Graphics: Minimum Expectations of 21st Century Rpgs

World:




Characters:



The SoTA world is starting to look nice; however, the characters, creatures and dungeons are getting considerable negative feedback, with this in mind how do you vote regarding the game's graphics, are they acceptable in your opinion or do they need a lot more work? Remember, try to be open-minded we are still in alpha.

OP Comment: I tend to zoom out and run the game in a sort of fake 3D isometric-mode so as to reduce the ugliness of some of the modelling, unfortunately you cannot do that in dungeons :-(

 

I think the world is already looking quite nice. The character and npc and animal and monster models need a lot of work though. I also think objects need some work as well. But most of all its the character models that need work. I didn't vote because I don't think any of the option really fit my opinion. The closest I guess would graphics need to improve drastically by release. But that would not be entirely accurate because some graphics need a lot of improvement others need very little imo.

 

Agreed, the characters, npc and monsters need a huge amount of work, I tend to view them as placeholders rather than the finished product and can only hope they are placeholders lol.

 

I always say that they need more work in the animations than the graphics.

 

The graphics are ok and it is game play every time, I love LOTRO and that's an old engine but it's acceptable to me as it's whats in my imagination that sells a game to me, Does the game inspire my mind and sell me on it's locations and story, What I would like to know is are they now using Unity 5 which only came out a while ago?, And any chance of Direct x 11?.

Originally I did not like a lot of the Inside house textures but they have improved them a lot I think, And the only thing from release 4 was the plastic look to the Satyr, And the Lich looked cool but was to clean cut for my liking, All model textures could do with a more aged look in my opinion, A more gritty approach, But hey that's just me.

 

One word: Minecraft.

'Nuff said?

 

I voted that the graphics are acceptable, but that really refers to the environment. The character models really do need a lot of work!

 

It is a very difficult topic. Graphics are a huge part of a game, we have to accept that. Some may think that they are not that important but the majority of gamers want great looking games. And most gamers are not even interested in why a game does not have state of the art graphics, they compare it to other games with other production values, simply because they do not care how a game is made. Thus I am sure that SotA will also be heavily judged by it's graphics, even when the devs explain why it doesn't look like a AAA game. Even magazines and websites will judge the game by it's graphics, too.
The core fans will be the only ones who may not care that much about graphics but we are a minority. So I think that SotA will face a difficult time when it is released as the graphics simply cannot be state of the art due to budget reasons...

 

Holt, I think that really misses the fact that games have context. Graphics need to be appropriate for the objectives of the game. For instance, a puzzle game like tetris doesn't need 1080p/60fps graphics to achieve the objectives. Also, some games, like minecraft are built around a 'retro' style, so the blocky looks again achieves their goals. Other games, go for a hyper realistic look to achieve their objectives of realism. As I've said in another thread, graphics are not linear. Two times the quality does not equal two times the impact. It's all about reaching the appropriate threshold for the context/objectives of the game.

I'm far from an artist, nor am I a very good evaluator of modern gaming graphics expectations, so I didn't vote. I think the houses/environmental look decent enough while other areas could use work *shrug*.

 

@DNACowboy,

I've taken the liberty of reinterpreting the poll by substituting "your mom" for every instance of "the graphics." My favorite: "Your mom is ugly; however, game-play is king."

Seriously, though! I think the devs know where they have some graphics quality issues. They've already acknowledged that they're going to try to improve the character models. I think it would be good if they went with their own instincts and improved them, and I think they could be improved too, I so I wouldn't vote "acceptable," but I also think "ugly" is an exaggeration in most cases. There are also things they obviously have to get done before release, like improved hair textures for character models. Currently, the hair looks awful. But they've already said this is in the works.

I just don't find threads like these constructive.

 

I agree with you but mine crafts graphics are a limitation of the engine, due to the way it's world is built. In this case their gameplay succeeded in such an extreme way that it totally compensated for the graphics.

 

Going with "Acceptable" as well.

