Gamers Misled Over Dark Souls II Graphics Quality

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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Gamers who purchased Dark Souls II on PS3 or Xbox 360 have already started complaining that they were misled as to the overall graphics quality on those platforms. Gamers are accusing Bandai Namco of the old bait and switch advertising, substituting gameplay from the unreleased PC version as the just released software.
 
I don't care for either version of the game, but I do agree that the console version looks like absolute shit.

If I was shown the "pc" level and told that's what I was going to get on my console, you bet your ass I'd be mad. How would many of us feel if we saw all the BF4 videos and then got CounterStrike 1.6 level of graphics?
 
collegeboy69us said:
I don't care for either version of the game, but I do agree that the console version looks like absolute shit.

If I was shown the "pc" level and told that's what I was going to get on my console, you bet your ass I'd be mad. How would many of us feel if we saw all the BF4 videos and then got CounterStrike 1.6 level of graphics?
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They said in the demo that it was the PC copy being shown.

I cry no tears for console fools.
 
Sadly yes, the graphics are not that great. The gameplay however, is just as good if not better than the 2 before it. To any real fan that's what really matters
 
duh, obviously the ps3 and 360 are ancient tech so it is to be expected that there is a difference in graphics compared to the pc. why do console fanboys not realize this (yes, i do own both consoles and a capable pc)? of course the devs will showcase the best version of a product. common sense would have dictated to ask the question whether the trailers looked too good to be true for hardware that was already old at their release eight years ago. trailers are faked in every way possible (even cg that supposedly runs on real hardware) so, yes, this is not nice, but it's something even a twelve year old should be able to understand and deal with.
 
The effort that use to go into sanding off the rough edges for 360 & PS3 will more and more be doing that for XB1 & PS4
 
Anyone who has the remotest interest in graphics plays on a PC and not a console ... only the PC players that get console graphics have a valid complaint ... console owners should be happy with whatever they get ... it is like Yugo owners complaining that their cars can't do 0 to 60 in 4 seconds while Ferrari owners can :cool:
 
I've been losing myself in hours playing this game on the 360, i knew graphically it will look like poop on a xbox 360 but the gameplay is fun!
 
Cry console kiddies, cry. I want to taste your tears. Oh but PC gaming is dying remember. PC ports always get pushed back and are the redheaded stepchild of the gaming industry. Nevermind the fact that they are graphically superior, cheaper to buy, have better controls, have more replayability via mods...
 
Which one is more funny:
- console gamers complaining about graphics
- expecting ps3/x360 to deliver good graphics

Pick one. Either way, you are right lol.
 
collegeboy69us said:
I don't care for either version of the game, but I do agree that the console version looks like absolute shit.

If I was shown the "pc" level and told that's what I was going to get on my console, you bet your ass I'd be mad. How would many of us feel if we saw all the BF4 videos and then got CounterStrike 1.6 level of graphics?
Click to expand...

Yea I played it and I thought the graphics were very underwhelming, even for an Xbox360 title. But they did the same thing with BF4. Before release there was nary a current gen video of anything BF4. Then it got released. And BF4 looks almost worse than BF3 on current gen. But all they showed was next-gen footage.
 
The term is "Bull Shot".

Though those of us from a farming background take a different meaning from that expression.
 
This is why I always wait a couple of days to get any game. Wait for bug reports and people posting game play footage on youtube or twitch. Get a better idea of what you are spending your money on. Patience pays off when it comes to buying new games these days since so many companies release buggy products since they know they can just patch it on day one.
 
I'm not going to sit here and bash PS3 and 360 owners. They were showed to be getting that level of graphics, and it was clearly not the case. Though to be honest, did you really expect the graphics to be that good on those old consoles?

When I played Dark Souls on PC, it was with the DSfix. I also beat the game with the keyboard and mouse, 3 times. If you have a PC built within the past 5 years, you can get Dark Souls 2 to look better then on 360 or PS3. If keyboard and mouse isn't your thing, just plug in your 360 or PS3 controller.
 
