I voted for Diablo 2 and Titan Quest. I'd prefer the isometric view that Diablo 2 uses, but with, obviously, a more powerful and potent graphics engine. Having physics would be an interesting feature as well.
Destructible environments would be sweet, too. But this is about the graphics. So, isometric top-down view with good graphics engine, not computer hog, but up to today's standards. It would be nice to have a way to zoom in and examine the way your character looks though, to really get a good look at your weapons, armor, etc.
You don't have to buy a new computer every year - games have texture, filter, physics, etc. control menus for a reason.
First of all, games are optimized to play on best controls. Afterwards, they start to look like crap or don't give much of a performance. I bought my computer a year ago, it barely runs Oblivion on max, Crysis on high with 20 FPS (and lower it looks like crap), with UT3 I need to totally drop settings because it's an online game and I need speed, and Bioshock just looks crappy on medium, because it's not that good in the first place. Seems to me like I need a new computer.
Or, I can go play Heretic Doomsday because it's 2.5D and looks amazing...
Quote from "Snarf" »
but don't you think that reducing this number might actually be benificial to gameplay?
That's what other Hack&Slashes are for. Nox, Titan Quest, Sacred, whatever. If Diablo will have less enemies I don't think I would play it. Killing masses is what makes that game fun.
Quote from "Snarf" »
Do you really think the 'click-click-click' gameplay of the last two Diablo games is the most exiting form of combat possible? It gets rather repetitive, fighting all tose identical mosters, you have to agree?
I don't really agree. I may get bored of Diablo II somewhat, but I always come back to it, over and over again. Click-click-click is just a particular style. If it changes, the game changes. There are plenty of games with other styles, some even turn-based. If I am tired of clicking, I can play Fallout.
Quote from "Snarf" »
Less overall characters on screen would prove benificial to gameplay and allow the use of a detailed 3D engine.
Less characters will lead to harder-to-kill monsters, and that is what makes a Hack&Slash boring - when monsters take ages to kill. And I don't care about a 3D engine, even if they decrease the amount of monsters I perceive it's not going to save them. 3D is just 3D, it's not going to get good anytime soon...
First of all, games are optimized to play on best controls. Afterwards, they start to look like crap or don't give much of a performance. I bought my computer a year ago, it barely runs Oblivion on max, Crysis on high with 20 FPS (and lower it looks like crap), with UT3 I need to totally drop settings because it's an online game and I need speed, and Bioshock just looks crappy on medium, because it's not that good in the first place. Seems to me like I need a new computer.
We shouldn't even mention Oblivion - that engine is a bloody mess as far as respectable performance/detail ratios are concerned.
I have to disagree with you on Crysis. Even with all settings on medium, it is still a sight to behold!
Personally, I play Crysis on high and I get around 30fps average. 30fps would usually be unplayable in a game like oblivion, however thanks to motion blur, 30fps can seem like 40fps - perfectly playable. What I am trying to say is that there are strategies now (most importantly motion blur), that can be used to reduce the effects of low framerates.
Quote from "Equinox" »
That's what other Hack&Slashes are for. Nox, Titan Quest, Sacred, whatever. If Diablo will have less enemies I don't think I would play it. Killing masses is what makes that game fun.
What I'm trying to say, is that the illusion of endless waves of enemies can still be created without actually weighing down the engine with sheer numbers. Plenty of First Person games have used such tehniques successfully in the past. Doing that might also encourage a bit more variation, rather than just different colours used to distinguish the skill levels within each class of monster (eg. Devil Kin vs Fallen).
Quote from "Equinox" »
Less characters will lead to harder-to-kill monsters, and that is what makes a Hack&Slash boring - when monsters take ages to kill. And I don't care about a 3D engine, even if they decrease the amount of monsters I perceive it's not going to save them. 3D is just 3D, it's not going to get good anytime soon...
Have you ever tried Dark Messiah? The combat is intense and exiting. There is lots of variation. Weapons have more than two different swings. There is kicking, an ubundance of different power strikes and you can use the environment. The magic is rather limited, but what spells you do have access to are effective and look absolutely stunning thanks to Dark Messiahs 3D engine. The enemies do not take ages to kill, but in some maps they just keep coming at you in what seems like huge numbers. All this while - in my experience - the framerate remains perfectly playable, even on an outdated system. (DM uses an enhanced version of the source engine)
I believe that if Diablo III were to follow after any game in terms of combat, then it should be Dark messiah.
We shouldn't even mention Oblivion - that engine is a bloody mess as far as respectable performance/detail ratios are concerned.
It's still a game I want to play. And whether it's bad coding or just graphics too high doesn't really concern me. HV and Perimeter are said to have bad coding, they run fine for me.
Quote from "Snarf" »
I have to disagree with you on Crysis. Even with all settings on medium, it is still a sight to behold!
FarCry on max looks better... or Heretic, for that matter.
Quote from "Snarf" »
Personally, I play Crysis on high and I get around 30fps average. 30fps would usually be unplayable in a game like oblivion, however thanks to motion blur, 30fps can seem like 40fps - perfectly playable. What I am trying to say is that there are strategies now (most importantly motion blur), that can be used to reduce the effects of low framerates.
What you describe is an option. But still it's a half-baked way to play a game. I don't like to do that. I put Crysis and Bioshock on a shelf now, just because I don't want to bother them until I can play them on impressive settings that won't turn my game into a slideshow.
Quote from "Snarf" »
What I'm trying to say, is that the illusion of endless waves of enemies can still be created without actually weighing down the engine with sheer numbers.
