I understand that generally game comparisons are not allowed so I will keep that part to a minimum. After recently getting an actual gaming pc and being able to experience the game at max settings for the first times, this game is absolutely gorgeous and I tip my hat to the people in charge of the art direction.
I used to come from games like WoW and recently tried Rift, and I humbly respect both those games for what they’ve contributed as well. This is my own opinion, but Guild Wars 2 currently has my favorite visuals out of any mmo so far. Although graphics don’t make a good game, it’s really a treat for me to be able to play the game at max settings and appreciate a lot of the detail. xD
My views as a fan: I love them to death and I love the choices in color and lighting (especially the warm lighting in parts of Langmar Estate).
My views as someone trying to get into the industry: I can’t help but notice alot of the seams on some materials/textures (particularly dolyaks). It doesn’t help that I start noticing alot of things about the armor that makes me cringe when I realize it’s not really what it seems (the female human idle stretching animation causes insane stretching on the heavy ascalon chestpiece because it’s not a modeled out chestplate, but the entire chestpiece seems to be one big texture baked onto it).
I sometimes take some time out from playing just to switch my UI off and wander around some of my favorite areas of Tyria, eyes wide and muttering ‘HOLY SWISS CHEESE’ at how much gorgeosity is packed into this game.
I come from a game artist background and a lot of what I learned through video tutorials and whatnot were from lead artists at ArenaNet that worked on this game. They really are the best in the biz.
DrDivine, your hat is well tipped.
~An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.~
Best visuals in any mmo i’ve ever seen. The previous best in my opinion was Aion.
I remember being so hyped about Aion, the game did look very nice though! I haven’t played too much in depth of Rift yet, but I heard that game looks pretty nice now too. Judging by the videos I’ve seen though, Guild Wars 2 seems to hold up as the best looking mmo. That’s just my opinion, I just love the art direction, it kind of reminds me of a painting.
This game having the best graphics of any MMO is one of the few things the GW2 community agrees on pretty much unanimously.
Agreed – I think the best thing about GW2 is the way it looks.
Just did Spelunker’s delve again today for example, and noticed that vibrant green moss with little lanterns around upon entering the cave – beautiful.
I play with supersampling and everything maxed and I agree that GW2 is by far the best looking MMO out there. Terra is pretty good but GW2 with Sweet FX is just amazing looking. Too bad the gameplay can’t equal the graphics
Agreed, even on medium-high settings this game looks pretty amazing. The only downside, imo, is that most of Tyria is extremely vanilla. The landscape feels natural and areas ‘flow’ into one another but everything is just so…..ordinary. Its like playing in a god-kittened Bob Ross painting. Also, too many zones look exactly the same and there’s not a lot of variety to the wildlife and mobs.
Having recently tried Rift one thing that struck me right away was the art design. It just feels like a fantasy game. I ran around the starting area for a quite a while just to look at stuff. Was a far cry from the bandits who apparently get their outfits in the rubbish bin outside Queensdale’s thrift shops, and the centORCs (as I like to call them) that plague kryta.
Was a far cry from the bandits who apparently get their outfits in the rubbish bin outside Queensdale’s thrift shops, and the centORCs (as I like to call them) that plague kryta.
They certainly do have pretty faces though.
^ Uses Guild Wars 2 character screenshots for desktop wallpapers.
I completely agree that GW2 is beautiful on high settings… but the beauty is not functional.
GW2 uses telegraphs to tell you when bosses are about to own you and all I can ever see is *FLASH**FLASH**FLASH**FLASH**FLASH**FLASH**FLASH**FLASH**FLASH**FLASH**FLASH**SPARKLE**FLASH**FLASH**FLASH**FLASH**FLASH**FLASH**FLASH**FLASH**FLASH**FLASH**FLASH**FLASH**FLASH**FLASH*.
Some nights it makes my eyes feel like I’ve been rubbing them with sandpaper.