I'm on the fence to get this when it comes out. I hear so many good things about the series, and a lot of bad things as well.. hrm.
 
Is there a point of Dark Souls, other than insecure gamers trying to prove how hardcore they are by beating a "difficult" game?
 
I'm a tad curious.
Was there no change in engine from DS1 to DS2 for consoles (presumably due to console limitations)?
 
turdhat said:
This is why I always wait a couple of days to get any game. Wait for bug reports and people posting game play footage on youtube or twitch. Get a better idea of what you are spending your money on. Patience pays off when it comes to buying new games these days since so many companies release buggy products since they know they can just patch it on day one.
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I'm not a huge gamer anymore, but it shocks me that everyone doesn't wait. These types of problems aren't new. The Wing Commander Series had issues. I believe Origin's Pacific Strike was so bad they eventually pulled it from the market. I believe it was Falcon 4 that took almost a year to become a decent program (based on posts on forums).

Buggy software is the norm. IME it's the norm everywhere. Where I'm at, we're pushed to release before the s/w is ready, despite the company mantra that we're all about the customer. We're not. We're all about $$$. We only care about the customers if it negatively impacts $$$.

Your best bet is make lots of calls to customer support. Take as much of their time as you can. Rinse repeat. Customer service calls are expensive for them.
 
On the one hand, as a member of the glorious PC gaming master race, I'm like: "well what to you want from 7+ year old technology that was only comparable to a mid-range pc even when it was new?"

On the other hand, that's missing the point, it's nothing to do with "Graphics over gameplay" it's "This is what you are paying for .... lol, no its not!". Which is simply shitty behaviour whether its a game or a car or a sandwich or a mail order bride*.

*never buy a wife off namco-bandai.
 
If there was ever a time where they specifically showed graphics from the PC version and represented them as console versions - such as showing PC gameplay and showing text that said "Xbox360 version being played live' - then they'd have more of a case. However, I don't think that is what has happened here. Every single major press video had it listed, perhaps in the small print, that it was the PC version being shown. Worse, you don't hear PC gamers crying foul when advertising for PC titles is shown using high or maximum graphic settings, when some people's PCs can't handle turning everything on high or extreme, much less forced AA/AF!

The real insult here is that the PC version wasn't released in parity, or near, with the console variants. Now, I do expect there to be considerable enhancements in the PC version and whatnot (if data is accurate, the PC version was the "original" developed variant, then cut down for console use), but considering the additional time and money vetting etc... that is sadly required for console releases, it seems to me they could have released it near at the same time. Pragmatically, I'm glad it is only a month away instead of 6+ months, and the fact it is reasonably priced ( Thank you for remembering $60 is meant to incorporate the 'pound of flesh' given to console manufacturers, not normal pricing!) , but you can imagine what kind of huge stink would be raised if say... the Playstation version got it a month before the Xbox version.

PC versions should be the "premiere" versions of any game, and I'm glad some studios are starting to realize that treating them as such means a better game and less dealing with all the money and drudgery of making console manufacturers happy at the cost of a worse game experience. However, we're not there yet if the PC versions are released months later.
 
Xaeos said:
PC versions should be the "premiere" versions of any game, and I'm glad some studios are starting to realize that treating them as such means a better game and less dealing with all the money and drudgery of making console manufacturers happy at the cost of a worse game experience. However, we're not there yet if the PC versions are released months later.
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Are console games harder to pirate? If not, my other guess is that they either make more from the console version or some agreement with MS/Sony requires them to give them a minimum window. short of that, I don't know why they'd delay the release.
 
Megalith said:
Is there a point of Dark Souls, other than insecure gamers trying to prove how hardcore they are by beating a "difficult" game?
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Is there a point to shitposting with troll comments? Lots of people enjoy challenging games, and lots of other people enjoy RPGs.
 
