Do the graphics worry anyone?

[MeteorPunch]

When I first saw the pics in PC Gamer, I was horrifed. PC games over the last year have become so amazing graphically (Far Cry, Doom3, Half-Life 2), that it was shocking to see Civ looking all Nintendo64. Some have said that these are early graphics that will be changed (I hope), but a 2005 release is mere months away (game should be finished by October).

At the same time, the shift to 3D, plus Firaxis' commitment to the modder's will assure that the game will look amazing no matter what. The polygonal units/terrain will be 100x easier for modders to make - something I am very much looking forward to.

Any other opinions on this?

 

[warpstorm]

Why would you think Civ4 would have DOOM3/FarCry/HL2 quality graphics? Each of those games had graphics as one of their major highlights and a custom renderer for it (which I'm sure took up the lion's share of the budget of these projects). These companies intend on licensing their graphics technologies to other FPS companies.

Civ4 is using an off-the-shelf 3D engine (with some tweaks). I personally don't like the Warcraft3-ish look they seem to have gone with, but that isn't a technical reason (the engine is sound, I use it every day) just a disagreement with the art choices.

 

[dexters]

I'm not sure why people are so surprised. Civ3 duplicated the tabletop feel really nicely and it wasn't realistic at all. All the units look like plastic toys on a large board.

A lot of people hated the game's terrain graphics and went over to Warpstorm's watercolor set, although as a personal prefernece, I have kept mine unchanged.

Civ4 should be right along those lines. That is, it is not going to look realistic.

 

[ybbor]

Read the [other] Sticky! 17 pages of people complain' about the graphics right here

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=106420

 

[Chieftess]

When I first saw the pics in PC Gamer, I was horrifed. PC games over the last year have become so amazing graphically (Far Cry, Doom3, Half-Life 2), that it was shocking to see Civ looking all Nintendo64. Some have said that these are early graphics that will be changed (I hope), but a 2005 release is mere months away (game should be finished by October).

At the same time, the shift to 3D, plus Firaxis' commitment to the modder's will assure that the game will look amazing no matter what. The polygonal units/terrain will be 100x easier for modders to make - something I am very much looking forward to.

Any other opinions on this?

Rhetorical question: "Would you rather watch a movie, or play a game?".

The point is, graphics don't make the game. A game could have the best graphics in the world (the game company could blow 1.5 million of their 2 million dollar game budget on graphics alone), but not have the best gameplay. If you want truly realistic graphics, take a walk outside.

 

[Civrules]

The graphics don't worry me for two reasons. One being that the mere months you mentioned span from a few months back (because the screenshots in the magazines are likely very out-dated), to probably the last few months of this year. So that is basically one year in which they will be improving various concepts, including the graphics.

Another thing is that the graphics we saw were very low-quality, scanned, pixelized images.

I say we should judge the graphics when very clean images are released on the internet.

 

[Juputoru]

As long as I can easily tell one thing from another, what said things are supposed to be, and read any text there is, I don't complain about graphics. I'd rather have more time spent creating good gameplay than having that time put into making fancy graphics that don't really matter in the end.

 

[GoodGame]

I saw some pictures from a Greek site. If they're true ones, I'm not really impressed, but not really annoyed. It just seemed like a sideways progression. But with full zoom, and pseudo-animated 3D enviroment, it would be like many of the other tile/turn-based games out.

For Civ, gameplay is more important.