I've been haunting these forums for quite a while now and can't help but notice how many people insist on loudly proclaiming that "graphics don't matter at all", that only "gameplay matters". Now, of course, graphics without good gameplay make for a very boring game but if graphics really didn't matter we'd all still be playing text-based games, wouldn't we ? :D

For me, graphics are an integral part of any game and great gameplay will only go so far in compensating for a crappy look. Asheron's Call is a good example of what I mean. It was my first MMO and remains the best MMO experience I've ever had (your first is always the best, isn't it ?). I tried it again recently after an absence of about 4 years and, ouch, talk about ugly ! Gameplay is still mostly there but it's a bit like watching a 1920s silent movie immediately after stepping out of the premiere of "300". You can admire the fact that the silent movie director was very clever in his use of props, but, at the end of the day, it still looks like a high school project compared to today's stuff.

So, I'm asking the general community out there. Am I the only one who's so shallow ? :) Anyone else believe that great graphics are a must in order to fully enjoy a game ?

I still play MUDs.  You can't replace the depth of what Text based can bring. You can only dull it by lacking animations or graphics that don't represent what the text says. ZMud has takin MuDs gameplay to higher levels while playing these indepth worlds.

Graphics in a Graphical MMO do matter. I would get more into Text based, then a really indepth graphical that had X as the avatar. I never liked those MuDs.

When i think of graphics being 2nd to gameplay in current MMOs i think more of how the graphics complement the gameplay, make it worse, or just cause a laggy situation. Everquest 2 has great graphics, but cheapened gameplay vs Everquest 1.  World of Warcraft has a great Mix. But lacks the depth. I don't just mean story i mean charactor upkeep, presence in the world, your impact on the world, and progressive quests that effect that world. biggest drawback of WoW is the lack of charactor upkeep. Clicking repair all every couple hours isn't realistic gameplay for an rpg. 

Thats just my opinion.

I would say it's mostly a case of being good enough.

The high-end-need-a-£300-gx-card-as-realistic-as-possible is all very good for marketing a game, and gives you an initial "wow!" factor, but in the long term doesn't add as much to the game as it would if the game play was significantly better than another game.

For me at least, if the movement is smooth and the artwork is pleasant to look at and you can easily tell the difference between players, that plenty and then it's all about the game itself.

Graphics are important, but making incredible graphics at the cost of everything else is a bad idea.

The graphics in a new game cannot revert back to 1995...but the best graphics in the world won't matter if the game blows, to be blunt about it.

There needs to be a balance between game play, depth, content and graphics, and probably a few other things. If I knew all of the answers I'd be rich, heh.

D.

I agree with the last post.  Graphics are important, there is no doubt about that, but second to gameplay.  Text adventures were great in their time, but mainly because they were all that was available.  Or, still had their hooks in as more visual games evolved. 
We as a species are visually stimulated.  We appreciate and react to things we see in all sorts of ways and good visuals are an important facet of games.  Just not the most important facet.
My saying graphics in the games I play aren't important as long as they play well, is like saying I don't care how ugly my future wife is as long as she entertains me...
Not gonna happen.  

AOC graphics are to much but if oyu have the system have fun i would have to upgrade to run that game on high ><

Are Graphics so important?

Yes

But what is important is not the technical aspect of the graphic, but the artistic one.
In short the graphic of a game should immerse the player in its world, but it doesn't have to be necessarily the most photo realistic graphic to do so.

EQ1 is an example, the graphic quality is really crap (7 y/o game), but the zones are quite immersive.
Same as WoW, the graphic might be simple and cartoonish but the zones are really unique and you feel part of the world.
I think that's part of the success of those 2 games, after all as for the gameplay they are not exactly cutting edge.

for me good looking graphics surely is an important factor to make the/ a game complete and playable

thsi is why im waiting for darkfall awsome gameplay  and features and fairly decent grphics not as good as the newer mmos but better thans WoWS 

Graphics are all fine and good but if you get into a game with crappy game play no amount of flashy graphics are going to save it. Crappy game play also can mean a game that is so taxing on your system that you lag constantly. On the other hand if you have a game with so-so graphics that has awesome game play you won't even notice the graphics after about the first 1/2 hour of play. In other words good game play can excuse poor graphics but good graphics will never excuse poor game play and in a lot of cases it's the graphics themselves that hamper the game play(Texture swapping lag). So while I believe that graphics aren't completely unimportant they take a back seat to game play every time.

Bren

If you break it down to different sections/emphasis, there are definitely some items in the graphics presentation that are very important.

On the whole, I would say that modeling and solid texture mapping is important; no player enjoys seeing texture tearing or model breaks. I think most players would agree that it is more pleasing to have well-made textures that make identifying game objects easier than to have poorly made textures which make identifying objects in game difficult. Particularly if the object is something realistic.

