So basically you're comparing Skyrim to a bunch of tech demos and Crysis... Oh wait those are the same thing... So yeah, you think Skyrim should look as good as a bunch of tech demos, none of which are based around games as big and detailed as Skyrim will be.

For the last time, Skyrim looks absolutely gorgeous for a world as big as Oblivion's and even more detailed. Show me one other game that size and with that much detail that looks nearly as good.

Man, graphics [censored]s are annoying. Go play Crysis and shut up.

At least they're being civil, which is more than can be said about you.

As for the game and graphics... does it look good? Sure. Could it look better? Certainly.

I've seen too many instances in that short trailer alone where things appeared low poly to me and that impacts how things move and flex. Low rez textures are also noticable. Those things impact the feel of the game, the atmosphere and environment.

People may badmouth others who want the game to look as good as it could, but can you really blame them? Graphics and gameplay are not "one or the other" sort of thing. It's entirely possible to have both, and they both bring very valuable things to the gameplay experience.

I know, it's annoying that people have different tastes and ideas than you right? To some people, graphics are part of the immersion in a game. It doesn't make them less of a person, or more shallow, it is just how our brains process things differently. Some people love great music, others love great art, others still love manipulating things with their hands. All of these people have different priorities in games. BTW, do you people scream at everyone on the streets about how they care about looks in the opposite six? In the grand scheme of things, we are a visual species, so looks ARE important to us.

Honestly, I have to agree with the OP. I think Skyrim looks great, and I'm 99.999% sure that I will love it. That being said, I was really expected to be blown away by the game, and instead I thought, huh, it looks Oblivion with some really nice mods. Just because I am a huge fan of the series doesn't mean I am going to become a knob slobbering fool over anything that is shown to me. Obviously I expect games like BF3 and Crysis2 to look better, but I really didn't think games like Two Worlds 2 would be beating out Skyrim in certain areas. Laugh all you want, but TW2 does has better textures, lighting, and environmental detail than the little we have seen of Skyrim thus far. Granted there are MANY other areas where Skyrim destroys TW2, but I was execting an ES game that comes out close to a year later to dominate a small time game like TW2 in EVERY area, not be a draw. I'm not even going to mention the Witcher2, which pretty much beats Skyrim hands down in every area. I guess this is probably based on Bethesda's decision not to go with a brand new engine, but what can you do? Maybe for their next game we will see something really different.

BTW, to reiterate what the OP said for all the haters: NONE of us have played the game yet. Essentially all we can discuss is graphics and design decisions. People who complain about the graphics aren't trying to personally hurt your feelings or those of the developers, but rather give some constructive criticism about something we see as a hindrance to immersion. Criticism happens to big people all the time in the real world. Learn to live with it, and try to add something to the conversation other than "quit whining!" and "gameplay > graphics"(they are not one in the same)...

People should have learned their lesson with Dragon Age: Origins. Top notch graphics are not a must! I can't count how many hours I've poured into that game simply for the sake of role playing.

Complaints about lighting? WE HAVEN'T BEEN SHOWN ANYTHING YET! "Some games have dynamic shadows with a dozen lights in a single room!" We don't know whether or not it's possible with the Creation Engine, it might be able to handle a million lights for all we know. And anyway what were you hoping for with the trailer? It's meant to show us a rugged northern setting, that means sunlight, starlight, torches and campfires are pretty much to light sources we'll see and nobody lights a dozen of those at the same time in a small room. Bethesda wasn't gonna pop in a Nord disco club into the trailer to quell the concerns of a dozen people. Some people seem to have expected the trailer to release with a separate video demonstration of engine capabilities. Be patient! We'll see that all in due time.

Complaints about graphics? First as I said before, it has been proven time and time again that developers don't need to pop everyone's brains out with your graphics every time you release a game to get a GOTY award or even one of the greatest games of all time.
Second, Skyrim looks very good! Not mind boggling, from what we've seen, but IMO the best looking open world game yet! And that's from looking at very short footage and screenshots taken from the Xbox 360, which means no tessellation, no anti-aliasing, no PC high rez textures. And it has been confirmed that the PC version will have all that.

Basically people need to stop complaining over things that haven't been proven right or wrong yet. Please come back to argue when you have a solid proof of the engine limitations.

guys so like this one time i saw a texture right and the way it blended into the texture next to it was a little unnatural and oh boy let me tell you it RUINED MY IMMERSION.

like i mean it my immersion was SHATTERED. shattered! i never got it back!

i promptly uninstalled the game and threw it in the garbage and i've vowed to boycott every future title from that developer until i get a handwritten apology.

Do you have a source for that one? All I've heard so far is anti-aliasing and higher rez textures (which should be givens). Nothing about any sort of DX11 support. If they have, I'd be very happy.

I can underatand how you would wonder why this is so.

After all some people wonder why rvs dont come with spoilers and racing stripes

Or why no one has ever run the nerimberg ring while towing a yaht.

Or why mountain cliimbers dont tend to wear kilts.

Thus will just have to be one of those mysteries.

the day bethesda starts placing graphics as a higher priority than the important things, like gameplay, is the day i stop caring about TES. But it won't happen. I'm all for a good looking game but i would rather play a game that has more than just graphics running for it. I'll take a TES over a Crysis anyday.

But when will the day come when people start to realize that gameplay and graphics are not mutually exclusive? That's what I want to know.

