How much more do you think the Hero Engine can be pushed graphically?

Slash8915

For being 10+ years old, ESO is still arguably one of the best looking MMOs around in my opinion. That being said, there are definitely a few things that make it look a little bit dated such as character models, hair, and a few textures out in the wild.

I know we've sort of had a graphics update a few years ago to make use of current gen consoles, but I'm wondering just how much more the graphics could be improved (at least on the PC version) using the Hero Engine?

I know it's more of a custom engine compared to Unity or Unreal Engine, so I'm sure it's much more limited in its capabilities.

xylena_lazarow

BXR_Lonestar

Honestly, at this point I think the engine is being pushed to its limits which is why they're experimenting with doing things such as dialing back what skills and sets we have access to in PVP. They're trying to test whether it is just pure population numbers causing lag or if it comes down to the skill and the calculations that the skills and playstyle force the server to make.

The bottom line is I think both the engine and the server could both probably use an upgrade. I would really love to see them upgrade the servers, upgrade the engines, reoptimize the game for new gen consoles, and release it as ESO 2.0, where everything basically transfers over, and you just play on the new servers/engines.

Slash8915

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Honestly, at this point I think the engine is being pushed to its limits which is why they're experimenting with doing things such as dialing back what skills and sets we have access to in PVP. They're trying to test whether it is just pure population numbers causing lag or if it comes down to the skill and the calculations that the skills and playstyle force the server to make.

The bottom line is I think both the engine and the server could both probably use an upgrade. I would really love to see them upgrade the servers, upgrade the engines, reoptimize the game for new gen consoles, and release it as ESO 2.0, where everything basically transfers over, and you just play on the new servers/engines.

Yeah, to swap over to a new engine would essentially require them to develop an entirely new game.

But could you IMAGINE ESO in UE5? 😍

Orbital78

It is likely hitting its limits, I mean if you look at videos from newer MMO's like Dune: Awakening on UE5 it is a pretty big difference. For how old ESO is, it still looks pretty good. Even more so if they can update more and more of the older zones, mayhaps.

Vaqual

If the art designs are good and they stay true to the current style and level of quality I am satisfied.

Wolfshade

Slash8915 wrote: »

But could you IMAGINE ESO in UE5? 😍

From several points, ...NO!

Estin

Things like character models and textures can always be improved to look better, but I believe improvements like those are being held back by last gen consoles and PC players who are on or below the absolute minimum hardware requirements.

When it comes to post processing effects, I'm not sure if the engine can push out any more than it's already capable of doing.

It would be nice to see the game have features from something like community shaders for skyrim, but art direction is always remain important over fancy graphics.

Estin

Slash8915 wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Honestly, at this point I think the engine is being pushed to its limits which is why they're experimenting with doing things such as dialing back what skills and sets we have access to in PVP. They're trying to test whether it is just pure population numbers causing lag or if it comes down to the skill and the calculations that the skills and playstyle force the server to make.

The bottom line is I think both the engine and the server could both probably use an upgrade. I would really love to see them upgrade the servers, upgrade the engines, reoptimize the game for new gen consoles, and release it as ESO 2.0, where everything basically transfers over, and you just play on the new servers/engines.

Yeah, to swap over to a new engine would essentially require them to develop an entirely new game.

But could you IMAGINE ESO in UE5? 😍

ESO in UE5 will look like every game using UE5. It'll look pretty as a still image, but there will be a lot of graphical noise, especially on shadows, and the performance will be terrible with traversal stutters every 5 steps.

Stamicka

Slash8915 wrote: »

But could you IMAGINE ESO in UE5? 😍

Unreal Engine 5 looks soulless at this point. Even if ESO’s graphics are a little dated, it has a style and it has character.

UE5 can make some realistic looking graphics, but it’s usually poorly performing generic slop.

drip_fromtheinkwell

Gotta say as an environment artist at another studio, each of these replies sayin the engine dictates the art style took a year off my life. UE5 isn't a magic wand that'll make any game built in it 'realistic'. As someone else said earlier, art direction is the most important aspect of how the game looks, not the engine. (IMO)

acastanza_ESO

drip_fromtheinkwell wrote: »

Gotta say as an environment artist at another studio, each of these replies sayin the engine dictates the art style took a year off my life. UE5 isn't a magic wand that'll make any game built in it 'realistic'. As someone else said earlier, art direction is the most important aspect of how the game looks, not the engine. (IMO)

Maybe not, but every game I've played that uses UE4/5 does have a distinct samey-ness to it that I've grown to despise.

