Here's some gameplay footage from a week ago. Low-res texture, environment is bit lackluster and awful animation quality. Combat system looks like a total mess as well.
Doubt we will see a release in 2015.
Two Words: Unity Engine. The combat sounds are aweful and the animations and effects look like they are from 1990.
I regret i backed it, it's really bad and i don't see it ever getting better while it uses that horrible engine.
Release 15 (beginning of March) will upgrade the current Unity 4 engine to Unity 5. They will have multiple new zones complete, but only 1 or 2 zones completed that utilize the new Unity 5 features to "showcase" the new shiny features. Hooray!
Two Words: Unity Engine. The combat sounds are aweful and the animations and effects look like they are from 1990.
I regret i backed it, it's really bad and i don't see it ever getting better while it uses that horrible engine.
That has nothing to do with the unity engine.. animations are done by the animation artists.. and the sounds by the sound enhineers.
As for the game itself it has come a very long way since i first tested whenever the first alpha test came out.. it looks and runs so much better than it did then and i think the devs will continue to make it look better.
Also games from 10 years ago did not look like this...
Don't really care for comparisons, so I'll just say; it's graphics serve the game well, they could be better, but they really don't need to be. Player models do leave a bit to be desired.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Graphic style may be better (no oversized weapon, no usual incoherent mix of everyhing, no cartoony, etc)
but graphics quality itself looks like from 10 years ago - it just screams low-budget sorry.
Not to mention that there is this annoying (very)high fantasy 80s/90s goofy stuff. Like player going around in a crown in video someone posted. Certainly goes back to all those cheap 5$ stereotypical fantasy books. Same kind of stuff that is going on in all this general renessaince faires.
Not this part of fantasy style I would want games to draw from.
Lot of trolling up in here. Graphics look great for sota, and if the trolls were serious they'd surely supply screenshots or at least reference to ANY game 10 years old that looked even close to as good. About 7 years ago Vanguard was considered the most detailed and amazing graphics for an MMO and even they weren't as good. Aside from maybe the newest Final Fantasy mmo, I can think of no other better quality graphics and this is putting all art opinion aside.
So lets see some screenshots of better 10+ year old games. I await your swift replies.
Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't make it trolling. I smell a defensive $11K backer here...
Of course, if you run back to your little love-fest over on the SotA forums, you won't have to deal with "trolls". The mods over there have done a great job of creating a nice little gated community for the handful of people who still care about this game.
Originally posted by Demogorgon Looks good, but sorry to burst your bubble, its not even close of what quality AAA game are doing now in 2014-15.
Gameplay is more important then graphics but i agree it looks like a game from 10 years ago.
And with such poor gameplay (PvP is horrible) i see no future for this game. It will be a niche game for a niche public.
agreed at 100%
this game is not an AAA game, take a look at TESO you'll see the differences...
not ready at all for launch, needs lot of work. I'll play it for sure, as my 1st RPG was Ultima6 but I can not say SOTA has better graphicss than AAA mmos. looks like a 10 maybe 15 years old game.
had more fun with Ultima9...
Graphics are outdated, UI is outdated, animations are outdated, music and sound are outdated, and it needs a powerfull computer to play. I can play RVR on TESO with my I5 nvidia 2 Go ram, and it's a pain with Sota. Played AOC and Vanguard on windows XP via bootcamp on my old IMAC early 2009, SOTA is the worst optimized played since years.i'm sorry but played DAOC many years ago and it was much better.
Played SOTA 1h ago, tried again, then stopped. i don't really care about graphics, but imo it's ftm a mess. Even for PVE it's a pain. For the moment it's at prealpha state, enough said. OP can not say SOTA has better graphics than AAA mmos, it's a joke.
Played a lot of video games since 1986, this one seems coming from the past... Lotro is 7 years old and it's far from Sota, still beautiful and immersive game. EQ2 is a nice game too with a MODERN UI, not with a 15 years old UI ! Think about it: world of warcraft is 10 years old, and looks modern compared with SOTA.
Payed for many indie game and they are actually all of them unplayable (SOTA, repopulation, Albion...) So I won't pay a cent anymore for those unfinished games.
The low res still looks ok although the short fog distance and lod not so good.It still looks a ton better than say Wow for example a game i cannot fathom to play.it sort fo resembles Eq2 to me however i hope it does not share the same terrible optimization.So far in my short career of Unity Engine gaming,i have nothing good to say about the engine.Yes you can have some nice graphics but it has always run terrible for me,like unplayable kind of terrible.
