What if WoW had Zelda: Breath of the Wild graphics?

[Pull My Finger]

*snip*

First off, I'm not really a big fan of that Graphics vs. Aesthetic video that gets posted and quoted a lot. The basic distinction is incorrect. "Graphics" isn't "the technical aspect of a game's visuals". Graphics are nothing more but the visualisation of the game's content. Everything and anything that appears on a screen is graphics. The correct distinction should be "technical performance/quality/complexity" vs. aesthetics, instead of "graphics vs. aesthetics".

The more precise way would be to say "technical quality" vs. "design quality". That's what the talk is really about, and if we take it from there, my argument is that "good graphics" are way too often reduced to the technical quality, completely disregarding the design and expression aspects. My point is that I can't refer to something as good graphics just because it's impressive from a technical and performance point of view if the design direction is bland, uninspired and merely functional.

It's not a matter of "realistic" vs. "non-realistic", and it isn't about doing this other style that isn't AAA/pseudo-realistic. I'm not saying that every game should look like Zelda instead, or that everyone should copy the Blizzard cartoon style, or hop onto the Borderlands cell shading bandwagon. If they did, that would also be just another trend and just as bland, directionless and superficial like Witcher 3. I'm saying that every game should have its own distinct style. And that should be something deliberate, something with a strong vision.

I don't see that effort in a lot of games. It's just rare. And the reason why I'm poking at AAA graphics blockbusters like Witcher 3 and this Horizon thingy is because these kind of games in particular attempt to overplay their lack of expressive effort with technical feats. Hey, let's just beef up the polygon count like crazy, make all textures incredibly hi-res, really crank up the view distance and slap a really intricate shader on it, it'll look jaw-dropping. They're really counting on impressing with the strength of numbers and firepower alone and it's so incredibly underwhelming. One can CLEARLY tell where the most budget and development time went into, where the focus was.

A game could be technically impressive AND aesthetically compelling. I'm not saying that technical advancements can be disregarded. I'm saying that most studios, especially the big ones, tend to think it's the only thing that matters. And, what's worse, a good part of the player base has quite superficial and narrow-minded views on what they perceive as "good".

[Rubim]

There are a lot of games with good graphics, see Witcher 3 for example.

[Deleted]

It's fine for a solo-game. I'm not sure it would work on a mmo thought. It can ends up being tiring for the eyes. But maybe I'm too used of the current Wow artstyle.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Eh, I love WoW's art style, and the graphics have only improved with every expansion.
But seriously, who is so fixated on looks that they can't play other titles unless they look the same? Lol!

[Zogarth]

While the game looks cool and got a nice style, I think it would get tiring on the eye if played too much. In my opinion the best looking game to date is still Bastion.

Is the graphical level high? No, but it still looks damn good in my opinion. Not saying high graphics does not make good looking games, Witcher 3 is damn impressive too, but sometimes realistic =/= beautiful game.

[Shuji V2]

I don't see that effort in a lot of games. It's just rare. And the reason why I'm poking at AAA graphics blockbusters like Witcher 3 and this Horizon thingy is because these kind of games in particular attempt to overplay their lack of expressive effort with technical feats. Hey, let's just beef up the polygon count like crazy, make all textures incredibly hi-res, really crank up the view distance and slap a really intricate shader on it, it'll look jaw-dropping. They're really counting on impressing with the strength of numbers and firepower alone and it's so incredibly underwhelming. One can CLEARLY tell where the most budget and development time went into, where the focus was.

A game could be technically impressive AND aesthetically compelling. I'm not saying that technical advancements can be disregarded. I'm saying that most studios, especially the big ones, tend to think it's the only thing that matters. And, what's worse, a good part of the player base has quite superficial and narrow-minded views on what they perceive as "good".

Games like Witcher have a lack of expressive effort? You seem to be under the impression that graphically astonishing games are easy to pull off, are the bare minimum and somehow are bland, boring and underwhelming. You focking wot mate?

