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Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion pics!
- Thread starter Redbeard
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cybamerc said:
What does impress you then? CryTek is one of, if not THE most impressive rendering technology currently available on the PC. While this is obviously coming down the road and will lose its luster by then, I don't see how one could say it is unimpressive at this point...especially when one takes the actual gameplay requirements they must meet.
I'm not really digging this game very much and I think it has to do with the lack of proper lighting and shadowing. It looks like a next gen Level 5 title and that isn't a good thing.
ANd I must say I'm suprised that the art turned out nicely. I wouldn't expect anything close to this artistically from the Morrowind guys.
ANd I must say I'm suprised that the art turned out nicely. I wouldn't expect anything close to this artistically from the Morrowind guys.
ArcadeStickMonk
Member
The backstory menat nothing to me. I got sucked in completely just by exploring and powering up my character. I read few of the books, except to get bonuses.StoOgE said:
Hitler Stole My Potato
Banned
When you consider the enormous scope of the Elder Scrolls games, it'd be hard not to be impressed with these pics. Having these high calibur graphics in a game that's as massive as Morrowind is definately something to drool over.
I didn't really get into the main story too much in Morrowind, but the whole background of the game was really impressive. The politics and history between all the guilds, houses, cults, individuals, etc... and the way they all formed this massive web of backstory really lent a feel of it being a real world (even if everyone just stood around the entire game).
Some of the books are completely useless, but if you actually read them you will understand why the houses split in the first place, how the empire came to power in the region, the split between the tribunal and the older religion (Azura and all of that)... and alot of the background history to the region.. it ads alot to understanding the main quest as well as the house and guild quests (which houses are aligned with which guilds, etc.).
My main issue with the game is you can horribly screw up the quest paths (main quest, guild quests, etc.) if you explore into the wrong area of the world.. I love the freedom, but at times the game gives you a bit too much freedom. I wish they found ways to limit your ability to screw up the end of the game.. the game does a good job telling you you just screwed up the main quest by killing the wrong person, but it doesnt tell you anything about the other quest paths.
My main issue with the game is you can horribly screw up the quest paths (main quest, guild quests, etc.) if you explore into the wrong area of the world.. I love the freedom, but at times the game gives you a bit too much freedom. I wish they found ways to limit your ability to screw up the end of the game.. the game does a good job telling you you just screwed up the main quest by killing the wrong person, but it doesnt tell you anything about the other quest paths.
Also, I dont just want more enemy variety (which I do).. I want enemies that are tied to a geographical location that makes sense... its like the same enemies apeared in the fields, the coastal planes, the volcano, the ashlands, the marshes, etc. Didnt make alot of sense, I want more enemies (that work in packs like the wolves on Solthseim)... and want them to be based geographically
in fact, Bloodmoon was a much better thought out game in alot of ways.
in fact, Bloodmoon was a much better thought out game in alot of ways.
dark10x:
> While this is obviously coming down the road and will lose its luster by then, I don't see
> how one could say it is unimpressive at this point
But the game isn't coming out now. In fact, it won't be coming out for a couple of years. And it's being designed for hardware which will be many times more powerful than what we have today.
The renderer doesn't demonstrate any features that aren't being used in games today. The textures aren't particularly high resolution and lack variety. The shaders are simple and poorly designed. The world looks plain and lifeless. Yes, there's a lot of vegetation in the near proximity of the camera but it doesn't stretch very far. The LOD levels are quite jarring. Trees in the background are visibly billboard objects. The mountain in one of the pics is a bunch of gouraud shaded polygons. Shadowing is quite limited.
People praise the art direction but for the most part all I see is procedurally created environments with few artistic touches. The interior designs are particularly dull to look at with unimaginative and simplistic designs.
> While this is obviously coming down the road and will lose its luster by then, I don't see
> how one could say it is unimpressive at this point
But the game isn't coming out now. In fact, it won't be coming out for a couple of years. And it's being designed for hardware which will be many times more powerful than what we have today.
The renderer doesn't demonstrate any features that aren't being used in games today. The textures aren't particularly high resolution and lack variety. The shaders are simple and poorly designed. The world looks plain and lifeless. Yes, there's a lot of vegetation in the near proximity of the camera but it doesn't stretch very far. The LOD levels are quite jarring. Trees in the background are visibly billboard objects. The mountain in one of the pics is a bunch of gouraud shaded polygons. Shadowing is quite limited.
