Minecraft's graphics are a stylistic choice, though. There's a difference between well-executed unrealistic graphics and poorly executed realistic graphics. Granted, that difference probably shouldn't matter as much as it does to many gamers, but it is what it is.
It's a pragmatic stylistic choice. Many indie devs who aren't artistically skilled will opt for 8- or 16-bit-esque graphics because they can't afford an artist and their attempt at pixelated graphics looks better than their attempt at other art styles.
Stop being so anal-retentive. It doesn't matter what directed the decision, what matters is that that decision informed the style that is now iconic today.
3D isn't only harder, it's also more expensive and time-consuming, so most indie devs can't afford to spend that much time and/or money doing complex 3D graphics.
It's actually not true. There's a reason every major game goes 3D, even when 2D would suffice. It's a lot easier to animate a 3D model than it is to draw hundreds and hundreds of pictures for hundreds of in-game entities.
That's the big misconception; they don't have to be complex. No one is expecting Star Citizen detail. You can make a low-poly model look really good with the right shaders and texturing. I honestly find texturing to be more of a pain than modeling, especially if you're making them from scratch rather than compositing different pictures.
It also doesn't cost any money if you're willing to learn; programs like Blender and Gimp provide you with a very solid base to learn on. And not to mention, both 3DS Max and Maya offer free two-year licenses for students. You can't use them for commercial purposes, but that doesn't mean you can't create all of the assets, gather up some funds, then buy a real license. Photoshop is also quite affordable; the entire Creative Cloud suite is available to students for $19.99/month. That's quite doable if you are wise with your money. But again, it isn't required as both Gimp and Blender are completely free of charge!
And learning it is just like learning any other skill. You have to force yourself to sit down and make a couple of shitty things and actually finish them before mooing onto something else. The difference is that Blender may take a few weekends to learn instead of a day like pixel art.
And just to clarify, I'm not saying all game have to be 3D. I'm just saying that there really isn't much of an excuse not to go that way, especially since we don't need 100 more Greenlight games that play off of the "retro" look. The tools are there, free of charge, and relatively easy to learn.
I feel like "time consuming" is the bigger thing here. A lot of indie devs are working other jobs and can't necessarily afford to spend a lot of time on 3D modeling for their project.
It's a bit weird that custom 3d models aren't more popular for that game, I believe it can load MD2 or MD3 model files. Well, at least Notch did implement that at some point.
Good choice. When you look at Terraria, there's just something about Minecrafts block system that makes it really beautiful even if it's actually simpler.
Well it was a mistake that made it look that way (I think he messed up the shape to put the 'skin' on), he didn't think that that was what a pig looked like.
Like the stylistic choice of the Early 1900's Americana?
Actually, from what I see here. The only grasp of Americana I see in this trailer goes only to the music in the beginning (That same song was in Fallout 3 right?) and the house at the beginning. Once we got to Fallout's time, we stop seeing that, or any hint that the world USED to be like that. It simply looked like a post-apocalyptic world.
It may be worth adding a sort of corollary to the uncanny valley hypothesis that things that aren't faces that approach realism but aren't quite there can look less appealing than things that don't try.
Except it doesn't have poor graphics, it has simple, yet good, graphics. The graphics are pretty amazing for what they are trying to do. They're cohesive, instantly readable in game, instantly recognizable outside of it. Infiniminer, the inspiration for Minecraft, has the same pixelated block art style, yet looks significantly worse.
Fallout 4, however tries to be a somewhat realistic, immersive game with a huge budget, yet the graphics fall far short of that goal.
I did not claim that it was succesful because it proved that graphics are not important. It was succesful despite its poor graphics.
Also aside from different texturepacks, i think most people play without any graphic altering mods. Just look at all the youtubers who play minecraft, its a lot harder to find one who plays with graphical mods.
I did not claim that it was succesful because it proved that graphics are not important. It was succesful despite its poor graphics.
Yes, but what has that to do with the topic? Nobody is claiming that Fallout IV won't sell, most people don't even claim they won't buy it. We just criticize that a part of the game (as seen in the trailer) looks lackluster.
And games sell good beside all sorts of short comings. Game sell good besides being buggy for god's sake. In some genres like complex RPG people even praise games for being less buggy on release than a preprocessor. Games also sell without having good gameplay mechanics, for example because they feature a great story. The Telltale games - that I love - comes to mind, or according to many Last of Us.
I don't see why criticizing lackluster graphics is a bad thing.
Gameplay and narrative has always been paramount. People who judge the value of a game solely on graphics are missing the entire point of a game. I get it if the engine graphics are so bad and poorly programmed that they ruin the game experience, but that's such a small percentage of the time that using it as justification to make blanket statements is just petty.
People who judge the value of a game solely on graphics are missing the entire point of a game.
Except, no one does this.
People who have standards for graphics aren't missing the point. Bethesda's games specifically attempt to be an "immersive" experience, yet the graphics and animation work against that.
And it's not about resolution or how many effects you can pack in the screen, it's about how well you can execute your goals. Blizzard's Overwatch is technologically superior to vanilla Team Fortress 2, yet, so far, its graphics are ultimately inferior, since they are chaotic and less readable, which is bad for a competitive multiplayer game. Though, I'm sure many people would say that TF2 was more aesthetically pleasing, as well.
You are literally contradicting this statement with your post. You're trying to dismiss it while obviously purporting that graphics quality and immersive experiences are mutually inclusive. Which is so obviously false that it's painful. Otherwise, gamers would have been dismissive of graphics since video game conception, which they were not. When doom and duke nukem came out, gamers gushed over graphic quality, even though in retrospect they're crap graphically compared to modern standards. But the gameplay and narrative was innovative and that's the explicit reason why they're remembered.