I got a great idea, how about you wait until the game is released. lol

it'll come the day children grow up and realize HEY, MAYBE IT'S OKAY FOR A GAME TO NOT LOOK LIKE REAL LIFE.

Right. Like saying Skryim (that isn't released yet) looks comparable to games made back in 2005? How exactly is that constructive? How about the lot of you add something new to the conversation too without comparing Skyrim to Crysis, The Witcher 2, low-res textures, yadda yadda yadda it's the same crap only in another pointless thread.

I'm all for constructive criticism, everyone's entitled to their opinion for sure.

But a lot of you seriously push the boundary and go that one step further into absurdity. Only my opinion, of course.

Except one is an opinion while the other is a lack of understanding. Two different things.

I remember it from a quote from Todd Howard during the GI coverage, I'm looking for it right now.

Question to OP: How come mostly all your screens are from Crysis 2?

Do one of these thread have to be made every...single....day? We get it. Some peoples lives are ruined because Skyrim's graphics wont make your head explode when you look at them.


but seriously, Lets just wait till we can get some more real PC game footage closer to release, and we can make a better judgment off of what we see.

Like I said, show me one game that looks as good as what we've seen from Skyrim so far, that's also as big and detailed as an TES game. ALL the screens that were posted as examples of better graphics are either from tech demos, Crysis, or some other shooters that don't have nearly as many in game items that need to be detailed.

If Bethesda could make the visuals better without sacrificing detail, performance, or gameplay features, then they would do so. They're not going to half ass the visuals "just cuz".

I'm sorry for being so rude, I just get sick of people expecting every game to look as good as Crysis. Especially one as big and detailed as a TES game. Skyrim looks great so far, and there's still plenty of time to improve the polygon counts of clothing pieces that you barley notice when the game is in motion.

Also, just one thing: about shadows. look CAREFULLY at the video. in the beginning, when he's running through the forest. SHADOWS!!!

But yeah, they were going for STYLE over realism, and yet it looks effin awesome.
So stop making a thread like this every [censored] 5 minutes, the graphics are what they are, END OF THE [censored] LINE!

This.

Nothing is missing, I think people who don't know how to use the search engine to find the 1000 other 'The graphics suxorz' in Skyrim coz I said so coz I saw the 2 min trailer' have something missing though...

People forget that before Morrowind was released, the same thing happened, before Oblivion was released, the same thing happened, then after release everything quietened down about the graphics and instead they complained it was boring or too easy instead You see they can't please everyone, especially the apparently uneducated kids that don't see the difference between a huge game like Skyrim and a run and gun from point A to point B game like Crysis!

I think the game looks fantastic, they have greatly improved the detail, the lighting, the shaders, the models, animations and countless other fascets from Oblivion and to this day Oblivion still looks pretty good And yes it is still 9 months away from release so I don't think they would be done with optimizing either, not that I can see anything wrong with what they have done so far in the trailer anyhow...

missing the ability to look like this


http://i.imgur.com/CLKdi.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/k2vfc.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/DGNRH.jpg

can't wait to see huge 64 player maps w/ that engine.

Ironically, I just downloaded the Crysis SP demo to see how my rig fairs. (badly - I can do medium settings only)

However, the sandbox editor was quite fascinating. The ability to put in rivers that actually flow was interesting. You can throw crates in the water, and watch them float downstream. That's pretty cool.

Now, I know Skyrim likely won't have anything quite like that, but the level of interactivity in Crysis is stunning - and it's getting to be a pretty old game. It would be nice if at least some of that interactivity could be replicated.

I think we can all agree that better graphics( A higher polygon count, Highly detailed textures, and realistic shaders) can really enhance the experience and immersion, but without good game-play and storyline, it simply becomes a pretty, yet uninteresting tech demonstration for benchmarking ones computer. I want the graphics to be top notch, but I want the game-play to be even better, and as long as the graphics don't break my immersion in that story and game-play, I really don't care. If it works, it works.

I mean, why did people play games like http://www.theprogram101.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/legend_of_zelda_nes.png Because, it's graphics were implemented well for it's time, it supported and complemented the Gameplay, and did what the developers wanted it to do. Graphic technology is becoming greater in what it can do, and it really allows game developers to create worlds in a way they never thought they could. I'm sure if Bethesda lived in a perfect world they could and would implement a lot of what we are asking for, to improve immersion and the games visual experience, but they want to create a fun game that a large audience can enjoy on their current generation consoles, and computers. Again, if the graphics don't hinder my ability to immerse myself in the game world, and the story being told, I'll be a happy camper, ready to spend hundreds of hours playing it. For a large open ended RPG, it looks fantastic, and I'm sure it will be greatly entertaining. There's a lot of great games coming out this year, including Skyrim, that are really pushing what is possible on current generation consoles, and that's something to be happy about.

In a few years, I'm sure there will be games coming out with lower-polygon and textures for aesthetic and nostalgic purposes, and yet they'll be fun because they'll be implemented so well with the game and complement what it seeks to accomplish.

OP Basing opinion on a teaser trailer. Yes, the latest trailer is still a teaser.

...aaand comparing it to Prerez snapshots and dev test videos to top it off.

The unfair bias in the Op's post is almost sickening, I almost wish you could ban people for this.

It looks amazing for such a (hopefully) massive game. That article is the far future of gaming. I think they meant next gen consoles. The next gen console will most likely come out 4 or 5 years from now. We haven't exhausted the potential of our current consoles yet.