Monsters and Memories (Project_N) - Old School Indie MMO

Pharone · 2026-01-14T10:52:50-0500

... said:
realistifc graphics are ruining the video game industry. lower poly, simpler graphics are easy to develop and add more content for.

Exactly this ^

I preferred Everquest character models pre Shadows of Luclin. I loved the artistic styling of early Everquest. The so called low polygon count character models lead to some truly memorable looking gear. To this day, I still think the Kunark (or was it Velious) ogre helm was bad ass looking.

I'm just so tired of hearing people using the terms "artistic style" to "polygon count" interchangeably. It's like if the lead artist of a game designs an art style for the game that has low polygon count, immediately people say the graphics suck because it has low polygon count. They're ignoring the fact that the overall look of the design is what was important. The number of polygons is not the deciding factor in the overall design of the game.

So, to some people's complaints in this thread, yes MnM has a low polygon count for its characters, but the overall artistical design of the characters is pretty bad ass in my opinion. I fucking love it, and I couldn't care less if it was implemented in low, medium, high, or insanely-wont-run-on-most-peoples-computers high polygon count. The style is bad ass.

Del · 2026-01-14T10:55:46-0500

The only thing about the game that makes it look old is the low poly stuff. Everything else about it is fine and serviceable. The art style is what is most important and I think the art looks great. It has a cool old school D&D/fantasy look to it.

Arden · 2026-01-14T11:14:34-0500

Count me firmly in the camp of those who don't care much about flashy graphics. I still dust off Super Mario Bros 3 every once in awhile because actual gameplay is what's king to me.

Also art direction is way more important to me than polygon count. And I am very much liking the art direction for this game so far, especially the environmentals.

Sylas · 2026-01-14T11:49:46-0500

Pharone said:
Like it or not, the fact that the biggest complaints are from a handful of people saying they don't like the graphics, that should mean that we have a hell of a good game on our hands here because if graphics is all you can find to complain about, fuck the game must be awesome to play.

And, honestly, when it comes right down to it, if you really can not get past the graphics, this just might not be the game for you. That's how Rift was for me. The gameplay was not bad and I had decent fun in the game when it came out. I just could not stand the graphical styling they chose for the NPCs and player characters. It was so ugly to me. I'm sure some people liked it, but I did not. Thing is though, I didn't sit around on the Rift forums complaining about it and asking the devs to change it. The graphics were not my cup of tea... I moved on.

This is 100% a delusional take, you must be a reddit mod if that's what you think is going on.

This thread is 200+ pages of which half the posters are either negative or neutral, which being internet forums there's lots of repeating so prolly closer to 75-85% negative posts.

Graphics is what's being complained about now (and always has been) but by far its not the most grievous complaint.

Outside of handful of posters who stick around despite hating the game, here is the typical format for feedback:

Poster 1: game is doing X? I didnt like that in game z.

The three die hard fans of the game: well tough shit maybe its not for you then

Poster 1: ok, enjoy your shitty game then <leaves>
...
...
Poster 732: why are they doing Z? That has never worked ever and just leads to turmoil

Same 3 fans: games not for you!
...
...

Poster 1756: man the graphics are pretty fucking shitty is it too much to ask to atleast be as good as games 30 fucking years ago?

Same 3 fans: see only gripe is graphics but thats just your opinion man.

Game launches for 3 people and fails
Why is nobody playing?

I don't hate the game unlike most Complainers here but I seriously doubt its going to make it.. my biggest gripe is lack of steam launch which surprise surprise is because the devs are embarrassed by the graphics and don't want the actual PC gaming market to see the game yet. Hey dumb fuck you know you could afford to hire artists if you launched on steam? I get it, your 8 year olds refrigerator doodles is your art style so you don't want to talk bad about it and hurt their feelings but even you know your game looks like shit but you wont do what's needed to fix it, you know, make money so you can hire people?

Pharone · 2026-01-14T12:25:47-0500

Sylas said:
This is 100% a delusional take, you must be a reddit mod if that's what you think is going on.

This thread is 200+ pages of which half the posters are either negative or neutral, which being internet forums there's lots of repeating so prolly closer to 75-85% negative posts.

