It will all come down to the quality of animations, how detailed and fluid they are and if the unit is upgraded(class or spell wise) will it have new upgraded animation and other effects concurrent with every upgrade, like lighting and such(Diablo 3 is a good example here).

Animation is different from graphics, for example Resident Evil 4 has poor graphics for today's standards but it has such excellent animations that surpass even today's games, high-quality animations significantly prolong the longevity of any game.

Well as I mentioned in the other thread, before it was locked, I will reserve my final opinion on the visuals for later, like when we are closer to the actual release. I'll take your word for it on the shadowing though. I don't think my standards are particularly high. There is just a certain coloring though that I really dislike, like with the Borderlands' graphics.

In my not so humble opinion eye candy should be icing on the cake. The game play and related mechanics are the cake.

It won't come down to the quality of animations... graphics don't decide the success/failure of a game.  Take a look at Dominions_3 which obviously has terrible graphics yet one of the most popular independent games and it's forums are still buzzing with activity unlike most TBS games.  Even Heroes_3 was so popular the community created an the unofficial WOG update despite the graphics being so ancient.  Even Master of Magic which is extremely old is still played by many on the forums using DosBox.   

Here's a list of features within Elemental more important than graphics:

  1} Game Stability

  2} Game Content

  3} Random Game Generator

  4} Map Editor

  5} Rich & Deep Campaign

  6} Game Balance

  7} Game Strategies

  8} Modding Capabilities

   Very true words from an experienced gamer.

BZZZ!  Buzzwords!  Please try again!

I am assuming he means a campeighn with a ton of lore and lots of complex, interconnected missions.

Yes

Well... bleh.  I don't play those when they offer them in 4X games, like evah.  I prefer my sandbox.  I wanna build my empire, not play a silly 'escort ther ing to mount doom!' game.

Quoting kyogre12,
reply 4

Quoting Hortz, reply 2

It's not that it is just cartoonish, but that it's extremely minimalistic.

Because a game that could potentially have 32 players and hundreds, if not thousands of units should have graphics like Crysis, and should only be playable on computers that won't exist for another 3 years. Gee, that makes total sence. Oh, and that's sarcasm, by the way


How can anybody make such a dumb statement, Supreme Commander has hundreds of units, vastly superior graphics, each unit animated, simulated physics, seamless zoom, and all that in non-symbolic and in real time.

How many hundred times is that more than this game, and Supreme Commander will be 3 years older than this game when it comes out.

You should really think things through before spewing such blatant stupidity as some sort of argument.
[/quote]

I was looking at supreme Commander again the other day, actually despite it's supposedly good graphics I've always found it rather ugly. The ground textures are basic and simple, the models are extremely basic and it only looks good when zoomed out a long way.

He speaks the truth

The damn thing bottlenecks on the processor for most people.  The graphics aren't anything special, Demigod looks a hell of a lot better using an upgraded version of the same engine.  When I was playing it, I never zoomed in close, it was fugly as hell.  The isometric stuff five years back looked better.  From five thousand feet though, looks great.  Now if only you didn't need a super computer to handle all the number crunching on a large map.

You can't do high end graphics for a large scale game, even the hot new cards couldn't make SupCom look good in close up screen shots.  We're measuring vertices in the billions now, but it's still not enough, and you can't restrict a niche game to a fifth of the market by spending ten times the money to make it.  It goes from profitable to a massive money pit.

I must have missed a post somewhere where someone said the game should have "graphics like Crysis".

I was exagerating when I said that because Hortz was saying that the graphics for Elemental were "minimalistic" and seems to be under the impression that Elemental should have hyper-realistic uber graphics that break most computers, a-la SupCom, Crysis, etc.

No, if Elemental will have graphics(we will see about the art style)  and animation on the level of King's Bounty: The Legend I will be very happy because what that game sorely missed is building your own empire and having an economy, it "only" had combat and excellent questing and adventuring.

Also if different spells caused different types of deaths-freezing, burning, etc. and when you upgrade spells they have a slight visual modification. Just those 2 things would have made King's Bounty: The Legend even greater.

The recipe for success is very simple when you already have games like Civilization 4 and King's Bounty: The Legend.

P.S.

Heroes of Might and Magic 5 was utterly ruined with randomized ability selection upon leveling up, please avoid that humongous idiotic mistake.

The most important qualities in any game to me are:

1. Plot
2. Gameplay
3. Graphics

Stability should be intrinsic for a game.

I know, just look at Zork back in 1980. The graphics of Zork were absolutely groundbreaking at the time. That's the only reason why that game was as popular as it was. I mean, you can't have a game be popular without high-quality animations. People just won't play them.

Define quality for those of us not in the field of software graphics. I mean, there are several games I enjoy that don't look very high tech in the graphics departnment to me. I know the FPS genre just adores graphics, but when you hit strategy games and small indie games like Fat Princess (not played just seen the videos and screenshots), World of Goo, Kudos the graphics are all over the place, so is the price tag. Even in mainstream titles like Mario Kart Wii, certainly isn't competing with huge, glitzy titles on the PS3 or 360, but I don't think I would enjoy the game if it did and certainly don't feel it's low quality either. Heroes of Might and Magic V supposedly had good graphics (based on opinionson the board), but I thought it played a little too "close" for my tastes in a strategy title... so that would make it what, high qulaity ineffective graphics (based on my opinion of course, just an example).

@Nesrie,

Are you responding to my comments or the comments made by Hortz? Because if you're responding to my comments then you need to take a look at the graphics that Zork employed. Basically, take this text I am typing now, place it on a white (or black) background and there you have it. It was completely text-based. And yet it sold more than 400,000 copies. Which was phenomenal back then.

So, basically, my post was complete sarcasm responding to Hortz's post (which is just complete short-sightedness on his part).

Well I responding to yours but it doesn't change the fact that high quality graphics is a term being used in this thread without actually being defined. I know what Zork was. It was a choose your own adventure book first wasn't it? You used the term high quality graphics, sarcasm or not, what did you mean by "high quality" graphics.

It's interesting that graphics hardware has gotten so good now that game designers like Stardock are beginning to ask "what do we want this to look like?" rather than "what can we make this look like?".  Elemental could have gone for realistic graphics, but instead chose an artistic style closer to realistic watercolors.  I think this kind of fits the fantasy theme well - it's a little dreamy, and not quite real, but still "feels" real.  There's less suspension of disbelief, but more wonder.

At any rate, I like it so far, though I was an early doubter.

To be honest, I didn't really like the art-style when the first screenshots were released, but now that I have had the time to get used to it, and with the release of the newer screenshots, I'm really starting to like it a lot, it's an unique style. It might not be ultra realistic, but it is very clear and shows what needs to be shown.

And as has been said in this thread more than once, graphics ain't everything. The game must be fun, stable, fun immersive... did I mention fun?

The first beta will be only playable on the cloth map, and the goal is to make the game fun playing it that way without any detailed graphics, and I think that's the way it should be.

I've played Supreme Commander for a bit, but I didn't really like the gameplay, same with Crysis. So I think the whole 'Aaah, game will fail, graphics are bad!!!' thing is really an exaggeration...

Realistic was never the issue, and it doesn't make any sense for it to be.

I'm beginning to dislike some of the clothmap icons..... they don't really look like the rest of the map..... the lines are too thick, and the dark areas are too homogenous.....

scoutdog: We're still playing with the look of all those icons, but one problem with ClothMapOnly is that you're getting VERY close to icons that, in the main game, you'll only see from a distance (you zoom in that close and it switches to the main map). What looks iconic and fitting with the style from further back looks too crisp and too modern zoomed in.

We'll play with it though