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 Posted: Sun, 13th Feb 2011 19:23 Post subject: |
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When I saw one of the more recent DA2 gameplay videos, it reminded me mostly of Origins with low detail settings, for some reason.
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| Posted: Sun, 13th Feb 2011 20:04 Post subject: |
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It's not only the lighting.
I see artificial looking structures in level design (speaking about town location presented in latest video walkthrough, though).
In other words, level seems to be textured in the same way Neverwinter Nights was: as perfect pattern on ground, with fixed cubic buildings and walkable areas.
Even The Witcher has a more advanced (realistic, believable and atmospheric) level design. There is natural vertical navigation, through small hills, mounts, heights and most essentially: IMPERFECTION in building alignments and structure design.
But these are just my views and personal expectations/critic. 
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| Posted: Sun, 13th Feb 2011 21:13 Post subject: |
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I agree, the level design is from early 2000 or something. Their designers seem to be stuck in the past.
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couleur
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couleur
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| Posted: Sun, 13th Feb 2011 22:24 Post subject: |
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| Mister_s wrote: | | couleur wrote: | | Mister_s wrote: | | I agree, the level design is from early 2000 or something. Their designers seem to be stuck in the past. |
"but.. but.. how can you say such a rude thing, we streamlined and adapted to consoles... are we not modern ?  " |
It has nothing to do with consoles, the HW is not that limited. Bioware simply has shitty level designers with no imagination. There are enough games on consoles which show that beatiful level design does not require teh latest hardware. |
True, actually I meant the fact that on one side they try to be modern, streamline their games, add blockbuster-like cutscenes and adult scenes, dumb down RPG elements like fighting/strategy, party management to adapt to the modern console crowd, but on the other side they dont manage to give a more lively, realistic and organic feeling to their desings and gfx.
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couleur
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| Posted: Sun, 13th Feb 2011 23:08 Post subject: |
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Once again I refer you to Deus Ex. PC game released in 2000, released a year later on the PS2 and had each and every level chopped to bits, broken up with loading screen after loading screen, since the hardware simply couldn't cope with the expansive levels. The same would mostly be evident today, if the PC was the central focus - with the console versions being ported TO rather than FROM. Generally, when a developer really cares about the PC, you'll see the console ports with infinitely superior graphics and performance.
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| Posted: Sun, 13th Feb 2011 23:19 Post subject: |
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Yea but guys, in DA2 every time you press a button something AWESOME happens - surely that will make up for everything else amirite
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Epsilon
Dr. Strangelove
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Location: War Room
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| Posted: Mon, 14th Feb 2011 00:07 Post subject: |
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Saying that level size has nothing to do with ram is idiotic, unless you employ streaming, ie only loading the immediate area of the player, in the game, which most of these games don't.
Aside from that fact, streaming generally also leads to a disjointed experience, such as sabin hints.
As an example in Just Cause 2 you can see vehicles and people popping up out of thin air, in Oblivion you'd see people disappearing when they hit the world edge and sometimes if you run after them, you won't find them. They've been removed from the cell and thus the ram.
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couleur
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| Posted: Mon, 14th Feb 2011 00:38 Post subject: |
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I was not talking about size but about design. Its totally obvious that the limited Hardware of consoles also either limits level sizes or makes streaming of textures and area a necessity . Still that doesnt explain Biowares poor and static level design, which is what we were initially talking about.
"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment."
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W123
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Location: USA
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| Posted: Mon, 14th Feb 2011 02:43 Post subject: |
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Indeed. I was honestly surprised when I saw people actually moving around in the new city on that livestream thing. Shocked and awed. I hear most of the game is going be placed in the city, so I hope it leans more in Athkatla style rather than the awful tedious mess Denerim was. God help us all let's hope. Graphics do look pretty shitty, we'll see what it looks like on PC with their supposed DX11 "special effects".
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chiv
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Location: Behind You...
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| Posted: Mon, 14th Feb 2011 02:43 Post subject: |
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heheh yeah denerim was a laugh. the mega city... with a tiny whore house, a one room pub, and with all 5 city vendors crowded into an area the size of a tennis court. if only all mega cities were that easy to navigate.