The environmental graphics I think are amazing and will only be getting more so with the introduction of weather effects, shaders, and the like. The only environmental graphics I have seen that are really subpar in my view are the textures used for the (fake) volcano outside of Owl's Head (which I have dubbed "Mt Blurry" since the textures did not sharpen up when you got close to it).

I agree with the consensus that character graphics and animations are the most in need of work. Mainly for me because the people (NPCs and players) are still a bit too generic looking. It's too easy to see multiple copies of the same character model for NPCs and right now, other than a limited selection of hair color/style and clothing, not a lot to differentiate players either. For animals/monsters (mobs) the animation is still very limited and in some cases oddly used.

By the same token, a bit earlier than this time last year, when I started playing Path of Exile, its graphics were very rough and the animations were limited to the point that the best term I had at the time was "clunky". Of course this was just swapping over from Diablo 3 and its physics engine which is really the ONLY thing PoE has left in terms of graphics/animation quality to add. Since I started playing PoE, each patch had the line "Incrementally upgraded graphics and effects", and over time, that has really shown itself to be true.

I think we'll see (if we're not already seeing) the same thing happen with SotA.

 

I'm not very familiar with Minecraft (people seem shocked by this due to my Lego work). However, I would suggest that it's not that the gameplay is so successful that it compensates for the graphics as much as the graphics being a compliment to the playstyle. Would improved graphics actually improve the gaming experience?
For instance, a lot of retro games leverage the graphics limitations. Part of the art-style is showing how much one can do within the "8-bit" constraints.

Anyway, we're way off topic I guess my points is that while clearly graphics don't make a game and game-play is king, it is important to reach a certain graphics threshold which is appropriate to the context of the game. And of course, that's in the eye of the beholder where that is.

 

It needs work in all departments. But the textures and models IMO look like something out of 2003. However I understand Alpha and things can change along with place holders.

Frankly if the gameplay is good enough the graphics are not that big of deal for me.

 

The textures are very inconsistent across different objects. For example the rock and stone looks quite realistic, now contrast that agaisnt the clothes and player textures. Looks like two different games, the characters look fake and cartoonish like in WoW but the buildings look more real like elderscrolls.

 

It concerns me that I don't know enough about the development for in-house game graphic design at Portalarium to really understand whether the graphics I see at the moment are the graphics I'm going to get on release. We know that this is an alpha but surely the current graphics are not 'placeholders' as such but the basis to the finished article right? If so, that means that we are starting from a very poor place indeed when it comes to the characters, monsters and so forth. Houses, weather, lighting and items in the world are acceptable; however as a previous subscriber mentions the game looks at the moment like it is TWO games, one coded in 1999 and the other in 2004.
Animals all look fine, their animated behavior needs work admittedly but in relation to the creatures and characters they are works of art.

So on reflection, are the characters and monsters we currently see the ones we'll get on release albeit dressed up or are they just placeholders for the amazing-looking models we'll see on release?

In closing, gameplay IS king and Minecraft is always cited as the chief excuse for poor graphics but Minecraft and a cutting-edge innovative rpg are two very different things, SoTA will require very good graphics to appeal and satisfy the investors who came into this seeing the prototype as the template on which the devs work, in other words we START at the prototype and improve the game, not degrade the image quality and remove essential functionality as we go along.
Mr Garriott (from his anniversary speech) seems willfully oblivious of the fact the game currently looks like an rpg from an earlier age and not a product for millions of Ultima fans in 2014.

 

Maybe they should have used an isometric view instead.
Wasteland 2 shows that Unity can look really good with isometric views.
With an isometric view they would als not have the problem of doing highly detailed models and instead concentrate on an interesting art style and it would have been more consistent with the old overland map...

 

I think an isometric view would have been the way to go. Not sure if they could switch now though. If they can it might be something to consider. I agree you can get away with worse graphics in isometric view then you can in a normal 3rd person or 1st person view.

 

isometric in single player RPG? yes
Isometric in a MMO style RPG... well if you want to scratch pvp completely thats the way to go

*runs and hide*

 

Hmm and this after so many people say that the PvP of the isometric Ultima Online is the nonplusultra?