Thinking about canceling my pre order due to latest streams

Hah. I'm not gonna look at that thread. Too many pictures! I'm already kinda bothered that I had to see the couple you guys posted (though I don't blame you; it's my own problem). But I seem to have 1 question going unanswered: by "demo" do you mean "beta," in reference to that screenshot? Or are people cleverly conflating the two to drum up bullshit controversy?

@development: It's just a weird minor quibble I have with the game; even if the game has had some graphical setbacks I'm not that upset by it. But everytime I look at characters moving in this game it looks like someone running while on a conveyor belt.

@marokai: Totally agree.

@development said:

@darji said:

Edit: Even the demo looked way better than the retail version WTF

Wait. Is this real? I'm not gonna watch those videos you posted or go searching for more screenshots, because I don't want anything else spoiled, but why the hell would the demo look amazing, while the final release doesn't? That second pic... wow. I'll admit, it certainly looks more like the Dark Souls I know than the top pic.

@mb I donno, man. He's roping me in! Look at that difference. Hey, you have the game. Is it really as bad as pic #2 looks? I'm gonna buy it tomorrow regardless, but I'm curious.

edit: also, I'm assuming by "demo" they mean "beta." If not, then sure I expected downgrades from whatever build they were demoing way back in the day.

That wasn't the area available for the beta test so no whatever build they were playing on the top video/pictures never got into public hands at least outside of trade shows.

Also, that is straight up a stark difference. I don't know that it makes me want to not buy the game but there sure are a few things over the last few days piling up that are hindering my excitement for the game now that reports are coming out from people who have the game. We'll see I guess if I bother to buy it Tuesday or not. Probably would be smart of me to wait honestly. I've got like 3 games on the 18th that I have coming to me.

@marokai: i did notice that with heavy armored characters , but my sorcerer character didn't have that problem , i think it just means to show that the armor the character wearing is heavy that it makes him move like that hahaha

PC version it is.

@violegrace: Dude c'mon who's really being stupid here? they downgraded a big portion of the lightning engine which is supposed to play a significant role in DaS2 according to devs, how's that not going to change gameplay? Take a look at this gallery someone posted at neogaf http://imgur.com/a/iCHZD/, it doesn't spoil pretty much anything except the fact that graphics including textures and some game architecture that looked way better before was changed for the worse.

I wonder how much of this is people who don't know how to use their own TV or video capturing equipment. Because looking at a lot of the videos/images posted the picture quality looks washed out and flat. And not because of the game, but because how the capture was taken or more likely how these people have their TV's setup. I wouldn't be surprised to find out some of these captures are on TVs in fucking Movie mode or something. And on the gaf topic, a lot of the "this is the bad version of the image", look way better than what they are comparing it too. So again. You people are silly.

@sterling: This is exactly what I've been thinking, as well. How many people are running the game through weird ass capture equipment to get these screens? There's really no way to decide until we see footage from reputable sources or for ourselves.

Also, many of them don't even have a light source in the area they are in. They are complaining about dynamic lighting, yet there is no light source on screen. So ...

I do not know. IF there is eve a Demo for this game. I have not played it yet and have not seen many longer gameplay videos except for the very first one and the other one I posted. But I guess it was the beta?^^

@bigjeffrey Yeah let us just hope they are really doing a good port this time. Or we have to wait again for the community to fix this.

@sterling It is not only that. It seems you do not even need a torch anymore not because of your brightness but because you seem to glow now a bit to make it more beginner friendly.

@darji: Well the alternative is that "demo" is simply the "show" demo. What they showed at conventions, or footage from gameplay releases. Hence my confusion and want for clarification. Also possibly hence a lot of your surprise at the stark contrast.

I'm betting you didn't even click the gallery comparison I posted, that goes way beyond something that you can fix by changing your TV settings, also official screens are out there and they pretty much reveal the stale look we are seeing now.

@tobako You're the same user who posted the "Grfx dumbed down" thread many days ago, and seem to have only posted in threads talking about how the graphics of Dark Souls II are in question. That seems strange to me.

@heyguys:

Why does it seem strange? I simply noticed something fishy about the graphics and it turns out I was (unfortunately) right.

I've seen this exact discussion going on at NEOgaf, to the point that I wonder if the OP is just a user from that board re-posting it here.

