Naturality

[Grey]

I want the game to be well put together and coherent, which can be accomplished independently of graphics.   I\'ve seen to many games where attention to detail has gone out the window so much that gameplay is irritating.  Ever play a game that has such bad camera angles that you rarely see the enemies you are battling so much that it detracts from the game.  Its something like that.  Kiern, you have the idea.

[Abemore]

you\'re saying you want the game to be good.  I know.  We all want the game to be good.  Thank you for posting and arguing with kinshadow about it.

[Bigfoot]

Kinshadow your talking out of your bot. All the Effects you have mentioned are pretty easy to implement and in no real way a resource hog. Point in case, i regret having to use this as a reference but... EQ

 EQ has Fog, hey the fog even gets thicker when it starts to rain, speaking of which it has rain, not uber rain but it gets the point across perfectly, Wind... not much point in it realy, in game you cant feel it, so why have it?... very little need for it visualy as well, a few loops animation for a flag or  some smoke particals floating in a direction other than up and bang, illusion of wind, not forgetting having radius dependant ambient wind sounds in high up areas (such as on the top of castle walls and such would round it out even more), only thing that would take time would be if you wanted wind to effect the pyhsics of objects, how ever in a game situation like this all youd realy need to do is have a penalty to what ever you wanted if the player was flagged as being in windy conditions.

Dynamic water... hmmm again not much point, considering that in order for water to be dynamic youd need a huge mesh plane (polycountwise) in order to give a realistic fluid motion, a flat plane would survice with the plane rising up and down slightly to give the edge on the bank a little motion and an animated texture, splashs and ripples are also pretty easy to incorporate for even more hightened effect, and add a environment map to teh waters surface for some reflectivity (DAoC shrouded isles expansion pretty much does that although there water actualy has rises and falls on its surface). but again players are to concerned in where there going or what there fighting to be worrying about what the water looks like or weather there making realistic ripples and wakes in the water.

Grass, well grass is again pretty easy, sure if you where inclined to make every blade with algorythms go ahead, but it would run like a dog... heck UT2003 uses two sided planes intersecting with a masked grass texture on it.. looks realy good, in fact id hessatate to say that it looks and would be prefered from a visual point of view to the more realistic way you proposed. as long as you dont look down when walking over it ^_^, but then again what player would be looking down at the grass before tehre feet when theyd much rather be looking forward at the virtual world before them.

i think however that what teh original poster was inclining was that there was some structure and realistic design to the world and its systems, not teh complexity or realism of the actualy worlds visuals, eg. a thick lush forrest with no visual source of water and nill rainfall... thats just unrealistic, a large population of predators stuck out in teh middle of no where with no sign of prey? or a band of Orcs camped out right under the gate gaurds noses, that sort of thing, dont think he minds much if the trees are static as long as they look like they belong where they are, the human eye and mind has an amazing ability to subconiuosly see deviations in the natural norm. while they might not outwardly acknoledge it, it does effect there play experiance and sense of immersion.

Realism extends far beyond the visual, and often its this non visual realism our brain picks apart first. Visual reality after all is subjective, after all a blind man cannot see the trees and the woods around him but if he cant hear teh birds or teh rustle of teh leaves... how will he know hes in a forrest?.

Im going on a bit... and Ill retract my opening sentence, you just mistook what he was asking. cheers

[Grey]

Thanks much, Bigfoot.

[Abemore]

In Morrowind there were great sand storms in the desert areas and the \"visible\" wind would actually slow or speed up your movement depending on what direction you were heading.  If I remember correctly, when in first person view and walking into the wind, your character will also raise his hand to shield his face from the sand.  This and grass and trees that react to the wind all add realism and raise system requirements.  Morrowind also has realistic water for those that own geforce3+ cards.

The point is, back in the days of the first 3D games (or just the first games), system requirements were low and realism was low.  For realism to increase, system requirements had to increase.  These two elements seem dependant on one another.

...on second thought, i dunno what im arguing.  i think im distracted cuz im leaving on a ski trip in the morning

[kinshadow]

Originally posted by Grey
I want the game to be well put together and coherent, which can be accomplished independently of graphics. I\'ve seen to many games where attention to detail has gone out the window so much that gameplay is irritating. Ever play a game that has such bad camera angles that you rarely see the enemies you are battling so much that it detracts from the game.

So, you are commenting on a general level of detail and quality of the game.  Your previous statements showed interest in environment details (thus my original posts), while here you are commenting on an interface issue.  Perhaps it would be more constructive to simply list all the features you hate about other games and how PS can make it better.

