done profitably are two different things. As I'm sure many in need of a full heart transplant but unable to get one are aware. Or...were aware. Same goes for entertainment, only with less tragic consequences.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
You can not have high end graphics in MMO's, there are simply too many people running around. Every model uses resources, the higher the polygons the more people that won't get to play without $2000 rigs.
It's not about what a mmo can handle or not. A mmo with instancing like swtor could probably handle much better graphics. And while I would enjoy better graphics, the problem is mass appeal. It's much of the same reason that this game is so similar to wow, because they want to be all encompassing to get as many subs as possible. They don't want people (more specifically entry level gamers who love star wars, but don't have gaming computers) to be shut off. This game looks good compared to what it can run on because of the cartoonish (or stylized, w/e ppl want to call it, same thing) graphics, so thats why it is what it is.
The graphics in Skyrim aren't all that technically amazing. They're worse than Oblivion in certain areas. You're being fooled by superior art direction.
GFX in MMO have to be low for preformance issues, not only that supper high end GFX single out alot of players that can't play due to system req., a good example was AoC, back when that game first came out the system req where so high for a MMO that a good 50% of MMO players couldn't play or could but with very shitty FPS.
Simple rule of business..."The more people you see the more money you make" in a MMO it's about subs,subs and more subs, sinlge player games can get away with high end GFX because they also vender the game off to 3 different console as well as PC,Mac so they have a higher success rate unlike MMO's that are more then likly 99% PC.
Lacking commen sense!
Not everyone can afford High End graphic cards or better performing PCs.
Firstly, the worlds and planets in SWTOR are the single most impressive visuals ive ever seen in any MMO when the game is played in my opinion, judge the game after you've played it. I will admit the player models are not your usual affair, but they are deliberately done in a more cartoony style. If you dont like the art-style thats fine and completely your individual opinion, but the actual graphics most definitely are not 'bad'.
Secondly, the argument about single-player -> MMO stand. Its not just the world that has to be rendered, but every single other player in that world. Thats hundreds, possible thousands, of additional character models, their movements, attacks, and everything they're doing to interract with the world. MMO's are significantly more cpu/graphics intensive than singleplayer games so the graphics need to be lower to manage, end of story.
Thirdly, SWTOR is being put out to the widest possible market. You mentioned this but didnt understand it, incorrectly using a VCR argument. You're saying people still use VCR's - which i bet is absolutely true - but the real question is do a MAJORITY of people use VCR's, to which I would almost certainly guess is a 'No'. The majority of people would use DVD's, so releasing something on a DVD reaches the widest possible audience, just as the majority of peopl have low-average pc's so releasing a game capable of running on them reaches the widest possible audience, which means more players, sales, and profit for the developers which are all best for everyone.
A more apt comparison would be Blu-ray to DVD, not DVD to VCR, as I would bet a majority of people still have DVD over Blu-ray. Releasing a movie on Blu-ray exclusively would greatly reduce the potential audience. Here with SWTOR they're essentially relasing something on a DVD - reaching the widest possible audience - while still having it playable on a Bluray player (although not using its full potential).
Lastly, the 'cartoony' artstyle undoubtedly has a longer life-span than a more 'photorealistic' style as it stands the test of time far better. Stylistic lasts forever, but photorealistic only lasts for as long as the next wave of releases come out with superior photorealistic graphics. Look at something like Super Mario 64 which still looks fine and playable today, compared to something that went for a more realistic look of the same era which look _attrocious_. An mmo is intended to last as long as possible and be appealing for its life-span which may be up to a decade or even longer.
Every single reason for the decision of the arstyle and graphics in SWTOR is a smart one, from beter performance, better longetivity, to maximising the potential playerbase.
Tera is one mmo that is truly pushing the graphycs envelope. not sure if you have managed to try it but let me tell you that it's quite incredible how much detail and shine you can put in an mmo. of course the majority of mid-low end computers will have incredible lag problems running Tera and sadly it's one of the first things game developers take into consideration. simply put, here in the west the majority of people have pretty crappy computers. on top of that the majority of wester players will take good fps over graphics.
STWOR took the safe rout and decided to go do what WoW did. keep the graphycs low and make sure the gameplay is smooth on the widest range of computers possible. preformance over dazle. it's what has worked before and anyone that has tried different ( AoC was one) has not done very well.
in the end you always have to sacrifice one thing of one other, let's just hope that the gameplay is fun enough to let us forget that the graphics in this game are already well outdated even before the game is launched.
Seriously?? That's your reply. Well, I figured by the time SWTOR comes out, it will be very close to 2012, so I wrote 2012 but thanks for pointing it out. Sigh..
