Elder Scrolls Online Screenshots Fail To Impress

[R Man]

It's not the graphics quality so much as the art style. Its too cartoony. It is utterly foolish to use this style because A: Its not the Elder Scrolls style and B: It competes directly with WOW. You can't compete with WOW on it's own turf. Why would an established WOW player leave WOW for what is essentially a clone?

As for the Elder Scrolls art style, yeah, Morrowind has poor graphics. But it's not afraid to have dark lines, and metalic colour. In those shots the colours are too washed out and appear to be lacking in texture.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

Well I groaned out loud the second I heard about an Elder Scrolls MMO and my expectations are through the floor and on their way to the center of the Earth so there isn't much I can see that will lower them further.
An MMO is so much against why I play an Elder Scrolls game that I don't think anything could make me interested in it, which I guess makes me way too biased to even post in these threads.

 

[CleverCover]

Wait, I thought this thing was getting canned. It's still going?

And graphics seem fine. It looks colorful. I like that.

Is this game becoming "Skyrim with co-op?". Because I might actually play that. I know I would have loved to have my brother join me on a quest or two in Oblivion if they could manage it.

 

[Seanfall]

It's not just those two. A bunch of screens and a concept art came out with the teaser:

Spoiler

Myself, I don't mind the visuals as much as the typical MMO combat. They've promised some caveats like a stamina system with universal skills like blocking, sprinting, dodging, heavy/light attack, but I'm not really hyped.

Those....kiiiiinda look better. My biggest grip is that their taking one of my favorite, scratch that, MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE single player RPG and turning it into another frigging MMO. And yes I'm worried about the combat too. Especially since Skyrim's combat was a step in the right direction this seems like a massive step back. And from what I've heard/read about the systems (which isn't much I'll admit) it seems like a WOW clone....a WOW clone with WOW's dick in it's mouth.

Funny story....told my Friend at work who play's skyrim about this, he threw his hands in the air and said. "Well after I finish Skyrim I'm done gaming, cause every game series I like turns into another fucking MMO." Can't say I blame him.

 

[Seanfall]

Wait, I thought this thing was getting canned. It's still going?

And graphics seem fine. It looks colorful. I like that.

Is this game becoming "Skyrim with co-op?". Because I might actually play that. I know I would have loved to have my brother join me on a quest or two in Oblivion if they could manage it.

No it's a new story, but from what can be gathered the gameplay is almost a carbon copy of wow's combat system. I don't know if it's going to STAY that way but it's disconcerting to say the least.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

Jesus Christ, what is with all the D3 Q.Qing about it having -colors- and calling it a WoW ripoff? And how the fuck did WoW effect StarCraft 2, except by giving them more money to work with?

 

[Jynthor]

People aren't complaining about colours, they're complaining about the cartoony and bland art style. In some places Skyrim was very colourful as well but it wasn't cartoony and it fit the game.

 

[DeepComet5581]

Seriously.

As has been stated, the game hasn't actually been put into an Alpha stage yet. Why is everyone dumping on it like it's akin to the end of time?

The graphics look like World of Warcraft? What kind of futuristic, SuperWoW have YOU been playing? Last I saw it looked something like this [http://www.football-spot.com/blog/images/wallpapers/world-of-warcraft.jpg].

TES MMO looks like...

How does that even compare? Not to mention that the graphics are almost guarenteed to be updated at least once before the game comes out. Also, these are a few screenshots of the game - One is even a concept art. How can you judge the styling based on a few images that may or may not be direct screenshots from the game?

Also, I don't know about you, but the screenshots certainly gave a feel of Elder Scrolls to me. The Storm and Flame Atronachs are instantly recognisable, as is the stylising on the armours in the above picture. Maybe it's just me, but i'm not seeing much World of Warcraft in this.

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

Funny becuase I see TONS of TES in those screens..... and ive been playing the series since daggerfall.

No it's a new story, but from what can be gathered the gameplay is almost a carbon copy of wow's combat system. I don't know if it's going to STAY that way but it's disconcerting to say the least.

It is acually more of a guild Wars 2 copy then a WoW copy.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

TES has a very authentic visual style. If they make this into just another high fantasy MMO I'm not going anywhere near it. It has to look like TES. And TES has a gritty and somewhat believable medieval fantasy aesthetics.

 

[Hattingston]

Not really seeing the WOW graphics comparison, to be honest. No, it doesn't go for photo realism. Cartoon graphics =/= WOW graphics. The proportions don't look that off to me, and the characters' features aren't nearly as exaggerated as they are in WOW.
Also, remember that Game Informer screenshots can be terrible. I remember seeing Dragon Age 2 in game informer and thinking the graphics looked horrid, not in terms of aesthetic, but in terms of fidelity.
That being said, it does look very bland, and doesn't really seem to distinguish itself from other fantasy MMOs. I did recognize the storm atronachs though. It looks like the characters are wearing fairly early armor (chainmail and cloth) so hopefully armors like Orcish, Dwemer, Elven, etc will look more distinguishable and unique.

 

[Jegsimmons]

When are these companies going to get it through their heads?

We wanted KOTOR 3, not an MMO.
We wanted Dragon Quest X to be a single player JRPG, not an MMO.
We don't want the next TES games to be an MMO.

