Difference of Graphics Discussion

The aforementioned "epic" weapons are an exaggeration that wouldn't fit Guild Wars' emphasis on skill over to who has the biggest weapon available.

Weapons have proper scale, landscapes are awesome.

If Guild Wars has problems, graphics is not one of them.

Which multi core CPU do you got and which OS?
I played GW on AMD 64X2 on Windows XP and Vista both 32/64bit versions, and never had your problem.
Might be you miss an update either from Intel/AMD or a MS hotfix.

Only problem I ran into with Vista32 so far is some sort of memory leak.
Even if I got 3 gigs of ram, the game crashes after loads of hours online and Windows prompts me with an OUT OF MEMORY error.
No fix for that yet though.

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 (2.4) on WinXP. I didn't know what the problem was until I saw it on here, apparently NCSoft support have recommended that multicore users should open up the taskmanager and turn off the affinity on CPUs 1 and upwards as GW is only designed to run off a single processor.

All a bit beyond me really, and unless I know someone else is relying on me not to crash I don't bother doing it every single time.

Got 2 gig of RAM and an Nvidia 8800 card, the game just looks incredible to me. Everything looks so much more 3 dimensional on a decent card.

I found one hotfix for Core 2 CPU's
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=936357

As well check for bios update and that you are using the latest Intel chipset driver http://downloadcenter.intel.com/defa..._nav2_download

The taskmanager solution seems is a poor solution.
And it is not related with GW, then all those I know using AMD X2's should have the same problem.
But we don't, so its something MS/Intel needs to fix.
I think the hotfix plus the most up to date Intel chipset driver should fix your issue.

You got Service Pack 2 running on that XP?
And are you using Windows Update as well?

Thanks Mineria, I'll look into it.
I have SP2 yes, updates I have set to nag me when they release them. I hate letting updates reboot my machine when I'm not there.

Oh noy, Lineage 2 was the legend of grind. It's an old days game, but still at lv 40 you get 10% exp per hour, lv 70 which used to be max it's 1%. Then they want you to rebirth again to lv 40 to do it again to get another class. Not much content, but the pvp and PK system is revolutionary!!! Pk anywhere except town, I won't go much into detail but it was good enough to stop players from pk crazy except a few griefers. It helped solve social problems and add drama. But there be no fmv scenes, those were just for advertising.

The graphics in the game are the best especially those night elves. If you had a good card the night elf's breast jiggle beats the Ele breast jiggle. L2 does'nt have jumping but it has falling lol which is like half way. The zones were "seamless" unless you had a bad computer in which you could actually see the seams, which would send you into a stuck state which was pretty much like a loading screen, except you could get Pk'ed and do noth about it.

I think GWs graphics makes you feel less in touch with your char because you're zoomed all the way back and you pretty much focus on your enemy's skills they are using and hardly movement unless you get the wall obstruction warning (if you use line of sight attacks). Because you auto target your target and can attack him without your screen facing him. Movement isn't much either unless you're hiding because it's auto attack and you automatically follow. Idk what people say about jumping in Gw2, we live in the future now, in which our servers can handle jumping and it adds tactical moving instead just standing still and brings character control to the player.

Hope this solves it for you.
I don't even get it to nag me, I prefer to use complete manual functions.

If this didn't solve your problem, let me know with a pm, and I will dive into some more geeky places.

so, hmm quite a sum of replies, while I was away ^^

I want repeat it once. I want not search for the "most best looking MMO out there", nor haven't I ever said, that L2 (god, sry for my wrong spelling of LA2, god forgive me XD) is in all kinds better than GW.
I said, both games have their pro's and con's and one pro of L2 versus GW is simple, that the Design of Characters, Weapons and Armors looks in general more interesting, more cooler, the stuff in L2 lets your characters really look powerful and mighty ...
That has in the end absolutely nothng to do with "Skill > Time" and that I want that such awesome looking weapons should be much strogner, then common looking weapons for GW2.
I want only for GW2, that the players should be able to create also such mighty looking characters (heroes/villains).