Blizzard has had a steady run of bug fixing for their Hearthstone game that runs Unity and that is not even a high quality graphic game.
SO if it runs really well then i would say the graphics are definitely good enough to enjoy.Heck i am still playing FFXI and i find the graphics good enough.It all depends on texture quality,some games no matter what will just look bad.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Here's some gameplay footage from a week ago. Low-res texture, environment is bit lackluster and awful animation quality. Combat system looks like a total mess as well.
Doubt we will see a release in 2015.
Thanks for sharing. Looks pretty decent for a pre-Alpha indie game.
Only agree on the doubt it will be released in 2015...
Lot of trolling up in here. Graphics look great for sota, and if the trolls were serious they'd surely supply screenshots or at least reference to ANY game 10 years old that looked even close to as good. About 7 years ago Vanguard was considered the most detailed and amazing graphics for an MMO and even they weren't as good. Aside from maybe the newest Final Fantasy mmo, I can think of no other better quality graphics and this is putting all art opinion aside.
So lets see some screenshots of better 10+ year old games. I await your swift replies.
Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't make it trolling. I smell a defensive $11K backer here...
Of course, if you run back to your little love-fest over on the SotA forums, you won't have to deal with "trolls". The mods over there have done a great job of creating a nice little gated community for the handful of people who still care about this game.
Agree.
I feel for the ones that put thousands of $ into this game.
Graphics is bad and not comparable with games of today standards but to me gameplay have always been more important, just sad that gameplay as combat sucks even more then graphics.
I can understand that if you put thousands of dollars into this game (unseen and in blind faith of the developers) desperation might arrive that i made a poor investment and a thread like this was created to defend this poor investment.
Originally posted by Charlie.Cheswick Beats the crap out of Landmark.
Come on, really?
Originally posted by laokoko "if you want to be a game designer, you should sell your house and fund your game. Since if you won't even fund your own game, no one will".
Lot of trolling up in here. Graphics look great for sota, and if the trolls were serious they'd surely supply screenshots or at least reference to ANY game 10 years old that looked even close to as good. About 7 years ago Vanguard was considered the most detailed and amazing graphics for an MMO and even they weren't as good. Aside from maybe the newest Final Fantasy mmo, I can think of no other better quality graphics and this is putting all art opinion aside.
So lets see some screenshots of better 10+ year old games. I await your swift replies.
Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't make it trolling. I smell a defensive $11K backer here...
Of course, if you run back to your little love-fest over on the SotA forums, you won't have to deal with "trolls". The mods over there have done a great job of creating a nice little gated community for the handful of people who still care about this game.
Agree.
I feel for the ones that put thousands of $ into this game.
Graphics is bad and not comparable with games of today standards but to me gameplay have always been more important, just sad that gameplay as combat sucks even more then graphics.
I can understand that if you put thousands of dollars into this game (unseen and in blind faith of the developers) desperation might arrive that i made a poor investment and a thread like this was created to defend this poor investment.
Yep.
Just wait until you meet the high-level backer community. You'll quickly learn the meaning of the words:
Entitlement
Pseudo-intellectual
Self-absorbed
Elitist
This game has attracted the most annoying-old school gamers from 1997-2001 and shoved them all together in one place.
I must say this games graphics continue to impress, espcially with what they are pusing the UNITY engine to do!
Personally I feel the graphics (enviromental, not so much character) is better than some AAA MMOS out there, (Maybe not ESO) but certainly I feel on par if not better than ArcheAge.
The forest scenes and sunlight god rays with the little touches like birds flying make the world come alive and that the UNITY engine can produce vibrant colors!
Bravo! The game continues to improve, and we are not even technically at Alpha stage yet! I have high hopes for when this enters BETA then launch - a true successor to UO and could be considered UO2 and Ultima X all rolled into one!
Well let's be careful here,do you actually consider yourself quite knowledgeable on all aspects of graphics?
I have seen a little bit of the game,it looks ok in some areas,good in others and very rough in other's.However i have not stepped into the game nor have i seen enough of it to pass judgement.
Aside from that i really only have two main concerns,well i guess i have a LOT lmao but two that usually irk me.