Originally posted by Bigfoot
Kinshadow your talking out of your bot. All the Effects you have mentioned are pretty easy to implement and in no real way a resource hog.

I\'m guessing you mean \"butt\" and no, I am not talking out of it.  Yes, they are not \"resource hogs\", but you have to support a minimum features set, at least as far as the 3D hardware goes, or your system suffers greatly.  If you have Geforce 2 or below level system, then you have no hardware accelerated shader (vertex or pixel) support.  These are essential to the detail level of modern 3D games.  This is especially so for a game due to come out in a year or two (or more ).

Originally posted by Bigfoot
EQ has Fog, hey the fog even gets thicker when it starts to rain, speaking of which it has rain, not uber rain but it gets the point across perfectly, Wind... not much point in it realy, in game you cant feel it, so why have it?... very little need for it visualy as well, a few loops animation for a flag or  some smoke particals floating in a direction other than up and bang, illusion of wind, not forgetting having radius dependant ambient wind

Fog is easy to implement in the most basic case and yes, you can some minor thickening details to it.  If you want volumetric systems with eddies and currents (additional realism), you need a more sophisticated system.  The illusion of wind deals with the deformability of the items in the environment.  If you can\'t handle all the leaves (and other objects) moving, then you will not ?experience? the wind.  I?m not saying that people with lower systems won?t get ?some? environment nuances, just not as many as the normal to higher systems.

Originally posted by Bigfoot
Dynamic water... hmmm again not much point, considering that in order for water to be dynamic youd need a huge mesh plane (polycountwise) in order to give a realistic fluid motion, a flat plane would survice with the plane rising up and down slightly to give the edge on the bank a little motion and an animated texture, splashs and ripples are also pretty easy to incorporate for even more hightened effect, and add a environment map to teh waters surface for some reflectivity (DAoC shrouded isles expansion pretty much does that although there water actualy has rises and falls on its surface). but again players are to concerned in where there going or what there fighting to be worrying about what the water looks like or weather there making realistic ripples and wakes in the water.

The deformations of the mesh and the environment mapping are all handled by shaders in modern 3D games. Many lower end system can\'t handle the environment mapping or a mesh of considerable poly count. If your graphics system does not have hardware vertex shader support, then you probably don?t have the CPU cycles needed to pick up the slack in the driver.  MMORPGs are not all fast paced fighting, so I think the other immersive features (dynamic water, etc) should shine while your traveling.  Stunning landscapes should be a must have in any large RPG.

Originally posted by Bigfoot
Grass, well grass is again pretty easy, sure if you where inclined to make every blade with algorythms go ahead, but it would run like a dog... heck UT2003 uses two sided planes intersecting with a masked grass texture on it.. looks realy good, in fact id hessatate to say that it looks and would be prefered from a visual point of view to the more realistic way you proposed. as long as you dont look down when walking over it ^_^, but then again what player would be looking down at the grass before tehre feet when theyd much rather be looking forward at the virtual world before them.

Again, I\'m arguing the realism of the environment.  Advanced shader effects make much more convincing (and deformable) grass in modern games (grass that flows in the wind and lets you leave a trail while walking).  UT2K3 is a FPS fast action game and thus, billboarding effects (like you described) are acceptable there.  I would prefer something more realistic in a game where you walk for long periods of time.  Lower levels of detail will probably use just textures and maybe billboards, but I aspire for the grass to look much nicer for those who can enjoy it.

Originally posted by Bigfoot
Realism extends far beyond the visual, and often its this non visual realism our brain picks apart first. Visual reality after all is subjective, after all a blind man cannot see the trees and the woods around him but if he cant hear teh birds or teh rustle of teh leaves... how will he know hes in a forrest?.

I agree, all arguments made here are subjectively based and sounds are a big issue too.  The point I was originally arguing was that many ?details? of the environment can only be experienced by those who can handle them (hardware-wise).  Of course, a case can also be made for sound.  A Dolby-Digital 5.1 system is going to let me experience the nuances of the birds much better than a two-speaker dime shop set.

Originally posted by Bigfoot
Im going on a bit... and Ill retract my opening sentence, you just mistook what he was asking. cheers

Thus, the argument is again rendered moot.  It may have been easier not to insult me in the first place.  Cheers

Originally posted by Abemore
In Morrowind there were great sand storms in the desert areas and the \"visible\" wind would actually slow or speed up your movement depending on what direction you were heading. If I remember correctly, when in first person view and walking into the wind, your character will also raise his hand to shield his face from the sand. This and grass and trees that react to the wind all add realism and raise system requirements. Morrowind also has realistic water for those that own geforce3+ cards.

