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This is why you need to work on the original.
But as you can see, the end result is dependent on the quality of the original image. The original flower pot aint that great, but imo if you were to scale Saph's image up without the background, it would look really nice.
Being a both 2D and 3D artist myself, I'd say that it's situation dependant on whether something is less work making it in 3D.
Creating that fern in 3D
- set up a scene (creating a light source, adjusting the angle and perspective, etc)
- model pot (very simple)
- model branches and leaves (this would be quite a huge endevour)*
- create texture for pot
- create texture for plant
- adding textures to 3D model and positioning them
- rendering
Creating the fern by hand, pixel by pixel
- Paint, paint, click, click, click, click, paint, click, click
Get my drift?
So in the case of static objects that do not need rotation or any kind of animation (which at least 90% of UO's graphics are made up of), drawing something by hand is WAY more economical and fast to do.
In the case of objects that need various rotations and will animate, 3D is the way to go.
As for 3D being "superior" in other ways - is it really though? Let's take for example Habbo Hotel. A game that started out - and still is - a pixel game.
Started in 2000 - stuck to it's original concept and style - and is going more strong than ever, enjoying 13 million monthly users.
Habbo knows the "pixel crack" effect inside out, they make their money from people buying virtual items. "Just gotta have that little pixel coffee machine for my apartment!" (the game is free to play and always has been)
If there is "no reason", why hasn't it been done yet, despite repeated efforts?
* = (normally in the case of trees and shrubs, a plane would be made - textured with a transparent branch image, but for the sake of comparing the two methods from head to toe and for a fair comparison, let's assume the branches would need to be modelled)
A
AdamD
Guest
Would the polished art work in the current 2D client? or would the client window resolution need increasing as a result?
It'd be nice if Mythic were to pay people to update/polish art assets in small chunks, or sponsor a community art project of some sort.
It'd be nice if Mythic were to pay people to update/polish art assets in small chunks, or sponsor a community art project of some sort.
Interesting how even a presumably white background ends up with a light green haze you have to auto-level. I'll tell ya what, I'm excited to use this program to make my sprites 2x larger, at least
...very glad you mentioned it (and pointed me in the right direction to use it) 
Also, here's the hd3x backup:
HiEnd3D
I noticed when I used 16 I couldn't open files, 256 ended up with wrong colors, only 24-bit seemed to work right. Were you working with 24-bit? As I recall, aren't UO graphics restricted to 256?
W
Woodsman
Guest
If you add the new art into the CC and you increase the size of the client window, it stops being the CC. There would be CC holdouts complaining about the hit in performance. To be honest, they don't even have the resources to do such a thing.
We're going to get the new art in chunks. That was announced during the Commons chat.
We've gotten a brief glimpse with a few things - one of the axes, thigh boots, one or two other things, plus Virtuebane.
The UO art extractor program creates 24 bit BMPs.
Ah okay thanks
I guess that's why it can't work with 16...which is a shame for simple sprites
Looking at your polished rendering actually caused my nerdy heart to ache. I would really like to see that in UO. It sounds like we may get something along that vein, according to Calvin's latest Producer's update. I'm impressed by the enhanced client, and it's finally become my preferred client. But I'm seriously enamored of the images you've composed, Saphireena. Oh, what might have been. It's neat to think about.
D
Deb
Guest
I must say Saph your polished renderings are absolutely awesome. I
have to agree with the other posters, that I wish EA would hire you.
Along with Grimm you two plus the rest of the art team could definitely
make an awesome looking UO.
have to agree with the other posters, that I wish EA would hire you.
Along with Grimm you two plus the rest of the art team could definitely
make an awesome looking UO.
Re:
The issue with graphics goes way beyond simply tossing in a handful of higher resolution images and praying to dog that it works... they've already shown, at the development level, a severe lack of understanding of the game engine that they're using to render the graphics in the first place.
Or perhaps it's not a lack of understanding but instead something that the game engine really, truly, is not designed to handle, and is hacked to bits to make it hobble along as it does now.
These next few months of "graphical updates" could be a total nightmare for a game that doesn't even have graphics remotely approaching the resolutions available in modern, fully 3D games that can manage far more textures, mobs, and particle effects on screen than UO would even bother to produce in the first place.
