Graphics and game engine

So we know that it using Unity as its engine but can it produce graphics comparable to UE4, Cry Engine 3 or Frostbite 2. I'm find if the graphics looks better than say Dark Souls 2 or comparable how about you guys does the graphic play an important factor when playing?

 

Not really, but it can be a plus. I just like having fun while playing. But Good Graphics with bad gameplay is good graphics with bad gameplay.

 

I don't expect this game to have graphics like games made with Cry Engine 3 but yea they are important for sure.
Before backing this game I took a look at other games made with the Unity engine so I feel I know what I'm getting and I'm fine with that.

 

When did "graphics" become so vital? Is torchlight a bad game because its not in photo realistic graphics?


what about boarderlands?

Hell Ultima 7 itself is "bad" graphics compared to what is around now yet it is STILL one of the best games I have ever played and still I play it

 

In the early days games had bad graphics due to limitations of the hardware that was available at the time.
Over the years hardware has advanced substantially and as such developers create games that push the boundaries of this hardware to the limits. The advancement in graphics allows the player to be deeply immersed in the area that the developer has created for them.

If you look back over the past 20+ years at computer magazines or articles on the web you will see that often scores are based on several key factors in a game. These include Sound - Gameplay - Graphics and Value.

A game does not need to have photo realistic graphics to be provided a great score some developers choose to go with an art style that suits their creation sometimes in the form of cartoons type animation or cel shading.

Bad graphics don't make a bad game but better graphics help elevate it.
Take Final Fantasy VII one of my favorite games of all time it has terrible graphics and yet the demand for a high def remake is extremely high.

 

I look forward to seeing the final graphics as I expect them to be much better than the demo gameplay we've seen, but I would rather there be an engaging story, enticing gameplay that is fun, and a stutter-free multiplayer world experience and I'm willing to lose cutting-edge graphics for them.

 

For me,

Gameplay > Graphics

Interacting with objects > Fantastic looking objects (but of course I'll say - imagine if it only looked better )

In terms of emersion - Graphics have drastically improved in recent times but while they have made the world appear visually real - many games do not add the interactivity with objects that make the world seem alive - if I have to choose between outstanding graphics vs interacting with objects within the world - due to money/time constraints - in general I will lean towards greater interactivity with objects.

- in terms of marketing a product to "todays" consumer - graphics do play a very important part - primarily because that's one of the ways that games differentiate themselves today - specially when games "play" and "feel" the same. Games have been worried about graphics for far too long, it's time to go back to creating believable words - not just worlds that "look" real. But I agree with Final Fantasy - the cinematic aspect to those games is amazing

 

I suspect that the game graphics will be good and appropriate for a small(er) team effort. Folks, do not expect AAA level graphics as the funding required for such just isn't there, and frankly I'd much rather have Portalarium concentrate its funding to where it really count, ie the game mechanics and settings.

 

I seen some Unity demo I believe with the engine it can produce some really good graphics not cutting edge but something nice looking. Good graphics and gameplay just makes for great game all and all but seriously thou I don't think anybody would want something like in the prototype this is 2013 so we might likely see something comparable to most standard games nowadays.

 

For me the graphics don't have to be super stunning to get my imagination going. However there will be some level of expectation to draw in some of the newer players that don't know much about RPG style gaming perhaps.

However I think they will find the right level of detail to draw us in. I don't think there is any need for graphics like the film Avatar to pull this off. It will have to support multiple levels of graphics cards to reach the audience. Besides I believe they will have a tablet version eventually although those aren't lacking too much hardware-wise especially by the end of this year, and even more so next year as tablet gaming starts to take off.

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What really counts is stability! Develop a stable client/server is the most important. It has to remain functional and not waiting for some synchronization from the other guy if they have a bad connection or something. If they work those things under control, and it runs stable after hours of continuous use we're set. The graphics they have now look good, and it's just prototype stuff.
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I think it's going to be great regardless. We can be concerned but it is appearing that all of the best ideas in the community and the dev team are actually going into this game and that's awesome.

 

I fall squarely within the demographic that prefers gameplay over graphics and do not need cutting edge graphics. That said, I do hope for decent graphics that capture the aesthetic of the game world, this could be anything from realistic to whimsical.

To be honest (and I am sure I am far in the minority here), though I would prefer 3D (as I find it more immersive), a better looking, better functioning UO-style isometric view would suit me as long as the game play is there.

I do hope there is a high degree of interaction with the world, as well as a fair amount of character customization; more by way of a choice of faces, skin color, hair style and color, etc, as well as clothing and armor, than by use of sliders and more finely tuned individualistic approaches.

 

I'll admit to being incredibly shallow so how it looks *matters*. It might only matter to me, everyone else might be more in love with the mathematical systems which underpin a game but I'm 110% behind a graphical style which makes you notice. Notice it's strengths not it's drawbacks.

Artwork and graphics are in competition with the human imagination and if graphics don't matter then why bother using them at all? Just go write the most feature rich MUD, develop a great text parser, populate it with a heroes journey and put it online.

