Originally posted by Clocksimus

The higher res pictures seem to confirm the complete lack of  bump or normal mapping and reason why it pains me to look at them and  call them nice compared to other MMO's currently out that make very good use of this technique that is far from new and exciting.  FFXIV is an example of very good use  of this and no, I dont play it or even like it and yes, it was a complete failure. Graphically though it was pleasing to the eyes and I just can't say the same about GW2.

Just my opinion of course and they don't use it.... so please the guy that will try to call me a GW2 hater.... GW2 doesn't  need to use it but it would look a lot better  with the feature in please.

When bump mapping isn't extremely high resolution, the results are horrible, making armor look very plastic, blurry and/or pixelated. You can't do that level of detail in an MMO with hundreds of people in one spot. Subtle shader effects are much better for an MMO.

In game at viewable resolution and distance, the character models and armor look better than in any other MMO I've played. If you get close enough, you can se some flaws, but 99.9% of your time playing you are never cose enough to anyone to notice.

I think my high rez images above make the point the best that screenshots can. If you fill a screen with the image, rather than zooming in to the real size, I think they look phenominal. It's only if you zoom in that you can notice the flaws, but there is still a lot of detail to be seen at magnification as well.

Screens also never do justice to the way things look in full motion while playing the game. IMO, there is no currently released MMO that looks better.

(My 2nd and 4th images in my post above are at 6,720px × 4,200px if you click them and zoom in).

Originally posted by escarreta

Originally posted by Clocksimus

I've  glance through the pictures in this thread and I have to ask, is everyone running on low settings? Or is this what GW2 has to offer graphically?

Ok now tell me a mmorpg, except AOC,  that it has better graphics then gw2 (state beta, for now only works DX9, future will support DX10 and DX11)

Tera

Originally posted by Saxonblade

Originally posted by escarreta

Originally posted by Clocksimus

I've  glance through the pictures in this thread and I have to ask, is everyone running on low settings? Or is this what GW2 has to offer graphically?

Ok now tell me a mmorpg, except AOC,  that it has better graphics then gw2 (state beta, for now only works DX9, future will support DX10 and DX11)

Tera

I think they are close in capability and subjective opinion and personal taste will dictate which looks better. IMO GW2 looks better than Tera.

Originally posted by fiontar

Originally posted by Saxonblade

Originally posted by escarreta

Originally posted by Clocksimus

I've  glance through the pictures in this thread and I have to ask, is everyone running on low settings? Or is this what GW2 has to offer graphically?

Ok now tell me a mmorpg, except AOC,  that it has better graphics then gw2 (state beta, for now only works DX9, future will support DX10 and DX11)

Tera

I think they are close in capability and subjective opinion and personal taste will dictate which looks better. IMO GW2 looks better than Tera.

and IMHO I like Tera's better

not the best screenie but this is me at level 10 wondering how the hell I am going to stop that lot bursting through the gate.  No guessing on what happened 5 minutes later! lol

WvW PvP

Originally posted by chryses

 

not the best screenie but this is me at level 10 wondering how the hell I am going to stop that lot bursting through the gate.  No guessing on what happened 5 minutes later! lol

 

WvW PvP

Looks familair. A lot of "total domination" going on in WvW.

Originally posted by sk8chalif

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

Originally posted by Requiamer

This is the typical asian female looking armor style i dislike so much, and saw to much ingame.

lol a bit normal since its what u start with when u enter the game when ur a female elementalist or mesmer

You are wrong i changed all my gear multipled time none of what its shows is the starting gear, i did use the transmute stone for both the mask and the leg gear as i already said. This character is level 27...

Originally posted by Dfix

Originally posted by chryses

 

not the best screenie but this is me at level 10 wondering how the hell I am going to stop that lot bursting through the gate.  No guessing on what happened 5 minutes later! lol

 

WvW PvP

Looks familair. A lot of "total domination" going on in WvW.