So before we get lost in the technicality of resolution, let's remember that they still -- no proof otherwise available -- don't have any clue how to implement those higher resolution images into the "Enhanced" Client.
My number one gripe is that between KR and the EC, we're talking about more than a half of a decade of development and engineering that are leading almost no where. I mean, come on... the replacement client for the CC has been in development for LONGER THAN THE ENTIRE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORIGINAL UO RELEASE!
By now, SOMEONE should have figured out how to program and design a client, taken a couple of classes in user interfaces, and, I don't know, sent Grimm Omen off to Mrs. Todd's Fly By Night Graphic School...
People point at the CC for holding back the development of UO. Which is ironic, because if the developers had provided a suitable replacement for the CC, the only people having this discussion right now would be akin to the same group of people who long for a "Classic Shard." Which is to say "provide a quality, complete product, and it becomes a non-issue."
Lots of people thought they'd be supporting the non-T2A client forever too...
It's really impossible to do one without the other though... sure, technically the artwork was designed to zoom. It was also designed to look bad. A half-right does not make a full right...
Well, here's the other side of that coin that I think a bunch of people are forgetting. Mythic had to reduce the resolution of the graphics anyway. Remember, they haven't yet figured out how to implement the graphics for the game in a manner that doesn't cause the game engine to choke down to a crawl and cause the users of high-end systems to wonder what the heck their computer is crawling for.
The issue with graphics goes way beyond simply tossing in a handful of higher resolution images and praying to dog that it works... they've already shown, at the development level, a severe lack of understanding of the game engine that they're using to render the graphics in the first place.
Or perhaps it's not a lack of understanding but instead something that the game engine really, truly, is not designed to handle, and is hacked to bits to make it hobble along as it does now.
These next few months of "graphical updates" could be a total nightmare for a game that doesn't even have graphics remotely approaching the resolutions available in modern, fully 3D games that can manage far more textures, mobs, and particle effects on screen than UO would even bother to produce in the first place.
So before we get lost in the technicality of resolution, let's remember that they still -- no proof otherwise available -- don't have any clue how to implement those higher resolution images into the "Enhanced" Client.
My number two gripe with the EC is that they are trying to WoWify a game that doesn't need to be WoWed, and aren't even doing a decent job of providing in-client help to walk people through some of the client's more "enhanced" features.
My number one gripe is that between KR and the EC, we're talking about more than a half of a decade of development and engineering that are leading almost no where. I mean, come on... the replacement client for the CC has been in development for LONGER THAN THE ENTIRE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORIGINAL UO RELEASE!
By now, SOMEONE should have figured out how to program and design a client, taken a couple of classes in user interfaces, and, I don't know, sent Grimm Omen off to Mrs. Todd's Fly By Night Graphic School...
People point at the CC for holding back the development of UO. Which is ironic, because if the developers had provided a suitable replacement for the CC, the only people having this discussion right now would be akin to the same group of people who long for a "Classic Shard." Which is to say "provide a quality, complete product, and it becomes a non-issue."
Lots of people thought they'd be supporting the non-T2A client forever too...
The thing that I think we're overlooking here is that the program suggested could be used to give a very decent base model to work from that a 2D artist could then go in and refine.
Which do you prefer?
If the program can handle a majority of the work and then someone went through and made an additional pass over it to clean it up, it achieves two things:
1) The artwork remains faithful to the original style and dimensions...
2) It saves the artist having to do a lot of the initial work him/herself.
The suggested program could be part of a solution.
As to why this hasn't been done, well, hey, one could very easily ask "How the bloody hell did the graphics for KR ever get 'approved,'" but like all other questions relating to UO graphics, there tends to be a lack of culpability, and a lack of vision.
This is my favorite thread. I love that it keeps getting ressurected! Saphireena's work is wonderful!
Personally I loved the UOKR graphics. There were only a handful of creatures/art that I thought looked better in the CC.
KR visually beats the hell out of anything currently in the EC Client.
I don't understand what issues CC users have with the EC Client other than it's a different UI. The EC client is essentially UOKR with CC graphics. It's loaded with graphics from the CC client. The Devs went out of their way to make the EC look like the CC Client.
Saphreena's graphics are awesome and I would embrace a client with those types of graphics. Some form of high resolution is needed... badly.
