SE5 screenshots ugly?

[Captain Kwok]

I wouldn't worry Kev, most complaints I've heard are directed tend to be complaints about brightness, jaggy models, or UI colour etc. I know that most people will be thrilled by the quality of the component images - I know I was.

[Renegade 13]

Kevin Arisa said:
I never figured it looked that bad to some people. I've been working very hard on SE5 weapon and planet graphics. I know that those in charge of other graphical divisions have as well. All one can give is their best, nothing more.

Don't worry about it, those of us who have actually seen the graphics in-game are really happy with how they look.

[Fyron]

Well, other than the general shininess and bubbliness of the UI...

[Renegade 13]

Imperator Fyron said:
Well, other than the general shininess and bubbliness of the UI...

Yeah, with the exception of the UI. However, component pictures, etc. look great in my opinion.

[Noble713]

For many people, myself included, the level of immersion in a game is directly related to how realistic the graphics look. If the characters on my screen feel fake I won't have as much fun playing the game. I'll take Oblivion (agreed it's not as fun as Morrowind and clearly dumbed-down for the Xbox 360 crowd, but it's BEAUTIFUL) and KOTOR 1&2 over Kings Quest 3 and Zork any day.

As for performance issues and upgrading systems: get with the times. If you want to purchase and play new games, expect to get new hardware to run them. Fortunately SE5 is easy to mod, but I can already see the outrage when mods start coming out with beautiful, high-poly ship models that cripple the performance of the P2-300MHz 64MB RAM systems running in software mode that seem to be all the rage amongst the turn-based game grognards.

And to snip any possible counter-arguments about the gameplay in such mods probably sucking b/c the modders spent too much time on graphics: there is a HUGE wealth of easily available 3d starship MESHES for the more established sci-fi universes. A good 3d program (like 3DS Max) and a DirectX .x exporter plugin, and having quality ship models takes virtually no time at all.

I love Space Empires, I've been playing since a friend loaned me Space Empires II waaaay back in 8th or 9th grade, but I'm glad the series is finally being dragged into the modern era of gaming.

[TurinTurambar]

Edit: cleared out by /me.

[Suicide Junkie]

Personally, I prefer the iconic look, to the more "realistic" renderings.

The point as I see it is to know what the thing is, even just out of the corner of your eye so that you can make your strategic decisions, not to stare awestruck at various works of art until the turn deadline expires.

[Phoenix-D]

If you think X-Com looks better than SE5 you haven't been looking close enough.

Rome can have many thousands of units on-screen because Rome cheats: there are actually at most 160 "units" on screen at a time. The thousands of little soliders don't have any actual bearing on the combat, so you don't have to worry about their position quite as much.

Still a very slick engine, though.

[Suicide Junkie]

Phoenix-D said:
Rome can have many thousands of units on-screen because Rome cheats: there are actually at most 160 "units" on screen at a time. The thousands of little soliders don't have any actual bearing on the combat, so you don't have to worry about their position quite as much.

Unfortunately, as I have noticed, that game dosen't worry enough about their positions.

In multiplayer, me and my brother end up playing two different games as soon as the first shots are fired.
On one computer, the general dies from a catapult shot. On the other, he just got tossed on his butt and gets back up.
On one computer, the player's whole army routs, and on the other, it wipes out the enemy.

And the combat replay is a totally random third view.