I disagree 100% with your assesment. - Openedge1

/dropsjaw  That was pretty clear.  Wow, ty ty.

:)

A secret is right lol.. I don't like AoC or LoTRO but AoC's graphcs  blows doors on LoTRO. Personally I cannot see how the OP ever came to this conclusion.

Originally posted by Xantheous

A secret is right lol.. I don't like AoC or LoTRO but AoC's graphcs  blows doors on LoTRO.

Yes, AoC's graphics are awesome. Too bad the rest of the game is junk.

After years of playing games,I am absolutely convinced that it is impossible to post even the most trite,banal,non-threatening opinion ,regarding the least obtrusive,most neutral topic possible....without drawing forum caviling,vehemenent disagreement,red-faced derision,and merciless attacks. Like a swarm of blood sucking gnats,in your face ,following you as you walk,forum posters are maddening,heartless,dark-souled pests of the blackest night. Dear Lord,hear my prayer. protect me from Trolls,and smite Fan Boys with your blessed hand of truth. Amen.         

Originally posted by Coonhound

After years of playing games,I am absolutely convinced that it is impossible to post even the most trite,banal,non-threatening opinion ,regarding the least obtrusive,most neutral topic possible....without drawing forum caviling,vehemenent disagreement,red-faced derision,and merciless attacks. Like a swarm of blood sucking gnats,in your face ,following you as you walk,forum posters are maddening,heartless,dark-souled pests of the blackest night. Dear Lord,hear my prayer. protect me from Trolls,and smite Fan Boys with your blessed hand of truth. Amen.         

O.o

lol?

Originally posted by Krasher

I played for about a month or so after initial release then stopped. Cant recall why exactly but I am sure my addiction to a certin other game (hint...me an 10 million others) had something to do with it.

Anyway, this game may be the best kept secret in MMO's. It has, by far the best graphics (I have played AoC and LoTR is far better). It uses DirectX 10 (only current MMO?)  and is just plain fun. I hope more people will give it a try. Dont expect it to compete membership wise with above un-named game...but would like for it to stay around for a long time. I think espec ially those that think AoC is best graphically should give it a shot. They are in for a surprise.

 

Lineage II looks better, NCsoft truly has the best artists in the business.

I think that it launced in 2004 or something like that and uses the Unreal II game engine.

lotro doesnt even come close to aoc and vanguard graphics.. how can anyone praise lotro graphics is beyond me..

only thing i can think is.. you have medium/low end pc, and cant exactly try high on neither aoc or vanguard, and lotro have lower specs.. if you can run wow, you can run lotro..

Originally posted by Smikis

lotro doesnt even come close to aoc and vanguard graphics.. how can anyone praise lotro graphics is beyond me..

only thing i can think is.. you have medium/low end pc, and cant exactly try high on neither aoc or vanguard, and lotro have lower specs.. if you can run wow, you can run lotro..

Exactly.  This discussion doesn't account for rigs and settings clearly.  Becauase anyone who can play all of these with their rig on max settings would not make this statement in a million years.  LOTRO graphics are not bad at all, but the best, come on, not even close.

    and if you count animations as part of the graphics then LoTRO slides down a few notches further........

LotrO is my new obsession, but I have to admit.  AoC maybe a crappy game, but it has some REALLY nice graphics.  LotrO has some nice graphics, but they aren't the best.

Originally posted by neonwire

Its not a well known because it simply isnt a fact at all. The LoTRO graphics are not the best around. I thought they were rather bland and uninspired. Oh well each to their own I suppose.

This is fact,i got tired of people talking about graphics,so i commented on several user posted screenshots.There was a ton of AION and LOTR,two games that have been given an unjust claim on great graphics.I don't care to comment again,i am sure you will see some of my comments pointing out weak graphic flaws,in the screenshot section.

There is NOT one game as of now with better graphics than VG,sad since that game was actually made several years ago,with a low end budget.I know LOTR  uses DX10 physics for shadows,but only in a couple areas and that alone does not mean good graphics,not by a longshot.AION ,well thats a whole new ball game that is no better than anything Korean games put out,same quality as L2 or the others.

Graphics mean a LOT to me,obviously a lot more than to others for very good reason.I like realistic looking textures,once you understand what you are looking at,it makes everything look cheap if low res textures are used.Then there is cheap models and meshes that again can make something look bland or cheap.Shaders add a ton of quality to graphics but at a steep cost to the PC and GPU,the same goes for lighting and effects.

Originally posted by andmiller

Originally posted by Smikis

lotro doesnt even come close to aoc and vanguard graphics.. how can anyone praise lotro graphics is beyond me..

only thing i can think is.. you have medium/low end pc, and cant exactly try high on neither aoc or vanguard, and lotro have lower specs.. if you can run wow, you can run lotro..

