For me graphics and animation go hand in hand, if you go for high end graphics you'd better get the animation right.

One of those things I always find ruins it for me is when a 4+ legged animal has one or more legs above or through the ground plain.

As we get more powerful machines the graphics should start to get more realistic, but the more realistic graphics get the more critical of said graphics we get

I think his assessment is missing 1 key thing.  Thats Technique.  Technique is how the artist creates the model.  An amateur with little technique will be alot different then a professional who has been working on graphics for the last decade.  Generally, the less technique a modeler has, the less detail will show on the model and the models may be more inneffecient.  It also applies to new technology as a person who has not explored them will use the technology poorly.  Such as using the nVidia filter to create character normal maps.  Or using many polies where people won't see them.

I think Style is the most important aspect to designing graphics of a game.  Whether its realistic, cartooned, or a combination.  Cementing and understanding the style is key.  I have seen many games released in the last 2 years that simply don't lay down the style.  What I hear the staff say is that they didn't want to go realistic, but didn't want it to be cartooned.  Then why don't they sit down and cement how they want it to look?  They usually always end up neutral color pallette splashed on an uninspired scene with generic stuff.  One thing I learned about modeling is if you can't translate your idea onto paper, then you won't be able to translate it onto a 3D model.  Its better to take the day pre-planning then the spend 3 years with nothing to show for it.

I also am tired of games saying the graphics are realistic so they don't end up caring about design basics.  Such as we should not use strictly earth tones for this forest because forests are many colors.  Or, we should not create a focal point because the trees don't grow properly like that.

Originally posted by Ravanos

Originally posted by razerblade29

Originally posted by Inzra

Better graphics means better immersion

Better story/lore means better immersion

 

Edited: didnt like it bolded

 

if i wanted the game to tell me a story id play a single player game where it can be done 100 times better. I want to create my own story when i play a MMO.

but i agree with the person you quoted, the better the graphics means i can get into the world more. I loved AOCs graphics and infact that was the thing keeping me in game for the longest time (cause the rest of the game was bad).

Yeah I didnt explain that very well, but yeah i actually did mean for single player. For mmos story/lore doenst matter to me at all, mainly cause i dont care about any of the lore behind any of the mmos like wow, war, and aoc.

For mmos then i would say grahics are not that important for me, I do like eye candy but i would rather have gameplay for the immersion and fun factor. When i do want eye candy and a good story i would play a singleplayer rpg and turn it on max settings and nt have to worry about lag and fps drops, usually.

Originally posted by Inzra

Better graphics means better immersion

I concur.

If graphics didn't matter people would still play Ultima Online, EverQuest, Asheron's Call and so forth.

I set the Unreal 2 game engine as a standard as to all others will be measured.

Immersion.

AoC may have technically high powered graphics...but when it comes to immersion, that game did so many obvious things wrong it broke immersion.   The graphics itself tried too much to be real that it actually made it unreal and broke immersion.

Im currently MMO-less after quitting the latest WoW clone and waiting for DF...so I installed Icewind Dale the other day (something I have had sitting in a CD case for god knows how many years but never played) and even on those old graphics I feel way more immersed than AoC, or WAR ever did.  WoW was actually pretty immersive graphically, they did a lot of things right with graphics and animations...the ADD kids who think a game cant have good graphics and be cartoony are retarded.

Then you take a game with high graphics, though not a MMO, like F.E.A.R that I also qued up out of boredom.  Talk about immersion...FPS games, the good ones, do a great job with immersion.  A lot of the reason why im looking forward to DF.  Its awsome dark and gritty art style with good graphics and FPS combat is extremely immersive, even if its graphics arent technically the best on the block.

Another example off the top of my head is back on the old playstation with Chrono Cross.  That game to me was so incredibly immersive and well done, even with the graphics compared to today.  Much more immersive than WAR or AoC. 

As someone who mainly watches Anime on the TV, but also enjoys seeing good SciFi in High Definition, it isn't about whether the graphics are detailed enough for you to be able to count the number of zits people have, rather it's about how well done they are & whether they draw you in to the story.

The same is true of MMOs, a simplistic graphic style with well executed artwork & decent levels of character customisation is often far better than a hyper realistic one with mundane repetetive designs.

As long as the characters don't literally look like 'Block Heads', polygon counts are just statistics.