Menu
What's New
By:
Filters

Graphics in Entropia are impressive

I

INTERNUT

Alpha
Joined
Aug 23, 2021
Posts
693
Location
London, England
Society
Freelancer
Avatar Name
INTERNUT
I've been playing for about a week and a half, and I'm amazed as to how impressive the graphics are and the level of detailing, such as seats, benches, railings, storage containers and so on. I sometimes forget I'm playing a game ;)
 
I agree! I hear a lot of excessive negativity on current graphic quality based on minor visual glitches and the like, but I think it is amazing how far we've come since the early days of EU. I'm open minded about the future Unreal Engine 5 update improving the visuals further, but at the same time fear we're spending significant resources continuing to hammer away at a largely solved problem. Will the graphics ever be good enough that we can focus on more substantial mechanics, or are we destined to divert resources to huge graphics overhauls every 5 years to squeeze out the last ounce of polish technically available?
 
TheOneOmega said:
I agree! I hear a lot of excessive negativity on current graphic quality based on minor visual glitches and the like, but I think it is amazing how far we've come since the early days of EU. I'm open minded about the future Unreal Engine 5 update improving the visuals further, but at the same time fear we're spending significant resources continuing to hammer away at a largely solved problem. Will the graphics ever be good enough that we can focus on more substantial mechanics, or are we destined to divert resources to huge graphics overhauls every 5 years to squeeze out the last ounce of polish technically available?
Click to expand...
Don't know much about the history of EU yet, so intrigued as to how far back 'early days' is, although I've seen some vids on youtube dated as far back as 2011. 12. 13... All I know is I like the graphics quality which is better than in some mmo's I've played.
 
INTERNUT said:
Don't know much about the history of EU yet, so intrigued as to how far back 'early days' is, although I've seen some vids on youtube dated as far back as 2011. 12. 13... All I know is I like the graphics quality which is better than in some mmo's I've played.
Click to expand...
I created my ava in 2003
 
Heck! That's about 17 years ago. Didn't know it went that far back.
 
I stared early 2005, I prefer the old campy graphics, sounds and background music from back then.

I have some screen shots uploaded in the gallery from those days, like this one that might bring back memories for anyone that remembers camping corn on Cape Corinth beach with a RepEdge 1x0 my favorite eco skilling grinder of those days - until they nerfed it.:

 
Last edited:
And that's with the 12 years old graphics engine, imagine how it will look in UE5 after the transition.

Although, like some others, I do like the old pre-2009 graphics better. It was less eye-candyish but less generic too.
 
INTERNUT said:
Don't know much about the history of EU yet, so intrigued as to how far back 'early days' is, although I've seen some vids on youtube dated as far back as 2011. 12. 13... All I know is I like the graphics quality which is better than in some mmo's I've played.
Click to expand...
Others will probably know exactly, but the game is getting on for 20 years old.
 
Yup, bits of it, from the right angle, at the right time of day are really quite lovely. Finding those places and times is kinda my main hobby in game.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mac
krazykat said:
Others will probably know exactly, but the game is getting on for 20 years old.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I don't know why MA insists on using the official release date in 2003 as Day 1 when thousands of people were playing the beta since mid 2001.
 
Some interesting comments here, had no idea that EU had such a history. Found out earlier that it was called Project Entropia up until about 2005 when it was changed to Entropia Universe.
 
Most of the old players, who whitnessed the good old times still call it PE.

Really impressive were the grafix in 2002-2004, when an online 3D MMORPG was a real novelty and PE was the spearhead both with concept and RCE. From then on other games advanced faster and further, always being better with Quality of Life, bug fighting and developement.
 
In 2009, with VU10.0, the new Cryengine CE2 was implemented, which is the engine still being used today.
It came with a minimum standard set of "eye candy", but CE2's potential didn't got utilized further.

In comparison to other online games, the first two years after CE2 implementation, PE visually looked quite nice and beautiful, even though it was obvious how few of the CE2 engine's possibilities got utilized.
We all have played Crysis and we all knew what CryEngine2 was capable of and what could have been possible for PE, if CE2 only would have been utilized better.

