+5 Potential Visually Stunning Points -- New Screenshots

Mr Bacon · Post by **Mr Bacon** » November 15, 2005, 2:02 am

http://www.vanguardsoh.com/media.php

6 New shots, amazing:

River | 800 | 1280 | 1600
Tower | 800 | 1280 | 1600
Orc2 | 800 | 1280 | 1600
Orc | 800 | 1280 | 1600
Goblin | 800 | 1280 | 1600
Ahgram | 800 | 1280 | 1600

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » November 15, 2005, 3:59 am

*You have been visually stunned for 5 hit points*

Mr Bacon · Post by **Mr Bacon** » November 15, 2005, 5:56 am

Winnow wrote:*You have been visually stunned for 5 hit points*

EXACTLY.

Furthermore, I can see myself going.. "Holy ass.. look at that sky..." Plop. Dead body.

Rayquan · Post by **Rayquan** » November 15, 2005, 10:43 am

I liked everything except the goblin, he looked -too- much like a humanoid. I prefered the EQ1 origional runneye goblin look, not the almost human looking goblin.

Kwonryu DragonFist · November 15, 2005, 10:49 am

That goblin looked like the Lord of the Ring goblins.

The smaller goblins used in EQ would be more fitting!

Beside that, what kind of comp is required for this game?

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » November 15, 2005, 1:30 pm

I can't get excited over those pictures. Need to see the animations and how the world flows.

So far, NCSoft (Guild Wars, CoH/CoV, Lineage 2) knows how to create graphically pleasing online worlds with outstanding animation.

masteen · Post by **masteen** » November 15, 2005, 1:38 pm

Winnow wrote:I can't get excited over those pictures. Need to see the animations and how the world flows.

So far, NCSoft (Guild Wars, CoH/CoV, Lineage 2) knows how to create graphically pleasing online worlds with outstanding animation.

Too bad the gameplay of all those titles is severely lacking.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » November 15, 2005, 1:58 pm

masteen wrote:
Winnow wrote:I can't get excited over those pictures. Need to see the animations and how the world flows.

So far, NCSoft (Guild Wars, CoH/CoV, Lineage 2) knows how to create graphically pleasing online worlds with outstanding animation.
Too bad the gameplay of all those titles is severely lacking.

Which, I think, is exactly the point.

Mr Bacon · Post by **Mr Bacon** » November 15, 2005, 3:50 pm

None of the player models are finalized, and really just in a temporary phase until they are optimized and made fancy.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » November 24, 2005, 6:42 am

Kwonryu DragonFist wrote:That goblin looked like the Lord of the Ring goblins.

The smaller goblins used in EQ would be more fitting!

Beside that, what kind of comp is required for this game?

No kidding, those screenshots are great. Doubt my computer will be sufficient enough to look like this.. guess ill have to break down and upgrade sometime soon.

masteen · Post by **masteen** » November 27, 2005, 1:30 pm

3+ GHz CPU
2 GB RAM
SATA or SCSI hard drives (this isn't an official requirement, but there is a lot of shit to load into memory at most times)\
and of course, the best graphics card you can afford. I'm thinking that this game could be one of the first to benefit from the 512 mb cards coming out.

Vaemas · Post by **Vaemas** » November 27, 2005, 1:37 pm

Kwonryu DragonFist wrote:Beside that, what kind of comp is required for this game?

If you have to ask, you can't afford it!

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » November 27, 2005, 4:50 pm

masteen wrote:3+ GHz CPU
2 GB RAM

SOMEOEN STOLED TEH MEGAHURTZ! O NOES!1!!1!elevn!1

Just a note that all of the AMD chips are clocked under 3Ghz and crush the Intel 3+ GHz CPUs in performance. They run cooler and use less power to boot!

Mr Bacon · Post by **Mr Bacon** » November 30, 2005, 9:54 pm

2 new shots, showing off player models .. and a big improvement on the human female model particularly:

http://www.stratics.com/content/portals ... 130_01.jpg
http://www.stratics.com/content/portals ... 130_02.jpg

Janx · Post by **Janx** » November 30, 2005, 10:16 pm

I'll let you know how it runs on a 2.5ghz (3800X2) X1800XT vid card soon as my source gets me the betaz.

Gonna have ot get me some of that pimp GEIL 2gb ram with the pimp timings Winnow posted about..

