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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  Star Wars: The Old Republic  |  Topic: Front Page Story: LA Times 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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Author Topic: Front Page Story: LA Times  (Read 38465 times)
Ratman_tf
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Reply #70 on: January 21, 2012, 11:38:41 AM

I cannot go back to being a side character in Metzen's Thrall fanfics, that's all I know.

It's going to be interesting to see if Blizzard even attempts to fix this.   Most people ignore WoW lore but if they have to start adding "story" and voice acting then that crap isn't going to fly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBeG4zGhPU4&feature=related  awesome, for real



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Amaron
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Reply #71 on: January 21, 2012, 11:49:05 AM

Harrison Jones as the story focus would be a step up from Thrall at least.
Mrbloodworth
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Reply #72 on: January 21, 2012, 01:35:19 PM

I don't know how hard it is to animate a cut scene versus stage something, though.
I suspect the cutscenes eat considerably more time. Mind you, this is based only on experience with the cutscenes, but the ratio is something like few hours of work per minute of scene if it's supposed to looks decent in the end.

On the other hand, this can be area where the Kinect may have large impact on productivity -- because it potentially allows to have some (relatively) cheap and fast/easy to use individual mocap "studio" for each animator. Meaning a lot of what's now painfully put together by hand from stock animation pieces could be just acted out, exactly like needed, at the speed approaching the tv/movie production.

Not many cut scenes in SWTOR are unique. They are all just triggering emotes on the actors to fit the dialog ( Same emotes we can use ). I have only seen a few scenes that would require unique animations. Its a very reusable system. Its the same with response audio, most are reusable. Only a few per conversation are unique to the conversation.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2012, 01:37:14 PM by Mrbloodworth »

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Threash
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Reply #73 on: January 21, 2012, 01:57:53 PM

Yeah, your own character mostly repeats the same stock phrases over and over.  Sometimes they don't even fit the situation or the dialog choice you made.

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Simond
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Reply #74 on: January 21, 2012, 03:44:18 PM

Harrison Jones as the story focus would be a step up from Thrall at least.
No he wouldn't. The non-sphinx parts of Uldum were shit.

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Kageru
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Reply #75 on: January 21, 2012, 05:58:04 PM


Cut-scenes aren't gameplay, they're "flavor". That quest was a decent example of Blizzards attempt to have the story play out in the game (and evidence it's hard). Of course the problem with that approach is the world becomes just a theme-park of rides rather than anything internally consistent.

We'll see what lessons Blizzard have learnt when Titan comes out.

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Sjofn
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Reply #76 on: January 21, 2012, 06:47:20 PM

I cannot go back to being a side character in Metzen's Thrall fanfics, that's all I know.

It's going to be interesting to see if Blizzard even attempts to fix this.   Most people ignore WoW lore but if they have to start adding "story" and voice acting then that crap isn't going to fly.

Thing is, I could actually go back to being a side character without much issue. It's that the WoW lore is so fucking bad. It was never great, but Cataclysm, somehow, was even shittier than my already extremely low expectations. And the fact the story people don't seem to get, at all, why half the people playing their game are pissed off that all they do is lose does not bode well.

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Merusk
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Reply #77 on: January 21, 2012, 07:10:22 PM

That'd be because the story people all play for the winning side. 

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Kageru
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Reply #78 on: January 22, 2012, 01:03:48 AM


Cataclysm's story was weakened when they attempted to mechandise it. So all these "important" characters would be developed in the novels or comics and if you weren't following those it was just mystifying who they were and why you'd care.

... I mean other than it being game quality writing extended to cover all the grind a MMO must contain.

But it really doesn't matter that much. A great story with terrible game-play should have been a movie in the first place.

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Malakili
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Reply #79 on: January 22, 2012, 06:51:40 AM

content repetition is required because it would simply be impossible to create content as fast as players can complete if they are only doing it once.

Why do you think it is possible to make TV at a rate that you only watch once, but not MMOG quests?

And bear in mind TV is 100% cutscene (or at least 66% if you watch in the US and don't have tivo), SWTOR is much less than 10%.

I appreciate they aren't going to make content fast enough that Sjofn will only see it once, but there is little excuse for a 10 hour/week normal person. Unless you are arguing that EA's scripting and acting is genuinely on a higher level than trash TV?



Given that TV shows release one hour of content a week, for on the outside 15-20 weeks a year, I don't feel like it is a very good comparison.  There is no way they are going to make 10 hours a week of original content.  It isn't just about quality of "scripting and acting" but about bug testing, art asset creation, etc.
eldaec
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Reply #80 on: January 22, 2012, 07:24:33 AM

You're right it is mostly about swtor being less than 5% cutscenes, cutscene animation being 80% emote scripting and cutscene PC dialog being 70% stock phrases.

Bioware were proudly proclaiming 200 hours content per class. If they can't generate 10 per week with tools they have, the game would have taken several years longer than it actually did to build.