When i compare such design of L2 with the Design of GW, , then i must really ask me :

"Do our characters look in Elite-Armors and with Green Weapons equipped really mighty and powerful, compared to a 1 day old Noob in Starter Armor?"

Hmm, I say not really, especially when you think of the part, that the beginner don't needs much time and his noobish looking armor and stuff is at the same power, and that decreases somehow the appearance of Elite-Stuff to let your characters look mighty...
That changed only with EotN now a bit cause to the implementation of the special Gloves, which let your characters look mightier, when you equip for example the Destroyer/Chaos Gloves.

Sure, with up to date Graphic Cards ect. you can push up GW's graphics to its limits, but that changes not the fact, that stuff in l2, like Shields look alot more detailed, than common shields in GW (sure there are exceptions, thats normal, every game has certain exceptions, exceptions confirm the rules ^^)

@Mineria: is it forbidden to make compares with graphics of diffrent games ?
i think not ands sure not rude to make this discussion here.
this is a forum about GW, i compare with GW, so why should i not post this discussion here oO? Should I have posted it into a l2 forum maybe ?
there I would get flamed and whined by L2 fans, which would tell me the same stuff like you did, only from the other sight of view.
=====

Umm, people mentioned here now the kind of "style" both games have.
That L2 should be an Anime Game ... hmm, sry, but imo I don't think that ..
Anime styled RPG's are for example Ragnarok Online 1&2 or ROSE Online, but for sure not L2.

L2 is more like a, what I personally would call an "Gothic Medievil Fantasy"-Style. A Game, that is from its gamedesign compareable with for example the Free-MMORPG "RAPPELZ" in kind of Character Design, Weapon Design and Graphic Design.

Thats a Style, thats very near to realism, but it has certain points that are Main Points which you can observe on all characters in such games with this kind of Design.

Characters have to look:

-Sexy (especially females) > this is a Main Point
-should look more and more mighty so farer you get in the game
-Armors and Clothes are inpired by the 17th Century with a tough of Gothic, what you really see strongly at characters(classes) that have like a dark side or should look evil
-the character modesl are scaled on a normal realistic ration, there look Warriors like normal Men and not like Arnold Schwarzenegger-Clones like this is the fact in GW


The graphic designers of GW imo have a false view of realism, when it comes to my opinion.
The character model of the Warrior is somewhat of unrealistic, that i don't know,m if i should laugh or whine about it. look at the Wolf Picture-Compare I posted ..

L2's Wolfs are correct scaled and look like real realistic wolfs, when you look then at the Wolf of GW2, you get SCARED XD uhm, by its unrealistic uglyness.

Realism is nice and fine, but I think, GW could need at least for GW2 more "fantasy" and the fight system needs also an improvement imo (but thats an other thread i will post soon )
GW is in the end still an "Fantasy game" and not a "Realism Simulation" and I think, the game should show with GW2 more its nature as Fantasy Game.
When i would want GW to be a realism simulation, i could start playing better direct "the Sims" (what I won't do XD...crap game)

What do you think, will happen in GW2, when you as Human try to fight with a Norn Weapon ? Theoretically, if the game would be realistic, each 1H-Weapon from the Norn would be for every other race automatically a 2H Weapon and there would not exist such dumb things, like in GW1, like automatic size scaling (ever seen, what happens to the weapons, when a norn transforms into bearform ? weapon suddenly raises in size and is in bearform like 1,5 times bigger, then before o...hmm David Copperfield ingame ? XD)
and Dwarfs/Asura would be unable to weild anything of THAT size, because it would be normally simple too heavy for those races. *wants see, how an Asura weilds a 2H Sword, that is like 2,5 times bigger, than the Asura itself LOL*


However, in Kinds of Graphic improvements for GW2, I really hope, that also the Character and Weapon Design will get improved, that it becomes at least such high grade in details, like L2.

And let us all be truthfully ^^ ..who of us wants not to create in GW2 a character, that looks so awesome and mighty, like one of my example pictures there of L2 ?

