ikarinokami
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
SW: KotOR PC
NWN 2
NWN 2: MotB
Mass Effect PC
Joined: 29 Jun 2004 |
 Posted: Friday, 10 November 2006 03:56PM |
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I just bought nwn2 and the scourge of 3d graphics continues. please stop. kotor, kotor2, vampire the masqurade, and nwm all feel like i'm playing in an amusment park. most of the building can't be entered into, the world is so small and dead., i'm sure because of all the man hours needed to generate the graphics. it's not worth it. it's fine in a shooter or rts where caustropobia is often times a desired and warranted goal, but not in a epic rpg. please stop. Edited By ikarinokami on 11/10/06 16:03 |
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LdyShayna
Joined: 18 Oct 2001
From: Colorado |
Posted: Friday, 10 November 2006 04:00PM |
Too late, Dragon Age will certainly use 3D graphics.
However, the thing syou mentioned aren't necessarily the fault of the 3D graphics themselves. Perhaps you could make a list of the design shortfalls you see that were caused (or you preceived to have been caused) by the use of 3D and what you would prefer to see.
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"All things come to him who waits - provided he knows what he is waiting for." -Woodrow Wilson
http://dragonage.bioware.com/ |
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StormHammer
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
SW: KotOR PC
Jade Empire:SE
NWN 2
Joined: 19 Dec 2001
From: the Valley Of Shadows |
Posted: Friday, 10 November 2006 04:29PM |
I think the main issue with many current game engines is optimising performance so the game runs at an acceptable frame rate at a decent resolution and with Anti-aliasing turned on. Too many games released in the past year have suffered from real performance problems except on high end PCs.
Having pixel-perfect shadows is all well and good - but not if it slows your game to a crawl and makes it unplayable. NWN2 is very demanding, for example, yet the graphics are not as good as some other games (such as Oblivion) to warrant such a performance hit.
Oblivion too has performance problems when you extend the render distance of grass, and enabling shadows on grass is a real fps killer in that game unless you have a beast of a PC to run it. So most people play with those features turned off.
In my view, while graphics are undoubtedly important, I am much more interested in the gameplay and having a game run at optimal performance instead of chugging every time you hit a big battle with lots of effects flying around. If most people have to turn off all the eye candy to get an acceptable frame rate to play the game, then what is the point of investing so much time and effort into eye candy that only a minority will see? Having lots of bells and whistles that only a minority of the target audience can enjoy (ie, hardcore gamers with high-end rigs) seems rather counter-productive, especially if it means cutting back on other features of the game.
I'm not saying that we don't all expect better graphics than games we played a few years ago, but should we be forced to upgrade to a beast of a machine just to see a game in all its glory, as with some of the games now in development?
Too many game developers are chasing 'prettier pixels' at the expense of interesting gameplay features, and I think they need to strike a better balance considering the majority of gamers are playing on older hardware.
On the other hand, I don't mind playing a game with some of those bells and whistles switched off - but not if the game looks worse than a game released 5 years ago. |
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ikarinokami
Game Owner
NWN
NWN: SoU
SW: KotOR PC
NWN 2
NWN 2: MotB
Mass Effect PC
Joined: 29 Jun 2004 |
Posted: Friday, 10 November 2006 05:43PM |
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peformance is the problem. I always uprade my computer, esp for the fps's. The problem is the world is small. go into a town in bg2 then go into one in vampire, nwn or kotor. quantity is important when trying to give a world life. the problem is all these games feel like amusement parks, they don't feel like a real world. kotor2 and arx fatalis, were the worse. an epic adeventure needs an epic world. and the economic realities are preventing this because of all the "modern" 3d engines. I don't think the trade off is worth it. |
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Pandemoneus
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
NWN 2
NWN 2: MotB
NWN 2: SoZ
Joined: 23 Mar 2004
From: Pandemonium |
Posted: Friday, 10 November 2006 09:22PM |
Quote: Posted 11/10/06 17:43 (GMT) by ikarinokami
peformance is the problem. I always uprade my computer, esp for the fps's. The problem is the world is small. go into a town in bg2 then go into one in vampire, nwn or kotor. quantity is important when trying to give a world life. the problem is all these games feel like amusement parks, they don't feel like a real world. kotor2 and arx fatalis, were the worse. an epic adeventure needs an epic world. and the economic realities are preventing this because of all the "modern" 3d engines. I don't think the trade off is worth it.
