I know you don't want to, but.....

[Gorlahkan]

I love the game play. Always have. The only thing that is keeping people from playing is their graphics fixation. For me graphics isn't what makes a game. Its the game play, people, and the lore/story line.

For instance, my roommate likes the game. But because he believes the graphics are "horrible" in his eyes, he won't play. Spoiled teens I tell you.... They don't know the MMOs from the late 90s

So I know Virtrium doesn't want to do a graphic update due to limited personnel, the time that is needed, and the funding. But that did not keep me from looking around at available graphic engines. I found an evaluation version of Numerical Design Limited's Lightspeed, which claims to be easy to deploy. I was wondering if the dev team ever looked into something like this.

P.S. This is the same software that Oblivion, DAoC, and Warhammer uses.

[Archaic]

I agree with this post. This is an awesome game, with awesome features unavailable in any other game. Some of us love the world of Istaria and don't mind the graphics so much, but for new players who haven't experienced the game at all yet this old game engine can be an eyesore. Even in discussions in-game with players who still support the game I have been told that the engine would be the only main complaint.

Of course, it should be considered that (from my understanding) there is a small team still maintaining Istara and it would require a great deal of work to port the game over to another engine. In addition, the actual cost of the engine must be considered. I know you mentioned that briefly before, but I wanted to reiterate that. It can't be stressed enough:

The small team will need adequate funding to accomplish a job of this size. If, however, the team DID manage to scrape by and work long hours (probably out of sheer devotion, mind you) in a grand effort to update the Istaria game engine...then, of course, additional costs would result because the game would suddenly be so popular they would need to upgrade their connection. On top of that, the actual hardware on-site would probably have to be upgraded and that would mean more moneys!

And, of course, I must add: If all of the above criteria were met, and Istaria was ported to a newer, more robust game engine without damaging/changing the game's current 'feel'...well let's just say we'd have competition in the consigners again! For some of us, the game is great enough not to play later ones as it is but with an updated engine the game truly would be a top contender.

[Solitaire]

I don't like popping bubbles. Especially when I would love to see the visuals in Istaria brought to a new level as much as anyone. But overhauling the engine would not be the only thing that would need to be done. Nor upgrading servers/bandwidth. Pretty much the entire graphical asset set would need to be replaced as well. New models. New textures to go on those models. All new effects to go with the new engine. New shaders for textures that gleam/reflect or animate in some way (think portal shimmer). What you are talking about is basically building an entire new game minus game play mechanics and existing content. We are doing a few things behind the scenes to update and improve but it is a more gradual improvement over time that is less noticeable instead of making a big splash all at once. With the amount of time and effort needed to put forth such an overhaul it would be more feasible to create Istaria 2. (Anyone got a few spare million for development money they would like to invest?)

But regardless, besides a few quirks here and there, Istaria still is a pretty darn good looking game for it's age. I've seen newer games that don't look as good as this one. Istaria has a more realistic color palette than others which have a more vivid "cartoonish" look to them. And I prefer it that way, actually. Istaria is easier on the eyes though that same appearance that I like may make it look less exciting to those who judge by a quick impression. It is the same old judging a book by it's cover thing, I suppose.

[aine]

...Istaria still is a pretty darn good looking game for it's age. I've seen newer games that don't look as good as this one. Istaria has a more realistic color palette than others which have a more vivid "cartoonish" look to them. And I prefer it that way, actually. Istaria is easier on the eyes though that same appearance that I like may make it look less exciting to those who judge by a quick impression. It is the same old judging a book by it's cover thing, I suppose.

Agreed. Wholeheartedly.

[Gorlahkan]

I’m not letting you near my bubbles! I know it’s not going to happen. Doesn’t mean a boy can’t dream. Emergent’s Lightspeed program is about fast graphic production, being easily integrated with a lot of 3d rendering programs. Maybe even the one that the Devs use. They have a very good API library to work with. Hell, I know I would help out if I had some more resources/knowledge of what is being use. Maybe I will take a trip to Apache Juncture ( it’s about a 1.5 hour drive ) and have a chat with them (I wonder if I could that as voluntary work that the military makes us do )

Here are some demos on youtube of lightspeed if anyone is interested.

Mangled Metal Demo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilTQAJcS-Kk
Level Editing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az6X0Vi9hH4

[Dragonboy]

Better graphic features are always good that’s for sure, but to be honest and not wanting to be insulting to your roommate.