The point is, back in the days of the first 3D games (or just the first games), system requirements were low and realism was low. For realism to increase, system requirements had to increase. These two elements seem dependant on one another.

Thank you Abemore, you hit the nail on the head.  The technology and the immersive features of the game will be very intertwined.


So, Grey, as I mentioned earlier, this whole conversation was pointless.  I would love it if you could give more examples of games in which your good and bad points show through.  You mentioned you had many that did not live up to this expectation.

[Fantasyfiend]

As far as Realism goes concerning grass and trees. I think the dev team is probably paying close atteention to the fern and animal life. In my first post, however, I was proven wrong. It\'s not silly to pay attention to the details. My thoughts were, that since this a fantasy game, science kinda takes the back seat, and un-reality as far as logic reigned supreme. However, Making sure that the illogical made sense and looked real was important. Yet, trying to make the game look too real, graphic wise would be difficult with 1000s of players to look real, and then trying to make the landscape look real, would add to the lag. Morrowind is an excellent example of realism in a game.


I now hate the word \"real\". I guess you could say I \"REALLY\" hate it.

[kinshadow]

Originally posted by Fantasyfiend
As far as Realism goes concerning grass and trees. I think the dev team is probably paying close atteention to the fern and animal life. In my first post, however, I was proven wrong. It\'s not silly to pay attention to the details. My thoughts were, that since this a fantasy game, science kinda takes the back seat, and un-reality as far as logic reigned supreme. However, Making sure that the illogical made sense and looked real was important. Yet, trying to make the game look too real, graphic wise would be difficult with 1000s of players to look real, and then trying to make the landscape look real, would add to the lag. Morrowind is an excellent example of realism in a game.

I agree there is a point that you shouldn\'t pass because it makes the demand is too high.   Morrowind is a great game with very good environment effects, but half the people that I have seen on these boards probably couldn\'t run that game with all of the options turned on.  The 1000s of players has very little to do with the environment effects.  The things I am talking about are only on the client side and are only impacted if the machine can\'t run them.  Making a Morrowind class game (or better ), at least as far as the engine/effects, in a MMORPG is completly feasible for a game set to be released in one/two/+ years.

[Fanomatic2000]

Well, perhaps it\'s true (Morrowind doesn\'t run smoothly even on my 2000+mhz, 256 DDRAM, Geeforce3 computer  X( ), but if you think about it, the computers will become twice as powerful in about a year or so (This is just a thought from my side, but if you think about it, it wasn\'t long ago you needed an extremely powerful machine just to play Quake lll).
To all of you who still owns a 400mhz processor with 64 MB CDRAM, well too bad for you, you don\'t get everything for free you know.
If you really want this game I think you should upgrade your computer instead of complaining X(
When this game is released your computers will be a lot more powerful, and if you\'re a real gamer you should upgrade your computer (and if you\'re too stingy, why don\'t you buy an XBOX or something?)
I\'m gonna upgrade my computer, and I suggest you do the same, because I don\'t wanna play a game where the graphics looks like it were taken directly from delta-force 1 (extremely ugly game where the world was made of polygons without textures)
Be gamers for christ sake!:evil:

[melcalien]

Remember it\'s all about suspension of disbelief. If the player oh my god that wouldn\'t happen in real life...well that\'s fine this is fantasy, but if something occurs that rips you out of the game and back into reality...that sucks. For example, predictability in AI, warping monsters, monsters that attack through walls, monsters that see through walls, monsters that can shoot you through hills around objects or cast around corners. This list could go on forever, and I think a lot of you know what game a lot of these examples of poor suspension come from.

[Keldorn]

Originally posted by Fanomatic2000
I don\'t wanna play a game where the graphics looks like it were taken directly from delta-force 1 (extremely ugly game where the world was made of polygons without textures)

jusr like to say that Delta Force didn\'t use polygons. It used voxels, which is quite different.
(I don\'t know what the english word is but in Holland people would call me a \"Miereneuker\" about now. Which would translate to \"Antf*cker\" in english.)

[Rakeleer]

Nitpicker -- for polite company. hehe

[Lozza123]

can\'t say i disagree with you mate, but I\'m totally spent on constructive thinking atm so i\'ll leave it to you lot.  Ciao,

Loz