1 I can't stand cheap textures,they do not have to be HD but they have to look like a professional did them and not some little kid playing around with dad's software.I guess i tend to over use the term "cartoon" graphics but it sort of usually is a true statement when talking cheap ugly graphics.Cartoon graphics tend to have single palette colors with VERY little detail within the texture,usually NO detail at all just a single color pasted on the sleeve or shirt or whatever.
2 I can't stand cheap developers that create buildings with no insides,no doors,that spells cheap 101 and immediately tells me the kind of effort to expect in the rest of the game.It also completely ruins immersion in the game,i do NOT want to see a npc standing in front of a 2d structure.
Other than those two there is a lot more but usually i can handle the little things.
umm sorry there is one more :P
Models,if i see one model i want to quit the game right away,i can see when the same model is used and just stretched with a different face on it and a few tattoos or facial hair.I tend to expect at least 4-5 models and that is for each gender,so 4-5 male and 4-5 female.Three mmm idk if i could live with that,maybe if i knew they were adding a couple more in a month or two.
/sigh
Are you just typing to type again?
Burdock said an opinion on what he (hope is a he) saw. You come back with a 5 paragraph essay on what should be in your opinion. How about you type from experience for once....PLEASE! All of you points are from the point of view of what you expect. The OP and everyone else are giving an opinion based on what they have seen. Do you get it?
Serviceable is a ridiculous claim, especially when you didn't provide other current games that are superior graphically.
On another note, just looking at the screenshots I get the impression it would bog down my machine (sorta old). Lotta high res and detailed textures, trees and foliage, quality shadows and lighting and a high LOD even in the distance. It does remind me a bit of Vanguard (without the waxiness), but still, other than no name games that are still in development, there are few that look as good. I say this as someone who is not an especially big fan of the game and have no reason to champion it.
Screenshots are not that detailed. I been in this game since it was first announced. Graphics are sub par. Not even close to those of AA as the OP claims. More along the lines of Second Life in basic mode detail. It is the only game I can compare it to. Tree textures are cheap. The characters are even worse. The buildings in general are very simple stone textures. Almost any current MMO out right now can easily beat it in graphics. By the time this game is actually released...the graphics will be far outdated.
The environment looks good and somehow immersive, although the lighting is still a bit of a problem, at night is way too dark and the artificial lights don't help much. The problem with SotA graphics are the character models, they should scrap them and start from scratch, they look bloated and they don't fit well with the environment. More specifically I am talking about the Armor/Clothes, they look way too unnatural on the characters. They need another 3D Artist IMO
Same problem of Vanguard. Good environment graphics, awful character models.
Here's some gameplay footage from a week ago. Low-res texture, environment is bit lackluster and awful animation quality. Combat system looks like a total mess as well.
Doubt we will see a release in 2015.
This video is outdated. They've changed to Unity 5 and updated sounds and combat.
The fidelity of the graphics, and the artistic direction are two separate topics. The "fidelity" are things like how well the textures are done, 3d models, lighting and character models. "Art direction" is how creative the design of the environments are.
Fidelity standpoint the game is good. Not great. Art direction is very good, the design of the towns and environments are very well done.
ArcheAge is the same thing, average fidelity but the art direction is absolutely top notch.
I think you have to understand tradeoffs that are made for every single game being made, whether it's technology or budgetary reasons. Frankly the only MMORPG's with AAA graphics are Elder Scrolls Online and Black Desert.
But who cares? There are tons of games with awesome graphics that are frankly boring tired games. Anybody ever played Call of Duty?
Lot of trolling up in here. Graphics look great for sota, and if the trolls were serious they'd surely supply screenshots or at least reference to ANY game 10 years old that looked even close to as good. About 7 years ago Vanguard was considered the most detailed and amazing graphics for an MMO and even they weren't as good. Aside from maybe the newest Final Fantasy mmo, I can think of no other better quality graphics and this is putting all art opinion aside.
So lets see some screenshots of better 10+ year old games. I await your swift replies.
Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't make it trolling. I smell a defensive $11K backer here...
Of course, if you run back to your little love-fest over on the SotA forums, you won't have to deal with "trolls". The mods over there have done a great job of creating a nice little gated community for the handful of people who still care about this game.
Agree.
I feel for the ones that put thousands of $ into this game.
Graphics is bad and not comparable with games of today standards but to me gameplay have always been more important, just sad that gameplay as combat sucks even more then graphics.
I can understand that if you put thousands of dollars into this game (unseen and in blind faith of the developers) desperation might arrive that i made a poor investment and a thread like this was created to defend this poor investment.