If you truly like a game you don’t care if the graphics are a little outdated and you at least try it… Hell I even managed to play Dwarf Fortress for 6 months and that is in ASCII. So I am sorry I have to bring this to you but your room mate probably doesn’t like the game and wants to keep it a secret of something. In my eyes when you like a game and it has a free trial you can just try it out because gameplay and community is more important then graphics.

Personally however I normally run the game on full graphic settings and it looks better then a game like CoH/CoV, not better then WoW but then again what is a little graphics lost in comparison to a good working chat channel system instead of those stupid comic book looking text bubbles.

There will always be games that look better then others, this is just the plain truth. However my opinion is to at least try it and not trying it because of the worse looking graphics is just an excuse…

[Charys Stormchild]

I love the graphics...might have something to do with running an old machine, lol, but they look great to me

[Archaic]

Yeah, we are talking about Istaria 2.

You want irony, I'll show you irony: The fact that the game currently uses an old game engine and isn't as 'flashy' or what-not actually weeds out some of the players who are lacking 'substance.' By this I mean, in Istaria the players I've met have for the most part been mature, friendly, helpful, agreeable, funny, etc. etc. If Istaria II was made (which is, of course, what a graphics engine port would be) the game would be so popular we'd have all kinds, and while I encourage the growth of the community I would much rather quality over quantity! Heck, even here in our forums we have mature and productive discussions.

Shhhh! Don't let anyone know we have the best community around

[AamerKhan]

One thing that is often overlooked in favor of nice graphics, is the over all aesthetics of the game.

What I mean specifically is the subtle nuances that this game has that few if any others have. Take for instance the skybox. I would wager that is is one of the best done environment visual you can find in ANY game out there. This game has weather, ( snow storms, dust storms ) Blighted areas with their own lightning strewn sickly green storms. When the sun gos down in the evening, the lighting on players changes to a yellowish/orange and fades.

Then there are the mobs that will wander along and suddenly rush forward towards you as if they see something to attack, lending an air of tension and nervousness. Spell effects in game are always a pleasure to see. Never over done or overly flashy.

This is not to say that we could not stand improvements, but quite frankly the environment is pretty nice as it is!

On thing that would go a long way to helping increase the player base, is dynamic content. Roaming mobs that attack settlements or structures. Random slooow decay of bridges that require the occasional upkeep.

Let me state for the record, that our guild now controls 7 towns, and we would LOVE to have to defend them from being damaged by roaming mobs. We are not worried about undoing any of our "hard" work, as that's exactly why we play here anyway, to craft and build and hunt. ( DOH! ) It would bring an enhanced sense of ownership to any property we own. We all have plenty of high level players to defend and repair, and many new ones would get to enjoy the co-op aspect of this game if such content was introduced.

New graphic engine would not be needed in my opinion if this idea could be pulled off.

[Solitaire]

Funny you mention the skybox. Or skydome, actually. Ever notice that although the moon rises in the east and sets in the west that the sun rises in the west and sets in the east? Watch the sun/moon set sometime. A few minutes later the opposite will pop up in the same spot that the other set. I'm sure I could change that if I wanted to but I consider it one of those little quirks that give character to the game and I ain't touching it.

[Shian]

Isn't there a red moon also? Or is that a myth?

[Takora Drakan]

There is a red moon, but I am not sure if it is a area effect or that the moon file itself needs to be changed. Back on unity at the first fall harvest, there was everywhere the red moon in the night, and during the day was everywhere the sun eclipse.

http://home.arcor.de/takora/Horizons...ival_final.jpg

As you can see the picture was taken over kion, with the red moon in the background.

[Guaran]

Isn't there a red moon also? Or is that a myth?

If you look closely, there's skulls in the moon as well.

Can barely make it out in this old sig of mine (see below)

[Raeshlavik]

So I know Virtrium doesn't want to do a graphic update due to limited personnel, the time that is needed, and the funding. But that did not keep me from looking around at available graphic engines. I found an evaluation version of Numerical Design Limited's Lightspeed, which claims to be easy to deploy. I was wondering if the dev team ever looked into something like this.

P.S. This is the same software that Oblivion, DAoC, and Warhammer uses.

I'd be willing to bet the folks at Vi have looked around; there are a lot of engines out there, and quite a few 'instant MMO' packages as well... One that I'd guess would integrate well with the current asset set would be Simutronics HeroEngine as it supports Granny (yay Granny), has a lot of the same realtime texture, mesh, etc. update capabilities that Istaria already has, and the world building tools are quite awesome - I figure 2-3 people could replicate large sections of Istaria very quickly with it.