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chiv
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Location: Behind You...
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| Posted: Mon, 14th Feb 2011 02:44 Post subject: |
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| jewbagel wrote: | | Graphics do look pretty shitty, we'll see what it looks like on PC with their supposed DX11 "special effects". |
you mean bloom and blur? |
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| Posted: Mon, 14th Feb 2011 02:47 Post subject: |
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I have no idea. They mentioned working with AMD for shading and lighting effects made especially for DX11 or something. Whatever that means, I'm sure it's nothing earth shattering.
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| Posted: Mon, 14th Feb 2011 03:31 Post subject: |
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| chiv wrote: | | jewbagel wrote: | | Graphics do look pretty shitty, we'll see what it looks like on PC with their supposed DX11 "special effects". |
you mean bloom and blur? |
| Quote: | What are the main differences between the console and the pc versions of Dragon Age II?
The core differences are the interface. The content is pretty much identical. The interface is a radial wheel vs a quick-bar at the bottom, same for the menu. If you played Origins on consoles, it'll play very similar. The same is true for PC. We were really happy with how control schemes worked for Origins, so we kept most of it. Also, the PC has more hardware than available on consoles, especially in the usage of DX11, adding some great lighting effects, texture packs and the like. The end results is a game that looks and plays great on consoles, but keeps it roots on PC, we loved the way it functioned there.
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From here: http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/101538-dragon-age-ii-live-developer-chat-report-has-gone-gold.html
But I highly doubt there are any true DX11 effects.
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| Posted: Mon, 14th Feb 2011 08:40 Post subject: |
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| Smokeythedemon wrote: | | But I highly doubt there are any true DX11 effects. |
Reminds me of the "cool DX10 effects" we were promised in the PC version of Gears of War:
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article/2007/11/05/gears_war_pc_performance_iq/5
| Quote: | | Here are some full screen images that have been cropped and put side-by-side to compare DX10 “Off” with DX10 “On” at the highest settings. If you can’t see any differences in image quality between both comparisons it is not just you, we aren’t seeing any differences in image quality either in any of these screenshots. Not one single shred of difference in texture quality, or shadows, or lighting or anything. Let’s look at some specific graphical effects to see if there is anything different. |
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dsergei
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Location: Moscow, Russia
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| Posted: Mon, 14th Feb 2011 08:58 Post subject: |
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I read a hands-on preview on a russian review site - and they said that the pc version looked much better than the xbox360 one (they tried both) but both were kinda meh. Although the presentation used medium settings so all is not lost.
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| Posted: Mon, 14th Feb 2011 09:50 Post subject: |
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| sabin1981 wrote: | | Once again I refer you to Deus Ex. PC game released in 2000, released a year later on the PS2 and had each and every level chopped to bits, broken up with loading screen after loading screen, since the hardware simply couldn't cope with the expansive levels. |
What!? Screw Deus Ex on consoles! That game is pure awesomeness on PC and should only be played on his original platform.
/insert-pc-elitist-jerk-face
Instead, take a look at what they done with Thief 3! I still have regrets about that game being so far from it's predecessors, which are, IMO, some of the best games ever made. |
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| Posted: Mon, 14th Feb 2011 11:44 Post subject: |
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| Epsilon wrote: | Saying that level size has nothing to do with ram is idiotic, unless you employ streaming, ie only loading the immediate area of the player, in the game, which most of these games don't.
Aside from that fact, streaming generally also leads to a disjointed experience, such as sabin hints.
As an example in Just Cause 2 you can see vehicles and people popping up out of thin air, in Oblivion you'd see people disappearing when they hit the world edge and sometimes if you run after them, you won't find them. They've been removed from the cell and thus the ram. |
If you want non-level based open world streaming is a necessity though. But it can be done better or worse. And "the cell" can be bigger depending on your RAM.
