Sooo. How AWESOME will the graphics be in Guild Wars 2?

A few things have been revealed about Guild Wars 2 and so far it's sounding pretty darn good. ArenaNet can consider me hyped for their next game, I have very high hopes for it. There's been some talk about what will be different, and that there will be races to choose from (!) instead of just humans. Buuuuuut...

There hasn't been any info on the graphics as of yet. And I'm very curious how Guild Wars 2 will look like, graphically! Is it going to feature some ground-breaking graphics like the original Guild Wars for its time or is it going to be a minor upgrade from the original? I'm hoping for the former of course, and that is what is most likely. If ArenaNet knows a thing or two, it's definately graphics and how to make it run nice and smooth across every mainstream PC...

Any word on this?

Theyve said that it will be able to run on medium-range PC's. I expect them to be good, but it's not going to be crysis.

You should care more about game being actually fun to play.

I personal would prefer a game that i can run to some HD super graphics game as my comp will be way out of date in 2 years

Graphics attract players, but gameplay keeps them.

I wouldn't be surprised if the graphics are superb; but then again, so were Guild Wars 1's. There isn't a huge cause to upgrade the graphics even further when so much gameplay needs prior work.

As mentioned, I hope that if they do raise the level of graphics significantly, it will still be able to run on lower specs.

Well, it most likely will be a Direct X 10 game...so I'll be needing a new GFX card anyhoo!

So basically you ask what will pc graphics look like in 2 years time?

Lets just waiiiiiiiiit.... and see.

Nope, its already been stated that it will run on Dx9, which is very good methinks

DX10 doesn't really bring graphics improvements, it's just a way for MS to force people into Vista.
The first DX10/DX9 comparisons benchmarks (like Call of Juarez) actually rely on improved textures to get an improved look, except that DX9 could run those textures just fine as well (as modders proved), and DX9 even ran the "DX10 shaders" faster.

Right now, DX10 is still a dud. Maybe there are hidden goodies, but given what has been coming from MS lately, I doubt it.

The graphics will be *measures out with hands* this good.

Of course I know it's going to be good. I have some common sense too you know. I just want to hear the details to get me hyped a little.

Guild Wars 2 will be awesome to play, I have zero doubts about that, honestly. I care more about gameplay than graphics, but that doesn't mean I can't discuss the graphics... I don't see what you're getting at, bro.

I'm guessing that the graphics for GW2 will be better than the ones for Pong.

I think they will be worse than Guild Wars 1. Why? It's a persistant world: if the game had the graphic quality outside of towns with the same number of people inside towns, along with spells and effects, it would murder most computers.

That's how WoW can do 40v40 battles; graphics aren't that detailed, but they are efficient. I don't think Guild Wars could handle a 40v40 battle with the current engine.

You make an excellent point. Unforunately we don't know quite how exactly the world of Guild Wars 2 will be persistent. From the examples ArenaNet has given us, they meant persistent that your actions permanently change certain things and they remain that way. So those are persistent and don't change when you zone back in and out. Or something. Btw I've never been in a 40vs40 battle in WoW. But overal, looking at how many things are on the screen, Guild Wars runs better than WoW. But I agree that they are not entirely comparable due to the true MMORPG nature of WoW.

But I don't think Guild Wars 2 will have worse graphics to accomodate the things you have in WoW, simply because I believe it won't have to accomodate those things, i.e. it won't be a regular MMORPG where you need to be able to display 100+ characters at once, tops.

I believe the graphics will be far better then GW1.

Firstly they have stated the game will run on DX9, however I believe this to be a minimum. Im sure the game will support DX10 features with a DX9 card required to run it with the settings turned down.

Since GW1 requires a DX8 card, there will surely be a vast improvement.

Also, If they stated the game will run on mid range computers, dont forget that means mid range computers in two years time when they release the game, and considering that right now mid range is Nvidia 8600 and ATI 2600 (out in a few days), that will be very advanced.

i think they will be great
but i prefer more bigger fights like massive ab then graphics xD

GW1 graphics are pretty sweet, I wouldn't even mind if there wasn't a noticeable difference.

I hope that the graphic part of the game will have good scaling options, so that a wide range of people (with different computer specs) will still be able to play the game.

That would be in sync with the low requirement on bandwidth that they have right now and the monthly-fee absence that allows all sorts of people to play this game. I sure love the concept; quality online game for ALL!

Having said that, I do hope that the aesthetics in the game will shine brighter on high-end systems!

And it will be interesting to see how they are going to cope with the number of simultaneous players. It REALLY is fun when you have a big group to fight with...

Screw GW2... What do you think the graphics will be like for GW3?!?!?!

the pc gamer article of yore said a bit about it. new shaders, as well as race specific looks via shaders... a new unified armor system... basically all next gen goodies that you can turn off if your computer is lame. I think there still has to be some tradeoff. You can't do 200 mb's of textures per area for a giant streaming game so don't expect it to look like crysis. if they exercise careful balance over image quality vs. space constraints, which they already did in GW1, then I see no reason why it won't look good.