SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Is it just me or are the many of the SE5 screenshots shown quite ugly?

I'm particularly talking about the ground based battles screen shots. They look rather terrible IMO, worse than many Amiga games I used to have way back in the 80s! The other screen shots of space activity look ok-ish although I think the look of the GUI looks pretty ugly as well. I think SE4's GUI looked far nicer than the one shown here.

I obviously cant talk about the gameplay and certainly the real time fleet battles shown look quite promising, but I certainly hope these arent final shots. I cant imagine staring at that GUI for very long at all! I could probably put up with the ground battle graphics looking so bad as they probably dont happen all that regularly.

MM should take a look at Gal Civ 2's ground attack screen to see how it should look. And seriously folks put some work into the look of the GUI before August!

Nats

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

As a minor point, SE4 dosen't really have any UI relating to ground combat.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Personally, I see nothing wrong with the UI in SEV at all. If I was, I'd have stopped playing the game with SEII http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Keep in mind that the ground combat in SE5, unlike that in GalCiv2, is not just "two opposing walls of troops lining up and shooting lasers at each other", though - it actually has quite a few elements of (someone will flame me for this, but I don't care - it's true) real-time strategy games, so ground combat is almost a minigame in itself - perhaps an ugly one, but the underlying model is far better than GalCiv2's "the one with the best multipliers wins, and perhaps having more troops will help" or even SE4's "invisible walls of troops which are at least individually represented" model! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Some of the ugliness is the angle and compression of the screenshots, plus the fact that the 3d models are low on polys to allow most older systems to run the tactical combat without needing a speedy/costly video card.

The fact is that you can just skip over the visual tactical combat and just use the auto resolve strategic mode. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Well, performance & gameplay > graphics is how I see it. If it was up to me the game would still be in 2D, to avoid spending resources on other things than gameplay. As such I'm glad they at least didn't choose to spend alot of resources on the new graphics.

As for the UI, I partially agree. I don't like the lower-right button-window, and I'd prefer if the end-turn button was on the lower-right of the screen.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Oh, me too.
SE4's graphics are great, IMO. They do the job of informing me about what is going on in the game, fast and efficiently. So much so that I can play it on my P-166 laptop anywhere, anytime.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

The game is still in the beta phase. SEIV Graphics are what they are... I like them, exspecially since I changed some of the base colors to green and yellow. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

I agree, gameplay trumps graphics anytime. Hell, I still play Angband.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

The UI may not appeal to you, but as long as it is functional, and believe me that is VERY important, then I tend to agree, eye candy is not important, but nice to have.

Functionality is more important than looks. Give me function, simplistic flowing logical function over eye candy any day.

My $0.02 cents worth.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Whereas I agree wholeheartedly about graphics v gameplay neither one is mutually exclusive of the other. I love Stars! for example and I like SE4 but I dont play them anymore due to the graphics (as well as other factors). GC2 looks the part and plays pretty well also. If I have to stare at a screen for hours/days/months on end I would prefer it to be attractive rather than unattractive. I wouldnt play a 2d game and why should I these days when computer power can handle far better graphics than they could years ago?

Apart form the fact that graphics have a hell of a lot to do with immersion in a game.

Nats

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

There are suprisingly large number of gamers that are really only interested in the strategic elements of the game and even put up a fuss when SE:V was moving to 3d models/star systems. I can't imagine how many e-mails MM gets complaining that the game is not 'spreadsheety' enough or is too 'spreadsheety'.

It might be of little comfort that SE:V's interface is completely moddable, including the fonts and UI elements... right now I can see how some people might not like the particular graphics style that was used.

And like I mentioned before, some hedging was done of course with the 3d models (planets, facilties, ships, terrain, etc) to keep game requirements and still allow for lots of on-screen elements at once.

Lastly, the static screenshots really make things look worse than they are - when things are moving around and exploding - it's a lot more fun.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

I'm with you 100% on this.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

I'm with you 110% on this.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Well, Raapys, haha, buy a new comp u cheapo!!! If SEV hangs on to its monetary challenged playerbase with their 5 year old comps, then SEV wont ever be commercially viable. Sorry, but all a review has to do is say it has Amiga style graphics and the death knell will sound.

