Graphics vs Aesthetics

[Tonka]

And when you see the same area from a player's point of view, it looks like normal Korean MMO fare released five years ago, with stretched low resolution textures, grass badly glued on the flat ground and all that. The actual gameplay videos of GW2 are much, much less flattering.

"scenic" flycam from angles that you will never see in the game != reality

ArenaNet is an American company. The game is not being made/produced by a Korean company. NCSoft is not making this game. I know you've already been told this before...

As for the discussion at hand, they are taking less powerful graphics designed to run on lower-end machines and making it look inviting. Some aspects may seem dated after looking at a Miqo'te running around, but they manage to make it look great.

Creativity/art direction > OMG THIS GRASS LOOKS SO MUCH NICER but there's nothing else to look at beyond vast plains of nothingness sprinkled with Nutbiters.

Speaking of the grass, it actually sways when you run through it in GW2. B|

[Abriael]

ArenaNet is an American company. The game is not being made/produced by a Korean company. NCSoft is not making this game. I know you've already been told this before...

What part of "it looks like normal Korean MMO fare" did you miss?
Asian-style badly rendered characters completaly lacking detail, buildings that look like they are made of cardboard, environments that look great zoomed out and flying, but that look lame when you actually walk into them, poor interiors lacking decoration (for the few buildings that actually do have an interior) = Normal Korean MMO fare.

Creativity/art direction > OMG THIS GRASS LOOKS SO MUCH NICER but there's nothing else to look at beyond vast plains of nothingness sprinkled with Nutbiters.

When creativity and art direction are not supported by graphical power, they still look like crap on today's games.

OMG this grass is so creative! But it still looks like a piece of cutout cardboard glued on a completely flat ground with an horrible low rez texture that completely ruins the atmosphere.

Again. Gameplay videos of the same areas aren't flattering at all. But go on being tricked by carefully staged trailers that you'll never see in the game if it floats your boat.

Speaking of the grass, it actually sways when you run through it in GW2. B|

And it still looks like pixelated crap glued on the ground.

But back on the video at hand, I started laughing when they said that Killzine 2 is a game lacking in aesthetics. It pretty much goes to show that they don't even know what "aesthetics" means, considering that the art direction of the whole killzone series is one of the best in the genre.

This on a XIV forum, priceless...

Pretty random comment considering that FFXIV is one of the MMO games for which the scenic flycam has been used the least in promotion.

Abriael, if you dont like where this discussion is going.. why be a part of it. So far you have seamed to tackle this from the mindset of that you don't like The Escapist, so therefore everything about this thread is wrong. But as of yet, you havn't realy commented on the descussion at hand.

Oh but I did. The fact that I didn't say what you like/expect to read doesn't mean that I didn't.
Points are simple:
1) they don't know crap about aesthetics, as much as they don't know crap about game development (lol @ Killzone 2 lacking in aesthetics)
2) aesthetics tend to go down the drain when they're not supported by graphical power. Many Korean and Korean-like MMORPGs that look great from an artificially staged distance and look like a punch in the eye when you actually walk in them are a perfect example of this.

[Naqaj]

Pretty random comment considering that FFXIV is one of the MMO games for which the scenic flycam has been used the least in promotion.

Less random once you realize in the actual game that same trick turns badly scripted cutscenes into GRAPHICALLY AMAZING STORY EVENTS!



On topic of GW2, you're of course fully entitled to your opinion about it's graphical appearance, but you shouldn't try to sell it to us as anything remotely resembling a fact.



edit: ah, dammit, I fell for it again, didn't I?

[Abriael]

Less random once you realize in the actual game that same trick turns badly scripted cutscenes into GRAPHICALLY AMAZING STORY EVENTS!

Cutscenes in FFXIV very rarely use the flycam trick. They're normally quite zoomed in into the scene, and definitely don't try to hide flaws. Try again.

On topic of GW2, you're of course fully entitled to your opinion about it's graphical appearance, but you shouldn't try to sell it to us as anything remotely resembling a fact.

Too bad that it's a fact, gameplay videos are there for everyone to see, as much as the fact that they look no more impressive than any game developed in korea years ago, and lose most if not all of the "omg!" value of the flycam scenes. Expectedly so.
I'm sure GW2 fans coming here to promote it don't like to hear it, but that doesn't make it less of a fact.

Mind you, I fully plan to play GW2 at release, this doesn't mean i can be blinded by simple promotional tricks that have been used in the industry for years. I won't play it for the graphics/art, anyway.