Do you have any idea how much time and effort goes into creating these characters, the environments, the assets, the textures, the animations, the engine and so forth? Are you really trying to say these developers didn't spend any effort on their games and just tried a quick cash grab? That's just disrespectful to developers who put all their blood, sweat and tears into a game.

I have absolutely no words for your terrible reasoning.

[Pull My Finger]

Games like Witcher have a lack of expressive effort? You seem to be under the impression that graphically astonishing games are easy to pull off, are the bare minimum and somehow are bland, boring and underwhelming. You focking wot mate?

Do you have any idea how much time and effort goes into creating these characters, the environments, the assets, the textures, the animations, the engine and so forth? Are you really trying to say these developers didn't spend any effort on their games and just tried a quick cash grab? That's just disrespectful to developers who put all their blood, sweat and tears into a game.

I have absolutely no words for your terrible reasoning.

Yes I have quite a realistic idea of it. You, however, obviously don't have an idea what you're talking about and clearly didn't understand the point I was making.

Yeah it's an incredible ton of work that goes into a game like that. And as I said, it's usually very clear where most of that effort and ressources went into.

You read correctly: a game like Witcher 3 showcases quite a lack of expressive effort. It all went into creating superior and impressive tech and incredible masses of assets. Aesthetics-wise, it's "modern 3D gaming 101" and "fantasy-painting-by-numbers". Bland, boring and underwhelming. But hey, it's symptomatic for that whole game. Same goes for its core gameplay qualities: the giant effort was in creating the whole narrative, presentation, plot and writing and recording these incredible tons of dialogue. The systems and gameplay underneath however are trivially functional at best, and blatantly garbage in the game's worst areas and moments.

[Shuji V2]

Yes I have quite a realistic idea of it. You, however, obviously don't have an idea what you're talking about and clearly didn't understand the point I was making.

Yeah it's an incredible ton of work that goes into a game like that. And as I said, it's usually very clear where most of that effort and ressources went into.

You read correctly: a game like Witcher 3 showcases quite a lack of expressive effort. It all went into creating superior and impressive tech and incredible masses of assets. Aesthetics-wise, it's "modern 3D gaming 101" and "fantasy-painting-by-numbers". Bland, boring and underwhelming. But hey, it's symptomatic for that whole game. Same goes for its core gameplay qualities: the giant effort was in creating the whole narrative, presentation, plot and writing and recording these incredible tons of dialogue. The systems and gameplay underneath however are trivially functional at best, and blatantly garbage in the game's worst areas and moments.

I don't think you have any clue whatsoever. In any 3D game, the visual aspect is always gonna be the biggest part of the budget regardless. Because that's how the player, you, sees the story, the developments, the interactions, the hero's, the world and so forth. What do you want them to put most of the budget towards to? The story? Please don't fool yourself here.

Also, it's quite easy to tell me I don't understand anything based on not getting your point, but that doesn't hold any merit if you don't even understand the fundamentals of gamedesign and are just expressing your opinion which apparently you want people to take for a fact. But that's not how it works.

I'm assuming you feel that this new Zelda game has plenty of expressive effort because it looks and feels as colorful as an abstract painting? Is that the criteria required to be expressive? Let me tell you something. Celshading is often used to cut budget costs and save development time because it doesn't require the use of detailed textures or models. It's also more resource friendly on lower performing tech allowing you to have bigger draw distances and more objects on screen while still somewhat pleasing to the eye.

Did you realize that this fits the open world Zelda is aiming for on the low tech of the WiiU pretty well and that it might not have been a design choice at all?

[Rubim]

Yes I have quite a realistic idea of it. You, however, obviously don't have an idea what you're talking about and clearly didn't understand the point I was making.

Yeah it's an incredible ton of work that goes into a game like that. And as I said, it's usually very clear where most of that effort and ressources went into.

