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WildStar: Whats In an Art-Style?
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
A game's art style is a huge factor for some folks when it comes to enjoying an MMO. In today's WildStar column, we give an instructional lecture on the "uncanny valley". Don't know what that is? You will when we're finished with you. Keep reading!
As I was reading over this past week’s “WildStar Wednesday” over on the official site, I realized one of the many reasons I’m personally so keen to watch this title: it’s the art. I see a lot of comments on our forums about many games that the “art style” is not for this person or that person. Take for example, a friend of mine who simply cannot play Aion because he finds the art style to be simply too “Asian” for his tastes. The same is often said by commenters of TERA’s oversized weaponry and scantily clad females. Then there’s the other side of the coin when folks don’t like a game because it’s trying to be too real looking, or vice versa because it’s too “cartoony” (SWTOR DEBATE ANYONE?).
Read more of Bill Murphy's WildStar: What’s In an Art-Style?
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Comments
I'm not too picky about the art, so long as the game looks like it was created for adults.
Gameplay is far more important - something that has been lacking post-WoW creation.
Have no preference either way here. As long as it fits it's purpose just about any art style is fine by me (if i like the game)
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
It's sad but the art style is the reason I'm not interested in this game. I simply don't enjoy most 'stylistic', exaggerated art styles. The last one I remember enjoying was for the game Advent Rising.
BOYCOTTING EA / ORIGIN going forward.
I personally prefer stylized art. For one thing it has a much longer shelf life. The more important thing though is that, in my opinion,it's typically more interesting and creative. There is also usually more color. Take for example Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, very colorful beautiful graphics. You really feel like you are in a fantasy world. Skyrim is a nice game, but also very brown and gray and rather boring visually in my opinion. Anyway, just my 2 cents.
I prefer more realistic graphics. With the exception of GW2, which is trying what seems to be a different approach to "stylized" graphics. The aim of looking like a painting is really working for me. But the cartoony look of Wildstar doesn't really appeal to me. Not that looks are everything though. But they do diminish my anticipation for titles like Wildstar and Kingdoms of Amalur.
Realism for me - don't want to play in a children's cartoon. The art in the Wildstar screenshot looks like it's straight out of a disney cartoon.
I've heard lots of people complain that WoW looks too cartoonie. Of course, those people never played the Warcraft series either. The visual style in WoW is a 3d interpretation of the original Warcraft visual style. Don't expect it to ever change.
Just about everything ID does is trying to go "gritty" and is what I call Grayscale with blood. Come on, show something colorful that isn't blood or explosions. Even the average office building had more colors on a bad day.
Realism. Trying to get a comfort level of realism can be ok, but let's face it, don't go overboard, nothing about mages, spaceships, or dragons is what you can call real in the first place.
If you want to develop a sense of drama and suspense, don't bother with too many greys or dark colors, there's no need for that unless you have nothing else to back it up, in which case you shouldn't be doing it to begin wtih. Sure a lot of classic Hitchcock did it with true excellence, but it wasn't because of the black and white film, it was despite it. (I also hate the current trend in movies of having scenes virtually blacked out. Boring, and against the idea of a video in the first place.)
Ok, I've ranted enough, I'll be quiet on this thread now, thanks for reading all the way.
Lost my mind, now trying to lose yours...
I really don't mind 'stylized' so long as it's done well. There's a difference between a style that has substance, and being lazy with clubbed hands, feet and low-poly trash then calling it a 'style.' I suppose developers these days assume most gamers are still in the dark about technology and its capabilities, which is their folly. The gamers that were once children and didn't care about those things have grown up and taken enough of an interest into their passtime to learn a few things, and by now they can tell the difference between style as intend, and 'style' as an excuse.
As for WildStar, I'm not crazy about the extended limbs on some of the characters, but I like the overall look enough. A little too colorful, but nothing I couldn't get over. I'd prefer they look more like the CG cinematic though, where they were far more proportional.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
i love stylized art, and this game has by far some of the best art direction ive seen. i also really liked spellborne, though not as well.
My dream would be a game rendered in the style of a tim burton animated movie. i love the overly charecterized facial structures
and spindley body features. spellborne came close to this, which is why i liked it so much
IMHO realism can't be done with today's technology, or even tomorrow's. Games that try to look realistic fail, because they *can't* look realistic. During the Fallen Earth beta I was constantly distracted by the look of the characters I was supposed to interact with. Enough that I didn't play after the beta test.
Give me something stylized so I can't notice differences and flaws with the reference points that are all around me all day long. Believing in the world I'm playing in is much easier when the presentation of that world doesn't try to mirror reality.
Stylized works better for 2 major reasons:
1) The technology is not adept enough to sucessively pull off realistic graphics in games.
Try as they might game developers that go with a realistic approach to graphics always fail. You are simply deluding yourself if you think any realistic game looks realistic. its a bland stylized approach of trying to achieve realistic graphics and nothing more. When the time comes that technology comes to the point where game characters can actually trick you into thinking the characters are real people... then I will move to favor a realistic approach.
Its important also to note that while big companies have the finance to employ a vast number of skilled artists to create these so called "realistic" characters to create something that looks semi-realisitc, many companies do not have this luxury and any attempt from them to create a realistic looking stye borders on lunacy. How many games have you seen that that take this realistic approach only to notice that the characters look deformed or just simply very ugly. How can anybody think this is a better option for these developers to take than taking a stylized approach which is essentially a very cost effective way to avoid such problems.
Stylized does afterall not neccersarily mean cartoony. While Brink was a fairly mediocre game, it used very stylized imagery that could not at all be called cartoony. The last 2 games of the fable series are also very stylized. Stylized should never been confused with cartoony.
2) Sylized will always give a game an iconic look and feel. "Realistic" looking games never stand out to me. The only thing i ever remember is the gameplay or stories of such games as its the only thing iconic enough to remember.
Its ironic but i really feel its a childlike act to not desire to play a game because of cartoony graphics. The age old association of childhood does not make a visual style any more suitable only for children. Cartoon can be appreciated by anybody of any age in the same way any other impressionistic art can be.
agree.^
the stylized and unique (even it's wow-ish) artstyle is the reason i prefer torchlight over titan quest.
Graphics can be well done in their art style or not. As long as it looks competently handled, I'm more interested in the gameplay innovations than anything else.
I like stylised realism like a lot of 80's and 90's cartoons: Transformers, Mask, X-men, Spiderman. And to name a game: Starwars Galaxies.
I can't play anything too pseudo-realistic, it literally makes me feel off.
As a personal preference I like well done "stylized" art as long as it has good vision and is consistent with itself.
I like Realism rather than "stilyzed", and yes, it was near perfect in Star Wars Galaxies. No cartoony and not trying to be Hiperreallistic, but something in the middle. Star Wars Galaxies ruled!
It is a question of fangs.
Love both actually. Realism is all well and good, but is usually utterly screwed by some dev deciding to go off at a tangent and do something utterly unrealistic. It's one or the other, not both in one. We also get things like SWTOR which is semi realistic looking, but in the end looks nothing more than a dated game (probably trying to keep graphics setting low for more users).
As for styalised, also love it when it's done well as Carbine seem to be doing it. It can look utterly dreadful when folks try to go all silly and use water colour effects and other such odd ideas. But I am a fan of where Carbine are going with Wildstar with the art.