Not all of us are like that. The game itself looks fine and plays well for me, but I don't really mind not having top notch graphics if the gameplay is good in an mmorpg. Does it have AAA graphics? No, but I never expected it would. The gameplay isn't very good atm, true, it needs a lot of work, and there's not a lot of content yet to keep one busy. It is still in Pre-Alpha, as it says on the steam page for the game.
What is the current state of the Early Access version? “Shroud of the Avatar is currently in pre-Alpha. This game
still needs a LOT of work, and will be under construction for some time.
This means it won't feel like a finished game to you because some of
the features are half-finished or missing entirely, the design hasn't
been balanced, performance hasn't been optimized, lots of bugs to fix,
etc. Joining now means participating in the development, not just
playing the game”
But it also says:
Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access? “We hope to reach Beta by mid 2016 and launch shortly after
that but we will not be launching until the product is ready.”
I don't know if it will be ready for beta by mid summer, judging by it's current state, guess we'll find out. I'm hoping for the "we will not be launching until the product is ready" part really. I want Sota do well, my wallet wants it to do well, believe me, lol, but I also don't think it does anyone any good to put on a set of blinders and pretend it doesn't have some problems currently.
Sooooo I'm huge on graphics. It's really hard for me to play a game with bad design. In most screenshots this game looks circa 2002. However with the axing of EQN I decided to give it a shot. And boy was I pleasantly surprised! Sure the character models are not like in Black Desert, but they are nice enough. The movement, the animation are fluid and the environments remind me of Vanguard but even better.
I think with some great character textures and a UI aesthetic remodel this game will look fantastic. It plays well on my old machine and it makes me feel like I'm in a D&D campaign. I am at this moment very happy I decided to take a chance on a Garriot project. I foresee enjoying myself quite a lot.
Comments
Two Words: Unity Engine. The combat sounds are aweful and the animations and effects look like they are from 1990.
I regret i backed it, it's really bad and i don't see it ever getting better while it uses that horrible engine.
That has nothing to do with the unity engine.. animations are done by the animation artists.. and the sounds by the sound enhineers.
As for the game itself it has come a very long way since i first tested whenever the first alpha test came out.. it looks and runs so much better than it did then and i think the devs will continue to make it look better.
Also games from 10 years ago did not look like this...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Graphic style may be better (no oversized weapon, no usual incoherent mix of everyhing, no cartoony, etc)
but graphics quality itself looks like from 10 years ago - it just screams low-budget sorry.
Not to mention that there is this annoying (very)high fantasy 80s/90s goofy stuff. Like player going around in a crown in video someone posted. Certainly goes back to all those cheap 5$ stereotypical fantasy books. Same kind of stuff that is going on in all this general renessaince faires.
Not this part of fantasy style I would want games to draw from.
Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't make it trolling. I smell a defensive $11K backer here...
Of course, if you run back to your little love-fest over on the SotA forums, you won't have to deal with "trolls". The mods over there have done a great job of creating a nice little gated community for the handful of people who still care about this game.
agreed at 100%
this game is not an AAA game, take a look at TESO you'll see the differences...
not ready at all for launch, needs lot of work. I'll play it for sure, as my 1st RPG was Ultima6 but I can not say SOTA has better graphicss than AAA mmos. looks like a 10 maybe 15 years old game.
had more fun with Ultima9...
Graphics are outdated, UI is outdated, animations are outdated, music and sound are outdated, and it needs a powerfull computer to play. I can play RVR on TESO with my I5 nvidia 2 Go ram, and it's a pain with Sota. Played AOC and Vanguard on windows XP via bootcamp on my old IMAC early 2009, SOTA is the worst optimized played since years.i'm sorry but played DAOC many years ago and it was much better.
Played SOTA 1h ago, tried again, then stopped. i don't really care about graphics, but imo it's ftm a mess. Even for PVE it's a pain. For the moment it's at prealpha state, enough said. OP can not say SOTA has better graphics than AAA mmos, it's a joke.
Played a lot of video games since 1986, this one seems coming from the past... Lotro is 7 years old and it's far from Sota, still beautiful and immersive game. EQ2 is a nice game too with a MODERN UI, not with a 15 years old UI ! Think about it: world of warcraft is 10 years old, and looks modern compared with SOTA.
Payed for many indie game and they are actually all of them unplayable (SOTA, repopulation, Albion...) So I won't pay a cent anymore for those unfinished games.
