I have a couple of issues with what’s written there.
This graphic stylization avoids any unnecessary detail that could inadvertently become an interface and instead provides a point of visual rest for the player to convey clearer movement and identification.
First of all, when I turn my brain off after a hard day of work and other problems, I start the match, fight some players and I rely heavily on keys and minimap to locate what I need. I DO NOT want more stress from the game if I come home from work, which goes directly on the offensive against competitive play in casual environments. Some maps are easier to track without it than others. The color on units makes them have low quality in any resolution because all I see on a knight is a colored horse with a big pike that charges at my units. I know crossbowmen are crossbowmen because of the weapon that’s the same size as the unit and the man-at-arms because it has a shield. The units are so invisible sometimes in base that I have to swarm them somewhere in order to make them visible for me unless they are in the enemy base or they are taller than the building itself.
So I raised the graphics, and everything went blurry or not well defined enough to make it pleasurable when enabling the anti aliasing, besides that it required too much of my mid range PC to even hold while other games of the same era hold on Ultra with no stress whatsoever. I have the game on lowest to enjoy the best frames for gameplay and the image is like the 2003 games.
Comparing low graphics with C&C Zero Hour from 2003:
They look alike, don’t they? And this is how the game look on max graphics, can you identify the villagers without spending time to look around? If you did it’s probably because of the white skirt of the settler:
We aim to show the player a rich and colorful cinematic tapestry of an era worthy of spending time with. We visually reward those who enjoy building and defending as well those who enjoy conquering and destroying.
Not really, conquering and destroying is more preferred by the current mechanics and as I’ve seen on the forums and while playing on quickplay, most people play to win, not to play the game. And it’s visible that the visuals can’t compete with a game from 2006 in terms of good optimization for great performance on high graphics because take a look at this:
(Yes this is in game footage.)
Paraworld, developed by SEK and released on September 25, 2006 works on ultra on low end PC’s, the campaign is memorable despite it not being HD and the creativity went off the charts for almost everything it presents. Mind you this is basically an Age of Empires but in the dinosaur era. Therefore I believe the current graphics neither on low or high could compete with this style and detail.
And this is the lowest graphic it can have on units:
The detail that is revealed in structures, foliage, water and terrain is mostly expressed through hue variation leaving the style to feel richer and more painterly without feeling cartoonish.
But it is cartoonish, and extremely simple, it’s nowhere close to reality which counters the argument of amazing graphics. Because its cartoonish it should have less details to look more silly and child friendly so that people don’t take it seriously. If we’re looking from a realistic graphic point of view, it would mean MORE DETAILS, because realism comes with a great deal of detail combined with a beautiful HD view optimized for everyone to be able to enjoy. Which means that the previous styles of Age of Empires are considered bad and eye hurting after following with a through analysis of the text.
I wouldn’t consider this eye hurting and if I would be considering it as such, it would be my personal problem that should not disqualify the necessity of beauty in visuals that give a game, the feel that it has and is represented by. After all the important people stay not because they win a lot of games, but because the game gave them memories through its gameplay and visual potential.
But then we have this horror:
As a passionate map maker, I took this personally. You can see such edges near forests throughout the Rus campaign. And you can see what type of impact it might have on players also to see such things, IN THE CAMPAIGN of the MAIN GAME. The reader of this might think it’s just one, oh no, no-ho-ho, there’s more but this post would get too big.