Sid says: "Civ III delivers visual realism like never before."

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by CivPatriot

The roads do not bother me as much as some of the colours do. I can live with the roads. The two things that would really improve the graphics whould be to get rid of that pink colour and use flags for the civs instead of colouring part of the units the civ's oclour(that's what the screenshots appear to me to be doing). Those two would be a big help.

Glad I'm not the only one noticing it. That's the only part that gribes me. The rest will probably be fixed at the end (although i don't really like those mountains - MOD's do your work!). And remember that ALL civs have their OWN colour coding. Those units are really hard to discern because of the civ colour codes and the resolution employed. What's wrong the unit style employed in civ2? There you recognize the unit in an instant and the small shield at the top shows the owner.

This is true eyecandy. Nice and sweet at the outset but it will give you toothdecay tomorrow.

[Inverse Icarus]

i agree, i perfer gameplay over graphics anyday.

in Half-Life mods, i perfer to play FIREARMS over Day of Defeat.

Firearm's Graphics arent that good, infact te models are pretty doofy looking, especially compared to Day of Defeat's sleek, professionally crafted ones.

but its the GAME ITSELF that i like.

and from what i read im GOING to like Civ3, despite the graphics.

BUT COME ON MAN. A ROAD HOVERING OVER A FAWKING MOUNTAIN.

[yin26]

I bring this up again because "Sid" is expressly hyping the graphics at the best ever for TBS, which is just a plain lie. I don't care particularly that the roads are floating since I know that will be fixed. What I care about is the ENTIRE LOOK of the thing, which almost nothing but a total re-haul and -re-thinking at Firaxis will fix.

Now, we can all agree that gameplay is more important than graphics, and I've said that many times. However, when a game seems to go BACKWARDS in graphics and all the while the company acts as if it has discovered the freakin' wheel of the graphics world, then I think you can see why I get so irked.

If they ever told the truth, like: "We have spent so much time on gameplay that graphics, even though we hoped to make them the best ever, got put a bit on the back burner" -- then I'd post something actually quite positive. But, of course, they CAN'T post the truth like that...so in comes the most blatant PR garbage I've seen in a while.

So, How is This Thread Constructive? With this thread, I hoped to:

1. Once again make it clear just how far from "the best" graphics we are talking about here (even after fixing the roads and doing some tweaking).
2. Highlight that the fans are not idiots who are totally unaware of better-looking games (different genre? so what? at least the terrain could be used, etc., though it would require a different engine **hint**).
3. Provide us fans a clear means by which we can start to analyze the Firaxis PR effort, which, looking at what we've seen, is once again going to be one of the most amateur and rather insulting on the market.

Thus, in my dream at least, this might put even the slightest pressure on Firaxis to come to the following conclusions:

1. Wow. These really aren't all that great graphics. Hmmm.
2. And we'd better not act like it, either.
3. Because otherwise our PR effort will make us look silly. THUS:
4. We could really rework the graphics and mean what we say OR
5. We could back off the hype on this one and respect the gamer's intelligence by focussing on things that really ARE worthy of PR.

[Zanzin]

Hmm, the old gameplay vs. graphics argument again. My personal take on the issue is that gameplay is more important. BUT....graphics are still very important. And when a company comes up with the kind of piss poor graphics we're seeing at the moment, its disappointing, and will detract from gameplay.

As for people, like splangy, who claim these graphics we're seeing are old...how do you know that? Admitedly, we don't know they're not old, but we don't know they're not knew either.
Going on the way Firaxis has handled doing civ3 (I'm still very angry about the lack of real stacked combat), it wouldn't suprise me if they think these graphics are acceptable.

Th only good thing about them is the colour coded units. I know others don't like it, but I think it's a good thing - it gives your units a bit of uniqueism over ones from other civs. That the French are bright pink is fitting

I noticed the most detailed and beautiful art, animations and sound ever found in the genre bit in the interview. This is obviously Firaxis' way of covering themselves and saying its okay if they do crap graphics, because they'll still be better than what we've seen previously (although I think CTP1/2 still looked better than this).

The reason for all of this - everyone at Firaxis is obviously blind. There's no other logical explanation.

