Stranger (not verified) on February 2, 2007 - 06:57.
You are so wrong about Vanguard it's not even funny. Vanguard's world design SCREAMS atmosphere and is the best I've ever seen and I've been playing games where "worlds" existed since the red and white nintendo (yes, there were RPGs with massive worlds on that console, one of my favourites depicted a classic chinese legend). Anyway, the atmosphere and feeling from travelling in Vanguard actually takes the boredom out of travelling as it exists on EverQuest, EverQuest 2 and World of Warcraft. Vanguard is a game where I could have fun just walking around. The screenshots you selected from Vanguard shows your bias. One is of a freaking farm, where humans have done something to the land to make it viable for crops, and it's been infested with ants. The entire screenshot is filled up with this plot of land. The other screenshot is taken on a sandy beach kind of site. Players actually travelling THROUGH the world of Vanguard instead of looking at biased screenshots knows that Vanguard's world feels like an actual world - with rivers, lakes, beaches, mountain passes, cliffs, dams and forts overlooking miles of forest. Climbing up the mountain to the dwarven stronghold of Bordinar's Cleft is a journey in itself, for instance. In comparison, the WoW screenshots looks like a 2d texture pasted on a plane.
And I've read your comments on EQ2 (I was looking for something related to EQ2 and that is why I found this place). You kind have to be blind not to be able to tell the difference between an active versus an inactive icon, or maybe your monitor settings are bad. I have my own complaints about the game, but your comments continually show bias and a lack of knowledge.
Have you actually worked with the NWN2 toolset? It's broken, very broken. As for that person, it is a good thing to notice the world around you, and certainly not a bad thing if a game tool caused him to have such a relevation, but the toolset is a radically different thing than the worlds that are created. Your attempt at comparing a world created in Vanguard to a tool for creating a world is illogical due to the nature of the two being different fails to illustrate your point properly. (That is like saying the Mona Lisa sucks because the paint they had couldn't produce the same effects as Photoshop filters and brushes, because Photoshop is "art.")
A toolset isn't immerson. It's a tool. Maybe I'll come back in a few years and see if your reasoning skills have developed more.
Re: Judging games in five minutes
You are so wrong about Vanguard it's not even funny. Vanguard's world design SCREAMS atmosphere and is the best I've ever seen and I've been playing games where "worlds" existed since the red and white nintendo (yes, there were RPGs with massive worlds on that console, one of my favourites depicted a classic chinese legend). Anyway, the atmosphere and feeling from travelling in Vanguard actually takes the boredom out of travelling as it exists on EverQuest, EverQuest 2 and World of Warcraft. Vanguard is a game where I could have fun just walking around. The screenshots you selected from Vanguard shows your bias. One is of a freaking farm, where humans have done something to the land to make it viable for crops, and it's been infested with ants. The entire screenshot is filled up with this plot of land. The other screenshot is taken on a sandy beach kind of site. Players actually travelling THROUGH the world of Vanguard instead of looking at biased screenshots knows that Vanguard's world feels like an actual world - with rivers, lakes, beaches, mountain passes, cliffs, dams and forts overlooking miles of forest. Climbing up the mountain to the dwarven stronghold of Bordinar's Cleft is a journey in itself, for instance. In comparison, the WoW screenshots looks like a 2d texture pasted on a plane.
And I've read your comments on EQ2 (I was looking for something related to EQ2 and that is why I found this place). You kind have to be blind not to be able to tell the difference between an active versus an inactive icon, or maybe your monitor settings are bad. I have my own complaints about the game, but your comments continually show bias and a lack of knowledge.
Have you actually worked with the NWN2 toolset? It's broken, very broken. As for that person, it is a good thing to notice the world around you, and certainly not a bad thing if a game tool caused him to have such a relevation, but the toolset is a radically different thing than the worlds that are created. Your attempt at comparing a world created in Vanguard to a tool for creating a world is illogical due to the nature of the two being different fails to illustrate your point properly. (That is like saying the Mona Lisa sucks because the paint they had couldn't produce the same effects as Photoshop filters and brushes, because Photoshop is "art.")
A toolset isn't immerson. It's a tool. Maybe I'll come back in a few years and see if your reasoning skills have developed more.