Either way, may I suggest this: The game is less than a day away from release on consoles, how about you calm down and wait for "real" impressions and better quality videos? I know people are freaking out right now over "graphics dumbed down" after the whole Watch_Dogs thing, but nothing pisses me off more than people trying to stir up drama where there is none to be found. And no, comparing Screenshot A with Screenshot B isn't proof in my eyes that FROM are trying to screw us over.

Calm down, wait a day or two, then see how things are. I doubt you'll convince people here otherwise anyway.

@tobako: It seems obsessive to only be concerned with one thing and to make multiple threads on the same topic in just a few days. On top of that people who are "concerned" usually see good and bad, you seem to only see bad.

@heyguys: Jesus... just look at the screens I just posted, if that doesn't break the gameplay to a degree I don't know what does, actually if I didn't see running footage of the supposed final release I would totally say that was an alpha. Not just lightning but general architecture was downgraded.

BTW Cincaid NO I'm not the same person that posted on neogaf, I don't even have the game yet but people who apparently do are posting footage all over the place and I'm not blind.

Anyway you guys get it first in NA so I hope you get far enough into these areas and post some screens for comparison, I'm not canceling until I confirm this, I'm in EU so I have to wait a little longer.

ok i went on and toke some screenshots of my xbox 360 version using my camera :

Gallery

The game looks even way better than the screenshots i toke because of the quality of the photos , lightning looks better in game than it shows in these photos i toke , then again i say , the demo did have better lightning , but still ..

? T he game looks great some of the areas have some 'questionable' textures but all in all its fucking beautiful. cant wait to play in a few days!

@violegrace: Well I must say those screens look pretty good, it would be nice if you could post a few more specially in the same areas I showed above, maybe there's a chance some people might've been playing an early build or something, because those screens I found look pretty damn horrible and I've seen gameplay footage very similar to it.

@tobako: You also have to remember that people can screw up their gamma settings, resulting in weird-looking screenshots. :)

And oh, I'm in EU as well + I'm waiting for the PC release. So I won't be playing until 25th of April. :(

@demoskinos: It's nowhere close to looking as bad as in that second picture. I wouldn't even recognize it as the same game if it wasn't for the HUD.

It definitely does not look like the first picture either, though. Somewhere in between. I think it looks good, not mind-blowing, but still good. I never found myself going through an area and thinking about how bad it looks. I do care about how my games look, too. I mean hell, I try to force as much AA/AF on my PC as possible just because I can.

@violegrace: Also, thanks for the awesome screenshots! Can you comment on how much you find yourself "needing" to use a torch? One of the screenshots, where you're going down some stairs, it almost looks like it would be pitch-black without the torch. Is that the case, or do you think the torch is mostly for a neat effect?

@violegrace said:

ok i went on and toke some screenshots of my xbox 360 version using my camera :

Gallery

The game looks even way better than the screenshots i toke because of the quality of the photos , lightning looks better in game than it shows in these photos i toke , then again i say , the demo did have better lightning , but still ..

Soul arrow? I see you're playing, heh, Brad Souls..

I'm definitely getting a little tired of betas and alphas somehow looking far better than the final product even when the beta/alpha was clearly running on a console, but it's not gonna effect my decision to buy it. I'd definitely take frame rate over graphical fidelity any day, so yeah. I'm probably just gonna get the PC version, though, since I'm most likely not gonna be able to get this this month. I very much doubt the PC version will look like that old demo, though.

Also, I wish people would stop responding to these kinda threads with just " eh, it still looks fine. " ......Like, that's kind of not the point at all. I think it's super dumb to not buy a game you were looking forward to just because it doesn't look fantastic, but still. Come on.

P.S. I fucking love the look of the new " hub " area.

@steadyingmeat: I agree that frame rate is much more important, but I also totally understand the frustration at the graphical downgrade - if it exists. My main qualm is that there's just no solid way to know yet. An imgur gallery doesn't satisfy me because there's really no way to know the conditions the shots were taken in, if there was manipulation after the fact for the purpose of trolling, etc. I know you don't think it's the point, but I really do think that from the wide variety of what I've seen it does "look fine", by which I mean that the game looks plenty good for me to enjoy. Of course it could look better, but then again couldn't every game?

More screens :) , using a torch in some areas do make it more visible , but i find that the light aura the character makes is quite enough , at least for me .

