Interview Todd Howard Claims Graphics Are Important

[Crooked Bee]

Tags: Bethesda Softworks; Todd Howard

In a statement that surprised many, Bethesda's Todd Howard has told Rock Paper Shotgun that the future of immersive realistic RPGs is... graphics!

“We’ve worked on the PC for a long time, so it’s always new and marching forward,” he explained in a brief chat with RPS. “So when there are new boxes, it won’t be that much of a sea change for us, to be honest.”

Naturally, then, Howard’s primary concern is the same as it’s always been: making worlds that feel more tangibly alive. So I asked him how he plans to go about doing that next – whether that means improved AI, more expansive environments, better combat, or a host of smaller details – and his answer surprised me a bit: graphics. Then again, I guess it makes sense. Howard always has been about the big picture.

“Everybody always wants more power,” he said. “As a developer, you always want more. How good will it look with more memory? How many people can we put on screen if we have more processing power? But even with all of those things, I think people discount graphics. They’ll say, ‘Well, the gameplay’s what really matters,’ and it does. But I do feel that graphics and your ability to present something that feels new, real, and believable puts people in that environment where they can really enjoy what they’re playing.”​

Source.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Eh. How does that make sense when he releases games for XBOX?

 

[Jedi Exile]

RPS did a good job by illustrating the article with a screenshot from modified Skyrim. In other words, they reminded that Skyrim graphics actually sucked.

 

[DwarvenFood]

I think it would have been news if he said graphics were not important.

 

[Mrowak]

“Everybody always wants more power,” he said. “As a developer, you always want more. How good will it look with more memory? How many people can we put on screen if we have more processing power? But even with all of those things, I think people discount graphics. They’ll say, ‘Well, the gameplay’s what really matters,’ and it does. But I do feel that graphics and your ability to present something that feels new, real, and believable puts people in that environment where they can really enjoy what they’re playing.”

I think he found a wrong solution to the problem. If he wants the game to be "real and believeable", making the setting real and believeable would be a good start. You know, as opposed to empty repetetive desert and the world full of cardboards.

And even if you focus on graphics the sheer power is not that important. The art direction is what matter most these days.

 

[Eddard Stark]

Todd. Todd never changes.

 

[Dexter]

Well, I agree, graphics are important and "video games" are mainly a visual medium, so they're a large part of what the gamey bit will be about.

That said, taking a hint from what Modders have already done and making their games prettier (and hopefully adding some more texture, object and model variety) won't make Bethesdas games much better, just possibly more bearable.

 

[Scruffy]

I used to be a graphic whore like you, then i took an arrow in the knee. So now i'm a lame graphic whore.

 

[hoverdog]

 

[MurkyShadow]

Just yesterday I started up my gog version of Masters of Magic. And thought:" F*ck, I can't recognize a single thing.
What are this units? Bowmen? Swordmen? LIZARDmen? I can't say." The next moment it was five hours later.
My alarm clock was giving me that sad 'shouldn't you know it better by now?' look.

Once.
In a fit of boredom and ill advised curiosity, I played Skyrim too. And thought:" F*ck."

 

[racofer]

Well well well... this is a first: Todd is not telling lies, sweet little lies.

 

[felipepepe]

PIC

How I wish I had enough huehue's to buy a GFX card to run that...

 

[Brayko]

Yes the same Todd Howard that said Call of Duty is a hardcore game. His instincts twist his design decisions based on revenue terms for inspiration whether he likes it or not

 

[Dexter]

Just yesterday I started up my gog version of Masters of Magic. And thought:" F*ck, I can't recognize a single thing.
What are this units? Bowmen? Swordmen? LIZARDmen? I can't say." The next moment it was five hours later.
My alarm clock was giving me that sad 'shouldn't you know it better by now?' look.

Once.
In a fit of boredom and ill advised curiosity, I played Skyrim too. And thought:" F*ck."

Because Skyrim (and any of Bethesdas games) are turn-based Civ-alikes and there couldn't possibly be games that focus on something else than pure gameplay?

This came as a surprise for you, especially since they have been (re)making the same game over and over again since their inception, adding minimal new features and changes, while trying to make the world "bigger" and the graphics better?

(btw. I tried finding a picture from Morrowind with the protagonist holding a sword, inside a dungeon and fighting a skeleton, but this was the closest to what I could find )

If anything Skyrim was an abberation from the model, Arena was one of the first RPGs pushing graphics acceleration back in the day amongst a bunch of shooters, and both Morrowind and Oblivion were considered "Top End" games that people would upgrade their Graphics cards for at the time. That is one of the main things they had going for them as "hiking simulators", looking around and savouring the landscape.
Skyrim was their first game that at the point of release was designed to run on 7+ year old hardware because of their console focus (DX9 + 512MB RAM).

