With Star Trek Online now being developed by a new company (possibly Cryptic) - There is every chance that the old "Next Gen vs Styalised" graphics debate is back open for discussion.

Alot of people were not happy to hear about the decision by Perpetual to go down a stylised road - i was one of those people. I love to see crisp and shiny graphics.

To me, Star Trek was all about the future - i loved seeing the technology that we could potentially have in the future - and Next Gen gaming graphics are a part of the future.

Styalised graphics just seems like a cop out to get games out faster.

As i said, with the game being made by someone new, on a different engine, there is every chance that it could go back to next gen graphics - nothing we knew of the "old" STO is true anymore!

What does everyone else think?

Next Gen, or Styalised?

I am a bit torn on this issue and have varying opinions on the matter.

I can understand the draw to and the enthusiasm for nextgen graphics, and as was stated previously, ST:O would seem a logical game for nextgen graphics. Anything that gives the player that extra bit of immersion, to make them feel a part of the Trek universe can be a good thing. However, this also presents complications in the form of hardware and the ability to attract a wider audience and draw in as many people as possible. Hardware upgrades to a PC to support nextgen graphics can get expensive, and for some people, could mean the need for an entirely new computer system. This will often limit the people who would be drawn to a game to just the hardcore fan base as most gamers will not justify upgrading a system for one game. Furthermore, this puts the devs in an akward position because they want as many people to play their game as possible and requiring massive hardware upgrades won't make that happen. On the backend of it, next gen graphics can also present server based problems as it slows upload/download times and can be overwhelming for an online game. This will increase the lag factor and possibly create bad mojo among the players of the game.

On the other side of the coin, stylized graphics can have major benefits, but with those benefits come drawbacks as well. Stylized graphics allow the devs to produce the game faster and produce a higher volume of graphics, which can mean more content and a faster release date. If using stylized graphics is the difference between us seeing only the Alpha Quadrant (with nextgen graphics) or all 4 quadrants (with stylized) at the time of release, I might be inclined to lean towards the stylized as it allows for more immediate exploration and fewer massive patches and expansions. However, the drawback is that with stylized, the immersion factor is reduced. If we are playing a game that feels too comic book or to WoWesque, then the immersion into the game will not be the same, and instead we end up playing the TAS version instead of the TOS version. (only as reference and comparison of animated vs live action)

In my mind if the devs go with a stylized look, it will need to be a nextgen stylized that is a step beyond the WoW look to remove the cartoony factor. Otherwise, they are better off going with a nextgen graphics styling and hope that it will not drive away customers and severely increase the lag.

In my mind if the devs go with a stylized look, it will need to be a nextgen stylized that is a step beyond the WoW look to remove the cartoony factor. Otherwise, they are better off going with a nextgen graphics styling and hope that it will not drive away customers and severely increase the lag.

what did you think of the screen that PE put up? it didnt seem too cartoony to me

Which one, they put lots of screenshots and renders out..........

the actual screenshot, with the guy shooting the gorn. and might as well ask about the ship shot they put out like a week before the ground shot.

the ones with the UI, if that makes it easier :P

In my opinion a game dosn't need to look cartoonish to be good, and "styalised" can mean so much. I'm currently playing LoTRO and I have to admit the game is stuning in the graphics area... yet it dosn't require the quad core with 2billion gigs of ram to play. The way Turbine has done this is through high end texture art and solid code. You see the actual objects are generaly just simple shapes and have very well drawn out textures to bring these simple shapes to life.

In all the games I've played I've never seen a forest so well done as you find in LoTRO, the reason I say this is I'm the kind of person who actualy looks at the ground from time to time. Forests DONT have lots of grass (like you find in wow and other MMOs) they are generaly bare with lots of shrubs, fallen leaves and branches and this is just what LoTRO did, they painted a ground texture to look like brown pineneedles and branches and because of it the forests look wonderful!

So to come to the main point of my argument I want BOTH, I want styalised graphics that look as real as they possibly can. I don't have a ton of money to go out and upgrade my comp with so I need my hardware to last and to be pushed to its limmits. So I say good programers and artists are the key to a wonderful game.