You know, this whole "gameplay vs graphics" debate reminds me of a debate that's been raging in architecture for decades. "Form vs Function."

On one hand, you have your functionalists. Their motto is "Form follows function." In other words, you design a building to meet it's functions and the form is derived from that. One of my professor's colleagues even went so far as to say that if you gave everyone the same function, then their designs should all look identical. One ideal form to meet the functional needs of the building. Buildings designed this way tend to work very well. The fulfill the needs of their occupants as best as reasonably possible. The downside is that they tend to look rather boring.

Then you have your designers that focus on form. Often what they do is they design a form that looks interesting, then cram the function into as best as they can. The result of this approach is, predictably, a building that looks quite remarkable, but doesn't really work very well, for any number or reasons.

I did a case study on the Yale Art and Architecture building on quarter and it was very interesting. As I found reviews of the building, it was pretty clear what camp the reviewers came from. One group said that the building was beautiful and iconic. The other said it didn't work. Funny thing was, they were both right.

So if you're going to design just for function, you might as well get an engineer to do it. If you're going to design for form, you might as well just get into sculpture. What a truly great building needs is both. It needs to work well and look good.

And that's the way I, personally, feel about games. They need both graphics and gameplay to truly be great.

What annoys me, though, is that the "funtionalists" on this forum are very vocal and feel some sort of compulsion to come into discussions on form and press their views. They do it so much and so strongly, as if trying to derail the discussion, that any real talk of form becomes nearly impossible.

I've been on the opposite end of an argument with you enough to know that you have a rebuttal for everything. Let's just agree we're in this for different reasons, shall we?

Why are people arguing about graphics being important or not? I'm not going to be playing Skyrim on some modern gaming PC, I'll be playing it on a PS3, but even then, graphics do matter very much to me. There's a reason why I buy new generation consoles. Yes, some new games factor into that choice, but I do try and go for what will give me a good graphical experience and I would be furious if, say, the PS3 version ended up looking like a PS2 game. I don't believe the average gaming PC is that far ahead of current-generation consoles as to say they outclass the current generation by a whole generation, but for those whose PCs can handle it, I don't see why some extra graphical settings would be looked down upon. Sure, I won't use them, but I'm going to bring up the PS2 anology, again. Game companies should make full use of the hardware powering their games across all platforms, in my opinion. The PS3's improved hardware (over the PS2) and my HDTV costed me money and they had better put that technology to good use. I don't see why it's different for those with more powerful gaming PCs.

Ignorance fight! These forums are full of this BS, Pc sales do fine compared to the other platforms and you never hear about it because few people track digital sales (which is now the majority of pc sales): http://www.gameinfowire.com/news.asp?nid=15405

The basics of it are that, sure the PC version could look five times better than the console versions. But is that going to increase their sales appreciably? Nope, so Bethesda doesn't care about that. They to get it looking good enough to sell well to most people and that's it, they aren't even going for great graphics on the consoles, let alone the pc.

@Davor: So you're assuming that the retail cost of a game is directly related to the production cost? Because, you know, I pay the same to see a high budget movie as I do to see a low budget movie.

You are true, you got me there. Ok, how about waiting then. Since all the time was done for the xbox, and if you wanted better graphics for the PC IT could mean that they don't meet the release of 11/11/11 for the PC then. So how about the PC gets released later but has better graphics.

That doesn't really quite... add up. Bethesda doesn't agree with you, and they're the ones selling their games, so they should know better (no offense to you). http://www.oxm.co.uk/26489/bethesda-people-who-say-graphics-dont-matter-are-lying/

"[...]good looks are vital because they create "a sense of immersion" in a game world, and with Skyrim, "we're looking for the best sense of immersion you can get".

But there's another, somewhat grubbier, less artistically watertight reason: graphics sell games. That old adage about pictures being worth a thousand words is bang on the money, Hines told us, illustrating this with some painfully close-to-home examples.

"When you boil a game down, somebody flips through a magazine, like OXM for example, and you may or may not get them to read page five of Mike [Channell]'s 16 page coverage of Skyrim - page five is awesome by the way, so don't skip it.
"But they will look at a screenshot and make a snap decision: 'that looks awesome', or 'I'm not interested'. So if you can make something look amazing just at first glance, it's so much easier to get them.""

Thing is about better graphics, Skyrim will not have OMG jaw dropping graphics this time, there will be better looking games. Thing is the graphics are still good very good, and that is all we really need, good or very good, but not all the time spent on graphic like they did with Civ V and the game play suffered very much.

@tombofsoldier: 100% correct. Which does not detract anyone's right to be pissed about it. People derail the argument by saying it will compromise gameplay when it's an almost absolutely void point. Mitheledh said it perfectly: When it comes down to it, striking a balance is the way to go, beetween graphics and gameplay, and there are countless games out there that present a WAY better experience, graphically, on PCs than on consoles. It's logical that console owners will have butterflies on their hearts by knowing they'll not get the short end of the stick by the umpteenth time, but it's rude and unfair attacking a PC user over his unacceptance of an apparent lack of care towards the original platform and where the COMMUNITY mostly gathers and flocks to, due to modding potential.

If you're super happy that you're getting the same graphics as PC gamers, it's super-A-OK. Just don't tell me I have to find it awesome after having spent the money to have a BETTER graphical experience than that I get ON MY CONSOLES.