I personally would die for it, when I could create in GW2 finally an awesome looking Characters, which fights with 2 1H Swords and which swords would look like those white/red ones on those several L2 examples.

Where I as player can then say only, when I look at my character

"OMG, I look so mighty, fear me ^^, who want's to duel me XD? *slaughter *gg*"

I say only ..looking mighty and powerful has not to mean, that your character must be really in the end powerful. The end of the story is ever the player itself and if you can play good your character with its Skills, there you can have thousands of godly looking weapons ect.
but such awesome looking stuff is it, for what very much players will "ever" strive for in in Games like L2,GW ect.

look at the armors in GW..nothing is good enough for the players, players scream in forums and ingame ever for more and better looking armors, that let their characters really look awesome... and then we players in GW get even more disappointed, because the "dumb" heroes receive much better looking elite armors, than we players, which are REALLY new and not only dumb reskins !!! Let this words melt on your tongues ... i don't think that somethign like that would ever happen in Games like WoW, or L2 ect., where dumb NPC's get better threatened, as the community... but that is now a bit too far OT XD

Back to the graphics. For GW2 I expect a game, that will offer us too some or at least ONE FMV Sequence. Cal that stuff "eye candies" but I think, such sequences are imo a MUST for every High End Game and GW2 will be one for sure, when I see than, that the older L2 even has them, than its kinda sad to see, that GW didn't had even at least 1...WoW versus that is like a whole cinema movie XD, imo thats too much, but it shows, when Anet really wants to stay in the rows of the High End games for future with GW2, then i think they have to make also some high end sequence(s) into their future game GW2 and when its only for the Opening and the Ending, imo the A and O of RPG's and in general for every "want to be succesful-Game"

hmm, so make some new thoughts and to read maybe next replies, I stop now first my novel XD

Alriiight! Class is over, it's post-cuttin' time.

Personal preferance. Example: I personally think that all the characters in LA2 look like skinny little pretty boy pansies. I much more prefer my rawr-buff Conan-ish Warrior in GW.

Depending on your outlook, this is a VERY good thing for Guild Wars. A lot of people hate that the gear determines your skill.

And I dunno, but that Primeval armor does look pretty menacing...

*shrug* A lot of what I've seen of LA2 reminded me a lot of the old anime Escaflowne. As to Rose and Ragnorok, those games are more Chibi than Anime.

...And some would argue that Rappelz is heavily anime influenced, as well.

Characters have to look:

How would the guys have to look to look "sexy?" If you mean by my guy having to look metrosexual, then I'm out.

Well you'd have to be pretty damn tough to be able to wear real heavy armor and a sword and shield that's as big as yourself.

You compared the warriors to being buff like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is in fact very real. So wouldn't that make warriors realistic?

And I'm not even going to comment about the wolf, because it's just a damn wolf.

Yes, we wanted cool armors. But I'm not sure how many of us wanted to look like this...(Notice that's supposed to be *heavy* armor.)

All in all, it's completetly personal preferance - and frankly, it seems a lot of people really like the way things are with their characters.

Lineage 2 certainly has some pretty looking armors and weapons, their environments are an entirely different story, and the same goes for their lackluster monster designs. Ultimately the game suffers not from bad design but bad gameplay, as the towns are far and few in between, and they're mostly ghost towns. The only people you'll see are the high lvl griefers and gankers parked outside of noob towns trying to ensure that you will never enjoy the game.

I'm also going to second Lyra on the animations in GW: Best animation I've ever seen in an RPG (it's really spoiled me, though.)

FMVs that don't use the in game engine are just a waste of money, imo.

Guild Wars does it right using OUR characters with what they are wearing, weapons, dye, height etc, instead of a canned FMV.

And I dont know how you can look at L2 isnt anime style...Look at the dwarves!


Have you actually played L2 Phoenix Tears?

