For me it's about the art design; the level of talent in the art department can go a looooooong fricking way in how a world is presented, and what level of immersion they are interested in creating.
A game can have what some might call "amazing graphics" but also at the same time have horrible art design. This becomes a common problem when developers without a proper art staff, have to resort to using public assets or even paid assets.
Fishing on Gilgamesh since 2013 Fishing on Bronzebeard since 2005 Fishing in RL since 1992 Born with a fishing rod in my hand in 1979
Art design matters to me. If I don't like the art design i won't play the game.
I would say it matters more to me than game play as I'm looking for an immersive experience, one that inspires the imagination..
+1 , i dont even like top graphics on mmorpgs is a recipe for disasters , cities , pvp , raids , with good options is manageable , but is not fun having to turn shadows or effects off because the graphic engine cant pass 30fps ...when there is more than 5 players around
When did Valheim become an MMORPG , which is what the article is about , also the AI in Valheim is pretty immersion breaking , I mean the fucking deer are dumb as rocks, along with most of the content , Its really immersion breaking for me when the AI is just that terrible across the game like it is in Valheim ..
Valhiem is not a mmorpg, people we're using its ambiance and simple graphics as an example and nothing more as far as I could tell.
Its equivelant to ..
What single player game has the best immersion ?
and we have bags of rocks yelling ..
" LOTRO "
" Nooo its ESO "
"what about WOW"
I've played all those games solo, effectively making them single player games. Perhaps the rigidity of your mindset is more akin to a bag of rocks.
Lol.. really whether you play it solo or not , has nothing at all to do with the restrictions and challenges of developing for an MMORPG vs a Single player game ..
The smart kids know this ..
The other kids say stuff just like you just did ..
We should all strive to not be the other kid
It is true that my play habits have nothing to do with that needed for a MMORPG to concurrently accommodate a massive number of players.
It is also true that needed to accommodate such isn't something I need concern myself with in my use of a MMORPG as a solo game.
A smart kid would realize that before raising it as a factor.
Semantics,backpedal and goalpost moving all in a single post ... well done 7/10.. lmfao
Graphics in a REAL mmorpg matter to those who have no clue of what a mmorpg is.
Just look at the recent mmo review on the front page. You constantly see"outdated graphics" from people ... in a game 2-3 generations better than Classic Wow, which is a game millions returned to.
Graphics do not mean SHIT. You know a game is great when you play it. You won't care about the graphics if the style fits the game. People keep buying soulless mmos like hamsters on a wheel and will continue to support an industry incapable of making long lasting games ... because shiny!
I am an old school D&D player from the 70's, and that weird ass soft corn porn wall art, and big tiddy goddess in Deities and Demigods, and all that, was the fuel of imagination, often weird pornographic imagination.. but.. imagination none the less.
Art, a visual of something, has been a needed aspect of games, even text based games, were build on things that people could look up, graphics, images, and the like are a cornerstone of gaming, they are a way by which players interact with their world.
So yes, Graphics matter.
But, they do not matter in the sense that they need to be hyper realistic, they need to do their job building that integration, because that is what graphics do, they integrate the avatar into the world.
As such, things need to match, they need to make sense, they need to work together. Nothing is worse then having this really ornate character in a rather basic looking world.
To talk about this a bit, if you looked at the Evolution of the Players Avatar in Trove, you can see how it changed from early original design to what it finally launched as, and while it kept the Voxel build, changes to how it looked were done to make them fit better into the environment.
Case in point, Originally the Candy Barb had arms and legs made of little cubes. They were removed and replaced with larger more obnoxious hands and boots, but this change, made the model fit better into the existing world.
And that is what it is all about, fitting in.
To use another example, GW2, over time players became more and more a living Christmas tree light show, and in doing so, made them look more and more out of place among their world.
This is one of those things needs to be addressed, that things need to link well together, they need to fit together, and that is where the line between "Good" and "Bad" sits, not in if you can count their hairs on their ass cheeks.
Just my feels tho..
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Up to a certain point; and that point is probably lower for me than most, and then my imagination fill in the blanks, the rest, the flaws, the missing details.
I am not against great graphics, smooth animations in theory, BUT in every mmorpg to date, graphics has been directly reverse-proportional to quality of game design and gameplay(as I prefer it for a mmorpg).
How this is the case you can guess at, but one thing is probably about budget..top graphics cost a lot, and that limits depth of gameplay and game systems ... Imagine every skill, every mechanic, every system has to be represented visually, and if graphics is 9/10 the budget then every little design concept added bloats a budget really fast.