By the way, to everyone saying it'll look the same, don't be dellusional. It will look heaps better. I find it unlikely consoles will run it at 1080p, they'll have lower textures, probably no AA, minimal effects(be it particles, water, etc.) and lower draw distance. The argument is not about looking THE SAME, which it will not, it's about not making use of a certain set of technologies that are available for PCs: DirectX 11.

I'm a patient woman. I've already waited for five or so years. I can wait more for it to look on par with other titles coming out at about the same time.

Discussions are no fun if you refuse to discuss, but alright. I'm in gaming to have fun and new experiences, I guess there's probably some other reason you could be in it that you can fall into if you want.

I will be playing on the 360, by choice so I rather wait as well longer if it means less bugs. Skyrim will be my last Sameday game purchase so heres hoping everything works great for everyone on 11/11/11.

Why will it be last same day purchase?

Max on PC games will always look better, unless they are very limiting. Imagine console simply as the PC version of medium graphic quality.

PC users will get higher resolution textures, Anti Aliasing and longer Draw Distances, so yes.

Although bethesda probably wont do much with DX11, modders will.
Water looks amazing, but modders will make it look better...
Faces look amazing, but modders will make it look better...
etc.

thats because they have this myopic view that games that look good must inherently svck cause they took time away from gameplay. if computer game design were left up to them, we would still be playing isometric games using pixels in order to not hurt "gameplay"

there is also alot of nonsense im reading about how developers cant design the games for more than one platform and these people apparently know nothing of how the industry works. people have already mentioned DICE but there are other developers as well such as the people that made two worlds 2. the visual difference between the console versions and and the PC versions are striking and this is a small developer. supposedly crysis 2 looks much better on PC although i havent played it yet so i cant confirm if thats true or not. i can confirm that dirt 2 looks much nicer on my PC than my friends xbox.

minecraft is a great example of how graphics can greatly enhance a game. the game itself is a blast to play but lots of minecraft players.........and i would even guess most of them.......use texture packs to improve the look of the game since the default textures are really low like 32 x 32. i personally use a 128 pack and the improvement in overall gameplay is humungous. so saying graphics have no impact on gameplay is just wrong, thickheaded and nothing more than a flat out lie.

I don't know... I like the idea of modding and some specific old TES/Fallout mods as well, but graphical mods tend to deviate a bit too much from the overall art style of the games for my taste. Not that there's anything wrong with that per se, but I can't bring myself to consider such mods a replacement on par with what Beth would have produced. "It doesn't need to be there because modders will take care of it" is just not an argument I feel comfortable relying on, as much as I respect people who choose to spend their time making and giving away free content. :/

Minecraft's textures are 16x16.

And I agree, graphics do have an impact on gameplay, but they don't have to be cutting-edge graphics to enjoy the game. There is a lot of nitpicking (imo) about the graphics in Skyrim or the lack thereof, and I have to disagree with the people that say "OMG no volumetric lighting? This game fails". That is obviously an exaggeration, but I use it to get my point across, which is a game does not have to be photo-realistic to be enjoyable. Proof of this is that a lot of people think that Morrowind is a better game than Oblivion, even though Oblivion obviously has better graphics. :shrug: Just my opinion.

A game can be enjoyable with bad graphics. That's not the point here, nor the opposite.

What's the point here is that Bethesda has built their new engine, given it DX11, yet apparently not taking advantage of it. Is there something wrong with that? I think so. They should take full advantage (keeping the costs in mind, of course) of whatever they can take advantage of. It's been stated by Bethesda themself that greater graphics is great for marketing, and that it makes the game more immersive.

In other words, it would be good for both Bethesda themself and for us PC players for Skyrim to take advantage of more DX11 features. Despite of this, Todd doesn't seem too eager to do this, and instead literally force all platforms to look "equal", when the platforms in reality are very different. PC is superior, we all know that. It can handle a lot more, and it has been given the tools to handle a lot more (DX11).

That's what I feel this thread and this whole issue is about.

you havent seen morrowind lately with MGE have you. it blows oblivion out of the water graphics wise. the only thing that still svcks are the horrible animations and the crappy combat. i installed morrowind late last year after a 3-4 year hiatous and what the modders have done with that time is just jaw dropping. i have confidence in modders doing the same thing for skyrim its just that id rather not have to wait years for it.

i dont expect skyrim to look as good as RAGE will but i do expect skyrim to have the same difference in quality between versions as the witcher 2 appears to have and two worlds 2 which i mentioned earlier. im overall positive about skyrim because they have hit the big graphic issue with me. shadows............it is almost impossible to play games without decent shadows because they add a layer of realism to the world that cant be measured. the other thing that i hope they fix from oblivion is the horrible HDR lighting. its hard to tell from the trailer since they are such short clips but hopefully they will have more footage at E3.

You still enjoy Minecraft though without BF3 level graphics. So why does Skyrim have to have them?

I want both.

"There's a lot of people who say graphics don't matter," he said in the latest OXM podcast. "To them I usually say 'you're lying'." According to Hines, when you try to sell a game the graphics is usually the first thing that people will check out."

I completely agree.




Because it would turn an already good experience into an excellent one :shrug:

Naturally. When people see a commercial or a trailer literally the first thing that they see is the graphics. :rolleyes:

If the gameplay svcks, what would better graphics do?
If the gameplay is fun, why would better graphics matter?