You also have to realize that it's simply not financially viable for a modern AAA dev. studio, especially one such as Bioware, to go back to the old days of 2D pixels. For one, there's the expectation amongst most consumers that 3D is now the norm, and that graphics = immersion. It's nice and all to have nostalgic feelings about the old BG games, but quite frankly that era is long gone now.
Mind you, there are still small independent dev houses that continue to pump out games that look like they were released back in the late 90's, but unfortunately those are usually restricted to a very small and niche market. The problems you're ascribing to 3D engines are not actual problems of the engine itself (Oblivion showed that it's certainly quite possible to create a 3D world that's very expansive), but rather one of design. Your demand for an end to 3D graphics is understandable, at least in terms of performance and low-end PC owners, but ultimately it's just insane to expect for developers to go back to 2D. Absolutely insane.Edited By Pandemoneus on 11/10/06 21:24 |
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Sir Nahme
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
SW: KotOR Xbox
Jade Empire
NWN 2
Mass Effect PC
Joined: 30 Aug 2002 |
Posted: Friday, 10 November 2006 11:00PM |
I've said it before but DA should have been text based 
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Quote: Posted 11/10/06 16:13 (GMT) by -Sabrae-
NWN 2 was blue yesterday. I can't deal with so much change.
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fluffyamoeba
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
SW: KotOR PC
Jade Empire
Jade Empire:SE
NWN 2
Joined: 01 Mar 2004
From: a test tube |
Posted: Saturday, 11 November 2006 12:00AM |
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1D graphics for DA please |
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Juhy
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
Joined: 28 Dec 2002
From: Slovenia |
Posted: Saturday, 11 November 2006 12:25AM |
Quote: Posted 11/11/06 00:00 (GMT) by fluffyamoeba
1D graphics for DA please
was just about to post that lol
Honestly, 2D graphics arent nearly as good as 3D, and I dont see how they make the game more 'spaceous' and allow you to enter more houses.
I think your problem is just with the general layouts in 3D games (which could be fixed, if the devs saw it as a big problem).
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DA is a zombie musical! |
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Maria Caliban
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
SW: KotOR PC
Jade Empire
NWN 2
Mass Effect
Mass Effect PC
Joined: 29 Jun 2002
From: In absentia |
Posted: Saturday, 11 November 2006 02:05AM |
I think the "problem" is that game developers feel the need to constantly ride the curve of graphics. Neverwinter Nights 2 is a liner game and in parts the layout has a claustrophobic feel to it. I could say the same about Jade Empire as I'd often enter a map that should have been a wide-open area, a graveyard for instance, and instead found there was only one narrow path to follow.
Yes, there are also games like Oblivion that have expansive layouts and cutting edge graphics but, again, something has to give. The story, NPC interaction, and in my opinion the role-playing opportunities are limited.
Many say that you can't have a massive game like Buldar's Gate II anymore because of modern graphics but I disagree. If you were willing to settle for graphics akin to the original Neverwinter Nights then it could be done.
The question is whether the average game consumer has a saturation point when it comes to graphics or if their tastes become ever more demanding with each graphical increase. I think there is a saturation point but it still ten or more until that horizon. Current developers are the relatives of silent film directors. They're still struggling in a medium that hasn't reached its evolved form and until it reaches that form, until they have a complete and robust set of tools, then they're unable to produce complete games.
