Browsing Steam and looking at the comments of the uneducated masses I was dismayed how much graphics count in a sim. Sure the graphics in WBs are dated but how about the size of the maps and the ability to recruit players to conduct real planned missions, the FMs and their complexity, etc. But also looking at Steam there are many Indie games that have great game play and purposely designed retro graphics. Some are pixel frag-fests and others are hand drawn works of art. Image realism is put aside for the style and programming behind the pixels, some retro games are very realistic.

There is often talk of updating the graphics in WBs but I think with the old game engine and such you can only go so far.

But what about retrofitting the graphics instead?

Go back to flat broad colours in the terrains, hand drawn art for the aircraft. 2D hand drawn clutter trees and simple ground targets. Explosions could be more comic book than real.

Everything else behind the scenes would be the same. The same FMs and such. The look would be simply retro or comic art, whatever you want to call it.

Something like the original WBs but with better drawn detailed graphics all with a reduced colour palette?
I believe it would be fairly easy to do a terrain this way. Maybe a couple planes could be done by our skilled artist players. A few tweaks to the special effects files and objects and there you go?

Interesting observations, although we agree on one thing...how much graphics count for something and perhaps one reason why new cadet retention is so low over the last 12 months....and JUST happens to be a current subject at hand.

Imagine those graphics with high resolution so they look like drawn comic book art. No pixelated edges but no dated realism either.

The retro movement in games especially by Indie developers is pretty big right now. Even if you look at War Thunder the graphics are awesome but flying in a large map you start to see its limitations too. Unless you have a killer rig the trees and ground objects come on like our clutter in WBs and seem to pop into place which I find hurts immersion. If you look at WW2 Online its graphics are even more dated than WBs but the mechanics and design behind it is excellent. Updating the graphics is a huge issue with the game and they are trying to bring up an old game engine to speed which I think sometimes you cant and have to start again from scratch. I wonder if WBs is at the same point. Some more eye candy with lighting and such but the general terrains, planes and cockpits are stuck without much change until they are rebuilt from the ground up on a new engine.

When I build terrains I sometimes misname textures and just have black space where they are supposed to be. It doesnt look real but you can see every fold and crease in the terrain and follow them easily. There is more detail behind the textures than with the textures. That being said you would have to apply some basic colours and such which I would need to experiment with but I am sure its possible.

Just an idea but like most games I am sure you could have a player mod. Retro WarBirds coming to a screen near you.

Are you talking about cel-shaded graphics like Borderlands? I've wondered how that would look in Warbirds as well.

<S>

Nick

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"Tod von Oben"

Yes exactly. The trend toward realism in graphics comes at a high price. Newer engines that run the latest effects beyond what an upgrade to Direct X can do.
I always like the look of Borderlands. It was clean and timeless in lots of ways.