I am not sure what are you talking about, really... if there is no enemies, there is no waves of enemies.
Quote from "Snarf" »
Doing that might also encourage a bit more variation, rather than just different colours used to distinguish the skill levels within each class of monster (eg. Devil Kin vs Fallen).
I never minded color changes ever since I saw them in Allods, really... they don't bother me. I am much more concerned with imbalance of items and monsters in Diablo than that.
Quote from "Snarf" »
Have you ever tried Dark Messiah? The combat is intense and exiting.
I tried that. Disgrace to the fantasy FPS, an ordinary slasher. I got bored of it very fast. heXen ftw.
Quote from "Snarf" »
All this while - in my experience - the framerate remains perfectly playable, even on an outdated system. (DM uses an enhanced version of the source engine)
Yes, DM uses Source, which is old, and it's light effects are worse than in Doomsday Heretic. Fire doesn't reflect at all. I am not surprised it doesn't eat much performance.
Quote from "Snarf" »
I believe that if Diablo III were to follow after any game in terms of combat, then it should be Dark messiah.
Then it would be a top down Dark Messiah... e.g., something like Nox. Ever played Nox? It's like an FPS in top down mode.
It's still a game I want to play. And whether it's bad coding or just graphics too high doesn't really concern me. HV and Perimeter are said to have bad coding, they run fine for me.
Well, it just seems ridiculous to me that I can run Crysis at steady 30fps, while Oblivion - which is now a last gen game - fluctuates wildly and often runs lower than 30fps in certain areas. Sure, Oblivion is beautiful if looked at from the right angles, but it's not consistant beauty. In some areas Oblivion just looks plain ugly - theres hardly any of that in Crysis. Furthermore, even the less detailed areas of Crysis look better than Oblivion does in some of it's better areas. It must be a poor engine to perform at the same framerate as Crysis when its only half as detailed.
Quote from "Equinox" »
FarCry on max looks better...
Yes, well I still like the look of Far Cry, although when you compare it to some modern engines it looks a little cartoon like - I didn't think medium Crysis looked as bad.
Quote from "Equinox" »
What you describe is an option. But still it's a half-baked way to play a game. I don't like to do that.
It's not 'half baked'. Thats like saying you're not going to watch TV anymore because the framerates too low and you dont like blur. I think NTSC is about 30fps while PAL is 25. Are they unwatchable? No, it looks fine because everything is burred together. Why games have only just started adopting that tactic is beyond me - in my opinion, it can only improve the experience, especially for people struggling with low framerates.
Quote from "Equinox" »
I am not sure what are you talking about, really... if there is no enemies, there is no waves of enemies.
You can have the enemies enter the field in smaller but relentless waves, the trigger for the next wave being the death of the majority of the first wave - loads of FPS games do that. It's just not necessary to fill the entire area with enemies, and if it was a first person game, the chances are that the player isn't going to notice that the whole enemy host is not standing before him because they're too busy fighting (as it should be ;))
It's simply the difference between a huge, performance crippling wave of enemies every now and then, and more frequent smaller waves.
Quote from "Equinox" »
Yes, DM uses Source, which is old, and it's light effects are worse than in Doomsday Heretic. Fire doesn't reflect at all. I am not surprised it doesn't eat much performance.
Aww, come on now... it looks fine. Better than Oblivion, but I didn't hear you complaining about those grahpics. Better than Far Cry too. It's a very good engine considering the detail. I really don't know why you don't like it - sure, the story is nothing compared to Diablo, but the gameplay is sound.
I really don't understand you. One minute your saying you'd rather Diablo II was a 2D game, and the next your complaining about a highly detailed 3D engine because it was missing some reflections. :rolleyes:
Quote from "Equinox" »
Then it would be a top down Dark Messiah... e.g., something like Nox. Ever played Nox? It's like an FPS in top down mode.
Well then it's hardly FPS then, is it?!
No, I really believe Diablio III would benifit from being in first person.
Well, it just seems ridiculous to me that I can run Crysis at steady 30fps, while Oblivion - which is now a last gen game - fluctuates wildly and often runs lower than 30fps in certain areas.
Oblivion looks more appealing than Crysis to me... it's colorful.
Quote from "Snarf" »
Yes, well I still like the look of Far Cry, although when you compare it to some modern engines it looks a little cartoon like - I didn't think medium Crysis looked as bad.
I don't see anything cartoon about it. You are just asking too much. FarCry is as high graphics as I will ever need lol.
Quote from "Snarf" »
I think NTSC is about 30fps while PAL is 25.
I got no idea what those are.
I got NO IDEA what you are talking about, frankly.
Quote from "Snarf" »
You can have the enemies enter the field in smaller but relentless waves, the trigger for the next wave being the death of the majority of the first wave - loads of FPS games do that.
I think that's very gay. I like it how it's in Heretic. You have enemies on the map, and they have ears, and they all try to kill you. The most you can do is thread slowly and lightly...
The whole wave after wave trigger thing is totally unrealistic. If you want to do that in Diablo, you can just play slower. Wait, attract enemies, etc.
Quote from "Snarf" »
that the whole enemy host is not standing before him because they're too busy fighting (as it should be ;))
Wait, what? Busy fighting who?
Quote from "Snarf" »
It's simply the difference between a huge, performance crippling wave of enemies every now and then, and more frequent smaller waves.
There are no "waves" in Diablo. There are packs of enemies who attack when they see you, which is how it is realistically and how it should be. Everything else is dumb scripting and I despise scripting.
