Having been an avid OFP player (and having created some graphic custom content as well) I of course find these new upcoming games very interesting.
However, judging from the screenshots of Armed Assault so far, the graphics seem weak to me...and not up to todays graphics standards.
As AA is supposedly a "beefed up" OPF, one can perhaps forgive the poor looking graphics on that one (at the screenies it graphically looks no better than your pretty average UT2004 mod)...but at the same time, whats the point to even bother if you don't make considerable improvements?
This is 2006 and anything less good looking or less featured in terms of grahics as the Half Life 2 source engine (which now btw is considered pretty old) would simply be a waste of time IMO....especially for any completely new retail realease.
And if you really want to make something that will not be put to shame by todays standards, you'll have to produce something similar to the Unreal 3 engine or Gamebryo (elder scrolls IV) in terms of quality.
Huge landscapes, deformable terrain, dynamic weather etc...it can be done and all while still looking gorgeous. Look at Alan Wake for example. If you worry about needing more powerful graphics cards, this is hardly an excuse to completely nerf a new title. Besides, you can always remove whats there (i.e. tweak your graphic settings for the game) but you can't add whats not.
I say BIS should do their best to produce a graphics engine using all available features today because frankly, you'll soon have truckloads of user made modifications using the Unreal 3 engine alone...and releasing a retail title that won't even be on par with user mods in terms of visual quality seems like a waste.
Also, make the engine as customable as possible. Make limitations dynamic instead of hardcoded as much as possible. Avoid silly hardcoded limitations like "there can only be one minigunner on a chopper" etc. The original OFP was an editing success in many ways, but to be honest it was not thank's to BIS.
All the editing tools in the beginning were user made and when BIS after a long time finally decided to release their editing tools it was under strict control and by this time many serious editors in the community had already given up. Also, there were far too many pointless hardcoded limitations which made editing more complicated than it should be.
Flexible is the keyword I think...and by adding as many graphics features as possible from the start (so people won't have to make weird editing workarounds just to achieve basic effects that are todays overall standard) and by very flexible editing possiblities (as few hardcoded limitations as possible) as well as providing fully working editing tools from the start they can't go wrong IMO.
D
Edited: Changed "Armored" Assault to "Armed" Assault...which is of course what I meant...my bad.
