[Gambini]

ah poll how many use the HRP

[LkMax]

To be honest I only don't use the HRP because the high-res models look awkward on the original animations.

[MusicallyInspired]

Just like to say that my appreciation and nostalgia with late 90s graphics doesn't mean game companies are taking advantage of me. Completely disagree with you, Altered Reality. If game companies really can put less work into a game and still have it look nice (which I think it does) then there's no advantage taken. Incidentally, I don't think how much visual quality that is put into a game is directly proportionate with how much they should charge for it either. If their game is good and functions well and is fun they should be compensated for succeeding in making a good game. Graphics aren't everything.

By your definition Notch has been taking advantage of people for four years now. Even though people play MC for the enjoyment it brings and the possibilities it brings to the table that no other game can provide.

Personally I think games that excel in graphics and look amazing but are repetitive and shallow are the real advantage-takers here.

Strafe doesn't look bad and its graphics don't suck. It has an aesthetic that is pleasing (though obviously not to you, which is fine). It doesn't look just terrible, though. I actually believe there was some thought put into it rather than just making some low-poly models quickly and cashing in. There is actually some consistency put into the design. If there was no thought put into it at all it would be a mishmash of conflicting styles. I think it looks great. Outdated, but stylistically great.

[ReaperMan]

Altered Reality, on 17 August 2014 - 10:19 AM, said:

The creators of Strafe are trolling you...

Only troll i see is you.

[MetHy]

Altered Reality, on 17 August 2014 - 10:19 AM, said:

- Duke3D: looks good (FOR ITS TIME), plays good, sounds good = excellent game.

This summarizes everything wrong with your reasoning. But I've already said that : you only see the technical aspect of the visuals. But I've said it before ITT, and I've had this discussion a thousand times with people who think like you, and it never changes anything so I'm sorry if i'm not going to bother.

But I'll explain my point of view so perhaps you can understand it if you open up a little bit. According to you Duke Nukem 3D looked good "for its time". So it stopped looking as soon as what, Quake came out?
Well I think Duke Nukem 3D looks great. It always looked that way and it will always do. The fact that nowadays games have 3D models with billions of polygons, 10 times more pixels and a dozen different post-processing layers on top of it, concerns those games, but will never change the way DN3D looks.

So it still looks great, and that's because there isn't just the technical aspects to what makes visuals of a game.
Both art direction and the technical aspects are linked together into what makes the visuals of a game. Even if your art direction is "let's be as realistic real life as possible" it's still an art direction and you're going to make choices.

Oh and fuck it, i'll stop here. Sorry but I've had this discussion in what seems a thousand times and it never changed anything on either side so why bother.

[Altered Reality]

MetHy, on 17 August 2014 - 11:00 AM, said:

But I'll explain my point of view so perhaps you can understand it if you open up a little bit. According to you Duke Nukem 3D looked good "for its time". So it stopped looking as soon as what, Quake came out?

Actually, when Quake came out I was like "WTF is this? Everything is brown, all environments are closed, I cannot do anything but run and shoot... Duke3D beats Quake on every possible aspect!"
The first time I thought "This game looks better than Duke3D" was when I downloaded the Quake2 test demo in late 1997. Later, I downloaded Quark and started experimenting with it, making a Quake2 map that was partially inspired by Hollywood Holocaust, and partially inspired by the 1997 screenshots of DNF. If you're curious, here you can see some screenshots. Can you spot all the little things that could not be done with Duke3D? Knowing that I could make certain architectural designs there, which couldn't be done with the previous "best-looking game on the market", actually excited me. It made me feel more free to express my creativity.
I still thought that Duke3D played better, though, because it already came with many interactive objects, while in Quake2 you had to script everything from scratch. And Quake2 did not have a Use key, which was a big step backwards with interactivity. That is something that Duke3D still did better.

MetHy, on 17 August 2014 - 11:00 AM, said:

Well I think Duke Nukem 3D looks great. It always looked that way and it will always do. The fact that nowadays games have 3D models with billions of polygons, 10 times more pixels and a dozen different post-processing layers on top of it, concerns those games, but will never change the way DN3D looks.

My point was that, when Duke3D came out, you probably did NOT think: "Oh well, it looks pixelated as shit, but it plays well, so I still like it." Absolutely not. You probably thought: "HOLY CRAP this is SO real! The environments are what you could find in real life, and they are so detailed! And they react like they would in real life! This is the best first-person shooter anyone has ever made!"
Back then, you were not "just happy" with that. Back then you wanted excellence, and Duke3D satisfied your craving. So, why ever stop craving for excellence, just because the bar is set higher?

[Lunick]

[MusicallyInspired]

There's nothing wrong with craving for excellence. There's also nothing wrong with going with a specific aesthetic style that just happens to not be realistic.

