The art design for this game, especially the environment design, is stunning. However, the models are a bit blockier than I expected, and in some cases outright jaggedly low-poly. The textures are adequate but don't really pop, and in some cases, when viewed closely, are pretty bad.

Is this a by-product of being in development for 7 years? A concession to the huge zones? Are my expectations unrealistic?

It is an MMO, for an MMO to be successful it needs a large playerbase. Majority of people don't have monster gaming PC's so having slightly lower graphics can actually be seen as a benefit to the game.

But, IMO, the graphics look great (playing on full Ultra here) to me; except the 3rd person running and combat animations. Now thats a real issue.

This. Most MMOs look like crap, you just don't often get to see them from up close. Skyrim was designed for a single player and only a couple of NPCs in one area and vanilla textures still mostly look like crap.

Graphics look fine to me. As mentioned, MMOs need to have a little give so that lower-end systems can handle them.

I'm hoping for some proper high resolution patches.

I think they are gorgeous. I mean coming from FFXIV where the artwork was amazing but the game itself was shallow and disappointing, I'll have to say ESO took their own style and did great with it. Rugged, darker, more western fantasy. I love it!

I'm just glad it is that cartoony overexaggerated look that wow/eqn/wildstar are using.

MMO's will never match the graphic quality of smaller scale games for the simple reason that MMO's have to potentially render hundreds of characters on the screen at any given time. Single player games, or smaller scale multiplayer games do not have this limitation.

For a single player, yes.

For a MMO, no.

for an mmo they are not bad at all..

No, graphics are fine.

I do appreciate the low requirements, since my weaker video card can run everything at max.

Good point about Skyrim. My only basis of comparison in terms of MMOs is FF14, which looked a lot better in terms of models and textures. Not modded Skyrim quality, but it didn't hurt to zoom in.

If we're talking about "fine," they look fine to me too. They don't hurt to look at or anything.

graphics are good.

As a WoW player since 2007 color me impressed. I have really only been playing WoW and LoL since around 2007 alternating between the two so any game now adays looks great in comparison to their ultra cartoony graphics.

Yeah, Final Fantasy titles are completely different breed of games and most titles are graphical power houses. Sometimes that's cool but sometimes the gameplay suffers from it.

Which MMO are you comparing it to?

Edit: Ah, FFIV. How many players do they show on screen at a time? I've only seen videos and haven't counted more than 20.

I agree, though I think it's ok considering how demanding Cyrodiil is.
Graphically, it doesn't look as good as FFXIV or Tera.

I'm fine with it , they do need to give options like graphic sliders so those with more powerful machines can see it in full glory .

Best graphics of any MMO to date. Name one that has better?

I keep trying to see what the issue is here but just don't. I mean ... this looks amazing to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL8UD6geq58

We have those. Even at ultra settings, the graphical quality has to be limited in order to allow hundreds of players on the screen at once.

ESO is a little more colourful than Skyrim (and other ES games before it) but it works nicely. I personally found Skyrim to be a little washed out in that department. The graphics were great, but the colour just seemed like there was almost no contrast. Granted, it makes things less cartoony.

The graphics in ESO have seemed incredible to me. Huge improvement on the faces of the characters over previous ES games in my opinion. Motion is smooth, the sky is amazing (I can't play an MMO with a bad sky). This is an MMO, not a top of the line first person shooter. They obviously want to release the best render quality possible while being appealing to the largest audience possible, and I think they have managed wonderfully.

Keep in mind that FF14 character models are also very cookie cutter. So while you can make some pretty cool ones, everyone is for the most part, identical outside of a few key features. I really liked some of the character models in FFIV, but not all.

ESO as a whole has amazing graphics, but obviously the first time you start a new toon its painful with the clothing and movements. I will say that once you get some higher-end armor the look is MUCH better and frankly some races have better looks/textures than others. So while the animations aren't perfect, those are easier to improve upon post release and I hope to see further improvements as time goes on.

If anyone recalls the original animations all those months ago... yeah... they keep improving them but it wont be quick and it must be a lower priority since once you're geared up it looks amazing.

Kind of like ESO where everyone moves the same/same animations (humanoid) and the only difference is if they have a tail, scales, or pointy ears.

Yes, graphics looks dated.