People are expecting high level graphics from old and outdated hardware, we have seen how far that the previous gen can be stretched. A lot of these screenshot comparisons are relying on two assumptions; first is that these are actually the same locations in the respective screenshots, looking similar does not mean that they are the same location and the possibility that a few areas have similar architectures is highly probable, the second is that the original demo visuals were run on a last gen console rather than a PC (there is no concrete evidence either way). Finally, a lot of people's anecdotal opinions are based off of twitch streams (horrible quality even at highest settings due to compression) and the small amount of game-play video already uploaded, both of which suffer from compression and only illustrate a small portion of the final game.

@violegrace: Awesome, thanks :D

@killerclaw: Thank you for the appeal to sanity.

I just want the game to not run at a garbage framerate like the first one. I'm not saying 60 frames, just give me a decently smooth 30. As long as it runs OK, then I don't mind if it's not the best looking game out there. I think it's kind of weird that people are worried about textures and lighting when the Souls games are notorious for how shitty their framerate can be.

Pfffft...Baby Souls...

@violegrace: Does magic work a little better in Dark Souls 2? Pyromancy was much better in the first game, but I see you're rocking a wizard there.

@humanity: Yes it does work alot better than Ds1 , now you can get herbs that recovers your spell usage , having 2 stacks of the same spell , lvling attunement increases the amount of spells each stack has , and many other stuff , i believe it's possible to play this game by using only magic this time , i didn't play as a mage in ds1 so i am not sure if these things are available in the first ..

Souls games were always on the very ugly side of technical good looks, only salvaged by the great art style and design.

So I dunno it sure as shit still looks like any other Souls game on the PS3 did, to me.

I just remember Soul Arrow being sorta weak. Then again, after Demons Souls devastatingly efficient Soul Arrow everything else seems a big underpowered..

Looks pretty impressive considering the old-as-fuck hardware it's running on. Giving the popularity of the PC version of DS, they've already stated they plan to give the game the love it deserves, this time round.

Dynamic lighting or specifically shadows, take way more render power than you'd think.

The nuts and bolts they've clearly put into the PC version is looking a lot like a current gen port is around the corner.

It looks a step up from the original either way, you can't get blood out of a stone. Buy the PC version if the visuals bother you that much. I'll happily wait.

That is the biggest problem I have. It seems they dumped the lighting just to make it more accessible.

@tobako said:

I'm not sure if we can really compare these, they look like they're totally different areas. The layout of some of them is different, and the architecture is totally different.

It looks pretty nice in those screens but still quite downgraded in comparison to earlier footage, the major problem here though seems to be the change in lightning in areas that previously were pitch black, perhaps this is what's making them look worse than they should. One of the things that got me really hyped was this new torch mechanic which they basically rendered useless now and I think it hurts gameplay quite a bit. Still hoping to see some "mirror knight" footage gameplay when someone gets there, that area was the most impressive and heavier in terms of effects.

We managed to do okay with the PC version of Dark Souls...

@fattony12000: I don't remember it looking anything like that! My... my xboxen..

Looks as I expected Dark Souls 2 to look on old consoles, serviceable, but like the first game, nothing too impressive. It sounds like the framerate is generally better than in Dark Souls, and in the end, that is what matters most to me.

people say no. Rarely 30 FPS mostly lower to mid 20s

@fattony12000: Yep, adding in a nice texture pack along with a flora texture pack made that game look pretty fucking good.

Definitely looking forward to the PC version of 2.

@shirogane: Totally different areas really? they're clearly way too identical to be in different places, and it wouldn't make any sense to make them look so drastically different in visual quality, I think the mess up here comes from what I already mentioned, areas that were originally designed to be pitch black are now visible without a torch that means they brightened up those areas quite a lot, it just doesn't look good at all and it sacrifices the looks of surrounding areas as well, imo they should change this with a patch asap.

These things usually have a way of working out, maybe when ya get the game, have it hooked up on your own tv running through hdmi these issues aren't as apparent. Could explain the differences that MB has suggested in his experience compared to these compressed screen shots. Outside of fleeting disappointment this doesn't seem to me like a reason to abandon the darksouls 2 console release.

ITT

@shirogane said:

@tobako said:

I'm not sure if we can really compare these, they look like they're totally different areas. The layout of some of them is different, and the architecture is totally different.

They're also on PC rather than console.