 

Exactly.  This discussion doesn't account for rigs and settings clearly.  Becauase anyone who can play all of these with their rig on max settings would not make this statement in a million years.  LOTRO graphics are not bad at all, but the best, come on, not even close.

 

hmmm, some of that is situational. I can play Vanguard on jsut about max settings as well as AoC "if" If I use a lower shader. That of course makes a huge difference.

The world of LOTRO is actually consistently better than Vanguard. This is not to say that Vanguard doesn't surpass LOTRO but it is not as consistent. Of course the world is huge so that might have something to do with it.

Just the idea that an argument for or against can be made shows me that part of this is depends on taste.

There are parts of Vanguard that suffer from that EQ 2 "made of clay or ginger bread" feel.

AoC is extremely good but it has it's odd quirks. For instance, sometimes I've noticed the mobs sliding across the world to get to me.

Now, one might say that this is not about graphics but I would say that part of what makes graphics is how animations work in the world.

It's not a painting. A lot of it is meant to move and to be alive. having sliding monsters takes away from the graphical representation of the world. Then again, so does the odd running in LOTRO. Not to mention LOTRO's (in my opinion) horrible armor and in some case weapons.

Vanguard has it's own issues. The characters seem so stiff that I'm always amazed to see them actually move when I run forward.

In the end it's just too subjective.

AoC does have amazing graphics as does LOTRO and Vanguard. But in the end, all of them have issues that detract from the great graphics column. Especially if we are arguing about everything that comprises "graphics" or just how technically light and shadow and texture is used or plain old Art Design.

Quite frankly the closest we are going to get is to post in game movies on the highest possible settings across the board, (DX 10 included?) and just compare best and worst from all games.

I love theese "best graphics" threads :D

LotrO have by far the best looking landscape and dungeons!

AoC have by far the best chracters and animations!

Vanguard... I really hate the way it looks.. I have never seen a good video or ss of vanguard. (or EQ2 which is pretty much the same ) And the boring generic fantaty world doesnt help.

Aion will be in the top with LotrO and AoC when it release here.

IMO ;)

Originally posted by Wizardry 

This is fact,i got tired of people talking about graphics,so i commented on several user posted screenshots.There was a ton of AION and LOTR,two games that have been given an unjust claim on great graphics.I don't care to comment again,i am sure you will see some of my comments pointing out weak graphic flaws,in the screenshot section.

There is NOT one game as of now with better graphics than VG,sad since that game was actually made several years ago,with a low end budget.I know LOTR  uses DX10 physics for shadows,but only in a couple areas and that alone does not mean good graphics,not by a longshot.AION ,well thats a whole new ball game that is no better than anything Korean games put out,same quality as L2 or the others.

Graphics mean a LOT to me,obviously a lot more than to others for very good reason.I like realistic looking textures,once you understand what you are looking at,it makes everything look cheap if low res textures are used.Then there is cheap models and meshes that again can make something look bland or cheap.Shaders add a ton of quality to graphics but at a steep cost to the PC and GPU,the same goes for lighting and effects.

 

Well Wizardry.

Vanguard models and animations are inferior to Everquest 2, Age of Conan and AION... not talking about artsyle.

Spell effects are inferior to EQ2, AION, AOC , Lotro etc.

Some of Vanguard´s landscapes are very well done, some of them are just copy and paste all over the place.

I have the impression you are confusing high quality textures with bump and normal mapping textures.

Shadowing in Vanguard is inferior to AION, EQ2, AoC and Lotro (especially EQ2 and AOC).

Vanguard has indeed some incredible landscapes and the most complex sky of all MMOs, but with its models, animations and bland zones, Vanguard it too graphically inconsistent to judge it as one of the best graphics in MMOs

About artstyle, Vanguard is not realistic, it is stylized, Age of Conan has a realistic approach and Lotro has it only on its landscapes, models are stylized.

I found it funny when you say " AION ,well thats a whole new ball game that is no better than anything Korean games put out,same quality as L2 or the others." Because in a technical point of view, character animations, modeling and character texturing AION and AOC are the top games.(not talking about taste)

Talking about animations, do you know AION is the first MMO where the character will stand in different ways on a irregular terrain?

AION

Vanguard

Everquest 2

They wanted with AoC to get players to play game only for graphics and nothing else lol

It was massive talk about coming titan on MMO market,and when it cam we saw dx10 bugged bag,thats what aoc was.

And Lotro looks soo much better then Vanguard,u cant compare one "well done region" with rest copy/paste with Lotro wich is done great.

when ppl see that one game have better graphics then their wow,they start looking for other games to try and beat lotro lol.

Bottom line - "best" graphics is completely based on opinion. 

Vanguard has some really great graphics.  Characters suck.

LOTRO has some really great graphics.  Again, characters suck.

AoC has great graphics.  Characters are great.  Itemization in terms of looks for the characters sucks.

