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[EatinOlives]

If it's really a design decision because pitch black didn't work, he'll definitely have something to say about this, possibly even with footage to compare, since he had access to previous builds.

The changes King's Hall or whatever it's called with the thunder cannot possibly be a design decision. The art style actually looks better in the demo and in no way affects the visibility of the area.

 

[John Rabbit]

I remember reading that the feedback FROM got from the players was that this area was too dark but FROM said they would keep it this way anyway.
It seems both sides have changed their minds

maybe the only reliable media that FROM released were the screenshots

how disappointing. Dark Souls has such an overly flat lighting scheme (compared to Demon's) I was looking forward to getting back into some super dank/dark locales with the sequel.

 

[koryuken]

It's at least a little different because you haven't paid for the game yet and can choose not to buy it based on this new information.

Still extremely disappointing. The graphics look so cheap and unconsidered. I wonder if all of the lighting had to be sacrificed for their dumb exaggerated cloth physics that are now on every single enemy. Just a bunch of monsters wearing trash bags.

Unfortunately, I did buy it from PSN (digital download) a few weeks ago... so i feel a bit cheated.

 

[Valnen]

https://twitter.com/EpicNameBro/status/442770307917815808

Hmm..

He doesn't sound too negative.

 

[Gbraga]

The changes King's Hall or whatever it's called with the thunder cannot possibly be a design decision. The art style actually looks better and in no way affects the visibility of the area.

Oh yeah, definitely.

 

[Grief.exe]

https://twitter.com/EpicNameBro/status/442770307917815808

Hmm..

Marcus going to have something interesting to say I am sure. He has been more connected to the development on this one.

 

[Ghazi]

Nailed my pre-order down for this today, fortunately I can't play until the weekend anyway so I'll leave it wrapped until they give reasoning about this.

 

[Busta SMurk]

If it's really a design decision because pitch black didn't work, he'll definitely have something to say about this, possibly even with footage to compare, since he had access to previous builds.

Yeah. I remember in the beta, and even I was guilty of this, adjusting (upping) the brightness and contrast up was pretty common.

Maybe FROM was like: 'We'll they are circumventing part of the challenge now, what's to stop them from doing this at release?' and 'lets drop this lighting/torch element, and balance the design/gameplay without it.'

Even if it is against their original scope/plan. I mean, plans change and adapt all the time.

I dunno, I'm just being hopeful here.

 

[Zomba13]

https://twitter.com/EpicNameBro/status/442770307917815808

Hmm..

Will probably just end up being the nice new lightning cost too much to have throughout the whole game so they scaled it waaaaay back. Maybe game ran like shit outside the areas that had already been demoed so they just took it out everywhere and that is how we will understand. Because with it the game would be like blight town everywhere.

 

[SonyToo!™]

Not that I believe Scamco's at fault here as I haven't been following the situation, but From owning the IP just means that Scamco can't use it as it desires; as Scamco is footing the bill for the game's development it has the final say on any related matters.

I didn't know that, I thought it was all or nearly all FROM's own money spent on production. Considering the high costs of production (DS2 is a full on AAA game unlike it's much cheaper prequel) kind of explains it all.

Even down to the Pre Order DLC which looks like whatever FROM dev made them hated what they were doing.

 

[Fbh]

it's a 2014 pc game, of course it's gonna look dumpy on decade old console based bbq sauce.

The problem is that it looks quite bad ever for console standards. You know if it looked worse than promised but still like it was pushing the consoles then it would be fine.

But not only does it look at lot worse than what they had shown, it looks bad in general.

Have you seen the witcher 2 on 360? Yes the PC version looks much better but it's still a nice looking 360 game
Or you know, tomb raider, Crysis, metro las light, battlefield 4, etc, etc.
Yest all those games look much better on PC but they look nice enough on consoles.


PS:
And yeas, I know the Souls franchise has never been known for its graphics. But still, pre-release footage made it look like on top of having great gameplay it would also have nice graphics now

 

[dynamitejim]

Well how does the retail build compare to the beta test? The beta area had some really dark areas you couldn't navigate without a torch. Did they change those in the final version?