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CassandraR
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Reply #81 on: January 22, 2012, 08:37:34 AM

To me the story and listening to my character speak is why I play. The game play is often something I rush through just to get my next story bit. For me to care about the game play they need to get rid of hot key combat and replace it with something more action based.
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Reply #82 on: January 22, 2012, 12:36:24 PM

After a few days to think about it, and after reading this thread, it seems there is a split occurring.  On the other side of SWTOR is Gw2. 

I could care less about a predetermined story and find the constant cutscenes to be an interruption to the action.  Gw2 is offering the real thing I am looking for: flexibility in experiencing content.  As a slow leveler and multiple character player (I don't even call them alts; they're all alts), I'm stuck watching my friends and guild mates do higher level content while I just flounder in quest zones with 4 level 20s.  It's maddening. 

"all level" warzones.....why not "all level" flashpoints? 
eldaec
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Reply #83 on: January 22, 2012, 01:11:32 PM

couldn't care less

But sure, the rest of your post makes sense, if you are here primarily for exploring the mechanics there are better games - most obviously rift.

On the point about playing with friends, there is no excuse for not having pve as well as pvp sidekicking, but that is a very different thing to not liking the cutscene focus.

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Reply #84 on: January 22, 2012, 01:13:36 PM

But I'm not at my lowest threshhold for caring, so I have some not-caring to spare.  :)

Edit:  I loved rift!  Still had the endless leveling syndrome though.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2012, 01:16:12 PM by Crumbs »
tmp
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Reply #85 on: January 22, 2012, 01:50:51 PM

Bioware were proudly proclaiming 200 hours content per class.
There's some mildly annoying shortcuts there they've apparently taken, that become evident over time. Like e.g. the companions you acquire later during your individual storyline having no comments about the earlier planets, and zero reaction to the earlier quest choices.

Probably not something that most people are even going to notice, but still a disappointment in the sense it's such a low hanging fruit, am not sure if skipping these things even gave them any considerable savings, given the amount of content that's otherwise produced.
Threash
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Reply #86 on: January 22, 2012, 01:57:41 PM

It was also fairly obvious that all companions were meant to have their own quests that got replaced with "don't worry about it i'll handle it myself" conversations instead.

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Sjofn
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Reply #87 on: January 22, 2012, 03:14:07 PM

It was also fairly obvious that all companions were meant to have their own quests that got replaced with "don't worry about it i'll handle it myself" conversations instead.

That is the shortcut that makes me saddest, but also the shortcut that surprised me least.

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Rendakor
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Reply #88 on: January 22, 2012, 08:14:06 PM

Companion quests just boil down to something only seen by a small fraction of the player base. Any given player of a class is only like to substantially raise affection with 1-2 companions (their romance target and/or the combat useful one that is in most dialogs by default). Crafting aside, a lot of the companions seem superfluous, except that they wanted every class to have a bunch of them. It'd be nice if we could take a full party of 4 (Self + 3 companions) into Heroic areas and Flashpoints to solo them.

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Reply #89 on: January 22, 2012, 08:21:27 PM

Given how easy it is to be swimming in companion gifts, I sort of doubt "most" people only raise their love interest + main partner rep. Even if that were the reasoning, you'd think all the love interests would be the choice for Major Story Quest, then. But no, who do the consulars get? Fucking Qyzen. Who is MY only not-capped companion rep-wise, because he's a huge bitch AND doesn't even have a present he loves. So I haven't actually finished his stupid quest yet.

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Rendakor
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Reply #90 on: January 22, 2012, 08:29:44 PM

Hmm, I've never been swimming in companion gifts. I get a few from Underworld Trading but don't really focus too much on it. I've never bought them from vendors, and I don't recall getting any from drops, quest rewards, etc. I guess I could, but I don't see much of a point to it since most of them don't have quests beyond 'Oh hey, stuff happened. Cool.' in the ship or cantina. None of my companions are anywhere near max (my highest is at ~4k).

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Reply #91 on: January 22, 2012, 08:33:29 PM

For me to care about the game play they need to get rid of hot key combat and replace it with something more action based.

IMO MMOs are one of those genres that have accumulated of a lot of historical cruft, there's really no reason for modern MMOs to be so hotkey/cooldown centric other than the evolutionary path they've taken.

Fighting games have "global cooldown" on moves when you think about it, it's just expressed so differently that it appears natural rather than clunky.

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Sjofn
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Reply #92 on: January 22, 2012, 08:41:25 PM

Hmm, I've never been swimming in companion gifts. I get a few from Underworld Trading but don't really focus too much on it. I've never bought them from vendors, and I don't recall getting any from drops, quest rewards, etc. I guess I could, but I don't see much of a point to it since most of them don't have quests beyond 'Oh hey, stuff happened. Cool.' in the ship or cantina. None of my companions are anywhere near max (my highest is at ~4k).

If I'm just leveling up a mission skill (like UT), I mostly focus on gifts because I view making low level purples a complete waste of time. I'll make blues for my own use, but that's about it. So it's mostly gift gathering for me, to the point where my one dude who doesn't even HAVE a mission skill still has three companions at 6k+, because my investigation chick has so many gifts she wound up sending him a bunch to clear out her vault.