 

Hopefully with 3 factions and post release there will be enough natural balancing going on.  Can't be certain but I think GW2 is an MMO that will allow a much smaller group which is very well organised, to defeat a bigger group.  We were like a bunch of farmers running into each other. still fun though :)

I should have taken screenshots of the WvW balance where I was.  It was something like 100,000 to 1000 to 1000.

With my sever being one of the 1000s. :T  SUPER pathetic.  Pretty sure it was one of the MAJOR original servers with high pop up against two new underpopulated servers.

I only remember to take screenshots near the end of the BWE where I'm like 'Oh yeah, I guess I should share!'.  I need to make a habit of taking more pictures.

Had some hilarious stuff like the cook outfit from cash shop, which has the most OP skill ever, #4 'Grease fire'

Here's my awesome Norn Ranger ;

)

And his derpy bear.

Originally posted by Clocksimus

The higher res pictures seem to confirm the complete lack of  bump or normal mapping and reason why it pains me to look at them and  call them nice compared to other MMO's currently out that make very good use of this technique that is far from new and exciting.  FFXIV is an example of very good use  of this and no, I dont play it or even like it and yes, it was a complete failure. Graphically though it was pleasing to the eyes and I just can't say the same about GW2.

Just my opinion of course and they don't use it.... so please the guy that will try to call me a GW2 hater.... GW2 doesn't  need to use it but it would look a lot better  with the feature in please.

They do indeed use normal and bump mapping. In fact, you can peruse CG Society and run into the portfolios of Anet current and ex-employees who have the non-textured, sculpted models in their galleries, those sculpts being what became the normal maps. You're confusing aesthetic (a specific amount of detail and how its applied) with a method. You can't have an opinion about whether they use normal maps or not, they either do or they don't, and they do. You're also looking at all low level, basic armor, the more detailed sets not ingame and available to wear by the player, though you do see NPCs sporting them on occasion.

You can see from the screenshots (and if not, from videos) that shadows and light obey and adhere to the wrinkles in clothing and general changes in the topology of the meshes. That's not the model. If it were, each model would be too dense and they'd never be able to render huge numbers of people on the screen at such a high poly-count. It's done instead with a mixture of bump and normal mapping. That's how it works.

If you want to judge the graphism in today mmo don't even watch at the screen they simply don't make games justice anymore, we are not in the 2k anymore. Just watch some high res vids on youtube if you want to get a real idea of how the game visually feel. Games are no more about photo rendering, they are about animation techniques. An animated scene is built in a totally different manner than a frozen photo shot in 3D, there is a world between those, and games are not graphically builds to be frozen.

Originally posted by Requiamer

If you want to judge the graphism in today mmo don't even watch at the screen they simply don't make games justice anymore, we are not in the 2k anymore. Just watch some high res vids on youtube if you want to get a real idea of how the game visually feel. Games are no more about photo rendering, they are about animation techniques. An animated scene is built in a totally different manner than a frozen photo shot in 3D, there is a world between those, and games are not graphically builds to be frozen.

I have to agreed with this

op topic: Nice chars all :) ty for posting

Originally posted by gaeanprayer

Originally posted by Clocksimus

The higher res pictures seem to confirm the complete lack of  bump or normal mapping and reason why it pains me to look at them and  call them nice compared to other MMO's currently out that make very good use of this technique that is far from new and exciting.  FFXIV is an example of very good use  of this and no, I dont play it or even like it and yes, it was a complete failure. Graphically though it was pleasing to the eyes and I just can't say the same about GW2.

Just my opinion of course and they don't use it.... so please the guy that will try to call me a GW2 hater.... GW2 doesn't  need to use it but it would look a lot better  with the feature in please.

They do indeed use normal and bump mapping. In fact, you can peruse CG Society and run into the portfolios of Anet current and ex-employees who have the non-textured, sculpted models in their galleries, those sculpts being what became the normal maps. You're confusing aesthetic (a specific amount of detail and how its applied) with a method. You can't have an opinion about whether they use normal maps or not, they either do or they don't, and they do. You're also looking at all low level, basic armor, the more detailed sets not ingame and available to wear by the player, though you do see NPCs sporting them on occasion.

