Guild Wars 2 finally starts to come to life

Originally posted by whatthegatts?
That's your opinion. As I said sometime art design needs good graphics to look good. Something can have amazing concept art but if the graphics are shit it will look nothing like it. Graphics on the other hand doesn;t need good art. They can just base it on real world realism and with good graphics it will look good.

Damn I disagree. Thats a really damaging viewpoint thats far too common among game designers nowadays. Its a travesty that we have access to the best graphics these days but waste them on shitty brown shooters, trying to make things as 'realistic' as possible.

I've been in every zone in the game- the only places I haven't been are the PvP maps and some of the dungeons. I've got screenshots in nearly every one of them. I lean towards sylvari areas at night because I love sylvari and I love how my character glows at night.

Very, very little of the game is actually dark.

My screenshot folder has over 850 images in it. I can post tons later.

Also, reality is colorful. Not brown and grey.

Best ignore the trolls, folks.

Originally posted by Nephthys
Who even cares about graphics?

Those with shitty laptops who can barely run anything probably don't care a whole lot though. 😖hifty:

Personally I would think they'd care even less since they don't want to spend thousands of dollars on a PC only to have to replace it in a few years because now it can't keep up with the new L33T graphics that don't add anything to the game except to make it both more expensive to produce and to play.

That makes no sense. lol

If they spent 1000's of dollars to buy the hardware required to play powerful games, how would playing shitty looking games justify spending that much money? If they didn't want to play good looking games than they wouldn't need to spend that much money on a PC. You can get a decent PC that can play almost anything made before 2011 on at least mid-settings for about 450 bucks.

As well, I think you've got a bit of a misunderstanding about phow PC hardware works. Playing Starcraft 2 on low settings isn't going to make my video card last significantly longer than if I played it ultra every day for 5 years. There isn't really any tangible benefit to playing a non-visually demanding game over a visually demanding game, for the most part, in regards to your PC's "longevity".

I think you've misunderstood me. I meant 'who even cares about graphics' from design viewpoint.

My point is that people place too much importance in graphics both in terms of the developers relying of graphics over visual design and gamers in terms of seeing good graphics as equaling good quality.

IMO graphics do not add that much to a games visuals and are driving up the costs of making games and the cost of maintaining a PC capable of handling the newest graphics. This overstated importance of graphics is very harmful to the medium.

Originally posted by Nephthys
I think you've misunderstood me. I meant 'who even cares about graphics' from [b]design viewpoint.
[/B]

And then the convo kind of shifted to this.

And I agree, to an extent. However from my point of view, the problem isn't necessarily with putting an emphasis on graphics, but rather, trying to put an emphasis on photo-realistic graphics. I love seeing realistic character animations- facial expressions, hair and physics that move realistically, etc. Game designers seem to have this obsession with trying to make everything look like it's real life, though, which seems like a waste of resources. The uncanny valley prohibits us from being fooled by such attempts, regardless of how good the graphics are, so the only thing trying to make everything look photo-realistic achieves is in skyrocketing the budget consumption of a game, and making it look like shit on most televisions.

GW2 was not designed to have amazingly high-end graphics, it was made to be playable on mid-range systems and still look great. Which it does. You don't need a $1000+ system for it. Decent setup and a $100 graphics card and you're golden.

Also, I think Neph was talking more about obsolescence than longevity.

Read my edit. 😛

Originally posted by Tzeentch._
And I agree, to an extent. However from my point of view, the problem isn't necessarily with putting an emphasis on graphics, but rather, trying to put an emphasis on photo-realistic graphics. I love seeing realistic character animations- facial expressions, hair and physics that move realistically, etc. Game designers seem to have this obsession with trying to make everything look like it's real life, though, which seems like a waste of resources. The uncanny valley prohibits us from being fooled by such attempts, regardless of how good the graphics are, so the only thing trying to make everything look photo-realistic achieves is in skyrocketing the budget consumption of a game, and making it look like shit on most televisions.

👆

I have no problem with this, although I do still feel that we should slow down on graphics in general.

Best not to listen to ppl who complain about GW2 graphics and uses MoP as a benchmark for greatness. :-p

Important note- do NOT do cave-based jumping puzzles with male Norn! The camera was so squished into me that all I could see was my ass and, at times, a malfunctioning first-person view.

(This was a cave puzzle in Lion's Arch).

Actually the camera in this game is not the best I've seen. It often gets obstructed and I can't see where the heck I am going, which can be lethal in melee fights.

The camera also has a habit of bugging out when you're downed.

Maxed out tailoring, which means I can craft exotic armor.

In theory.

In reality, holy **** are the materials expensive! To craft a set of armor in the stats I prefer would cost nearly three gold per insignia. A full set would run easily about 25-30 gold. Of course it's not helped by the fact that the fine mat for my prefered stat setup is ridiculous expensive, but still. Ecto. It's not cheap. Nor is gossamer.

Not happening any time soon. My guild's saving money for a commander book and I'd rather throw my money at that than a small edge in stats 😛

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Important note- do NOT do cave-based jumping puzzles with male Norn! The camera was so squished into me that all I could see was my ass and, at times, a malfunctioning first-person view.

(This was a cave puzzle in Lion's Arch).

Actually the camera in this game is not the best I've seen. It often gets obstructed and I can't see where the heck I am going, which can be lethal in melee fights.

It's hard but not impossible...I did Troll's End on a maxed sized male Norn..just gotta take it slow. But I do agree larger characters Norn/Charr have a really hard time with some of the jumping puzzles....makes me want to make a midget Asura just for puzzle achievements 😄

Oh, no, I did it, it was just a ridiculous pain with the camera.

Asura aren't much better. They're so small you constantly underestimate how far they can jump.

I don't like jumping puzzles enough to bother seeking them out, though.

I'd think arena-net should change the name of the orrian maps to zerg map 1 zerg map 2 etc