[OpenMaw]

Altered Reality, on 17 August 2014 - 04:49 PM, said:

Actually, when Quake came out I was like "WTF is this? Everything is brown, all environments are closed, I cannot do anything but run and shoot... Duke3D beats Quake on every possible aspect!"
The first time I thought "This game looks better than Duke3D" was when I downloaded the Quake2 test demo in late 1997. Later, I downloaded Quark and started experimenting with it, making a Quake2 map that was partially inspired by Hollywood Holocaust, and partially inspired by the 1997 screenshots of DNF. If you're curious, here you can see some screenshots. Can you spot all the little things that could not be done with Duke3D? Knowing that I could make certain architectural designs there, which couldn't be done with the previous "best-looking game on the market", actually excited me. It made me feel more free to express my creativity.
I still thought that Duke3D played better, though, because it already came with many interactive objects, while in Quake2 you had to script everything from scratch. And Quake2 did not have a Use key, which was a big step backwards with interactivity. That is something that Duke3D still did better.

My point was that, when Duke3D came out, you probably did NOT think: "Oh well, it looks pixelated as shit, but it plays well, so I still like it." Absolutely not. You probably thought: "HOLY CRAP this is SO real! The environments are what you could find in real life, and they are so detailed! And they react like they would in real life! This is the best first-person shooter anyone has ever made!"
Back then, you were not "just happy" with that. Back then you wanted excellence, and Duke3D satisfied your craving. So, why ever stop craving for excellence, just because the bar is set higher?

Because five dude's with a dream cannot make something akin to this era's Doom or Duke Nukem 3D. That has to be done by a large team. It is physically impossible to produce the content on par with top quality game design as a small team.

Choosing a less sophisticated, or perhaps more specifically focused, style can help cut down on the burden on small developers and allow them to produce far more content and at a reasonable price. I understand some of what you are saying, but it's not universally true across the board. People do not choose visual styles to be lazy. Well, okay, i'm sure some people do. Like the need to emulate minecraft every seven seconds is a little ridiculous(says someone who tried to do a faux minecraft mod for Duke3D at one point...). Point is, the guys working on Strafe look to really be trying to carefully capture the vibe of the mid-90s FPS. The webdesign is spot on, the visual style looks pretty accurate.

[Altered Reality]

Commando Nukem, on 17 August 2014 - 09:33 PM, said:

Point is, the guys working on Strafe look to really be trying to carefully capture the vibe of the mid-90s FPS. The webdesign is spot on, the visual style looks pretty accurate.

Pretty accurate, but only if someone wants to reproduce the worst things the mid-90s had to offer. Case in point, the website. There were already well-designed pages in the 1990s. Of course they looked different than now because the standards were more primitive, but they looked good. They looked like this, or this, or this. The Strafe website, instead, is trying to look like the homepage of a n00b who just discovered Geocities and doesn't have a clue about HTML.
How can we be sure that the game won't attempt to imitate the same style, trying to look like a jumble of levels created by a n00b who just discovered Worldcraft (remember that?) and doesn't have a clue about what makes a level good? In that case, the art style would only be consistent because, in the 1990s, a n00b mapper did not create new textures and models, using instead those already provided with the game, which resulted in a good art style (for the time), but a level design that even then was considered horrible. The presence of a level randomizer is a big warning bell about what they are going to attempt.

[MusicallyInspired]

Your opinion, like anybody's, is entirely subjective. You can't judge anything until they release something. There is no point in drawing conclusions. You obviously won't enjoy this type of game. Here's a solution: never buy it.

[LkMax]

Altered Reality, on 18 August 2014 - 04:22 AM, said:

Pretty accurate, but only if someone wants to reproduce the worst things the mid-90s had to offer. Case in point, the website.

Oh come on, the site is just a joke, and this kind of joke is nothing new either (remember Blood Dragon website?).

Altered Reality, on 18 August 2014 - 04:22 AM, said:

The presence of a level randomizer is a big warning bell about what they are going to attempt.

Again you're throwing the stupid "level randomizer means bad game" argument, when it was already explained that it's a feature to complement the handcrafted levels, not to replace them, so even if you don't like procedurally generated maps you can just ignore that option. IMO it's actually a good feature because it can extend the replay value of the game.

If that's a concept so hard to understand for you, search for games like Empire Earth and Soldier of Fortune 2 (both had handcrafted levels and random maps).

[Tea Monster]

Granted, most of the people on this site are timelocked into the mid 90's.