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » November 30, 2005, 10:25 pm

Not GEIL, G.SKILL! : )

Newegg raised the price of that 185.00 2X1MB pair to 225.00 so the deal isn't as nice but still better than most memory in that category.

The more I read up on it, the more I'm leaning toward just getting some DDR500 that will hit 250Mhz for sure. Mushkin has some well priced memory that will hit 260+ with ok timings. Although if the G.SKILL drops back to 185.00 I'm placing my order right away.

ok, that second screenshot looks like Everquest II, especially the player model. Yikes!

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » November 30, 2005, 10:30 pm

Those last two screenshots didn't really do much for me, either. They just seem so... Bland, really.

And is that first one new? Orc (goblin.. whatever) looks familiar.

Mr Bacon · Post by **Mr Bacon** » November 30, 2005, 10:33 pm

Winnow wrote:ok, that second screenshot looks like Everquest II, especially the player model. Yikes!

Really? I don't get that vibe at all. EQ2 faces look braindead:

Also, another cool thing I noticed is how the water in that same picture distorts the image of the wall below. Pretty sure it's not just a reflection either. cool!

Janx · Post by **Janx** » November 30, 2005, 10:44 pm

Winnow wrote:Not GEIL, G.SKILL! : )

Newegg raised the price of that 185.00 2X1MB pair to 225.00 so the deal isn't as nice but still better than most memory in that category.

The more I read up on it, the more I'm leaning toward just getting some DDR500 that will hit 250Mhz for sure. Mushkin has some well priced memory that will hit 260+ with ok timings. Although if the G.SKILL drops back to 185.00 I'm placing my order right away.

ok, that second screenshot looks like Everquest II, especially the player model. Yikes!

Ooops thats what I meant =P

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » November 30, 2005, 11:53 pm

Rellix wrote: Also, another cool thing I noticed is how the water in that same picture distorts the image of the wall below. Pretty sure it's not just a reflection either. cool!

They don't do much for me really... but yes, at least they got the reflections right. EQ2 reflections are a god awful cock up. If you're standing looking at water it reflects things behind you, rather than things behind the water... WTF?!

(couldn't find a great example, but this one shows the reflection plane at the horizon and just ... well, it's just BAD)

Mr Bacon · Post by **Mr Bacon** » December 1, 2005, 4:52 pm

Two new shots:

http://vsoh.info/galerie/s1133420183.jpg
http://vsoh.info/galerie/s1133420000.jpg

I'm not too stunned by the environment in those, but the player models and particularly the armor in the first is looking very nice.

Kargyle · Post by **Kargyle** » December 1, 2005, 4:58 pm

I'm sorry, but those faces are ugly.

I can't say that I'm overly impressed with the screen shots I've seen so far. It just seems like more of the same stuff we've already seen in other MMOs. And they can't even claim to have an original style. The shots look, more or less, like every other game that is trying to have "realistic" enviroments. Take WoW for example. It doesn't look as "real" as Vanguard or EQII, but it very much has its own unique style.

Mr Bacon · Post by **Mr Bacon** » December 1, 2005, 5:04 pm

The faces and body models are in development and not permanent or final. Sigil has also said that they are not trying to make supermodels bodies/faces out of the player models, so you shouldn't really be expecting a face to drool over.

In regards to the overall quality of graphics, from the people I've spoken to who've seen the game in motion, they say the screenshots don't do it justice.

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » December 1, 2005, 10:31 pm

Great another resource hog. Hey how about making a group based MMORPG that won't grind to a halt when trying to render more than 3 character models? You'd think at least Brad Mcquaid would fucking get it.

archeiron · Post by **archeiron** » December 1, 2005, 11:32 pm

Why does this game have "teh worstest lighting models evah"??!

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » December 2, 2005, 2:34 am

archeiron wrote:Why does this game have "teh worstest lighting models evah"??!

Well it is in early beta afterall so I'll cut them some slack on that.

Siji · Post by **Siji** » December 2, 2005, 12:44 pm

kyoukan wrote:Great another resource hog. Hey how about making a group based MMORPG that won't grind to a halt when trying to render more than 3 character models? You'd think at least Brad Mcquaid would fucking get it.