Krayl

Stamicka wrote: »

Slash8915 wrote: »

But could you IMAGINE ESO in UE5? 😍

Unreal Engine 5 looks soulless at this point. Even if ESO’s graphics are a little dated, it has a style and it has character.

UE5 can make some realistic looking graphics, but it’s usually poorly performing generic slop.

The art style and visual treatment might be limited by the engine, but the engine isn't the art/creative director.

AngryPenguin

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Honestly, at this point I think the engine is being pushed to its limits which is why they're experimenting with doing things such as dialing back what skills and sets we have access to in PVP. They're trying to test whether it is just pure population numbers causing lag or if it comes down to the skill and the calculations that the skills and playstyle force the server to make.

The bottom line is I think both the engine and the server could both probably use an upgrade. I would really love to see them upgrade the servers, upgrade the engines, reoptimize the game for new gen consoles, and release it as ESO 2.0, where everything basically transfers over, and you just play on the new servers/engines.

This would be the optimal future for those of us who love the game. The question is does ZOS think they can make $ doing it. (they can and would, but does upper management think so?)

Kaelthorn_Nightbloom

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Heretic 1994 - 1996 were good years for PC gaming.

Slash8915

UE5 is it just the engine it would be based off of. Unless Zenimax literally purchased and used assets as is, then they would have full direction over the art style.

They could absolutely make an amazing looking ESO utilizing it

spartaxoxo

I mean game engines are a bit like the "Ship of Theseus," are they not? The things they can today aren't what the same engine could do 10 years ago. Who knows what this will expand to be able to do in the future. I'd imagine that this game being so old that it still needs to run on pretty outdated hardware is a greater factor in how things look than the Hero engine.

Slash8915

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I mean game engines are a bit like the "Ship of Theseus," are they not? The things they can today aren't what the same engine could do 10 years ago. Who knows what this will expand to be able to do in the future. I'd imagine that this game being so old that it still needs to run on pretty outdated hardware is a greater factor in how things look than the Hero engine.

So basically Zenimax would have to pull a Squenix and stop supporting last gen consoles and older PC hardware in order to push the engine to its max. I wonder if that's something they plan on doing?

spartaxoxo

Slash8915 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I mean game engines are a bit like the "Ship of Theseus," are they not? The things they can today aren't what the same engine could do 10 years ago. Who knows what this will expand to be able to do in the future. I'd imagine that this game being so old that it still needs to run on pretty outdated hardware is a greater factor in how things look than the Hero engine.

So basically Zenimax would have to pull a Squenix and stop supporting last gen consoles and older PC hardware in order to push the engine to its max. I wonder if that's something they plan on doing?

I mean, they'd probably also have to change the engine some more to make it better. Not sure if that would even be worth it for such an old game. It might make more sense for them to just focus on whatever new things it is they're developing.

katanagirl1

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Honestly, at this point I think the engine is being pushed to its limits which is why they're experimenting with doing things such as dialing back what skills and sets we have access to in PVP. They're trying to test whether it is just pure population numbers causing lag or if it comes down to the skill and the calculations that the skills and playstyle force the server to make.

The bottom line is I think both the engine and the server could both probably use an upgrade. I would really love to see them upgrade the servers, upgrade the engines, reoptimize the game for new gen consoles, and release it as ESO 2.0, where everything basically transfers over, and you just play on the new servers/engines.

We already have a console enhanced version for PS5 at least, can’t speak for Xbox as I don’t have one. Is that what you are referring to, or something else?

Arunei

The problem with making an ESO2 is our account info. Is it possible to transfer all that over to a new engine without things getting corrupted or lost somehow? I'm not a coder or anything but I feel like it's not as easy as copy+pasting all the current info to a new engine/set of servers.

Kaelthorn_Nightbloom

Arunei wrote: »

The problem with making an ESO2 is our account info. Is it possible to transfer all that over to a new engine without things getting corrupted or lost somehow? I'm not a coder or anything but I feel like it's not as easy as copy+pasting all the current info to a new engine/set of servers.

In the broad spectrum of engineering tasks, this type of work (ETL - Extract, Transform, Load) is generally much less complex than something like graphics/physics engines, server engineering, etc. Itt takes careful planning, testing, and execution but you're basically just reading data out of an account database, creating a new model for that data, and then writing it back to a different database for the new game.

