r/truegaming • u/Foreign_Storm_7484 • 2d ago

The magic of classic era graphics

I recently played an old version of World of Warcraft and then I played the new version of Classic Wow, with some graphical improvements, and something bothered me in the new version. I messed around with the options a little and realized that what bothered me most was the current shadows. I was only satisfied when I set the shadow to low and it looked similar to the original version of the game, with vibrant and highlighted colors, and lighting that, despite being less realistic, makes the atmosphere more fantasy-like. I noticed that the modern shadows make the game lose its magic and dull the colors, and it looks like a strange middle ground between something realistic and something fantasy.

I've noticed this because no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to like almost any current game. I feel extremely bored and sleepy after just a few minutes of playing, or I get lost in so many menus and intense camera movements that I become stressed and anxious. On the other hand, old games capture my attention as always and have a relaxing and calming effect on me. This satisfying effect is the combination of low-resolution textures, subtle camera movements and epic soundtracks. This is the well-being I seek. That's the feeling I want to have.

I think this combination causes an effect on the brain that is as if the mind completes the image, as if it stimulates the brain to look at a castle with textures in low resolution and the mind is forced to use more imagination, something different from seeing something ultra realistic and full of details but it will stay on the screen for 10 seconds and you will walk and change to another scene with a lot more details. There's something different about how the mind processes old graphics compared to modern ones. It's as if the first causes relaxation, as if you were sleeping and having beautiful dreams, and the second causes exhaustion, tiredness and stress.

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u/dat_potatoe 2d ago

Detached from nostalgia, I think the major thing lost with modern graphics is visual clarity. That's not a fidelity problem, it's an issue of developers not having restraint and over-detailing everything with needless details to the point no individual details actually stand out because there's millions of them competing for your attention. So your eyes just wander everywhere and you don't appreciate anything on screen.

I mean compare CS 1.6 (2000) to CS 2 (2023). Far more graphically detailed, but I feel like there's no significant loss in visual clarity or scene readability. It's very minimalist, very bright and clean. Just enough small details in the way of signs and furniture and so on to sell the place as a real place, but not so much that it's littered everywhere and in your face. No dust clouds or rubble or millions of cracks in the walls or excessively dark shadows or... basically just compare it to something like CoD and the difference is staggering.

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u/itsPomy 1d ago edited 1d ago

Kind of a tangent, but I was playing thief not too long ago and one of the fun mechanics is different floor surfaces made different levels of noise. (Stealth game)

And I don't think that'd really work in modern games just cause it relies so much on consistent visual ques. I feel it would get lost if you had dozens of unique surfaces with their own clutter and debris.

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u/Vagrant_Savant 1d ago

Something about the exaggerated sound effect of tile floors in the old Thief games jived with its low resolution visuals, even when you needed to play with the moss arrow "economy" to avoid setting off the Kill Bill siren of every enemy within half a kilometer radius from your buttclapping tile steps.

In a modern game, I don't know if they can get away with having such exaggerated sound cues; it was always jarring to me in some games like Metro 2077 and broken glass crunches. Maybe it was more tolerable in Thief because of its heavily compressed audio that blended into the rest of the game's slightly uncanny nature.

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u/itsPomy 1d ago

For me it works much more because the visuals are dramatic than they are low res.

Thief's visuals are very painterly like old renaissance paintings, with big bright lights and deep dark shadows. You're supposed to vermin scurrying around the dark corners and cracks. So it makes sense any sound you give off is sharp and alarming.

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u/bvanevery 2d ago

Well it begs a question though: what do you want? I agree that the CoD screes are far, far more detailed and that would make it harder to see enemies. But that's how combat in the real world actually is. Hard to see who's trying to kill you.

Heh, relaxing combat. Just wanna sidle up to my victim and shoot 'em between the eyes lol.

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u/dat_potatoe 2d ago edited 2d ago

First, I don't think it's more like the real world necessarily. A lot of these hyper advanced graphics games are very stylized and full of a million post-processing effects and such that harm readability while ironically not resembling real life...real life isn't always picturesque, doesn't always have that obligatory Unreal Engine orange glow reflecting off of everything from an obligatory morning sun. Real life can be ugly, can be simple and lacking in excessive visual clutter, can be neutrally lit.

Second, well, it's a game. Dying from a pitch black corner is something that happens in real life but it doesn't make for satisfying gameplay. From a gameplay perspective, I don't want to strain my eyes trying to find enemies. From an artistic perspective, again I don't think all these dark shadows and visual noise actually makes for a prettier looking scene because it doesn't allow for appreciation of specific details. Sensory overload.

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u/bvanevery 1d ago

One way to look at different things that different people want, is GNS theory. If I ask about simulation fidelity and then you say you want gameplay this and that, that's every much a conflict between Simulationist and Gamist perspectives. Then a Narrativist is going to chime in and say the only thing they want is for their chain to be yanked regularly, lol.

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u/itsPomy 1d ago

I mean counter-strike is an arguably trying for realism much more than CoD. Yet if you watch videos on how they've remade the game for source 2 you'll notice they're very conscientious of updating graphics while also trying to keep the feel of gameplay good.

I was watching this breakdown of this rainy trainyard environment and they did a lot of clever things to add to the atmosphere that don't impede the gameplay.

For instance, you'll only ever see actual raindrops fall near lights, so there's no sheets of particles getting in the way of folks shooting eachother. But it's really not noticeable. Instead the level is filled with a fog which actually helps contrast players because the fog is subtly bright but their silhouettes are dark. And then you get to the actual train hard and they made sure you can see the wheels and such under the trains, HOWEVER, there's a one-way texture on both sides of the track so you can't actually see under and shoot under the train because being shot in the feet just isn't fun.

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u/behindtimes 2d ago

Higher visual clarity isn't always better.

The best example for me here, while not video game related, is The Joker from Batman (1966). Especially on reddit, everyone jokes about him having a mustache. But I never noticed that prior to HDTVs.

But going back to games, upscaled AI images, and even sometimes the original artwork, doesn't always look better than the lower resolution images. The higher the fidelity, the more apparent the flaws become.