[To_Serve_Man]

Originally posted by yin26
I bring this up again because "Sid" is expressly hyping the graphics at the best ever for TBS, which is just a plain lie. I don't care particularly that the roads are floating since I know that will be fixed. What I care about is the ENTIRE LOOK of the thing, which almost nothing but a total re-haul and -re-thinking at Firaxis will fix.

Ok, I understand your reasoning for this now. But still, think of what CAN be done, compared to what we really want to be done. First off... I deny the fact that Civilization is a Turned Base Strategy. Its more of a, Turned Based Real Time Strategy . I'll explain. Turned based strategies have much more complexity, while being simple. Examples of this; Diplomacy, Risk, Stratego (i spell that right?). We all know and love these games. Simple, yet very deep. Civ3 isn't really like this. Civ is Age of Kings (or now, more appropriately Empire Earth) in turned base form... its simple and stays simple. 'Build your empire and win!' sort of deal. So what do we have to work with here. Since Civ3 really does not have a genre anymore (by my words) let me give my thoughts on why the graphics are acceptable and why. First, how can a 3 demensional game's graphics be applied to a 2 dimensional game? Its probably easy, and you could talk up and down my ear about how to do it. But do we want to?. My answer is no. Because 3d games today are all about reality. About making their games look so lush and real. Civ3 does not need this. What Civ3 needs are graphics, that make easy to play and understand. That means contrasting colors. We don't need 50 shades of grassland, or 186 forest types that change with the climate. What we CAN do, is have one, two, or three different forest types. This makes it simple and lets us understand what we see. Another thing 3d games sell on is how detailed everything is. Those details are nose rings on your units, shoe laces on their feet. We don't need this in Civ3. The detail we need is to create a simpler, quicker game, buildings show up on the city icons on the map. Units now have color bans so we don't need shields or flags.... Yin, how can the Entire Look be the best? The only way they can be the best is if they are better than the last versions. Both in function and ease of use. We cannot allow ourselves to compare oranges and apples. If all you want from the graphics is for them to be more appealing to your eye, then is that truly better?

Your third item on how this post is constructive still boggles me. I am still young, and have little to no experience with the corporate world. But what I see, your battle against a companies PR department is not going to do anything. Its a battle were only one army showed up on the field.

The second item I save for the last... can you truly prove that the fans are not idiots? Who was it that said 'The Masses are A**es'? I know that many of us don't want to believe it. I don't. But aren't we being a little ignorant to say that if Firaxis cannot give us the world in Civ3 plus more, than its worth the dirt on the floor? This is not a insult to all the posters here on Apolyton... i really mean it. Because the graphics don't need the next GeForce card. What makes a Corvet or BMW better than a Dodge LeBaron?. I don't think its the color. The difference in graphics from Civ2 to Civ3 may seem small, but here, less is in fact... more.

[Sabre2th]

Yin: We've already heard your complaints/warnings/whatever. There have been God knows how many arguments about this stuff. We know you're worried, but let up a little until we get some information.

[Miatezhnyi]

Originally posted by Warm Beer
Now I do not have that large of a gripe with the Civ3 graphics, as a whole (Oh yes, there is room for improvement...) But there was something in the interview that rubbed the wrong way:

"CVG: Is Civ III sufficiently different from previous incarnations to feel like a new game, even to veterans of the series?

Meier: Yes! With all of the new and updated systems we’ve put in Civ III (like the enhanced trade system, the new concept of culture, greatly expanded diplomacy, more powerful combat and the most detailed and beautiful art, animations and sound ever found in the genre"

I too found this to be the worrisome. I can live with the graphics as presented (though there is room for improvement, esp. the floating roads), but I don't want Civ3 to be a completely different game than Civ2, an improved game yes, but not a completely diffferent experience.

[Sabre2th]

Originally posted by Miatezhnyi


I too found this to be the worrisome. I can live with the graphics as presented (though there is room for improvement, esp. the floating roads), but I don't want Civ3 to be a completely different game than Civ2, an improved game yes, but not a completely diffferent experience.

I would guess that it will play mostly the same way, but with a different feel (hopefully a better feel)

[Jeje2]

Well, Yin has very good points...

The graphics seen sofar just aren't good enough. (To_Serve_Man: Have you seen CTP2-graphics? It's a very similiar game and I currnetly would prefer them after just comparing screenshots.) Cann't say at this time which one I do want to be locking at for hours and hours during gameplay.

