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Dark Souls II - Graphics Comparison - PC Preview
- Thread starter fluffydelusions
- Start date
Beerman462
Member
Man I guess the over the top rage and hyperbole in this thread is a testament to the new found popularity of the Souls franchise. The PC version looks great, but after watching the Giant Bomb QL I'm curious to know exactly how the lighting works. Apparently there are some sconces that still produce dynamic lights and some that don't. The torch produces dynamic lighting and I think the lightning weapon effect does too.
Drakendodertje
Member
Ah, at least someone seems to have found the shade of grey in all of this.
Not to be vocal about the false advertisement would be making it too easy for them. To deprive yourself of a great game because of it would be making it too hard for yourself.
I'm all about principles. I haven't eaten a piece of meat in over year because of the way animals are treated in the bio-industry. I will continue doing so, even though i love meat like nothing else in the world. But these are serious matters.
In the end, videogames are not. They are there for you to enjoy to play, and for the studios to enjoy to make. DSII seems to succeed at both. Let it.
I think it's pretty terrible attitude as well, and reveals a lack of willingness to learn or understand more about the game development process and a lack of respect for the long hours developers put in, particularly during crunch. There is valid disappointment and principled stances on marketing that I may not personally subscribe to in this particular case, but when baseless hating gets thrown into the mix it just devolves into irrational and, dare I say it, lazy criticism.
DrROBschiz
Member
All of the trailers on Steam look like retail to me
rasberryjam
Member
On their podcast, they mentioned that the build in their quick look wasn't the review build. So it's possible that small stuff like that could be fixed for the final build.
My body is so ready for this game. I traded some TF2 items for the steam pre-order, and I'm thinking about requesting the 25th off from work to play it.
I feel like the last 2 months have just been killing time waiting for this game to release on PC. It's been torture avoiding the PS3 version this long. If it's bad... it will ruin me.
I feel like the last 2 months have just been killing time waiting for this game to release on PC. It's been torture avoiding the PS3 version this long. If it's bad... it will ruin me.
People were being ridiculous for bitching out over the graphics in that game. Slightly less so for this game since they've used them as actual marketing material.
But if the only bullshots currently being used are on the official website, which honestly no one is really going to go to, then I'd say this controversy should basically be over.
I'm making the point that at the end of day, it's an excuse whether it's possible to get the lighting back or not. It doesn't matter anymore. The premise was there repeatedly, the final product doesn't have it on any platform, the developer and publisher lose face. That's how it works.
The reasons: don't matter
The feasibility: doesn't matter
We don't get lighting: doesn't matter
The toothpaste is out of the tube, so to speak. There is no reneging on press materials. Please, for the love of god, if you show things early then just say they're not necessarily representative of the final product - or don't show them. If you do anything else, you deserve all the backlash, case closed, lock and key, end of story.
DrROBschiz
Member
Nothing major
We have the final game folks
The TGS/April Reveal will remain nonexistent from here on out.
Time to get back to criticisms pertaining to the Actual game now.
Im not sure what else there is to discuss.
Does the blame truly rest on From/Namco, or journalists?
Since around early January, both From and Namco have been fairly upfront with what the game looks like. They have showed up at all trade events with playable demos, footage, and screenshots from the retail game.
This was seen by hundreds upon hundreds of journalists and not a single one asks or mentions the missing lighting system?
From hasn't been disingenuous, just not exactly transparent throughout. Should they have said something? Sure, but Japanese culture being what it is and hindsight being 20/20 I don't exactly blame them.
We deserve a better class of journalists, and everyone deserves to play the excellent Dark Souls II. Don't let a little miscommunication come between you and the sequel to one of the best games of all time.
Just going to post this again as no one picked up on it and I think its an interesting piece of discussion.
Since around early January, both From and Namco have been fairly upfront with what the game looks like. They have showed up at all trade events with playable demos, footage, and screenshots from the retail game.
This was seen by hundreds upon hundreds of journalists and not a single one asks or mentions the missing lighting system?
From hasn't been disingenuous, just not exactly transparent throughout. Should they have said something? Sure, but Japanese culture being what it is and hindsight being 20/20 I don't exactly blame them.
We deserve a better class of journalists, and everyone deserves to play the excellent Dark Souls II. Don't let a little miscommunication come between you and the sequel to one of the best games of all time.
Just going to post this again as no one picked up on it and I think its an interesting piece of discussion.