Xaeos said:
If there was ever a time where they specifically showed graphics from the PC version and represented them as console versions - such as showing PC gameplay and showing text that said "Xbox360 version being played live' - then they'd have more of a case. However, I don't think that is what has happened here. Every single major press video had it listed, perhaps in the small print, that it was the PC version being shown. Worse, you don't hear PC gamers crying foul when advertising for PC titles is shown using high or maximum graphic settings, when some people's PCs can't handle turning everything on high or extreme, much less forced AA/AF!

The real insult here is that the PC version wasn't released in parity, or near, with the console variants. Now, I do expect there to be considerable enhancements in the PC version and whatnot (if data is accurate, the PC version was the "original" developed variant, then cut down for console use), but considering the additional time and money vetting etc... that is sadly required for console releases, it seems to me they could have released it near at the same time. Pragmatically, I'm glad it is only a month away instead of 6+ months, and the fact it is reasonably priced ( Thank you for remembering $60 is meant to incorporate the 'pound of flesh' given to console manufacturers, not normal pricing!) , but you can imagine what kind of huge stink would be raised if say... the Playstation version got it a month before the Xbox version.

PC versions should be the "premiere" versions of any game, and I'm glad some studios are starting to realize that treating them as such means a better game and less dealing with all the money and drudgery of making console manufacturers happy at the cost of a worse game experience. However, we're not there yet if the PC versions are released months later.
Click to expand...

Actually... they did. They showed a playable demo a few months back and it look way better than what is present right now.
 
If the PC version looks like this, then at least it's understandable. If the PC version ends up looking like the console versions do again, then there should be some A:CM/Watch Dogs style backlash. Until I see the PC version first hand, though, I'm not taking anyone's word that this is how it will look.

The industry has a hard-on for bullshots, and more often than not gamers let it slide for one reason or another. Just because it's the console versions that haven't lived up to the graphic hype doesn't mean that the devs should be given a free pass.
 
nilepez said:
Are console games harder to pirate? If not, my other guess is that they either make more from the console version or some agreement with MS/Sony requires them to give them a minimum window. short of that, I don't know why they'd delay the release.
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Console games are about the same actual difficulty to pirate today. I think much of it is because it is still cultural. Especially in Japan, the past 30 years have been "Games = Consoles". Thankfully, some like Capcom are starting to look beyond, but there is still a cultural drive.

Other than that, its nearly pure marketing. Sony and MS spend a fortune to try and convince publishers they'll get the world if they put up with all the console bullshit. Much of it turns out to not be true (ie see the story of Cthulhu Saves the World - more money made in a weekend on Steam selling for $2 on PC, than a year on XLive Arcade), and some things are just evil which big evil publishers like (ie We at MS will bombard XLive with advertisements for your game, and we will give you the metrics that we've been collecting through the Kinect about how many people/ages/genders are in the room when your titles are being played etc...) etc... publishers and console manufacturers are often cut from the same cloth of greed at the expense of player (and often developer) enjoyment and ease of use. Defiance is another GREAT example of a game being ruined because of publishers and most of all, console manufacturers - there are Trion reps who literally stated "We wanted to have a chat system, but Microsoft didn't want there to be an alternative to XLive VOIP so we had to just throw one together for the PC version later" and "We could have updated and patched the PC version two weeks ago, but the consoles refuse to let us do so, and they cost thousands of dollars to vet and weeks of time to actually ready the patch for XLive etc... )

I've gotten sick of what the entire console universe has turned into, the same way I've gotten sick of major publishers. They rarely bring anything good to the table.
 
Xaeos said:
If there was ever a time where they specifically showed graphics from the PC version and represented them as console versions - such as showing PC gameplay and showing text that said "Xbox360 version being played live' - then they'd have more of a case. However, I don't think that is what has happened here. Every single major press video had it listed, perhaps in the small print, that it was the PC version being shown.
Click to expand...

Trying to find disclaimer text is something I've spent days doing and have come up with ALMOST nothing. There may have been a P.R. about it at the time each preview was shown, but I can't seem to find it. and I don't remember it, either.