Sure, you say it's not TES VI but it's own separate project. You know it's going to affect TES VI.

Also, I just think people are sick of MMO's. People who want that will play WoW but many people have been on that roller coaster for years and are finally sick of it.

I'm sorry, but where did you get this ability of yours to speak for every other gamer? Last I checked, you weren't actually in a position to assume what I, or anyone else wants.

Thanks.

Ridiculous. This should be a brown and gray first person shooter with "gritty" imagery.

Don't forget space marines wearing fridges power armour and sounding like they gargle gravel for breakfast.

its not even in alpha yet, why are we already bitching?

Because the vocal portion of the gaming community is made up of socially awkward teenagers and individuals incapable of accepting anything less than perfection from the very beginning. Remember, these are the same people who consider a new MMO having a little over 1million active subscribers to be a failure.

Perspective, they have not. Entitlement, they are full of. /Yoda

movie bob's mass effect 3 video was right.
a good chunk of gamers are just self entitled little bitches who wine about anything.
(yet for some reason criticisms of progressively bad games like the call of duty series is falling on deaf ears)

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

movie bob's mass effect 3 video was right.
a good chunk of gamers are just self entitled little bitches who wine about anything.
(yet for some reason criticisms of progressively bad games like the call of duty series is falling on deaf ears)

They don't want change; they want the next amazing thing to happen over night.

 

[Something Amyss]

And the entire game should be spent looking down iron-sights

Hell yeah! How did I miss that?

Don't forget space marines wearing fridges power armour and sounding like they gargle gravel for breakfast.

And they should all be voiced by Nolan North, even the women!

I didn't say that at all in my OP. I said that I am sick of all MMOs taking the same cartoony approach to visual design. It doesn't look like an Elder Scrolls game, and if you didn't put the logo up there, I could easily mistake it for something else.

This isn't about you, brah. This is about how to make the game awesomer! Just chillax, and let me pitch my ideas for the most awesomest game evar!

 

[w00tage]

Dammit, I was hoping it would have at least Oblivion style graphics, not this...this...World of Warcraft knock-off.

The more vibrant, stylized aesthetic is used because it "Ages" better than "realistic" graphics, and MMOs need to maintain graphical fidelity and relevance throughout their lifespan.

I agree they need to maintain their appeal, but you're working on a false premise. It's true that most MMO makers either transfer or fire many employees when the game is released and shift to "maintenance mode" where they try to minimize costs, and therefore there's no support for upgrading art assets over time. However, that doesn't mean you have to go that route.

For instance, if Bethesda decides to release another single-player TES game, there's a strong possibility that they could port those textures over to the MMO, even if they had to charge a modest fee for the effort. MMOs can run with different textures on different clients (EQ2 has that mechanic now), so there's no technical limitations in that regard.

It's not about texture resolution or model polycount, dammit!

The biggest obstacle for graphical upgrades are engine limitations, and overhauling the rendering engine of an MMO is NOT a task that can be done lightly. Even today, when people keep pointing out all the "High Res" Morrowind Mods that "Bring it up to current-gen specs", the game's graphics are still horribly dated due to the engine limitations.

There have been numerous breakthroughs in graphics and how their handles: Texture mapping (Bump Mapping, Normal Mapping, etc.) gets overhauled every few years, as do lighting and draw systems. You can't slap a hi-res texture and multipoly model on an outdated graphics engine and say "There, it's Current-gen Graffix again!" and get away with it (No, the Creation Engine is not identical to Gamebryo.)

That's all true and we can stipulate it, but it doesn't invalidate my point that the real reason MMOs don't get ongoing upgrades, and therefore use visual trickery like cartoony graphics to hide its age, isn't that the developers can't make new art for the game.

It's that the developers who made the original engine, and therefore can absolutely make not only new art, but entirely new engines as time goes on, have been either fired or transferred to other projects in the name of maximising profits. The game is placed in an artificial concept called "maintenance mode" in which the least amount of possible effort and time is spent on it.

It's as if these companies think they're building commercial real estate and trying to maximize their rental revenue until the building finally falls down, at which point they'll bulldoze it because "hey, we got our money from the tenants, what do we care?". Of course it's only a matter of time until it becomes shabby-looking, then a slum, then empty, then bulldozed Then the company claims victory and starts the entire process over again.

Re my example, I did specify art assets, but imagine if, since we're talking about both a single-player and MMO version of a game, Bethesda first rolled the SP version of the new TES title, and then used the same engine and assets to make the MMO title. And with every new SP title, they rebuild the MMO title with the new engine and assets. (I would think this would get easier over time as they commonalize more of the assets).

See what I'm saying now? If the game isn't placed into "maintenance mode" and instead gets regular updates, you don't have to pull tradeoffs like cartoony graphics to extend the lifespan of the visual acceptance of the game.

Edit: and actually, let me also disagree with your OP, that you need a whole new engine to stay current. True, but the debate was to extend visual longevity, and new art DOES work for that. I modded the original Deus Ex with the New Vision mod, and holy crap did it improve things. It wasn't perfect since the game is very old and the modder couldn't do a lot of things like backgrounds, but I'd rate it as bringing the retextured surfaces to about 2007-2008 levels, and that's a lot of offset obsolescence.