This looks like the retail game to me.
List some that put it right in the options menu, then. Actually exposing SSAA isn't all that common in recent years; the only games I can think of that directly display it are Guild Wars 2, Battlefield 3/4, and Arma.
Huw_Dawson
Member
It's not outside the realm of possibility that modding teams will step up to improve the graphical appearance of the game down the road. Given some of the really bad stuff in bits of DS2 I hope that happens.
It isn't. It's pretty obvious tbh. You can tell by the graphical fidelity and the different design of FoFG. (And other details but those two are sufficient to be able to tell)
I don't think it's unreasonable to take FROM and Namco to task for talking a big game then not being able to deliver, especially when they seemed to be trying to draw as little attention to the fact as possible until close to launch. Some transparency about the sacrifices they had to make prior to launch might have mitigated the backlash.
It's not though as it has more dynamic lights and more detail, but to be honest it's not advertised as gameplay footage representative of the final product either. Stupid thing not to say, but hardly worth all the fuss.
DrROBschiz
Member
LOL bullshit
The steam trailers are retail. You are splitting hairs with those. Those look nowhere near as good as the Reveal and TGS which is what people ACTUALLY want.
Wait what? The only gameplay trailer I see is the E3 one, which is definitely not retail.
Agent_4Seven
Tears of Nintendo
Well, I will not be playing the game before someone bring life to the game's world and by that I mean dynamic lighting and shadows and of course at least 2048x2048 textures with parallax occlusion mapping and a bunch of other stuff.
The game must look like this and not like lifeless piece of crap with some shitty static lighting and without a single shadow on PC:
I really love Souls series but I can not dive into this new world without proper lighting, shadows and so on. PC can handle the new engine which was demonstrated a year ago, why in the hell they not using it? I really hope that someone will fix this crap.
The game must look like this and not like lifeless piece of crap with some shitty static lighting and without a single shadow on PC:
I really love Souls series but I can not dive into this new world without proper lighting, shadows and so on. PC can handle the new engine which was demonstrated a year ago, why in the hell they not using it? I really hope that someone will fix this crap.
DrROBschiz
Member
No when you make sweeping changes as such, it's worth the fuss. This isn't exactly piss filter grade clamor.
I see one E3 gameplay trailer, 3 CGI trailers and two blank ones.
DrROBschiz
Member
Locomotive Breath
Hollow Lullaby
Cursed
All show Retail footage from what I can see. Then there is the VGA trailer and some blanks for me
How did you manage to love the old ones? They don't have "proper lighting" either.
SargerusBR
I love Pokken!
Does Gamersyde have direct footage of PC version in 60fps? Blimblim pls.
I don't know how anyone would love playing Skyrim in the way he posted screenshots of either. Playing with those shitty shaders makes the game impossible to see, let alone enjoy.
I was referring more to the fact that they have showed the changes, but for some reason the steam page is missing the most recent trailers. Basically the only things that can be proved to be wrong are the old screenshots littered around the internet, some store pages not having most recent trailers and an older screenshot in the box art. Is that all really worth the fuss when they've also shown the actual footage in dozens of previews?
Is this a joke?
The game does have dynamic lighting in many of the locations, but some of them are still turned off due to console performance concerns. Hopefully they will come back in the retail build or a later patch.
Why do people keep using False Cause fallacy to compare one port to others? Comparing a port to something from Bethesda with their near unlimited budget is not really relevant.
Weird. I can see videos with the following names:
E3 trailer (Go Beyond Death)
Reveal Trailer (CGI)
Cursed Trailer (which just shows a CGI trailer)
Hollow Lullaby (which shows the same video as the Cursed one)
I think my steam page is glitched.
Agent_4Seven
Tears of Nintendo
Well, the first Dark Souls looks much better on PC with the fix, as for Demon's Souls... I do believe that it looks much nicer than DSII in terms of lighting and shadows.
Nope, this is not a joke. PS3/X360 can not handle the new lighting engine and they will never turn it on.
From already has much better lighting engine than Bethesda in Skyrim (I'm using RealVision ENB, that's why the game looks much better).
It seems to me that POM is so under used in games in general, I feel like I see more of it in my custom minecraft texture pack than in most game ( even recent AAA games ). Flat textures everywhere, it's sad.
SargerusBR
I love Pokken!
The page here only shows the VGA reveal trailer and the E3 trailer, i'm in South America though, that might be it.
