Is this true? I mean I guess it's pretty hard to get anything lower than an 80 metacritic these days, but I never knew that

Eve Online has been out since 2003 and the developers are starting work on the new DX11 graphics for it this year. So soon we will have full DX11 tesalation in that game and new ship skins/ models. So yes changing the in game graphics once live even can be done. As for the gameplay and mechanics SOE changed SWG over night from a good sandbox MMO to a horrible clone of WoW over night. So yeh mechanics can be changed for better or worse as well I guess.

All things considered we still have nothing concrete to go on how this will play or look. Its still speculation.

Do not understand the cartoony comments, do not see anything more cartoony here than in Skyrim. WOW is cartoony, main reason is art style and graphic limitation 10 years ago.
Yes it looks like the character poly count is to low, but has not seen enough screenshots to judge that, the few I saw looked better than this.
The landscape look good, monsters look ok.

The characters' hands are larger than normal.

What's meant here, I think, is that there's no grit to it, it's not the dark/grim looking style that we're used to seeing. It looks too flowy/bouncy it's hard to describe really. It just doesn't fit.

His biggest gripe seems to be graphics.
Who cares about graphics?

ya its horrible, you can put any fantasy MMO GUI on top of that screen and you wouldn't know what it is.

i recognized one of the magazine screens (what appeared to be windhelm) straight out of skyrim.

in any case, art isnt what sets TES apart imo.

I care about the graphics, at least there they could have pushed the envelope.

That mock-up of the screencap of TESO with World of Warcrafts' UI over it is priceless. Says a thousand words, too.

Art style is probably more Oblivion than Skyrim, might also make some sense, hard to add Skyrim level of details to an much larger world.
However I think the landscape in the picture look decent enough.

Yes I agree about the hands, they are to large, saw it in another picture to, however I wonder if it's the gloves who does it as hands in other pictures look good except one who looked even worse but that might be the camera angle with hands towards camera.

Not graphics, style. As an example, Oblivion looks better than Morrowind on a technical level, but many complain that it's bland vanilla fantasy stuff. In contrast, Morrowind has a very unique visual style but its graphical prowess was crappy even by the standards of its release date. I'm not angry that the game looks kinda cartoony. I'm angry with the fact that if they weren't labeled as such, I wouldn't be able to identify half the screenshots in the GI preview as belonging to the Elder Scrolls IP.

each games had rather wildly differing style though.

And as far as being unique and attention-grabbing, Morrowind definitely stands out above and beyond every other game in the series, spinoffs included. Oblivion was vanilla fantasy. Skyrim was fantasy with a strong Nordic flavor, but nothing we haven't seen before. I'm using it to illustrate a point. TESO looks rather generic and bland, not to mention the fact that it seems to adopt some rather stupid aesthetics, like angular bright-colored mage robes and cleavage-exposing plate armor. It doesn't look like TES to me.

It is most likely already in development. I expect TES VI in 2016-17 and Fallout 4 in 2013-2014

id say much of morrowinds "attention grabbyness" came more from the weird landscapes/creatures rather than its art style (fairly realistic). i agree though that the clothing looks off.

x2, This!

*raises hand*
Graphics are essential - It's like the bricks on a house. They're not an integral part of the structure like the foundation or framework, but no one's going to buy a house with no or very poorly made and laid bricks

On-Topic: this article more accurately sums up The Elder Scrolls Online, IMO: http://kotaku.com/5907797/the-first-screenshot-of-the-elder-scrolls-online-sure-looks-like-world-of-warcraft

I see it differently.
The gameplay is the cake. The graphics are the icing.

You can have the most beautiful and delictable icing crafted by master bakers, but if the cake is a stale brick, it doesnt do much good.
However a moist and delectable cake covered by mediocre icing is a bit of a shame, but no real gourmet offense.

I dont care about graphics. Not one bit.

But, as has been explained above by another poster, its the art style that is in question here and not so much the quality of the graphics.
I dont really know, the art style seems Elder Scrolls to me, but some people dont like it so your mileage may vary.

i had kind of the same reaction to skyrim... "this doesnt look elder scrolls, looks like fallout". but i got over it.
and it kinda reminds me of daggerfall a bit.

People claiming to not care for graphics are in my mind clueless. You'd play an MMO with Tomb Raider 1 graphics, then?

If the answer's no, then you have been proven wrong and the 'graphics don't matter' argument to be [censored].

I think what you mean to say it that if the game's gameplay is rubbish, then good graphics can do little to save it. However, as long as the gameplay is solid, then the graphics can make or break a game depending on what genre it is. People will play Minecraft or 8-bit Mario for hours, because such games do not need to immerse you - or rather, their type of immersion comes from the pretty colours and mesmerising gameplay. An RPG is somewhere where you will spend potentially several years, and truly need to be immersed in order to ( a ) believe in the world put before you, and ( b ) appreciate the world. Imagine Skyrim with Daggerfall graphics, peee-eeew.

We have a difference of opinion here - we could spend hours debating it, but I highly doubt that either of us will change our minds.

I wanted to reply to the portion of your post I've quoted: I don't mind the graphics in the screenshot. They look fine, and I certainly didn't expect Skyrim-quality graphics. I don't NEED overly amazing graphics - vanilla Oblivion is still beautiful to me.

My problem with the MMO graphics is that they don't say 'look at me! I'm an Elder Scrolls game!' like they should. They say 'I'm your stereotypical MMO.' instead. I had high expectations for this MMO, and the screenshots we've been given don't meet my expectations.

Yup, and their previous article (linked to at the bottom of this one) is even more damning.

Hate to see it happening to this company, but devs have to learn that they just can not get away with copy/pasting and then slightly advancing and tweaking WoW's mechanics and visuals anymore. It's damn near verging on plagiarism anyway, but most of all we just want something new in this genre. And from a TES game, we want a TES art style and TES gameplay mechanics.

Amazing that it even has to be pointed out really.

I dont think its as important to change each others minds as to understand each others viewpoint.
Viewpoints are all subjective. To come to some sort of objective meta I like to try and understand how other people see things.

I dont have much experience with MMO's so for me it cant really say 'generic MMO style', as I have nothing much to compare it to.
I understand that you are dissapointed but I have to say, I got a tingle when I saw a kagouti in a screenshot. Even more of one when I saw a Dunmer riding a giant bug. There are also Ayleid ruins to remind of Oblivion and Ive seen what I believe to be Illiac Bay architecture as I thought it looked very Daggerfall.

well what says elder scrolls game?
http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/13509-the-elder-scrolls-daggerfall-dos-screenshot-the-king-and-queens.gif

http://openbytes.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/morrowind_031502_003.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0pZoXurW7CA/T0oUVizDJ8I/AAAAAAAACQQ/AA-nj5pyKQA/s1600/The+Elder+Scrolls+IV+Oblivion1.jpg

http://manatank.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Skyrim-Village.jpg

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