Quote from "Snarf" »
Aww, come on now... it looks fine. Better than Oblivion, but I didn't hear you complaining about those grahpics, better than Far Cry. It's a very good engine. I really don't know why you don't like it - sure, the story is nothing compared to Diablo, but the gameplay is sound.
Dm is all black and yellow. Oblivion actually posseses a color pallete, So Oblivion wins. Totally not better than FarCry. And, again. NO FUCKING REFLECTIONS! Even a 2.5D game from 2000 has reflections and this doesn't.
Quote from "Snarf" »
I don't understand you. One minute your saying you'd rather Diablo II was a 2D game, and the next your complaining about a highly detailed 3D engine because it was missing some reflections. :rolleyes:
What does that have to do with anything? Reflections do not depend on the engine. They depend on the designers. Which are a lot more important than any engines.
Quote from "Snarf" »
Well then it's hardly FPS then, is it?!
It plays like an FPS. That's why I can't call it AN FPS, but it's similar to one.
Quote from "Snarf" »
No, I really believe Diablio III would benifit from being in first person.
That's like Fallout 3, genre change... it won't be D3 anymore.
Oblivion looks more appealing than Crysis to me... it's colorful.
I don't see anything cartoon about it. You are just asking too much. FarCry is as high graphics as I will ever need lol.
Yeah, those games might be colourful, but they are hugely unrealistic. Far Cry is an exaggerated idea of paradise - the trees are too green, the water is too blue. The colours are so bright that things start to look plasticy. Sure, it looks nice, but not very real.
Quote from "Equinox" »
I got no idea what those are.
I got NO IDEA what you are talking about, frankly.
Sorry, my bad. They are just types of TV - some countries have NTSC, some have PAL. What I was trying to say, is that standard TV runs at a framerate of about 25-30 frames per second, but we don't notice that it is so low because the frames are blurred together so everything looks smooth. Whats wrong with doing the same in games? - you said it was a 'half-baked' method.
Quote from "Equinox" »
Wait, what? Busy fighting who?
The player, busy fighting the monsters. The player should be busy fighting the monsters, not counting them...
Sorry if I confused you, it should have been: '...and if it was a first person game, the chances are that the player isn't going to notice that the whole enemy host is not standing before them because they're too busy fighting.'
Quote from "Equinox" »
There are no "waves" in Diablo. There are packs of enemies who attack when they see you, which is how it is realistically and how it should be. Everything else is dumb scripting and I despise scripting.
Packs, waves, whatever! It's the same thing. They don't all have to be prespawned on mass, just appear when you enter the area.
Quote from "Equinox" »
What does that have to do with anything? Reflections do not depend on the engine. They depend on the designers. Which are a lot more important than any engines.
To be honest, I never noticed the missing reflections that you are complaining about. It seems a very insignificant thing to worry about.
Quote from "Equinox" »
That's like Fallout 3, genre change... it won't be D3 anymore.
There are many other aspects to the games that give the Diablo series it's unique feel. You would have to be very narrow minded if the camera angle was all that made the Diablo series Diablo, to you! Diablo III would retain it's unique atmosphere (it's 'dark, gritty charm', as Alphidius puts it below) , even if the viewpoint did change - if not, then the games creators would have failed miserably.
I vote for a decent quality 3d game, including stuff like Titan quest, Fable, Elder scrolls 4, God of War, Guild Wars, Neverwinter nights. they are all pretty similar generally speaking.
I think fable and titan quest are the best maybe.
I would love a high res 2D game, but I dont' think diablo is the type of game for that, since it takes so much more time to motion capture things, and are less flexible for many different things, and generally don't implement 3rd dimention as well. I can love 2d graphics, but I think it would be a bad choice for designers, efficency wise.
I vote for a decent quality 3d game, including stuff like Titan quest, Fable, Elder scrolls 4, God of War, Guild Wars, Neverwinter nights. they are all pretty similar generally speaking.
I think fable and titan quest are the best maybe.
I would love a high res 2D game, but I dont' think diablo is the type of game for that, since it takes so much more time to motion capture things, and are less flexible for many different things, and generally don't implement 3rd dimention as well. I can love 2d graphics, but I think it would be a bad choice for designers, efficency wise.
I just think that 3D engines are getting so advanced these days that there is simply no reason to use a 2D engine any more. 2D engines were once used out of necessity - the hardware requirements were too great for games that needed to display large numbers of entities all at once - but now it's hardly a problem.
Yeah, those games might be colourful, but they are hugely unrealistic. Far Cry is an exaggerated idea of paradise - the trees are too green, the water is too blue. The colours are so bright that things start to look plasticy. Sure, it looks nice, but not very real.
I don't think I like realism that much. Why play a game, I can just walk outside, the graphics are FUCKING AMAZING.
My point is, I prefer somewhat unrealistic, but colorful and interesting design (Oblivion, Heretic, Unreal), to highly realistic but, therefore, uninteresting design (F.E.A.R.).
Quote from "Snarf" »
What I was trying to say, is that standart TV runs at a framerate of about 25-30 frames per second, but we don't notice it because the frames are blurred together so everything looks smooth. Whats wrong with doing the same in games?
Well, I don't watch TV, so maybe that's why. But, I never saw blur in games made in the same manner as TV. When I run Crysis at 20+ FPS or so, it slows down, and I notice these jerks.
Quote from "Snarf" »
- you said it was a 'half-baked' method.
I wasn't talking about blurring. I was talking about playing games not for top performance.
Diablo, Heretic, StarCraft, Age of Empires 2, Half-Life 1, etc., these are games that I can run, and there can be tons upon tons of objects in there, and they are going to be nice and fast. Sometimes I just feel I'd rather have games posses simple design than slow down my PC, even if the slow down is not huge. It's still there.