Aion looks fantastic, but I haven't tried it yet.

From what I've seen on these boards, I'd have to say IMO Aion looks the best of any MMO out yet.

Originally posted by Krasher

I played for about a month or so after initial release then stopped. Cant recall why exactly but I am sure my addiction to a certin other game (hint...me an 10 million others) had something to do with it.

Anyway, this game may be the best kept secret in MMO's. It has, by far the best graphics (I have played AoC and LoTR is far better). It uses DirectX 10 (only current MMO?)  and is just plain fun. I hope more people will give it a try. Dont expect it to compete membership wise with above un-named game...but would like for it to stay around for a long time. I think espec ially those that think AoC is best graphically should give it a shot. They are in for a surprise.

We had a bunch of threads about the same things earlier. AoC do looks slightly better than LOTRO in most aspects. LOTROs trees look better but AoCs avatars are far superior.

And there are other games too, I would say that Vanguard have some things that looks better than LOTRO too, LOTRO do looks good but it aint the best.

As for the Dx 10 it have been on AoCs test server since december now so it will go live at any time now.

Anyways, games are not only about GFX and I think LOTRO is a pretty nice game but there are other that are better. As to comparing the game to AoC I would say it is close, AoCs combat and group dynamics are better but LOTRO do have a lot more content. But graphics wise AoC is better, the art style however can always be discussed.

Here is a AoC shot from when I last played it this winter:

I think it's worth reiterating that LoTRO does arguably have the best graphics/ system requirements ratio (at least among non cartoony MMOs). 

Best overall graphics on a price is no object machine?  No, not really overall.  But I know on my crusty ass PC, LoTRO looks a screaming shit ton better than any other MMO I can get to run at a reasonable frame rate.  Much better than EQ II, and that's the only non cartoon MMO that comes close.  TR I had to turn down to "animated turds" to get to run well, AoC I doubt I could run at all. VG, I have no idea, but I have serious doubts.

The graphics are pretty good. Kinda like a more stylized version of EQ2.

I like the world graphics but I think the Mobs and the actual character models and animations look like hell.

The way my Champion looked and moved totally destroyed the game for me.

It ate at me everyday until i tossed my disks in the Bin.

Originally posted by Krasher

I played for about a month or so after initial release then stopped. Cant recall why exactly but I am sure my addiction to a certin other game (hint...me an 10 million others) had something to do with it.

Anyway, this game may be the best kept secret in MMO's. It has, by far the best graphics (I have played AoC and LoTR is far better). It uses DirectX 10 (only current MMO?)  and is just plain fun. I hope more people will give it a try. Dont expect it to compete membership wise with above un-named game...but would like for it to stay around for a long time. I think espec ially those that think AoC is best graphically should give it a shot. They are in for a surprise.

 

I had done the trial several times, and could never quite get into it.  I was initially turned off by LotRO's classes, combat system, and animations. 

As a result I went to it's antithesis, AoC.  I was there for about 3 months, came to realize there's little more to do there than combat.  It did this very well and looked very good, IMO, but I recall feeling like any time spent that I wasn't hacking off somebodies head was a waste of time.  I quit after about 3 months.

After getting a jones for LotR, and getting an email last summer for the whole shebang for 19.95, I gave LotRO another shot, and I'm glad I did.  While the things that turned me off about the game to begin with are still an issue, I'm overwhelmed at the sheer amount of content.  It IS the anti-AoC in that everything you do in it seems to be worth doing, even enjoyable.

Not perfect, mind ya.  While the legendary item system is brilliant in concept, in implementation it seems less like a Anduril/Sting/Glamdring sort of thing and more like the gold gnome concept in Dungeon Runners, where you feed the gnome junk and he poops its value in gold.  Legendary items seem entirely the opposite of sacred or special, as they drop far more often than mundane weapons.  Not only that, the best strategy is that you slot 5 of the things so they gain XP and thus break down into better stuff, detracting again from that feeling of... "this is my most sacred beloved possession, with a vast history"...

But the graphics are brilliant, artful, and perform well.  And the character advancement is both deep and wide.  I'm 59th level now, and it's clear that at level 60 I'll still have plenty of questing left to do, let alone deeds, reputation, crafting, you name it.

Originally posted by aurick

There is a lot of detail in LotRO that's easy to take for granted. For example, stand in the Bree-fields on a moonlit night and watch the grass ripple in the moonlight. Or see how the buildings in town come alight as the sun goes down. All without slowing your frame rates to a crawl, and all without the instancing of AoC.

That's not to say the graphics are perfect. Lone Lands are pretty depressing, really. North Downs are a different flavor of depressing. But overall, the game is quite beautiful.