You can see from the screenshots (and if not, from videos) that shadows and light obey and adhere to the wrinkles in clothing and general changes in the topology of the meshes. That's not the model. If it were, each model would be too dense and they'd never be able to render huge numbers of people on the screen at such a high poly-count. It's done instead with a mixture of bump and normal mapping. That's how it works.

So the game looks good enough  but not as good as it could be or others on the market? I can agree and live with that.  As for the statment about the  higher quality models being ingame but not available to the players, that is screaming SWTOR high-res texture drama to me.  Why is it everyone else decides what settings the end user should run their game at? Why even have settings at all? Developers should maybe instead just remove the option and say this is what you will see and these are the specs you need to run the game.

I'm sure GW2 will have larger scale combat than a game like TERA  and so made cutbacks on costs to make it so more people can enjoy the game.  The issue I have with that is that it is assuming everyone will take part in large scale battles and should pay the price of a lower quality visual.  I've managed maybe over hundred a player on my screen in TERA, so I don't think a zerged DE in GW2 would warrant the cutbacks. Saying they made this choice so that the game runs more smoothly on lower end pcs just feels half true to me.

Game just feels old without being old at all because of how it looks compared to basically every MMO coming soon after it and for the person going to point out  something about TERA art style.... This isn't about art style but the simply, undeniable fact that TERA armor models hold far more detail than anything I've seen in this thread and i've now spent a good 30mins looking through GW2 screenshots and then looking at my own personal ones in TERA on max settings.  Style aside they simply are on different scales.

Edit: Compare screensho to screenshot is still valid as they would both be degraded to the same degree would they not? Both would not be as polished as ingame but one would not be worse off than the other.

Can you stop bitching about how this game isn't running on Crytek, and let us get back to posting pics of female avatars in their skimmies?

---

Originally posted by Clocksimus snip

---

They can't put high res texture before optimizing the client, if they did they would probably burn the cpu/gpu of some computer, if you can unlock this before the setting being idiot proof, its really not hard to understand. Swtor messed this up, because they couldn't optimize their game even close to what they planned for whatever reason (the game was supposed to be no instanced remember? it ended up as an instance fest), i have my own explanations, but writing it here might start a flame war with the Swtor fanboys that is all but related to GW2, if you guys want to talk about Swtor there is a forum for it.

Originally posted by Clocksimus

Originally posted by gaeanprayer

Originally posted by Clocksimus

The higher res pictures seem to confirm the complete lack of  bump or normal mapping and reason why it pains me to look at them and  call them nice compared to other MMO's currently out that make very good use of this technique that is far from new and exciting.  FFXIV is an example of very good use  of this and no, I dont play it or even like it and yes, it was a complete failure. Graphically though it was pleasing to the eyes and I just can't say the same about GW2.

Just my opinion of course and they don't use it.... so please the guy that will try to call me a GW2 hater.... GW2 doesn't  need to use it but it would look a lot better  with the feature in please.

They do indeed use normal and bump mapping. In fact, you can peruse CG Society and run into the portfolios of Anet current and ex-employees who have the non-textured, sculpted models in their galleries, those sculpts being what became the normal maps. You're confusing aesthetic (a specific amount of detail and how its applied) with a method. You can't have an opinion about whether they use normal maps or not, they either do or they don't, and they do. You're also looking at all low level, basic armor, the more detailed sets not ingame and available to wear by the player, though you do see NPCs sporting them on occasion.

You can see from the screenshots (and if not, from videos) that shadows and light obey and adhere to the wrinkles in clothing and general changes in the topology of the meshes. That's not the model. If it were, each model would be too dense and they'd never be able to render huge numbers of people on the screen at such a high poly-count. It's done instead with a mixture of bump and normal mapping. That's how it works.