 

[Gbraga]

I think that the lack of PC footage and the fact that it ran on PS3 before are the puzzling parts of this. Other than that, it's easy to just accept it as a necessary downgrade for performance, but man, I watched some PS3 footage and it doesn't run too well, the lighting would kill it, which would be a perfect reason to drop it, but what about the demoed sections?

If we had PC footage and it showed the lighting, then it would also be solved: consoles can't handle it and PC was the main platform, so it's only there, but then again, they demoed it on PS3.

It makes no sense.

 

[Soriku]

Yeah. I remember in the beta, and even I was guilty of this, adjusting (upping) the brightness and contrast up was pretty common.

Maybe FROM was like: 'We'll they are circumventing part of the challenge now, what's to stop them from doing this at release?' and 'lets drop this lighting/torch element, and balance the design/gameplay without it.'

Even if it is against their original scope/plan. I mean, plans change and adapt all the time.

I dunno, I'm just being hopeful here.

It was less than two months ago when Tak Miyazoe said this:

http://www.edge-online.com/features...reat-adventure-of-the-ps3-and-360-generation/

“I don’t think that we’re going to make it any brighter, but we do understand that there are dark areas,” Miyazoe says. “The cave is pretty much pitch black if you don’t have a torch, but that’s part of the gameplay as well. After playing it ten or 20 times, you’ll start to memorise how the path goes and then you won’t need a torch.”

And if fear over Dark Souls II’s accessibility got the better of you, just ask Miyazoe what to do if you find yourself torchless in a deep, dark place far from a bonfire. “Um, you’ll die?” he laughs. “There will be critical moments where you are forced to choose between the shield’s protection or vision, but there are other gimmicks when you know the way. There’s a stone object, which doesn’t have a name yet, but it’s a big stone face on the wall. You place an object in its mouth and it might trigger some lights to go on. So if you find yourself in the dark for hours and hours, there’s probably something you’re missing.”

Changing things at literally the last minute seems really odd to me.

 

[Metroid-Squadron]

Well how does the retail build compare to the beta test? The beta area had some really dark areas you couldn't navigate without a torch. Did they change those in the final version?

Yes, they're filled with grey lighting now.

 

[Zomba13]

“I don’t think that we’re going to make it any brighter, but we do understand that there are dark areas,” Miyazoe says. “The cave is pretty much pitch black if you don’t have a torch, but that’s part of the gameplay as well. After playing it ten or 20 times, you’ll start to memorise how the path goes and then you won’t need a torch.”

And if fear over Dark Souls II’s accessibility got the better of you, just ask Miyazoe what to do if you find yourself torchless in a deep, dark place far from a bonfire. “Um, you’ll die?” he laughs. “There will be critical moments where you are forced to choose between the shield’s protection or vision, but there are other gimmicks when you know the way. There’s a stone object, which doesn’t have a name yet, but it’s a big stone face on the wall. You place an object in its mouth and it might trigger some lights to go on. So if you find yourself in the dark for hours and hours, there’s probably something you’re missing.”

"Or we'll just make the whole game lighter and throw out the work on the new lighting engine lol idk."

 

[Kai Dracon]

The problem with the graphics quality argument remains that if From had anticipated problems with the lighting system, they could have built and textured the levels traditionally as Demon's and Dark Souls.

Screwing with the lighting at this late date affects the art direction.

 

[Alcoholikaust]

Yes, they're filled with grey lighting now.

doesent look terrible

edit:

 

[UnrealEck]

Taken from the 60 FPS trailer (what people assume is the PC version, or at least was.)

 

[John Rabbit]

doesent look terrible

doesn't look like the beta either. it's completely flat lighting.

 

[Valnen]

doesent look terrible

It kind of does compared to what we were shown earlier.

 

[soontroll]

doesent look terrible

That's the spirit!

 

[Orthogonal]

doesent look terrible

Except that room used to be pitch black without the torch. Unable to see anything. Now you can see all the way to the end of the hall and any enemies that reside. The torch mechanic and the additional cost of giving up your left hand is now worthless in this section.

