Images and artworks of The Agency

Commented on 2009-06-08 23:31:58

thats what happens when you use unreal engine 3 in an mmo but mmo's dont sell on the basis of looking pretty alone so it shoudn't matter. if you look at the artwork they are going for a comic book look.

In reply to

skeetskeet

Commented on 2009-06-08 23:32:03 In reply to alimokrane

Posted by alimokrane

Im sorry but are these screens for real ???? Sure they from a very early build but my goodness do they look HORRIBLE! sure it's an mmo but come on!!!

Ya I would rather they lie and use smoke and mirrors like MS does.

graphics aside, this game looks kinda lame.

In reply to

Commented on 2009-06-09 00:05:08

for an MMO i think it looks decent. as does the gameplay, but it needs to be free to play for me to even care...same goes for all MMO's.

In reply to

Commented on 2009-06-09 00:12:06 In reply to presstheflesh

Posted by KORNdog

for an MMO i think it looks decent. as does the gameplay, but it needs to be free to play for me to even care...same goes for all MMO's.

The "for an MMO" thing reads more like an excuse than anything else.. especially for a game like this. Global Agenda and APB look terrific compared to this and between them split up a lot of the same concepts that SOE is using..

Posted by presstheflesh

thats what happens when you use unreal engine 3 in an mmo but mmo's dont sell on the basis of looking pretty alone so it shoudn't matter. if you look at the artwork they are going for a comic book look.

There are UE3 MMO's that look a good deal better than this.

In reply to

Commented on 2009-06-09 00:31:01 In reply to GriftGFX

still, it does look decent for an mmo, in the same way infamous, GTA4 and mafia 2 look decent for open world games.

they by no means match up well compared to something like uncharted 2 or killzone 2, but for what they're doing it's good.

In reply to

aphex187

Commented on 2009-06-09 00:36:27

Looks better than bloody WoW anyway, and that pile of rubbish is adorned by millions (why is that? im still none the wiser heh!).

In reply to

teh_d00d

Commented on 2009-06-09 00:57:48

PSN game?

In reply to

Commented on 2009-06-09 01:01:26 In reply to KORNdog

Posted by KORNdog

still, it does look decent for an mmo, in the same way infamous, GTA4 and mafia 2 look decent for open world games.

they by no means match up well compared to something like uncharted 2 or killzone 2, but for what they're doing it's good.

I disagree.. I think it looks pretty awful regardless of the genre. If we're using World of Warcraft as the benchmark, I guess that's a fair statement (despite the horrid art direction), but there are quite a few of these "MMO" games that look a great, great deal better than this.

Age of Conan "looks" good for an MMORPG.. this.. not so much. And I'm not even considering the fact that it's probably segmented into many smaller areas, and driven by much lower area caps than most other MMORPG's. This game isn't making full use of the genres previous constraints.. but then again, everyone is throwing around the MMO name these days.

Gameplay looks pretty poor too, tbh. Global Agenda looks way more fun.

In reply to

Commented on 2009-06-09 02:31:21 In reply to GriftGFX

Posted by GriftGFX

Gameplay looks pretty poor too, tbh. Global Agenda looks way more fun.

better had do cos it sure as hell doesn't look any better

http://www.hirezstudios.com/games/GlobalAgenda_Dec...

In reply to

Commented on 2009-06-09 02:42:58

Compared to the images above I'm pretty sure it does *look* better too..

In reply to

Commented on 2009-06-09 03:39:56 In reply to GriftGFX

it really doesnt. they both look 'good' for MMO's, but beyond that they looks like shit in comparrison to the big hitters of the generation. but thats bound to be the case. they're throwing around numbers higher then most games do. it's like MAG, it's not going to win awards for it's visuals, but considering it's throwing 256 players around it's pretty damn impressive looking.

In reply to

Commented on 2009-06-09 03:42:17

point is mmos dont look pretty give the game a chance and dont write it off this early, i'm not writing global agenda off either despite the fact hirezstudios are a startup and dont even have a track record to speak of, i know which one i favour to get higher metacritic scores.

In reply to

Commented on 2009-06-09 03:45:39

Yea.. I wasn't terribly impressed with MAG either. But I'll just have to agree to disagree here. There's nothing about this game that looks impressive, even "for an MMO." It looks horrible from a technology viewpoint (yes, "for an MMO") and the art is even worse. You might think that gameplay could save it, but that doesn't look terribly impressive either. And yea.. even that relatively poor GA screen shot still looks a lot better than the mess above us. Low resolution textures everywhere, devoid of filtering or anti-aliasing, and excessively low polygon assets all around. I'm not even sure how anyone could want to defend it.

Now look at Conan (or even Aion at its best), and try telling me that this is anywhere near those levels of detail.. and I can almost guarantee you that their size and scope is far greater than what SOE will deliver. The "for an MMO" argument falls flat on its face when you compare stuff like this to more modern games than World of Warcraft.

Plus you're also assuming that this is a traditional persistent world and I bet you it aint. These areas are probably nearly all instanced, with much smaller player caps than you would see in something like Warhammer Online or World of Warcraft..

Hell.. Huxley looks better.

Posted by presstheflesh

point is mmos dont look pretty give the game a chance and dont write it off this early, i'm not writing global agenda off either despite the fact hirezstudios are a startup and dont even have a track record to speak of, i know which one i favour to get higher metacritic scores.

