When AoE III came out, it was quite hardware-intensive for it’s time. Visually, it looked great, but it was such a departure from AoK that it felt like a completely different series.
I think the 3-D aspect added a new layer of complexity. That, coupled with the seemingly much closer zoom, made things feel very different. Don’t get me wrong, I had many hours clocked with AoE III and it was fun in its own ways. But for AoE IV I hope Relic doesn’t make it too graphically intensive.
I would rather have AoE IV have huge maps and the ability to zoom out far, rather than have bleeding-edge visuals. Something along the lines of the textural detail of AoE: DE, but with the realistic physics / animations of AoE III, would be great.
Unit count probably factors into this as well. Realistically 500 is the absolute max that I think is manageable, but unit management has to be improved and optimized for huge armies (i.e. see my earlier post about combat realism). But with 2018 graphics the game would have to be very efficient.
@justastupidman said:
Can’t they push the game to the limits of 2018 hardware and keep it playable on mid-range hardware at the same time? That’s how I’d prefer it.
As long as the higher-quality graphics setting don’t cause game imbalances
RTS is a primary PC genre so if the graphic is in between yet also satisfies the upper echelon crowd, it will sell more because it will reach more crowd. Let’s face it, not everyone has money for high gaming rig
@qweytr24 said:
In a RTS visual clarity is key. Too many unnecessary visual effects will just hurt performance and obscure the view from things that actually matter.
I totally agree and I consider that AoEIII was nicely balanced on that matter.
But years passed and I hope they will perform to have the same balance at a higher gaphic level
Speaking as someone using mid-range 2012 hardware, and planning to use mid-range 2018 hardware until 2024 or so, I don’t care that much about graphics. I understand I’m not the only person in the world and thus why good looking 3D is better from a marketing perspective though. I’m also fine with a low poly solution. As long as it looks clear, I can see what’s going on. Bonus points if the game looks like a place that would put a smile on my face if I was there, you know, if there weren’t like hundreds of people dying right now.
Relic will use a slightly modified Essence 2.0 engine to develop AOE IV on. Here you can see a little bit what you can expect regarding the graphics quality.
@PCS70 said:
Relic will use a slightly modified Essence 2.0 engine to develop AOE IV on. Here you can see a little bit what you can expect regarding the graphics quality. Essence Engine - ModDB
Pretty sure I read that they are going with their Essence engine, which is not surprising. 3d is almost certainly the way they’ll go, as the DE games will cover the 2d bases. With that said, I don’t think AOE games need to be on the very bleeding edge of visuals. Nice graphics, yeah, cool physics, sure, but it’s more important that the game run well.
What I do want, however, is clarity. One of the reasons I did not like Company of Heroes was that I found it hard to make out what was going on on-screen. Though I should clarify that I do not mean that I want them to go in the direction they did with DOW 3 (IE, way too far at the expense of the games ambiance).
@PCS70 said:
Relic will use a slightly modified Essence 2.0 engine to develop AOE IV on. Here you can see a little bit what you can expect regarding the graphics quality. Essence Engine - ModDB
Source?
I don’t know exactly anymore where I read about modifying the 2.0 engine. It could be somewhere down this thread. But looking at their WarHammer series I think that engine comes closest though regarding to AOE RTS game style. The modifications will probably be implementing 4K, a different more AOE like GUI, and the ability to support more units.
I do love the performance of the bang! engine though. It’s able to run smooth on very broad hardware specifications, but it’s too old to continue new development on that I guess. It’s in good hands know with Project Celeste.
@IamDalv said:
Two things are very important to achieve:
visual clarity, which is a problem in 3D RTS games;
That’s why the last updated bang! engine of AOE Online is so good whatever you may think of the game and more cartoonish style itself. Using simpler and less more the same textures improves general performance a lot.
the networking code must NOT be based on peer to peer.
I don’t agree or at least not have a set opinion about that one, because there are some really big advantages using peer to peer too. Regardless using peer to peer or not people who suffer from bad connections or playing on WIFI will cause a lot of problems and programmatic challenges in general anyway.
They SHOULD forbid playing online MP games on WIFI.
yes! I love asymmetric graphics. age of empires DE is the best so far. I hated mythoilogy and aoe III graphics. plus we can see more! in DE aoe I love the far zoom and how much we can see. in mythology aoe III when I switch to play those I wwas so blinded while playing
@TallestDavid You probably mean isometric projection. The only way to display 3D graphics on a 2D screen. Combined with a special graphics card and shutter glasses technology it delivered the first real 3D experience found in PC gaming industry aka stereoscopic 3D long time ago already.
It will take ‘a few’ more years before mainstream processors and GPU’s are capable of doing this all in real time. That’s actually what a real 3D engine does and the biggest difference between those and all currently used AOE engines.
Like most games nowadays, a GTX 660 for minimum reqs would be great, that way most people will be able to play it, and a gtx 1080 for ultra settings. There’s no reason for age 4 to be held back graphically by older systems. Age 3 already included the havok physics simulation middleware engine, which means that events such as building destruction and tree falls were not pre-created animations, but are calculated according to the physics engine. It would be dumb, to go back, like downgrading the game.
@PCS70 said:
Relic will use a slightly modified Essence 2.0 engine to develop AOE IV on. Here you can see a little bit what you can expect regarding the graphics quality. Essence Engine - ModDB
Source?
I don’t know exactly anymore where I read about modifying the 2.0 engine. It could be somewhere down this thread. But looking at their WarHammer series I think that engine comes closest though regarding to AOE RTS game style. The modifications will probably be implementing 4K, a different more AOE like GUI, and the ability to support more units.
I do love the performance of the bang! engine though. It’s able to run smooth on very broad hardware specifications, but it’s too old to continue new development on that I guess. It’s in good hands know with Project Celeste.
I guess they will either do that or develop an entirely new engine, in any case, Age 4 won’t be so much similar to AOE 3, and even less 2, people should be expecting that, I mean that game came out 19 years ago, Age 4 won’t be an AOE 2 reskin. Relic should push the limits, so the game won’t have stupid engine limits.
plus we can see more! in DE aoe I love the far zoom and how much we can see. in mythology aoe III when I switch to play those I wwas so blinded while playing 