How many of us I am wondering would love to see a monster update as in for looks? The older zones still have the blocky monsters. The older skellies still look more like zombies than the newer ones. I realized this when I was in zones south of Freeport. Then headed over to Shadeweavers. The skellies are clearly different. Same in other mobs as well. Older vs newer ones.
Nah, the TLP crowd mostly prefers old nostalgia models and the live server crowd would go look at them for a day then maybe once a year when they have to go back to lower level zones for some dumb new aug quest. Waste of limited resources that'd be better off almost anywhere else. And I'm pretty sure most of the Luclin skeletons are permanently stuck in a T-Pose because of their janky animations, at least they were last time I was up there. The skeletons on the moon are also mostly comprised of other races than those you find around freeport (Grimlings instead of humans for example) so it'd be weird if they looked identical.
That is what they did do. They were making new updated models each expansion, and would put them in all the old zones. For some stupid reason the TLP whined, and they purposefully went back and removed newer models from all the old zones. Sad commentary. I bet half the models used in the original release and first 2 expansions have better looking models, but because some sad sacks sent PMs to a dev, they went and reverted a decade of work. It STILL makes me angry.
did they not just revert all the classic zones with classic models? everything pretty much had updated models until people complained requested nicely that they wanted old models in the old zones again
Is it possible to extend the graphics engine to take the current model and texture files and improve them dynamically during run-time and then render them? Hardware these days is so powerful. EQ1 probably barely taps the power of modern graphics engines. Could a program be written that takes an old model and increases the number of vertices it has using predefined logical rules about where the number should be increased? (not sure if vertices is the correct term but essentially smoothing the edges.) Could an extension to the graphics engine be made where when it loads a texture, it does some image processing on it and then stores it in ram? Using predefined logical rules could the apparent resolution of the textures be dynamically increased during run-time? How hard would it be to do it if it were possible?
The graphics in EQ1 are not built on an 'engine' that is modifiable like modern day applications. It is hard coded hand rolled stuff. Short answer, no. Of course yes, and it has. Increasing vert count is not something they would want for EQ1 though. It's not a matter of 'how hard', it's a matter of 'Bang for the buck'. It's a monumental task for no real payoff and tons of headache and cost to DBG (all the things mentioned). All these questions about graphics and EQ1 lately. You are aware there is an EQ2 with 'better' graphics and all? Why are you asking for them to give EQ1 the EQ2 treatment? Please just no.
Please leave my old content the way it is. It is my home. You can add skeletons with an extra polygon or two to your new expansions to your heart's content.
I'd head to Shadeweavers to see what you're talking about but I avoid going anywhere near the worst expansion in EQ. However, I do like some of the newer models tbh but for the most part the original have remained superior.
Well, I love EQ1 too. My playground started in Felewithe the first year of EQ. I wouldn't suggest changing it too much. My suggestion would be implemented as a switch in the options. Off position would leave the new routines off. On position would turn the new routines on.
Shame the options menu for the luclin models can't be modified to just have the option for legacy vs non-legacy graphics. I realize modern graphics are just overlays to the pre-luclin as I can see them sometimes when zoning is delayed. It would just be awesome if all of the models were made like this so TLP can have them off and live can have them on.
