![]() ![]() Justin Olivetti Sypster, blog): I’m certainly of the camp that Lord of the Rings Online still looks absolutely fantastic, especially with its natural-looking landscapes and detailed structures. It certainly holds up much better than it should, either way. It surprised me as usually with MMOs, it’s the characters that look dated first, well before the landscapes (for one example, consider LOTRO!). I used to think Guild Wars 1 held up well too, but the last time I poked my head in, even with the high-res textures, the landscapes were looking at little blah. They do not look great with all their settings turned down, but that just reminded me how decent they look when run on a modern rig with all the gewgaws on (and in SWG’s case, some mods on top). In fact, I’d put it’s current iteration up against any modern MMO out there.īrianna Royce nbrianna, blog): It was actually Star Wars Galaxies and City of Heroes that inspired this question I had to turn all their eyecandy off just to get the laptop to run them without heating up too much (my biggest pet peeve with any laptop!). Though, I imagine that some day I will find a way to give SWG a try, just to see what all the hubbub is about from Bree!īen Griggs ( Is it cheating to include games that have undergone graphics updates? Because for a game pushing two decades, EVE Online looks absolutely incredible. I don’t really play any other classic MMOs. As Bree says, it’s the systems and ideas in Anarchy that makes me look past the “water-color painting that I left out the rain” textures and models that make up so much of Anarchy Online. My fondness for that game almost definitely comes from nostalgia rather than any sort of visual excellence. I want to say that Anarchy Online holds up well, but I’d be lying. I have to admit, I do jack the settings all the way up across the board so it helps. The spell icons are reused and so similar that they meld together into a big blur. Except the water I’m still kinda floored when I look out of my little house in Halas and see the waves and how amazing it looks, even now. In keeping with the spirit – I’m playing EQII right now and the graphics are… OK. Its graphics are stylized, which gives them even more staying power than they would have had otherwise. I think it’s managed to pull this off through regular upgrades to graphics but also not chasing the elusive “indistinguishable from real-life” dragon. Which classic MMOs hold up the best – visually speaking – in 2022? And what do you think is the secret to their unexpected beauty?Īndy McAdams: I don’t know that it really keeps with the “spirit” of what you are saying, but WoW is pretty damn old and still looks pretty damn good. And that, my friends, does not a pretty old MMO make.įor this week’s Massively Overthinking, let’s talk about older MMORPGs that have managed to weather the passage of time and actually still look pretty decent in 2022. I was reminded of all this recently as I was installing some MMOs on a new laptop and had to turn all the graphical bells and whistles waaaaaay down. But the end result is sometimes you can fool folks about what game they’re even looking at. And sometimes you just need to jack up all the post-processing settings, antialiasing, and water and shadow effects to levels that would’ve been unplayable when the game came out. Sometimes it needs developer intervention with a graphical overhaul. Sure, sometimes the game requires some modding or tweaking to make it pretty. So whenever I have an opportunity to play an old game that holds up well in spite of the years both in its mechanics and its visuals, I’m in heaven. I did not find the original client’s graphics charming then or now. I was a happy adopter of every one of Ultima Online’s post-3D clients (four? I lost count). As one of our resident fans of old MMOs, I always have to clarify that it’s the systems and ideas in old games that I like.
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