Quote from "Snarf" »
The player, busy fighting the monsters. The player should be busy fighting the monsters, not counting them...
Rubbish. In fact, true warriors count: weapons, bullets, areas to run to, etc., etc., so what you are saying is complete BS. I personally notice everything, even if I play SS (plenty of waves there, btw).
Quote from "Snarf" »
Packs, waves, whatever! It's the same thing. They don't all have to be prespawned on mass, just appear when you enter the area.
In Diablo, they appear when you enter the area... I don't understand you. I ask that you use less terms such as "prespawned" because I REALLY have trouble understanding most of the stuff you are saying, lol.
Quote from "Snarf" »
To be honest, I never noticed the missing reflections that you are complaining about. It seems a very insignificant thing to worry about.
possible in a 2000 re-build of a 1996 game, but in order to get the same crappy reflection effects in DM I have to turn on HDR and say goodbye to my performance, while THAT game runs on anything excluding my 8 year old notebook.
And that's to your "you can lower the settings". Most of the time lowering the settings doesn't help at all.
How do you feel about someone literally drawing a game? Like how Diablo uses an isometric view, only have master artists draw up all the textures, and have more animations per character. I don't think a game like that would stress the graphics card too much, compared to all these so called "next gen games".
I wasn't talking about blurring. I was talking about playing games not for top performance.
Diablo, Heretic, StarCraft, Age of Empires 2, Half-Life 1, etc., these are games that I can run, and there can be tons upon tons of objects in there, and they are going to be nice and fast. Sometimes I just feel I'd rather have games posses simple design than slow down my PC, even if the slow down is not huge. It's still there.
These are all bloody ancient, outdated games! Don't get me wrong, I still play AoE2 and Diablo - they are great games, but of course you can run them with tons of objects in them! They were designed on systems that had about a fifth of the overall processing power that the average mid range PC has these day's, as you well know. When the first Age of Empires came out, some people couldn't play it without lag. The same with Diablo II.
Just because a game uses a 2D engine, does not mean that it will perform perfectly - it still uses the RAM and CPU, doesn't it? I'll grant you that it is less likely to perform poorly these days though.
possible in a 2000 re-build of a 1996 game, but in order to get the same crappy reflection effects in DM I have to turn on HDR and say goodbye to my performance, while THAT game runs on anything excluding my 8 year old notebook.
But the reflection effects in Dark messiah are not crappy. Sure, they might be when it is as old as Heretic is now, but at present they are very good.
Sorry, I'm not entirely sure what you are trying to show me in that picture.
If you are saying that fire in Dark Messiah does not reflect on water, then you would be wrong - I witnessed it myself just yesterday. I don't know whether you have to enable HDR to get those reflections in Dark Messiah - I have never noticed. What I did notice however, is that HDR has a very small performance hit in Dark Messiah.
I voted for oblivion, but the game I would prefer D3 to look like is Too Human for xbox360
I dont know if any of you have checked out some of the videos for that upcoming game, but its got a very hack and slash diablo feel to it. I'm assuming of course D3 is coming out a few years from now, so I think it is definately reasonable if they crank up the computer juice on the game. Definately 3d, but more of a third person hack n slash with good camera adjustments.
How do you feel about someone literally drawing a game? Like how Diablo uses an isometric view, only have master artists draw up all the textures, and have more animations per character. I don't think a game like that would stress the graphics card too much, compared to all these so called "next gen games".
That game would probably stress nothing and run everywhere, but:
a) no one would buy it because 2D is "not cool", so Blizzard 'd never do it;
manufacturers of computer parts would not be happy because they like games that make consumers buy better computer parts to run those games;
c) 2D is harder to program;
d) 2D is more tedious because you not only have to make 3D models, but also motion capture them and everything;
e) It MAY strain RAM/CPU in certain cases with large amounts of animation, but it's also easy to control - you can just limit the number of animations to a lower number for people with low RAM/CPU;
f) It's a bit tedious to configure the resolution for different monitors.
Quote from "Snarf" »
These are all bloody ancient, outdated games! When the first Age of Empires came out, some people couldn't play it without lag. The same with Diablo II.
I remember pretty clearly that all 2D games from 1998 played perfectly fine on our 1995 computer...
Quote from "Snarf" »
Just because a game uses a 2D engine, does not mean that it will perform perfectly - it still uses the RAM and CPU, doesn't it? I'll grant you that it is less likely to perform poorly these days though.
Exactly, Ram and CPU, not the video card, which is kinda a different story here. Apparently, CPU is a lot sturdier than VC's. In 2D games, you can have huge amounts of objects. In 3D, you can't. Not until much later, much, much later would you have the same range in 3D.
Quote from "Snarf" »
But the reflection effects in Dark messiah are not crappy. Sure, they might be when it is as old as Heretic is now, but at present they are very good.
I don't care how good they are if I don't have a top notch video card. I care if they even exist with my Radeon 1950x Pro... and, they aren't even there. I shoot a fireball, I see no reflections on the walls, none at all. I just see a light effect from the fire. Sure, if I turn on HDR... but then the whole thing just DIES for me.
Quote from "Snarf" »
Sorry, I'm not entirely sure what you are trying to show me in that picture.
It has reflection effects, no matter how bad, reflection in the darkness, and upon walls and floors, and it doesn't kill my PC to generate those reflections. In DM, to see any reflections, I need to turn on HDR. Otherwise, fireballs just have glow effects, but they do not light the area around them or anything, unlike Heretic projectiles.
