Draegan_sl
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The problem with interesting is that it gets stale, and then what?Ngruk said:Thought some of you might be interested to hear some of Todd"s views on Copernicus as of now.
So according to Wikipedia, you"re the art director for Curt Schilling"s 38 Studios. How is work coming along on the new MMO? What art style are you considering?
When I signed up with Curt, my bigger concept was less about 2D concept art -- I wanted the whole to be better than the parts. I told Curt that the one thing I"d be the most intrigued about would be the animation. It"s not something I"ve dealt with a lot, but it"s something that frustrates me when I see video games. Now with motion capture, advances have been made...but not necessarily in the MMO genre.
So one of the things that we"re doing is creating characters who are interesting to look at...stylistic, but not so much so that it becomes annoying. [Then, the question is], is the gameplay more fun? When our guy casts a spell, mounts a horse, or stabs someone, does he look cooler? When a giant 600-pound beast stops running, does it feel like it weighs 600 pounds? You have to have a good design to care, but once you"ve got that, how do you put it all together?
There"s another big company out there that makes World of Warcraft. They have the "WoW" factor; what I"m working for is the "woah" factor. They can have "wow," we want "woah." [laughs] When you"re playing, and your character does something you"ve never seen before, you say, "woah...that"s cool!" A few of the guys who work with me stuck their head into my office the other day, while I was going over things with [38 Studios headquarters in] Boston over a video linkup. They watched some things moving on the screen, and in just a few minutes they picked up on the subtlety. Again, we"re not trying to re-invent the wheel - we"re trying to polish it up, put chrome on it. The wheel is there, now how can we make it sexier? It doesn"t have to be obvious; it can be in the subtlety of how a character sheathes and unsheathes his sword. Can we do that in a more dramatic, realistic, and interesting fashion than the other guys do?
We haven"t said a lot of stuff [about the 38 Studios MMO game], but a tremendous amount of work has gone into it. Curt has assembled a good group of people. I deal with them: I see the environments, the characters, and the animation, and these guys all get it. These guys have been dazzling me: I"ll see a character running, and the jowls bounce, the ears move a little...it"s just stuff that feels real, not robotic. There are limitations, but there are tricks too: animation is all about tricking the eye. Even though that guy is two inches tall on your screen, I want him to feel alive, like a real, living creature.
I agree with that. Wow should really be the model for every other game in terms of animation,and syncing up the animations with the button presses.Ninen said:The problem with interesting is that it gets stale, and then what?
The first time your dude unsheathes his dagger by spinning it around in his hand, throwing it under his leg and back over the shoulder, that"s cool.
After he"s done it at the start of EVERY FIGHT since day one; not so much.
Now, maybe he only learns that "trick" at lvl 40, and at lvl XX-39 he was doing something different. Adds life, but still gets old. Adds minor dev time.
Maybe that trick is actually a chain of 3 move snippets, and each time you unsheathe the server rolls up a different random 1-5 move snippet chain. More interesting longer, but MASSIVE dev timesink and additional server load. Quite likely looks like ass too, since setting up all the snippets to chain in any order smoothly is monumental.
Etc.
DAoC did, and yes it was very cool. I hate that my fireball in WoW looks exactly the same 80 levels and a ridiculous time investment later as it did at level 1. Hell Blizzard"s new favourite thing to do is give people aesthetic upgrades, this should be right up their alley. In fact they"ve already done this to an extent, mages can buy books in dalaran that will, for an exorbitant amount of gold, upgrade the graphics for a few of their spells (polymorph, arcane brilliance being the most noteable).Wuzit said:Speaking of animations and the leveling process...that was one cool thing that EQ did where spell animations started getting bigger after you"ve gained levels...no one has ever copied that though....
Frankly, if I look cool, and the guy I"m fighting against at the moment looks cool, the other people around me can be shadows or wireframes for all I care.Quince said:Ya Assassin"s Creed"s animations were great (even though the game play was repetitive as hell) but can you imagine doing that with 50 other people around?
Agreed.column said:I agree with that. Wow should really be the model for every other game in terms of animation,and syncing up the animations with the button presses.
This really wouldn"t be that difficult to create a unique feel in every fight.Caliane said:Agreed.
That and take a look at L4D"s character interaction for voice. They talk about it in the dev commentary.
Every action has like 5-8 thing the character might say, then the other characters have 5-8 things they might say in relation to what the first person said. Creating massive chains of potential dialogue that"s random.
Applying a similar concept to animation would be potentially amazing as well.