You peeps need to embrace 3D. I mean, I know you think a 3D Strategy Game is an oxymoron, but you're wrong. This is something that absolutely HAS to be done. I dont need to explain wahy, if you have any brains at all you already know. STFU and go buy a new computer. SEV commercially cannot hold back in the 3D dept. so you cheap bastards dont have to upgrade like evryone else. OMG.

Im sure you few hundred fans out there that swear 2D graphics are all you need will buy Amiga graphic styled SEV gameplay, but fortunately for SEV, it doesnt need you and so I hope the graphics will be up to date so the game sells.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Would SE4 be improved by being rendered in 3D? No. It is about the GAME not the graphics.
It is the gameplay that keeps us playing SE4, making mods and shipsets and buying more CDs for people we know. A lot of us have been here since the last millenium, it is that good.

SE4's graphics are great. They look nice, but more importantly, they are enough to let the gameplay shine through. And if you want them to look better, you can either mod them yourself or download the stuff other people have done.
Who could need for anything more?
We're not watching a movie, we're playing a 4x wargame!

3D graphics are nice and all, but they mean Diddly-Squat for the gameplay that we are all here for.
Maybe someday you will learn that lesson.

The saddest part is that the retail market is indeed that shallow. Only fluff matters to them. And like everything else it will be there and gone in a month or two.

Meanwhile, SE3 still makes money.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

I think the SEV screenshots look great, including the ground combat. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

If it's all the same to you, I'd rather you not tell people to "Shut the F*ck Up" and refrain from personal insults ie: "you cheap bastards".

And to be honest, the 4X genre isn't exactly one that has hordes of followers, so a few hundred fans are "needed"...

Lets say it retails for $50 US. $50 US x say 300 = $15,000...sounds like a lot of cash to me, and I bet it would to the developers here.

You're entitled to your opinion and to express it; but please refrain from insulting other members of this forum.

Thank you.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

I wish I knew where this fallacy first arose that a computer game cannot have both good graphics and good gameplayl; this incorrect belief that having one of them means that not enough time was spent on the other. It's got very little grounding in reality.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

It is based on much experience over the years with games being dumbed down or otherwise reduced in gameplay to make time for ever-fancier graphics. Surely it is possible to have both (and there do exist examples out there), but it tends to be less common...

Dizzy, please maintain the general level of civility of these forums. Thank you.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Rgr, rgr. Not meant as a personal insult to anyone, although was a sure kneejerk heated reaction to the thought some want to keep the game in the stone ages and think it will still be commercially successful. My bad, I actually thought everyone wanted it to be successful.

And while $15k is sure a chink of change, its NOTHING, NOTHING but a drop in the bucket to where it needs to be. If that's all it makles we wont ever see SEVI.

Like I said, w/o a good 3D front, it's just an ancient game that wont see the light of day on game shelves... er mb it will if those 300 peeps buy it preorder so MM can buy an endcap at Best Buy when it rolls out.

How can I say this nicely for those w/o higher brain functions... As fans of SE, it is your duty to see the game prosper so others will buy it. You spreadsheet jumkies need to see beyond your noses. Your appeal is in the minority. If you sent MM an email complaining about advanced graphics and higher CPU requirements cuz ur too cheap to penny up replacing your obsolete 5 yr old comp, then you arnt needed in the SEV ccommunity, thanks, pack your bags dont let the door slam on your arse on the way out. Bye Bye.

For everyone else, Im glad you realize that graphics sell. And SEV needs big numbers. Hell, I want to see Peter Jackson direct the Space Empires Movie. Is anyone working on a script?