I disagree with your appraisal of the art style. I see where you are coming from and I can appreciate why you feel that way, but I don't think that it's just a nostalgic cash-grab. They have deliberately chosen a particular time and a style and nailed it with precision. Making good looking sprites is a demanding art form, and these guys can do it. They have not only done it, but painted this artwork onto a modern 3d game level. It's trying to be old, but it somehow manages to look fresh and modern. It does what it sets out to do very well and I think it does look beautiful. I don't think they are trolling, I think they are having fun with everyone's nostalgia at games like that. I'm happy to laugh with them and not think that they are laughing at me.

I don't think it matches the Donkey's tail analogy. I think it's more like Sky Captain - What the future *should* have been like, but viewed from a particular time. The art style is deliberately chosen and presented in a style that matches it's original inspiration.

There is a part of me that sees those screens and thinks that if they had made the original Prey, that it could have looked something like that. I don't think it would have looked this cool though. Yeah, it could be complete crap and the game play could suck, but I'm really looking forward to this.

[Mr. Tibbs]

Neat gore tech video.

[MusicallyInspired]

Geez that's a little much.

[OpenMaw]

Really does feel like Minecraft meets Quake or something.

[Frederik Schreiber]

This looks great!

I'd love to know whos behind it

[Lunick]

Some more recent stuff:

[Mr. Tibbs]

The Strafe team are launching a Kickstarter campaign this month. I hope they make their goal. A lot of game-related Kickstarters have been struggling recently. I'm definitely going to support them.

[Mr. Tibbs]

Excuse the double post. http://strafedevblog.com/

Quote

Here’s a peek behind the blood soaked curtain as to how we get such breathtakingly realistic visuals.

Kickstarter campaign launches in 3 days!

Quote

Revealing some gameplay, a secret level, a brutally amazing poster and the best commercial 1996 had to offer! We have some wicked sick surprises too.

[LkMax]

I don't get the first picture. Is it a "concept art vs ingame" picture?
Despite defending this game I'm not at all a fan of "retro" pixelated graphics like this and minecraft, so gimme the left one =P

[themaniacboy]

LkMax, on 17 January 2015 - 01:40 PM, said:

I don't get the first picture. Is it a "concept art vs ingame" picture?
Despite defending this game I'm not at all a fan of "retro" pixelated graphics like this and minecraft, so gimme the left one =P

I think they're working towards a higher level of detail like shown on the left of side of the picture.

[Mr. Tibbs]

Well, I think it's charming. Retro/throwback graphics are all about execution. Shovel Knight did a great job of recreating the era of 8 bit platformers (with a few modern tweaks, and a few extra colors) and the Strafe team are really nailing the look of early polygonal shooters without being 100% faithful to era. That would be dull and unnecessary. I actually think it's a clever move for an indie team. I'll always prefer a consistent, pared-down art style over another grotty, shiny UE 3 shooter.

[Duke of Hazzard]

Not fond of the art. Early 3D aged terribly and shouldn't be brought back. I'd sooner play a Build game over Quake because of that.

[Micky C]

Duke of Hazzard, on 17 January 2015 - 05:54 PM, said:

Not fond of the art. Early 3D aged terribly and shouldn't be brought back. I'd sooner play a Build game over Quake because of that.

That's because of the horrible/limited colours, jagged animation, and downright repetitive architecture. At the very least Strafe has avoided the first two problems and can easily avoid the last one.

[Lunick]

https://www.kickstar...rafegame/strafe

Strafe wants... $185,096

$25 for the game too...

[Mr. Tibbs]

[Duke of Hazzard]

Micky C, on 18 January 2015 - 03:11 AM, said:

That's because of the horrible/limited colours, jagged animation, and downright repetitive architecture. At the very least Strafe has avoided the first two problems and can easily avoid the last one.

Listing Quake's other flaws doesn't mean the models themselves weren't really bad. It was what was possible at the time, but the result was worse than Duke3D for example.

The only early 3D game I really like in terms of graphics is Descent, because the robots had mostly squareish designs that hid the fact they consisted of very few polies. But, especially in the consoles of the time, early 3D games look simply horrid to me, and highres texture packs don't improve them at all. I'd much rather have sprites or voxels than low poly models, even if sprites look skewed when looking up or down.

Now, when speaking of architecture, I think a 3D engine, however rudimentary, can achieve superior effects to Build's sector-based levels. It was wasted on Quake because Quake the game didn't have all the cool effects you could do in Build, though.

[Tea Monster]

That 'commercial' is the funniest thing I've seen in years. HOWLS of laughter!

[Mr. Tibbs]

Tea Monster, on 20 January 2015 - 12:55 PM, said:

That 'commercial' is the funniest thing I've seen in years. HOWLS of laughter!

It's awesome! The game directormakes commercials professionally outside of game development. Cliffy B, Ken Levine, & the guy behind Painkiller are all singing its praises on Twitter. Only cost him $1000! The guy is seriously talented. Puts other efforts to shame.