Why is it that all other MMO’s seem to have totally kitten crappy graphics in the way of detail/rendering. Look at for example wow, ff12, Archeage, WildStar. There graphics are hardly even better than runescape’s and in comparison to gw2 there is no where near as much texture or detail.
So my question is, why are all other MMO’s so far behind in the graphics department?
WoW is old. If they updated the graphics, many people with old computers won’t be able to play and will quit = no $$$ for Blizzard.
Idk about the others.
If you are talking about their decision of using cartoon like style and color pallet vs something more “realistic”, that’s simply a style choice. The minimum specs they are targeting may influence the decision since lower the minimum specs, the larger the pool of potential players.
It also where you want to spend your polygon and texture “budget”. FF XII has really nice characters but the world is rather, simple. WoW especially targeted low end laptops as viable platforms when it launched in 2004 although it has gone through a facelift or two over the decade but they do a fair job of hiding it by using a more cartoon like style and pallet. WildStar, Carbine was founded by ex-WoW developers, liked the cartoon style but upped the polycount to start with.
It is a matter of artistic choice too, a game that looks more cartoony will look more pleasant even after many years, a more realistic take will get outdated faster.
Take for example Resident Evil, if you play the PS1 version it looks terrible now, but when people 1st played that it was amazing, now take Spyro the Dragon, if you look at it now it still looks ok.
Charter Vanguard [CV] – HoD Bardy Belzebuson – Ranger Sir Belzebu – Herald
(and the other 8 elite specs maxed too)
I don’t know the correct terms to use but as another example take Borderlands 2. Despite the cartoon art style it has much more detail/texture/rendering. I know i’m comparing a fps to an mmo but in reference to the open world.
In the BL2 ss, looking at the detail of the rock, the texture of the ground and environment.
Borderlands 2 is a Dx11 game and what you see are consistent higher rez textures and shader effects that can’t be done as easily or at all in Dx9. Of course then it gets “cell shaded” effects, another style choice.
If you buy me a high end gaming machine sure up the graphics but you do know that most of the people play mmo’s with potatoes so it would be insane by a developers point of view to design games to look like crysis or witcher 3 or some other game that melts most of the computers.
Many people me included do not upgrade their computers every year most people run their computer until it breaks down.
And many people actually me included don’t give a rats kitten about graphics i rather play game that is fun than looks like real life.
And by the way cartoon style graphics hold the testament of time far better than more real looking graphics you only have to look at first playstation era games and you see how horrible the “real” life graphics look compared to games like crash bandicoot.