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

If I Could as for one thing to make SEIV better, it would simply be to have the top down images rendered in 3d so that when they are facing in any direction, they are clear and not distored as BMP's are. Hell you probably could achieve this without 3d, have multiple angle views for the mini's. Past that, spinning gif plants would be cool. The rest are modding and bug fixes.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

I know it's sad, but graphics sell, gameplay is 2nd. And while yes, we are all here because the gameplay rocks, money is what makes the world go round. Not good will. So take your snazzy gameplay and throw in some mediocre graphics and you have just another has been. Polish the graphics and stick a half naked babe on the cover and yeah, it'd sell. Big time. And money it'd make. A lot.

Do abbidon females look hot in mating season?

Seriously, tho, SJ. I know what you fear. When anyone else gets involved in a cult classic game and try and make money on it in doing so they change the game to appeal to the masses so they make more $$$... and that means dumbing down the gameplay and sticking in some stupid graphics... yeah yeah... Seen it many times. But know what? It works. Sad aint it?

I'm not endorsing that. As long as gameplay stays the same... inject all the hollywood collagen and botox you can... Hell, some breast implants wont hurt either. If SEV looks like Janice Dickenson when it hits the store shelves, all the better... But oh, please no dated ugly half assed graphics. It wont sell. Fact.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

It won't sell, IN RETAIL, maybe.

SE4 made a Aaron and Shrapnel a lot of money (even more in comparison to its development costs and when you consider there is only one employee, Aaron himself)
Heck, according to the Admins at shrapnel they were still selling them like hotcakes 5 years after it came out.

PS:
You really really need to cut down on the cursing and insults.

PPS:
You should read this:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/blo...mes-dont-work/

PPPS:
You are probably the only person here who thinks that I fear that. I'm a Beta tester after all, and trying to get CBmod rewritten for SE5 by launch.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Oh, I can tell you that. It arose when market researchers found out that a very big group of game players cared *more* about graphics than gameplay. So they cut down on gameplay resources to have 'top of the line' graphics.

Anyway it's rather easy math to see how you can't have both unless you have a limitless budget:

You have 10 coins, representing both time and resources. You're to spread those among gameplay, audio, graphics and AI. As it stands, MM have given very few coins to audio and graphics, very much to gameplay, and the rest to AI. That's just how I like it in this sort of game, and obviously I'm not alone in feeling like that.

Dizzy, I have a one year old computer and can play all the latest games. Perhaps that's *exactly* the reason I really get afraid when people start talking about making Space Empires more like them.

It's our duty to tell the developers what we want. Personally, I couldn't care less if the series ever got popular. In fact, it'd *much* rather it didn't, because that brings with it a ton of new issues and never anything good. Also, the bigger fanbase the bigger variety of people to please and the bigger chance some of us would be unhappy with gameplay decisions. Not to mention dumbing downs, etc., etc.

What I care about is that we continue to get games with improved gameplay, and that MM makes enough cash to be allowed to continue making them. Since he's still in business, he must be doing alright with his current fanbase.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

SJ, yeah I know. You already know about the package. I'm speaking in general. I already know the guts are there. I just dont see, from what Ive heard and seen, that the graphics are all that good. If they arnt, then I fear the game wont do so well on the shelf.

I hope its wildly successful. I just dont see that happening if the eye candy appeal is lacking... Sucks so many peeps are hung up on that crap, but the better the eye candy the more it makes.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Can you name a single game where you can conclusively state that the gameplay suffered because the graphics had too much effort spent on them. Not ethat this has to be a game where you that would have had good gameplay in the first place, so you'll need written documentation from the developers in all likelihood.

Well, your analogy is fatally flawed simply because the graphics are orders of magnitude more expensive to create than the gameplay itself.

This is otherwise known as being a fanboy.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

I think it was a good move to go to the 3D graphics for SE:V. I also think it's a good idea that the models were hedged a bit to allow for the large battles that we've been accustomed to in the series - without requiring too much computer power. You'll note other similar games often hedge the number of elements instead. Yes, the graphics are not going to be cutting edge, but that doesn't mean they can't be a gameplay enhancement.

