they shouldn't concentrate too much on the graphical side of the game, imo.

They should keep to a high standard of graphical shinyness, but concentrate more on the gameplay, the lore, the unique wildlife, the quests, etc. They shouldn't push too hard to have graphical peaks. They should advance the graphics when technology allows us to advance properly. That way, graphics slowly increase, but the game will always be packed with content.

Everyone is suggesting new methods of gameplay, new game engines, and new systems. But, no matter what, there's going to be a limit to what they can fit on discs. Even with the multiple disc suggestions, I doubt a game, for consoles aswell, will require 10 discs to install 40gb. It's just not fair to those who can't afford large hard drives. (let's not get into the console/pc bashing)

When we have 40gb discs freely available at decent prices, sure. Give us a photo realistic world. But don't waste everything on graphics. Also, the game looks far better when there's uniqueness to the game. imo, Morrowind looks far better than Oblivion because it's so unique and cultural. Looking good =/= high poly-count.


... I might take this to the suggestion thread

Actually they SHOULD focus on the graphics but not in the usual way, making them as pretty as possible, they should concentrate on what is important for the ATMOSPHERE.
With the current engine making large cities and ones that are really feeling alive and sprawling are nearly impossible, it's not even possible to have OPEN cities.
The main problem there is the "rendering invisible geometry" problem, this can be fixed by engine addons like Umbra, but if that isn't used you're stuck with the little completely walled of village-cities you saw in Oblivion.

Also shadows play a huge point in atmosphere. Oblivion didn't have any convincing shadows which killed a lot of atmosphere that could have been there, you had no really dark corners that had to be lit up.


They shouldn't focus on making the graphics pretty BUT they should focus on making them convincing and capable of actually handling the game world. Seeing a huge ruin just pop out of thin air is immensely immersion breaking.

Agree 100% with you. Realistic density and architectural shadows would enhance the game considerably as would better handling of LOD.

Morrowind handled all of this fine. I felt completely immersed there. Oblivion is an "improved" version of morrowind's system. Surely, they could have created all of this, but just chose not to.

They demonstrated cube mapped shadows on statics @ E3 and then ripped the shadow system out before release for 'performance' reasons. If they think no one cares about shadows these days they are wrong. Limited dymanic lighting (OB) does not compare to global baked or global dynamic lighting.

I remember those vids. If they ripped shadows (and AI) out before release of OB for performance. All they need to do is improve the efficiency of gamebryo. We all know it doesnt handle very well. Add these things with improvements back in plus some, and they'll have next gen graphics again. Yes again, MW did, OB also did, though the way people talk about it now makes it seem like it had crappy graphics when it was released.

Then again, we might see them add all this new stuff and rip it back out so it can "perform".

I like the graphics and all in Bethesda's games. The only real problems I have visually are the weird animations and the moon bounce gravity. If the gravity worked, it would be much better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfLIE7myH_Q&feature=related

Well newer games are using dynamic animations and 3D gridpathing so I would 'hope' Beth would get all this worked out. It bothers me that we didn't see engine upgrades in FO3 and apparently nothing new in FONV.

I really hope we can get better AI processing and such, so we can have more NPCs on the screen doing more complex things.

which shows the serious flaw in gamebryo and another reason i would actually rather wait a few years for the next game till the new consoles are released. if they release it in the next couple of years it will be severely gimped to run on current consoles to the point of being a last gen game, and remember we only get TES games every 5 years or so.

in a world that is supposed to be immersive graphics are seriously important, i dont know why people keep saying they dont matter. how many people when they first played crysis or far cry 2 didnt go "geez i wish oblivion looked like this" would anyone honestly be happy playing the next TES game on even a modified version of this engine for the next half a decade while watching other games become superrealistic. i want real time shadows all over, i want accurate physics, i want fireballs that *gasp* actually look like fire. i also want god rays, foliage textures that dont look so cartoony, water that refracts when im swimming under it and waves that break on shore, all thing that have been around for a few years now on other games.

i seriously hope that now that zenimax has acquired id software that they incorporate some of the idTech 5 technology if not just use the engine.

You my good man, laid it down right there. :thumbsup:

let them use whatever they want. Whatever can deliver better lightning, shadows and a proper animation system AND at the same time leave enough cpu power for gameplay stuff is fine by me. Hopefully it's not too long until we reach a full geometry (no billboards, no bump/parallax mapping), realistic physics, real time radiosity rendered world.
As for the immersion, you don't need photo-realistic graphics to achieve it. Other factors like AI influence it FAR more. TES V, being an open world game, is a very good opportunity for emergent gameplay, something achieved only by AI and gameplay mechanics.

Todd Howard has stated how important graphics are to him. Just because Gamebryo will be used for the next game doesn't mean TES V won't look amazing. Bethesda just needs to learn to optimize better. I love good graphics, and Gamebryo can still produce great graphics. If it couldn't, then I doubt it would still be used by a company that cares about graphical quality. Perhaps they could be using a newer version of Gamebryo or changing their current form so much that it doesn't resemble its original form. Either way, I'm expecting TES V to be beautiful.

I want you to tell me one simple thing:

Can Gamebryo cast light against an object, reflect that light onto the objects around it, create dynamic shadows by the objects affected, and CHANGE THE COLOR of all of the lights reflected by each object incrementally reflected upon the scene? All this while rendering RPG background elements?

No, and NO.

Gamebryo can do a lot of things but light in a realistic world and RPG- not a chance. If you want a 7 fps game, use Gamebryo. I don't want to lag like I've been stuck in a time warp.

