Second Life's Visual Capacity Is Superior To Warhammer Online (At Least In Verkin's Hands)

Here's two images of online world fantasy, one borrowed from the screenshot archive of Electronic Arts' Warhammer Online, the latest craze in MMORPG gaming.  The other is taken from a Second Life region called Aggro, created by Verkin Raven.  Can you tell which is which?  More germane:  which is more beautiful, atmospheric, and vivid? 

Click Continue for more views of SL's Aggro after the break.  Or better yet, click this SLURL teleport link to visit and see for yourself.  (And thanks to Iris Ophelia, for sending me a tip to this mini kingdom of dragons.)

Comments

[Loraan Fierrens]

I was trying to resist commenting on this, but I just can't. Ok... so, I will grant you that when you go to an area where a skilled person has spent a lot of effort, Second Life can be very beautiful. No debate there from me. So, if you're just going to do a static side-by-side comparison of pictures... yeah, I can see SL winning. But, let me ask, how long did it take before all the textures loaded? What was your rendering rate? How far did you have your draw distance set, etc., etc.? Last time I was in Warhammer (I actually don't play it very much, and don't really like the look of it very much to begin with), I didn't see a single grey avatar or have to wait for textures and models to load while I was walking around.

But, here's the bigger issue: so what? Why do a comparison between these two things at all? For a while, I saw all sorts of comparisons between Second Life and WOW; and they always made me cross. They are 3D environments where people can interact, and that's about where the similarities end. You use them for entirely different purposes. Honestly, an article like this to me is like comparing how seat comfort between the A380 and a CAT backhoe.

If we're going to do comparisons... how are the RVR scenarios in Second Life? Oh right, there aren't any because that's not the point of Second Life. How are the building tools in Warhammer? Oh right... again... that's not the point!

Can we please stop comparing apples to oranges?

[Ann Otoole]

Too bad someone forgot to turn off those ever fake looking particle clouds in Secondlife. Very cool picture. The avatars in Warhammer look great. But they are all template avatars by character class. There really is no comparison to Secondlife anywhere at all.

[Hamlet Au]

It is somewhat of an apples<<>>oranges dealie, Loraan, but at the same time, I often hear the "Gamers don't like SL because it doesn't look as good as X MMORPG" meme, so it's worth making a comparison, IMO. Rendering and frame rate in Aggro was actually really good, when I visited, probably because it's largely an open area with prims well spread out.

[Loraan Fierrens]

Well, I'll certainly check it out. I do like to see well made things in Second Life. My beef with this sort of comparison in general is that I can't imagine the people who play something like Warhammer or WOW (and I have accounts in both) wanting to be in Second Life particularly (look not withstanding... I have a lot of complaints about Warhammer's look and graphics quality, but I won't go into them now)... to me they feel like completely different things. To me, those games are simple diversions... whereas Second Life is a place to tinker, experiment, and talk with people more-or-less seriously. But, then again, I suppose it takes all kinds.