I think one of the major points of the discussion about graphics, is that we're starting to really feel the technological limits of the consoles. It tends to start to give people the feeling that more could be reached, more could be done, in terms of graphics but -also- gameplay and innovation. The massive scope of the Elder Scrolls games, especially Skyrim, could be limited by this. The size of the world and it's content is not only a graphical representation, but also a gameplay aspect. If Cyrodiil in Oblivion was two times bigger, for example, it would be much less crowded with dungeons and ruins. With Skyrim, five years later, it's logical to expect a more encompassing and better optimised, better concentrated game and game world. It personally worries me that many improvements that Bethesda would like to do with Skyrim will have to, or already has been, toned down to fit the less complex nature of the consoles and it's hardware.

It's like Oblivion would be done on the old Xbox and PS2. Graphically it wouldnt be able to improve a great deal, and though gameplay would be optimised and improved on the Morrowind formulae, it wouldn't achieve what it could do with better technology.

Even worse, it will be another five years until we can play the next Elder Scrolls -- And only then we'll be able to utilise new technology from the next generation consoles. I don't think anyone wants to wait that long.

So tl;dr: Skyrim will definitely be a great game, but technological limits may hold back it's greatness because many CPU/GPU intensive innovations won't be able to be put in.

While I agree with a lot of what you said, I don't think we should blame the consoles too much.
If graphics and features like this can be done for PC/Xbox360/PS3, then I don't really worry about consoles limiting a PC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kvl31g77Z8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D9oINHI11E

The problem is that all the footage of CE3 has shown relatively major reductions from CE2, and Crysis 2 is even set in a more closed in linear environment rather than the expansive vistas of the first.

Yes. Second only to gameplay, and a close second at that.

Story and roleplaying (as pre-created aspects of a computer game) matter to me hardly at all, because I can write and/or imagine those for myself, and usually to a far higher standard -- and certainly more relevant to my preferences -- than anything I've seen or experienced in a game.

Linear, single player RPGs with lacking visuals, audio, and/or gameplay are bad at telling stories compared to books, and bad at being games compared to fun, beautiful games. Give me a fun, beautifully presented action RPG with all the eyecandy over a rigid, hardcoe roleplaying game any day - chances are my roleplaying is better than the devs', and I can take it into any genre of game equally.

CryEngine 3 can handle big open world environments. I don't think Crytek would lie about a feature of their engine
Also there is a clip showing CryEngine 3 running on the expansive world of Crysis 1 on consoles.

Reductions? There have been a few reductions on consoles, obviously. But both consoles and PC still look very very good.
If you're thinking of some specific major reduction, please tell.
To my knowledge, CryEngine 3 has a lot more new features than CryEngine 2... many of them showing in the videos.

Metro 2033 would have been an awesome game without the great graphics. =|

Yes they do. However, they are not the most important thing. Overall, I want what I see to be congruent with what I'm playing.

indeed as long as the animations are better I can play skyrim with morrowind graphics, unless the graphics are not 20 years old they don't matter for me.

10 years is my graphic limit (though it might be more depending on game)

for me game play>>>story>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>graphics.

Although I doubt it will look like a 10 years old game, releasing a game with dated graphics is almost as bad business as releasing something so advanced that very few people can actually play it. The media will trash its visual scores and it will be played only by Elder Scrolls fans and hardcoe roleplayers. It goes completely against their "streamlining" philosophy. Graphics quality is a MAJOR selling factor for casual players and it's usually topping the scores list of any gaming magazine. Most people here are looking for a good story (and so am I), but I personally know dozens of players who will gladly skip dialogue and cinematics. RPGs have become action RPGs in the past few years for a good reason. Look what happened to Dragon Age 2.

Yes, the CE3 Crysis demos running on consoles had clear quality losses in shadows, quality of distant land, general shaders, so on. I have no doubt that Crysis 2 will look very good, the point is that it won't look 4 years better than Crysis.

So why wouldn't an engine like CryEngine 3 fit for a game like Skyrim? Is it the complexity of all the massive content? They said that the Tech5 engine wouldn't fit a game like Skyrim as well. Why?

Because every company is on a fixed budget, which means having fewer graphic designers allows you to have more scripters, for instance. In order to meet your production dates, then you have to reduce the workload to compensate. Reducing the graphical requirements of the project would do this.