It's called beta for a reason.

miir · Post by **miir** » December 2, 2005, 1:05 pm

In my opinion, graphics are pretty much irrelevant. Hell, I'm playing WoW a fair bit now and I think it's graphics are complete fucking trash. The environments are tolerable but the character, armor and mob models look like they were made by a blind, retarded child.

The interesting thing is that the crappiness of the visuals don't really detract from the fun I have playing the game.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » December 2, 2005, 1:06 pm

To fix bugs and tune content? I'm pretty sure the final game will also require heavy resources. Although one hopes they do well when it comes to optimizing things...

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 2, 2005, 1:40 pm

I don't want to hijack the bashing of Vanguard but new hardware that will plow through even poorly coded games like Vanguard is getting pretty cheap now.

See this thread:

http://www.veeshanvault.org/forums/view ... hp?t=16320

Minor computer upgrades (video/memory) every two years should be a way of life with major upgrades (motherboards) every four years.

Everyone doesn't upgrade at the same time so I don't see complaints about game requirments ending anytime soon. Who determines when it's time to upgrade? We'd still be using 386's with 256mb of memory if the game designers tried to accommodate all users.

If the games are good, people will upgrade. EQ's Luclin expansion had people increasing their memory from 512mb to 1gb which was long overdue. (ok bad example of a good expansion, but was a good game) The new games need 2gb but also happen to need better video cards. Seems like a reasonable timeline to me. The new computers for about 1,200 will blow away the performance of the 2K computers from less than 2 years ago.

Computers continue to get cheaper and faster so we don't have much to complain about as we keep spending less and get more...Electronics are one of the few areas that you get more for less as the years go by.

Mr Bacon · Post by **Mr Bacon** » December 2, 2005, 2:58 pm

Winnow wrote:I don't want to hijack the bashing of Vanguard but new hardware that will plow through even poorly coded games like Vanguard is getting pretty cheap now.

Winnow, are you angry that you haven't been invited yet, do you have a grudge with Sigil, or are you just trying to anger fans?

If it's the latter, you must try harder!

miir · Post by **miir** » December 2, 2005, 3:01 pm

Rellix wrote:
Winnow wrote:I don't want to hijack the bashing of Vanguard but new hardware that will plow through even poorly coded games like Vanguard is getting pretty cheap now.
Winnow, are you angry that you haven't been invited yet, do you have a grudge with Sigil, or are you just trying to anger fans?

If it's the latter, you must try harder!

Reading comprehension > Rellix

Mr Bacon · Post by **Mr Bacon** » December 2, 2005, 3:04 pm

miir wrote:
Rellix wrote:
Winnow wrote:I don't want to hijack the bashing of Vanguard but new hardware that will plow through even poorly coded games like Vanguard is getting pretty cheap now.
Winnow, are you angry that you haven't been invited yet, do you have a grudge with Sigil, or are you just trying to anger fans?

If it's the latter, you must try harder!
Reading comprehension > Rellix

Winnow wrote:...plow through even poorly coded games like Vanguard...

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » December 2, 2005, 3:17 pm

Regardless of all that this thread is titled wrong. Those screenshots didn't stun me. I must have improved my stun avoidance over the years.

Mr Bacon · Post by **Mr Bacon** » December 2, 2005, 3:26 pm

Fixed

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » December 2, 2005, 5:37 pm

Siji wrote:It's called beta for a reason.

I'm not blaming the beta.

those models and environments with all of those hardware effects will kill even powerful computers when trying to render them all at once. especially if the game will have as diverse armor and clothing options as sigil is boasting about.

whether or not is a well coded and efficient 3d engine like EQ or a poorly strewn together hunk of trash like planetside or EQ2, the game will still grind to a halt trying to display all that crap.

Siji · Post by **Siji** » December 2, 2005, 5:55 pm

I'm sure the people that coded the first leisure suit larry games would have said the same about something like Doom. EQ1 is looking pretty good these days and that's with an old as hell engine.. With a newer engine, I suspect it would be able to do more in a more efficient way.

And until we've played the release, we won't know if it's a poorly coded pile of crap, or a good job. Even if it is a good job though, people will complain no matter what..