People praise the art direction but for the most part all I see is procedurally created environments with few artistic touches. The interior designs are particularly dull to look at with unimaginative and simplistic designs.
ArcadeStickMonk
Member
Wholly shit!! I am officially firing Dark10x as my go-to visual critic, because cybamerc can tell all this about the game's engine from just a handful of shots!cybamerc said:
Seriously, that goddamn impressive! I know Dark would want to play a demo first, or watch some movies of the game, or at least wait until a heavy cache of screens has built up before making a call. But that's all a waste of time for my man CM here.
Why, I bet I could flash him some concept art from some game that I don't even know the title of, and his clairvoyent eyes could predict the reccomended system specs for its '06 release!
Welcome aboard!
cybamerc said:
When you remember that the land this game takes place on will make any specific Far Cry level look insignificant in scale then I can see your point that the oblivion team are masterful programmers and designers--I mean, how they were able to have so many visual tricks and still produce an image that can compete with far cry (though not win) but achieve those results in a project where the world has a MUCH larger scale, the world itself being that much more more fleshed out, and the game also featuring a faaaar more ambitious AI system? I agree with you, the Oblivion Team should be applauded!! Especially since they seem to be doing the impossible, creating a RPG that can compete with modern FPS games in terms of visuals
CrimsonSkies
Member
I love it when people try to tell me that what I'm seeing isn't true. It's like political spin. These shots are awesome. Why should I care if you don't agree?
Hitler Stole My Potato
Banned
Gattsu25 said:
*applause*
I'm beginning to think that the people that are complaining about Oblivion's graphics haven't played an Elder Scrolls game and thus are unable to comprehend just how incredibly massive these worlds really are. A game that's comparable to the size of Morrowind and many times more complex (according to the previews) with graphics that rival Far Cry.....jesus, it's hard not to be impressed.
Making large environment is not difficult. Making large environments that are also interesting to look at, perhaps even beautiful, is. The environments in Elder Scrolls 4 are mostly procedural. In other words, computer generated. The vast majority of the land in Elder Scrolls 4 will serve no point other than to add to the vastness of the game. That doesn't sound fun to me. The initial lure of new technology quickly wears off. Imagine spending tens of minutes walking through environments that only offer the variation built into the landscape engine. It'll get old fast.
Hey, great job invalidating anything you previously said about the game. Bethesda has made it pretty clear that their major goal with Oblivion is to have less dead space than there was in Morrowind, despite using procedurally generated natural environments. There was a moderate amount of dead space in Morrowind, but not so much as to be annoying (unless you consider the various dungeons and tombs to explore dead space as well), and a lot of that was intentionally left so that there were places for gamers to plug in their TES creations.
FYI, they procedurally generate the trees in the forest, not the borders of the forest, or the cliff faces of a mountain, not the size, type, or location of the montain. It only generates the smaller details, which the team then goes back over every inch, editing everything they don't like, and populating the world. Only the actual trees and whatnot are generated, the dungeons, towns, etc., are intentionally designed.
I swear some people don't even stop to think why it takes Bethesda half a decade to make a game. Its because they're detail freaks, yet people think they're going to suddenly start settling for computer generated environments full of dead space. Right, and Sega will start making consoles again.
cybamerc said:
Look at it this way...
Many of us already enjoyed the way Morrowind's landscape was designed. Based solely on these shots, it would seem that the terrain in this new title has the capability to vary quite a bit more, making it even more interesting to explore.
Do you even have any experience with this series?
If you don't care, that's fine, but some of your statements in this thread are downright nasty. You know damn well that the scope of a game has a massive impact on the quality of the visuals. This game currently looks very good when that is taken into consideration.
Thankfully, this isn't sporting near Quake 2 level geometry like another new installment into a rather popular franchise (hint: it starts with "Z" and ends with "elda").
JackFrost2012
Banned
I'm Morrowind hater #1, but even I think these shots look great! I can't imagine being so jaded you don't like their look.
Go Go Ackman!
Banned
I played morrowind once.
It sucked.
It sucked.
The Guivre
Member
The screens look nice. My system is shuddering at the moment, I think it may be considering melting down. The poor old thing has that GeForce 3 in there.. just half a gig of RAM.. and that little Athlon 1.7.. God love 'im he's still going. I think the last time something new went into this thing's case was so my 7 day trial of Planetside would work.
