A topic about 'graphical downgrades'. Bloody murder

Games were never about the graphics, as many of people and publishers and developers would sadly like to think. Games are about fun experiences. A so called 'graphical downgrade' is far from a scam, to say it mildly. A gameplay downgrade is close to what would be a scam.

Such a shame that we still think of graphics as a selling point in games enough that 'downgrades' of such are considered scams.

To be honest, I almost never am plugged in enough to be a part of the cycle you are describing. I've heard about it a number of times after stuff goes down, but I don't do preorders, or basically spend any time on a hype train. I have no idea when E3 comes and goes, or have any clue what people are getting worked up over at one time or another. My exposure is largely about what I see in digital store fronts or what is actually out and streaming on Twitch.

I guess I'm not really on topic, but it seems like the customer's best course of action to remedy getting scammed, or just feeling like they are getting scammed, is the same remedy we have for a lot of our current problems; evaluate the finished product and stop allowing ourselves to get emotionally manipulated into pre-ordering when there are little to no significant positives and so many negatives.

It's fine to follow something and be looking forward to it, but know what it actually is before making a financial and emotional commitment to it. If studio's are trying to hide something they can only hide behind pre-orders.

edit**
I actually thought I canceled this post for being too off topic. Wrong button I guess. Whatever world, here you go.

I agree. There is even a saying about that, which goes like: "Don't count your eggs before they hatch"! Well, doubly so, since you count them before the eyes of many others, who feel like playing "find the difference", all the time!

Even though, for example, witcher 3 was a masterpiece... The whole downgrading tasted like sh*t... Especially on old and die-hard fans... Even if it might be for the better, like older toasters and potato gpu can run the game (better), it still feels like a d*ck-move. Penultimately, it is a matter of TRUST here (or anywhere else), not QUALITY... If the project wasn't a real masterpiece reeking of superiority (as a game), unlike for example those Fugly/messy/clunky console ports spammed on Steam (especially lately), now it would be a product with mixed reviews and lingering bashing, throughout the internet!

Games have always been about graphics. Well... excluding text adventures, maybe. :P And those also evolved into graphic adventures.

It's an audio-visual medium and all aspects should be treated with respect, taken seriously and appreciated. It bothers me that gameplay (or experience :P) elitists don't recognize the technical finesse and creative efforts of programmers and artists and how much their work defines our gameplay experiences. I mean for frigg's sake, tell me that you'd willingly turn the graphics in your game of choice down to the minimum and then insist that it's the exact same experience and that it doesn't bother you that character's faces are orange pulp, there are no shadows and characters move like hand puppets rather than living creatures.

I didn't even know this was an issue. Caveat emptor, as the saying goes. If you're not smart enough to wait until the reviews are out, isn't that basically your own fault? Same goes for movies.
Besides, these guys are spending a lot of time, effort, and money into making these games as they are. Admittedly I don't play a lot of AAA titles and don't care much about graphics, so I could be biased or misunderstanding completely here, but isn't it a touch unfair to discredit their entire work and call it a scam just because they ran into technical issues or just couldn't do what they thought they could?

I wouldn't say movies are the same. I often disagree with reviews and don't much care about them. I'd never allow reviews or popular opinon dictate what I'll watch. With games the situation is somewhat different- whether a game is good or not may still be highly subjective, but whether it's broken is not.

Well, true, but if an overwhelming majority of the reviews are negative or an overwhelming majority are positive, you can go in pretty much knowing what to expect. I'm not going to go watch Sharknado, for example, expecting it to be the greatest action movie of the 21st century.

I did and it was, so shut your pie hole! :P

Somehow I just knew somebody would come and say that, and I also knew it would be you.
You never disappoint me.

London has Fallen has terrible reviews, and I enjoyed the hell out of it. The Force Awakens has stellar reviews and it's a piss poor movie. That's just two recent examples, I could go on all day. Nope, I don't give two shits about reviews, no matter how overwhelming the majority might be.

well said.
here, here. good point. Developers know what they're doing. office raids. heavy fines for any developers found with nonstandard devkits running. or main builds (not builds targeted for port release) of the game running on those offending devkits or, PCs.

kee heheh.

It's kinda like going to a major car show, seeing the XE-S from Phallus Motors on display - what with its 22" wheels, chromed body, and joystick driving system - and griping that the actual release version has 18" wheels and tires, regular paint, and a steering wheel.

How dare the final product not be exactly like the pre-production show version!

As if we're forced to buy it.

What separates games from movies, then? Games are all about presenting a fun and interactive experience, while movies are all about presenting a great story with great graphics to emulate the experience. Of course games have never been about graphics. Do all of these shiny shadows, bloom, motion blur, reflections, ambient occlusion or whatever else, are something to add to the gameplay? At best, they're only eyecandy. We have many a game that is pretty to many's eyes, but shallow in experience enough. These games was probably more fit for a movie. And why should I care about these extra features? I never asked for them. Yes I'd do that. In fact, turning the graphics down to only polygon lines would be also a thing if possible. After all, I've seen not many a game which would take advantage of the graphics to make them a gameplay experience.

That and another thing pointed out by someone or two. By the time these old screenshots are released, it's all over in your face that the game isn't released and is a work in progress. You are not entitled to the work in progress. You are only entitled to the final product, and then it's your choice of whether to buy or not to buy.

. [url=http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/26/25441/thumb_620x2000/thief2_2014-07-06_02-06-24-71.jpg]Of course they do. Light and shadow, reflections, blur effects - all of these are used pretty much since they were conceived by designers to subconsciously give their players hints, guide them and make the experience more interesting. Visuals are the primary way of communication between game and the player, of course they're also one of the most essential aspects a game can have.

Ever heard of Enviromental storytelling? I hear it's pretty popular with dem gamez.

Regarding graphics, there actually is a trade-off involved, especially when it comes to 2D versus 3D.

I'll take the Final Fantasy series as an example, mainly FF6 and FF7. The basic gameplay is *roughly* similar, but there is an obvious graphical difference here; FF6 is 2D, while FF7 is 3D with pre-rendered backgrounds.

First of all, outside of battle, FF6 gives you a mostly clear overhead view. It is not hard to see where you are and where you can go. (Exceptions do exist, however, like when there are large trees.) FF7, however, has you walking on a pre-rendered background whose perspective sometimes makes it hard to tell where you are. The problem was bad enough that the developers (probably after some playtesting) added an "assist" feature, which puts a hand cursor above the main character's head and red icons at every exit to the area you used. FF6 didn't need such a feature.

Another issue is that FF7 wastes the player's time to show of the graphics sometimes. For example, the Bahamut summon (which is a mid-level summon for whatever reason) takes 30 seconds, during which the gameplay is essentially paused. You can select a command, but can't confirm it because the animation is so fancy that the targets can't be displayed at the same time as the animation. Meanwhile, FF6's summon animations are short and to the point.

I could also mention FMV, which is the sole reason that FF7 requires you to switch disks 2 times during the game. (At least it's not as bad as early microcomputer games which might require switching floppy disks every time you enter a dungeon or save in the dungeon.)