Just saw these over on GU, check em out here (http://www.gucomics.com/images/screenshots/vanguard/).

The art style, for better or for worse looks very similar to EQ2's.

Seriously, those look JUST like EQ2. Thats just...blah.

Loving it

Its ashame, as close to realistic they look - the more the differences stand out. It looks exactly like EQ2, and that game sure didn't win me over graphically.

It just depends on what kind of graphcis you like, people who like WOW probably wont like Vanguards graphics.

haha I don't think it looks anything like EQ2 and still tons more appealing than cartoons :P

Me likey. Anyone on this board in the beta?

haha I don't think it looks anything like EQ2 and still tons more appealing than cartoons :P

You can have good art direction and realistic graphics without them being cartoony. Vanguard and EQ2 are both piss poor attempts at realism in my eyes and both have glaring issues during gameplay. When your character falls through your horse instead of riding it - it doesn't matter how realistic the horse looks. A huge pair of legs shooting out its underbelly doesn't make it "great graphics" just because its not cartoonish.

Warhammer Online seems to be the one artistically and graphically ahead of the pack of the next generation of games. Admidtedly I am not yet in their BETA like I am for Vanguard, but their screenshots looke brilliantly realistic and consistant accross the boards. Maybe it was just the cave screenshot that stood out to me how choppy as hell all of the animations look and feel in game. And ultimately - its just really boring. Everything is grey, brown, and green in Vanguard and its all a big earthtone blur. The flaming swords look cool in the screenshots, but in game they're just as choppy (besides its impossible to play with that level of detail as the screenshots are shown).

When your character falls through your horse instead of riding it - it doesn't matter how realistic the horse looks.

LOL! That's rich and I've never seen it. I've had a horse in EQ2 since pretty much opening week of the game I might add. Sounds like you experienced something I've never seen. Are there bugs? Yep every game has them unless you're telling me otherwise? Are those bugs over exagerated by fan bases for other games? See most if not all of Kelraz's posts about any game other than WoW.

yeah I havent seen any of those bugs either in eq2, the only bug I have really seen that is a porblem in Everquest 2 is mobs getting lost in the walls in small areas but thats it.

This is a thread about Vanguard. In Vanguard your legs fall out the bottom of the horse. In Everquest2 the best example I can remember is how mechanical the griphon's flight looks.

oh come on the game isnt even in open beta yet, it has bugs that need to be fixed.

Fair enough, but the clipping and graphical issues will probably still be prevelant throughout the game. Its the nature of trying to make everything look realistic - which at this time is still impossible. There'll always be the Uncanny Valley (thanks for the link Sanchek) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_Valley . If you want it to be realistic, why do you suddenly appear on a mount instead of having to actually mount it? If you want it to be realistic, why can you shoot arrows and chop swords through trees and walls but never affect the sword, walls, etc. In the first Everquest, it never looked true enough to life to notice these things. In these games like Vanguard, they jump out at me.

The gameplay (especially the bards and the way they "write" songs) is still pretty great, though the content seems to be lacking thus far. I still say Warhammer Online looks the best out of any game coming, its realistic enough but not too much to worry over the small issues.

With that in mind, City of Heroes was always "realistic" but it never drew me to have any issues with the small imperfections either.

I always thought the models in EQ2 look plastic to me, though the newer models look pretty neat to me. I'm not really enthused with the vanguard ones.

Participating in Vanguard's beta is what convinced me to never waste my money on the game. It was in beta a long time before I got in and, well, things were not only very unfinished -- things that were finished were very unappealing.

The argument can be made that since it was so unfinished that it will be a much better, totally different game. I have a problem digesting that after seeing the other "finished" aspects of the game though. Not only that, but they should've been much further along in the development of the game after being in beta for as long as they were. If that's a sign of their progress, I won't be willing to wait for it.

Kelraz, I doubt we'll be seeing realistic physics in a MMO any time soon... although, now that we are seeing PPU (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_processing_unit)s start to make an appearance it could be sooner than later. Supposedly Vanguard is going to support PPUs. Even then, it will be the early stages of progression of this technology (and coding for it). I'd say the next wave of MMO's (after the VSoH / WHO / MEO / AoC wave) will be taking much better advantage of this and other technologies and we'll see some more realistic feeling MMOs.

Ofcourse, we'll see it in single player / low multiplayer games first. Then, as computers and internet connections get faster, and coding more efficient, we'll see the MMO iterations.

Hopefully in the next couple years NVidia and ATI will start integrating a PPU into their cards so no one will have to worry about buying it seperate and / or having room.

I dont care how truly realistic graphics become, its all about game play. Eye candy is a bonus. If things effected the world (walls trees etc) then you would have idiots run about chopping random stuff regardless which would kind of ruin it anyways.

Someday ill meet you again Kelraz, then de-level you (think of the time at howling stones, when you dinged 59 then deleveled the next pull)...muahahahaha.

I think it does look a lot like EQ2, bu that's ok. EQII looked great. Excpt I had lag on my Nvidia machine. Not the typical FPS type lag of a slow machine but just a constant skipping. Lots of people have had it and EQ/Nvidia are aware but can't figure it out. My wifes ATI machine with lower specs plays it great. I also liked WoW's cartoony graphics a lot as well. What ever the new wave of MMo's they had better be able to cater to the casual gamer as well as the hardcore types. I don't play any MMO's ATM because no game lets me log in and have fun with the 3 - 5 hours of gaming I have time for in a weeks time.. But that is a age old debate that is /offtopic here.

The one thing Vanguard did right is the bards though, they're fucking sweet. If they had another year to put that level of depth into all of the classes, and all of the aspects of the game, it'd be a winner - regardless of the graphics. They don't though.