Anyways, my point is as long as the graphic is subjectively good enough, I take depth, QoL, game design, game systems and almost anything before better graphics.
When you take into account that the cost of a decent 8GB graphic card upgrade is more than 1/3 the price of a new PC, I'm going to say that artwork and game design are more of an important selling point for me.
New games can't look like they were developed 20 years ago. We have enough MMO's out there with subpar graphics and good gameplay. If two games are equally entertaining then i'm not playing the lesser astheticly pleasing one. If Blizzard would bite the bullet and make a wow 2 that was almost the same game but with ESO or New world graphics it would become the monster it was 10 years ago.
If we are talking new games then yes. But id say the graphics need to fit in with the art direction. If its an older game than I'm usually pretty forgiving since its not new tech.
I just feel that if its some heavily invested game I like to have nice views when I'm playing since I have a solid pc I want to put it to use!
Graphics have to be good, but not amazing. I don't mind cartoony graphics. I think I'm one of the few who enjoyed wildstsars graphics. They can't be something like trove or something that looks like my commodore 64 can run
Graphics have to be good, but not amazing. I don't mind cartoony graphics. I think I'm one of the few who enjoyed wildstsars graphics. They can't be something like trove or something that looks like my commodore 64 can run
I was surprised games like Minecraft and Trove had the success they did with those horrible, blocky graphics.
Yes and No. I don't need it to look "AAA Fabulous," but I do need it to perform well. Personally, I think an MMORPG should be able to perform decently at Medium-High Settings while still looking good with a mid-range dGPU. You should be able to hit 144 FPS in 5 Man Content - maybe 110-120 FPS on a laptop, while maintaining ~60FPS in Raid Content with ease.
Mass PVP and Castle Seige type situations are a different matter. But running around an almost empty town should not drop you down to 60 FPS, like in games like GW2, and running around an empty outdoor area should net have you sitting at 40-50FPS with a R7-3700X and RX 5700 XT like AION.
I think developers have yet to really hit a sweet spot.
WoW gained a ton by being able to run well on lower spec machines, but the average power of PC hardware is a lot higher these days, so developers can be more ambitious.
That being said, I feel like every new MMORPG is a re-run of the Vanguard: Saga of Heroes or Age of Conan launch. They all want Crysis-level hardware even when the servers are dead and there is almost no other players on the screen.
MMORPGs are probably dying becasue they aren't accessible enough to pull in players who can't afford to pay the extra cash for a high end GPU, and many players don't want to play a game that looks like @$$ on their machine.
I can understand why MOBAs, ARPGs and eSports titles have basically taken over the market (LOL, DOTA2, OW, PoE, etc.).
As ARPGs acquire more MMO features (Diablo IV comes to mind, but PoE is already halfway there... it's just worthless to group in that game), there will be a lot of increased pressure on the MMORPG market.
I agree that ambiance is the most important. If the art style is consistent and good, and the graphics hold together, then the pixel count is less important.
What matters is the "suspension of disbelief".
Fortnite, for example, has decent graphics that are kind of cartoony. But it works. LoTRO still looks pretty good after all these years, because the art direction is good.
Graphics are important though. I probably can't play any 2-d isometric games anymore, I want 3-d.
"Suspension of disbelief" is not possible with a lot of MMORPG players. That gimmick has passed. People who want to experience that need a time machine back to 1998-2002, when games like AO and EQ were newer and MMORPGs were just burgeoning.
These days, online games are the norm. Voice chat has also make it impossible to be immersed, and it's becoming more prevalent. Games are launching with Voice Chat built-in, now, and enabled by default (e.g. New World). Focus of gaming communities has shifted extremely from role playing to progression, as well.
AFAIC, Immersion is Dead - at least until MMORPGs move to VR. I think that is the only way to seriously bring this back.
the graphics really matter but not always in the way you think. The graphic "style" has to be right. Of course it means nothing if there's no game underneath.
For the longest time WoW was good enough and the cartoonish world worked, until BDO came along. Alas, BDO is less of a RPG for a PVE fan so I only login for the occasional eyegasm and I'm out again.
Now I cannot help but look at other titles like LOTRO, SWTOR, GW2 and even some of the latest ones out and think, if they had the same level of detail and graphics I would never stop playing.
FFXIV has a good balance but the playstyle isn't for me and I'm back to square one waiting for a AAA title that marries graphics with depth.
my 2c
The problem with AAA Graphics is that is is designed to push the limits of PC Hardware. This means that, while the graphics may be great for YOU, it's going to be terrible for the majority of others.
