Eye candy in CRPGs

[kosie99]

Ok, so I realize eye candy in a CRPG is not what it is all about and I know that MMOs, especially WoW are not the mighty Codex's cup of tea...

But, does a game like NWN2 not look and handle like total shit compared to WoW? After I left WoW to get out of the grind, I tried to play NWN2, but really, it looks like crap. The characters move like crap, the UI is crap.

Oblivion was a bit better, but the character animation there could have been much better and smoother. And if they only got rid of those idiotic expressions on their faces....

I for one would love to play a deep story-driven RPG in the wow engine.

Any other traditionally non-rpg engine would you like to see used in a proper CRPG?

 

[Lumpy]

I'd like the Infinity Engine to be used more with PST quality.

 

[Callaxes]

I'd like static images drawn by talented artists along with elegant and descriptive text with Darklands's quality

 

[bryce77]

 

[NiM82]

There's quite a few UI mod's for NWN2, most improve functionality. One I saw even threw BG2's interface into it (not that you'd want to). Agree with everything else though, the villages/towns in particular were very poorly made - seemed like they had been thrown together in a coffee break.

My ideal game/engine would be either FO or Arcanum, using an infinity-esque engine with pre rendered maps. BG2 and PST (excluding UI!) were games of sheer beauty. A cool thing could also be to mix 2D and 3D, have 3D characters composited onto a 2D map (think Total Annihilation). This would make animations silky smooth, and allow for more freedom in designing characters & visible items. Clearly the perspective would be locked, but I hate having to play with camera controls in games.

With respect to currently available engines, I would like to see what a capable team could do with the engine used in Hitman: Blood Money.The crowd dynamics and interaction options available are fantastic. Whenever I see it, I can't help but think how VTMB could look/play using it. At the end of the day though, it's the 'capable team' part that matters the most.. artists can do cool stuff with most engines if they have the motivation/skill. Some of the best animations I have ever seen were done for Quake 2 mods

 

[Elwro]

Any other traditionally non-rpg engine would you like to see used in a proper CRPG?

Supreme Commander + enslaving nations with necromancy. Culminating in leading hordes of MechaZombies of Doom.

 

[AZ]

I loved Infinity engine, and Fallout's engine was nice, but higher resolution would have helped a lot. Divine Divinity's engine looked nice too.

NWN 1-2 looks awful.

 

[Uz0rnaem]

I don't know the engine's name, but to me, Commandos 2 is still the visually most appealing game I've ever played. I like fluid animations and detailed 2D backgrounds and interfaces/items, but I don't care that much about a high character detail.

Generally, everything equal to, or above Ultima VII quality is fine by me. The only RPGs I don't play, only because of their graphics, are the ASCII based ones and that's because I can't fucking remember what the characters represent...

 

[JarlFrank]

I'd like static images drawn by talented artists along with elegant and descriptive text with Darklands's quality

Seconded. King of Dragon Pass had the best graphics I've ever seen in any game, and it was just static images.

Then again, I also prefer good art design to purely beautiful graphics. Everyone can do beautiful graphics if they have the technology, but for good art design it requires talent. And good art design can make the game a lot better.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

I don't know the engine's name, but to me, Commandos 2 is still the visually most appealing game I've ever played. I like fluid animations and detailed 2D backgrounds and interfaces/items, but I don't care that much about a high character detail.

He, indeed, commandos 2 still looks great. The animations are top notch.

 

[Texas Red]

The only engine you need for several years to come is that of ToEE. End of story. Period. It looks incredible even now and we arent even talking about modifing it. But of course Atari knows what the public wants, we can all be assure in this.

 

[Starwars]

I actually quite like the overall look of NWN2 (if we don't go into the interface), except for some character stuff. I love how the environments look. It has plenty of "eye candy" for my taste, and doesn't go overboard with it. Still feels like it's "meant" for a RPG.
It's to bad that so many people have problems with how it runs though. I haven't had any big problems, and my rig isn't the newest.

Hate how the original NWN for the most part, looked awful even at the time of release.

I have to say that I think WoW looks like shit, but that's mainly due to the design. I haven't seen the engine in action enough to get a feel for how it flows.

And yeah, I also think ToEE looks absolutely amazing. Love how it looks, and those disgusting Black Widow spiders really get to me even with the top-down perspective. Bleugh.

 

[Texas Red]

"It's to bad that so many people have problems with how it runs though. I haven't had any big problems, and my rig isn't the newest."

*I* have problems with the way NWN 2 runs. Basically, my specs are above the minimum and below the recommended. So obviously I should be able to play without mind-bending, brain cell-killing lagg, right? WRONG. Even if switch everything to the lowest, remove absolutely everything optional to the extent that the game looks worse than NWN 1, I *cant* play NWN 2 without immense constant stuttering. Some areas are moderately playable, while others such as the Neverwinter city brings tears to my eyes.

Damnit, the loading times give me brain AIDS. I cant even begin to imagine how the game must play on the computers that have only minimum requirements met. Those requirements published by Atari/Obsidian are LIES. I should sue them.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

Haven't seen NWN2 in motion just yet, but from the screenshots I found the characters to be a leeeettle meh looking as well. The first NWN makes me feel depressed after a while, and here's why: Nifty technology is just a tool. No more, no less. You can put together like a billion polygons, put just as many normal-mapped, high res textures onto them and call your creation a room, a character, a space rat or whatever: It might still look like utter shite and bore you out of your skull. Here's why: There's something called art direction, and by the very nature of all things, there's truly many, many rather meh looking stuff out there. WoW as a Blizzard game which have always been known for crisp art over technical glitz however, isn't one of these.

So, speaking about engines, that means technology, which is nothing more than a tool and nothing less: Don't fool yourself here. Better tech and more advanced engines can remove constraints placed onto designers, because usually they can do more. However, just because modern rigs can calculate all this stuff at like sixty thousand frames a second doesn't mean it needs to be there. Yes, yes, as video games are a product of technology they also sell on tech, and please don't pretend it's ever been different. But let's speak about something noble here. Something like artistic value. Integrity. And all that shit. :D Not every goddamn crisp design NEEDS to be like that. Check out "Darwinia" for instance. Of course, speaking about (photo-)realism and such, there's really no end to tech madness just yet. Even the most modern tools aren't up that task just quite yet.

Still, at the end of the day it's the human that uses these tools that makes all the difference in the World. Just so long as these tools aren't obsolete, that is. But then, I'm sure for some there's a point to be made for awesome_retro_aesthetics. Somewhere.

 

[Relayer71]

I'm not one for eye candy either - I think BG 2 and Planescape still look fine but it doesn't hurt to have a visually impressive presentation do draw you into the game even more (story, content come first, of course).

But I don't get it with so many players saying NWN2 looks bad. I've played it with max graphics, 4x AA, 16x AF and Bloom at a modest resolution (1024*768) and it looks pretty damn good to me. And it runs fine too now after all the patching.

I will say the first area in the game after the tutorial runs like shit even after all the patches. No idea why but this area is nothing but a slide-show at times but after that the game runs fine, no slow-down at all.

Some areas look less detailed than others but overall the game looks pretty good. It looks a hell of a lot better than NWN 1 does (THAT game looked pretty bad at release).

 

[Lumpy]

This is eyecandy:

 

[Relayer71]

I do agree the loading time sucks big time.

Seems a tiny bit better since last patch though.

 

[kingcomrade]

 

[Wild Slop]

I wish more/any games had moxy ratings