EQ2: Is it supposed to look like this?

Games
1

Sounds silly, I know, but I’m a bit put off by the graphics in EverQuest 2. Everything seems antialiased to the point of being fuzzy.

2

I didnt like them either.

Everything was too artificial. They missed the mark IMO. Especially with HL2 around to compare it to, which looks much better and is also worlds more efficient.

olaf

3

Yeah, I think the graphics engine is quite a dog. With virtually all graphics settings at or near their lowest, the engine still performs poorly. And at those settings, it’s quite a site to behold – it looks downright horrible. When you max the graphics options, the game looks very good in some ways but still rather odd in other ways, but it becomes completely unplayable. I joke around and call myself a graphics whore, because I am in some ways, but I play lots of old games, and if the gameplay is good, I can look beyond the graphics. But EQ2’s graphics are literally so bad, that I just can’t get into the game no matter how hard I try.

4

Meh, I’ll take EQ2’s graphics over HL2 or Doom 3’s, but it’s a subjective call. . .there’s no right or wrong.

5

I know I’ll probably come across as a silly fanboi, but I’d award best graphics of the year to WoW. From a technical standpoint, they’re nothing special, but they just look damn good. Much better in game, by the way, than the screenshots suggest.

6

The quality of your art doesn’t depend on how much expensive is your brush.

7

I have not warmed to EQII’s graphics either, really, except for the cities, which IMO are simply the best I’ve ever seen in an MMO, and maybe in any RPG. They really look like “real” fantasy medieval city settings. But overall the design choices don’t move me.

WoW has a great deal going for it, as it’s vibrant, active, simply yet effective, and blazingly fast. The textures aren’t anything to write home about usually and the models are often downright primitive, but overall the effect is top-notch.

But my favorite, believe it or not, is still DAOC. Even without the Catacombs facelift (which gives the character models a hugely needed boost), I love the design, the textures, and the choice of colors generally. No, the low-poly 3D models aren’t going to win awards, but they overall art direction and coordination is top of the heap in my book.

8

With the one in the middle I agree. With ToA they hired one of the best artist I’ve ever seen and I’d like to know his name. Both the textures and the structures are finally great. I’m sure at 100% that it’s the same guy behind the new keeps in the RvR expansion and some of the best environments in Catacombs.

9

Is DAOC’s graphic engine still a dog? God, I remember that shit used to run so slow on my GF4 4400.

10

I think the graphics in EQ2 are a) quite nice, and b) quite the system hog. FWIW.

–scharmers

11

Looks great and runs smooth on my system. The ToA engine was faster
for me than the Shrouded Isles one. GF Ti4800SE 64MB, 1GB system
RAM and an XP2100+. It’s just as much of a memory hog as most new
games, though.