Graphics Debate

HDR, linear shadow/lightning, geometry shading, and sub-lighting per pixel rasterization.

GW2's engine is horrifically advanced compared to GW1's. It also relies a lot on the art style as well.


Uh, running GW1 on high will barely increase the temps on your GTX 460... the 460 breezes through Guild Wars as if it was Pong or Tetris.... Seriously, crank it up. You have the hardware, use it. Silicon only starts to really degrade past 80C.

Anyone who's done any modeling work for games (for instance, in gmax for mods or whatever) will tell you that it takes real skill to make a model that looks amazing while also having a low poly count. Any stooge can make high poly models - that just leads to engine bloat, and games that have trouble running on older or low-end machines. And like that "Graphics vs Aesthetics" video says, it doesn't always lead to games that look better.

I think GW looks great considering how long it's been around. More aesthetically pleasing than WoW, for sure (imo).

100% agreed. What are we going to have with graphics bloat in 10 years? A GPU that takes half the power your house uses to process the polygons? GW looks great for its age and polygon count is certainly not the end all be all of graphics.

we have those already, and they are used for science, not silly video games

guess what, they're still not fast enough

lol, too true!

Things are getting better GPU and power wise though. My latest system has Dual GT460's and uses less power than my old single GT275.

Then again, if I had gone to the very top of the graphics mountain today I would need a new panel in my house with 400 amp service. Okay, maybe not that bad.

I like the post process effects and cool glowy nonsense. It adds more glow to my chaos gloves.

Well for me the gfx of WoW has made me not want to play it so gfx do count for me.

At the time of release the min reqs for guildwars were easily met by a three years old mainstream pc. Older games then guildwars frequently had higher demands.

They did a remarkable job.

I still think Guild Wars looks better than WoW. It's all cartoons anyway which might be the reason.

they didn't cater to mac's

lol why the hell would they.

lol why the hell would they cater to old pc's?

it is logical Guildwars came out in 2005 and the popularity of mac started to increase post 2006 with the release of the macbooks. The share of gamers in 2005 using an apple product/OS was too small to cater too at that time. I guess it was not worth the trouble at that time as probably as the costs were estimated higher than expected sales.

catering for old pc's is because of the competition in the mmo market (WoW taking most of it) if you expand your target group (as in lower the requirements so more computers are able to run GW) You will achieve more sales instead of losing customers because they cant run the game.

wow can run on mac's

wow was an established franchise and not a new IP, Warcraft III was immensely popular.

still following the biggest player does not always guarantee the maximum profit/sales.

from a research in gartner in 2006 apple:
Worldwide Mac Market Share
1Q 2005: 2.2%
1Q 2006 (ZDNet): 2.3%
1Q 2006 (AI): 2.0%

From these percentage a part is gamer and will buy games and then not even all will consider buying gw.

i don't get how being a new ip is relevant

additionally, your argument only satisfies if you are calling anet/ncsoft incompetent at forecasting

thus, any argument you apply to defend gw's catering to old hardware can be used to attack their inability to adapt to a different platform

-One thing I like about GW - especially when compared to titles like WoW or LOTRO - is the realistic look to the graphics. Just because an RPG is a 'fantasy' game, doesn't mean it needs to look like a cartoon.

-GW runs fine on a Mac, provided, of course, that you install Windows or an emulator. And in case you think that's 'unfair', it's basically the same for any PC. Considering what a Mac costs, you'd think it would come with Windows.

lol, right

0/10

A new Ip makes a difference, You are not sure if they will buy your product. With a set franchise you have a following, who will buy your product no matter what. A new Ip will at best have a miniscule group who will buy the at its introduction period.

Not adepting to a new platform does not always stem from inability. New products/Ip's always need decisions on what not to include in their product. (again cost vs possible profit).

Their decision to cater towards older computers is probably based on increasing their target group and pitting that against a 2.2% market share of mac's globally of which not all owners are people who buy games, the decision is easily made.

Lets make it clear that i am not bashing mac's they are an fine alternative to an traditional windows pc.

Guildwars graphics mainly its art style is great (its much more refined than other mmo's from the same era).

For a six year old game, Guild Wars has aged gracefully and still looks fantastic.

The game is 6 years old *sigh*

Polygon count means nothing.

Models are usually made in high definition first, and then the models have their polygon count reduced to tone down the requirements.
If a game has models with high polygon count, it only shows that they have mediocre modelers that can't make models look good without a high polygon count.

A really good modeler can make really good models with low polygon count.


One good example are the models in Phantasy Star series.
If you look closely, I mean, REALLY close, they are extremely simple models. In some cases they are like a couple of triangles and a cube put together.
But without shader or light effects, just models and textures, the modelers where able to fake volumes and shapes where there are none.
Of course, these old models may look horribly bad to us now, but when they were first made, they looked great, specially considering their extremely low polygon counts.


And well, if you look in Steam, there's a game that has been on the top sellers for a long time by now, and it still is: Terraria.
That thing is in 2D, its default resolution is 800x600, with sprites increased in size with a simple x2 that let their pixels show, and well... you can Youtube 'Terraria' and see for yourselves.

The thing only keeps getting more and more players.


So graphics really mater?
No, to gamers, they don't mater.
They only mater to pompous elitist jackasses.

it has a tight correlation with high quality graphics, realism, immersion, so yes, it does count

it's the statistical outliers that you mentioned that means nothing