21 réponses à ce sujet

[SleeplessInSigil]

There's been a lot of pointless (IMO) arguments over RPG subgenres and engines and whatnot in various threads here recently.


You got to wonder: For games which focus on storyline and the characters which take part in that story, why even bother having a full-3D engine if the interaction with the world is going to remain crippled and confined to rails as in Dragon Age?


DA could have served its purpose just as sufficiently if it were in a fixed-overhead view a la Baldur's Gate, or better yet, a pseudo-2D/3D hybrid like Temple of Elemental Evil (which, even without any fan-made patches that fix all the unfortunate bugs, is still the best and most-accurate D&D engine in any computer game ever, and hence the one with the most depth in CRPG rules-systems and stuff.)

Maybe it could have zoomed-in to the full character models only during dialogs and cutscenes, similar to the way DA does, but really; when you are confined to navigating over preset paths and allowed to interact with a handful of predefined objects in the scenery, from among several identical dummies - is the 3D perspective of DA really worth it? Especially when it tends to make certain tasks more annoying instead of helping with them (like targeting far-away enemies, for one.)


You really can't decry games like Final Fantasy or Fallout 3 etc. for focusing on "just having eye-candy" and then demand the same in games you champion for their plot like DA, that is just hypocrisy.


There's plenty of modern games that tell a story just as well as DA, if not better, and are 2D or have substandard 3D engines while still more-or-less maintaining the same level of interaction as DA, like most of the TellTale Games point-&-click adventures (the new Monkey Island and Sam & Max etc.)

Modifié par SleeplessInSigil, 17 février 2010 - 03:29 .

[Godak]

SleeplessInSigil wrote...

...that is just hypocrisy.

Welcome to the internet.

[Baracuda6977]

rather than cut to 2d 2.5d or psuedo3d, i would rather keep it 3d but cut the graphics down to somethingy artsy that doesnt cripple the engine and gives off a better feel ala borderlands, no more heroes, and hell you could even compare it to anime in that instead of going for detail it goes for a feeling (usually)



i dont need realism in my games personally

[xODD7BALLx]

How could anybody think Fallout had nothing but "eye candy", must have fallen asleep during the Escape the Vault portion of the game, and then walked around for 3 minutes and said "where's the bustling life and excitement in this wasteland result of a nuclear holocaust?" and then quit.

[SleeplessInSigil]

Operative84 wrote...

How could anybody think Fallout had nothing but "eye candy", must have fallen asleep during the Escape the Vault portion of the game, and then walked around for 3 minutes and said "where's the bustling life and excitement in this wasteland result of a nuclear holocaust?" and then quit.

There are THOSE amongst us! who would shatter our hopes for peace, my darling America. These.. these agitators, don't care about YOU or ME .. 

[Vaeliorin]

The only graphical demand I have for a game is a rotatable camera (hence requiring a 3-D engine.) Beyond that, I couldn't really care less about graphical fidelity. I simply hate how 2D games seem to think that it's interesting or original to hide items behind part of the scenery. My character (and by extension, me) should be able to see anything that's in front of him, not just what's visible from an isometric perspective.

[SleeplessInSigil]

Vaeliorin wrote...

The only graphical demand I have for a game is a rotatable camera (hence requiring a 3-D engine.) Beyond that, I couldn't really care less about graphical fidelity. I simply hate how 2D games seem to think that it's interesting or original to hide items behind part of the scenery. My character (and by extension, me) should be able to see anything that's in front of him, not just what's visible from an isometric perspective.

Reminds of the argument over in/visible traps on the FO3 boards (one of those character-skill versus player-skill issues.)

[Jae Onasi]

I agree that story trumps graphics, though I would like some thing that looks better, than, say, Atari's Space Invaders. I know, I have such high standards. It's sad.

[Godak]

Jae Onasi wrote...

I agree that story trumps graphics, though I would like some thing that looks better, than, say, Atari's Space Invaders. I know, I have such high standards. It's sad.

If it's better than Pong, it's A-OK in my book.

...And yes, I do have a fairly massive book.

[Valente11]

To me, pretty cutting edge graphics are not necessary at all, hell I've been playing through the Final Fantasies (vi-ix) for the first time recently and I love them, the change in graphics never bothered me. But it IS necessary for the market unfortunately. I mean, I know people who actually would not play Dragon Age because of the (sub-par) graphics....that just made my jaw drop.



However, I've always assumed that graphics and story are completely unrelated...development-wise. I mean it's not like Square Enix says, "Okay writers, stop writing a good story and come help us over here with graphics." It's two seperate teams, the increase in one does not mean the decrease in the other. HOWEVER, that is usually the case because a focus in graphics usually entails catering to a mainstream crowd, therefore gameplay and sometimes story can suffer.



Meh, I would love Dragon Age just the same. Actually, the rise of things like Xbox Live arcade and Playstation Network, Virtual Console, DS, PSP...means that old school style games are making a comeback, there's some real gems in there. I have no idea which way PC gaming is headed..because they have the highest potential for graphics, and exclusives are being turned into console ports, changing the game almost entirely, it's hard to predict what will happen to PC gaming.

[Vaeliorin]

Valente11 wrote...
However, I've always assumed that graphics and story are completely unrelated...development-wise. I mean it's not like Square Enix says, "Okay writers, stop writing a good story and come help us over here with graphics." It's two seperate teams, the increase in one does not mean the decrease in the other. HOWEVER, that is usually the case because a focus in graphics usually entails catering to a mainstream crowd, therefore gameplay and sometimes story can suffer.

