Clearly, you could make a good game even better with well-placed graphics like shader effects. As well, honestly good graphics - not just flashy junk - can make a game worth playing even if you don't like the gameplay.

Gameplay is far more important than graphics imo.
Sure graphics make you go wow when you look at a game but if it's totally unplayable then what's the point. You might as well make a showcase video showing fancy graphical techniques.

Alright, this is silly. Gameplay guys are hereby assured that yes, we all know that without great gameplay a really good-looking game is worthless. Graphics guys are hereby assured that yes, we all know that without great graphics a really well-designed game is worthless. YEAH. THEY'RE BOTH IMPORTANT.

My suggestion: Why not break up the categories? Best Graphics, Best Gameplay, and Best In Show. Have first and second prizes in each. BIS, obviously, would be the big-ticket prizes.

Quote: Original post by Sneftel
Alright, this is silly. Gameplay guys are hereby assured that yes, we all know that without great gameplay a really good-looking game is worthless. Graphics guys are hereby assured that yes, we all know that without great graphics a really well-designed game is worthless. YEAH. THEY'RE BOTH IMPORTANT.

My suggestion: Why not break up the categories? Best Graphics, Best Gameplay, and Best In Show. Have first and second prizes in each. BIS, obviously, would be the big-ticket prizes.

I'd even be thrilled if we could just see the ranked scores in each judging category. There doesn't even have to be a "graphics winner" as long as we can get feedback in areas other than "was your game in the top 5 overall?"

Quote: Original post by Sneftel
Alright, this is silly. Gameplay guys are hereby assured that yes, we all know that without great gameplay a really good-looking game is worthless. Graphics guys are hereby assured that yes, we all know that without great graphics a really well-designed game is worthless. YEAH. THEY'RE BOTH IMPORTANT.

My suggestion: Why not break up the categories? Best Graphics, Best Gameplay, and Best In Show. Have first and second prizes in each. BIS, obviously, would be the big-ticket prizes.

Thats a pretty cool idea actually, like an awards show type thing. Best In Show, Peoples Choice, Best Graphics, Best Sound, Best Gameplay, Most Original...

Although from what happened last time with the Judging, I'm not sure how much the judges would like the extra workload

Quote: Original post by d000hg
IIRC, every entry in 4E4 that had fancy shader graphics did badly. Toy Robo may have used shaders but in a 'normal' way, not for showy effects.

nope, Toy Robo was all fixed-function pipeline, but it tickles me pink to hear that it looked like it was using shaders (even just 'normal' ones) Thanks [smile]

Quote: Original post by paulecoyote

Quote: Original post by Sneftel
Alright, this is silly. Gameplay guys are hereby assured that yes, we all know that without great gameplay a really good-looking game is worthless. Graphics guys are hereby assured that yes, we all know that without great graphics a really well-designed game is worthless. YEAH. THEY'RE BOTH IMPORTANT.

My suggestion: Why not break up the categories? Best Graphics, Best Gameplay, and Best In Show. Have first and second prizes in each. BIS, obviously, would be the big-ticket prizes.

Thats a pretty cool idea actually, like an awards show type thing.

We could call it... the GameDev Oscars!

Quote: Original post by paulecoyote
Although from what happened last time with the Judging, I'm not sure how much the judges would like the extra workload

It wouldn't be any extra work for the judges, since they're already rating in multiple categories. It's just a little more work for Superpig. And I, for one, am perfectly willing to volunteer him. [grin]

Quote: Original post by Sneftel

Quote: Original post by paulecoyote
Although from what happened last time with the Judging, I'm not sure how much the judges would like the extra workload

It wouldn't be any extra work for the judges, since they're already rating in multiple categories. It's just a little more work for Superpig. And I, for one, am perfectly willing to volunteer him. [grin]

Quote: Original post by Kazgoroth

Quote: Original post by remigius
If you want to allow folks to make good use of shaders, SM2 really is the minimum spec IMHO.

I thought we wanted folks to make good use of fun original gameplay. Don't need shaders at all for that.

Allow was the operative verb here. I think it has been quite clear that graphics alone won't be winning the show, however Windwaker-like they might have been [wink]

Quote: How quickly people forget how great older tech actually was. QuakeIII ran well on a pre-GeforceI card. Shaders were first introduced in the GeforceIII - 3 generations later on. Even the first shaders could do really nice lighting and some fancy vertex tricks - later versions than that let you do cool effects but that is just polish really.

I get your point d000hg, but I don't care much for adding in all kinds of flashy effects just for the heck of it. It's just that having SM2 as the base rendering path would give the graphics folks a break, since they won't have to provide a fallback path. Spending additional time on SM2 graphics and having to provide a fallback path isn't a big incentive for choosing this route.

But let's just leave it up to Superpig et al to figure this one out. We've all made our points clear and Sneftel's idea sounds like a good plan to me. Sorry I brought about this discussion with that final prod, but I guess something good came from it after all, a friendly Gameplay vs Graphics argument at the very least [smile]