Vanguard has some very nice graphics if you have the hardware to display them, but you can see the points from time to time where the texture artists were perhaps in too much of a hurry and the textures are stretched or skewed over an object.

For today's average level of hardware, I would probably include bump mapping to add to the overall aesthetic of the graphics, as long as it is not overdone. In the early days of EQII, the bump mapping on the character models was a little too extreme, which resulted in player models that looked as though they had ridges running over them. That tends to be distracting.

Anti-aliasing is a must in my opinion. The technology has improved greatly and even level two anti-aliasing is better than none at all.

However, I'm not too sure that bloom, High Dynamic Range, lens flare, dynamic shadows and lighting or even complex shader models are that important to the overall presentation. They certainly make for a pretty picture but at the cost of CPU/GPU overhead. It seems as though developers today think that bloom and HDR are a replacement for anti-aliasing, when they aren't at all. Technically they don't even perform the same function although it can appear as if they do on higher levels.

In the long run though, I think presentation appropriate to the game is probably the most important. If the game mechanics and design are solid and the graphics are pleasing and done with attention to detail, they don't have to break any technological new ground to appeal to me as long as the content is solid and engaging.

graphic to me is important or it play a major role for me.. i only look out for games with good gfx.. lousy/bad gfx simply jus turns me off and i wont get hook on it for too long except for shattered galaxy.

gfx is on par with gameplay which means 50/50 when i rating the game and deciding whether to play the game or not.

I don't think so, as long as they do a good enouigh job and match the game.

I play UO which as we all know is 2D...but it fits with the game.  I used to play EQ2 and the graphics were nice to look at and for a while they did actually distract me from the fact that I was playing a pretty linear game which is why I left.

So, I think graphics have their uses but gameplay is more important.

The graphics have to atleast got to be decent.  Also I dont care how good the game I will not play a 2d game unless its from back in the day.  To be honest I think companies put too much effort into making the game look great and too little in actual game play.

graphic matter very little.  I still play muds once in  while.

however that doesn't mean you can just take any old graphic engine and toss it ontop of a bunch of game mechanics.  the graphics need to suit the game.  for instance if EvE online attempted to be cell shaded with it's current lore and game personality.   not to say a cell shaded space game would be unplayable, I actually think it would look kinda sweet.

I find it impossible to get over the fact that "realistic" graphics DONT look realistic, take EQ2,VG,DDO they dont look real yet try to and that just plays on my mind, I cant merge into the game and as a result I cannot play them.

WoW and TF2 to me are my cuppa-tea.. they dont want to look real and I can relax and put my mind into playing rather then constantly saying to myself "people dont run like that IRL" through trees all look the same unlike IRL".. etc.

I think Graphics are highly important.  But right now my common games I play are 2D just because they fun.  I think there are several aspects to making good graphics for a game that many game developers overlook. 

First it has to have a style.  Many mmos rescently are style-less.  Lord of the Rings had a nice style that was broken in a few areas, but looked nice where they didn't diverge from its art direction.  But Vanguard just looks muddy and has no real thought into the style or how colors work together.  Also it can use non-realistic graphics and have great graphics.  It just needs a style thats aesthetically pleasing.

Second it has to be well optimized.  Doing things like tiling and overlapping UVs, using lighting ineffeciently, and having an excess amount of draw calls can slow up render processing.  In a few games released this year this fact was ignored and it really crunches the playability of a game.  Like Granado Espada was an incredibly well optimized game that run on low end computers with 3000 people on the screen and looked good.  However, you take something like Tabula Rasa or Vanguard, and you notice that it uses an excess of draw calls.  Like to make a cave entrance they didn't make a special static mesh but just throw individual rock meshes at it until it looked right.  There are many systems in place to increase performance of poly rendering like LODs, but its useless if the processor has to make 10k static mesh references.

Lastly, it has to convey what you really look like.  Its kinda annoying to have beautiful graphics but players can't see what you are wearing.  Sword of the New World is guilty of this.  Also many sprite based games.

Graphics have to be consistent to the game that is being made. I can't imagine a 3d game with at least equal or greater texture quality to WoW, being that most systems tend to handle WoW amazingly or games better than WoW at decent frame rates. What has to be understood is that it's part of the game development, but it is not the game development. The graphics also include things like the UI, and if that's junk no one will play your game, no matter how innovative and challenging the gameplay may be, or even how well the pixels other than the UI look. Never fall for the trap that graphics don't matter, and never fall for the trap that graphics only matter.

-- Brede

Gameplay is more important than graphics to a large portion of the MMO community.

The problem is that most people won't even try a game with poor graphics. If the game is visually lacking, what does that say about the rest of the game? That may not be fair but with so many video games out there to choose this is an easy way to reduce one's choices.