Especially in this day and age, when a mid-range GPU costs $1,000 and still can't maintain 60 FPS in games like New World on Medium-High Settings.
The graphics can be great in theory, but be terrible in practice. EverQuest 2 was a great example of that. The game actually looked amazing, if you have a super computer to run it. Unfortunately, the vast majority of hte playerbase had to run that game at Medium or Low Settings to maintain a consistent 60 FPS.
60 FPS.
These days, it's ridiculous to not have at least a 144Hz screen on a gaming PC, due to how cheap they are, and 240 Hz is becoming more common.
AAA Grpahics in an MMO also creates unreasonable system requirements, since MMORPGs are already CPU intensive. This creates an experience that needs ridiculous investment in CPU, RAM, and GPU to be realized.
And you're still going to need a decent display on top of that - one that has decent brightness and color accuracy - otherwise the entire game world will look washed out or oversaturated (cheaper TN displays are NOT friends with MMORPGs, IMVHO).
That has a lot of implications for people who need to use a Laptop. You can price thousands of people out of your game, even if it's "Free to Play."
I liken these "AAA MMORPGs" to DaVinci Resolve. When BMD released the Free Version, everyone started recommending it because it was free. The thing they didn't mention was that it has ridiculous GPU requirements (in terms of both Processing Grunt and VRAM Capacity). So, while the software had a Free SKU (with an EXTREMELY generous feature set), the cost to run it well for many people who were attracted to it for its price was beyond extreme. The Software was biased to Nvidia, and anything with less than 6GB VRAM (and worse than a 1060, at the very least) was impractical for real work - unless you did nothing but 720p-1080p stuff.
It was the Crysis (or, to use a more modern example, Witcher 3) of NLEs.
These newer MMORPG launches feel exactly like that.
My machine is fine, but when a game basically spec walls so many people, it does matter because players keep MMORPGs alive - NOT developers or publishers.
Comments
For me it's about the art design; the level of talent in the art department can go a looooooong fricking way in how a world is presented, and what level of immersion they are interested in creating.
A game can have what some might call "amazing graphics" but also at the same time have horrible art design. This becomes a common problem when developers without a proper art staff, have to resort to using public assets or even paid assets.
Fishing on Gilgamesh since 2013
Fishing on Bronzebeard since 2005
Fishing in RL since 1992
Born with a fishing rod in my hand in 1979
+1 , i dont even like top graphics on mmorpgs is a recipe for disasters , cities , pvp , raids , with good options is manageable , but is not fun having to turn shadows or effects off because the graphic engine cant pass 30fps ...when there is more than 5 players around
Just look at the recent mmo review on the front page. You constantly see"outdated graphics" from people ... in a game 2-3 generations better than Classic Wow, which is a game millions returned to.
Graphics do not mean SHIT. You know a game is great when you play it. You won't care about the graphics if the style fits the game. People keep buying soulless mmos like hamsters on a wheel and will continue to support an industry incapable of making long lasting games ... because shiny!
I am an old school D&D player from the 70's, and that weird ass soft corn porn wall art, and big tiddy goddess in Deities and Demigods, and all that, was the fuel of imagination, often weird pornographic imagination.. but.. imagination none the less.
Art, a visual of something, has been a needed aspect of games, even text based games, were build on things that people could look up, graphics, images, and the like are a cornerstone of gaming, they are a way by which players interact with their world.
So yes, Graphics matter.
But, they do not matter in the sense that they need to be hyper realistic, they need to do their job building that integration, because that is what graphics do, they integrate the avatar into the world.
As such, things need to match, they need to make sense, they need to work together. Nothing is worse then having this really ornate character in a rather basic looking world.
To talk about this a bit, if you looked at the Evolution of the Players Avatar in Trove, you can see how it changed from early original design to what it finally launched as, and while it kept the Voxel build, changes to how it looked were done to make them fit better into the environment.
Case in point, Originally the Candy Barb had arms and legs made of little cubes. They were removed and replaced with larger more obnoxious hands and boots, but this change, made the model fit better into the existing world.
And that is what it is all about, fitting in.
To use another example, GW2, over time players became more and more a living Christmas tree light show, and in doing so, made them look more and more out of place among their world.
This is one of those things needs to be addressed, that things need to link well together, they need to fit together, and that is where the line between "Good" and "Bad" sits, not in if you can count their hairs on their ass cheeks.
Just my feels tho..