Quote from "Snarf" »
If you are saying that fire in Dark Messiah does not reflect on water, then you would be wrong - I witnessed it myself just yesterday.
I am not talking about water.
Quote from "Snarf" »
What I did notice however, is that HDR has a very small performance hit in Dark Messiah.
...on your computer. But, you see, the thing with 3D games, they are very dependent. Some games prefer different video cards, or different processors, or maybe they need more ram... so each time you get a new game you don't even know if you are going to run it because it's all so unique regarding what parts you need to have for this particular game...
In Diablo II, the monsters only appear upon entering the area you can see on your monitor (plus a little bit more.) Anything outside of your visual range on your monitor and the small margin that you can't see (in a sort of ghost zone that frames your visual area, which makes loading smoother) are represented by algorithms. In other words, they're just numbers and symbols, or maybe just binary, without graphics. This is more or less how every game works, though. Objects don't visually and functionally load until you're near them. However, with the PS3's 8 cell technology, this could quite possibly soon be a thing of the past, which is consequently also one of the reasons I prefer a PS3- the future is looking better for it, but this is off topic, so I'll end that there.
I remember pretty clearly that all 2D games from 1998 played perfectly fine on our 1995 computer...
Well the rate at which technology is advancing is accelerating - what do you expect?
Quote from "Equinox" »
Exactly, Ram and CPU, not the video card, which is kinda a different story here. Apparently, CPU is a lot sturdier than VC's. In 2D games, you can have huge amounts of objects. In 3D, you can't. Not until much later, much, much later would you have the same range in 3D.
...on your computer. But, you see, the thing with 3D games, they are very dependent. Some games prefer different video cards, or different processors, or maybe they need more ram... so each time you get a new game you don't even know if you are going to run it because it's all so unique regarding what parts you need to have for this particular game...
It's up to the people who design the engine to ensure that it is well optimized and balances the computing load between the GPU and CPU. Again, I will use UT3 as an example. Unreal Engine 3 makes excellent use of both the CPU and GPU (and I have noticed that it almost fully utilises both cores of a dual core CPU). That is the kind of optimisation one would expect to see in modern engines. But then you have poorly designed engines that shift the majority of the load on to just the GPU. It's not that the CPU is sturdier or anything (unless you happen to have a very low end graphics card), it's all to do with the software. And then you have engines like the one used in Oblivion, which rapes the whole system, making framerates plummet and doesn't even look that great half the time. I have no idea how they managed that.
In general, first person shooters and first person RPG's tend to put more load on the GPU, while traditional RPG's and RTS games stress the CPU more (as they have more entities to provide calculations for (path finding etc.) at once).
If engines are designed correctly, one can get away with purchasing a mid range graphics card and a mid range CPU. There will be no hardware bottlenecks, and no money would have been wasted on power that is only going to be utilized in some programs.
Quote from "Equinox" »
I don't care how good they are if I don't have a top notch video card. I care if they even exist with my Radeon 1950x Pro... and, they aren't even there. I shoot a fireball, I see no reflections on the walls, none at all. I just see a light effect from the fire. Sure, if I turn on HDR... but then the whole thing just DIES for me.
You don't need a top notch video card. How much does the 512MB 8800GT cost these days? Next to nothing!
Quote from "Equinox" »
It has reflection effects, no matter how bad, reflection in the darkness, and upon walls and floors, and it doesn't kill my PC to generate those reflections. In DM, to see any reflections, I need to turn on HDR. Otherwise, fireballs just have glow effects, but they do not light the area around them or anything, unlike Heretic projectiles.
I see it now. Yes, I partially agree with you - I noticed that in Unreal (the original), certain projectiles make splash effects when they strike water, while in many later games (even games in the Unreal series like UT2003), they have neglected to add such effects. Yes, they looked nice. And yes, it seems stupid that they could have those effects in a 1998 game but not a 2002 game, but really, are they so important? The lack of simple reflections or splash effects, doesn't really have much impact on gameplay, or even the overall appearance of the game.
And again, of course it does not kill your PC to generate those reflections in Heretic - it's an antiquated game. You cant really expect people to still be using those particular kinds of effects in modern games, can you? If they did, game engines would never go anywhere.
Quote from "Equinox" »
I am not talking about water.
Sorry, when you mentioned 'reflections', I immediately assumed you meant on water. I understand what you meant now.
Well, I'll tell you this. I am OK with technology if it makes sense. Today's technology when it comes to video games is a negative thing to me. They make me buy computer parts, they force developers to spend 3 years on a game (Oblivion) that is 10 times smaller (literally) than the older version of the same manner of game that was made in a year (Daggerfall). They make developers worry about optimization more than the game itself. I don't like that. Of course, it's inevitable. But just because something is inevitable doesn't mean I am going to support it. I'll always be against it. I want to be able to play games, without slow downs, and I want those games to be good. Design is primary. Technology is nothing without design. Design lasts forever.
You say "if engines are properly optimized..." most of the time, they aren't. UE is not used in good games much because it's an FPS engine, and I really despise the FPS that they make these days, with the exception of badly optimized FarCry. The games that I actually like, Gothic 3 and Oblivion, are badly optimized. Same can go for Perimeter. Are you telling me I shouldn't play those games JUST because they are badly optimized? I don't really have a choice. I end up with games that are badly optimized, and I will continue to blame "technological progress" for it. And you think those guys developing those games really want to fuss with graphics that much? It's all for the mass to buy, to gorge themselves on realistic graphics without realizing what the game is about and complaining about the non-intuitive controls.