[Physic]

Cutscenes in FFXIV very rarely use the flycam trick. They're normally quite zoomed in into the scene, and definitely don't try to hide flaws. Try again.



Too bad that it's a fact, gameplay videos are there for everyone to see, as much as the fact that they look no more impressive than any game developed in korea years ago, and lose most if not all of the "omg!" value of the flycam scenes. Expectedly so.
I'm sure GW2 fans coming here to promote it don't like to hear it, but that doesn't make it less of a fact.

Mind you, I fully plan to play GW2 at release, this doesn't mean i can be blinded by simple promotional tricks that have been used in the industry for years. I won't play it for the graphics/art, anyway.

I think his point was using dramatic angles and what not to hide flaws, and make something more entertaining and believable is the primary tenant of good storytelling, and it is true. Movie makers use various props, and techniques to draw you in to the game.

Your opinion on aesthetics is heavily influenced by graphical power from what you have said, you are apparently a person who prefers high graphics to artistic direction, This is fine, you represent the opposite side, but your opinion is just an opinion, one of many dont assume that your opinion is fact.

Imo guild wars2 has pretty varied and engaging backgrounds, though, the overall direction isnt perfect to me, and sometimes over the top, however, it certainly looks intriguing.
FFXIV also has some pretty good designs really, the main problem is lack of variety, it looks nice in small doses, but the variety is not there, there are points here and there that are interesting and different, but way too much of reusing the same exact layouts, not just the building blocks. This may change as they add to the game though, coerthas for example is amuch better design than black shroud

[Abriael]

Your opinion on aesthetics is heavily influenced by graphical power from what you have said, you are apparently a person who prefers high graphics to artistic direction, This is fine, you represent the opposite side, but your opinion is just an opinion, one of many dont assume that your opinion is fact.

Nope. I'm stating that graphical power needs to be balanced and coherent with art direction. That's not really an opinion, as that' what's conductive to actual quality in a game.

The ones advocating that art direction can stand on it's own without caring crap about the graphics supporting it, normally do so just to look "artsy", but that standpoint is hardly conductive to quality. Quite the contrary.

I am proberly as a disadvantage, be cause the only thing of Killzone 2 I playied was the Demo. I didn't go for the game, because I felt like I had seen it before. The armor designs and art direction reminded me a lot of Fallout.
To me it didn't feel orginal. With a lot of games conforming to the gray/metalic world, perhaps I got too used to it and missed something.

Fallout 1&2 != Fallout 3, especially in art direction and graphics. Fallout 3 was released way, way after Killzone. So, if you see a similarity (that I don't see, by the way, Fallout 3's art direction isn't nearly as dark, gloomy and oppressive as Killzone's. Fallout's armors aren't designed to be nearly as terrifying as the Helghast's) then you might wonder if Fallout 3 copied from Killzone, not the other way around.

Mind you, Originality is by no means a necessary factor for a good or even exceptional art direction, even because at this point complete originality in videogame art is pretty much impossible. Influences are inevitable.

Original != Good
Not original != Bad.

[Anty]

ArenaNet is an American company. The game is not being made/produced by a Korean company. NCSoft is not making this game. I know you've already been told this before...

As for the discussion at hand, they are taking less powerful graphics designed to run on lower-end machines and making it look inviting. Some aspects may seem dated after looking at a Miqo'te running around, but they manage to make it look great.

Creativity/art direction > OMG THIS GRASS LOOKS SO MUCH NICER but there's nothing else to look at beyond vast plains of nothingness sprinkled with Nutbiters.

Speaking of the grass, it actually sways when you run through it in GW2. B|

Grass... i think the grass/bushes implemented in ffxiv look incredibliy bad and even with 32X antialising they look like shit.
The fact that they made the HUGE mistake of using so many alpha textures (retarded) that only are ok when 4X supersampled says it all... the game is only HD and next gen on the character models. Its AWESOME what they did there.. but the rest... is really not good. No bumbmapping, no proper lighthing, nothing in the world casts shadows (only the npcs and pcs) ... and even WRONG shadows a lot, so it happens that facint a lightsource the shadows actually points directly towards it.. *sigh*

An an HD game has grass moving and even some grass physics reacting .. but not static ugly looking grass pixle thingy....
I don't need HD textures if they get "destroyed" by bad looking other items/textures/vegetation.

IF... then everything has to look awesome. not just some parts... I rather have good lighting and shadows (usually makes a much better all over appearence then HD textures vs ok textures)