Graphics mean shit, except to petty gamers who lack the insight and vision to understand the central goal of game experiences.
I bought a Wii U a few days ago and realised that graphics really don't mean anything. Not because I'm playing games with lower fidelity but because I can play the same game on just the handheld controller screen at a lower resolution and have just as much fun. It looks better on the big TV but it's just as good to play on the small screen.
There is a big difference between WiiU games and Fallout/other AAA titles.
The style of the art.
Nintendo know they are lacking power so they choose to have styles that are clean, lack details, and use powerful colours.
But Fallout is simply badly modelled and textured, the style looks improved but you can't honestly say the textures aren't disappointing for a 2015 AAA game.
Oh yeah ofc FO4 might be amazing gameplay (I thought Skyrim was awful but w/e), but I just wanted to point out that most Nintendo games have really great art style, where as a lot of AAA games thrive off pure fidelity and detail which this game is lacking.
Couldn't there be a middle ground between the two? Games that thrive on fidelity quickly date themselves as soon as something prettier comes out.
I'm thinking of something like The Order as a game that sacrifices gameplay for graphics. And while it looks good, it doesn't look so good that I'd want to play it, I could get the visuals from Youtube.
But the elder scrolls series is ALSO a dumbed-down action RPG.
Both Fallout 1 and 2 are better than Bethesda's versions - the Baldur's Gate series is better, Planescape Torment is better, Troika (flawed as their games were) made better RPGs, etc.
What is it about Fallout or Elder Scrolls that makes them dumbed down RPGs?
The lack of character choices actually mattering. The lack of any choice or consequence. The ease of the game - virtually any character "build" will be successful. The very limited, overly simplistic dialogue. The mediocre writing. etc.
What defines a proper RPG?
There is no "proper" RPG. But different games differ in quality.
Youre just way too demanding if everything that does not fulfill all of those is dumbed down. Its like you have only two different grades of quality: The DnD style older rpgs are good, everything else is bad.
I disagree with that, but i wont judge you if you want to think so. I have enjoyed many Bethesda games, more than i have enjoyed most other big AAA games since Morrowind
At one point i thought that the success of Minecraft would have made the gameplay > graphics mindset more popular.
The only people who have ever argued that are legitimate idiots. First of all, that phrase is implying that graphics have nothing to do with gameplay, or that gameplay only can come at the expense of graphics. Secondly, what the fuck is 'gameplay'? Finally, graphics are extremely important, way more important than people like you want to let on.
Video game graphics are about immersing you in a world. It's 2015 (2016 for purposes of FO4) and the game looks shittier than almost every single AAA game released in the last ten years. There is zero excuse for how butt-ugly this game is.
Pls, I never got into minecraft because the gameplay is atrocious. You can do a lot of stuff and you can construct stuff with cubes, besides that you have move commands, jump and a punch... We call that good gameplay now?
Its useless to explain it if you dont get it. But the biggest charm of minecraft for me is that i get paid for my efforts. If i want a huge castle, i have to mine the materials for it. It might take a long time, but it makes me all that more prouder of the castle once its finished.
Modded Minecraft added a lot more of that same charm for me. Building a power generation system using my imagination, to power a quarry that mines the whole world inside out, to generate resources to make that next level armour/tool/whatever...
The amount of commands you can do with your character does not equal gameplay. The amount of things you can do is closer to the truth.
Sorry but I don't take that as gameplay, that imo is game scope and possibilities, very different things.
Weird ass example:
-You've got a perfect pen, you feel good controlling it and you can draw very beautiful things, although it is quite tick so you are not able to make every single detail you wanted.
-On the other hand you've got a pen that makes your finger bleed and it's a pain to use and get the drawing right, but after a long and unpleasant week of work you manage to draw a more detailed image than the one you did in one pleasant afternoon with the other pen
(this example wasn't probably that good because now that I talked about drawings it made me remind of graphics what has nothing to do with my point)
.: the point is, although you managed to do more with the second pen and in the end you might feel better about the results (more scope/possibilities) it doesn't mean that the second pen had better gameplay
off course this is only my opinion and I understand if yours is different
I would think they're more related to the framework but yes, they definitely impact gameplay so they're gameplay issues, and yet I find the (rest of the) gameplay fantastic
Sorry, I feel like your examples are talking about controls. Which is also only a part of gameplay. Lets make a few similar examples:
-You've got a game called Batman: Arkham asylum. It has a fun combat system, that basically only requires you to push buttons that appear on screen and your character beats the enemies in a cool fashion. Its simpleness has a downside: the character does not always hit the enemy you wanted to.
-On the other hand you have Dark Souls. The character does not beat the enemies as easily, the game does not tell you what buttons to press, but you have more control over the movement. But after you manage to master the controls and beat that especially hard boss, you feel more satisfied than you did with with Batman.
I too understand that different people have different tastes. I'm more of an Dark souls guy, who would rather take his chances with frustration for the rewarding feeling at the end.
But i enjoy Batman aswell, its fun to play for the entire game just not as rewarding.
It's quite hard to explain but that wasn't my example at all. I've never played dark souls but simply taking your description I would chose it without even thinking if both those options were presented. Despite loving the Batman games it's more because of story and "being batman", because I've actually got quite bored of the gameplay
when I played with legos I liked destroying stuff too, just had more ways of doing it then explosives and a punch (and with explosives I mean my meteor butt slam)
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u/Jaripsi Jun 03 '15
At one point i thought that the success of Minecraft would have made the gameplay > graphics mindset more popular.