I am glad you like to look at pretty slideshows of pictures (or not, if you have a good comp every year), but I like to play games instead. And I don't care where engines go. If it was my will, I'd slow down the engine improvement and restrict it, so that the devs fucking start making goddamn GAMES not drawing PICTURES for people like you to stare at.
While I agree that time may be spent too much so on graphics, I still think it's necessary. (I'm exclusing the part about having to upgrade with new parts, as that refers to a PC)
But, it's not always bad.
Take Grand Theft Auto 4. That game is GORGEOUS, even by the toughest standards right now, and that game plays amazingly, and simply is amazing. If a developer know what their doing, then having great graphics is no problem. Call of Duty 4, Mass Effect, and Crysis are good examples, as well.
Destructible environments would be sweet, too. But this is about the graphics. So, isometric top-down view with good graphics engine, not computer hog, but up to today's standards. It would be nice to have a way to zoom in and examine the way your character looks though, to really get a good look at your weapons, armor, etc.
Or, I can go play Heretic Doomsday because it's 2.5D and looks amazing...
That's what other Hack&Slashes are for. Nox, Titan Quest, Sacred, whatever. If Diablo will have less enemies I don't think I would play it. Killing masses is what makes that game fun.
I don't really agree. I may get bored of Diablo II somewhat, but I always come back to it, over and over again. Click-click-click is just a particular style. If it changes, the game changes. There are plenty of games with other styles, some even turn-based. If I am tired of clicking, I can play Fallout.
Less characters will lead to harder-to-kill monsters, and that is what makes a Hack&Slash boring - when monsters take ages to kill. And I don't care about a 3D engine, even if they decrease the amount of monsters I perceive it's not going to save them. 3D is just 3D, it's not going to get good anytime soon...
We shouldn't even mention Oblivion - that engine is a bloody mess as far as respectable performance/detail ratios are concerned.
I have to disagree with you on Crysis. Even with all settings on medium, it is still a sight to behold!
Personally, I play Crysis on high and I get around 30fps average. 30fps would usually be unplayable in a game like oblivion, however thanks to motion blur, 30fps can seem like 40fps - perfectly playable. What I am trying to say is that there are strategies now (most importantly motion blur), that can be used to reduce the effects of low framerates.
What I'm trying to say, is that the illusion of endless waves of enemies can still be created without actually weighing down the engine with sheer numbers. Plenty of First Person games have used such tehniques successfully in the past. Doing that might also encourage a bit more variation, rather than just different colours used to distinguish the skill levels within each class of monster (eg. Devil Kin vs Fallen).
Have you ever tried Dark Messiah? The combat is intense and exiting. There is lots of variation. Weapons have more than two different swings. There is kicking, an ubundance of different power strikes and you can use the environment. The magic is rather limited, but what spells you do have access to are effective and look absolutely stunning thanks to Dark Messiahs 3D engine. The enemies do not take ages to kill, but in some maps they just keep coming at you in what seems like huge numbers. All this while - in my experience - the framerate remains perfectly playable, even on an outdated system. (DM uses an enhanced version of the source engine)
I believe that if Diablo III were to follow after any game in terms of combat, then it should be Dark messiah.
FarCry on max looks better... or Heretic, for that matter.
What you describe is an option. But still it's a half-baked way to play a game. I don't like to do that. I put Crysis and Bioshock on a shelf now, just because I don't want to bother them until I can play them on impressive settings that won't turn my game into a slideshow.
I am not sure what are you talking about, really... if there is no enemies, there is no waves of enemies.
I never minded color changes ever since I saw them in Allods, really... they don't bother me. I am much more concerned with imbalance of items and monsters in Diablo than that.
I tried that. Disgrace to the fantasy FPS, an ordinary slasher. I got bored of it very fast. heXen ftw.
Yes, DM uses Source, which is old, and it's light effects are worse than in Doomsday Heretic. Fire doesn't reflect at all. I am not surprised it doesn't eat much performance.
Then it would be a top down Dark Messiah... e.g., something like Nox. Ever played Nox? It's like an FPS in top down mode.
Well, it just seems ridiculous to me that I can run Crysis at steady 30fps, while Oblivion - which is now a last gen game - fluctuates wildly and often runs lower than 30fps in certain areas. Sure, Oblivion is beautiful if looked at from the right angles, but it's not consistant beauty. In some areas Oblivion just looks plain ugly - theres hardly any of that in Crysis. Furthermore, even the less detailed areas of Crysis look better than Oblivion does in some of it's better areas. It must be a poor engine to perform at the same framerate as Crysis when its only half as detailed.
Yes, well I still like the look of Far Cry, although when you compare it to some modern engines it looks a little cartoon like - I didn't think medium Crysis looked as bad.
It's not 'half baked'. Thats like saying you're not going to watch TV anymore because the framerates too low and you dont like blur. I think NTSC is about 30fps while PAL is 25. Are they unwatchable? No, it looks fine because everything is burred together. Why games have only just started adopting that tactic is beyond me - in my opinion, it can only improve the experience, especially for people struggling with low framerates.
You can have the enemies enter the field in smaller but relentless waves, the trigger for the next wave being the death of the majority of the first wave - loads of FPS games do that. It's just not necessary to fill the entire area with enemies, and if it was a first person game, the chances are that the player isn't going to notice that the whole enemy host is not standing before him because they're too busy fighting (as it should be ;))
It's simply the difference between a huge, performance crippling wave of enemies every now and then, and more frequent smaller waves.
