[img]http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/bethesda/elderscrolls/online/black-marsh.jpg[/img]

This screen shot tells me alot. I have played the top 5-10 mmo's for at least 6months each, at least. Some for a few years, some for twice that.
The first thing I notice about this ESO Screen shot is not ("Omfg it looks great, or OMFG how dull") what generic - ignorant conclusions.

The first thing I notice about this (Very respectable looking world at a glance) is the poly count.
The person who built architechture of this scene Does a pretty respectable job of squeesing detail out of the polygons he uses.
Many MMO builders think ("Omg crank the polycount to double, it looks so amazing") but that leads to one thing.
Shi$$y performance. its the sign of a truely unskilled game editor.

Take EQ2 and World of warcraft for example.
World of warcraft can be said to look "Cartoony" but many of their higher - deeper zones are far from cartoony. the ammount of detail they produce for the ammount of polygons used to shape the world is second to none.
Eq2 onthe other hand, long long ago, hired unskilled model - map crafters who thought that the key to high quality was tripple polycount.
I just purchased new PC hardware six months ago, and still cant run that game on Max, without load lag as I traverse.
Sure, you can set the game to High-medium-high. but once you lose the polish of eq2 graphics, it quickly looks much worse than any other mmo out there.
SWTOR map design was just bad. so dull. If your a sheep that walks up and just says "Oh wow.. look at the graphics". then you probably were satisfied with its quality.
but if you can see an inch past that, you quickly see how dull the entire game is.

This screenshot shows a ton of great features.
Notice the castle on the hill. it looks pretty @#$# respectable. an interesting enough place with nice detail.
but the polycount is under control. there arnt tons upon tons of useless curved polycount copy and pasted all over the structure in hopes of making the bland boring look less dull.
which is the sure sign of the noob designer. (Boring design, omg paste 50 objects into it to make it look less dull).
Even though thats the basic idea behind Elder scrolls map creation, the only reason its put into place like that for elder scrolls is due to the nature of the ammount of content.
Its two different uses. so its not the same thing.

Notice the staircase. great detail, without an excessive ammount of polygons trying to capture -omg tons- of organic feeling, like curved surfaces.

there is a time and place for organic - shaped - overly polycounted content. but in general its as bad to performance as high quality 3d shadows.
It can be done, IF you know your limits.

This photo shows a great progression of content quality vrs polycount.

The tree for example. Looks pretty decent, enough to look unique in its random pasting. but the polycount looks under control.

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You can predict alot about a game based on two quick things.

Polycount qualities and character animation.

If the designers cant handle dance animations with a great fluidity.. be prepared for some crappy hand plotted attack - run - swim - etc etc animations.
bad and dull.
Just because they can import mo-cap animations doesnt mean they know what they are doing either.

But you can usually filter out the baddies by those two quick details.
Polycount quality and subtle character animations.

Take the Wow Griffon vrs the eq2 griffon. The World of warcraft griffon is IMPRESSIVELY fluid animation (from what, like 8 years ago).
the eq2 griffon (which newer and --higher resolution--) the animations of it are horrible. you can tell they were hand rotated into wing animation.
so bad. the entire body of the griffon is as rigid as a stone, except for the flappy @$$ wings. the entire body of the Wow griffon on the other hand, its entire body flows with motion.

Half of the people out there can't see past the -omg resolution, its so beautiful-. but the real quality of a product lies behinid that.
I cant see animations for ESO (Something bethesda has been notoriously bad at) (as in BAD BAD at).

So far Im liking what im seing of ESO.

I just hope the ruleset of the game isnt bad.



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I wonder if they learned anything from SWG, or if they did not. SWG had alot to offer a game like Elder scrolls online.
the mix and match classes system.
the amazing community...
the amazing player housing.

I wonder if bethesda is blind, or took note of the qualities that god people hooked for years.

as horibad as Star wars galaxies was. there was one thing it did.
Addicted people with its real world encorperations.

Well great post. I didn't notice anything about polycount. I was just like ooh pretty as you would probably put it.
Nice to know there is really a quality team working on this.

Well said Dragonsfist. I'm really liking the latest batch of screens.

Would you mind explaining what a polycount is? I googled the term, and something about Team Fortress 2 came up.

poly: as in 'many'
count: as in 'one...ah, ah, ah...two, ah, ah, ah...'
JK, I have no clue. Must be some pixel terminology. But this guy sounds serious!

It is a lovely screenshot for Black Marsh.

@berzelius, nowadays, items in games consist of polygons. The Polycount refers to the amount of polygons. If a game has to render very high amounts of polygons, performance drops might be seen unless local hardware is up to the task.

The amount of polygons in a model. More polys means more detail and smoother curves, but decreases performance.
Edit: Bah, ninja'd.

Polycount basicly means how detailed a 3D object is. Simply put, a 3D object consists of 2 things, a texture (the visual appearance of the object) and a "mesh" (the shape and size of the object itself).

So when he's for instance talking about a "high polygon gryphon", you could think that every feather on the beast was modelled individually, with loads of edges and corners, instead of using one large plane surface, which you apply a partly transparent texture to which then looks like individual feathers - when they're actually not.

In comparison, the polycount could look like this.
High poly gryphon: 50000
Low poly gryphon: 500
(roughly)

All that cuts into your performance, since the low-poly gryphon loads a lot quicker than the high poly one.

Polycount means how many polygons (or triangles) were used to create a mesh. It's what makes an object 3D. A texture is then laid on top of the mesh.

That tree for example (which looks [censored] hideous to me, after playing Skyrim), you can see really jagged looking branches. A low number of Polygons will create that effect, since the polygons are always flat triangles. Make the triangles smaller, and increase their number, and you're able to create smoother curves and surfaces. So a tree with a high polycount wouldn't have visible jagged branches. http://www.the3dstudio.com/product_details.aspx?id_product=571074

The OP is arguing that since the game uses a low polycount while achieving its art style, it will be much better for performance. Western MMOs often take that approach these days, to ensure the game will run on old hardware, and therefore increasing its target audience. The downside is, that my modded copy of Morrowind looks better than this screenshot of TESO. It's only a big issue if you love graphics though.

Love all this computer talk. Here's something I know about- http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2tjmceQ7y4M/TECYw4RXG8I/AAAAAAAABLM/UpY0mwvGCBg/s1600/death_of_a_porygon.jpg. So many of them!

Actually, that's a fantastic example! Porygon has a low polygon count, because you can see all those jaggies making up his body. http://img.pokemondb.net/artwork/porygon2.jpg however has a high polygon count, since he's a significantly smoother model of the same Pokeman.

Wow... My whole perspective of Pokemon has been knocked down... http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4iewqPAv61rtlovno1_500.gif

The amount of detail the artists and environment designers have put into this game is truly a testament to their efforts and determination to make a truly believable and immersive world. Regardless of one's own opinions of the artistic direction ESO is going, it's truly an impression view for an MMO.

ZOS hasn't fed me anything new today...I'm starving.

as an utter tech noob I can only say the screens look amazing

as an artist I love how the level layout invites exploration and the colors let the eye wonder.