Art Style Poll - Are you turned off or excited?

[Jarru]

As long as playing this game I have this unique feeling that am a great leader competing with other such leaders in building an empire which will stand the test of time - I dont really care about details(graphics).

 

[Lexicus]

As long as playing this game I have this unique feeling that am a great leader competing with other such leaders in building an empire which will stand the test of time - I dont really care about details(graphics).

Sums my view up pretty well.

 

[Haig]

After so many hours with Civ V, it was a bit of a shock, but I like it now.
Crisp and clear, actually I launched Civ V and it looks quite static and brown-y.

The resource objects like deer and horses look a bit unfinished, maybe it's beta like the first pics of Civ V were.

 

[keiselhorn13]

Those colorful vivid Civ6 graphics in the photos do give that impression that Firaxis is aiming to gain younger, app-raised new fans to series. I personally don't like it much but it's not a deal breaker, I can live with that as long as the game works well.

One thing that came to mind is that when they first publicised the graphics prior to launching Civ4 it looked a lot like that... and it turned out Civ4 was a really good-looking game... even today those 10-year old graphics didn't really age.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

So far, it looks pretty even with the "Unimpressed" to "Ugly" crowd getting a slight lead over those who are on the more positive end of things. This is a much better picture of the community's reaction at large. From all the stuff I had read so far, it seemed like it would be much more heavy on the negative side.

 

[whyidie]

So far, it looks pretty even with the "Unimpressed" to "Ugly" crowd getting a slight lead over those who are on the more positive end of things. This is a much better picture of the community's reaction at large. From all the stuff I had read so far, it seemed like it would be much more heavy on the negative side.

Sounds about right. The first impression threads are littered with people who say they don't like it, but make it fairly clear its not a big deal. Inevitably followed by the "you shouldn't care about graphics" shamers, who are missing the point. Its different enough to be worthy of commentary, comparatively few are saying its a deal breaker.

 

[Toulouse]

So ugly, cheap and cartoony, it's game breaking (for me).

 

[Monado]

This poll should have been on a scale of 1-10.

I'm somewhere between excited, and just okay with it. The only things (from our 3 screenshots) that I really dont enjoy are the roofs seem oddly concave, and the borders follow the hexagon tiles to strictly. Civ 5 borders (especially along rivers) were great.

 

[CivCube]

This poll is too colorful.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

This poll should have been on a scale of 1-10.

I'm somewhere between excited, and just okay with it. The only things (from our 3 screenshots) that I really dont enjoy are the roofs seem oddly concave, and the borders follow the hexagon tiles to strictly. Civ 5 borders (especially along rivers) were great.

I was just looking for a general feel from the community. I didn't want to go too crazy with the choices. But I hear what you're saying.

 

[m15a]

It's hard to reconcile so few people picking the last option in a strategy game .

I didn't choose the "I don't care" option, but it was one I considered. I could have easily chosen 4 of the options if the poll allowed multiple options. I don't care *that much*, except I would care if I couldn't tell what was going on. So, I decided not to choose I don't care. (EDIT: And also I enjoy a lot of the art for art's sake, too. Some of the Civ 5 leader screens, and a lot of the music, I like although that has almost nothing to do with the actual strategy game aspect of Civ.)

We haven't seen that much, particularly the icons and text, so I feel like at this point I also feel pretty neutral.

But I also am excited by some of the aspects I do see - that from the 3D graphics along, I am able to see a lot of information that will hopefully affect strategic decisions.

So, in the end I decided to average my different opinions and go with saying that I'm pretty happy about it.

*But* it's still possible that the game is a graphical glitchfest, or maybe the animations will give me seizures, or maybe the art is designed to initiate the mind control program that Civilization has been installing in me over the past 20 year. So there's still a chance I might hate it in the end.

This poll is too colorful.

LOL.

Spoiler :

And are those colored bars supposed to represent people? They don't look anything like people. And what if some people are taller than others? Is this poll trying to say that us players are literally pixels on the screen? That's so condescending. It's clear that this poll doesn't care about us and only cares about making money...

 

[AriochIV]

It's hard to reconcile so few people picking the last option in a strategy game .

There's no reason a strategy game can't and shouldn't look nice. I played Empire back in the day when it was ASCII and no graphics... I enjoyed it, but the world has moved on since then, and I don't want to go back.