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| Posted: Mon, 14th Feb 2011 11:51 Post subject: |
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| Lukxxx wrote: | | And "the cell" can be bigger depending on your RAM. |
.... teehee. And you've just proven our point marvellously, thanks <3
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couleur
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| Posted: Mon, 14th Feb 2011 12:49 Post subject: |
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What point was there to prove? That Biowares poor level Design is due to the consoles RAM limitations?
"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment."
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| Posted: Mon, 14th Feb 2011 13:01 Post subject: |
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| couleur wrote: | | What point was there to prove? That Biowares poor level Design is due to the consoles RAM limitations? |
No you silly. That ALL consoles have inherent restrictions on level design due to a severe shortage of available memory, either system or graphics. Since the gaming industry has moved full-force over to console primary/PC secondary, then PC gamers are getting lumped with substandard programming and videogames simply due to the restrictions of the consoles they were coded for. It's ridiculous for the most part seeing as how games are pretty much always coded ON PCs -- so instead of coding FOR the PC then working around console limitations, we're left with games coded FOR consoles then left with PCs dealing with the restrictions of that.
If you can't see that point, or if you try and argue around it, then we know where your blindside and loyalties lie.
IMO of course
 Spoiler: |
Oh and yes, Bioware's current poor map designing - with its excessive corridors and limited map sizes - is definitely in part due to restrictions on their "primary" platforms of choice. Restrictions and pure laziness
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Last edited by sabin1981 on Mon, 14th Feb 2011 13:11; edited 2 times in total
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| Posted: Mon, 14th Feb 2011 13:03 Post subject: |
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As coulour says, we are not talking about huge open worlds. Chop the freakin thing in cells then, I'd rather have that than this unimaginative bullshit. It looks totally unrealistic, ridiculous and plain shit. This is not only a Bioware problem though, many game developers seem to put level design very low on the priorities list. There is no attention to detail, no creative thinking and you can clearly deduct from the design it was a fast job. It's like a kid drew a map and placed some prebuild buildings on it. This is not lego dammit, use some variety and creativity.
As for consoles having limited RAM, that's what you get when media and gamers masturbate when they see fast RAM instead of much RAM. They should have chosen for bigger but slower RAM instead of "OMG this is so hightech" RAM, priced at ridiculous levels. Practicality lost to awesomeness when building these consoles.
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couleur
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| Posted: Mon, 14th Feb 2011 13:19 Post subject: |
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| sabin1981 wrote: | | couleur wrote: | | What point was there to prove? That Biowares poor level Design is due to the consoles RAM limitations? |
No you silly. That ALL consoles have inherent restrictions on level design due to a severe shortage of available memory, either system or graphics. Since the gaming industry has moved full-force over to console primary/PC secondary, then PC gamers are getting lumped with substandard programming and videogames simply due to the restrictions of the consoles they were coded for. It's ridiculous for the most part seeing as how games are pretty much always coded ON PCs -- so instead of coding FOR the PC then working around console limitations, we're left with games coded FOR consoles then left with PCs dealing with the restrictions of that.
If you can't see that point, or if you try and argue around it, then we know where your blindside and loyalties lie.
IMO of course
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I've never denied that from the beginning. 
| sabin1981 wrote: |
| Spoiler: |
Oh and yes, Bioware's current poor map designing - with its excessive corridors and limited map sizes - is definitely in part due to restrictions on their "primary" platforms of choice. Restrictions and pure laziness
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Partly maybe, but still. Its not an excuse for the laziness. They put shiny mass appeal and streamlined action button mashing over creativity. Thats their main problem. And it is reflected in their unimaginative level design.
| Mister_s wrote: | As coulour says, we are not talking about huge open worlds. Chop the freakin thing in cells then, I'd rather have that than this unimaginative bullshit. It looks totally unrealistic, ridiculous and plain shit. This is not only a Bioware problem though, many game developers seem to put level design very low on the priorities list. There is no attention to detail, no creative thinking and you can clearly deduct from the design it was a fast job. It's like a kid drew a map and placed some prebuild buildings on it. This is not lego dammit, use some variety and creativity.
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this!
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