Guild Wars 2: Graphics

So. Guild Wars 2.

I'm still not happy with what I'm seeing of the human, norn, and sylvari female outfits, which are boobtastic and midriff-baring to an extent that just fricking annoys me (although at least in the case of the Norn, the guys seem to be getting a similar treatment, so I'll give 'em a pass on that race, at least), but let's put that aside for now to concentrate on the parts that I am decidedly not annoyed with.

Before I get into gameplay design things that are making me continue to be interested, let's tackle the other thing we've gotten a decent glimpse of: graphics.

Guild Wars was aimed towards a wide market of gamers rather than the bleeding-edge hardcore set, the ones who put a lot of their disposable income into upgrading and maintaining their machines. Given that and when the game was designed (the early 2000s, basically), it's not a surprise their graphics don't quite measure up to current standards, especially since MMOs rarely can afford (in several senses) to be quite as cutting-edge as their single-player equivalents.

The game is, don't get me wrong, full of very pretty terrain, good building design, and a number of interesting details. The designers also seem to have a fine sense of lighting, something I tend to notice particularly since a lot of game lighting feels very artificial. But as with any game, it had its flaws. Some of the terrain texturing, for instance, applied badly to larger objects such as cliff faces, where they look stretched or oversized. The lighting was overall good, but there were some sourcing problems—if you looked straight up, you could see where light beams started, for instance. Some of the detailing was also rather flat—literally so, such as in the case of a box of vegetables seen in some towns with a low poly count. There's also some other instances of very-nearly-2d graphics (certain weapons, plant pieces, and even a few special effects). And there's an odd alpha-blending issue with plant life and water as it interacts with hair and costumes on characters, both player and NPC.

With Guild Wars 2, they still appear to want to aim towards that mid-power gaming rig and keep the use of bandwidth, processing, and disk space to a reasonable degree, but what "reasonable" means has changed a bit over the years... and it shows that they've taken advantage of that. Normal mapping has definitely been used liberally, particularly in costume and armor design, and the base size of their textures has increased... probably from 256 to 512 square to double that, which can make a humongous difference. If the plants and water still cause alpha issues, it hasn't shown up yet in any screenshot or video. Particle effects were fairly good in the first game, but it's obvious they've got a bit more generous budget for them this time around, and it's equally obvious they've learned some new tricks on how to handle glows and lighting. The lighting, rather good in the first game, looks absolutely incredible so far in this one, and I've yet to spot any of the flaws I did with sourcing in the first game. And the details in the distance are decidedly improved.

Granted that all publicity materials no doubt show the game at its best, they have released actual gameplay video, and that usually gives a good sense of what the graphics will actually be like, at least at the top end. I'm sure there will be flaws here and there, because no one is perfect (and in any event, computers aren't quite powerful enough yet to render realtime, photorealistic scenes), but overall I think the graphics look excellent... even if they still like bloom a bit too much. :)

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