If there is such a program that can touch up the 2D graphics they should do that too...it can't hurt.
But I'd venture to guess the 2D users would complain about that as well.
Personally I loved the UOKR graphics. There were only a handful of creatures/art that I thought looked better in the CC.
KR visually beats the hell out of anything currently in the EC Client.
I don't understand what issues CC users have with the EC Client other than it's a different UI. The EC client is essentially UOKR with CC graphics. It's loaded with graphics from the CC client. The Devs went out of their way to make the EC look like the CC Client.
Saphreena's graphics are awesome and I would embrace a client with those types of graphics. Some form of high resolution is needed... badly.
If there is such a program that can touch up the 2D graphics they should do that too...it can't hurt.
But I'd venture to guess the 2D users would complain about that as well.
T
Trebr Drab
Guest
One thing to consider between the CC and EC art is the animations. There's more to the EC, and the old CC art was created from 3D models but that was lost, so they wouldn't have anything to fill in the "blanks".
But there's something that really bothers me about the EC animations. They are smooth, but lack breaks in turning, starting and stopping, and give it a "too smooth" non stop look. It feels worse to me than the CC choppiness because that choppiness gives it more of a feel for stopping, turning, etc.
If you've played WoW and compared it to other similar games you can get a feel for this. They spent the time to add to the animations for this sort of thing, and it makes a world of difference.
The problem with this "too smooth" feel is that it removes the player from the world. It's a constant reminder that the avatar is just something that's plopped down on top of a background. Immersion is spoiled, constantly, and in an "in your face" way. The art is the very first perception of a game, and that's a terrible place to put an immersion breaker.
But there's something that really bothers me about the EC animations. They are smooth, but lack breaks in turning, starting and stopping, and give it a "too smooth" non stop look. It feels worse to me than the CC choppiness because that choppiness gives it more of a feel for stopping, turning, etc.
If you've played WoW and compared it to other similar games you can get a feel for this. They spent the time to add to the animations for this sort of thing, and it makes a world of difference.
The problem with this "too smooth" feel is that it removes the player from the world. It's a constant reminder that the avatar is just something that's plopped down on top of a background. Immersion is spoiled, constantly, and in an "in your face" way. The art is the very first perception of a game, and that's a terrible place to put an immersion breaker.
Um,
This!
Anyone remember the Stratics KR Safari? Players were requested to take screenshots of the creatures in Kingdom Reborn and submit them as a means of updating the Stratics info pages.
As part of my own attempts to adjust to KR, I submitted huge amounts of KR screenies. I managed most of the critters in Khaldun, in Twisted Weald, and in Prism of Light, as well as a fair few random critters.
Ancient Lich Almonjin
Tentacles of the Harrower
Dreadhorn
Irk
Virulent
Crystal Hydra
Unfrozen Mummy
Saliva
KR Harpy
Insane Dryad
KR Hydra
If anyone should want these, whether for own use, or simply documenting the history of UO's artwork, throw me a PM and I'll inflict them upon you.
I still and not so secretly crave Saphireena's polished 2d pretties.
As part of my own attempts to adjust to KR, I submitted huge amounts of KR screenies. I managed most of the critters in Khaldun, in Twisted Weald, and in Prism of Light, as well as a fair few random critters.
Ancient Lich Almonjin
Tentacles of the Harrower
Dreadhorn
Irk
Virulent
Crystal Hydra
Unfrozen Mummy
Saliva
KR Harpy
Insane Dryad
KR Hydra
If anyone should want these, whether for own use, or simply documenting the history of UO's artwork, throw me a PM and I'll inflict them upon you.
I still and not so secretly crave Saphireena's polished 2d pretties.
Honestly I think it was hasty myself as well. The only art that I had a real problem with in KR was the item art, as much of it was really really really awful. They should have just given them another pass, and fire whoever keeps making circular things 100% full on perspective rather than the 85% that regular UO uses.Nice screenshots! How I miss UOKR!
Now what is so bad about those graphics that they had to go and pull the plug on them?
I thought 95% of the monsters were really great, and if they had just managed a good means of adding color to stuff other than paint bucket, they would be really great.
The thing that I think we're overlooking here is that the program suggested could be used to give a very decent base model to work from that a 2D artist could then go in and refine.
