General Discussion

I think if developers spent less money worrying about how shiny the graphics were on a game and spent more on actually making the game better everyone would be happier.

For example the graphics for WOW are fairly simple and cartoony and yet it has a huge number of subs. There are plenty of people on this forum that play older MMO's that have out dated graphics and don't seem to care. No game that has come out since WOW with fancy graphics has come close to the number of subs that WOW has.

From this I conclude that graphics don't matter as much as the developers seem to think they do, at least in mmo's.

"realistic" looking graphics, at least in characters like in EQ2 or VG personally are not my thing. Maybe it's because SOE doesn't know how to do them properly, they end up making them look like walking mannequins, and even end up making them walk like stiff mannequins. I don't know, maybe its just me, but personally I would preffer models that are more stylized, and don't try to be too realistic or try to take themselves too seriously. It is a game after all.

MMORPG is supposed to be a long term game type, where no matter how good the graphics it, it will get outdated, or we players will get used to it and have no feeling after many many days of playing. So I agree that instead of making extremely cool graphics MMORPG, they should focus on gameplay. (although WoW's success is due to other reasons not the gameplay imo)

Of course, when it doesn't need to be extremely cool graphics, it must not be bad graphics, just make it "acceptable".

Another reason is that, for MMORPG, the larger player base the better, so"acceptable" level of graphics will have much higher potential player base than "extremely cool" graphics because general players, no matter hardcore or casual, don't have a wonderful computer to run your extremely cool graphics MMORPG, or at least not smoothly.

Originally posted by joereed1

I think if developers spent less money worrying about how shiny the graphics were on a game and spent more on actually making the game better everyone would be happier.

For example the graphics for WOW are fairly simple and cartoony and yet it has a huge number of subs. There are plenty of people on this forum that play older MMO's that have out dated graphics and don't seem to care. No game that has come out since WOW with fancy graphics has come close to the number of subs that WOW has.

From this I conclude that graphics don't matter as much as the developers seem to think they do, at least in mmo's.

They need to learn from AreaNet..Guild Wars graphics are not like AOC but they are more than acceptable and the gameplay is way better.

I still play UO and Ragnarok Online......They have low poly 2d graphics but the gameplay is better than any game out there IMO.

So yea Gameplay is way more important and Devs dont understand that.....Sheesh.....They should visit this site more often and read the forums.....

Originally posted by joereed1

I think if developers spent less money worrying about how shiny the graphics were on a game and spent more on actually making the game better everyone would be happier.

LOL in view of the fact that making good graphics is hard and takes up lots of man hours, I think if there weren't a demand for great graphics from the buying public, developers would gladly spend less time on them.  So the answer to your question is: obviously yes.

For most people gameplay is first and always will be first.  But for most people, graphics and sound aren't far behind.  I can forgive a game if it has great gameplay but slightly under par graphics; I can't play a game if it has crap graphics and only decent gameplay, whereas a game with decent gameplay and great graphics is playable.

Graphics (and to great extent sound too) partly stand for immersion i suppose, and immersion is a big requirement in games.  Otherwise we'd all still be playing Pong, which is a perfectly balanced game with great gameplay.

I know I only really got into videogames when Doom came along.  For the first time, here was a game in which there was some sense of being somewhere else that was starting to be realistically represented on the screen.  I wasn't sufficient of a gamer, per se, to be interested in them before then.  Having been attracted by graphics, I've become a gamer and enjoy gameplay very much, but I'm still basically an immersionist at heart.

Judging by the rising popoularity of games as the graphics get better, I think most people are more like that - they want to feel like they're in an alternative world, and want to see it realised on the screen in fabulous detail.

Originally posted by joereed1

I think if developers spent less money worrying about how shiny the graphics were on a game and spent more on actually making the game better everyone would be happier.

For example the graphics for WOW are fairly simple and cartoony and yet it has a huge number of subs. There are plenty of people on this forum that play older MMO's that have out dated graphics and don't seem to care. No game that has come out since WOW with fancy graphics has come close to the number of subs that WOW has.

From this I conclude that graphics don't matter as much as the developers seem to think they do, at least in mmo's.

They need to learn from AreaNet..Guild Wars graphics are not like AOC but they are more than acceptable and the gameplay is way better.

I still play UO and Ragnarok Online......They have low poly 2d graphics but the gameplay is better than any game out there IMO.

So yea Gameplay is way more important and Devs dont understand that.....Sheesh.....They should visit this site more often and read the forums.....

Graphics do matter they should be acceptable(WoW graphics are good enough for me) but gameplay is 100 times more important.

Plus graphic intensive games are laggy and are often bugged(Except LOTRO).....So yea there are many more things which are more important than graphics.

The actual graphics take a backseat to both world design and something that just about every developer overlooks... *animation*

I can't play Vanguard or EQ2, because the animations are *terrible* (like... "*I* can do better than that" terrible), while I can't stand WoW's Art Direction (I prefer the semi-realism of EQ2/Vanguard/Age of Conan), but the animations sell it. The characters' movements (in WoW and AoC both) are *believable*. Believeability for the situation that the characters are in goes a long, long way, whether it's an MMO, or Street Fighter II.

Originally posted by joereed1

I think if developers spent less money worrying about how shiny the graphics were on a game and spent more on actually making the game better everyone would be happier.

For example the graphics for WOW are fairly simple and cartoony and yet it has a huge number of subs. There are plenty of people on this forum that play older MMO's that have out dated graphics and don't seem to care. No game that has come out since WOW with fancy graphics has come close to the number of subs that WOW has.

From this I conclude that graphics don't matter as much as the developers seem to think they do, at least in mmo's.

I completely agree with you. I find that the most important aspect concerning graphics in an MMO is the level of "immersion" that they offer. "Immersion" does not necessarily coincide with "realistic," it just gets you into the atmosphere of the setting. Games like WoW, for instance, immerse you in the whole Warcraft aspect of things, which I found to be awesome as a long time Warcraft fan (Warcraft since it's conception has involved cartoony graphics). Games can have what most consider to be "terrible" graphics, but in the long run it doesn't matter to me as long as I am immersed. In addition, some games have graphics that are counter-productive towards the "immersion" factor - AKA high hardware reqs that completely ruin the look of a game, thus ruining the perception towards that game. Just my two cents.

Moral of the story: "Immersion" does not equal "top notch" graphics in all cases.

I prefer actual game play and design over graphics. Sure graphics give people the "Ooh" factor, but it's that game play that keeps people interested long term.