Do you really care about visuals?

[carmatic]

like, this kinda asks the question, how many polygons does it take to render something like an arrow that points players to the next point at which they will experience what they are supposed to experience... i care about visuals, its part of the experience, but in the heat of the moment of fragging someone , the visuals usually get filtered out as i try to line my crosshair onto my target, or they get in the way like foliage and trees... better yet, i wish that the crosshair in the next UT is a pixel shader operation, in that it will adapt and adjust its colour to whatever its rendered over(kind of like the windows inverted cursors), so i can always see it and the levels tend to feel more beautiful when my crosshair always stands out... after all, the entirety of the game happens inside the crosshair , and if you make the connection between the game and the graphics good, then the game feels as beautiful as the graphics...

But I am hoping to get a new computer by the time "Envy" comes out.

Yes! so people will envy you with your new computer!!

whats the point in having shadows in a map that you will never notice because of the fast gameplay?

if you have a sun-like lightsource in the level (parallel light that lights the level evenly, at least in the open areas) , the shadows act as a cue for your perception of things in relation to e.g. the ground, and its one of the good things about good graphics...like if you start having big vehicles that fly and cast big shadows , then it helps gameplay to be able to use these shadow cues .... or, if you have a ballistic weapon like the flak cannon secondary fire, and your in a room with a decent (non-disco-like) light source, with someone else in the room casting a proper shadow which you can see easily, i think its easier for you to hit him with a projectile than if he was just a flat bunch of polygons on your screen...

 

[The_Head]

Do you really care about visuals?

In short, YES DAMMIT!

I want this game to look, but yes, UT2003/4 had loads of meshs that got in the way, but that only happens when the mapper was lazy and didn't block them off well. A lot of the better maps are well blocked off in the right places and are no problem

 

[Tournament0]

In short, YES DAMMIT!

I want this game to look

Of course it will look good. It's Unreal Engine 3.
:tup:

 

[JohnDoe641]

If a game doesn't look, it's not worth buying. :tup:

 

[shadow_dragon]

Gameplay is far far more important. ofcourse but, though someone said Graphics has nothing to do with gameplay i disagree. Graphics does have some effect.
For example. Farcry. I used to play over a lan in a duel with my brother, i'd hide in the foliage, kill him, move and hide in some other foliage but sometimes would be wowed by the accuracy sheer fluke of him managing to pick me off from miles away even before i'd shot a bullet. While if he tried sniping me it'd be almost impossible to find him.
Wasn't till after i bought a new graphics card that i found out that the scope on the rifles made a very subtle lens flare effect that can be seen from great distances.

half of your game is your environment and how you use, mostly this is graphics and how well they render your environment, your arena.
Real time shadows, will be usefull in manys ituations to see your oponent coming but also fora great many things we probably won't even consider. People alreadyuse their sounds to determine where their opponent is and what they're doing. Imaigne if people could start reading their environment to do the same? Surely this is how it's meant to be and to a great extent this is graphics related i believe.

I don't mind huge sacrifices in graphics for gameplay but i think it'd be wrong to assume they add nothing to gameplay and in some ways they add the best parts.

 

[FireCrack]

^Well, i ersonaly wouldnt factor that in as graphics.


Anywyaws, i say

gameplay=K*graphics

where K is some constant, if the gamplay is awesome and the graphics blow, not a good game, and vice versa. Try to make the graphics and gameplay give a feel for eachother. Ofcourse i have no qualms with K being less than 1 but dont try to make K be 0.1 or somthing ludicrous lioke that.

 

[iron12]

I just hate bumping by head on stuff.

Other then that I don't mind the eyecandy.

 

[CyMek]

First off, i'm surprised you didn't like HL2. I love it.

Anyway, I think graphics count. I mean, they are by no means mutually exclusive. The only two things that I can think of where graphics get in the way of gameplay are low fps and mesh collision. I think Epic has learned their lesson on both counts, so we Shouldn't have too many problems.
Oh yeah, I amost forgot to mention that graphics are not just how many polygons or how hi-res the textures are. IMO Unreal is still one of the most serenely beatuiful games there is. Better looking than UT2004 for sure.

 

[The_Head]

/Agrees with Iron12

CyMek -> "mutually exclusive" never thought I'd hear that outside of a maths lesson...

Beauty isn't necessarily to do with more stuff, as CyMek said UT99 was a gorgeous game. Layout and great Architecture are all facters. I've done a couple of maps for UT2004. The best looking is byfar the one Where I concentrated on a Good architectural design. Not the one crammed full of meshes etc. I dont want Epic to overdo it like on some UT2004 maps. Sure I love good graphics as much as the next person. But I dont want to sacrifice gameplay for it.

 

[UnrealGrrl]

for me its simple... i want both and feel theres no reason we cant have both.

gameplay obviously hasta be there first or theres no point. but gameplay is worthless if theres no visuals. checkers has good gameplay but i dont want to play it on my computer...

eyecandy is very important and matters alot otherwise everyone would be playing old computer games and thered be no unreal in the first place. hey space invaders rocked right?!

gameplay and visuals need to both be top notch or theres no point imnsho.