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » December 2, 2005, 6:30 pm

i'm not a graphics nerd, so i cant break out some wicked stats on this, but i will say this:
the lighting/shading on every one of those shots looks unnatural to me. Perhaps that is a styelized look they are going for, but i don't like it.

if you compare those graphics to a lot of games that are out right now, just from a lighting/shading perspective, i dont think they look that good.

but i dont claim any real knowledge on this front.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » December 2, 2005, 9:36 pm

kyoukan wrote: whether or not is a well coded and efficient 3d engine like EQ or a poorly strewn together hunk of trash like planetside or EQ2

Holy shit PS must be bad if you think EQ is well coded.

I don't think there's much difference between the 2 engines, they just lowered the max raid and upped the poly count on EQ2; both engines are shitty at times and both of them are heavily CPU bound.

If you want "well coded" you have to be outside the realms of Sony altogether.

Siji · Post by **Siji** » December 6, 2005, 4:45 pm

Voronwë wrote:the lighting/shading on every one of those shots looks unnatural to me. Perhaps that is a styelized look they are going for, but i don't like it.

It's a lot different when you're seeing it first hand. The world is beautiful to the extreme. Be nicer when it's optimized obviously, but even so it's breathtaking right now.

Ennia · Post by **Ennia** » December 6, 2005, 5:38 pm

why all the character models seem to be the same thing with a different head?

and another thing, is the grass and water animated?

masteen · Post by **masteen** » December 6, 2005, 5:59 pm

Ennia wrote:and another thing, is the grass and water animated?

Yes.

murr · Post by **murr** » December 7, 2005, 8:28 pm

Siji wrote:
Voronwë wrote:the lighting/shading on every one of those shots looks unnatural to me. Perhaps that is a styelized look they are going for, but i don't like it.
It's a lot different when you're seeing it first hand. The world is beautiful to the extreme. Be nicer when it's optimized obviously, but even so it's breathtaking right now.

Eh, maybe at first, and there really are some spectacular areas - primarily cities atm - but the vast majority looks a lot like the environment in those human model screens Rellix posted where as even he says the environment is pretty meh.

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » December 11, 2005, 4:51 pm

Zaelath wrote:Holy shit PS must be bad if you think EQ is well coded.

what? there isn't a mmorpg on the market that can put so many models and particle effects on the screen at once. and this includes the time period when the game first came out.

the engine was originally written for 3dfx GLide its a miracle that it works at all on DX cards.

there will probably never be another 3d engine as good as EQ's for as far as MMORPG's go.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » December 11, 2005, 9:09 pm

kyoukan wrote:
Zaelath wrote:Holy shit PS must be bad if you think EQ is well coded.
what? there isn't a mmorpg on the market that can put so many models and particle effects on the screen at once. and this includes the time period when the game first came out.

the engine was originally written for 3dfx GLide its a miracle that it works at all on DX cards.

there will probably never be another 3d engine as good as EQ's for as far as MMORPG's go.

There's not an MMORPG on the market that attempts to, because the models in new games are *much* higher poly counts and the particle effects are greater density/complexity. The next-gen Lara Croft will have as many polys in her tits as an entire EQLive raid force at release, including the dragon.

There's no arcane magic about EQ's engine. It doesn't magically render more triangles, for the most part it puts less up there. And it's not like it's really the same Glide engine from release either, there was at least one major change when they ported in the third-party engine to attempt to cope with SoL (and you still had to spend a lot of time looking at the ground)

Nick · Post by **Nick** » December 11, 2005, 10:08 pm

Yes but Lara Croft games are shit compared to EQ, no matter how many polys her tits have/had.

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » December 12, 2005, 12:40 am

eq had pretty good graphics for the era it was released.

anyone who knows shit about 3d engines will tell you that EQ's was coded incredibly well. then smedley realized that he could pay barely self-aware mongloids for less than half what he was paying his coders before and people will still throw money at him to play the game, and the engine went to shit.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » December 12, 2005, 2:46 am

kyoukan wrote:eq had pretty good graphics for the era it was released.

Agreed.

anyone who knows shit about 3d engines will tell you that EQ's was coded incredibly well. then smedley realized that he could pay barely self-aware mongloids for less than half what he was paying his coders before and people will still throw money at him to play the game, and the engine went to shit.

If you mean it went to complete shit somewhere between Release (post Kunark?) and SoL then we probably have no argument.

miir · Post by **miir** » May 29, 2006, 2:25 pm

Those screenshots failed to deliver on their potential.

What does this mean?
It means Rellix is gey.

Mr Bacon · Post by **Mr Bacon** » May 29, 2006, 5:24 pm

el oh el