Actually, every part of the project is related because of one thing.  Budget.  The more time your writers spend writing, the more you have to pay them, and the less money you have to pay the graphics people.  And vice versa.  Also, testing, design, etc., etc.

Anyway, like I said, as long as I have a rotatable camera, I'm happy.  I'm happy with Xenogears level (Xenogears being the first game I can recall playing that had a rotatable camera).

[Captain Jazz]

I still play nethack, (I still royally suck at nethack ) graphics are just a shiny extra... in a game that has graphics though, I do prefer that they're of a high quality... even playing the old splinter cell and hitman games makes me a bit twitchy in regards to graphics, in comparison to the new ones.

It's hard to say though, I like that my Shepard is MY Shepard, that I haven't just picked a portrait from 12 choices as is the case with most older, less graphically impressive games, but I think I'd enjoy it just as much (although it would perhaps have to be less combat-y unless they did something like in Colorado Gold - type DRAW quickly to win the gunfight... or type DRAW on any screen to win the gunfight... humm.... or shoot the mule!) if it was even just a text adventure, but then... why not just read a book? 

[Quixal]

Heh, Temple of Elemental Evil was decidedly underrated. Well, to be fair, it was incredibly buggy and perhaps too true to the pen and paper D&D module to make for an interesting plot in a crpg (something is lost when you take the GM out of the equation). But from a technical standpoint, it was quite impressive. I didn't mind the rather primitive graphics at all.

I wouldn't mind a return to games that focus on story rather than graphics. I like shiny graphics as much as the next person, but don't really see them as necessary for a good game.

Modifié par Quixal, 17 février 2010 - 02:57 .

[Seagloom]

My issue with Temple of Elemental Evil had less to do with bugs (although geez was it buggy) and more to do with cut content. Removing all children and the brothel left a few quests feeling weird and broke others entirely.



That said, I would be perfectly fine with an RPG employing similar graphics. I thought ToEE was a very pretty game. Its animations in particular were superb. I don't know many games that make quarterstaff melee look cool.



I expect I'm on the extreme end of a demographic though. I would take an RPG with isometric graphics and minimal voice over if it meant more resources could be poured into character development and gameplay mechanics. Dragon Age is about as dense as I've seen for a modern RPG and it still feels slim in story and dialogue at times.

[Quixal]

Seagloom wrote...
My issue with Temple of Elemental Evil had less to do with bugs (although geez was it buggy) and more to do with cut content. Removing all children and the brothel left a few quests feeling weird and broke others entirely.

That said, I would be perfectly fine with an RPG employing similar graphics. I thought ToEE was a very pretty game. Its animations in particular were superb. I don't know many games that make quarterstaff melee look cool.

I expect I'm on the extreme end of a demographic though. I would take an RPG with isometric graphics and minimal voice over if it meant more resources could be poured into character development and gameplay mechanics. Dragon Age is about as dense as I've seen for a modern RPG and it still feels slim in story and dialogue at times.

The Circle of Eight mod added the cut content back in and fixed many of the bugs, as well as making a number of other improvements. I have high hopes for their continued use of the engine.

The animations were definitely a strong point. Oddly, this makes ToEE stronger in at least one graphics related area than many other graphically superior games.

I don't know how extreme that stance is though. I suspect there are more of us than the industry assumes. Whether there are enough to legitimize production of story/character development/plot focused games that don't focus entirely on graphics is an unknown, but I suspect it is more viable than many assume. I may be biased just a tad though.

[Panderfringe]

Quixal wrote...

I wouldn't mind a return to games that focus on story rather than graphics. I like shiny graphics as much as the next person, but don't really see them as necessary for a good game.

Have games EVER focused on story more than anything else? If so it really doesn't show.

[Quixal]

Panderfringe wrote...
Have games EVER focused on story more than anything else? If so it really doesn't show.

Moreso than they tend to currently, at least. Some of those stories were a good deal better than others, admittedly.

[SleeplessInSigil]

Quixal wrote...

The Circle of Eight mod added the cut content back in and fixed many of the bugs, as well as making a number of other improvements. I have high hopes for their continued use of the engine.

The animations were definitely a strong point. Oddly, this makes ToEE stronger in at least one graphics related area than many other graphically superior games.

and let's not forget the cloaks! or the Origins-like opening vignettes that predate DA!

Yes, I'll highly recommend ToEE, together with the latest Co8 fan-fix pack, to anyone looking for a nice old-school'ish D&D campaign with some of the best artwork and sweetest music in any RPG. Hommlet is one of the most beautiful medieval villages I've seen in such games.

[SleeplessInSigil]

posted in the wrong thread

Modifié par SleeplessInSigil, 17 février 2010 - 06:11 .

[Leinadi]

It's up to each individual game as to whether it's worth it one way or the other. That said, while I have no problem with 3d games, I do wish that it wouldn't basically mean that 2d is "outdated" for RPGs or whatever. It's a style of its own, and I would love to see something similar to the IE games (which still look really beautiful in higher resolutions) but a bit more advanced.



Personally, the cutscene heavy style of many 3d games doesn't really do much for me personally, so I tend to prefer the "old style" so to speak.