For this particular genre, I will say that gameplay is the primary factor for most purchasers and in particular the core players that will work to extend the game life via mods etc. SE:V will not need to sell gobs of copies in order to be successful and make money for MM/SFI.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

You really don't seem to get it. If you have a hundred thousand to spend on a game, then how you decide to use those again decides if the gameplay will suffer because of too much of the total resources was spent on graphics. It's simple logic. I don't need written documentation. If you use 90k on graphics and 10k on gameplay, then the gameplay will be worse than if you spend 80k on gameplay and 20k on graphics. What's so hard to get?

How, exactly, does this make the analogy flawed? That it's more expensive just means you need to spend more coins to actually reach an acceptable graphic quality level.

Hardly. Fanboy's are the ones that always go up and support the developers whatever decisions they make, and appear to nearly be worshipping them and never complain about anything. Trust me, if MM do something with SEV that I don't like I'll be among the first to complain.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Why don't you explain to us all how gameplay suffers if you can't pay the salaries of multiple designers? You only need one for anything but the largest projects. Programmers don't tend to make gameplay design decisions, and neither do artists.

Of course you need written documentation, or else you're just making the argument because it's popular to complain about graphics on internet gaming forums.

The problem, of course, is that gameplay reaches the point of diminishing returns on your monetary investment long before graphics reaches the same level. You won't get better gameplay by throwing money at a developer, as gameplay is essentially the result of one or two people's work. Once you've paid their salaries, giving them extra money wouldn't make any difference other than to make the design more muddled by adding other opinions. What that extra money can be used for is to pay the salaries of the dozens of artists and media producing people that can actually stack their efforts to produce something useful.

It's fatally flawed because the relative costs are completely different orders of magnitude, and you've not included anywhere near the proper level of granularity. The only way to make your analogy work would be to point out that gameplay costs about one hundredth to one thousandth of a "coin", so it doesn't really matter how much you spend on graphics. If your game has a development budget of $50,000, then you spend $45,000 of that on the gameplay, and only $5,000 on graphics. If your game has a budget of $10 million, then you spend $100,000 of that on gameplay, and the rest on the graphics. There's no point in spending greater and greater amounts of money on gameplay because of diminishing returns on your investment.

You're not a Malfador fanboy, you're a gameplay over graphics fanboy. I suppose I could use the forum rat term, but that's less well understood.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

I would estimate at least 50% of the development money for SE:V was spent on graphics related items. The remainder of the money probably was used to keep Aaron fed and sheltered. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Of course you benefit from more than one, just as you benefit more from ideas from 10 different people as opposed to the ideas of 1 man. I might think of an ingenius gameplay feature that you would never have thought of. On your last note, isn't it pretty common that a fair amount of designers also do programming?

Yeah, that must be the reason. I get off on complaining about companies having way too much focus on graphics and too little focus on gameplay on gaming forums.

Yet, everytime I play a game I can think of *uncountable features* to add to it. And again and again we hear developers cut features from the design document because 'there was no time/resources to implement it'. They must all be lying, obviously. The truth is that it was impossible to add anything more because they reached the magical "diminishing returns" limit! For many games it seems to come into play when they've added weapons, walking, jumping, basic AI and a couple of maps.

If developers today were anywhere near reaching the 'diminishing returns' limit, why aren't the games then just full of gameplay features? Or at least hours upon hours long? Don't forget that level/world design and building also goes into the 'gameplay' part. Game length isn't exactly outstanding these days either. Think it took me 6 hours to go through Half-Life 2 the first time.

Well, I suppose it's better than being a graphics fanboy like most people seem to be. Is that what you are? Personally, I'm really just tired of seeing the graphics get better and better over the last years, yet having the gameplay quality stall and diminish. Not to mention the Legend of Innovation and Creativity in games.

Developers of games like Space Empires and Mount&Blade, low-budget, 1-2 man projects, manage to create far more entertaining and featureful games than uncountable high-budget games. That tells me someone is better at placing their resources than others, and those others usually seem to be the mass-appeal companies that coincidently also happen to have top of the line graphics in their games.