I am not against great graphics, smooth animations in theory, BUT in every mmorpg to date, graphics has been directly reverse-proportional to quality of game design and gameplay(as I prefer it for a mmorpg).
How this is the case you can guess at, but one thing is probably about budget..top graphics cost a lot, and that limits depth of gameplay and game systems ... Imagine every skill, every mechanic, every system has to be represented visually, and if graphics is 9/10 the budget then every little design concept added bloats a budget really fast.
Anyways, my point is as long as the graphic is subjectively good enough, I take depth, QoL, game design, game systems and almost anything before better graphics.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
I just feel that if its some heavily invested game I like to have nice views when I'm playing since I have a solid pc I want to put it to use!
I was surprised games like Minecraft and Trove had the success they did with those horrible, blocky graphics.
Mass PVP and Castle Seige type situations are a different matter. But running around an almost empty town should not drop you down to 60 FPS, like in games like GW2, and running around an empty outdoor area should net have you sitting at 40-50FPS with a R7-3700X and RX 5700 XT like AION.
I think developers have yet to really hit a sweet spot.
WoW gained a ton by being able to run well on lower spec machines, but the average power of PC hardware is a lot higher these days, so developers can be more ambitious.
That being said, I feel like every new MMORPG is a re-run of the Vanguard: Saga of Heroes or Age of Conan launch. They all want Crysis-level hardware even when the servers are dead and there is almost no other players on the screen.
MMORPGs are probably dying becasue they aren't accessible enough to pull in players who can't afford to pay the extra cash for a high end GPU, and many players don't want to play a game that looks like @$$ on their machine.
I can understand why MOBAs, ARPGs and eSports titles have basically taken over the market (LOL, DOTA2, OW, PoE, etc.).
As ARPGs acquire more MMO features (Diablo IV comes to mind, but PoE is already halfway there... it's just worthless to group in that game), there will be a lot of increased pressure on the MMORPG market.
"Suspension of disbelief" is not possible with a lot of MMORPG players. That gimmick has passed. People who want to experience that need a time machine back to 1998-2002, when games like AO and EQ were newer and MMORPGs were just burgeoning.
These days, online games are the norm. Voice chat has also make it impossible to be immersed, and it's becoming more prevalent. Games are launching with Voice Chat built-in, now, and enabled by default (e.g. New World). Focus of gaming communities has shifted extremely from role playing to progression, as well.
AFAIC, Immersion is Dead - at least until MMORPGs move to VR. I think that is the only way to seriously bring this back.
The problem with AAA Graphics is that is is designed to push the limits of PC Hardware. This means that, while the graphics may be great for YOU, it's going to be terrible for the majority of others.
Especially in this day and age, when a mid-range GPU costs $1,000 and still can't maintain 60 FPS in games like New World on Medium-High Settings.
The graphics can be great in theory, but be terrible in practice. EverQuest 2 was a great example of that. The game actually looked amazing, if you have a super computer to run it. Unfortunately, the vast majority of hte playerbase had to run that game at Medium or Low Settings to maintain a consistent 60 FPS.
60 FPS.
These days, it's ridiculous to not have at least a 144Hz screen on a gaming PC, due to how cheap they are, and 240 Hz is becoming more common.
AAA Grpahics in an MMO also creates unreasonable system requirements, since MMORPGs are already CPU intensive. This creates an experience that needs ridiculous investment in CPU, RAM, and GPU to be realized.
And you're still going to need a decent display on top of that - one that has decent brightness and color accuracy - otherwise the entire game world will look washed out or oversaturated (cheaper TN displays are NOT friends with MMORPGs, IMVHO).
That has a lot of implications for people who need to use a Laptop. You can price thousands of people out of your game, even if it's "Free to Play."
I liken these "AAA MMORPGs" to DaVinci Resolve. When BMD released the Free Version, everyone started recommending it because it was free. The thing they didn't mention was that it has ridiculous GPU requirements (in terms of both Processing Grunt and VRAM Capacity). So, while the software had a Free SKU (with an EXTREMELY generous feature set), the cost to run it well for many people who were attracted to it for its price was beyond extreme. The Software was biased to Nvidia, and anything with less than 6GB VRAM (and worse than a 1060, at the very least) was impractical for real work - unless you did nothing but 720p-1080p stuff.
It was the Crysis (or, to use a more modern example, Witcher 3) of NLEs.
These newer MMORPG launches feel exactly like that.
My machine is fine, but when a game basically spec walls so many people, it does matter because players keep MMORPGs alive - NOT developers or publishers.