You read correctly: a game like Witcher 3 showcases quite a lack of expressive effort. It all went into creating superior and impressive tech and incredible masses of assets. Aesthetics-wise, it's "modern 3D gaming 101" and "fantasy-painting-by-numbers". Bland, boring and underwhelming. But hey, it's symptomatic for that whole game. Same goes for its core gameplay qualities: the giant effort was in creating the whole narrative, presentation, plot and writing and recording these incredible tons of dialogue. The systems and gameplay underneath however are trivially functional at best, and blatantly garbage in the game's worst areas and moments.

That's far for the truth.




There's even a part of the game were you play on a "Fantasy World", .

They even said it that you wont have a Flower where it can't physically grow because of the climate, they hand picked every flower location based on that. There's an insane attention to detail on the game.

[Pull My Finger]

I don't think you have any clue whatsoever. In any 3D game, the visual aspect is always gonna be the biggest part of the budget regardless. Because that's how the player, you, sees the story, the developments, the interactions, the hero's, the world and so forth. What do you want them to put most of the budget towards to? The story? Please don't fool yourself here.

Yeah, you just don't understand the point.

Creating a compelling and unique aesthetic visual style doesn't have to cost millions of dollars, that's the beauty of it. You just need to have the desire to have a real vision and competent people to realize it.

Also, it's quite easy to tell me I don't understand anything based on not getting your point, but that doesn't hold any merit if you don't even understand the fundamentals of gamedesign and are just expressing your opinion which apparently you want people to take for a fact. But that's not how it works.

Blah. What would you know? That was your mandatory empty windbag comment of the day, you got that out of your system. Here, I'll acknowledge it by storing it in my dedicated brainfart drawer. Happy? I guess we can go on to things with substance now.

I'm assuming you feel that this new Zelda game has plenty of expressive effort because it looks and feels as colorful as an abstract painting? Is that the criteria required to be expressive? Let me tell you something. Celshading is often used to cut budget costs and save development time because it doesn't require the use of detailed textures or models. It's also more resource friendly on lower performing tech allowing you to have bigger draw distances and more objects on screen while still somewhat pleasing to the eye.

OK, so much for that substance thing. Yeah, like I said, you have absolutely no idea what this is about.

I can't explain to you what expressive value and distinct style is if you don't have any humanly sense for such things and are just blunt in that regard. I can't explain music to anyone who can hardly tell two different pitches from each other or is half-deaf. Can't help you there, sorry. That's why you think that a game like Witcher 3 is the measure of all things. Some people also believe that John Cena is the toughest man in the world.

Cost-cutting and ressource management surely is a thing, nothing wrong about it. Especially when the people who are working on the game are able to create something aesthetically valuable and with character without having to go all out on ressources. You can bet your ass that even if the new Zelda was running on the most potent machine in the whole universe, it would still have a characteristic and expressive design and would NOT look like your average Witcher-type AAA hype game.

[High Marshal Sigismund]

The graphics are so beautiful. I'm not sure I can go back to WoW after I play that.

Graphics looks like ass. Just look like your standards PS3/360 level graphics with surreal levels of lighting and color manipulation.

[cFortyfive]

Graphics looks like ass.

Pretty much. Looks like dogshit and if it wasn't for some people's fond memories and the nintendo label it wouldn't be different from any early access garbage.

[Deleted]

I hate Nintendo so fucking much, this game looks incredible, but under no circumstance am I buying a console just to play that.

I'm so sad that it's not on PC.

[Nnyco]

just put massive bloom on wow and there you go, zelda graphics

[Kolvarg]

*snip*

So you don't really dislike the Graphics vs Aesthetic video, you only disagree with the meaning of those 2 terms =P Just seems easier to me to diferentiate graphics from aesthetics than having to say/type "the technical side of graphics" instead of just distinguishing graphics from aesthetics.

