Hey guys. A team of developers and I are creating a fantasy-ish MMORPG, and we wanted to know your opinions on a high(realistic)-poly game versus a lowpoly game. Please vote to help us decide what players prefer.
Awesome gameplay/mechanics over visuals is what i would say, hi vs low poly is totally irrelevant to me since itâs about the composition - High resolution/poly doesnât automatically mean beautiful visuals, it can still look like donkey.
Im sorry but Im not going to cast a vote given the current set of options.
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@Apparaten has the right of it. If your gameplay is anything less than stellar, forget it.
Make a good game first, a pretty game second. Put differently, Learn from how FFXIV 1.0 failed.
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This is your second thread, or maybe the other one is your second thread, asking others opinions on your MMO.
Making an MMO is very excitingâŚbut not easy. You better be deeply committed to your design. Instead of asking others, sit down with your team and see what everyone wants. Go learn about other MMOâs, the audiences of those games, what people like and donât like. Do a lot of research.
Then decide what you want, because YOU will be committing a lot of time and several years to building this game. What other developers want really isnât important. They are not the people who will be building or playing your game.
Trust meâŚyou must be passionate about your idea to spend so much time and money on a game. If you are not, you wonât get far.
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I prefer my MMOs text-only.
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Wait⌠Didnât I see this poll before?
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Itâs also a bad poll, because thereâs more styles than just ârealisticâ and âlow-poly.â
I think we have an inexperienced user here, who may be making their first game. And, thatâs OK, but Iâd encourage a bit more research to be able to ask better questions. Visuals are just one aspect of many when designing a game, and the two topics from this user focus more or less exclusively on graphics.
Hereâs some topics to research:
- Theme - Themes extend beyond visual styles; they are also abstract ideas. Play some games and try to find the theme of those titles.
- Sound design - Visuals are part of the feedback loop, but so is sound. How does a gameâs sound either help or hinder it in selling an experience?
- Core Game Loop - Play a game. What patterns do you see in things the player is doing?
- Mechanics - On that note, what are individual things the player is doing? Itâs an over-simplification, but a mechanic is a game rule.
- Difficulty and Interest - Play a few game. Is this game too hard for you? Does it hold your interest? If not on either count, why? Hint: These two are partially related.
Innovation starts with planning and design. Game Design is asking, âwhat do I build?â and coming up with an answer.
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2 things, which have mostly been covered already.
- Small team I imagine? Like, less than 10? Probably not 100, or 200, or 750? Good luck churning out High poly, photo-realistic textures to fill an MMO world in less than 10 years. Or more.
- It doesnât matter. Like, seriously doesnât matter. The ratio of players who care about graphics above gameplay to players who care about gameplay to graphics is minuscule. Iâd say a solid 95% (probably too low) of players want a game that feels solid and keeps them well entertained for their money.
At the end of the day, what everyone is trying to say is, just make an awesome game and worry more about the logistics of the art than the art style. Once you get a grasp on what kind of art you CAN do, lock in a style.
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Stylized low poli graphics. Easier to make for a small group and probably will hold better the test of time. (not to mention they might be help low powered computers and devices)
As low poly as possible because youâre not capable of high poly or high definition graphics. You may think you are but weâre talking MMO here. Youâll never have the millions or the staff to do it. If you did, youâd not be posting here 
MMO with one level doesnât make sense, so Iâm assuming a pretty big place!
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Depends on your resources. I am a digital artist and sometimes a programmer. I can model, texture and program. But I am only an adequate programmer. I can get the job done, I am just more efficient with a wacom and 3d mouse. So for me, âhigh polyâ isnât as bad an option as for most.
However, for my first ever solo game I will be going for âmedium polyâ or a medium fidelity game world as I would call it. Because I know I need a story and a game too, and as good as I am, I canât replace an entire team of concept artists, modelers, texture artists, world builders and art programmers by myself. And honestly, you can have a good game without good graphics but you canât have a good game without good gameplay.
I am fortunate to have the asset store to help me with the programming end of things (which is the only reason I can attempt to make this game). Filling out the art end of a game is harder to do without actually being an artist or having a team of them. Whatever you do, stick to already existing assets where you can (make sure you get the right ones, do your research).
Just donât expect using assets to mean that you arenât going to need to create your own art and script because you will. And when you do, you are always best off relying on your strengths. For example, I am not going to be coding anything much beyond fitting in existing assets to my game world and using existing tools (which works with my game fine). But I will probably spend more time doing that than I will modelling and world-building, even though Iâll be creating quite a few new models and building several large maps.
So assuming you do not have a large team of artists, I would say low poly. Or at least, medium fidelity relying on assets from the store where possible.
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Thereâs a lot of solid advice here already, so Iâll keep it brief.
People usually care more about a consistent, cohesive art style than they do about realistic vs stylized.
Start with a solid bed of mechanics and really flesh out your world as much as you can. These two aspects can really inform the look that is most appropriate for your game.
Donât even thnk about going realistic unless you know you have the resources to pull it off. Not just the artists to make EVERYTHING in a timely manner, but the programmer talent to implement it all without making your game run at 1 frame a second. Theres a lot of moving parts here, so donât set yourself up for failure.
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