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[POLL] Should ESOs art style be more stylized and cartoony?
Sengi
Member CommonPosts: 350
There is a new trend in MMORPG design towards more stylized and cartoony graphics. With Everquest Next and Wildstar, and to some extent also Guild Wars 2, several big titles have taken this route. Furthermore WoW was very successful with its art style for many years. ESO is somewhat swimming against the tide with its more realistic and grittier graphics.
There are many arguments that speak for stylized cartoony graphics especially these:
- Stylized graphics age much better then more realistic ones. ESOs graphics might look dated after a couple of years.
- Less realistic graphics avoid the "uncanny valley".
- Cartoony graphics are much better for expressing emotions. Emotes will be better visible from afar.
- WoW has reaches 11 mil subscribers with this kind of art style.
- Cartoony and non violent graphics appeal to all audiences and are more family friendly.
What do you think, would you like ESO to adopt this new art style too?
Comments
My criteria for choosing preferred art style centers around end game and RvR.
If the chosen graphic style means that the majority of players get bad performance during large scale RvR then they should of gone for an art style that allowed for less polygons and rendering power needed but still looks reasonable.
Otherwise I don't really care as long as the game itself is good.
gameplay > graphics
Thank god a game for all of us who want a more realistic look
So many cartoon like games atm, ESO is coming @ just the right time.
I have no issue with stylized graphics but Elder Scrolls has it's own art style and the developers would be risking a lynching if they ever tried to go against it.
I personally think that Elder Scroll games graphic style boarders on creepy with it's uncanny valley appearance but it's a important part of what makes it a Elder Scrolls game so I wouldn't want to see it changed other to move more and more towards true realism.
Wildstar can do it because there is no style associated with the IP that needs to be maintained. It worked for WOW because it was consistent with their Warcraft series art style. FFXIV didn't do it because they do have a style already established that is associated with the IP. Same for ESO.
EQN is the only one that chose to create a cartoon style that is inconsistent. And it's a very weird decision that undermines all the other exciting new things they're trying to accomplish. It's not a huge deal to me and I'm still very much interested in EQN. But I'm interested despite their art style choice, not because of it.
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I put more gritty and realistic.
Otherwise, fine as it is would suffice. I prefer a more "realistic" art design.
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I have absolutely no problem with ultra-stylized games like Borderlands, or WoW, or Bastion. I've probably put more hours into games with cartoony styles than any other. But the Elder Scrolls series has already created its own darker style and expressed it in a series of 3D open worlds that aren't at all dissimilar to the worlds of MMOs. To change it would risk making it not feel like an ES game at all. There's no reason to change it just because we're calling this one an MMO.
Every game can't have the same artistic style.
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I voted for slightly more colorful and stylized. I generally like the TES aethetic, but if I'm honest the games on their own look a bit drab and don't start looking amazing until player mods come out. Player aethetic mods often add stylized armors (do not read: cartoony) and more vibrant game world.
I usually go for those mods myself.
Maybe the EQN art team is a completely different group of people (I have no idea) than who worked on their previous titles. One thing for sure though, at least for EQ2, their armor/clothing design was just terrible looking not to mention the material they assigned to the textures looked like either Blinn or Phong shader models. It just gave it an overall plastic look. It looks like they are trying to distance themselves for that and trying something new. If anything, the stylized look of the characters will allow them to have more extreme and interesting looking animations all around.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
This is false. First: nothing appeals to all audiences, second: there are many people that hate cartoony graphics. Developers choose it because it's easy to make and modify. I would love SWtOR if it had ultra realistic graphic style.
Regardless of their reasons it was a 180 degree change that caught many by surprise. I understand the facial expression SOEmote reasons they have cited. But their decision has steered a lot of the EQN discussion away from the innovative core gameplay features and into an endless, pointless debate about cartoon art style.
Just like with corporate logos, a decision to change the visuals that people identify with a product should never be done lightly, and only if the new look is a significant improvement over the old. I can't say that about EQN. Refining and improving their trademark look would have been a better choice.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I think the art style is probably fine, as long as it pulls from the same style or styles of Skyrim. That said, as long as the color palette is more than "gray", it should be fine.
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There Is Always Hope!
I prefer realistic at ANY day. BUT: I want the world still to be lush and with atmosphere. The TESO videos I saw were way too many grey and brown and OH LOOK more grey and brown. I do NOT want TESO more stylized, so there wasn't any answer that applied to me for real.
In the end I need to SEE it ingame (and EQN as comparison, too) to really say.
As I said, I want realism, but please not like all colour bled out.
"Such are the 'new realism' games: what isn't brown is grey, and what isn't grey is too dark to make out!"
- Yahtzee, Zero Punctuation
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People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
To be honest, I felt skyrim has a lot of earth colors in general..a lot of browns, greys, and earthy green blends. It suited the game to me. I installed that tropical jungle mod which made it super colorful and the game felt completely out of place so I uninstalled it. I think we will find with ESO some locations are more vibrant than others, but I hope they stick with the earthy color scheme.
There Is Always Hope!
Yeah, I'm not sure I'm buying that as their real reason for using the cartoony art. Seems more likely it's to attract WoW players and younger gamers, ie more numbers. I don't even see the appeal of the SOEmote. Not that many people RP deep enough to watch for or need facial emotes and in pvp battle will people really be looking at each others faces or will they be concentrating on the fight. Besides a first glance to see what a character looks like, I can't remember ever looking at faces much. Seems like a waste of resources that could've gone towards other things. Oh well, maybe their is a large amount of people that desire it in game.
Hell no to Disney! I hate you Disney! I love Goofy and Eeyore though. An Eeyore plushie... omg I would melt. ESO is fine the way it is. Business model on the other hand... O-hohohoho.