So far, it looks pretty even with the "Unimpressed" to "Ugly" crowd getting a slight lead over those who are on the more positive end of things. This is a much better picture of the community's reaction at large. From all the stuff I had read so far, it seemed like it would be much more heavy on the negative side.

Yep, the vocal minority is usually just that. To read this forum you'd think Civilization V was the most hated version ever, when in reality it's by far the most popular.

 

[brianshapiro]

I'm somewhere between "I'm not completely turned off but not exactly impressed" and "Flat-out crap", though I think I'm closer to the former option right now. The unit graphics I can handle (actually, they don't look too bad), and I can even handle the building design (though I'd prefer things a bit less outrightly cartoony), but the color palette and saturation...yeeeeeech.

Yea, I wish the poll options were worded better. The positive option is worded kind of moderate, the negative one extreme, and the second to most negative is worded in an ambivalent way.

I mean, I am turned off by the art style, so I'm not going to say I'm "not turned off", but I'm not going to call it "flat-out crap."

 

[UncivilizedGuy]

I would call the art style disappointing for a Civ game. But it's not going to stop me from buying it. On the positive side I hope it makes it easier for modders to create stuff.

 

[Westwall]

I would call the art style disappointing for a Civ game.

I hear this argument a lot, but I have to ask.. is it really? Is it that much a departure?

Spoiler :

Because going by this, it seems more like Civ 5 is the odd one out with its more realistic topographical approach.

Of course if most people's first introduction to Civ was with 5, it's understandable why 6 would seem so jarring.

 

[AriochIV]

I think once you go realistic, it's hard to go back to cartoony.

 

[Westwall]

Hard, but not unthinkable. I remember hating the art direction for Civ 5 when I first saw it.

Coming from 4, I thought 5 looked needlessly muddy and cluttered with washed out colors that would make the map difficult to read when zooming out, but I eventually got used to it because I liked the changes they made to the gameplay.

And that's really the meat of it. If the gameplay delivers, this time next year you'll see people forgetting their reservations about the art and instead sharing stories about the game itself.

But it's as people have been saying, there's nothing else to really talk about right now.

 

[Matthew.]

I hear this argument a lot, but I have to ask.. is it really? Is it that much a departure?

Spoiler :

Because going by this, it seems more like Civ 5 is the odd one out with its more realistic topographical approach.

Of course if most people's first introduction to Civ was with 5, it's understandable why 6 would seem so jarring.

It is the odd one out, I agree. But look at 4's mountains and trees... they look better than the Civ 6 screenshots! Released over a decade ago!

 

[brianshapiro]

I hear this argument a lot, but I have to ask.. is it really? Is it that much a departure?

Spoiler :

Because going by this, it seems more like Civ 5 is the odd one out with its more realistic topographical approach.

Of course if most people's first introduction to Civ was with 5, it's understandable why 6 would seem so jarring.

I'm not sure what you mean. I've played since Civ1. I loved Civ3's art style for that level of graphics tech. I found Civ4 to be garish, ie. the units huge and the cities a mess and the borders ugly, but chalked that up to it being their first attempt at a 3D Civ game and first attempt to make things work in a 3D graphics engine. Civ4: Colonization became more sophisticated graphics-wise, with more subtlety and less garish tones. With Civ5 I thought they finally made a beautiful 3D Civ.

Civ6 I just find tacky looking, and a step back in terms of aesthetics. It isn't even about it being cartoonish. Its really high contrast, really high saturation, overly detailed, bad stylization. I don't even understand how the style is supposed to make things easier to make out, because the high contrast style makes it really noisy -- trees, mountains, and everything else has crisp dark borders -- and there's no visual focus, so your eyes are drawn everywhere. When I look at a Civ6 screenshot, I'm wondering how I'm going to pick out things in gameplay.. and its no wonder they decided to make such bright color coding for city districts -- because otherwise it might be lost in all the details. At least with the Civ5 style, you could relax your eyes, and that made it easy to pick things out, and then you could use the icon overlays if you needed them.

 

[Monado]

Of course if most people's first introduction to Civ was with 5, it's understandable why 6 would seem so jarring.

I would say, its even more jarring if you've been playing Civ even longer, not less. I started with Civ 3 and I do see a huge difference in the art direction compared to the other games.