Like someone has said here, yes I do hope FIRAXIS has (or will make) better graphics somewere. But the ones we have seen are just lousy. (Road, rivers, citynames, etc.) FIRAXIS has spent some time in making the units move in 3d. Why couldn't they also fix the map to look a little more like 3d? What do I mean, well let's take an example road+forest. Now it looks just like a line above the forest. How should it be then? Well, why not make a hole in the forest for the road and make the hole a little vider than the road so we can see most of it. (If we cann't see the brown road all the time - does it kill?)


Now when SMAC was released we complained a lot about the darkness. Finally they did something to lighten things up. Let's hope we can by this thread affect before release this time...

Why do I belive that what we have seen could be final? Well, the other screens (diplomatic, city) look pretty good to me already. I don't think they need so much work anymore if any. I can live with them. But the mainmap screen needs work - and it needs it badly. (Com on, it's what we will be locking mostly at.)

Yin: Do you have complaints on the other screens? (diplomatic, city, etc.)


Back to Yin's message.
If FIRAXIS will stick to the graphics that we have seen sofar, they really shouldn't emphasize so much on the graphics-map. Civ3 has many better aspects to do real PR for.

[Sabre2th]

I think these are just old graphics/placeholders. I believe that they have done/are doing/will do some updating.

[Nemo]

"Civ III delivers visual realism like never before."

"...and the most detailed and beautiful art..."

Made me almost pee my pants I was laughing so hard when i read these statements. It was at this point I realized that either Sid is clueless about CivIII or that the interview was a fake

[yin26]

Your battle against a companies PR department is not going to do anything.

Obviously I disagree. A PR department (a good one anyway, so maybe you have a point regarding Firaxis) WILL guage how their 'carefully crafted words' are doing with the public. I want to make it damn clear to ANY Firaxis person comes in here that their PR is horrid and insulting.

So, they can keep up the same PR or change. Of course, to keep it going the same would be to so doing realizing more than a few fans can see right though the garbage.

Silence, however, WOULD help perpetuate this crap. This is why I particularly find funny the motto the "Realists" seem to like so much, which is basically: "IF we can't fix it, it ain't a problem." Well, feel free to bury your heads thinking you can't make a difference. You are obviously resigned to playing any slop thrown at you, and there's nothing wrong with that in and of itself, I suppose. Too bad you'll be helping drag down the rest of us who have much higher expectations.

[Grumbold]

Splangy, thanks for the blind optimism but every time they post a new interview referring to beautiful graphics and match it with those same screenshots, your arguement gets weaker. Every interview they crow about the same stuff. Every time they seem to conveniently forget that TBS games have evolved in the five years since Civ2. The only truly unique item that will first appear in Civ 3 is culture. Everything else has been tried out in different ways in SMAC, CtP, CoNW, Imperialism, HoMM etc yet they seem stubbornly insistent that these titles either never existed or were graphically inferior and introduced nothing of any worth.

I really really want civ3 to be the best strategy title ever. So far they are falling far short of proving it.

[splangy]

Re: Leave

Originally posted by H Tower


if your so negative splangy, why don't you take your abusive posts elsewhere where no one else has to see them. yin never did anything to you. why don't you just ignore a thread if yin created it. we are constructive pessimists, not barbarians who attack others for having a different point of view!

im not negative, and yin didn't do anything to me. its what some people call "creative criticizm"

[splangy]

Originally posted by To_Serve_Man
I mean come on guys. I can understand being skeptic about stuff.... but now its like you guys are being lazy. Its a known fact that Destruction is easier than Construction... and all you guys can think of is how sucky the graphics look (which has already been brought up by Yin.. infact this is the second time Yin is complaining about graphics with a second post... your starting to repeat yourself!) anyway, try being constructive.... Look at this game, Steel Panthers. I played it, its was fun, graphics sux. I think Civ3's graphics are better than this... even with a defective road.

Aaah pooh, i dont know how to get images up.. and I gotta go to work, no time to fiqure it all out. Anyway to see those horrific screenshots, go to: http://www.gamesdomain.com/gdreview/...98/sp3-02.html

I'm just doing the same thing Yin is..

listen to this man, he said what i said but quicker and with better punctuation