L2 uses HIGHER RESOLUTION textures. But the polys and overall game resolution are the same. L2 also focuses a LOT on really really flashy, impractical weapons. Their bows look friggin amazing!

But this isnt because their graphics are BETTER.

Its because their art style and direction is leaning towards extraneously detailed items.

Guild Wars can easily handle that direction in graphics if Anet wanted it.

Dont even get me started on Rappelz....all that game has going for it is its pet system.

Lol ^

....

There is a fix, but it is a manual download not through Windows update. I'll find it when I get home.

lol, it feels akward to see the dwarfs get married. Either that man on the left is really really rich, or someone should call the police.

Well...id say RO2 has some of the best animations for me...their lifenoise is AMAZING. Things like your character looking at her nails...or scratching. Very subtle things. Blinking, smiling, etc.The emotes are great (KISS EMOTE FTW!!) and its generally very full of character.

Plus she dances!


GW by comparison has very stiff and stoic faces.

^ /shudder

I was going to go into quote mode but Bryant and Lyra have said enough already methinks.

edit: Ooops.. Shudder was the for the post above the one above me. (post lag ftl)

Make sense?

/runs away.

Offtopic:

^^;; my ex said that Ragnarok 2 was turning her into a pedophile!! Worse than L2 when YOU fall in love with what looks like an underage character.

I'd much rather they spend the efforts of their art team working on the game itself, than some honestly pointless cinematic that I'm going to watch once and forget about after. If I want to watch some animated movie, I'll go watch a separate movie. In GW, I'm here for the game. No cinematic, no big deal. So when it comes to my own priorities, I consider that one to be way way down the chain.

Also, I'm really not into that "My character looks like a pure badass" business. I don't want to run around with swords bigger than I am, or armor that makes you question how your character put it on in the first place. I think the great majority of GW armors have a lovely and solid design, and their concept art is simply amazing. The only reason a lot of that concept art doesn't get into the game itself are engine and armor system restrictions. However as much of the engine is going to get an upgrade, we can expect the art team's creativity to be even more evident. (The way GW handles armors is also why Heroes are able to have the armor they do, and our characters aren't yet capable of that.)

GW is not a "realism simulator," it simply has a more realistic style than some of the other games brought up in this thread. Many people like that, many people like something else more. But this is a choice made by the Anet team, and I for one prefer that they stick to it instead of WoW's exaggerated features or L2's anime-inspired appearance.

Also:

What female in GW isn't sexy? Just because not all of them are popping out of their bras like the Dark Elves, doesn't mean they're not beautiful models. I personally love them, and I don't want to see them become anything like the elves in L2,

Make it stop...please.

nah, haven't played it yet, but I've seen lots of Screenshots, really LOTS XD.
The picture you've showed there shows us a L2 character with the size and the design of a teenager child with an age of say 15-17


When you compare your picture, with mine, you'l see, that this character looks versus the stereotype szie of "normal" characters more like really a child and not like an adult man/woman, which look there, as if they are at an age of like 20-25

(this is again something i really wish me for GW2, where you can give your characters an age and that your chara will also look than more, like really a character at that age, in GW everything looks like being 20-25, you can')t create in GW characters, that look more like teenagers or like older characters, in the end, ever the voices of sequences will ever show, that it sounds like a young character, even when you tried to create something, that should look like an old grandpa XD

Again, i never said, that Graphics of L2 are in genral better, than those of GW ... both have pros and cons ...

Anime is more, than only big eyes, big boobs and cute lookings ...