A bad game with good graphics should have spent more time on game design, which often means more money spent, which means cuts in other areas.

Often, companies will not be willing to cut on graphics because they know that a very large portion of sales come from people buying based on screenshots and box art. They need that initial rush of income to offset production costs and get bills paid.

So graphics and gameplay are directly related.

I said this earlier.

Don't we know it now?

Awwww PC is way betturz than dumb consoles Cuz PC haz bettur graphiks and modz.

Xbux is teh lamest box of lameness. And the penus statiun is ewww.


Seriously. Everytime a thread has said something about PC and consoles people must say that THEIRS is the best and than there will be a ''so called'' war...

It really annoys me!

Can't we all agree all computers/PC's/Consoles are awesome?

Then someone said this.

Posted by: III H1TMAN III
Can't we all agree all consoles are awesome?
No, because it's not true.

Deal with it.

I replied.

I see what you are trying to do!

Convincing everyone that I'm a console really devoted fan.

Well that is wrong!

First of you deleted my sentence. It said this: Can't we all agree all computers/PC's/Consoles are awesome?

Second The Consoles don't svck. And I didn't say that the PC svcks either.

I think Consoles and PC's are both awesome.

As the rest of the world should agree.

Because this stupid ''so called'' Console/PC war makes me want to kill the people who are too [censored] serious about all this sh1t!

Those stupid serious people are ruining the fun for the rest of the people who enjoy their gaming console/PC without bothering people who use different computers then them.


And there was this.

Anyone who says PC is better than consoles is just wrong, there about the same. Whilst pc offers a better gaming experience, consoles offer a better social experience.


True, but I think that some people really take it seriously just how awesome graphics can look in a game. I've played the Crysis 2 demo and first off I must say I was impressed with everything except for the laggy controls. After playing for awhile though I started to question just how much the Xbox 360 was able to take graphically though, because I've heard so much about how awesome the Crytek 3 engine could be. Even though the demo is still in the beta stage, do you think that the graphics can improve any further? According to this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WJG14uLA3k

The graphics seen in the demo or on the Xbox 360 barely manages to pull off Crytek 2 Engine capable graphics (and on medium settings). That is quite pitiful... but whatever, I'll probably still be getting the game just cause I don't have a PC that's powerful enough to run the game.


Well your comparing a constantly upgrading platform to something from six years ago. Unfortunately we don't upgrade our console and microsoft and sony can bring a new one out each few months. the cryengine 3 is a remarkable piece of kit and to be honest the xbox 360 is not.


:P

I agree. I seriously don't fully believe when someone says he would prefer if Skyrim looked worse than OB...I understand the whole Gameplay>Story>Graphics but everyone cares to some degrees about graphics.

And I really do care BTW I modded OB and MW al lthe way to make it better looking and with mods they are still very decent for today's standards. I said in a previous topic, if possible Skyrim should have DX11 and Extreme tessalation just because it would add much more immersion...

New poll options

- My pixels need pixels!
- I care about pixel count even if the game looks fine
- I think graphics should be great, but only if it doesn't hinder on other more important aspects of the game.
- I never really cared about graphics, I just want great gameplay and story.
- But I loved 8 bit...(nostalgia)

I guess it has some limitations concerning ... idk. It can handle vast landscapes with lots of content, keeping it all with stunning detail. It has "dynamic AI" and stuff like that too. Awesome physics too with lots of things interactable.
My best guess it doesn't handle big number of AI too well. But that's a wild guess.
Even though, we don't even know how Creation engine handles this.

Also I guess it would have taken too much time and money to make an engine like CryEngine 3.
Tech 5 engine was better for interior environments (small spaces). Skyrim focuses a lot on draw distance, it seems.

All in all, the only thing I'd like to be worked on more for the Creation engine is:

1) Better lighting and shadows. Bethesda should tweak them a bit more. They can be improved...

2) Better depth of textures (the GI-screenshot in the village shows some really flat and unrealistic textures from ground and hay-roof). CryEngine 2 & 3 uses http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcAsJdo7dME to achieve this. Another way is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdvZPIQpsQo. Performance hit from tessellation has been incredibly reduced from DX 11, it seems. And it is absolutely stunning.