I haven't really done more than watch Morrowind, though I didn't mind the watching all that much since I believe I was watching a character named Hot Ass.. or some reference to her ass being hot. And something about never wearing leggings of any kind seems to stick in my mind.
The simulated MMORPG kind of thing was never all that tantalizing to me. Maybe I'm just wasting space and time posting here since I'm not one of the faithful or something like that. But I do believe that a part of me will be looking forward to watchin Hot Ass make her debut this time around.
If I've offended people or made myself seem all that much more an idiot.. well I guess I'm sorry. But I suppose every village needs an idiot.
I haven't really done more than watch Morrowind, though I didn't mind the watching all that much since I believe I was watching a character named Hot Ass.. or some reference to her ass being hot. And something about never wearing leggings of any kind seems to stick in my mind.
The simulated MMORPG kind of thing was never all that tantalizing to me. Maybe I'm just wasting space and time posting here since I'm not one of the faithful or something like that. But I do believe that a part of me will be looking forward to watchin Hot Ass make her debut this time around.
If I've offended people or made myself seem all that much more an idiot.. well I guess I'm sorry. But I suppose every village needs an idiot.
There just wasn't enough of it Dark. There were no region specific tunes. And very few general overworld tunes. So you'd get the same music whether you were in an Empire fort, on the plains, in a wizard town, or trekking across the damn wastelands. I started hating the music at about that point. There wasn't even a generic town theme, it was just overworld music. That combined with the dull as hell NPCs made the Morrowind world extremely bland, and I play these games primarily for immersion into the word.
Azih said:
That's exactly the problem, though. They didn't use the music well...
They simply randomized a set of songs and never actually made it so that certain songs were dedicated to specific areas. If they had taken the songs available and attempted something like that, it would have helped quite a bit.
With a few more songs, it would have been even better...
It was poor usage on the developers part...
dark10x:
> You know damn well that the scope of a game has a massive impact on the quality of
> the visuals. This game currently looks very good when that is taken into consideration.
I don't care what size the environments are. It doesn't look good to me. The renderer doesn't impress and artistically it's very bland.
> Thankfully, this isn't sporting near Quake 2 level geometry like another new installment
> into a rather popular franchise (hint: it starts with "Z" and ends with "elda").
I don't see how one game's shortcomings justifies the poor visuals displayed in these shots. I personally wasn't impressed with the new Zelda but if you're going to compare the two I think it's worth keeping in mind that Zelda will be coming out on hardware that's nearly 5 years old whereas Elder Scroll's 4 is being designed for the next-generation of console/set-top box hardware.
But don't let that stop you from trolling.
> You know damn well that the scope of a game has a massive impact on the quality of
> the visuals. This game currently looks very good when that is taken into consideration.
I don't care what size the environments are. It doesn't look good to me. The renderer doesn't impress and artistically it's very bland.
> Thankfully, this isn't sporting near Quake 2 level geometry like another new installment
> into a rather popular franchise (hint: it starts with "Z" and ends with "elda").
I don't see how one game's shortcomings justifies the poor visuals displayed in these shots. I personally wasn't impressed with the new Zelda but if you're going to compare the two I think it's worth keeping in mind that Zelda will be coming out on hardware that's nearly 5 years old whereas Elder Scroll's 4 is being designed for the next-generation of console/set-top box hardware.
But don't let that stop you from trolling.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Then you are worthlessy bitching.
Comfort_Eagle
Banned
Im very much excited for this game, but it surely will kill my computer. 
I hope Bethesda does a little better with working out bugs and whatnot this time.
I hope Bethesda does a little better with working out bugs and whatnot this time.ravingloon
Member
cybamerc said:
Give me a break. That thread comparing the two was stupid (And rightfully locked), but it did bring home the fact that on a pure visual POV (And not technical), Zelda runs circles around it... which is pretty embarressing.
That said, why can't people be excited for the game (Especially after reading the Gamespy article and seeing it's being consoled up a bit and dumping the D&D dice, giving map hints to avoid aimless wandering, etc), yet not be impressed by the graphics? If this is what all next-generation games look like, I'll reajust my expectations. Until then, I'll consider this a top-notch gameplay experience coming, but with sub-par graphics. Because this is not what I expect Xenon launch titles to look like (And all the interviews don't hide the fact this is what they were building around).