I just started my 10th screenshot folder, each containing 999 pictures roughly. I take screenshots of everything, crop them, chop them, paint them, post them…
I came in from Age of Conan, which is also a good-looking game in terms of highly atmospheric and haunting landscapes, but GW2 is a much nicer all-round experience. The artwork is definitely one reason why I’m always levelling my alts on the maps these days. There’s moments where I’ll get up a height, take it all in and enjoy; it provides a sweet counterpoint to those half-hours when I’ve been on the train, or had a mad time of it in WvW. I even revisit places with my 80s because I enjoy the landscapes so much.
“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Steve R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”
I also like the graphics a lot. There are so many places which just look absolutely gorgeous, and I’ve also seen so many awesome characters created by players, but also really nice-looking NPC’s.
Now with that being said… since I’m a swiss guy, I feel a little bit proud that you seem to have a liking for swiss cheese as well.
Sometimes it feels like ANet truly believes that these indeed marvelous graphics will keep the interest of the fanbase forever, and so they release terrible quality-wise fortnightly LS updates.
Three 80-lvl Rangers. Why? ‘Cos they’re that cool.
Sometimes it feels like ANet truly believes that these indeed marvelous graphics will keep the interest of the fanbase forever, and so they release terrible quality-wise fortnightly LS updates.
“Ooooh… shiny…”
?
“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Steve R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”
Love the graphics in GW2; I was pretty awestruck by the graphics in Age of Conan too – which is my MMO-background. But ofc, AoC is so badly optimised that running on ultra settings like I do now in GW2 would’ve cost me several thousands…
Lord Sazed / Hasla the Huntress / Seaguard Hala
Seamarshal Belit / Initiate Xun Tsu / Mistwarden Roshone
Seafarer’s Rest | Northerner @ Dragon Season
Also, too many zones look exactly the same and there’s not a lot of variety to the wildlife and mobs.
Thats also one of the few problems i have .. sometimes i really would love to see a little more “colorful” zones like in Aion or Tera.
And of course more options in the character editor .. the sliders not really make that big difference. Aion was much better and i still like the editor frpm Perfect World the most were i was not bound to templates and could also save/load settings.
EVERY MMO is awesome until it is released then its unfinished. A month after release it just sucks.
Best MMOs are the ones that never make it. Therefore Stargate Online wins.
Sometimes it feels like ANet truly believes that these indeed marvelous graphics will keep the interest of the fanbase forever, and so they release terrible quality-wise fortnightly LS updates.
Are they bragging with those graphics? Never seen them doing that, tbh.
Sometimes it feels like ANet truly believes that these indeed marvelous graphics will keep the interest of the fanbase forever, and so they release terrible quality-wise fortnightly LS updates.
Are they bragging with those graphics? Never seen them doing that, tbh.
Since when is “feels like” synonymous with “bragging”? Peeps these days…
Three 80-lvl Rangers. Why? ‘Cos they’re that cool.
GW2 has great graphics, but the optimization leaves some thing to be desired. Especially Lion’s Arch during Wintersday, and the electricity bolts in the Thaumanova Fractal, bring the FPS down a lot.
I also think the art direction could focus a bit more on improving overall visibility. A lot of effects drown out what is actually happening on screen. And many projectiles that you need to dodge, are very small, and hardly visible.
GW2 has great graphics, but the optimization leaves some thing to be desired. Especially Lion’s Arch during Wintersday, and the electricity bolts in the Thaumanova Fractal, bring the FPS down a lot.
I also think the art direction could focus a bit more on improving overall visibility. A lot of effects drown out what is actually happening on screen. And many projectiles that you need to dodge, are very small, and hardly visible.
Yea optimization has come a long way since release, but some of the LS instances and LA can be choppy at times.
I don’t think GW2 is just the best looking MMO out there, it is in it’s own league. There isn’t a single MMO I would mention in the same sentence as this game, as far as graphics go.
I’m studying graphics from the perspective of CS (so the technical, not artistic, side). The thing that still gets me is this game’s support of reflections and detailed bump maps. I don’t know of any other MMO that even tries to support reflections on any level. And no other MMO has the sort of detailed textures and bump maps that this game has.