There are also some touches that AoC simply doesn't come close to rivaling. Last night I finally made it to Forochel for the first time. I enjoyed watching the aurora borealis come and go overhead while I was questing. Then my adventuring led me deeper into the zone, and when I came out one the other side of the ice tunnels I could scarcely see a thing. It was snowy and foggy to the point where the road was hard to spot in the dark and the only signs of civilization were when the glow of a torch could occasionally be seen through the gloom. It was thoroughly creepy and enjoyable all at the same time. Today I logged back in to continue adventuring -- and was shocked. The sun was shining brightly, and I could see for miles. Stuff that I'd stumbled around in the dark to find at all was no easily spotted at a distance. Totally different atmosphere. A little later in the day, it started to snow again but as large flakes without any fog to be found.

I have never seen such impressive weather in any other game. Not only does the weather perfectly fit each zone when it comes rolling in, but there are actually multiple severity levels. Very cool stuff.

QFT

The pass of Kahradras is pretty sweet, too.

Conan definitely gets 1st place for characters and animation, but LotRO gets the prize for landscape.  You have to hunt for a good place for a screenshot in AoC, but in LotRO it seems like you can park almost anywhere and get a nice shot.

If you compare the overall size of each games zones, that's REALLY saying something.

Originally posted by LethalBurst

Originally posted by Xantheous

A secret is right lol.. I don't like AoC or LoTRO but AoC's graphcs  blows doors on LoTRO.

Yes, AoC's graphics are awesome. Too bad the rest of the game is junk.

Sorry but your information is out of date, AoC is the fastest growing fantasy mmo relased inthe past two years. I challenge you to name another that can compete.

IMHO lotrol graphics are very nice, what put me off was it was as if my char feet floated on the ground, some say this is an animation issue....has this changed?

Originally posted by VultureSkull

Originally posted by LethalBurst

Originally posted by Xantheous

A secret is right lol.. I don't like AoC or LoTRO but AoC's graphcs  blows doors on LoTRO.

Yes, AoC's graphics are awesome. Too bad the rest of the game is junk.

 

Sorry but your information is out of date, AoC is the fastest growing fantasy mmo relased inthe past two years. I challenge you to name another that can compete.

IMHO lotrol graphics are very nice, what put me off was it was as if my char feet floated on the ground, some say this is an animation issue....has this changed?

It still looks that way to me, at least compared to AoC and Tabula Rasa; they're the only two, IMO, that seem(ed) to be convincingly "in their environment".

That said, I still enjoy the game.

Originally posted by Deleted User

Originally posted by Krasher

Originally posted by neonwire

Its not a well known because it simply isnt a fact at all. The LoTRO graphics are not the best around. I thought they were rather bland and uninspired. Oh well each to their own I suppose.

 

You cant possibly be playing LoTR in DX10 High Rez...its so much better then AoC it is not even close. Its not even possible for a non direct 10 game to compete graphically....maybe when AoC releases D10 version...things will change. To anyone with doubts...search for screenshots...and compare. Make sure the LoTR ones are the high rez d10 ones.

 

Some issues with your statement.

The DX10 is not a full implementation, and as such has issues with ATI cards which require full DX10 compliance. Steefel has even stated this fact.

The models are much worse in LOTRO than AoC thanks to issues with body sculpting. Hands are too large, body posture is not based on mo-cap, males with 2 in. waists, Plate Armor that is as tight looking as Spandex.

As well, there is still the texture loading hitch issue apparent in certain areas (and no ...not just Bree)

As to making your "comparison" to AoC and LOTRO...Sure thing...

Misty Conan Evening

Realistic models and clothing design that looks like it is meant to be worn

Women that look real

Notice the ice hanging on the limbs of the trees

Realistic Fauna

Compared to

Males with size 2 waists

Unrealistic faces

Abnormal Posturing

Unrealistic Tree models

Tree DX10

And LOTRO has been lauded for it's "Water" effects...yet look at the Realistic Fauna picture for AoC, then look at the water in Tree DX10. Notice the ripples of the water at the players feet in AoC?

I disagree 100% with your assesment.

Now, of course, I like the Comic art of Jim Lee and maybe you like Jack Kirby...who knows. But, we each may have a differeing opinion based on our likes and dislikes. I prefer more realism in my Low Fantasy MMO, and maybe you like a more stylized look. Then of course we will disagree.

Based on these shots above, I will take AoC's art.

Thanks

I could not agree more with the assessment on the character models in LOTRO, as this is the one feature that keeps me from sticking with this game. I just can't seem to get over my distaste for them. I think it is a travesty because it is IMHO that the character models are bad enough where they detract from the beauty of the environment/landscape. To me, they just seem out of place with the world.

In addition I can not stand to look at the characters when they run. It just looks awful! My cousin actually left the game for that sole reason. Don't even get me started with the male elves. Might as well play a female.

I guarantee, that if this game had better looking/more solid character models, it would take a giant leap forward in subs.