 

[Gbraga]

Is it possible that the game is running the lighting but for some reason it's not displaying? I guess it would be the only thing to explain the performance not being so great but at the same time they being able to demo it on PS3 with no problems.

 

[Zomba13]

Taken from the 60 FPS trailer (what people assume is the PC version, or at least was.)

I wish more devs would be conservative in their estimates. If we saw the retail (downgrade) version instead of the fancy version we'd all be like "Yup, that's Dark Souls. Can't wait!". Instead we were like "Wow! Dark Souls got good looking! Look at the nice lighting!" and we were never gonna get that.

 

[Metroid-Squadron]

Taken from the 60 FPS trailer (what people assume is the PC version, or at least was.)

Sneaky bastards.

 

[KarmaCow]

Taken from the 60 FPS trailer (what people assume is the PC version, or at least was.)

You can find that on pretty much any pre-release footage of any game.

 

[Gbraga]

Yes, in case they shipped a beta.
Dead Island docet.

What if they did though? And that could be the reason for the embargo. Couldn't finish it in time, preparing day one patch but need to save those preorders.

I don't know, just trying to come up with some optimistic bullshit.

 

[Valnen]

Is it possible that the game is running the lighting but for some reason it's not displaying? I guess it would be the only thing to explain the performance not being so great but at the same time they being able to demo it on PS3 with no problems.

One could hope it's just a bug but that's doubtful with the texture downgrades as well.

 

[SonyToo!™]

I think that the lack of PC footage and the fact that it ran on PS3 before are the puzzling parts of this. Other than that, it's easy to just accept it as a necessary downgrade for performance, but man, I watched some PS3 footage and it doesn't run too well, the lighting would kill it, which would be a perfect reason to drop it, but what about the demoed sections?

If we had PC footage and it showed the lighting, then it would also be solved: consoles can't handle it and PC was the main platform, so it's only there, but then again, they demoed it on PS3.

It makes no sense.

This poster makes a good educated guess imo

What im guessing is that at some point, they extracted a "slice" of the game to a different build.

Then a team at FROM worked on that Demo build while the rest kept working on the main game, at this point, both versions were missing the stuff missing from the retail version.

The team working on the Demo build, added tons of details, and activated the lightning/shadowing stuff from their new engine, made it stable and finalized worked on it to be showed to the press.

But that stuff never made it back to the Retail "branch" if you will, for some or other reason, maybe that team came back to optimize code, or finish other areas, etc.

Its the only reason that makes sense to me, because what artist would knowingly take out some of the stuff the GIFs in the previous pages show, stuff like the water splash of the boss when he jumps, how expensive can that be?

Also worthy to note that they made this in the past, The Painted World of Ariamis in Dark Souls 1 has tons of minute details that arent so prevalent in the rest of the game, because that was the first area they made, so it was kind of a tech demo/playing ground for testing gameplay and the engine.

Wasn't vertical slice also possibly to blame for Watchdog-gate too? My guess is the pressures of being inbetween gens makes these sort of demos problematic.

 

[Alcoholikaust]

It kind of does compared to what we were shown earlier.

That's the spirit!

Except that room used to be pitch black without the torch. Unable to see anything. Now you can see all the way to the end of the hall and any enemies that reside. The torch mechanic and the additional cost of giving up your left hand is now worthless in this section.

sarcasm gentlemen

 

[kayos90]

I'm still of the opinion that the PC version will not have the dramatically better lighting.

 

[SlasherJPC]

https://twitter.com/EpicNameBro/status/442770307917815808

Hmm..

From what I understand, he has been playing the game for awhile now, and if I recall right was even helping with the guide book. I wonder if he played a version with all the effects in, and during his playthrough perhaps noted so many different issues that they took note and changed some things towards the end. I mean it's probably a far grasp but you never know. Looking forward to seeing what he has to say about it.

 

[Gbraga]

I'm still of the opinion that the PC version will not have the dramatically better lighting.

Oh, me too, I'm more curious than worried to be honest. I think the game looks great, so even with the downgrade it doesn't affect me that much, but there must be an explanation for this.

