• Synapse
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    3822 days ago

    Who cares about photorealism ? Artistic direction just has to be consistent to contribute to the world building. Other than that, I think many will agree with me that most important are: good writing (characters and story arcs), good gameplay, creative concepts.

    • @novibe@lemmy.ml
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      922 days ago

      I think he means as a style, they aim for a “realistic” style. Not that they will sacrifice anything for “graphical fidelity” or smth

      • Synapse
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        222 days ago

        Well, realistic graphics are costly and time consuming. If development time and budget is spent of photorealism, it’s not being spent on game mechanics or additional stories.

        • @gerbler@lemmy.world
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          322 days ago

          Eh stylized assets aren’t necessarily easier or less time consuming than PBR. It’s not difficult to make a game look realistic these days at least to a reasonable amount of scrutiny. Also this is a large developer with a lot of funding so EA isn’t going to cut corners in the art department with one of their flagship IPs. You also can’t just reallocate artists to work on mechanics, these are entirely different departments and the process of hiring/firing workers dynamically doesn’t gel well with a production pipeline.

        • @novibe@lemmy.ml
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          22 days ago

          Not photorealistic, realistic. So normal proportions, faces, textures etc.

          Like I’d argue Golden Eye is a game with a realistic art style. It is as realistic as the technology allowed at the time. But it clearly tries to emulate the real world, and not a fantastical cartoony world or a woodcarved illustration, or anime etc etc.

          The comment from the ME guy is probably in response to Dragon Age Veilguard being much more cartoony than Inquisition. Characters have huge heads, textures are flat and stylised etc.

      • @Cyberspark@sh.itjust.works
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        121 days ago

        Except the complaints about Veilguard are about the pixar-like characters with very little expressiveness. So even if that were what he meant he’s still actually not addressing the real issues

  • @it3agle@lemm.ee
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    2022 days ago

    I think it’s weird they’re so focused on the art style of the project, if it’s well done the art style really doesn’t matter that much.

    The larger issues I’ve seen reported with the new Dragon Age are around the game design and writing, but BioWare haven’t got a lot to say on that subject.

    • @ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      622 days ago

      Lots of people just hate stylized graphics. I don’t really understand the hate, as they tend to be more timeless than more realistic styles. Also it’s a weird statement from someone representing a franchise with multiple stylized aliens.

      • The Bard in GreenA
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        21 days ago

        They could actually make this work.

        • Have a recruitable Volus biotic warrior who you pick up in a nightclub and has romance dialog options.

        • They go hang out in some big room on the ship, like a cargo hold.

        • If you choose the romance options, more Volus just start showing up on your ship with no explanation. Like the next time you go in the cargo hold there’s another one, then two more, then you start seeing them in the mess hall, engineering, medbay…

        • There’s either dialogue options to ask what’s going on (and kick them off the ship) OR there’s more romance dialog options, but you can’t do both!

        • If you keep choosing romance options, they eventually all show up in your room at the same time. It turns out that when Volus take a new partner, their whole extended polycule is allowed to vote on whether or not they approve of the new person being added to your dynamic. There’s a whole scene where you and your new partner have to lobby, bargain and plead for them to include a human. Maybe whether they accept you or not has to do with other choices that you’ve made.

  • Rolivers
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    721 days ago

    There’s going to be a next Mass Effect game?