Put it this way, presented with the choice of having access to the games of the 90's or those of today's market, I'd not even need to consider it. And it has nothing with fanboyism to do at all, but everything to do with actually appreaciating good games.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Forget about the money; time is the relevant factor. Fancy graphics engines require programming time to make. Gameplay features require programming time to make. There is a limited amount of man-hours available. More time put into fancy graphics engines means less time for gameplay features. The textures and sounds and even models can be made by non-programmers, but it takes a hell of a lot of time to design and program a smooth 3d engine; orders of magnitude more than a 2d engine. Where the company is willing to invest time is the issue. Some can devote enough to both parts, some (eg: most console developers) devote too much to graphics and not enough to gameplay, and some probably devote too much to gameplay and not enough to graphics.

And as you said Graeme, you can't just keep throwing more programmers at the task and get increased productivity. While you can certainly benefit from more if you only have 1 or 2 (1 person doesn't have to make the entire game engine and graphics engine), productivity comes with an inverted parabolic curve.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Of course, but there's the fact that tons of developers buy someone else's engine and do minimal work on it themselves so it fits their game. Anyway, it still comes down to a question about money/resources, because the more money you have, "the more time you have", as you don't need to rush out the game to cover your expenses.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Well, if they need more money, I'm sure they could have arranged 'pre-orders'... but havent seen that call. I guess they are content with the progress they are making... Are they making progress?

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

And yet, if you actually talk to developers they will tell you that it's easier to make a 3D game than a 2D one. The art is that much simpler to generate, and nobody needs to develop a 3D engine from scratch.

While it's true that you can't put an unlimited number of people on a project, the actual design of the game requires creativity, while things like the graphic engine generally only require competency. That means that you reach the point of diminishing returns far faster.

I see people complaining that developers sacrifice gameplay for graphics, which completely misses the point. If a game doesn't have good gameplay, then blame the lead designer, not the graphics, because spending less time on the graphics won't change anything if your designer can't make a fun game in the first place.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

What you're promoting here is game design by committee. Would you make the same argument for a screenplay or book? That adding a fifth, or sixth, or tenth author would make the end product better? Of course you wouldn't.

While many designers do program, that doesn't make all programmers designers.

On any given day, thousands of people make posts to gaming forums that copy the opinions of other people so that they will feel accepted by the other denizens.

An unlimited list of features will take an unlimited amount of time to complete. Trying to implement every single feature you might initially want means that you will never release your finished product.

What is wrong with that list of features you just presented? It seems like that would be a perfectly fine set of features if somebody is trying to make a competent game that will be enjoyed by a moderately large group of people. There's no requirement that every single game give you hundreds of hours of orgasmic gameplay. As there are dozens of games released in any single year, ten hours of entertainment is almost always more than enough for customer satisfaction.

Who says that they aren't? There's no benefit in adding features to a game just for the sake of adding features. All that does is increase the micromanagement load in strategic games for instance.

So what's wrong with the length of HL2? Would you prefer that they doubled the length of the path you have to travel just so that it takes you twice as much time to finish? A short, well-crafted experience is worth much more than a long one full of even more crate jumping.

There is nothing

Why don't you present some actual examples of games where the stall and diminish then. Note that there is absolutely no requirement for innovation for a game to be considered a good game.

The strategic layer of Mount and Blade is little more than a simplified version of Pirates!, a game first released in 1993. The combat itself is mostly unique (Die by the Sword's is probably still better), but suffers from poor AI. The best way to attack multiple attackers is to run full speed backwards so that they run after you in a line and only attack one at a time.

SE4 has gameplay and usability issues that will always keep it from being a great game unless they are addressed. The balance is absolutely horrendous, with entire swathes of technology completely ignored by any competent player. It's modding alone that makes SE4 worth playing.