A newer and/or heavily modified version of Gamebryo probably could. If it can't, then I'm not prepared to sacrifice Gamebryo's benefits for the style and mechanics of an Elder Scrolls game for realistic lighting. Gamebryo can do everything an Elder Scrolls usually has and more, including shiny graphics. Which other engines can do the same stuff as Gamebryo as smoothly as Gamebryo? Realistic lighting is no reason to use a completely different engine, in my opinion. Look at the graphical difference between Morrowind and Oblivion. Morrowind uses an older version of Gamebryo than Oblivion, but it's still basically Gamebryo. TES V won't be using the same engine Oblivion uses. It will be using an updated version or a new version. Both Morrowind and Oblivion had great graphics when they were released. Again, I ask why would Bethesda stop making good-looking games? Bethesda's fans are going to have to trust the developers. They aren't game developers(the game developers of Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3) because they don't know what they're doing.

On the topic of Gamebryo here's my ultimate question that so far has NOT been answered:

What the HELL does Gamebryo do???
So far there only have been a few points mentioned what it does NOT do but never fully explained what it DOES do, from all I got so far it could be tossed out entirely for a similar engine.

The next time I visit Tamriel, I want to escape my world, and if God Of War III can escape me better than TESV, there is a problem. Gamebryo cannot make real things appear. Show me a screen using gamebryo that looks as good as Crysis. Show me ONE GAMEBRYO SCREEN that looks as good as Invitritix... there is nothing that good.

I've got nothing, but Bethesda is most likely using Gamebryo for TES V and I've never seen an open world RPG using Crysis's engine. Can you show me one of those? Yes, I would love to see an Elder Scrolls game that looks as good as Crysis. Yet, I trust Bethesda to do whatever they're doing and I'm still expecting better graphics than God of War III to be in TES V. If Crysis' engine was so great for Bethesda, then why aren't they using it? They know http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cryengine3_screenshot.png would make their game a great success. Why aren't they using it, then?

There could be dozens of reasons, but the main reason is that the hot Gamebryo sales rep is giving the BGS CEO blwjobs once a week. Probably.

people seem to think that the background calculations going on for rpg elements is somehow mind bogglingly huge. its not. it takes far more horsepower to render graphics than rpg stuff. if that was the case then how come they had games like fallout and baldurs gate, arcanum etc. these games managed to have sophisticated background calculations at the same time tiny gerbils were drawing the character sprites on your screens. morrowind is the only game i can think of that choked on too many scripts in the background but with todays engines thats not even an issue anymore.

also there seems to be some worhipping of how well gamebryo handles the open world. i never stuttered once on far cry 2 even while driving around at full speed same with crysis on my new machine (my old computer cried when i played it on max). i also noticed significantly less pop up on the aforementioned engines than i do on gamebryo where with vanilla settings you get stuff popping in all over the place. thank god for mods and ini setting.

as for them using cryengine too be honest i dont know anyone that uses cryengine cause they charge tons of money for the licensing. the new unreal engine is much cheaper to use. you cant tell me that crysis couldnt be more easily adapted to run the background scripts than gamebryo could be adapted to use realtime lighting, global shadows, realistic water and particle physics. like i said im putting my hopes on using idtech 5 now that zenimax owns id software.

As fun as it is to speculate on all this about game engines, I think we really need a professional to describe the differences the engines have, and what can and cant be done with each. If we had the cost of how much each engine was that would be good too.

I dont see anyone with such knowledge posting on this thread any time soon

If gamebryo can keep up with the other engines, whats the problem with keeping it? We dont know what the next version will be capable of, it _could_ be capable of that dynamic lighting or w/e. You dont know! I think by the time we see video/screenshots of TES:V we can judge for ourselves whether Beth is making the right decision to stick with gamebryo.

I don't know a whole lot about the power of engines, but I do think I know a fair bit about the power of art. Oblivion's art was great in some places, but horrid in others. Primarily the NPCs. It doesn't take thousands of polygons to make a good-looking face. It just takes a good approach. Focus more on better, higher-resolution textures than the number of polygons. I once worked with a ~4000 polygon model which looked way more impressive than Oblivion's models. Why? The textures.

Another thing that brings the world to life is animation. Compare Oblivion and Fable 2, and you'll see where I stand. I have personally animated better characters for use with the Unity 3D game engine.

As flexible as the engine can be, the way characters are handled is horribly rigid.

It doesn't take a whole lot to make the best of an engine. I'm not so much concerned about which engine they use as much as how it's used.

But aside from that, if the graphics can be amped up, by all means, do it! Just don't sacrifice smooth gameplay.

Most of what you see in Crysis is Speedtree, combat AI, and some good multipass rendering. The code is efficient. Good. But Crytek 'isn't' dealing with:

Handling both 1st and 3rd views
NPCs with routines
Time of day lighting
Complex interiors
Changeable armor/clothes and extensive inventory
Economics
Handheld weapons
Bows
Factions
Wildlife
Quests
Books
Complex spells with effects
...

And as far I know the best Gamebryo examples I've seen are the http://www.emergent.net/en/Multimedia/Videos/Coldwood-Tech/ and the http://www.emergent.net/en/Multimedia/Videos/Emerge-Video/.

The thing is, poly counts don't amount to the way a game looks. For now, there should be more concentration on light. Oblivion can look amazing with the right lighting. There needs to be darker caves, more emphasis on light, the need to use a torch, and dull nights.

Imo, even Morrowind can look better than Oblivion with the right light.

I don't care what engine they use for TESV as long as we can mod the game as extensively as we did Morrowind and Oblivion.