But sadly MA needed those two years after implementation of CE2 to fix (some of) the hundreds of bugs they implemented with the new engine.
Visuals are one thing, but collisions, pathfinding, stuck mobs and players, crashes to desktop, user interface <-> server synchronisation, falling trough the ground, glitches, bugs eating PEDs, and another dozens of abusable or frustrating bugs made the game more or less unplayable during this time (depending on the stress acceptance and frustration resistance of the player).
But for a 10 - 1000 US$ per month online game they were unacceptable. Hundreds of big whales left the game, cashed out and the drain of cash crashed the ingame markets and led to MindArk bankruptcy, which only got evaded with questionalbe financial stunts.

After those two years the hay-wired patch-humunculus learned to find his feet, but the visual advantage over other online games was lost.

Now, in year 13 after the CE2 implementation we still fall through some floors, half of the instances are closed down, mobs, vehicles and players still run into trees and get stuck, collisions don't work, vehicles can't be spawned on even ground, game mechanics don't work and 90% of the CE2 visual potential is still unused.

I hope UE5 will solve more bugs than it will cause.
I empirically fear MindArk's competence.
 
Last edited:
Mac said:
I stared early 2005, I prefer the old campy graphics, sounds and background music from back then.
Click to expand...
Yes, the sounds. I miss the sounds :confused:
The nice chatter sound our avatars used to make when we typed a msg.
And the nice ambient music
 
wizz said:
Yes, the sounds. I miss the sounds :confused:
Click to expand...
Maybe they lost the copyrights for alot of their music.
Maybe it felt clever to spare the costs to buy the rights, when the music got composed.
Maybe it felt clever to spare the music composer's wage then, too.

Maybe the music composer so holds copyrights for his music.
Maybe he wants to get paid now for the musik getting played ingame.
Maybe it wasn't too clever to spare the music composer's wage.

So many questions...
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Mac
wizz said:
Yes, the sounds. I miss the sounds :confused:
The nice chatter sound our avatars used to make when we typed a msg.
And the nice ambient music
Click to expand...
The chatter sound was added in some vu and can be activated in the menu somewere.
 
Orion said:
In 2009 with VU10.0 the new Cryengine CE2 was implemented, which is the engine still being used today.
It came with a minimum standard set of "eye candy", but CE2's potential didn't got utilized further.

In comparison to other online games the first two years after CE2 implementation, PE visually looked quite nice and beautiful, even though it was obvious how few of the CE2 engine's possibilities got utilized.
We all have played Crysis and we all knew what CryEngine2 was capable of and what could have been possible for PE, if CE2 only would have been utilized better.

But sadly MA needed those two years after implementation of CE2 to fix (some of) the hundreds of bugs they implemented with the new engine.
Visuals are one thing, but collisions, pathfinding, stuck mobs and players, crashes to desktop, user interface-server synchronisation, falling trough the ground, glitches, and another dozens of abusable or frustrating bugs made the game more or less unplayable during this time (depending on the stress acceptance and frustration resistance of the player).
But for a 10 - 1000 US$ per month online game they were unacceptable. Hundreds of big whales left the game, cashed out and the drain of cash crashed the ingame markets and led to MindArk bankruptcy, which only got evaded with questionalbe financial stunts.

After those two years the hay-wired patch-humunculus learned to find his feet, but the visual advantage over other online games was lost.

Now, in year 13 after the CE2 implementation we still fall through some floors, half of the instances are closed down, mobs, vehicles and players still run into trees and get stuck, collisions don't work, vehicles can't be spawned on even ground, game mechanics don't work and 90% of the CE2 visual potential is still unused.

I hope UE5 will solve more bugs than it will cause.
I empirically fear MindArk's competence.
Click to expand...
So it is cryengine, wasn't sure because patches of terrain here and there look different, and I've experienced some of the bugs you mention. One is where occasionally I suddenly start bouncing on the terrain when I'm running along, and in O.W.Habitat there was an Ixarisour stuck in a wall. But apart from these things, I'm starting to really like EU.
 
endermigne said:
So basically you are about to learn what PED and PEC mean :)
Click to expand...
Yer, there's 100 pecs to a ped and 10 peds to the US$, I think of it as just another currency. BTW, is MA some sort of bank as well as the operator of EU, and can you cash out in crypto?
 
B-K said:
The chatter sound was added in some vu and can be activated in the menu somewere.
Click to expand...
I'll look for that in the action library, but does that mean you'll hear other AVs chatting in the distance, or only who you're chatting with.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top