The user interface is atrocious. There's absolutely no way, for example, to send a specific colony ship to a specific planet from the planet colonization screen. The UI doesn't even remember if somebody has already colonized a planet when you can't see the system. If you want to scrap a facility and build a new one, you have to select the planet from the map, scrap the facility, then reselect the planet from the map, go to the build queue, then add the facility. The list of every construction queue tells you absolutely nothing about where the shipyards are located. So, if you have a hundred or so shipyards, and want to build something at a specific one, you have to go around to each individually and check them every turn to see if they have finished their last project. You can add multiple items at once, but there's no way to turn off the repeat build function without clicking individually on every shipyard. Nor is there any way to build only a single turn's worth of units in multiple shipyards at once.

What it should tell you is that those developers have better game designers than the people working for the large companies. Since you claim to prefer graphics over gameplay to such a large extent, you might want to go play some Autoduel. You must think it's one of the best games ever.

You do have access to the games of the nineties.

How many games do you play in a year? I'd hope it's at least 5, preferably more like 10 or twenty if you want to play good games. You might also want to take the rose-coloured glasses that you are viewing older games through. Or are you going to tell me next that Dune 2 is a better game that Rise of Legends because the graphics are worse in Dune 2.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

ten hours of entertainment is almost always more than enough for customer satisfaction.

10 hours, $10 sounds right. To me, $50 for a game that only gives 10 hours of entertainment is ludicrous.

Note that there is absolutely no requirement for innovation for a game to be considered a good game.

I strongly disagree.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

I can name a game, Civ4. The only thing moving to 3d did for it was to balloon the system requirements. I've spent countless hours playing Civ1/Civ2/Civ3/Smac and it was time well spent. I played Civ4 up until the first patch and shelved it. It was buggy, lagged too much (especially on large maps) and just didn't feel as fun as previous Civ games. In fact, the more I played Civ4, the more I really felt like playing SMAC/X, which I still play.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

What you're promoting here is game design by committee.

One of the greatest games of all time(subjectively, as with everything else), Fallout, used a total of 14 designers, numbers from Mobygames. Baldur's Gate 2 used 8 total.

On any given day, thousands of people make posts to gaming forums that copy the opinions of other people so that they will feel accepted by the other denizens.

If I wanted to feel accepted, wouldn't I be agreeing with you? Someone had to come up with those opinions too. Couldn't I be one of them? Or would that be too inconvenient for your arguements?

An unlimited list of features will take an unlimited amount of time to complete. Trying to implement every single feature you might initially want means that you will never release your finished product.

And putting alot of your resources and time into graphics means you will have a very short list of features indeed.

What is wrong with that list of features you just presented?

Nothing, if you want to make just another clone to milk some cash out of the market. In other words, it's good for the guys selling it, but bad for the customers. "Bad how", you ask, "They're getting a game they can enjoy for 10 hours!".
Well, it's not really bad by itself. But do some comparing.

Baldur's Gate 2 offers, what, 100-200 hours of play to finish it, depending on play style? Add to that the ability to create different character, have a different party, do the quests another way, etc. Then take your regular Joe First Person Shooter with shiny graphics. You play through it in 5-10 hours, someday you might even go through it again , so you get 10-20 hours out of the box. Now, one would think the price difference between these games would be huge, since they offer such widely different amounts of content. So, is it? No. You pay the same, but what you get can't even be compared.

Who says that they aren't? There's no benefit in adding features to a game just for the sake of adding features.

Of course not. It's about adding features for the sake of gameplay and depth, a missing concept in today's games.

So what's wrong with the length of HL2?

It's too short. Heck, even Deus Ex, a game that has *far* more gameplay elements and features than Half-Life 2, was over twice as long as it, and even more enjoyable to play.

Why don't you present some actual examples of games where the stall and diminish then.

TES Oblivion, Age of Empires 3, Civ4, Deus Ex 2, Might & Magic 9, Heroes of M&M 5,
the unlimited amount of Doom clones, not to mention the C&C clones, etc.

Now, of course, you wont agree with that at all, because if you did we wouldn't even be having this discussion. So let me just say that I think all these games have been 'victim' of one or more of the following, you don't, and let's leave it at that: dumbing down for mass appeal, lack of innovation, too much focus on graphics, console conversion, lack of vision( i.e. just want to make a game that sell, no passion behind it).