An even better solution would be to just reuse the account database for the new game. That's what Grinding Gear Games did for Path of Exile 1 and 2. You have a single account for both games.

Elvenheart

Arunei wrote: »

The problem with making an ESO2 is our account info. Is it possible to transfer all that over to a new engine without things getting corrupted or lost somehow? I'm not a coder or anything but I feel like it's not as easy as copy+pasting all the current info to a new engine/set of servers.

In olden times when things were much simpler, there were games with sequels where we could import our characters, or party of characters, into the sequel when it came out. I’m thinking games like the TSR Gold Box games, the original Bard’s Tale series, Might & Magic, etc. As the years went by and games got more complex I started noticing this feature disappearing and you had to start games from scratch more and more. So I’m guessing ESO2 in a new engine would be something totally new set in a different time with nothing that could be carried over were it ever to exist.

Erickson9610

I'd rather see TES VI have all of the fancy high-end graphics requirements, because ESO needs to be able to run on lower end hardware due to being an MMO that requires that a lot of people be able to play it.

That said, ESO still looks great. There are some models and textures that could use a revamp, but in general the game strikes a nice balance between playable and good-looking.

Stamicka

Slash8915 wrote: »

UE5 is it just the engine it would be based off of. Unless Zenimax literally purchased and used assets as is, then they would have full direction over the art style.

They could absolutely make an amazing looking ESO utilizing it

Even if they didn’t use any assets from others and they had an art style, it would still have that Unreal Engine look. It’s like everything looks glossy and the lighting is often pretty distinct too. You can almost always spot an Unreal Engine game just by looking at it, even if the art directors are different.

I also don’t think Unreal could handle ESO anyway. I remember back when Rich Lambert streamed he said no other engine except a custom one could suit ESO’s demands.

opethmaniac

The HERO-Engine was used in ESO only for prototyping. ZOS created a new engine from scratch. So they have full control over the features and capabilities of the engine instead of using a limited third party engine like HERO.

MJallday

I wish people would stop saying "upgrade the servers" .

if that was a problem it would have been done already. upgrading RAM, processor or disk space, or even network infra bandwith is literally a 10 second job. especially in a virtual environment which i suspect they are running.

the problem doesnt lay in any of this. if you really think the servers are bouncing off some sort of 1TB ram limit, do you not think theyd have spotted that?

the problem is elsewhere.

its now about engine, software, code and database optimisation - that is the sticking point and bottleneck, along with access to the infra (Akamai) - which IMO should have been ditched 5 years ago.

Juomuuri

I sure hope they won't tamper with the character models, I don't want to log in to suddenly find out my characters look entirely different from what they used to. Humans look uncanny in this game but otherwise everything's fine.

StihlReign

Devs (gaming Companies) highly evolve and change these engines from whatever the initial Version/Name they humbly come from. It looks like heroengine recently issued an update Stable release 2.074 / January 19, 2024; 11 months ago, so there's still support for any base code ESO evolved from, which is good.

ESO could probably take larger performance leaps if they raised the minimum PC requirements, but at what cost? Gaming Co's have actuaries for those type of decisions but raising the caps can't be for the faint of heart...

Graphics-wise (can you say that), ESO has come a long way and it feels like they have space to do more. It feels like a fairly consistent improvement in graphics and art quality, and that's probably the most important piece of the journey. If they can truly bring more uniqueness to each zone, spruce up the art, and get rid of the template feel that many have noted, ESO prob has a lot of years left. Ten years plus worth of content is a huge game to start Day One, today.

New players are receiving a jewel

TaSheen

Juomuuri wrote: »

I sure hope they won't tamper with the character models, I don't want to log in to suddenly find out my characters look entirely different from what they used to. Humans look uncanny in this game but otherwise everything's fine.

Yeah. That's what happened in WoW and that was the last straw for me. I was already unhappy about game direction, and then my girls didn't look like themselves any more. Quit, canceled 7 accounts, never been back.

sans-culottes

TaSheen wrote: »

Juomuuri wrote: »

I sure hope they won't tamper with the character models, I don't want to log in to suddenly find out my characters look entirely different from what they used to. Humans look uncanny in this game but otherwise everything's fine.

Yeah. That's what happened in WoW and that was the last straw for me. I was already unhappy about game direction, and then my girls didn't look like themselves any more. Quit, canceled 7 accounts, never been back.

That’s a lot of accounts. Anyway, I’d absolutely be in favor of upgrading the dated character models. That they’re doing some updates to older zones is a good thing.