Graphics is what's being complained about now (and always has been) but by far its not the most grievous complaint.

Outside of handful of posters who stick around despite hating the game, here is the typical format for feedback:

Poster 1: game is doing X? I didnt like that in game z.

The three die hard fans of the game: well tough shit maybe its not for you then

Poster 1: ok, enjoy your shitty game then <leaves>
...
...
Poster 732: why are they doing Z? That has never worked ever and just leads to turmoil

Same 3 fans: games not for you!
...
...

Poster 1756: man the graphics are pretty fucking shitty is it too much to ask to atleast be as good as games 30 fucking years ago?

Same 3 fans: see only gripe is graphics but thats just your opinion man.

Game launches for 3 people and fails
Why is nobody playing?

I don't hate the game unlike most Complainers here but I seriously doubt its going to make it.. my biggest gripe is lack of steam launch which surprise surprise is because the devs are embarrassed by the graphics and don't want the actual PC gaming market to see the game yet. Hey dumb fuck you know you could afford to hire artists if you launched on steam? I get it, your 8 year olds refrigerator doodles is your art style so you don't want to talk bad about it and hurt their feelings but even you know your game looks like shit but you wont do what's needed to fix it, you know, make money so you can hire people?

Confirmed. You're an idiot.

Pasteton · 2026-01-14T13:13:35-0500

Their art style lets them pump out content faster. I think for the semi cartoony low fi art they are going for I think it looks great. One could argue mass effect 3 has better graphics - it certainly has higher poly counts and graphics tech - but no one would actually say it looks better. They have work to do on some character and monster models but the environments are great in the lo fi setting that the game is in. The shadows and lighting add a lot too which doesn’t come out well in screenshots. Places like grim tide sanctum or the shallowed shoals orc fortress at night are some of the best visuals I’ve had in mmos and it’s not because of the graphical fidelity but because the actual design is so atmospheric and thematic and cool

TJT · 2026-01-14T13:23:42-0500

If WoW taught anyone anything its this. Maintaining a deliberately cartoony or stylish aesthetic makes your game hold up longer. This applies to all games.

1990 Super Mario World on the SNES still looks great 35 years later. Zelda Windwaker still looks good 23 years later. WOW Classic, even on the old 1.0 client, still looks good enough 21 years later. If your entire game hinges on it looking good for a long time it is in your best interest to follow that design philosophy.

Quaid · 2026-01-14T13:37:25-0500

New MMOs all look terrible and at least a generation behind, even ones with ‘good’ graphics, because for the economics to make sense they need to run on a vast array of machines and maybe even consoles. This will be true until all common hardware is capable of rendering photo realism.

It’s better to just make a visually appealing stylized visual language that is lower demand on artists.

While i don’t like SOME of the models as a matter of personal tone preference (chiefly the Orcs, Ogres, and skeletons) i think they did an excellent job developing a functional aesthetic style and an appealing cohesive visual language.

Muligan · 2026-01-14T13:46:07-0500

If the game does not connect with your playerbase... it doesn't matter. There are plenty of incredibly stunning looking games that has not made it. Its not that the graphics don't matter it just has to be a part of the connection. Retro style games have proven that time and time again. If the game keeps you coming back for more, the graphics will mean less and less. Again, I was little taken back by the direction as it felt a little "placeholder" to me but ultimately I don't care. They care fine tune it and make it work. If they can create a community that can enjoy playing the core game together, I can see it working but I hope they do polish some of it. I do think the environment and music has some really nice moments. There hasn't been a lot of talk about the music and I have to say Jay Barbeau added a lot to the EQ experience for me.

General Antony · 2026-01-14T14:15:50-0500

Pharone said:
Like it or not, the fact that the biggest complaints are from a handful of people saying they don't like the graphics, that should mean that we have a hell of a good game on our hands here

You're assuming people are even getting to the game and not dismissing it out of hand. I think you'd be mistaken.

There is a big disconnect between character (pc and npc) models and the environment.