SOE has a track record alright.. another reason to have low expectations for The Agency.

In reply to

Yea.. I wasn't terribly impressed with MAG either. But I'll just have to agree to disagree here. There's nothing about this game that looks impressive, even "for an MMO." It looks horrible from a technology viewpoint (yes, "for an MMO") and the art is even worse. You might think that gameplay could save it, but that doesn't look terribly impressive either. And yea.. even that relatively poor GA screen shot still looks a lot better than the mess above us. Low resolution textures everywhere, devoid of filtering or anti-aliasing, and excessively low polygon assets all around. I'm not even sure how anyone could [i]want[/i] to defend it.

Now look at Conan (or even Aion at its best), and try telling me that this is anywhere near those levels of detail.. and I can almost guarantee you that their size and scope is far greater than what SOE will deliver. The "for an MMO" argument falls flat on its face when you compare stuff like this to more modern games than World of Warcraft.

Plus you're also assuming that this is a traditional persistent world and I bet you it aint. These areas are probably nearly all instanced, with much smaller player caps than you would see in something like Warhammer Online or World of Warcraft..

Hell.. Huxley looks better.

[quote=presstheflesh]point is mmos dont look pretty give the game a chance and dont write it off this early, i'm not writing global agenda off either despite the fact hirezstudios are a startup and dont even have a track record to speak of, i know which one i favour to get higher metacritic scores.[/quote]

SOE has a track record alright.. another reason to have low expectations for The Agency.

Commented on 2009-06-09 03:51:33

i'm not defending a ue3 game full stop. its just that you are judging a game by a criteria mmo's are not historically judged on in an attempt to write the game off prematurely

In reply to

Commented on 2009-06-09 03:55:04 In reply to GriftGFX

how does it fall flat? they are just different levels of quality for what they are.

just becasue GTA4 looks a damn sight more impressive then godfather 2 doesnt make the argument of it looking good for an open world game any less valid. it's just a little lower on the list.

same goes for this. conan, huxley etc may look better then this, but they still look like garbage compared to "regular" games, they just fall in different places on the quality list. and so the statement of "looking good for an MMO" is just as relevent as far as i'm concerned.

at the end of the day tho, MMO's look like crap for a reason. and i'm yet to see one that breaks that tend and matches what is possible elsewhere on a regular scaled game. same goes for open world titles. as decent as GTA4 and infamous look. they pale in comparrison to the competition. but they're still good for open world games.

In reply to

Commented on 2009-06-09 03:55:59

Hey I'm all for putting size and scope in perspective.. I just think it loses ground when you can clearly see that there are plenty of things pushing those boundaries much further, that are much more appealing to look at. When you compound that with SOE's terrible track record, and the gameplay footage that we have seen.. I just can't see how anyone could be building hype for this thing. If there's more to The Agency that will make the masses flock to it, they certainly have not shown as much.. and they have not shown a single thing that even indicates that the game will have some sort of massive scope.

Posted by KORNdog

how does it fall flat?

Because it doesn't look good.. even for an MMORPG. Does it look better than the low end of that genre? Not even. This is especially true when you consider the source and the potential budget. At least some of those games can say that their lack of funding held them back. This doesn't even *look* much better than EQ2.

It offends the senses with its art direction, which aint helping any. So we have horribly low details surrounding us on all sides, and that's not even the worse part. The fact that the games assets contain so little detail isn't even the main offense.

A game like Warhammer Online is even more appealing than this visually.. because it's saved by its art direction. It also doesn't hurt that it uses textures where I can't physically make out each individual pixel ;)

In reply to

Hey I'm all for putting size and scope in perspective.. I just think it loses ground when you can clearly see that there are plenty of things pushing those boundaries much further, that are much more appealing to look at. When you compound that with SOE's terrible track record, and the gameplay footage that we have seen.. I just can't see how anyone could be building hype for this thing. If there's more to The Agency that will make the masses flock to it, they certainly have not shown as much.. and they have not shown a single thing that even indicates that the game will have some sort of massive scope.

[quote=KORNdog]how does it fall flat?[/quote]

Because it doesn't look good.. even for an MMORPG. Does it look better than the low end of that genre? Not even. This is especially true when you consider the source and the potential budget. At least some of those games can say that their lack of funding held them back. This doesn't even *look* much better than EQ2.

It offends the senses with its art direction, which aint helping any. So we have horribly low details surrounding us on all sides, and that's not even the worse part. The fact that the games assets contain so little detail isn't even the main offense.

A game like Warhammer Online is even more appealing than this visually.. because it's saved by its art direction. It also doesn't hurt that it uses textures where I can't physically make out each individual pixel ;)

Commented on 2009-06-09 04:04:55

hey i'm not the one hyping developers with no track record at all
SOE have produced critically well received stuff like Planetside, Free Realms, Everquest 1 and 2, Field Commander, Champions of Norrath. There are a good 8 out of 10 type studio and have some decent pedigree there certainly up to the "high" standards of aion or conan

In reply to

Commented on 2009-06-09 04:09:54

Fair enough.. I won't pre-judge it anymore than I already have. I was just trying to back up that position. It's better than just saying "OMFG IT'S UGLY!" without any qualifying statements at least...

In reply to