So the game looks good enough  but not as good as it could be or others on the market? I can agree and live with that.  As for the statment about the  higher quality models being ingame but not available to the players, that is screaming SWTOR high-res texture drama to me.  Why is it everyone else decides what settings the end user should run their game at? Why even have settings at all? Developers should maybe instead just remove the option and say this is what you will see and these are the specs you need to run the game.

I'm sure GW2 will have larger scale combat than a game like TERA  and so made cutbacks on costs to make it so more people can enjoy the game.  The issue I have with that is that it is assuming everyone will take part in large scale battles and should pay the price of a lower quality visual.  I've managed maybe over hundred a player on my screen in TERA, so I don't think a zerged DE in GW2 would warrant the cutbacks. Saying they made this choice so that the game runs more smoothly on lower end pcs just feels half true to me.

Game just feels old without being old at all because of how it looks compared to basically every MMO coming soon after it and for the person going to point out  something about TERA art style.... This isn't about art style but the simply, undeniable fact that TERA armor models hold far more detail than anything I've seen in this thread and i've now spent a good 30mins looking through GW2 screenshots and then looking at my own personal ones in TERA on max settings.  Style aside they simply are on different scales.

Edit: Compare screensho to screenshot is still valid as they would both be degraded to the same degree would they not? Both would not be as polished as ingame but one would not be worse off than the other.

The hi-res texture options are there but not available yet, it's true. It's not that uncommon, but you have a valid reason to worry with what SWTOR did. SWTOR however, was terribly optimized, and while GW2 had its issues during the first BWE, even at its worst, it was still running much better than SWTOR. Anet has also indicated that they're not actually trying that hard with optimization yet, that's low on their list of necessities right now and they said specifically on the reddit that they're not focusing on it until the "development winds down". The game also doesn't use the GPU much if at all. All of that considered, I'm confident the game will handle well enough for launch that the high-res option will indeed be available.

As for comparing it to a game like TERA, that's mostly irrelevant. I'm not even going to bother with the "graphics don't make the game" argument, however true it is. The fact is that, within any year, MANY mmos come out at once, and all with varying degrees of graphic fidelity. That one will stand on top purely in the graphics department does not mean none of the other games are attractive or pretty to look at, nor does it say anything at all about how the games play. TERA is gorgeous, but if GW2 decided to trash everything they've done so far and remake themselves as a 16 bit game, I'd still play it long before I play TERA, or AoC, or FF14, or any other incredibly, beautifully detailed game that's also obnoxiously boring, grindy.

I used to care about graphics and place it on a pedestal just like you. Then I got bombarded by AAA WoW-clones while smaller devs made games like Minecraft and Binding of Isaac. It was the latter that reminded me why I loved video games, while the former made me wonder what I ever saw in them in the first place.

My Necromancer, probably what I'll play and how I'll look when game comes out if Warrior or Elementalist or something I didn't try yet doesnt' take over that is.

Looks like albino/ginger Mila Kunis.

Originally posted by Requiamer

Originally posted by sk8chalif

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

Originally posted by Requiamer

This is the typical asian female looking armor style i dislike so much, and saw to much ingame.

lol a bit normal since its what u start with when u enter the game when ur a female elementalist or mesmer

You are wrong i changed all my gear multipled time none of what its shows is the starting gear, i did use the transmute stone for both the mask and the leg gear as i already said. This character is level 27...

well to bad mine is same lvl and i dont look like that at all u dont even see my boots, and btw Lvl 27 is nothing in this game its praticly the begining for the game.u find way cooler armor later on.. i dont have any pic of my elementalist,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmIqBE1rmRM

here a lvl 37 look elementalist, its still a basic robe, but the look still change , the shoulder and helm that got spike on it,

anyway at the end of the beta in the big event there were ton of people wearing so much cooler armor and stuff that i never saw before, they were all high lvl even above 40