Which do you prefer?
If the program can handle a majority of the work and then someone went through and made an additional pass over it to clean it up, it achieves two things:
1) The artwork remains faithful to the original style and dimensions...
2) It saves the artist having to do a lot of the initial work him/herself.
The suggested program could be part of a solution.
As to why this hasn't been done, well, hey, one could very easily ask "How the bloody hell did the graphics for KR ever get 'approved,'" but like all other questions relating to UO graphics, there tends to be a lack of culpability, and a lack of vision.
As you can see the program does a decent job on most original images. The better the original image looks, the better the scaled up version looks. When the original image is not great, as with the tree in the pot, when it is scaled up, it is going to look even worse.
Oh, I agree, the program doesn't do a bad job. I also agree that having it blown up leaves room for improvement on the original model. There is shading that could be fine-tuned and whatever else.
As you can see the program does a decent job on most original images. The better the original image looks, the better the scaled up version looks. When the original image is not great, as with the tree in the pot, when it is scaled up, it is going to look even worse.
Honestly, since they haven't bothered to take UO fully 3D at all, it really makes me wonder why, when they were doing KR's art, that they didn't do exactly that... I mean, they were redrawing artwork. Why not have taken the original artwork, blown it up, and made it a worthy higher-res image? I somehow doubt that they ever modeled every KR item as a 3D object, which means it was most likely a bunch of pixel art... and poorly done (by and large, saving, of course, the Holy Banana Tree of Antioch) at that.
I dunno... I really don't understand why they wanted to "re-imagine" UO's artwork rather than, you know, improving upon it.
But, back to the original point, I think taking even 50% of the work out of the equation by blowing everything up with that program, and then doing a fine-tune pass or two would speed the process along, and keep the artwork appropriate to UO's style.
Re:
I would love to see this as well...or at least a new client that looked better than the current terrible blurry offering. But I guess they don't have anyone capable of such an achievement. I really can't believe after all these years that this game still looks so terrible.
Funny thing how this thread has out lived alot of the old regulars that used to post here.
It hasn't outlived us... mostly, some of us are waiting to see what the "graphical improvements" are that are coming down the line.
I know for my part that I've offered to work with Mythic on numerous occasions to fill in some of the gaps in the artwork, particularly for housing tiles, and to go in and correct some of the artwork that has obvious/glaring errors in it. I've been told as many times that graphical improvements are coming, and they're waiting to show them off to us.
So, at present, I'm sort of waiting to see what's coming down the pipe -- and out of politeness, I won't mention exactly how long I've been waiting. I just hope it's worth the wait.
A feller has approached me in Facebook who has serious plans to make a high res version of the game. I told him that unfortunately I do not have time to be a part of it. However, knowing how many here in this thread felt very passionate about this, I thought I'd forward his contact info if anyone wants to ask about it or offer their help.
לב אלרו | Facebook
Good luck to him and his project! It would be very very very cool to see a hi-res fan made version some day.
I do have some other nice Ultima related news though, I've recently joined the Ultima Return project (fan made remake of Ultima VII Serpent Isle) and you'll be able to follow the progress I make here.
לב אלרו | Facebook
Good luck to him and his project! It would be very very very cool to see a hi-res fan made version some day
.I do have some other nice Ultima related news though, I've recently joined the Ultima Return project (fan made remake of Ultima VII Serpent Isle) and you'll be able to follow the progress I make here.
Yea, I don't think that algorithm would help. It doesn't add detail, just allows you to up-res what's there. The results would not be desirable.
EDIT:
Yea, I was the character lead for UOKR, and I think that, for the most part, UOKR was heads above the Legacy artwork, there were a few exceptions, but those are to be expected when you are on the deadline that we were on.
The reason we had to knock down the resolution of the animations was that it was causing a lot of instability issues. When we lowered the resolution, quite a few of those stability problems went away. What would have been smarter was to lower the resolution as an option, this way we wouldn't have taken steps backward in quality. But we were in a real tight spot to resolve these problems quickly, and when your firefighting, you miss things.
It's one of the many things I was making slow progress towards, but it's a ridiculous amount of work not to mention keeping up with the demands of our publishes.