 

[Alcoholikaust]

I'm still of the opinion that the PC version will not have the dramatically better lighting.

because it wont :/ it will have better textures and resolution- evetually a better framerate and thats it

 

[soontroll]

sarcasm gentlemen

You never know. There have been a bunch of people who have been seriously saying the lighting looks better in the retail version.

 

[zewone]

jeez

OK. This one hurts.

 

[kayos90]

Oh, me too, I'm more curious than worried to be honest. I think the game looks great, so even with the downgrade it doesn't affect me that much, but there must be an explanation for this.

To put it rather simple and conceptually the DkS Engine 2.0 doesn't work on current gen basically so they're running the game off of DkS Engine 1.0 with improved lighting. Note that you don't simply downgrade a project to a previous engine at the very end of development. I was being extremely simple in detail.

 

[Albo]

I wonder why they didn't consider a PS4/Bone port to avoid these technical limitations. Even Tanimura last year said himself they felt last gen was capable enough, but it doesn't look like it now.

"We feel the current-gen's potential is still viable and we want to deliver Dark Souls 2 on current-gen."

From Software hopes to push the capabilities of the Xbox 360 and PS3 with a new engine, which offers improved visuals and, Tanimura says, will "fix" the original game's frame rate problems.

On the bright side, given the graphical state, there's more chance of them doing a PS4/Bone version to improove graphics+performace now that both consoles are selling well. I'm sure fans will make their voice heard on the matter.

 

[KarmaCow]

I'm still of the opinion that the PC version will not have the dramatically better lighting.

Part of me does hope it will have better options, but really I'm not even expecting significantly better textures either. It will probably be like the first game, where the game always had parts with great detail but was hidden away by the low image resolution.

 

[kayos90]

I wonder why they didn't consider a PS4/Bone port to avoid these technical limitations. Even Tanimura last year said himself they felt last gen was capable enough, but it doesn't look like it now.

Most likely they couldn't optimize the engine and the game to run on current gen. They ran out of time.

 

[SilverBullet]

"Having finally made it to the demo boss, the Mirror Knight, I was hit with a little bit of subtle trolling from the game. For each time a player died, a candle would be lit in the bonfire room before you faced the boss. My character was born in the darkness, but by the time he reached the Mirror Knight, the light from all those candles was blinding."

http://www.lazygamer.net/genre/rpg/e3-2013-dark-souls-2-broke-me/

I'm calling it people. This is like the bell tower in DkS. The light will change with server activity.

 

[Metroid-Squadron]

https://twitter.com/EpicNameBro/status/442770307917815808

Hmm..

Under NDA. Namco doesn't want any talk about downgrades before the game is released.

 

[SonyToo!™]

As Matt Lees talks about in his recent YT vid, I shall be talking most reviews with a pinch of salt as there is too many conflicting interests that might take the teeth out of a critical review.

I'm still highly looking forward to ENBros' opinion though as he is the man for an informed opinion on Souls as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Gbraga]

"Having finally made it to the demo boss, the Mirror Knight, I was hit with a little bit of subtle trolling from the game. For each time a player died, a candle would be lit in the bonfire room before you faced the boss. My character was born in the darkness, but by the time he reached the Mirror Knight, the light from all those candles was blinding."

http://www.lazygamer.net/genre/rpg/e3-2013-dark-souls-2-broke-me/

I'm calling it people. This is like the bell tower in DkS. The light will change with server activity.

Why would ENB need to wait for the embargo if it was something that was already covered on previews though?

 

[kayos90]

Why would ENB need to wait for the embargo if it was something that was already covered on previews though?

Extensive coverage of the game is embargoed for all personnel. Period.

 

[threetri333]

Meh on the console graphics, how's the music? I loved it in Dark Souls.

 

[Alcoholikaust]

You never know. There have been a bunch of people who have been seriously saying the lighting looks better in the retail version.

eek...who? how?
even the mighty Durante cant unfuck this cluster

 

[Gbraga]

Extensive coverage of the game is embargoed for all personnel. Period.

A video, sure, but just a tweet would be enough. "They were playing offline, that's why". Problem solved.

 

[Grief.exe]

Yes, they're filled with grey lighting now.

Cries