^^ Bows like this ?
http://sunny.solvir.de/uploads/image/Shot00024.jpg

this grade of character detail is somewhat of awesome T.T
http://www.l2nordic.dk/cms/media/pics/frontl.jpg

Yes, L2 has better effects, spells and skills looks simple more awesome in that game, than most stuff in GW and i know, that GW could be more like L2 in kind of such thigns, but this would surely mean, that we could expect the also monthly fees oO just for better effects ect.
=========

Ragnarok Online/2 is not Chibi ..its anime (there exists even an own Anime of that game, even mangas)
Chibis are animes, where the scale ration is totally different.
There are for example the Head, the hands and the Legs MUCH bigger scaled, than the Body...that are marks signs of a Chibi.
RO(2) has that all not

Characters in both games look well proportioned
http://dailyscreenshots.de/screensho...version-120951 > RO1

http://img460.imageshack.us/img460/7...3534310rm2.jpg > RO2

only Rose- Online I would say, itse more like a fusion of Chibi/Anime MMO, because there there characters scaling goes slightly more into the direction of Chibis (all being very small looking and cute, with slightly bigger heads, or oversized stuff, like too big looking helms ect.

Eh, I don't know. When looking at all the L2 screenshots (and having played it too) in comparison with GW, I'm leaning towards the latter. L2 is pretty in some ways, but... Sometimes it's just too much. A lot of designs just feel bloated.

Lately Ive mainly seen dwarfs wearing Bronze armor with names like "yhsd", "tjhu" and "fskel"
Never ran into gankers, clan politics are pretty strong on retail.
An who wants to get a lootable target for the strong clans anyway?

No, but look at your words written.
I don't think it is nice to dis a game on a fansite like that.
Would be the same if I posted on WoW forums with my opinion about WoW looking to cartoonish.
It's ok that you got your opinion, I just don't think the way you did it is nice.
PS. And like I said, research a bit about the game itself, because some of the designs are a 0.001/100% chance to get for keep, and others are not keepers at all. I think it is important that if you want to compare, show something from the game that is more possible.
Like the Avadon set or the Doom Shield.
And if you want to post a Spellhowler set and calling it godly, post some A grade.

I agree that the armors/weapon got more details and are more gothic compared to GW's.

But we got as much environmental details, even more then L2 in explorable areas. Btw. the town you posted is Aden which is the pretty part.
Try to go other places like some of the starter towns.

Monsters are a matter of taste, they look as good in both games.

About you GW2 concerns, there is a reason already stated by Anet.
New engine, which means newer graphics.

Btw. did you check out the Aion videos?
Thats NC Soft's next big mmo, runs beta in korea atm. (even the U2 engine has its limits)
Check plaync.com there is a link to the official site.

There some things that are 100% anime in L2. Note that those are screenshots from retail.

Female Dwarfs


Hatchlings


Summons





Baby Pets

bloated oO ? lol come on, when here does any MMO does look bloated in the Scene, then its WoW ...

http://www.noggaddicts.com/wp-conten...11/warlock.jpg
http://teza1.free.fr/bc/Tiers%205%20...k_Bloodelf.jpg
http://wow.ingame.de/szene/mg-interview.jpg < rofl > Pseudo Asura *g*

PS: some of your posted pics look awesome Mineria, wish we would have in GW such cute Minipets lool

uhm, yes, ok, thats a part of the game, where it shows stuff, that is more stuffe like you await it from an anime, right, i mean at least such silly stuff, like bunny ears..

i personally have nothing about anime style looking summons, summons are in the end only fantasy creatures and are part pf the fantasy of the game itself, there is no way that you could make summons look not like this style, the only thing that changes this is the factor, if those summons should look more cute, or more evil which makes imo the decision, if a summon looks more like some anime thing, or more fearsome


god, how would i wish to hatch my own little Dragon in GW2 ^^ XD i would die for my own dragon in GW2 to be able to fly with it then later where ever i want to be ^^ *bye bye map travel lol*
Hmm what you call then the Event Hats of GW ? like the Pumpkin Heads I think each game has anywhere its little stuff of Anime ... Anime Style is a simple good way to give a game more fantasy and as said, GW is no Realism Simulation ^^
Would this be so, we would finally have our realistic war battles, GW would be only for players of an age of 18+ ,and we could slaughter us from war to war XD, hack off body parts of our enemies and blood would shoot out of all holes XD

I actually played this damn game for 2 months!

Of course the character is short, its a DWARF. Its not a teenage child!

I've said this already:

No, its just the art direction.

