FF XV

I have always thought the graphics in SOTA was very good, excellent even. Then I just watched the trailer for FF XV and was amazed at the clarity and detail. I am not plugging any other game here. I am wondering though if we will ever see that type of graphics in the this game?

 

You don't play many modern games, do you

How about Horizon Zero Dawn?


The Witcher 3?


Deus Ex Mankind Divided:


Kingdom Come Deliverance:

 

No I don't play many games at all. The game before this one was UO and inbetween that and this game, LOTRO. I think I did try Witcher but didn't like it.

 

Graphics in SOTA are much much much different types. Those games are able to exchange complexity with beauty. SOTA has to deal with the complexity of rendering a million objects (in say housing) on a single map which means they have to tone down beauty. Its actually quite amazing (believe it or not) how complex the graphics of SOTA really are and how well it runs say having 50 people in one zone with this complexity. If you put the number of renders SOTA has in any of the games posted above (and add 50 people inline in the same area), they would utterly crawl even on the top of the line video card.


This is actually nothing new. Multiplayer games have and will always have to balance complexity with simplicity.

the previous posted I think made the statement that the other games are "modern" and therefor SOTA much not be. Show me any "modern" game that pushes the complexity of massive rendering that SOTA is doing today (in a zone like OWLS now).

This is one reason why I have seen the ram use on my PC go over 10 gigs with SOTA. How many games have you seen need that kind of RAM use alone?

This is why you can play Witcher 3 on a xbox or PS4. Imagine trying to run SOTA on those now.

 

The graphics of this game are so so. Nothing more.
The Unity engine is far more capable of what we have right now and
if you release the game in that state.. you wont get a lot of players.
You don't have the choice to make a good looking game if you want to sell you product well.

Nowdays, games are way better if we're talking about the graphics. And that's a fact.

So.. wait and see, I guess.

 

In games with memory leaks...

 

As a CG artist and Unity user, you are right about Unity is capable of more, but SotA graphics are good enough right now, from a technical side.

I have been playing games with worse graphics, so my only concern is the art. With so many art assets from third parties (yes, they also used assets from Unity store like many games did), I hope they can create and follow their own art style for this game. The art has a big impact on the overall graphics in any game (it's not just all technical)

I'm not gonna talk about performance issues Unity related because this is too complex and its something that Unity guys are working on and they managed to bring big improvements in last years, but they still needs more time.

 

SotA graphics are good enough right now, from a technical side.

From a technical side, maybe. But not from a market point of view.
Nowdays, you don't have the choice to make a game with nice graphics or you wont sell as much.
Look at what's coming in a near future..and you'll get a idea.

On every forum on internet, they all say the same : the game look dated. And to be honest.. it does.
Plus, if you add the fact that, this is a niche game, you are already very limited.

As I would like to know what the dev thinks about it but
sadly we don't have much info from them, concerning the graphics of the game.

But they do spend a lot of time on making stuff for the store...instead of..

 

It's unlikely you'll ever see a graphical update for this game. Unity is capable of much, but there is a tremendous amount of content that needs to be added and debugged before improving visuals either within this engine, or the likely-never-to-happen engine upgrade, is ever even considered.

This is probably what we've got, with very small changes here and there. These graphics are not considered to be impressive by anyone at this stage in video games, if anything, the look in SOTA is already dated.

 

No, the grapchics are not dated.

Let me change your sentence with "some assets are dated". The overall graphics and what they are doing with Unity tools is far from being dated. Try to find any artist working for an MMO and show him this game. He may be agree or not about the art they are using for this game, but he never will say the graphics are dated.

This is an indie MMO, you can't try to get some next-gen graphics in this game, not now, not in the future. And tbh, we don't need them.

 

No we have spent tons of time on graphics with fantastic LOD (level of detail ). Now we need game play mechanics to come in. Picks up poster again