The strategic layer of Mount and Blade is little more than a simplified version of Pirates!, a game first released in 1993

"Note that there is absolutely no requirement for innovation for a game to be considered a good game."

As for SEIV, to me it's already a great game: far greater than uncountable high-budget ones. The modding part of the game is a feature that definitely helps keep it fresh, but the best part of the game is the crazy number of gameplay features it offers, compared to any other game in the genre.

you might want to go play some Autoduel. You must think it's one of the best games ever.

Never tried it. I regularly play oldies, though. For instance the adventure games from Lucas Arts, Pizza Tycoon, X-com, Daggerfall, Imperialism, Capitalism, Reunion, System Shock, and many more.

You do have access to the games of the nineties.

Nevermind my point that games from the 90's blow the water out of today's.

Or are you going to tell me next that Dune 2 is a better game that Rise of Legends because the graphics are worse in Dune 2.

If I was gonna tell you Dune 2 was a better game, graphics wouldn't even enter in to the post. That's how much I care about them. There's two things that enter in. Gameplay and atmosphere/feeling. Now, graphics does enter in on that last point, but not the technical quality of it, but rather what mood it creates, how it fits the game, how it works with the music, etc. Daggerfall, for instance, is one of the most immersive games I know of( much thanks to the music), even though the graphics were considered average 10 years ago.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

The list of every construction queue tells you absolutely nothing about where the shipyards are located.

When you mouseover a SY, the galaxy map at the top indicates the system it is in. Saying it gives absolutely nothing is, well, absolutely wrong. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

SE4 has gameplay and usability issues that will always keep it from being a great game unless they are addressed. The balance is absolutely horrendous, with entire swathes of technology completely ignored by any competent player. It's modding alone that makes SE4 worth playing.

Its almost as if Aaron intentionally included mods on the CDs, and made it trivial to both create mods, and install the ones other people have made! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Graphics not up to snuff? hmm, Mankind, comes to mind lousy 3d graphics (well dated and simple), and yet years later it still up and running. Game play, not so great.

SEIV, its newer but is 2d and had 3 releases. Game play personally the ai is easy, i prefer multi player, graphics is not why I bought the game.

there are quite few games this day and age that are still essentially text based. some even turn a profit. (the good ones and the ones for which that was the inteneded goal) some do have "pictures" but thats about it.

Games are written largely to targeted audiences, some groups are broader than others. For some types of games whiz bang state of art eye candy (visuals) in end become nothing more than a distraction, for others its the only way they can deferentiate themselves from the competition. (turns out a company is working on a program to help design sure fire sellers, games by formula, wonderful)

Hmm oblivion elderscrolls 4, yeah it has wonderfully well detailed graphics, it also brings even the latest graphics cards to there knees, if try run anywhere near max detail.
game play can't say, don't care can't run it.

Funny thing based on stuff i ran across some of the more ppoular fps with multi player mode, graphics settings are set as low as possible to maximize frame rates.

soory some to be all over place, on the other hand may be that was part of the point.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Oblivion was fun for a few hours. Then I realized it had essentially no differences between it and a formula RPG and got bored.

Download Daggerfall. At least it has truely huge dungeons.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

I never figured it looked that bad to some people. I've been working very hard on SE5 weapon and planet graphics. I know that those in charge of other graphical divisions have as well. All one can give is their best, nothing more. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

I wouldn't worry Kev, most complaints I've heard are directed tend to be complaints about brightness, jaggy models, or UI colour etc. I know that most people will be thrilled by the quality of the component images - I know I was.

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Where might I do that?

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Don't worry about it, those of us who have actually seen the graphics in-game are really happy with how they look. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Well, other than the general shininess and bubbliness of the UI...

Re: SE5 screenshots ugly?
 

Yeah, with the exception of the UI. However, component pictures, etc. look great in my opinion.