Aww, come on now... it looks fine. Better than Oblivion, but I didn't hear you complaining about those grahpics. Better than Far Cry too. It's a very good engine considering the detail. I really don't know why you don't like it - sure, the story is nothing compared to Diablo, but the gameplay is sound.
I really don't understand you. One minute your saying you'd rather Diablo II was a 2D game, and the next your complaining about a highly detailed 3D engine because it was missing some reflections. :rolleyes:
Well then it's hardly FPS then, is it?!
No, I really believe Diablio III would benifit from being in first person.
I don't see anything cartoon about it. You are just asking too much. FarCry is as high graphics as I will ever need lol.
I got no idea what those are.
I got NO IDEA what you are talking about, frankly.
I think that's very gay. I like it how it's in Heretic. You have enemies on the map, and they have ears, and they all try to kill you. The most you can do is thread slowly and lightly...
The whole wave after wave trigger thing is totally unrealistic. If you want to do that in Diablo, you can just play slower. Wait, attract enemies, etc.
Wait, what? Busy fighting who?
There are no "waves" in Diablo. There are packs of enemies who attack when they see you, which is how it is realistically and how it should be. Everything else is dumb scripting and I despise scripting.
Dm is all black and yellow. Oblivion actually posseses a color pallete, So Oblivion wins. Totally not better than FarCry. And, again. NO FUCKING REFLECTIONS! Even a 2.5D game from 2000 has reflections and this doesn't.
What does that have to do with anything? Reflections do not depend on the engine. They depend on the designers. Which are a lot more important than any engines.
It plays like an FPS. That's why I can't call it AN FPS, but it's similar to one.
That's like Fallout 3, genre change... it won't be D3 anymore.
Yeah, those games might be colourful, but they are hugely unrealistic. Far Cry is an exaggerated idea of paradise - the trees are too green, the water is too blue. The colours are so bright that things start to look plasticy. Sure, it looks nice, but not very real.
Sorry, my bad. They are just types of TV - some countries have NTSC, some have PAL. What I was trying to say, is that standard TV runs at a framerate of about 25-30 frames per second, but we don't notice that it is so low because the frames are blurred together so everything looks smooth. Whats wrong with doing the same in games? - you said it was a 'half-baked' method.
The player, busy fighting the monsters. The player should be busy fighting the monsters, not counting them...
Sorry if I confused you, it should have been: '...and if it was a first person game, the chances are that the player isn't going to notice that the whole enemy host is not standing before them because they're too busy fighting.'
Packs, waves, whatever! It's the same thing. They don't all have to be prespawned on mass, just appear when you enter the area.
To be honest, I never noticed the missing reflections that you are complaining about. It seems a very insignificant thing to worry about.
There are many other aspects to the games that give the Diablo series it's unique feel. You would have to be very narrow minded if the camera angle was all that made the Diablo series Diablo, to you! Diablo III would retain it's unique atmosphere (it's 'dark, gritty charm', as Alphidius puts it below) , even if the viewpoint did change - if not, then the games creators would have failed miserably.
I think fable and titan quest are the best maybe.
I would love a high res 2D game, but I dont' think diablo is the type of game for that, since it takes so much more time to motion capture things, and are less flexible for many different things, and generally don't implement 3rd dimention as well. I can love 2d graphics, but I think it would be a bad choice for designers, efficency wise.
I just think that 3D engines are getting so advanced these days that there is simply no reason to use a 2D engine any more. 2D engines were once used out of necessity - the hardware requirements were too great for games that needed to display large numbers of entities all at once - but now it's hardly a problem.
My point is, I prefer somewhat unrealistic, but colorful and interesting design (Oblivion, Heretic, Unreal), to highly realistic but, therefore, uninteresting design (F.E.A.R.).
Well, I don't watch TV, so maybe that's why. But, I never saw blur in games made in the same manner as TV. When I run Crysis at 20+ FPS or so, it slows down, and I notice these jerks.
I wasn't talking about blurring. I was talking about playing games not for top performance.
Diablo, Heretic, StarCraft, Age of Empires 2, Half-Life 1, etc., these are games that I can run, and there can be tons upon tons of objects in there, and they are going to be nice and fast. Sometimes I just feel I'd rather have games posses simple design than slow down my PC, even if the slow down is not huge. It's still there.
Rubbish. In fact, true warriors count: weapons, bullets, areas to run to, etc., etc., so what you are saying is complete BS. I personally notice everything, even if I play SS (plenty of waves there, btw).
In Diablo, they appear when you enter the area... I don't understand you. I ask that you use less terms such as "prespawned" because I REALLY have trouble understanding most of the stuff you are saying, lol.
I guess I just don't get it, AT ALL, why is this: http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/4364/hereticccbv7.jpg
possible in a 2000 re-build of a 1996 game, but in order to get the same crappy reflection effects in DM I have to turn on HDR and say goodbye to my performance, while THAT game runs on anything excluding my 8 year old notebook.
And that's to your "you can lower the settings". Most of the time lowering the settings doesn't help at all.
Fuck you, I'm a dragon.
These are all bloody ancient, outdated games! Don't get me wrong, I still play AoE2 and Diablo - they are great games, but of course you can run them with tons of objects in them! They were designed on systems that had about a fifth of the overall processing power that the average mid range PC has these day's, as you well know. When the first Age of Empires came out, some people couldn't play it without lag. The same with Diablo II.
Just because a game uses a 2D engine, does not mean that it will perform perfectly - it still uses the RAM and CPU, doesn't it? I'll grant you that it is less likely to perform poorly these days though.