Here's the original gameplay reveal, which was an IGN exclusive. The director (and a translator named "Tak") are present, giving commentary. They never say anything about this demo specifically running on PC and no disclaimer about "product may change" etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_JFDPCtXFY

there are a few other times when the director is interviewed between DkSII footage, with no specific mention about what it is running on. The general implication is "This is Dark Souls II".
Also strange, is that last year they specifically said there were " no plans" for a next gen version, on several occasions. and then last week "We've always had next gen in mind". WHAT?? (note: no next gen version has been announced)

Now. we've known all along that a PC version was being made. So I think at the time, everyone assumed (if it wasn't outright said by P.R. at some point) the initial gameplay reveal was running on some sort of modified PC setup. and if you follow the chronology of preview demos, you'll start to notice little changes when they do start start showing what are said to be the PS3 version. The original gameplay reveal has more dense geometry (possibly tesselation) and a lot more obvious shaders and specular effects.

Here's a trailer for Dark Souls II known as "aching bones". For people that know, it's pretty apparent this is running on a PC, natively rendered at 1080p or somewhere near that. But it doesn't specific "PC".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVtIb8lkAxc

here's some older trailers with peeks at a lot more areas:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbeyBjmBD3E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHgUuhOsHoA

Again, those do not specify what they are running on and no disclaimer text. The general impression is "This is Dark Souls II".

"Vaati" a popular DkS youtuber has a video of him playing the TGS build, which looks very similar to the initial gameplay reveal and he insists he was playing it on PS3. rather interesting, is that his video shows the full demo, with an area that most preview videos did not show:
http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?p=1339820#1339820

Here's official footage of the gamescom demo, showing dualshock 3's in hand and you can see PS3s or maybe debug PS3 units (the key hardware difference is extra 256mb of system ram, to run monitoring/debug tool, etc), behind the TVs. Looks like it is basically the same build as the TGS demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFHIx5khb0U

This video, plublished late January, shows footage very similar to the initial reveal and to the gamescom/TGS demos. Insists it is footage captured from a PS3, but not actually played by the guys doing commentary. If you do some close comparing, you'll notice some slight geometry and texture differences, compared to the initial gameplay reveal footage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3MdOBH-jDc

this is just showing the Mirror Knight fight and is presumably similar to the mirror knight demo close friends of mine played at gamescom, on what appeared to be actual PS3s. This video insists the footage was actually played by the people doing commentary and was captured directly from a PS3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TowEGaVreLM

at some point in October/Novemberish----screenshots started coming out, that looked a lot different from all prior screenshots. There was no official acknowledgement of this. Others and I assumed it was due to it being an unfinished game. Right up to just before release, there's this trailer (and one or two others) that show graphics more in line with the game we actually received:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YfN_Wo-uTY

So now, when you go to steam, or Amazon, or Dark Souls' facebook, or look at the BACK OF THE BOX, or look at past articles, you'll have a lot of dissonance between the quality of screenshots you'll see, and often gross disparity with the game.

older screenshots from June
http://www.allgamesbeta.com/2013/06/dark-souls-ii-screenshots.html

amazon (still shows older screenshots as the first ones you see)
http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Souls-Bl...&qid=1394994213&sr=8-1&keywords=dark+souls+II

Steam (now actually shows mainly stuff that seems more like what we will probably get on April 25th)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/236430/

Dark Souls FB page from February:
http:///k7lalol

November:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.567436139996101.1073741839.119869331419453&type=1


September:

remember that "Aching Bones" trailer? that was in September. Here's september screenshots from FB:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.538031719603210.1073741833.119869331419453&type=1

those look like the network beta test

there's also been some other troubling misrepresentation through media, such as IGN's review where they say "Dark Souls II runs at a steady 30 frames per second throughout the entire campaign without a hiccup. Even in areas brimming with enemies and environmental interactions, the game never slows down".

Absolutely not true.