That would be a step up from what MMOs are if you rip the graphics out, they're very feature poor MUDs.

So if you're going to do something with graphics you need to make it matter, it needs to have a look which tells you this is uniquely this game. If you're not willing to take your best shot to get that effect then don't do it at all, you're wasting your development time.

 

I play a lot of JRPGs that have horrible graphics. Good paper dolls can do wonders to a game with bad animated graphics. Good sound effects can do wonders for bad graphics also.

In the end I'm more concerned with how the game plays than anything else.

 

Decent graphics and fantastic gameplay >>>>> Fantastic graphics and mediocre gameplay.

That said, *awful* graphics can be so painful to look at as to make a game nearly unplayable, but a great game with top-notch game mechanics is still great even with merely "acceptable" graphics. And I've seen nothing to indicate that the graphics will be less than acceptable for the masses.

Plus, not everyone has (or can afford) a state of the art gaming computer with the most advanced (and expensive) graphics capabilities, and by not setting the bar too high we increase the pool of potential players (helping to secure the continued development of the game).

 

Yes, please do not make me build another gaming rig. Laptop is fine by me.

 

Lets keep it in perspective, this isn't an $80M project so the aim should be to get the best look for the money and then some.

If you have a better 3D card should it take advantage of more game engine features?

*Yes.*

That doesn't mean we'll see every feature make the cut and in a lot of those $80M+ projects they're played with whatever the default settings are out of the box anyway so a lot of the value add goodness is only seen by a percentage. So the defaults should be smarter to optimise for what it has to work with.

We're seeing some lovely artwork that should be given a chance to shine in 3D, that doesn't mean it's going to require Radeon 7990s or GeForce Titians (A Radeon 7770 is an amazing card today for anyone on a budget) but neither should it trade off hardware that is three or four years old Vs. what's going to be considered budget graphics hardware when the game ships.

 

I still feel that 2D hybrid graphics would have been more effective for this very reason. Or maybe full 3D, but with a relatively fixed isometric perspective. With a wide angle perspective like that you can rely more on good art direction as opposed to technical detail, but with a third person perspective a high level of detail is required to be immersive. And once you've thrown your gauntlet into that ring, you're competing with the likes of Skyrim, Guild Wars 2, The Witcher 2, etc, which is no small feat of design and engineering. It's certainly not impossible, but it raises a considerable amount of issues regarding expense, workload, development time, and ultimately compatibility, to say the least.

I'm not hung up on graphics. I'm of the mind that great art direction almost always trumps technical marvel, but with the caveat that technical deficiency can be detrimental to a game experience. An amazing looking 3D game is worthless if it requires a theoretical quantum supercomputer to run at 30fps, and a well directed 3D game which makes major compromises simply for the sake of existing in 3 dimensions runs the risk of feeling irrelevant. No one really wants to play a 3D game that looks like it was made in 2005, in 2013.

2D graphics would go a long way to circumvent these issues. A beautiful 2D game is timeless, and only minimally impacted by technical limitations. Baldur's Gate still looks good. Ultima 7 still looks good. It's mostly a matter of resolution separating these games from their more recent counterparts, and they're still rife with detail and fun to explore. On the other hand, a game like Everquest simply looks dated and unappealing, for the most part. Again, that's not to say that Portalarium lacks the capability of developing a game that surpasses Everquest, it's just meant to illustrate the point that technical limitations tend to be much more detrimental to artistic vision, and are thus something of a gamble when developing a new game, especially on a budget.

All of that said, I have no first hand experience with game development, this is just my pedestrian opinion and mostly conjecture on my part. These are my concerns, but I absolutely reserve judgment for now and expect to be pleasantly surprised.

 

Gameplay own graphics 7 days a week, but it wont hurt if it's looking good.

Here is a link to some games made with Unity -

http://unity3d.com/gallery/

 

Graphics an gameplay are not mutually exclusive - something some people often seem to forget.

And it doesn't need to be a AAA title to have good graphics either. Some indie games out there look simply amazing.

I just want it to look good but more importantly, made well enough so that it will run pretty well on even budget graphics cards. This will make it accessible to more people. Environmental effects (such as weather) can really help create an immersive environment so I do think those are important but I have seen them done well on games with fairly low requirements.

 

If we look at the Kickstarter fixed view RPG games in development at the moment what we find that none of them are MMOs but they're all built in 3D and have textures on them. They're just shown to us in a fixed view 2D fashion.

The use of 3D isn't the issue, I think the fixed view is the issue in an MMO.

With a fixed view not only do you have a 360 degree view of everything around you (Haha PVPers! No getting the drop on me) but height & depth go out the window so you can forget about that impressive volcano in full eruption rising before you as you run towards it or having some creature come screaming out of the sky before landing and killing us all.

(Except for those of you who have levelled up and now have 10K+ health because you managed to move that XP bar from left to right along the bottom of the screen in a shorter amount of time than the rest of us. If only real life worked that way.)