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We are such things as dreams are made of.Edited By Maria Caliban on 11/11/06 02:07 |
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Cunbelin
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
SW: KotOR PC
Jade Empire
NWN 2
Joined: 21 Jun 2002 |
Posted: Saturday, 11 November 2006 04:17AM |
Heh, why do you think it has anything at all to do with 3D graphics ? From a graphical standpoint it would have been relatively trivial to have every house open in NWN2. filling out and creating the areas may be another story, though still possible. The real question is does it add anything? Does it perhaps even take something away ?
You may see a frustratingly unopenable door, but I see it as one less distraction. You may see a shallow facade that breaks your immersion, I see flavor that guides the player.
I dunno I found Oblivion and it's ilk create a far more hollow feeling place, I didn't really care that I could get into the houses, because I knew they were full of nothing but useless junk barely worth picking up. Or generic PC's with little to add. The attempts to make it more open and more "real", highlight how artificial the underlying systems are.
Ah well, maybe I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain that the majority of players would rather have a good "theme park" experience than open but generic gameplay. Besides it's not just 3D graphics, it's the higher bar for writing, the standardization of voice overs, higher standard of gameplay, as well as the detailed 3D environments that cause this.
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Cunbelin The InsaneEdited By Cunbelin on 11/11/06 04:19 |
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Tonkarz
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
Joined: 09 Apr 2003
From: Sydney |
Posted: Saturday, 11 November 2006 04:24AM |
I don't think developers feel some need to ride the wave of improving graphics. Rather, it's the general public who just don't take a new title seriously unless the graphics are up to date.
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"Nor dread nor hope attend a dying animal; a man awaits his end dreading and hoping all."
- Yeats |
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Rahl Windsong
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
SW: KotOR PC
Jade Empire:SE
NWN 2
NWN 2: MotB
NWN 2: SoZ
Mass Effect PC
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
From: Athiria |
Posted: Sunday, 12 November 2006 02:42AM |
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I think what the Op was trying to say is that please don't make a game world that looks really good but has nothing interesting to do in it. Honestly I don't think we have to worry about that with a company like Bioware, they know that the story in a game has to be much more the two paragraphs found on the last page of the manual. |
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indeed_i_am_not
Joined: 02 Nov 2006 |
Posted: Sunday, 12 November 2006 10:47PM |
Quote: Posted 11/10/06 15:56 (GMT) by ikarinokami
most of the building can't be entered into, the world is so small and dead., i'm sure because of all the man hours needed to generate the graphics. it's not worth it.
It's very fast to make environments in NWN due to the engine's use of tilesets. It's actually harder to make environments for the Infinity Engine (Baldur's Gate and so on), because they all have to be crafted by hand. Even so, Baldur's Gate II manages to have more content than NWN and NWN2 combined. |
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Gecon
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
SW: KotOR PC
NWN 2
NWN 2: MotB
NWN 2: SoZ
Joined: 01 Aug 2002
From: Germany |
Posted: Monday, 13 November 2006 12:33PM |
I disliked the graphics of NWN1 because the textures where too pale and after a time you start to notice that everything is really square, always.
And Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines definitely rocked. I only hated the very end.
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We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep. - Prospero, The Tempest, by Shakespeare |
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Lockkaliber
Game Owner
 Jade Empire
NWN 2
NWN 2: SoZ
Mass Effect
Joined: 12 Nov 2006 |
Posted: Monday, 13 November 2006 03:18PM |
This thread really describes how i sometimes feel about the rpg genre today compared to "yesterday". I don't know what it is, but somehow games like Planescape:T, BG and IWD still seem far superior in gameplay, content and storytelling. Do you know what made me really like NWN2? When I got into the game, after some hours of playing i was struck by the thought that "hey, they made this game more like bg2, and now this games seems like one of the best i've played in recent years". This is all just subjective thoughts though and i'm very biased towards infinity engine gameplay, but something isn't really right with the presentation of a game if a game that is 7 years older seem superior gameplay-wise.
/rant offEdited By Lockkaliber on 11/13/06 15:19 |
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