The Daily Grind: Graphics don't matter?

Have you guys ever been to Nagrand? Swam through Vash'jir? (Assuming you have seen beta videos). WoW has some of the most stunnig zones that I have seen in any game, to date. This is not a hyperbolic statement, it is truth. I have been questing/running raids on multiple occasions where I simply have to stop and look around. The attention detail, the colors...guys, this game is gorgeous.

One Word:

RuneScape

Consistently popular, but not with the best graphics around.

Graphics and a certain style is what initially attracts us to these new games. WE get suckered in by promises of awesome looking gear and richly detailed envioronments, and we all buy that game for the "free" month it comes in.

But as with the pretty girl, after a month fo playign around with her, if there is no depth there, no soul, no brain in the bimbo, you are always going to go back to the better or more engaging gameplay.

WoW for me is like my MMO Wife. She tolerates my frequent infidelities.. my flirtations with the hottest, prettiest new flings in town, because she knows after a month or two, I'll be back again, becasue past the eyecandy, is usually a pretty vacant experience.

But I keep being unfaithful to wow, in teh hope that one day, the pretty new thing will also have a heart of gold that will finally steal me away from my MMO wife.

I tried to play WOW.Took 30 seconds for the graphics to drive me to look for the delete button.Last two games I played....AOC and currently EQ2.Of course game play is a key.Another key is graphics.

I am studying English at a top liberal arts university...I understand how Hyperbole works, and you are mistaken. Hyperbolic statements (rhetorically over-the-top statements) are in complete oppsition with "truthful" statements. In this case I am saying that the beauty of this areas is not overexagerated, or false, but rather something that is true, or unarguable. Granted at the end of the day this is my opinion, but if we are going to argue the logistics of my statement, I stand un-corrected.

And lets not forget WoW looks the way it does because that is the look the want. Not because they couldn't do any better.
This is Blizzard, they have scrapped whole games because they felt the games weren't good enough.

And I, an old guy, think WoW looks fine for the style they have chosen. Does it look "realistic" - no, but then that wasn't the goal (and I'm not sure I'd really want to see realistic depictions of rotting corpses)

I get the impression a lot of people mistake 'good graphics' with 'high poly count'. Most MMOs use far more detailed models than WoW and yet for me they generally aren't as nice to look at. Why? Primarily because the Blizzard artists really understand how to use light and colour. Almost every zone in WoW has a primary colour harmonic with lighting to match, and this concept is actually art school 101. Furthermore colour and lighting is very cleverly used in WoW to alter the mood depending where you are or what is happening. Go to Wikipedia and search for 'color theory' for a more detailed explanation - the section titled 'Color harmony and color meaning' is particularly relevant to how Blizzard use colour in WoW. From a distance a WoW screenshot will look fairly similar to a screenshot from any Pixar movie, because of the careful use of light and colour. The main difference between the two will be about 100 million polygons, but the reason why both companies produce such appetising imagery is fundamentally down to their artists fully understanding basic theories of harmonising light and colour. This is nothing new - most theories about light and colour come from the Renaissance period, roughly half a century ago. Valve is another company who 'get' this, an lo and behold their games generally look great as well.
On the flip side of the coin nothing pains me more to see screenshots of games where all the effort has gone into crafting extremely detailed models with much less time spent on the general texturing, lighting and colouring.

GRAPHICS capture your imagination and inspire you. How much computer do I need to run the graphics and does the highest level effect game play. If it does we all know we turn down the graphics setting, which is bad but somewhat tolerated.
Game play is the what creates the satisfaction and enjoyment.We can be playing along, and when something becomes to repetitive or boring..we pop out of our immersed state and say, " this is a grind" which is bad. Lazy or cheap development.
One part of game play that is often overlooked and is one of the reasons I think WOW is so succesful is the ease of finding what you are looking for on the tool bar, the spell controls seem to be in the right place,,,,like walking into a kitchen to get a drink of water, you reach for the light and the switch is right there, you have never been here before and the first cupboard you open holds the cups. That is what WOW is like on thier tool bar. imho They have done the best with this out of any of the games.

For me, graphics do take a back seat to gameplay. To this day, I still consider Final Fantasy III to be my favorite game in that series, despite the beautiful visuals that can be found in the more modern games.

That is not to say that I have no appreciation for beautiful visuals in games, they do add much to games, and can make a good game into a great game. That aside, a game that has a crappy story, poor delivery, and/or frustrating gameplay can never make up for those failings with eye candy, at least for me. Others may argue differently, and that's fine. Everyone has their own preferences. I'm a sucker for story. Story is what hooks me.

I do like it when you get the combination of fun gameplay with excellent visuals though. Crysis for example. Everyone talks about the graphics in Crysis, but I found it really amusing to run through an FPS world in that futuristic tech suit with the different modes (strength, speed, invisibility) while at the same time doing all those shenanigans in a near photo-realistic environment! Would the game have been as talked about with more generic graphics, probably not. Would I have still enjoyed running up to an enemy with speed mode, switching to strength mode and punching him across a field? Certainly!

It wasnt intelligence or attitude that made me go voice that first sentence to the current slam piece, it was looks.

Anyone stating differently is..well...lying to themselves. Getting to know a game like a person comes after the intitial draw.

Graphics pull me in, gets me interested, then i start researching the game, if it looks like a bucket of dung or ten year old graphics i wont even consider it. That said, friends are likely on occasion to push you into a blind date, you meet someone average and they turn out to be quite great to interact with, the same goes for any game.

A caveat though, looks first to get you started, then the all important content, if it isnt there then looks do not matter and time was wasted, but then, its all about kicking the tires isnt it.

As long as it's clear what is happening gameplay-wise and the art style is consistent and pleasing to me and creates a fitting atmosphere then I don't really care how advanced the graphics technology behind them is - graphics, like animation, audio, writing, and everything else that makes up a game are just there to support the gameplay - so gameplay is my number one priority, way ahead of graphics.

In fact I'd rather have a game with great animation and average graphics/art over a game with average animation and great graphics/art - e.g. in super-hero MMO terms I prefer CoH over what we've seen of DCUO, graphics-wise - CoH just flows better and ultimately that's better for gameplay - in fact stilted animations, especially while moving, were one of the main things that put me off Champions Online, far more than the awful art style did (and I don't mind cel-shaded or similar style graphics - one of my recent favourite games is Borderlands).

Great graphics can be a big draw to get you to play a game, but it's not what will make you stay. Sure it's great to have both, but I learnt a long time ago not to be lulled by pretty graphics - gameplay matters most, so graphics need to facilitate gameplay first and foremost - if I just want to be wowed by eye candy then I'll go watch a CGI-heavy movie. Some of my favourite games of all time merely had adequate graphics, nothing spectacular for their time - Tetris, Civs 2 & 4, Planetside, Settlers 2, Diablo 2, EverQuest, etc. - heck, I'm playing through Morrowind at the moment.

The shinier the graphics the higher percentage the game mechanics will suck. If all you are forced into is the same instances over and over and over again for the same gear as everyone else then the designers failed at creating a game system. Oh wait.....

"gameplay" is all that matters, and a soft spot for high-definition eye-candy is the mark of a shallow gamer.