-Grimm
(Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD)
Yeah.. KR was.. It was nice.. I didn't like the paperdolls at first, I had a smaller monitor, paperdroll was waaay too big without anyway to adjust it, only reason I didn't play the 3D client was cause I just did not like the paperdoll, I don't mind it on a larger monitor now.. Kingdom Reborn though really caused problems for my computer and I even have a hybrid gaming machine, had problems with it, took a up a massive about of CPU usage... I liked it, I loved the client, the artwork, the graphics were nice, it would have done well in a brand new UO with a brand new world, which in my opinion, is what has been needed for UO for so long, rather than another expansion.. Hopefully Ultima Forever turns out nice..
The Paperdolls in KR were terrible..... not only were they insanely large but they were bat **** ugly... The females looked like dudes on hormone therapy or something.... and the males looked like wimps 50 year old wimps with dunlap disease... I couldn't stand that.
Not that the EC paperdolls are much better... now the females look like cheap ****'s who take steroids... they have some sort of a manly appeal to them... and the males still look like 50 year old wimps. They don't have the muscular build that the 2d client has.
Not that the EC paperdolls are much better... now the females look like cheap ****'s who take steroids... they have some sort of a manly appeal to them... and the males still look like 50 year old wimps. They don't have the muscular build that the 2d client has.
Haha! Yea, the UI stuff was some of the last things to get in, which sadly was when there was a big push to get that project done. I don't think any of us were happy with how the UI elements turned out.
I wish the "few exceptions" would have been ironed out and worked on instead of throwing everything out, then the option for art style should have been retained with the default swapped to the Classic art with the option to use KR artwork/higher resolution.
I believe the first problem with the model resolution was the decision to go to the "hybrid" method that brought back the stop-motion/motion capture animation style of 2d. Even it it's put onto a polygon, it's a LOT more intensive than simply using 3d models would have been and 3d cards and technology have reached the level now that the models could have remained polygon/mesh style ingame but retained the detail. Beyond that, the ability to set the resolution level would have been nice. I ran KR with a GeForce 7950GToc card and it ran like a champ even in events that were "designed for the 2d client". I've since upgraded further.
I remember when noone really liked the KR UI... but as it always seems to be the case, the EC base UI theme made me wish we had the KR default theme back. Bright Orange doesn't make for that good of a UI theme IMO, which is why I started doing the UI modding on the graphics/XML end.
Except that you had... what, 5 years to correct? And never did.
Please do not get me started on the KR paperdolls.
There were huge gaps in time that zero artwork was coming out in the past 5 years that I have no doubt time could have been allocated to resolve these issues.
Don't get me wrong Grimm there were some REALLY awesome things in KR.... and then there was the Hiryu..... and the leathery dragon instead of my lovely scaled dragon... Some of that stuff though was awesome...
I think though one thing that was majorly wrong was that there is no "official" area for folk to get a UI and so many folk don't trust downloads... which made the KR thing pretty difficult for folk to really get into. I mean unless you have some really good computer knowledge yourself to make your own UI which lets face it a vast majority of players do NOT so the UI leaving so much to us isn't really something most of us were going to tackle.
I just wish they would get back to fixing the graphics. Much of it is still in dire need of being fixed. There are still tiles that can't be seen in the EC. When last I was at an event with the Giant Horde minions I was told that issue was fixed but I couldn't see them. I saw screenshots of them but I couldn't see them at all in the EC. There are dozens and dozens of clipping issues as well as those god awful burlap bags that pass as robes for Gargoyles on the gargoyle paperdoll still... I certainly wish something would get done about THAT! It's like here's the new Gargoyle isn't it awesome! WTF is it wearing????? That don't look ANYTHING like what you see in-game...
I think though one thing that was majorly wrong was that there is no "official" area for folk to get a UI and so many folk don't trust downloads... which made the KR thing pretty difficult for folk to really get into. I mean unless you have some really good computer knowledge yourself to make your own UI which lets face it a vast majority of players do NOT so the UI leaving so much to us isn't really something most of us were going to tackle.