Of course this comes with a down side; it's pricey to get rolling with something like this... But, Stray Bullet managed to get a copy, so it's probably not CryEngine or BigWorld expensive.

[AmonGwareth]

HeroEngine costs more than BigWorld. Don't know about the CryEngine.

Besides, it is not feasible to "convert" an existing game to a new engine. You'd be better served to make a new game.

[Raeshlavik]

HeroEngine costs more than BigWorld. Don't know about the CryEngine.

Besides, it is not feasible to "convert" an existing game to a new engine. You'd be better served to make a new game.

Wow, I didn't figure HE was the more expensive... A fella I know (Used to be our QA director at work) is working on 'Copernicus' out in Mass., which is using BigWorld, and I got the impression it was stratospherically expensive... Then again, every purchase with the middleware folks is a unique deal.

That aside, I'm certainly not a proponent of shoehorning Istaria into another engine, merely pointing out one to Gorlahkan that offers some of what Istaria already has. It's my opinion that there probably isn't a lot of reason to migrate off the Intrinsic Alchemy base. It seems to have plenty of power and a nice feature set, and by now the tools have to be quite mature.

To directly address Gorlahkan; it's sort of like a console system - when the PS2 came out, the games for it were fun but lacking in a lot of graphical prowess. But as time went on things got a lot better looking and the game play got better by leaps and bounds, without changing anything in the 'engine' per se as the hardware never changed. What happened was that the developer's ability to utilize the hardware got better.

Istaria is the same way, in my opinion... Go look at a starter town that isn't New Trismus, then go look at the Dragon starter island - Thats vintage Horizons versus new(er) Horizons. Once Dalimond is finished, compare that as well... You can see how things are improving.

I look at Istaria today with the bits of the tier2 revamp I can see, Solitaire's animation and model work, as well as the pictures I've seen of Dralnok's Doom (alas, I'm not quite there yet level-wise), and compare this with the Istaria that came in the box I picked up at launch... I'm fairly certain there's a lot of capability left in the engine... I mean, a lot of the environments in Istaria blow the doors off any environment in the 800 pound gorilla MMO (My lair is a good example ). It's just the parts folks look at constantly and identify with the most (character models, armor textures, weapon models, etc) that gets folks uppity about the age of the game.

(My personal pet peeve is the tops of the biped boots - scale-wise those boots have to be about 6 inches thick at the top... )

As a dragon, I don't understand, but then again, the Dragon models are superb and we don't get armor textures -or- weapons.

[AmonGwareth]

Wow, I didn't figure HE was the more expensive... A fella I know (Used to be our QA director at work) is working on 'Copernicus' out in Mass., which is using BigWorld, and I got the impression it was stratospherically expensive... Then again, every purchase with the middleware folks is a unique deal.

BigWorld is in the $1 mil range I believe. HE is that or higher. They are both VERY powerful engines. But remember, unlike Intrinsic Alchemy which is just the graphics renderer (Artifact still had to build an actual game client around it and build a server from the ground up), HE and BigWorld both ship with a fully realized client and server.

Only takes a couple weeks to get the licensees running on either of them and developing. And it only takes an experienced programmer a short time (weeks to a couple months) to really get up to speed on Python (which BigWorld uses) or HSL (C# like language, which HeroEngine uses).

Anyway, thats all I'll say about them in open forum. Sorry. Back to Istaria now.

[niknak]

I always hear about newer engines and flashy fx... but what people want is adventure,exploring,interesting tasks, puzzles, riddles, things to do and see... this game has many of those things already... I have played new games as well as old (btw wow fx are not that great they are cartoony) in the hunt for that perfect game I continually come back to OLDER games because they have things to do that keep me occupied.. the newer model of A) farmer fred has fox problems... go kill 10 foxes stinks... how about the older model that gives you a clue... B) the tavern keeper gives you a clue that a farm over the ridge has something strange goin on.. you go find farmer fred hiding in the bushes tells you monster foxes are in his cellar .. etc etc

how many would rather do B ? give them interesting things to do and youll have droves of people wanting to play.. its an opinion I hope you keep doing the great thigns your doin Niknak

[Hadrian Kross]

don't think a new engine is necessary, but what would it take for a texture update?

could make old textures still available for lesser systems, and overall make it more playable on more rigs with better graphics...

I actually like the current engine.

Might even do a competition for best textures, and that might draw in new some new talent, not to mention new players...