It sounds like a catch-22 with you, though. Don't bother making full quests for all the companions because "no one" is going to level up all those reps, because who would bother leveling up their reps, there aren't even full quests for all the companions.

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Kageru
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Reply #93 on: January 22, 2012, 08:49:56 PM

To me the story and listening to my character speak is why I play. The game play is often something I rush through just to get my next story bit. For me to care about the game play they need to get rid of hot key combat and replace it with something more action based.

When the game is relatively laggy with the current combat making it dependent on precise event synchronization and positioning doesn't seem like a great idea. If you want some twitch based action you probably don't want an MMO.

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Rendakor
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Reply #94 on: January 22, 2012, 09:07:26 PM

If I'm just leveling up a mission skill (like UT), I mostly focus on gifts because I view making low level purples a complete waste of time. I'll make blues for my own use, but that's about it. So it's mostly gift gathering for me, to the point where my one dude who doesn't even HAVE a mission skill still has three companions at 6k+, because my investigation chick has so many gifts she wound up sending him a bunch to clear out her vault.

It sounds like a catch-22 with you, though. Don't bother making full quests for all the companions because "no one" is going to level up all those reps, because who would bother leveling up their reps, there aren't even full quests for all the companions.
Well I focus on the materials because I like to RE the natural blues into purples (as that's no more difficult than REing the natural greens into blues); the only time I do gifts is when I'm done with that tier's mats but still need a few points to access the next tier.

I'm not a big BW fan anymore (liked NWN and KOTOR but don't like DA or ME) but even in the games I've played I generally only do the quests for the 1-2 companions I like.

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Ratman_tf
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Reply #95 on: January 22, 2012, 10:27:34 PM

At 39, I'm getting sick of new companions. 4 (not counting the ship droid) is getting unwieldy, and I'm supposed to gear up all these yahoos too?



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Reply #96 on: January 22, 2012, 10:30:52 PM

You don't have to gear them up? Unless you want to.

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Reply #97 on: January 23, 2012, 12:45:13 AM

Fighting games have "global cooldown" on moves when you think about it, it's just expressed so differently that it appears natural rather than clunky.

Are you thinking about charge bars here?

Or just delays in how fast you can fire a weapon?

I don't disagree, just curious about what you are thinking of in this statement.

eldaec
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Reply #98 on: January 23, 2012, 01:57:41 AM

Almost all real time games hide it in animation time which can be varied per ability and looks a damn sight more elegant than standing about waiting for an arbitrary gcd.

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Wolf
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Reply #99 on: January 23, 2012, 02:09:47 AM

Isn't hiding it in animations with varied time the definition of arbitrary?

As a matter of fact I swallowed one of these about two hours ago and the explanation is that it is, in fact, my hand.
eldaec
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Reply #100 on: January 23, 2012, 02:34:22 AM

All game rules are in fact arbitrary.

But trimming the animation to fit the 'cannot make next move for x seconds' cost at least makes it look natural and allows you to tweak it for balance. GCDs look arbitrary, which is worse than actually being arbitrary. I never really understand why wow decided this way had any advantage over the process used in prior games.

One practical thing wow/swtor could do to reduce my irritation with gcds is to stop fading out abilities I only can't use because of the gcd. I need to know which are on real cooldowns so I know which I can queue. I'm aware you can work it out by examining the tiny lines moving down the ability, but frankly I'm too old for that shit.
« Last Edit: January 23, 2012, 03:02:34 AM by eldaec »

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Wolf
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Reply #101 on: January 23, 2012, 03:07:43 AM

I don't particularly have a boner for GCD, it's just something that lets me know exactly when I can press my next ability and expect it to go off (something that's not really working in SWTOR) and enables the balance team to do their job. In that vein I don't mind if they do it with animations, as long as all animations are exactly the same duration - a GCD, without the GCD if you will. I just know I'll be incredibly annoyed if it takes a different amount of time for abilities to become active, without some sort of visiual representation (cast/channel bar, gcd).

As a matter of fact I swallowed one of these about two hours ago and the explanation is that it is, in fact, my hand.
eldaec
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Reply #102 on: January 23, 2012, 03:20:52 AM

The way pre-wow games got over that was to allow you to queue up your next ability at any point in the cast of the prior ability. Something action rpgs also often do.

I have no idea why wow and swtor default to no queue. Timing keypresses for the end of a cast or cooldown is also shit I am too old for.

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Jherad
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Reply #103 on: January 23, 2012, 05:55:27 AM

Well, at least SWTOR has a mini queue. You can push it up to 1 second in preferences (whcih helps me a lot, now that I'm getting... old).
eldaec
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Reply #104 on: January 23, 2012, 06:02:11 AM

Yeah, I found that, aside from grumbling about why it can't be extended right to the start of the prior ability, I'd just like abilities to light up when they are queable and then the whole thing wouldn't be nearly as irritating.

"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
"Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
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