Thing is, it's impossible for every game to have its own distinct style, even on a broad scale of every part of the game, let alone a distinct and completly individual graphics style. For very few select people it might make a difference, for the smashing majority of people it really won't go much farther than cartoony, cartoony with a slightly different shader, etc. Just look at painting, for instance, that has been around for far longer than videogames. How many "styles" are actually there? How many painters can you actually name that have a unique individual style? How many of them didn't actually just borrowed from predecessors? How many of them weren't actually simply considered the "best" of their genre that was common/popular in a given time period, instead of actually having an individual style?

Now if what you mean is that every game should strive to be unique and have an individual style, that would be different, and even then I would argue they should strive to have a unique identity, not specifically its own distinct graphics style.

Now it may come down almost entirely to opinion, but Witcher 3, while still fairly resembling many other games, seems to me to be far from lacking effort. Sure, they didn't particularly came up with a unique entirely new graphics style. But the game as a whole is far from lacking creativity or from being unqiue, because it really is. You simply can't forget while graphics technical quality is relatively measurable (even if we more often than not don't really have any ways to do it accurately), aesthetics are to some degree very subjective.

Games aren't just graphics, neither technically or design wise, and just like spending too much resources on technical graphic feats can take from gameplay, writing, audio and other aspects of a game, so can too much resources on graphics design. Nothing yet says Breath of the Wild will be an amazing game just because it looks pretty despite not being technologically impressive. In fact this specific game goes completly agaisnt what you're arguing, and really is as "bad" or worse than you're making AAA games like Witcher 3 seems to be.

Just take a good hard look at it: As an individual game, it's just "another" Zelda entry, borrowing the aesthetics of Wind Waker (with technical improvements), and mixing gameplay elements of previous Zelda titles with gameplay from multiple other games that have been doing that for decades. If we look this way at games, nothing is great or special.


And again, I do agree that many AAA studios give too much importance to fidelity and the technical side of graphics. But Witcher 3 and even Horizon are horrible examples of that. Having good graphics without having a particularly unique or greatly uncommon visual style doesn't really mean the game hasn't good visual aesthetics. And imho in a videogame aesthetics aren't just visual, but really the "feel" of the whole package on multiple levels, working together (from visuals, to world and character design, to music, sound effects, gameplay, story and dialogue). And Witcher 3 as an example (since Horizon isn't even out yet) is a brilliant game as a whole, even if a bunch of the individual components aren't absolutely amazing by their own.

[Nurvus]

What is it with gamedevelopers overusing motion blur, depth of field, and that narrow FoV like im serious i got slightly dizzy from that gameplay video.

Every new game nowadays looks like some of the horrbile Skyrim ENB's where the depth of field beginns like 3 meters away from the character.

I wasn't talking about the visual effects they decided to use on certain events, such as combat.
I'm merely talking about the raw aspect of the game - the way the grass, water and mountains look.
Both Zelda and Horizon would fit WoW nicely, but I think Horizon would fit a little bit better.

Try to ignore the faces, and just imagine it's a Marksmanship Hunter, and that in some scenes you see Dun Morogh.

[Linri]

gameplay > graphics... any day of the week for me by far

i personally love the new look of zelda, its fun!

people saying graphics are outdated... it's an art style... that is not a game trying to make things look realistic as possible

[FerDeHerd]

Not a fan of the watercolor/pastel graphics myself... looks like it was drawn with pencil crayons

[Sansnom]

WoW graphics have always been potato. Any game can easily beat it.

And it would not melt my PC. That is a big bonus for me.

[darkwarrior42]

I enjoyed Windwaker well enough, but that was in spite of the graphics, not because of them.

I'm disappointed they aren't going with a more Twilight Princess sort of style... but given that Nintendo likes to skimp on hardware, it's probably easier to cover up the failings of their tech with cell shading and animated styles than it is a more "realistic" style.

(Not coincidentally, I think that's one of the reasons WoW's graphics have "held up"; they're undeniably outdated compared to any modern game, but the style is one that doesn't depend on cutting edge tech to achieve its look.)