Graphic improvement/mod

[littleplayer]

Hi everybody. I don't want to offend anybody, but I really don't like current graphic in the game. I understand, its one man project, a lot of work, same as Dwarf Fortress (2 people).
I tried demo, game is great, with many nice features, but it looks like 80´s automat video game. I like old games, graphic isnt so important, for example I still play Stronghold Crusader, second Warcraft from ´95, which has almost 30 years and looks better.
So my question : Is there any chance, that there will be graphical improvment or mod from fans ? At least something as Rimworld level.
Thanks and enjoy game.

[robtock216]

I don't believe so no, i wasn't particularly impressed 4 years ago when i first saw the graphics but once you realise they are the way they are because ...

1) 1 man team
2) Nostalgia from ancient games like Caesar
3) (and most importantly) the game has you dealing with populations of 10s of thousands, it tracks everything for every citizen from hunger to body temperature to clothing condition to when they last went to the toilet, every second for thousands of people, no game has ever done that.

If you look at games like Empyrion where you build custom bases and starships from thousands, even 10s of thousands of blocks and the condition of all those blocks during battle is calculated every second including the structural integrity from every explosion and bullet hit for every block around it, regardless of what super high end PC you have it absolutely fries it.

Warcraft 2 were a handful of units, not thousands, and it tracked health and mana, nothing else, crusader - same, 100 or so units at a time, tracks health, that's it.

Even supposed AAA titles like total war struggles with max settings for thousands of units and again its only tracking missile trajectory and health, in fact its why the new TW games like Pharaoh the units have actual health bars because it simplifies the calculation load.

[jackus]

I think it looks good =)

[kaibioinfo]

Originally posted by robtock216:

3) (and most importantly) the game has you dealing with populations of 10s of thousands, it tracks everything for every citizen from hunger to body temperature to clothing condition to when they last went to the toilet, every second for thousands of people, no game has ever done that.

I doubt that "no game has ever done that", but besides that your argument is wrong anyways. Graphics is not much related to gameplay. Having a lot of stats and attributes doesn't matter. If you really think that it matters that you have thousands of attributes to calculate then you forget that computers are doing this all the time without any problems. Graphics is usually done on your gpu and is ideally completely separated from the game logic. You could make Song of Syx om beautiful 3D graphics without performance issues. Having to show thousands of citizens on the map? No problem, you just need a clever implementation but many games have shown that this is possible.

But yeah, you would need a whole team for this. Expecting nice graphics and nice gameplay from a 1 man team is probably too much. It might be, though, that we see some mods with better sprites in the future.

[Bagpipe]

The graphics are amazing. Pixel art is a style all of its own but if it aint for you don't play pixel art games i guess. In terms of how good the graphics are of their chosen style, they are tremendous

[Bagpipe]

Originally posted by kaibioinfo:

Originally posted by robtock216:

3) (and most importantly) the game has you dealing with populations of 10s of thousands, it tracks everything for every citizen from hunger to body temperature to clothing condition to when they last went to the toilet, every second for thousands of people, no game has ever done that.

I doubt that "no game has ever done that", but besides that your argument is wrong anyways. Graphics is not much related to gameplay. Having a lot of stats and attributes doesn't matter. If you really think that it matters that you have thousands of attributes to calculate then you forget that computers are doing this all the time without any problems. Graphics is usually done on your gpu and is ideally completely separated from the game logic. You could make Song of Syx om beautiful 3D graphics without performance issues. Having to show thousands of citizens on the map? No problem, you just need a clever implementation but many games have shown that this is possible.

But yeah, you would need a whole team for this. Expecting nice graphics and nice gameplay from a 1 man team is probably too much. It might be, though, that we see some mods with better sprites in the future.

Your explanation of how graphics work and how you could make this 3D with no issue is completely wrong and only assures everyone reading this that you do not actually know how computers and computer graphics engines work etc. Not to be harsh, just saying it aint that simple :)

[kaibioinfo]

Originally posted by Bagpipe:

Your explanation of how graphics work and how you could make this 3D with no issue is completely wrong and only assures everyone reading this that you do not actually know how computers and computer graphics engines work etc. Not to be harsh, just saying it aint that simple :)

Yes, I would say then the same about you.

I'm not a game developer, although I developed games for fun when I was a child. I'm computer scientist though and know how graphics engines work ;) So please come with arguments instead of insubstantial accusations.

[DankSlayer]

Graphics are not important, the quality of the game is. Many people spend hundreds of hours playing Dwarf Fortress, and that game had ASCII graphics and simple tilesets for many many years. And I very much enjoy the game Capitalism Plus despite the simple graphics and the fact that it runs on DOS.
Songs of Syx looks good enough and makes everything clear to the player at a glance, that's what's important when the game is carried by its kingdom builder gameplay

[robtock216]

Originally posted by kaibioinfo:

Originally posted by robtock216:

3) (and most importantly) the game has you dealing with populations of 10s of thousands, it tracks everything for every citizen from hunger to body temperature to clothing condition to when they last went to the toilet, every second for thousands of people, no game has ever done that.

I doubt that "no game has ever done that", but besides that your argument is wrong anyways. Graphics is not much related to gameplay. Having a lot of stats and attributes doesn't matter. If you really think that it matters that you have thousands of attributes to calculate then you forget that computers are doing this all the time without any problems. Graphics is usually done on your gpu and is ideally completely separated from the game logic. You could make Song of Syx om beautiful 3D graphics without performance issues. Having to show thousands of citizens on the map? No problem, you just need a clever implementation but many games have shown that this is possible.

But yeah, you would need a whole team for this. Expecting nice graphics and nice gameplay from a 1 man team is probably too much. It might be, though, that we see some mods with better sprites in the future.

I like to think i have a pretty broad range of game genre's i enjoy, i cannot think of a single game that has simulated an entire city of 10s of thousands of individual citizens with all the above things i listed, and i cannot help but notice you didn't mention any examples of games you consider to have attempted this?

Just Sass.

[SpottedPineapple]

Whenever I fire it up, I have the same thought. But as the city gets built it starts to look a lot better.

[Capt.Jamesbloke]

When its as huge as this, you dont need to slow it down with resource hungry graphics!