The low res still looks ok although the short fog distance and lod not so good.It still looks a ton better than say Wow for example a game i cannot fathom to play.it sort fo resembles Eq2 to me however i hope it does not share the same terrible optimization.So far in my short career of Unity Engine gaming,i have nothing good to say about the engine.Yes you can have some nice graphics but it has always run terrible for me,like unplayable kind of terrible.
Blizzard has had a steady run of bug fixing for their Hearthstone game that runs Unity and that is not even a high quality graphic game.
SO if it runs really well then i would say the graphics are definitely good enough to enjoy.Heck i am still playing FFXI and i find the graphics good enough.It all depends on texture quality,some games no matter what will just look bad.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Thanks for sharing. Looks pretty decent for a pre-Alpha indie game.
Only agree on the doubt it will be released in 2015...
Agree.
I feel for the ones that put thousands of $ into this game.
Graphics is bad and not comparable with games of today standards but to me gameplay have always been more important, just sad that gameplay as combat sucks even more then graphics.
I can understand that if you put thousands of dollars into this game (unseen and in blind faith of the developers) desperation might arrive that i made a poor investment and a thread like this was created to defend this poor investment.
Come on, really?
Originally posted by laokoko
"if you want to be a game designer, you should sell your house and fund your game. Since if you won't even fund your own game, no one will".
Yes. Really. And Charlie even put money into that thing called Landmark.
Yep.
Just wait until you meet the high-level backer community. You'll quickly learn the meaning of the words:
This game has attracted the most annoying-old school gamers from 1997-2001 and shoved them all together in one place.
/sigh
Are you just typing to type again?
Burdock said an opinion on what he (hope is a he) saw. You come back with a 5 paragraph essay on what should be in your opinion. How about you type from experience for once....PLEASE! All of you points are from the point of view of what you expect. The OP and everyone else are giving an opinion based on what they have seen. Do you get it?
you're not the only one
Screenshots are not that detailed. I been in this game since it was first announced. Graphics are sub par. Not even close to those of AA as the OP claims. More along the lines of Second Life in basic mode detail. It is the only game I can compare it to. Tree textures are cheap. The characters are even worse. The buildings in general are very simple stone textures. Almost any current MMO out right now can easily beat it in graphics. By the time this game is actually released...the graphics will be far outdated.
Certainly, I don't expect SotA to be as good graphically as Black Desert in the end, but I don't think your comparison is quite fair.
I expect SotA to look somewhat like ESO in the end.
The problem with SotA graphics are the character models, they should scrap them and start from scratch, they look bloated and they don't fit well with the environment.
More specifically I am talking about the Armor/Clothes, they look way too unnatural on the characters.
They need another 3D Artist IMO
Same problem of Vanguard.
Good environment graphics, awful character models.
Fidelity standpoint the game is good. Not great.
Art direction is very good, the design of the towns and environments are very well done.
ArcheAge is the same thing, average fidelity but the art direction is absolutely top notch.
I think you have to understand tradeoffs that are made for every single game being made, whether it's technology or budgetary reasons. Frankly the only MMORPG's with AAA graphics are Elder Scrolls Online and Black Desert.
But who cares? There are tons of games with awesome graphics that are frankly boring tired games. Anybody ever played Call of Duty?
What is the current state of the Early Access version?
“Shroud of the Avatar is currently in pre-Alpha. This game still needs a LOT of work, and will be under construction for some time. This means it won't feel like a finished game to you because some of the features are half-finished or missing entirely, the design hasn't been balanced, performance hasn't been optimized, lots of bugs to fix, etc. Joining now means participating in the development, not just playing the game”
But it also says:
Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?
“We hope to reach Beta by mid 2016 and launch shortly after that but we will not be launching until the product is ready.”
I don't know if it will be ready for beta by mid summer, judging by it's current state, guess we'll find out. I'm hoping for the "we will not be launching until the product is ready" part really. I want Sota do well, my wallet wants it to do well, believe me, lol, but I also don't think it does anyone any good to put on a set of blinders and pretend it doesn't have some problems currently.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
I think with some great character textures and a UI aesthetic remodel this game will look fantastic. It plays well on my old machine and it makes me feel like I'm in a D&D campaign. I am at this moment very happy I decided to take a chance on a Garriot project. I foresee enjoying myself quite a lot.
(,,,)=^__^=(,,,)