I can only imagine how much work went into the graphics, just to make it all run at a decent framerate. There is stuff in this game that just hasn’t been done in MMO’s before.
I regularly spam my friends with screenshots. To the point that sometimes I even feel bad for them. But I need to share the gorgeous! Well, a few of them even ended up playing it and really enjoying it, so they can’t complain too much! – GW2 is one of the most beautiful games I’ve played – and so is GW. I’m a huge fan of Mr Dociu.
I don’t think GW2 is just the best looking MMO out there, it is in it’s own league. There isn’t a single MMO I would mention in the same sentence as this game, as far as graphics go.
I’m studying graphics from the perspective of CS (so the technical, not artistic, side). The thing that still gets me is this game’s support of reflections and detailed bump maps. I don’t know of any other MMO that even tries to support reflections on any level. And no other MMO has the sort of detailed textures and bump maps that this game has.
I can only imagine how much work went into the graphics, just to make it all run at a decent framerate. There is stuff in this game that just hasn’t been done in MMO’s before.
Decent framerate is subjective. GW2 is fantastic looking but I am still waiting for our big performance update that was promised. It is also too bad that most people cant run the aforementioned reflections since they are such a pig on resources.
I have a pretty decent system and I turn reflections off completely
Seras, I just assume that Holy Swiss Cheese refers to the holes in Swiss cheese. As you said, “a clever play on words.”
As for the graphics, I have the good fortune of a setup that allows me to see the game at 2560×1440 resolution with maximum settings and it does indeed look outstanding.
Good graphics, good artwork, and good music are pretty much the only things GW2 has had going for it since about November 2012. Everything else the Devs have done since then has been pretty bad.
I can only imagine how much work went into the graphics, just to make it all run at a decent framerate. There is stuff in this game that just hasn’t been done in MMO’s before.
Decent framerate is subjective. GW2 is fantastic looking but I am still waiting for our big performance update that was promised. It is also too bad that most people cant run the aforementioned reflections since they are such a pig on resources.
I have a pretty decent system and I turn reflections off completely
Well there isn’t a whole lot you can do to optimize effects like reflections. The simplest, traditional method renders the scene once for each reflector. The basic shadow rendering algorithm renders the scene once for each light source. It gets really, really expensive very quickly.
(I’m sure GW2 uses some custom rendering algorithms. All triple-A games do. But the traditional algorithms give you a good baseline.)
You can do some work figuring out which reflectors aren’t visible and which lights aren’t contributing visible shadows. But at the end of the day, if an effect is supposed to be visible you can’t optimize your way out of it.
Go to an area that has no water or reflective surfaces and stare at the ground. Proceed to play with the reflections. You will see some interesting results. Umbra is garbage
Agreed, even on medium-high settings this game looks pretty amazing. The only downside, imo, is that most of Tyria is extremely vanilla. The landscape feels natural and areas ‘flow’ into one another but everything is just so…..ordinary. Its like playing in a god-kittened Bob Ross painting. Also, too many zones look exactly the same and there’s not a lot of variety to the wildlife and mobs.
Having recently tried Rift one thing that struck me right away was the art design. It just feels like a fantasy game. I ran around the starting area for a quite a while just to look at stuff. Was a far cry from the bandits who apparently get their outfits in the rubbish bin outside Queensdale’s thrift shops, and the centORCs (as I like to call them) that plague kryta.
I dunno, I’d be happy to live in one of his paintings!
I think one of the draw backs players are seeing, in terms of frame rate in cities, is a direct result of favoring artists in creating such a lovely world. By using Umbra to handle the occlusion culling they removed the requirement from the artists to be “reasonable” with their assets. It’s one of the reasons that the major cities are such a burden on the renderer. The aren’t “optimized” because the major selling point of Umbra is there is no need to burden your asset creators with all that. Just throw the mesh “cloud” at the pre-processor and it’ll handle the dirty work. Nice in theory but having a knowledgeable level/zone creator is better.
But that’s OK, they choose pretty over extremely fast rendering. If that was their goal, then they succeeded.