The lack of flashy things isnt a matter of inability, or lack of monthly fees.

Guild Wars isn't flashy, period. It's much more realistic (still not true realism, but way more realistic).

Do you even draw or study anime/manga art/design?

Ive been watching and drawing anime and manga for over 20 years. Me and my exgf played the korean RO2 beta. stop..just stop talking gibberish.

No, WoW to me is exaggerated. L2 is bloated because of its heavy use of decorative elements.

WoW uses VERY low resolution textures compared to GW or L2.

That may not be the ugliest weapon I've ever seen, but it's certainly right up there with the uuugliest.

Anyway, what's the point of this post. So, you think Lineage looks better than GW. So, go play Lineage.

I always thought that most Guild Wars weapon art was bland or lost in translation to the game. A perfect example was the Glacial Sword. The concept art looks amazing but when it got put into the game its amazing look was toned down 8 notches.

There are a few exceptions to the rule. But most of it was not too well done.

^^ Ya i agree, the weapons look so much better in concept art form. I know its hard to replicate the art into the game, but sometimes the scale of the weapons are too small to see any details.

L2 to me is definitely heavy on the anime theme. GW is sticks close to reality.

Lol, pseudo Asura? You really haven't played WoW either have you, an Asuran would get lost trying to find his way out from between a Tauren's toenails.


Seriously, get a trial key, go and grind a bit (because you will need to grind for high end epic gear and weapons) and then compare the graphics. Using posed screenshots (or watching FMVs) to judge and compare the games just isn't going to be enough to make an objective comparison between these games.

WoW uses a single 256x256 texture for their character and an additional 128x128 texture for armors. (depending on armor tier lvl)

GW uses 512x512 texture for the interchangable armors while the faces and hands use a single 256x256 texture.

L2 uses a variety of texture sizes much like WoW, ranging from lower resolutions, to 512x512 textures much like GW.

It's just technical specs, but whether you like the art or not is a matter of opinion and perspectives. If you can stand all that anime-ish art, then it's good.

Having this weapon (Demonic Sword Zariche) will get you killed.
It has to be ugly because it is evil.

Not sure what that has to do with what I posted, but yeah... I was talking about the style of art itself.

Erm.. not all epics look cool.
Remember when the pink spandex Paladin set was introduced?
I remember clearly the word Paladins said.
Or some of the Hunter sets...

Some of them are not worth raiding for cause of their look, only the better stats.

WoW looks good to, but it has more a cartoon like art style.

IMO Guild Wars only needs one thing to improve it's graphics, which is texture resolution. This is not really a problem limited to Guild Wars but in many games; there is a nice rendering engine, nice shaders but the main textures just are not detailed enough. This especially is visible on other player characters where the texture detail seems to be crippled to gain some performace.

So, my wish would be to see as high texture resolutions as possible. Up to 4096x4096 for the largest tiles. Texture compression technologies like S3TC/DXTC should handle it nicely. Of course, there also should be an option to reduce texture detail for players with older hardware or on-board graphics which may have trouble handling that much detail.


And no, I don't want any anime-style graphics. Let's not make GW like Final Fantasy and keep the graphics realistic.

Why did I know, that at least one of those typical

"You like this more than..than go there-Answers" will be posted XD

Fact is: this is not true

Lol, I think that must've been before my time. Plus I play Horde, but I do have a Paladin (cheapo mounts ftw!).

Good point about the epics though.

I like WoW too, I think it's going to have to do some thinking about upping the ante on it's textures and poly counts at some point in the future, how that would be possible without re-writing the engine I don't know and the sheer size of the work involved would be enormous on a game that size.

What's not true?

The idea that if you don't like the current game you're playing, then you should try to join something you like? Or do you think that when Quaker stated his personal opinion that something was ugly, you think he's lying?

If you don't like something. stop doing it.

Fact is: this is true

I meant with that, that its not true, that I dislike GW, only because i compare it with L2, thats something i could hear out of his comment and that I should go play L2, when i don't like GW...