Let's Talk : GRAPHICS

[Mythrella]

Show/Unshow Helm / Show/Unshow Belt {I can have it ?}

This would be a perfect compromise.

And let's add earrings while we're at it

[TheRac25]

looks like people are running on ice unless you cap frames to 30 lol

[Shadowgloom]

Now that we're on the topic of graphics, I really don't like the flat, perfect, and straight graphics. Here's a comparison that is so difficult to ignore.

FFXIV


GW2



FFXIV


GW2



I could have used this pic instead but I felt it would have been too unfair.
http://i.imgur.com/pFRUySX.jpg

[Sixmp]

Graphics are the thing most people concentrate on far too much imo. It makes you wonder how games years ago did so well doesn't it? I mean all those 2D,Text and ASCII games from years back.
You would think people wouldn't want to play them with the terrible graphics or no graphics at all.

Games are about game play yet ever since i can remember people break out in sweats about the games graphical look.
I have played games for far too many years and i never was interested in graphics, yes i got excited when things looked better but that was just the sign of the times. The thing i did notice however is that as graphics improved the more consumers wanted it improved and in turn the more game play suffered.

The reason game play suffered was because of the graphics craze, game producers threw as much money, time and energy into out doing their competition. People who gamed through the late 90s will remember the drop in game play quality.
Games that used to have long story's and for instance if they had 40-90 hours of game play they suddenly only had 4-8 hours. It was a huge drop. It is pretty much still here today. Obviously there have been exceptions to the rule but in general that is the way it has been.

The way i see it these days asking devs to spend time on graphics is like asking the ice cream van guy to wash his van to make the ice cream taste better.
You need to ask yourself this. Can i tell what i am doing in the game, do mobs look as they should look, does a tree look like a tree etc. If the answer to this is yes then why this need to make it better?

In the next 10-20 years gaming graphics will hit a wall because it will be pretty much like playing with real life. When that day comes i will cheer, not because games look real but because people who make games will be able to concentrate 100% on game play.

[Shadowgloom]

Graphics are the thing most people concentrate on far too much imo. It makes you wonder how games years ago did so well doesn't it? I mean all those 2D,Text and ASCII games from years back.

It's not about having perfect graphics. It's about stylized graphics. When EQ2 and WoW came out I 100% hated the realistic graphics of EQ2. Everything was so perfect it felt fake. I couldn't play the game cause the graphics were so distracting. On the other hand WoW's graphics had character. I loved the art style behind it. Now SOE is trying to go that route with EQNext. No more life like graphics. I am actually liking their art style.

Back on track, FFXIV has a mix of both. However, the copy/paste of the textures on things makes it extremely distracting. I notice patterns extremely quickly and I focus on them. That's what happens in FFXIV with the same 10x10 textures.

[Sixmp]

It's not about having perfect graphics. It's about stylized graphics. When EQ2 and WoW came out I 100% hated the realistic graphics of EQ2. etc.

You are correct there is a difference between perfect and stylized. What i am referring to though is how people concentrate on the overall graphics of a game and regardless of how good it is they always want more.

Like FFXIV ARR right now. It looks good enough, it is perfectly playable but no, lets try and get the devs to spend X more hours on making it look better. While there is nothing wrong with that in itself it is a never ending cycle.

Lets say SE make a ton of changes to the game. So much that they need a separate client making and everyone has to rush out and buy new PCs to play it with everything up full. In a month or two people will be wanting even more.
People just can't enjoy what they have now.
I could understand if it was improving game play because that is more important and will help the game in the long run.

Improving graphics wouldn't help the game in anyway at this point in time. Spending as much time as possible on improving the experience in the world would.

[samfisher]

Probably cost is why they didn't do that.

There's no "cost" associated with higher res textures, cos if SE were developing the right way, all their source work should be multiple times higher res.

[Akashi]

Here I thought it was just me who felt the textures were poorly detailed. Hopefully they improve them some day when they don't have so many issues to deal with.

[ZohnoReecho]

the game was released on september. as of now we still don't have the dx11 client. that kinda answers why we don't have two clients at launch date.
the min requirements have 32bit CPUs listed, the game is a 32bit application hence it cannot use more than 2GB of memory and so higher resolution textures. to double the current textures resolution means to quadruplicate their size.

when playing, the main process already sits on 1GB of ram.

maybe the dx11 client will be a 64bit application and allow SE to release high res packs.

[Soukyuu]

MMO's have to balance it due to data usage.

I really hope you didn't mean to say the models and textures are being downloaded realtime while you're playing. Cause they're not.

I hate to tell you this ... but these are the best animations I've seen for any MMO. It's the only one that has made humans look normal and not like some awkward person with a stick for a spine.

I wonder what you would say if you played 1.0 It had all realistic animations, safe for maybe dragoon jumps, that were motion-captured, including turning, starting and stopping to run. I sometimes spent minutes just watching my character move. All gone now. Instant 90/180° turns, bodies twisting under physically impossible angles, archers dislocating their joints shooting away from the target and still hitting, characters sliding around the ground...

Actually they specifically talked about the directx version in response to this problem. They directly told us the textures were low because of directx 9 limitations and that the directx 11 engine would fix that allowing for larger textures. Stop letting your jimmies get all rustled because you aren't reading all the known info.

The known info is a load of BS. Else why did 1.0 have much higher resolution textures? Which, surprise, surprise! was using directX 9.0c as well!