Have you watched the PC version? It has shadows flying all over the place. Too many, really.
Anyways shadows don't really make the game any more fun. Seems like if you can only handle playing games with modern PC level graphics you must have been an extremely unhappy gamer up until the last couple years.
DrROBschiz
Member
Well then the different trailers in different regions kind of falls in line with how marketing was fragmented globally
Narrative fits.
Well, I will not be playing the game before someone bring life to the game's world and by that I mean dynamic lighting and shadows and of course at least 2048x2048 textures with parallax occlusion mapping and a bunch of other stuff.
The game must look like this and not like lifeless piece of crap with some shitty static lighting and without a single shadow on PC:
I really love Souls series but I can not dive into this new world without proper lighting, shadows and so on. PC can handle the new engine which was demonstrated a year ago, why in the hell they not using it? I really hope that someone will fix this crap.
This is an incredibly dumb post. I can't tell if you're joking.
You have unrealistic expectations with your requests. And there is some dynamic lighting still. You can't really like the series that much if this is turning you off of buying it completely... it's the best looking game in the series, by the way.
Definitely worth re-posting, it's a shame these reasonable thoughts get swallowed by all the hyperbolic "lies" and "deception" and "lazy devs".
jim2point0
Banned
I did think that. They did say time and time again that PC was the "lead platform." There was a delay for the PC version which was the "lead platform." The Steam screenshots did not look as good as the old demo videos, but were still very promising. So yeah, there was PLENTY of reason to believe that the PC version would look significantly better than the console versions (rather than just higher res).
Once the steam screenshots were removed, I had a feeling the PC version was downgraded into console territory, but I still had SOME hope I guess. But not a lot. Most of my hype had already been killed off.
mentallyinept
Banned
Thank you for this post.
Managing expectations is extremely important, especially when dealing with the enthusiast base, and From/Bamco failed to do so properly.
I find a deep irony in all the people casting aspersions on the guys at From accusing them of being "lazy" or "deceptive" and then claiming some moral high ground and not buying the game because of their facile judgements.
From an ethical point of view, I find it way more abhorrent to casually judge hard working people in a situition you know nothing about than the removal/down grade of some lighting engine. The "monster" is not someone who releases a game that has downgraded graphics. The "monster" in my view is the dude who doesn't know shit about what he is talking about and calls people working 80+ hours a week lazy or scammers.
And they got their backlash. Let's hope they learn their lesson from some gaffers waiting for a sale and they are more careful about marketing next time, and let's move on to enjoying an amazing game.
Agent_4Seven
Tears of Nintendo
They don't look as good as they should, especially if you compare the very first footage with the final version.
Of course not, shadows and lighting is nothing to do with the fun, but they make the world more realistic and immersive.
I don't think that DSII is the best looking game in the series, but with the new lighting engine it might be ... on PC at least.
Damn, why did they showed the new lighting engine a year ago?
Except the game does feature dynamic lighting.
All versions have dynamic lighitng, From does have it turned off in some areas to save on console performance. Hopefully From turns on the missing areas for the PC release, builds we have seen thus far are labeled 'preview,' or a later patch.
You are the first person to acknowledge it lol, I think you are right about the overwhelming hyperbole at this point.
Damn. This is more of a super slam than the other post.
Orthogonal
Member
I think people are getting lost in a lot of verbage and the confusing PR. There is a lot of dynamic lighting in the game, even on the consoles, but it seems that in the original previews it was only dynamic lighting. However, the final retail release seems to be a mix of dynamic lighting/shadows and a lot of pre-baked lighting which is the source of much consternation. The pre-baked lighting changes the atmosphere and look of the game and more importantly, impacts the gameplay because certain area's and scenarios no longer work the way they were originally presented to us.
DrROBschiz
Member
The entire game was downgraded as one entity
There is only ONE game. The assets that we saw before we likely dropped and scrapped altogether
Did they say that the PC version was anything more than "base" and "considered from the start"? I never took that as FROM saying the game would push hardware far beyond PS3/360 territory (outside of the usual IQ and framerate improvements). Maybe I'm missing some interviews or something.
Krusenstern
Banned
Judging by all the screenshots and videos I've seen from this game this doesn't look to be the best looking game in the series. Dark Souls has far more consistent graphic quality and looks overall better than DkS2.
They most likely never existed at that fidelity beyond the demo that was shown. It's not something they simply "turned off". If they had the whole game at that fidelity, they would have released it as such.