I just wish they would get back to fixing the graphics. Much of it is still in dire need of being fixed. There are still tiles that can't be seen in the EC. When last I was at an event with the Giant Horde minions I was told that issue was fixed but I couldn't see them. I saw screenshots of them but I couldn't see them at all in the EC. There are dozens and dozens of clipping issues as well as those god awful burlap bags that pass as robes for Gargoyles on the gargoyle paperdoll still... I certainly wish something would get done about THAT! It's like here's the new Gargoyle isn't it awesome! WTF is it wearing????? That don't look ANYTHING like what you see in-game...
Well, you have to keep in mind that after we updated the female paper doll art was just before they moved development to Mythic. At that point the entire art team was laid off and the the replacement team was a fraction of the size it had been at EA. As for gaps in time that art wasn't being released, the only time art wasn't being released was when we were working on the art to release it. I can testify that at no point since development resumed at Mythic was there no artwork being produced. In regards to having 5 years to correct it, that assuming that resources were available to accomplish that task in addition to the other tasks that were assigned to us - which we simply didn't have. I understand and share your frustration about the paper dolls, just from a different point of view.
-Grimm
I'm really hoping that if Ultima Forever is a success that they might be able to port the engine to UO. I just hope that if they do this that they don't make it cartoony like Ultima Forever seems to be.
Oh no, I appreciate what you're saying. Getting in and fixing things is a simple matter of making time to do it, unfortunately, it's really hard to make the time when you've got the next batch of deliverables staring you down for the next publish when you haven't even finished the ones for the current one! I'm not trying to make excuses, it's definitely something that needs to happen, but getting the time is tough, really tough. You might recall me mentioning in... January or February that the art schedule was booked through September? That's literally the truth! I had scheduled for Exodus (as well as my last two gifts 2 UO, which you haven't see yet) back in Jan or Feb, and wasn't uncommon for me to be be overbooked by over 150% each publish, looking at the next publish or two down the road - each of which already booked solid and trying to fit more work in!
But who knows?
-Grimm
(Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD)
W
Woodsman
Guest
It's not an MMORPG engine though. If they were going to completely switch engines, they might as well go with something that is proven for actual MMORPG, and not a quest game focused on groups of 4 players.
But the thing is, the same engine behind the EC is the same engine behind Warhammer Online, Dark Age of Camelot, RIFT, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fallout 3, and a lot of other games. They just need to fix what they have. Another new engine would put them right back to square one - 3+ years of debugging.
Think about it. They've been working on the EC for 3 years now and it's still not out of beta. A new engine would mean another 3+ years of beta.
You mean Pinco's been working on the EC. Nobody on the EA/UO payroll has done much if anything to improve the client.
I recently upgraded to 64-Bit Windows on my system and installed the EC Client from scratch. The stock EC client is seriously lacking: I mean it's bad...real bad.
Having to reinstall the EC Client on my system made it transparent just how bad the default EC Client is. I'd forgotten just how much work Pinco did to improve it. Why is it not the default client because it sure would look better to any NEW person trying EC or UO for the first time.
That was another interesting sidenote on the download. The EC had the BETA tag.
3 Years and it's still in BETA? Good greif.
What does that say about the state of Ultima Online? (Wait...Don't answer that)
Another reminder how this game is completely ignored and whatever limited resources the Team has is squandered in the wrong places.
Screw story Arc and Live events. I don't give a rats ass about either.
All resources at the disposal of the UO Team, however small, should be geared toward optimizing the EC and getting some high resolution art into the game.
Guys I can understand that there is a lot of pent up frustration that needs venting. However I think that:
- It's not very nice to pounce upon Grimm with your vents. All he wanted to do was come and give his input about the algorithm. Over the years I've kept in contact with Grimm and I know this gent has truly worked his butt off for this game. At times I've actually been worried that he's doing way too much and too long hours for his own good. You do realize he was only one person in the team and responsible for art and not for the game in whole? An artist - not a producer, not a product manager. And even if someone were the top dog in the art department, that person would still have their schedules and art task plans restricted by what the producer, PMs and other higher ups want. Being a game developer myself, I know first hand how UTTERLY FRUSTRATING it is when you really really want to fix some things that have been bothering both you and the players for a long time, but higher ups push new content and consider it a bigger priority. God, sometimes I would be so frustrated that I'd go and fix those things on my own time or on the holidays! I wouldn't be surprised if Grimm has done the same sometimes. Now knowing that, imagine how heart wrenching it must be to be the one who faces the angry mobs here on the forums, when all you wanted to do was contribute to a thread on a completely different topic. And not only that, but what if you weren't even in the team anymore. Personally I feel that now that Grimm is not working on UO anymore, he should be set free and allowed to join in on conversations as one of us, a fan of UO and appreciate any wisdom he has to share with us. I do understand that if he mentions having been this and that, or done this and that, it's tempting to pounce and vent, but still. I for one, want to see Grimm continue to chatter with us and I really appreciate hearing from him whether he's a part of the UO team or not.