Let's get a few things clear. For one thing, graphical progress has been a gradual change that's always been occuring. It has nothing to do with now, it has to do with the advance of technology and the advance of the video game community. No, but you're right. Graphics aren't important, so we shouldn't have even bothered to progress past Pong's graphics... or better yet, we shouldn't have added graphics to games and started calling them video games in the first place, right? You see where I'm going with this?

On another note, Bethesda has pretty much always pushed the boundaries on graphics and technical aspects, in general. Arena was a pain to get running on computers of its day. I'm not sure about Daggerfall, but Morrowind was cutting-edge, too, and so was Oblivion. It has nothing to do with now because it's just been happening. Graphical advancement is a constant throughout video gaming history.

Another part of this is that graphics typically aren't alone. Oblivion's engine is largely unoptimized. They needed to make a new, more optimized one , in my opinion. Better graphics come as a by-product of more advanced gaming engines which, in turn, allow for more advanced physics, animations, graphics, sounds, AI, day-and-night systems, weather systems (part of graphics), optimization for a smoother running game (Where was occlusion culling twenty years ago?), the potential for better gameplay, and just more stuff, in general.

Now, I would like to ask a question. For what purpose do people oppose the very foundation of what separates video games from other types of games? Why does it seem that picking on graphics and the modern day is considered a "cool" thing to do on the internet? We have a freaking hand-held console able to run PS3 games, now, and how can anyone possibly say they don't care? If Skyrim has a view from the peaks of one of its mountains that will both leave your jaw dangling in awe and make you acrophobic at the same time, would you not be impressed? I've stated this before, but from an objective view, graphics do matter in a video game. My reasoning:

graphics = video

gameplay = game

graphics + gameplay = video game

That is a truth that cannot be denied. If you personally disagree and honestly think story is more important than either of them then, and I don't mean this out of anger, I think what you're looking for is a book. I read plenty of books, myself, but the premise of video games does not rank graphics as meaningless nor does it place story above it's two key elements. Video game stories have always been weak in comparison to stories from other forms of media that are based around the focus on stories... such as books. I'm sorry, but it is the truth. :shrug:

I agree with everything you said, more or less.

I'd like to add:

graphics + gameplay = video game

graphics + gameplay + story = great video game

Why? Because it gives the game a meaning. That's mainly why I prefer Morrowind over Oblivion, despite it being worse in graphics. Morrowind just had a deeper and more meaningful story than Oblivion. And in the end, that mattered a lot to me
Skyrim's story seems awesome though. Perhaps even better than Morrowind's?

NO.

Graphics are low on the totem pole in RPG's, game play is first and foremost. The second most importan thing is Story Line. After that, graphics.

Graphics are needed in FPS games, where the story isn't very good most of the time and the only game play is shoot the enemy.

I don't even like FPSes that much, but come on, there's more to the genre than that.

As for graphics? I play Dwarf Fortress without a graphics set. I think I can safely say that graphics don't matter to me.

Some FPS games, like Half Life, do have a decent story line. However, the majority of them have a hokey story line. An FPS needs graphics to make up for there not being alot of depth to them. I've played plenty of FPS's and for me the majority of them are pretty graphics and shoot on sight.

Graphics are important, looks are important, style is important

I enjoy Morrowind's story but I prefer playing a graphically enhanced version

The graphics look fine to me with where Skyrim is going - though I'm not sure they have got the hair right - how hard is to it to do good alpha enabled hair?

i wouldnt play it.....and im one of those "morrowind was better than oblivion" people. im very glad that people that constantly say "graphics dont matter, only gameplay" are not running the game industry. we would still be playing isometric sprite games simply cause it was good enough for them. as much as i loved games like arcanum, diablo, final fantasy 3 and 7, chrono trigger etc. i wouldnt want todays games to look like those games. we would never have had deus ex, or vampire bloodlines or half life if that was the case. graphics DO matter, along WITH gameplay. they are both important parts of a game.

i give more leeway to a small indie developer like taleworlds (warband) and frictional (amnesia, penumbra games) because they have very small teams and tiny budgets. the gameplay is so good that i can easily overlook graphics for those types of games. however, large developers dont have that excuse. they have much larger budgets and many more people working on it and i assume that they usually have more experienced people as well. there is no excuse why a developer like bioware, bethesda, rockstar should release a game that is behind in graphics technology.

As long as it does not interfere with gameplay.

Improved graphics makes it feel like a new game, not just an expansion.