Guild Wars 2

Tobias.8632:

While texture quality in this game has been kitten from day 1, and the character models are so low-poly that if you actually zoom in my character has razor sharp pointy ears, it would probably cost a bunch of money to fix any of that and I would rather they use that money to pay someone to fix the actual game problems like every dungeon being so poorly designed that the meta has developed entirely around content skipping exploits, or poor enemy AI, or necros.

The foundational assets and textures of the game aren’t exactly what I was thinking. I’m talking more about the post-processing and effects. With a little more attention, I think changing some of that would bring the overall presentation of the game up to current standards.

I remember when the original Guild Wars was getting its expansion, a lot of the core game saw some pretty awesome visual updates. One that I specifically remember was seeing the fire effects from the original game become quite spectacular with the release of Eye of The North.

Now that I’ve been playing GW2 for a few years, a lot of the post-processing effects are starting to seem fairly outdated. The bloom, for example, is very reminiscent of the early 7th generation’s fixation with the effect and does the game’s graphics no more justice. I’ve recently been keeping these effects turned off completely to make things feel clear and less blown out.

I’m also starting to notice inconsistent contrast in some areas that makes the game look a bit messy at times. Some assets will be lit very well and right beside them will be some assets that seem to belong to a completely different light environment. It gives the game more of a scrap book feel rather than a painterly one.

Are there any plans for or has there been any word of updates to the games core post-processing or any other visual effects with the release of Heart of Thorns?

I noticed this a little while ago so its nothing new but I thought I would bring it up now anyway.

The options menu window graphic has a little more painterly style than most of the other windows and assets. It looks like some stray brush strokes have been left in that don’t really belong.

It would be easy to miss on some monitors but its especially noticeable in some areas when this menu is overlaid on something lighter colored.

It seems like bad spot to have a subtle inconsistency because of how often people tweak their visual settings from that window and that texture gets in the way.

This image shows the problem as the window is opened and closed. I changed the contrast on the later frames to make it more noticeable. You can see the extra brush strokes inside the red square although they extend beyond that area as well.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

Thankfully Soule will not be making the soundtrack for the expansion.

Maclaine Diemer and Leif Chapelle are the current composers.

Oh cool! I didn’t consider that anyone else might have worked on the game before.

Now that I’m looking those two up, it seems like their music is a lot more up beat and rhythmic rather than the grand sweeping orchestral of Soule. I think that is just what the game needs. It’s hard to identify with some of Soule’s stuff because they don’t have much of a tune to follow.

I never payed much attention to the music in GW2 before. It seems like there are only one or two tracks that I hear during normal gameplay that stand out to me. Knowing Jeremy Soule’s work from past titles, I expected a bit more but I understand that much of his work is great because of its non-intrusiveness during long play sessions.

With that being said, after completing the story for the first time, I was happy to hear some more tracks taking a more front and center stage. I only wish I came across those same tracks in normal gameplay more often.

Anyway! This all got me wondering what we might expect as far as new music in this up and coming expansion. Does anyone know if Jeremy Soule is producing the soundtrack like he did with past guild wars expansions? The HoT announcement trailer had some new music in it but it seemed a lot like normal “trailer score” and not something suitable for gameplay or anything Jeremy Soule composed.

Any incite would be appreciated! Thanks

Take care!