To all the rest, thanks for the replies. To the person with the reply about comparing blu ray to DVD, excellent point and response. Thanks for making it.
Now to the person who said I was being fooled by Good Art design, I find that comment to be interesting. Please explain a little more if you don't mind.
No, I havn't tried it, but thanks for the suggestion. I'm going to for sure.
Why the hell not!!!!
Remember that game Age of Conan? it had the best graphics utiltized at the time. Know why it didn't do so well? Because a majority of its player base that wanted to play the game could not run it on their systems.
A MMO succeeds based on its subscriptions or micro-transactions. If they can't get people to run their game on their system that's lost money that could have been made.
So companies are after the $$ and will make the game accessible to the bigger market. Low-Mid range systems with some top end settings for the better machines. In this process they have to use lower texture resolutions and less polygons to compensate for the ability of more players to run their game. This is why your run of the mill MMO doesn't look like Skyrim.
Have a nice day.
Well, if people use dvd's does that mean they dont' use VCR's?
If people use e-mail does that not mean they write paper letters and send them through the post? If people use digital music does that mean they don't enjoy vinyl?
If Skyrim uses an art design that is supposed to be "close" to realistic does that mean all games need to embrace that aesthetic?
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Its more than possible with technology, But Its just like how other people have mentioned users would need high end rigs and the Bottom line is Less potential money to be made.
The only way probably to get an mmo with skyrim type graphics on the martket imo is to niche market it as the "most visually stunning mmo yet" for ppl with high end rigs
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
swtor have opvp and rvr where you will find more than 200 players fighting in the same zone, and what intancing are you talking about?, thats just for flashpoints, operations, and warzones oh and ur personal history, thats all.
This.
Gameplay is more important than graphics by about a factor of 100. If a game is boring to play, it's boring to play no matter how pretty it is. If a game is fun to play but ugly, it's still fun to play.
Thanks. So in short, because of profitablity, the economy and buisness rules in general, I have to accept the graphics as such in MMO's since they cater to the masses of low end compuers and for now and get my better graphic fix from single player games. Since graphics are far from the only reason I play MMO's, I still play them, but how interesting would it be if a company figured out how to make the graphics appear high end, but at a cost that would still make the game profitable. Which it would happen, some day.
Not to say I'm not content with what's on offer in TOR, but this is Star Wars. Which has always been represented through cutting edge visual effects. Visual flair is important when it comes to representing the IP. I'm not saying visuals are more important than game-play, but without the visual hook a lot is going to be lost in terms of the IP
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The only reason the star wars IP has usually (not always) been represented with cutting edge visuals is because of the nature of the IP itself - spaceships, lasers, aliens, unique planets, etc., and it being very hard to display such things without breaking the boundaries of visuals. These boundaries were broken long ago, however, and as long such things can be represented adequately then the graphics dont need to be 'cutting edge' anymore as they did years ago.
Honestly, I think the mass appeal arguments are stale in this case due to the fact that skyrim uses direct x9 and does it extremely well with minimal demands on your system. Also, I've seen games compatible with different versions of direct x. So, ya, pretty much irrelevant.
los grafix have nuffin to do with latency interwebs conenction etc... what they have to do with is
1. You will have a bagillion players in a mmo in one area where your high end nvidia card will have to hustle and bustle to render. Most single playa games, playa, dont befall this issue.
2. while you won't see RAGE style textures in SWTOR the art direction is actually pretty damn good. But yes, uber high rez textures and more realistic characters perhpas would have been better for some, but at the end of the day there's a very very valuable reason they're not in there, and thats the same reason they're not in the WoWski.
It being that SWTOR needs to run on a Gateway or Dell computer that a kid's dad picked up from Best Buy somewhere in rural Idaho, or for that matter a computer somewhere in a house in Hungary, or Estonia.
Why? Bottom line.
The game is a ridiculously fun themepark (and I hates me themeparks), and it's a subscription based game, meaning the more subs, the more cashioca puddin' in the coffers. And that right there is why you dont get a Skyrim-ish looking SWTOR.
Hope that helped and have a nice day.
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I was dissapointed with graphics as well some time ago. Recently I watched some new videos and I realized the ones I hated were from 2009 build. They improved a ton.
I really liked the graphics on videos from last beta. I am pretty sure they will be even better on my laptom when I can actually play the game. Videos usually don't make justice of graphics. I think animations are very smooth and scenery looks fantastic.
just in case anyone thinks ive never played any mmo but wow i have tried out. Dc universe online, champion online, warhammer, guild wars, lotro, aoc, forsaken world and perferct world,, runes of magic and a couple others. {mod edit}