Pasteton · 2026-01-14T14:26:06-0500

Agreed, the char models are pretty 1996, they got a ways to go to make them as appealing as the environments.

also 99% of mmo gamers will ignore or not even hear about this game . I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the most active thread for this game on the internet. Some guy like asmongold will dismiss it out of hand. This is really for the grey neckbeards and those of us who want something to do while working

Kirun · 2026-01-14T14:34:01-0500

TJT said:
If WoW taught anyone anything its this. Maintaining a deliberately cartoony or stylish aesthetic makes your game hold up longer. This applies to all games.

The difference is WoW paired a stylized, low-fidelity look with an engine that was actually well optimized. That's why it has held up for decades and ran on old hardware. That's the tradeoff you're supposed to make. If your game looks simple, blocky, or "old school," fine - it should run on a potato from 2005 without breaking a sweat. But when something looks low effort and performs like garbage, the entire justification collapses. At that point you're not choosing an aesthetic, you're just failing on two fronts at once. If it looks rough and runs rough, what exactly is the upside here?

EQ, for all its faults, can at least be ran on a complete toaster - when I boxed on Mischief, two of my boxes were running on old ass Lenovo workstations from like 2014. MnM looks like shit AND runs like shit (and if you like that graphical style, fine. It still performs like ass compared to its fidelity). I think that's the big issue.

Quaid · 2026-01-14T19:26:33-0500

General Antony said:
You're assuming people are even getting to the game and not dismissing it out of hand. I think you'd be mistaken.

There is a big disconnect between character (pc and npc) models and the environment.

I do think this is something EQ and WoW did better.

Quaid · 2026-01-14T19:35:53-0500

Kirun said:
The difference is WoW paired a stylized, low-fidelity look with an engine that was actually well optimized. That's why it has held up for decades and ran on old hardware. That's the tradeoff you're supposed to make. If your game looks simple, blocky, or "old school," fine - it should run on a potato from 2005 without breaking a sweat. But when something looks low effort and performs like garbage, the entire justification collapses. At that point you're not choosing an aesthetic, you're just failing on two fronts at once. If it looks rough and runs rough, what exactly is the upside here?

EQ, for all its faults, can at least be ran on a complete toaster - when I boxed on Mischief, two of my boxes were running on old ass Lenovo workstations from like 2014. MnM looks like shit AND runs like shit (and if you like that graphical style, fine. It still performs like ass compared to its fidelity). I think that's the big issue.

The draw distances in MNM are orders of magnitude greater than WoW or EverQuest ever were. You're not gonna be able to play it on a run-through Lenovo FartPad from the Obama administration just because the character model poly counts are lower than Aion 69: Elfs3x in Sp4ce. Nothing to do with optimization at all.

I have run MNM just fine on a 2017 Legion with 8gb DDRpoo RAM and a Geforce 1060 (lmao edition). If I try running Throne & Liberty or Black Desert on the thing the heat will get so great that it'll open a singularity in my living room and end this miserable world. A 10-year hardware allowance for a laptop is a MASSIVE customer catchment in 2026.

Daidraco · 2026-01-14T19:48:05-0500

Quaid said:
The draw distances in MNM are orders of magnitude greater than WoW or EverQuest ever were. You're not gonna be able to play it on a run-through Lenovo FartPad from the Obama administration, just because the character model poly counts are lower than Aion 69: Elfs3x in Sp4ce. Nothing to do with optimization at all.

Not related to what you're saying but using it as a jumping point:

That draw distance is one of the things I am kind of torn on. Its great, and begs you to explore "that tower in the distance" for example. But it does hold back some other design elements in their decision process. Like Ultra Vision.. iirc, has this like "glow" or something to it? Where you can see whats in your current area regardless of lighting but clouds or "shimmers" the draw distance. But Nick, and I guess the others want to keep the draw distance for everyone? So they appear to be deciding against Ultra Vision. Where, I.. on the other hand.. think its like near sighted and far sighted. Regular vision, you can see a thousand leagues away. Ultra Vision (or maybe its infravision he was playing with on stream at that point) would give you near sighted, in that - you can fucking see everything in your immediate area. Human can see that awesome looking tower in depth from Nighthold. Dark Elf can see that hidden corridor in the cave that you're unfamiliar with.