But the reflection effects in Dark messiah are not crappy. Sure, they might be when it is as old as Heretic is now, but at present they are very good.
Sorry, I'm not entirely sure what you are trying to show me in that picture.
If you are saying that fire in Dark Messiah does not reflect on water, then you would be wrong - I witnessed it myself just yesterday. I don't know whether you have to enable HDR to get those reflections in Dark Messiah - I have never noticed. What I did notice however, is that HDR has a very small performance hit in Dark Messiah.
I dont know if any of you have checked out some of the videos for that upcoming game, but its got a very hack and slash diablo feel to it. I'm assuming of course D3 is coming out a few years from now, so I think it is definately reasonable if they crank up the computer juice on the game. Definately 3d, but more of a third person hack n slash with good camera adjustments.
a) no one would buy it because 2D is "not cool", so Blizzard 'd never do it;
manufacturers of computer parts would not be happy because they like games that make consumers buy better computer parts to run those games;
c) 2D is harder to program;
d) 2D is more tedious because you not only have to make 3D models, but also motion capture them and everything;
e) It MAY strain RAM/CPU in certain cases with large amounts of animation, but it's also easy to control - you can just limit the number of animations to a lower number for people with low RAM/CPU;
f) It's a bit tedious to configure the resolution for different monitors.
I remember pretty clearly that all 2D games from 1998 played perfectly fine on our 1995 computer...
Exactly, Ram and CPU, not the video card, which is kinda a different story here. Apparently, CPU is a lot sturdier than VC's. In 2D games, you can have huge amounts of objects. In 3D, you can't. Not until much later, much, much later would you have the same range in 3D.
I don't care how good they are if I don't have a top notch video card. I care if they even exist with my Radeon 1950x Pro... and, they aren't even there. I shoot a fireball, I see no reflections on the walls, none at all. I just see a light effect from the fire. Sure, if I turn on HDR... but then the whole thing just DIES for me.
It has reflection effects, no matter how bad, reflection in the darkness, and upon walls and floors, and it doesn't kill my PC to generate those reflections. In DM, to see any reflections, I need to turn on HDR. Otherwise, fireballs just have glow effects, but they do not light the area around them or anything, unlike Heretic projectiles.
I am not talking about water.
...on your computer. But, you see, the thing with 3D games, they are very dependent. Some games prefer different video cards, or different processors, or maybe they need more ram... so each time you get a new game you don't even know if you are going to run it because it's all so unique regarding what parts you need to have for this particular game...
Well the rate at which technology is advancing is accelerating - what do you expect?
It's up to the people who design the engine to ensure that it is well optimized and balances the computing load between the GPU and CPU. Again, I will use UT3 as an example. Unreal Engine 3 makes excellent use of both the CPU and GPU (and I have noticed that it almost fully utilises both cores of a dual core CPU). That is the kind of optimisation one would expect to see in modern engines. But then you have poorly designed engines that shift the majority of the load on to just the GPU. It's not that the CPU is sturdier or anything (unless you happen to have a very low end graphics card), it's all to do with the software. And then you have engines like the one used in Oblivion, which rapes the whole system, making framerates plummet and doesn't even look that great half the time. I have no idea how they managed that.
In general, first person shooters and first person RPG's tend to put more load on the GPU, while traditional RPG's and RTS games stress the CPU more (as they have more entities to provide calculations for (path finding etc.) at once).
If engines are designed correctly, one can get away with purchasing a mid range graphics card and a mid range CPU. There will be no hardware bottlenecks, and no money would have been wasted on power that is only going to be utilized in some programs.
You don't need a top notch video card. How much does the 512MB 8800GT cost these days? Next to nothing!
I see it now. Yes, I partially agree with you - I noticed that in Unreal (the original), certain projectiles make splash effects when they strike water, while in many later games (even games in the Unreal series like UT2003), they have neglected to add such effects. Yes, they looked nice. And yes, it seems stupid that they could have those effects in a 1998 game but not a 2002 game, but really, are they so important? The lack of simple reflections or splash effects, doesn't really have much impact on gameplay, or even the overall appearance of the game.
And again, of course it does not kill your PC to generate those reflections in Heretic - it's an antiquated game. You cant really expect people to still be using those particular kinds of effects in modern games, can you? If they did, game engines would never go anywhere.
Sorry, when you mentioned 'reflections', I immediately assumed you meant on water. I understand what you meant now.
You say "if engines are properly optimized..." most of the time, they aren't. UE is not used in good games much because it's an FPS engine, and I really despise the FPS that they make these days, with the exception of badly optimized FarCry. The games that I actually like, Gothic 3 and Oblivion, are badly optimized. Same can go for Perimeter. Are you telling me I shouldn't play those games JUST because they are badly optimized? I don't really have a choice. I end up with games that are badly optimized, and I will continue to blame "technological progress" for it. And you think those guys developing those games really want to fuss with graphics that much? It's all for the mass to buy, to gorge themselves on realistic graphics without realizing what the game is about and complaining about the non-intuitive controls.
I am glad you like to look at pretty slideshows of pictures (or not, if you have a good comp every year), but I like to play games instead. And I don't care where engines go. If it was my will, I'd slow down the engine improvement and restrict it, so that the devs fucking start making goddamn GAMES not drawing PICTURES for people like you to stare at.
But, it's not always bad.
Take Grand Theft Auto 4. That game is GORGEOUS, even by the toughest standards right now, and that game plays amazingly, and simply is amazing. If a developer know what their doing, then having great graphics is no problem. Call of Duty 4, Mass Effect, and Crysis are good examples, as well.
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