Grass

[Shougun]

I'd rather have "a step backwards in graphics" if it means not having boring stuff to look at all the time. 1.0 was bland to the extreme. I don't know how anybody can defend a world full of nothing, especially when it wasn't even that good looking to begin with.

Speaking that 2.0 runs better then 1.0 I dont see the argument either that you couldn't have both.

Yoshida has put it in these terms, if you ran medium in 1.0 you will be running high in 2.0 no problem.

That means they have plenty of room to keep the high settings for those who actually want a real high setting.

That aside, I agree 1.0 was very flat >.>

[Meatdawg]

I'd rather have "a step backwards in graphics" if it means not having boring stuff to look at all the time. 1.0 was bland to the extreme. I don't know how anybody can defend a world full of nothing, especially when it wasn't even that good looking to begin with.

I'm not arguing content just the quality of the graphics.

[Cedri]

Yesterday Life servers almost went down. Some of the mobs had grass textures. The admin did a hot-fix which fixed the issue, but not before I snapped a few screen shots. Did anyone else experience this issue?

[Nadrojj]

I thought they were just broadening the spectrum to allow lower end machines to run the game smoothly. Pretty sure the graphics will still be great if you are running it on the higher end.

[Nayto]

Hmmm maybe they'll keep gridania half-assed and make Coerthas where the true 'grass' is at. Other than that, the grass is there to stay most likely.

[Reinheart]

looking at all that grass... I want /layongrass emote now! - and allow first person view while at it... so we can view the clouds... but going to grass topic... the add-on's YoshiP talked about mentioned something like Skyrim you can mod the grass and stuff and didn't he say he wanted to allow that kind of mods also? If yes... then we might actually see something crazy. But wish I can see SE's Ultra graphic settings make the grass look much better even without any user mods.

[Shougun]

looking at all that grass... I want /layongrass emote now! - and allow first person view while at it... so we can view the clouds... but going to grass topic... the add-on's YoshiP talked about mentioned something like Skyrim you can mod the grass and stuff and didn't he say he wanted to allow that kind of mods also? If yes... then we might actually see something crazy. But wish I can see SE's Ultra graphic settings make the grass look much better even without any user mods.

Holy crap? I dont recall that but did he really say maybe you can mod graphics?

IF yes I agree something crazy lol, that would be awesome. I would be very surprised.. but awesome.

[Reinheart]

Holy crap? I dont recall that but did he really say maybe you can mod graphics?

IF yes I agree something crazy lol, that would be awesome. I would be very surprised.. but awesome.

I could just be dreaming... but I thought I read that kind of stuff somewhere...

[Shougun]

I could just be dreaming... but I thought I read that kind of stuff somewhere...

What a pretty dream.. lol




What I see they need is a shorter model that can be in larger groups that flow (if you see ARR footage none of it is in a flowing unit they are all tight singularly packed units), while their taller models they already have work as dotting they would work better when put into the unit of the shorter grass (imo) - then both models need higher resolution so they can blend in (the jaggdy edges - though of course these are all medium to high end machine options).

Uldah already has short grass (in 2.0 screenshots) but it isnt placed in large flowing groups like in the concept art or like you would expect in general. To be fair we've only seen a tiny tiny tiny fraction of 2.0 thanalan and they could have scenes just like their concept art with flowing grass, but the grass we can see in thanalan 2.0 is short its just not in a flowing mesh, each grass belongs to itself (if that makes any sense lol).



To make this concept art in game, packs of other vegetation would help a lot, along with very short grass (very short). I havent seen this screen in game so, I was just making a comment - right now I dont see or know anything wrong with this image. You can actually see the flower plant on the left in ARR already, its actually not that bad:



On the orange moss bush on the right in the concept art could be the same in the above photo.

[Shougun]

Oh I found a good video for grass talk, imo.

http://youtu.be/7rduwq-Of9Y?t=23s

Set it to high (and fullscreen), when he is going across the bridge pay attention to the ground below the bridge - it "almost" has that cohesive flow that says it was meant to be there (rather then looking like little packs of an object, I'm not a pro but I have terrained before and there is a clear difference in cohesion vs its obvious that each object is by itself). An aside: I dream of SE releasing their world editor >.> lol (or at least invite people to guest play with it at their offices XD).


Then you wait till he is running through the thick of the forest with the large purple.. thingy in the background. The Sylph village - the grass has lost its cohesion and the quality is quite apparent (bad).

If they could add an option to bump up the existing quality and density with preferably a smaller real grass - I'd say your almost at FPS quality and that would be awesome to say (since FPS usually have amazing graphics - and they focus a lot of their money into that).

If you keep watching there is a darker forest around ~3 with a short grass type I've been talking about. But then again its not placed in a cohesive unit its all separated (and again the quality makes a speckled effect).

They are getting closer, and they are leaps bounds and light years better then 1.0 :P

I'm sure people are going to say it, and honestly I hope they do, ARR looks great - I agree, but for myself the element holding it back is the ground cover. And while I understand its GPU intensive, many of us have GPUs that spanked 1.0, and now that 2.0 is --easier-- to run, there is no reason for them not to give us rofl lol melt your core settings.

(Which dont need to be released on release, they can delay them to the graphical milestone (and should if it will delay their release of the game) - I just want to know they didnt give up early and settle for less when so many of us have so much more computer resources to offer to the program).

And again before someone says it, I will be trying the beta before commenting on the beta - and grass wont be my first priority to comment on. I'll probably wait a phase or 2 before I make the post - if I feel like I need to. They might have fixed it. That would be awesome.