Like the first thing that comes to mind is the cave in Goblin Slayer. If someone had infra/ultra vision - would they have missed that cave that allowed the goblins to come in and kill/rape the squad?

In that same vein, when fighting something in a sandstorm or fog. The Dark Elf could see aggro distance well, but the human could see just past that fog given elevation changes etc.

Quaid · 2026-01-14T19:56:19-0500

Daidraco said:
Not related to what you're saying but using it as a jumping point:

That draw distance is one of the things I am kind of torn on. Its great, and begs you to explore "that tower in the distance" for example. But it does hold back some other design elements in their decision process. Like Ultra Vision.. iirc, has this like "glow" or something to it? Where you can see whats in your current area regardless of lighting but clouds or "shimmers" the draw distance. But Nick, and I guess the others want to keep the draw distance for everyone? So they appear to be deciding against Ultra Vision. Where, I.. on the other hand.. think its like near sighted and far sighted. Regular vision, you can see a thousand leagues away. Ultra Vision (or maybe its infravision he was playing with on stream at that point) would give you near sighted, in that - you can fucking see everything in your immediate area. Human can see that awesome looking tower in depth from Nighthold. Dark Elf can see that hidden corridor in the cave that you're unfamiliar with.

Like the first thing that comes to mind is the cave in Goblin Slayer. If someone had infra/ultra vision - would they have missed that cave that allowed the goblins to come in and kill/rape the squad?

In that same vein, when fighting something in a sandstorm or fog. The Dark Elf could see aggro distance well, but the human could see just past that fog given elevation changes etc.

Including ultravision in this doesn't make much sense to me since they've decided to add such a significant friction point with the darkness & light source management game. You're gonna have a massively disproportionate percentage of the players choosing Deep Races, or whoever gets access to the trait to avoid the light source game, just like players are doing now with disproportionately playing the SoW classes.

I'd be against it unless everyone has access to it... and that'd be kinda lame.

your_mum · 2026-01-14T20:01:53-0500

i dont care about graphics when it comes to games, and ill probably try this out, but something about the models just seems off, i cannot come up with any description other than they look gay

Kuro · 2026-01-14T20:08:55-0500

Bitties not Tigole enough

bolok · 2026-01-14T20:44:03-0500

Quaid said:
Including ultravision in this doesn't make much sense to me since they've decided to add such a significant friction point with the darkness & light source management game. You're gonna have a massively disproportionate percentage of the players choosing Deep Races, or whoever gets access to the trait to avoid the light source game, just like players are doing now with disproportionately playing the SoW classes.

I'd be against it unless everyone has access to it... and that'd be kinda lame.

I mean the only thing that is gonna put a dent in the DE popularity is the fact that you'll have to reroll one/ do a fresh start on new servers when module 1 comes out, and I suppose if you don't want to play a gothic elf. I'm more into the deep gnomes personally, even though their class options aren't doing anything for me. I wish they had spell blades honestly. But shrug.

DE's are gonna be the 2nd! option for INQ, and 3rd for monks. I'm not sure how popular Inq's are gonna shake out to be, I find it fun- but human only is a bummer. But if i was gonna monk, i'd prolly go DE. Ogre's are fine, but the fatty ness is a bit much sometimes.

Other than human's getting fucked at night, infra vision is basically fine for everyone else. I won't complain about ultravision, but given that the other trait options are pretty meh- might as well take the vision one.

Kithani · 2026-01-14T21:04:31-0500

Quaid said:
The draw distances in MNM are orders of magnitude greater than WoW or EverQuest ever were. You're not gonna be able to play it on a run-through Lenovo FartPad from the Obama administration just because the character model poly counts are lower than Aion 69: Elfs3x in Sp4ce. Nothing to do with optimization at all.

I have run MNM just fine on a 2017 Legion with 8gb DDRpoo RAM and a Geforce 1060 (lmao edition). If I try running Throne & Liberty or Black Desert on the thing the heat will get so great that it'll open a singularity in my living room and end this miserable world. A 10-year hardware allowance for a laptop is a MASSIVE customer catchment in 2026.

It runs like ass on my laptop from 2019 with 6gb VRAM for whatever that’s worth.

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