I'll never get why people enjoying "old-school" games are so vehemently against pushing the hardware/graphics envelope, do you think Bethesda is going to turn around/make a 180 and start producing worthwhile games all of a sudden, or that CryTek/Epic Games will start making turn-based RPGs full of depth in story and gameplay? I'm very happy, even overjoyed over the resurgence of RPGs in the style that I love like Project: Eternity, Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Returns, Dead State etc.
I'm equally happy about other devs stopping to hold their dicks in their hands doing nothing, that are finally ready to move on from the ~9-10 year old lowest common denominator hardware cycle all bigger games coming out were restricted to.

What I'd rather like to see is the different developers concentrating on doing what they want to do and what they are best at, e.g. CryTek, Epic Games and DICE happily continuing to build on their technology and shooters while others don't have to follow the newest "industry trend" like flies to a bug zapper and make World of Warcraft/Gears of War/Call of Duty/whatever clone or Kinect/Mobile/Social game or whatever is "in" right then, but being free to offer an extensive and diverse pallet of games that everyone can be happy with. And I hope platforms like KickStarter will help accomplish this.

 

[SerratedBiz]

and his answer surprised me a bit: graphics. Then again, I guess it makes sense. Howard always has been about the big picture.

It's the completely retarded writer's reaction that baffles me. I wonder if this was just so heavily edited that they ended up misplacing that phrase.

 

[Metro]

Unfortunately this moron will never understand that creating a compelling setting with good exploration and interesting quests/content will always trump graphics in terms of making the experience seem 'real,' or at least, creating an internally consistent in-game universe.

 

[Regdar]

As long as you make games with shallow gameplay you need dynamic pictures to keep the player engaged. Other games engage the player by inviting them to master their complex systems so graphics become a luxury. But hey, to keep these boated publishers afloat you need to sell movies, not games, and so we have what we have. Here's hoping the collapse is coming soon and Todd Howard is out of a job.

 

[Untermensch]

Unfortunately this moron will never understand that creating a compelling setting with good exploration and interesting quests/content will always trump graphics in terms of making the experience seem 'real,' or at least, creating an internally consistent in-game universe.

Plus, he'll never understand that making the world "feel alive", the thing Beth always tries to make, comes from not the graphics, or VA, or Radiant AI, but with good written, believable characters and a world that actually responds to your actions. And by respond I don't mean:

Beginning of the game:"Hello citizen"
End of the game:"Hello Nerevarine"

 

[Metro]

But I'm the hero of Kvatch!!!

 

[Gord]

Todd: Graphics are one of the important factors in a game.
Codex: Todd sucks! Graphics are meaningless, give me ASCII-art!

Developer XYZ makes a new game.
Codex: The graphics suck! Give me better graphics!



Honestly though, graphics are important, but they are not all-important.
I (and most people here, I guess) prefer good, solid gameplay and a meaningful, working story to a soul-less graphics demo or GPU benchmark.
Nevertheless, if I can get the best of both worlds, I won't complain.

 

[MicoSelva]

You really don't have to discourage me from playing your games, Mr. Howard, I already dislike them.

 

[racofer]

Honestly though, graphics are important, but they are not all-important.
I (and most people here, I guess) prefer good, solid gameplay and a meaningful, working story to a soul-less graphics demo or GPU benchmark.
Nevertheless, if I can get the best of both worlds, I won't complain.

I like purrrty graphics but that only helps so much.

Gameplay, for me at least, plays an even more important role than graphics and an engaging story or plot in my games. If a game manages to combine good looking graphics, useful controls and on top of that an interesting gameplay, that's often good enough for me. The problem though is that, most of the time, the story is so obnoxious that it can put me off the game for good.

All in all, a game needs all things in the right dosage to be good. There are like one in a million that manage to do this though, so more often than not I have to pick a game based a few criteria that make it more tolerable to me.

 

[Metro]

There's certainly a minimal level of graphics required for me to digest a game these days... of course it's far far lower than a lot of the graphic whores on the 'dex with their triple monitor setups~ Art style is more important to me and even stuff like Terraria or Grimwaaaaaaaah look good as they are appropriate to the genre.

 

[Bluebottle]

Interestingly I put this through my de-PRmatron and it spat out:
"New consoles are on the way."

PR men must love new console season. Thinking up all that waffle about immersion and epic-ness is hard work. For a few slack years you can just rely on the shiney to sell your things for you. Good times.

 

[Koschey]

But I do feel that graphics and your ability to present something that feels new, real, and believable puts people in that environment where they can really enjoy what they’re playing.

Corrected that for you, Todd.

It's not the power of your engine, but what your artists do with it. Or don't.