- This thread revolves around hi-res pixel art client possibilities and nothing else. Can we keep on topic please?
Last edited:
You mean Pinco's been working on the EC. Nobody on the EA/UO payroll has done much if anything to improve the client.
I recently upgraded to 64-Bit Windows on my system and installed the EC Client from scratch. The stock EC client is seriously lacking: I mean it's bad...real bad.
Having to reinstall the EC Client on my system made it transparent just how bad the default EC Client is. I'd forgotten just how much work Pinco did to improve it. Why is it not the default client because it sure would look better to any NEW person trying EC or UO for the first time.
That was another interesting sidenote on the download. The EC had the BETA tag.
3 Years and it's still in BETA? Good greif.
What does that say about the state of Ultima Online? (Wait...Don't answer that)
Another reminder how this game is completely ignored and whatever limited resources the Team has is squandered in the wrong places.
Screw story Arc and Live events. I don't give a rats ass about either.
All resources at the disposal of the UO Team, however small, should be geared toward optimizing the EC and getting some high resolution art into the game.
From my point of view there is a severe staff shortages, too many clients, too many contents to keep updated, too many bugs. In short is like trying to keep clean a city like New York with 10 people... no matter how good they are, the city will always be dirty.
To keep running a game like this they need MANY more people and several focus groups... if the client is unstable, you can't spend years to fix it, the patch must take 1 week top.
There should be a team working on bugs from dawn till dusk keeping the game always healthy.
There should be a team asking "why we get 1 player and he leave after 2 days?" and be angry because they can't find an answer.
There should be someone reading the forum and providing answers, argue with people (even insult them if necessary), but the complaining must find a logical answer, and from all this they must be able to gather informations on how to improve the game.
Right now the game as it is has no future because there is no evolution... from AoS we had just more and more items, races, skills, but the game still the same: no simplifications, no graphical improvement... how long can survive a primitive man in the modern world?
Since this may affect future art decisions, my 2 cents. Imho the algorithm hands down is better than 99% of what we have seen in the KR client and the EC.
Aside - I wish they hired Saph 5 years ago, because things would be a lot different now.
The polished version looks truly fantastic. I would start playing UO again if such a change could be make to the CC.
Trust me I wouldn't pounce on one of the very few DEV's that actually gives us the "time of day" so to speak.
Grimm has quickly become one of my all time favorites.
I think he knows how much we appreciate his taking the time to comment and say hi. I REALLY hate to see him go... Just always wanting to keep things bubbling to the surface so to speak about things that really could use some improvement should the time arise that someone might be able to fix a few things.
Never hurts to voice a few heartfelt desires. While beauty is always in the eye of the beholder when it comes to art... just always hope folk agree and maybe if a good bit of the population agreed then perhaps the time could be made... one can always dream of the future.
Grimm has quickly become one of my all time favorites.
I think he knows how much we appreciate his taking the time to comment and say hi. I REALLY hate to see him go... Just always wanting to keep things bubbling to the surface so to speak about things that really could use some improvement should the time arise that someone might be able to fix a few things.
Never hurts to voice a few heartfelt desires. While beauty is always in the eye of the beholder when it comes to art... just always hope folk agree and maybe if a good bit of the population agreed then perhaps the time could be made... one can always dream of the future.
I just keep hoping the "high ups" would see that some of this needs addressing in order for the game to go forward. I'd rather get issues fixed and make the game much more appealing in looks and function before going and adding more content. I'm happy with what I have now though I realize that the holidays and all are coming and folk demand new pixels but first of the year should be devoted to fixing things... And I'm with Mesanna on that and I hope she gets a bunch done for both the 2d client and the EC.
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Gee maybe they should have been looking into hiring more people instead of letting quality people go...
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