Now, I do expect there to be considerable enhancements in the PC version and whatnot (if data is accurate, the PC version was the "original" developed variant, then cut down for console use).
Click to expand...

The recently stated enhancements for the PC version are 1080p, 60fps, and better textures. That's as specific as it gets. I"m honestly expecting the PC version to deliver JUST that. And still needing to be modded to allow higher than 1080p and a likely somewhat broken mod to enable higher than 60fps (From likes to sync the engine to the framerate. So enabling higher framerates often breaks the engine).

There's been a lot of conspiratory discussion on what has happened here with the misrepresentation of the PS360 version, the overall misrepresntation of visual quality right up to January, why the PC version was delayed, what the PC version may actually look like on April 25th, and the possibility of a PS4/Xbone version announcement sometime later in the year. Such as E3 or TGS. But I'm not going to dive into all of that discussion, right here.
 
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Console kids squirting tears over 7 year old graphics, news at 11
 
Also, thanks to [H]ardocp for running this story. I think this is only the second gaming news website to run a post like this, for Dark Souls II.
 
Megalith said:
Is there a point of Dark Souls, other than insecure gamers trying to prove how hardcore they are by beating a "difficult" game?
Click to expand...

I would argue that Dark Souls is one of the few true games of modern times.

#1 It doesn't scale enemy level as you progress. The enemies can be as hard as you want, depending on which direction you're willing to go.

#2 The game has a set of rules that it never breaks. There are no limits in how you can go about killing something.

#3 It has bosses, oh god does it have bosses. Most modern games seem to consider a boss fight to be the same wave of enemies you've been dealing with in the entire game. Not Dark Souls. There's more bosses in it then you can shack a stick at.

#4 You don't regenerate health just hiding behind a wall.

#5 You can carry as many weapons as you want. We're talking about melee weapons here and not guns, but no limits.

#6 This game is full of secrets that you want to find.

#7 No random collection items in the game that just give you achievements and waste your time. Everything in the game has a real value to your character in the game. No feathers to collect like in Assassin's Creed. No pointless encounters.
 
collegeboy69us said:
I don't care for either version of the game, but I do agree that the console version looks like absolute shit.
Click to expand...
Gotta disagree with you there.

I've taken shits that were subjectively more visually appealing than that console port. Christ is that oogly!
 
More fuel to the fire.
IGN was doing a behind the scenes thing where it was nothing but PC footage. From what I gather it's all new footage. Run it at 1080p and see that the lighting is better in some parts, but overall, that hazy bland no lighting look is also here as well. You can see it clearly at the beginning of the 2nd video, the guy walking around the grey area at the beginning. From this footage it looks like all versions were downgraded, but it's still hard to tell, because they actually don't show much dark footage at all here, still.... you can make out some differences in this material.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03/03/making-dark-souls-ii

Supposedly, Bamco is making a statement next week.
They should, before the PC version comes out. At least to calm any fears.
I have not placed my pre order yet.
 
Never tried Dark Soul but this caught my interest... DS2 isn't released on PC yet, right?
 
chameleoneel said:
There's certainly plenty of console footage in there. What makes you say it's "nothing but PC footage"?
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Well there is a 'few' small section of old footage stitched in. But if you pay attention to any footage that you see the numbers over the items on the lower left, that is native 1080p PC footage.
 
LeviathanZERO said:
Well there is a 'few' small section of old footage stitched in. But if you pay attention to any footage that you see the numbers over the items on the lower left, that is native 1080p PC footage.
Click to expand...

grr no edit:
ID blablhablh, the dragons at the very beginning, etc, etc...
 
collegeboy69us said:
If I was shown the "pc" level and told that's what I was going to get on my console, you bet your ass I'd be mad. How would many of us feel if we saw all the BF4 videos and then got CounterStrike 1.6 level of graphics?
Click to expand...

90% of multiplatform games show the superior footage of the game in any ads or anything. It's nothing new at all. Usually it's the PC version, of course.

Sucks, but it's accepted now.
 
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