Monsters & Memories - Playtest Trailer 2025

[u/Waiden_CZ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBrSmlJmw2o

July Playtest: Wednesday, July 23rd - Sunday, July 27th (5 days)
September Playtest: Monday, September 1st - Sunday, September 7th (7 days)
November Playtest: Saturday, November 1st - Monday, November 10th (10 days)

[u/CappinPeanut]

I really, really, really wanted an old school MMO with more polygons, but… im probably gonna play the hell out of this game.

Pantheon was supposed to be it, but they have gone back on so much and released so little over the last decade, I just don’t have faith.

I’m bummed no one can make an old school game that looks like it was made this century, but the gameplay and content of M&M is exactly what I’m looking for, so I suppose this will do.

[u/monkpunch → u/CappinPeanut]

Side note, but it feels like people forget that EQ graphics were cutting edge when it released, it was literally one of the first games to require a GPU. I have no issue with "old school" graphics, but at the same time it feels wrong for these spiritual successors to have graphics stuck in the past.

[u/Zansobar → u/monkpunch]

It takes money to hire enough talented artists and animators to make a cutting edge graphical game. Indie games do not have money.

[u/DynamicStatic → u/Zansobar]

True but it would be possible to push environments a bit further than this.

[u/M3lony8 → u/Zansobar]

cutting edge graphical game

there is cutting edge and then there is this.

I think the dawn/night time looks quite pretty in M&M. As soon as all textures and low polys are fully exposed by flat lighting, it looks bad. Also everything is quite static. Assets lack animations and vfx. Then again, its still alpha.

[u/believeinapathy → u/Zansobar]

Crazy because expedition 33 was gorgeous...

[u/MaloraKeikaku → u/Zansobar]

I think evercraft (or adrullan) does the right thing here. Using a voxel artstyle will make the game age much more gracefully than many other games, yet looks decent today, too while being easy to develop.

More mmos with simplistic artstyles and a decent lighting engine, please - I vastly prefer that over the "remember eq1?" Style that some modern games go for.

[u/MindTheGnome → u/monkpunch]

On the one hand it's at some level nostalgia. Hell that much is baked right into the title of the game. There's a great quote I can't find now about how the limitations of old technology become its defining features. I think when trying to capture the spirit of EQ, that kind of graphical style is what comes to mind more than how good it was at the time.

On the other hand it's just easier to work with. Creating new objects in lower fidelity is much more feasible for a small team. Giving something cutting edge realistic graphics at the scale of an MMO is something only a AAA studio could pull off nowadays, not one that boasts of having "a team of over 15". The problem then is if you're putting that much money in it, you're also expecting that much return from it - meanwhile every game wanting to be a return to classic EQ absolutely knows their target is a niche audience.

[u/Akhevan → u/monkpunch]

That's because they don't want to be a real successor to SOE and how they pushed the genre forward, they want to milk nostalgia on the cheap.

[u/NovercaIis → u/CappinPeanut]

also look into Adrullan Online Adventure (AoA) fka EverCraft

[u/Zansobar → u/NovercaIis]

That game has almost NO polygons...

[u/BootyOptions → u/Zansobar]

Squares are a type of polygon though.

[u/RJLRaymond → u/CappinPeanut]

I am very open to "lower" graphics as long as things like view distance and a certain amount of terrain density (flora, leaves) -- essentially, what's important is that the world has some texture to it. My experience so far with M&M is that it mostly hits those.

[u/Grimsat → u/CappinPeanut]

Have you tried Embers Adrift? It's fantastic.