Edit: An example of what I'm disappointed in: The forests. In those screenshots they're so messy I would have thought they were just sprites if not told better.
ravingloon
Member
Nerevar said:
I'm sorry. But that does not look natural to my eyes (I'm not talking about the bark... those textures are excellent. I'm talking about the leaves. Heck, the pine tree on the left looks like it was pasted over everything else.)
Of course it doesn't look "natural". Find me a game with a thick forest that looks natural and I'll be impressed...
I don't understand the incredible amount of bashing being aimed at this game. What on earth is wrong with it? I just don't see why is deserves it...
ravingloon
Member
And the horse picture posted here. The shrubs above the ridge also look like they're pasted on. That's what I meant by the sprite look. It has that pasted look.
Dark: I think people are just being overly sensitive to critisism. Obviously the game looks good. I just think a lot of people are expecting Xenon launch titles to look better than that (I guess time will tell).
Dark: I think people are just being overly sensitive to critisism. Obviously the game looks good. I just think a lot of people are expecting Xenon launch titles to look better than that (I guess time will tell).
ravingloon said:
Yeah, but they need to keep in mind who is making this...
These guys aren't exactly known for their technical achievements here. When you consider the type of game they will deliver combined with those visuals, though, they start to look a whole lot better.
ArcadeStickMonk
Member
Hot Ass was a veritable god when I was done with Morrowind and the expansions, there's no more that I could do with her. Perhaps a younger sister could carry on the tail in Oblivion.The Guivre said:
Hitler Stole My Potato
Banned
Have any of you people bitching about the graphics ever played Morrowind?
JackFrost2012
Banned
ManaByte said:
I thought so too, but apparently there's some secret code where making disparaging comments about the graphics reduces the stock of ALL Xenon games.
dark10x:
> Hey, I'm just following your lead.
Could you elaborate on that?
> Oh yes, have you played Morrowind?
No.
ravingloon:
> The forests. In those screenshots they're so messy I would have thought they were
> just sprites if not told better.
You're sort of right actually. The trees in the background are flat polygon models with a tree texture on them (so-called billboard objects).
> I'm talking about the leaves. Heck, the pine tree on the left looks like it was pasted over
> everything else.
Yes. Another problem. You probably aren't going to see too many games where the trees have individually modelled leaves next gen but the problem here is that these groups of leaves are all facing the same way making it extremely easy to notice the repetition.
ManaByte:
> Huh? I thought we were looking at a PC game?
Quote from Game Informer:
"Right after Morrowind, our motto was 'go big, go early,' and be ready for whatever Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo do next,"
Quote from GameSpy:
"Bethesda is bringing the next game in the series to the next generation of PCs and consoles. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is being designed around the Xbox 2 (and the PS3, although the company could not officially confirm any platform besides the PC)."
So while it is just a PC title for the time being the intention is clearly to release it on Xbox 2 at least. Even if it wasn't coming out for Xbox 2 PC hardware is still going to continually evolve.
> Hey, I'm just following your lead.
Could you elaborate on that?
> Oh yes, have you played Morrowind?
No.
ravingloon:
> The forests. In those screenshots they're so messy I would have thought they were
> just sprites if not told better.
You're sort of right actually. The trees in the background are flat polygon models with a tree texture on them (so-called billboard objects).
> I'm talking about the leaves. Heck, the pine tree on the left looks like it was pasted over
> everything else.
Yes. Another problem. You probably aren't going to see too many games where the trees have individually modelled leaves next gen but the problem here is that these groups of leaves are all facing the same way making it extremely easy to notice the repetition.
ManaByte:
> Huh? I thought we were looking at a PC game?
Quote from Game Informer:
"Right after Morrowind, our motto was 'go big, go early,' and be ready for whatever Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo do next,"
Quote from GameSpy:
"Bethesda is bringing the next game in the series to the next generation of PCs and consoles. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is being designed around the Xbox 2 (and the PS3, although the company could not officially confirm any platform besides the PC)."
So while it is just a PC title for the time being the intention is clearly to release it on Xbox 2 at least. Even if it wasn't coming out for Xbox 2 PC hardware is still going to continually evolve.
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