[Fear]

i dont know why but those picture are ugly as ****. the whole think look like it was made by plastic. and the big ugly imp looks like he was a plastic that got melted.

EDIT: i know what its reminding me! warhammer dolls! after painting ofcurse.

[ZylonBane]

The more advanced 3D hardware gets, the more expensive games become to create, and the less likely non-mainstream games are to be produced.

Put a bullet in all the graphics whores, and PC gaming would be a much, much better place.

[Rictor]

My oh my, isn't someone a elitist bastard today.

Seriously, graphical advancements do not negate the potential for enaging gameplay. I think that the genral stagnation of PC gaming is due more to a general shift towards console game, taking valuable and much-needed talent and resources away from PC game developers, than due focusing on graphics instead of gameplay. These days, you see every other PC game being designed paralell to a console version, so naturally the gameplay has to appeal to the console masses.

Though I do agree with you that as cost of developing games is driven up, and it is, publishers are less inclined to take risks and therefore, innovate.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by ZylonBane
The more advanced 3D hardware gets, the more expensive games become to create, and the less likely non-mainstream games are to be produced.

Put a bullet in all the graphics whores, and PC gaming would be a much, much better place.

?

The more advanced 3d graphics hardware gets, the easier it becomes to create good graphics with less effort - either through the fact you've got more brute force to work with, or through evolution of graphics APIs, or from off-the-peg engines.

It's the forced evolution of technology that keeps games interesting.  Take the more advanced physics that being implemented (karma / ragdoll, the havok engine, etc).  Only possible with moden processing power.  And what do we end up with?  Non mainstream games diversifying to use physics to create interesting gaming environments.  And if you think that has nothing to do with graphics (and it is a parallel, not direct, allegory), what about the simple ofsetting of more & more memory / processing to the GPU?

And in general, how can expanding the capabilities of technology hurt what can be made?  The more powerful - expansive is a better word - graphics technolgy is, the more different things you can create with it.  And thus, the more you can add into games.

Not to mention that from a financial point of view, there will be a reduction in costs when fractal algorithms for incidental details can be created - i.e. so artists don't need to waste time making trees or rock faces, because an engine can calculate the geometry off-bat.

[ZylonBane]

Originally posted by aldo_14
The more advanced 3d graphics hardware gets, the easier it becomes to create good graphics with less effort

I want some of the crack you're smoking. In the ye olde days one guy with some graph paper could design and animate a monster. Now it takes teams of artists, animators, and programmers to do the same thing.

Expectations for texture detail, graphical detail, architectural detail, and environmental detail continue to go up and up and up, and all this stuff has to be created. It's no wonder A-list PC games have budgets of tens of MILLIONS of dollars anymore. People wonder why there's so many no-risk me-too games? Well, that's why.

It's basically the same problem that's been eating away at Hollywood for decades.

[übermetroid]

Originally posted by Setekh
With all those eyes, this thing almost reminds me of a Metroid. I'm gonna see if I can track down a video of this, I wanna see it in motion.

heheheh......  Metroid......  

[01010]

Originally posted by ZylonBane
The more advanced 3D hardware gets, the more expensive games become to create, and the less likely non-mainstream games are to be produced.

Put a bullet in all the graphics whores, and PC gaming would be a much, much better place.

I find myself agreeing. Oh dear.

But seriously, I find graphics can help with the immersion factor a great amount a lot of the time, however, a good game is a good game regardless of how good or bad it looks.

I really think the game industry needs more people willing to try something different like Peter Molyneux or Dave Perry.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by ZylonBane
I want some of the crack you're smoking. In the ye olde days one guy with some graph paper could design and animate a monster. Now it takes teams of artists, animators, and programmers to do the same thing.

Expectations for texture detail, graphical detail, architectural detail, and environmental detail continue to go up and up and up, and all this stuff has to be created. It's no wonder A-list PC games have budgets of tens of MILLIONS of dollars anymore. People wonder why there's so many no-risk me-too games? Well, that's why.

It's basically the same problem that's been eating away at Hollywood for decades.

Ye.  Olde. Days.

nuff said.

[ionia23]

Unreal III: Time to seriously f*** up Myst

[ZylonBane]

Originally posted by aldo_14
Ye.  Olde. Days.

nuff said.

Apparently not.

[vyper]

In the old days, some arse came along, coded most of the game, did about as much QA as a monkey on eccies, and did about as much documentation.

In the (less) old days the quality of a model in game was limited by one developer's diverse abilities.

Now-a-days, each person who works on your monster model does a part that is specially suited to him and therefore of the best standard.

[ZylonBane]

So now games cost thousands of times as much to produce-- but are they thousands of times as fun?

[Rictor]

well, you can't reasonably expect that AAA games will be 2 or 3 man affairs anymore. This is becuase of the detail that goes into the game. Whatever you may think of them, graphics add incredibly to the immersion factor, and anyway, I wasn't reffering to just graphical details. A game like Doom 3, with all its eye-candy, doesn't really take that much longer to develop that HalfLife or Fallout. Sure, graphics have improved, and that's increased the workload for the modelers and texture artists, but other areas have become quicker and easier to compensate for that.

[aldo_14]

The best are, yes.

[Mr Carrot]

Zylon graphics are vital for certain genres where immersion is key for the gameplay experience ala FPS. Unreal engine is for FPS (though has been used for good effect elsewhere) are you to suggest that we should effectively kill 2 genres (the FPS and the stealthemup) which rely on improving graphics to take the play experience to differnt levels of intensity or change the gamepace (imagine how crap doom would have been if it had been as slowly paced as doom 3).

You seem to forget that the one man game designing team usually ended up making a platformer, RPG or a sidescrolling shooter where graphics arnt key.

[ZylonBane]

Originally posted by Rictor
well, you can't reasonably expect that AAA games will be 2 or 3 man affairs anymore.

Of course I don't. And anyone in this thread who thinks that's what I'm saying is missing the point spectacularly.

What I WISH is that there were fewers gamers who judge a game almost solely on whether it has the latest, greatest, buzzword-compliant graphics engine. More than a few incredible games have crashed and burned because the developers put more effort into the actual gameplay than the eye candy.

So the more powerful video cards become, the higher the graphics whores' expectations rise, and the more budget has to be allocated to non-gameplay production.

[Rictor]

Yeah, alright, I agree with that. But now with engine licensing becoming a bit more standard, I think that companies like Epic, Valve and id will do a lot of the engine legwork, so that those who licsense the engine will have more time to dedicate to gameplay, which is I think the best of both worlds. I personally have nothing against outdated graphics, most of the games I've played recently are older ones that I missed the first time around.

[ZylonBane]

Somewhat ironically, I'm currently leading a project to upgrade the graphics in System Shock 2.