13 réponses à ce sujet

[Bostur]

I just found this on the escapist:
http://www.escapistm...ies-Get-Over-It


This young angry gentlemen, argues that because games have an inferiority complex and would rather be movies, they try too hard to be something they are not.

To put this into a more specific context, Bioware do specialize in a genre with a lot of movie qualities. Do some BW games try too hard to look like Hollywood movies? Or do games in general?

I personally think games have unique ways to establish a setting, and to a lesser extent tell a story that 'sequential' media like books or movies can't do. Books and movies need to show things, games can actually to some extent do it, but some help from a traditional narrative is probably needed.


*Drumroll* Internet meme coming up:
Discuss!


Edit: Oh and I also think the guy in the video is quite funny.

Modifié par Bostur, 18 avril 2011 - 10:46 .

[John Epler]

He's right - games aren't movies. Games allow for agency and interaction that's simply not possible in a film medium.

However, that's not to say that games can't take some cues from film. Games are a primarily visual medium - 'show, don't tell' is one of the first lessons that any writer learns. Applied to games, if you can convey a particular message visually rather than textually, you can allow for a tighter experience.

Of course, it's a balancing act and, sometimes, it goes too far. Interactivity is always important to bear in mind, and it does occasionally happen that choice is taken away from the player because it's mistakenly determined that it's an acceptable trade off - a choice might be viewed as meaningless, when in reality some players really would like agency at that particular moment.

I think bringing games towards a more cinematic style visually while still maintaining the interactivity and agency that's a key (some might say -the- key) aspect of games is going to be one of the big challenges of the next five or six years. It's not easy.

[John Epler]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Video games are aren't movies, novels, or music, but they're a hybrid media and benefit from looking at how more established artforms work. Game developers are looking at films because films are excellent at visual storytelling and that can add a great deal to the experience of playing a game.

Which is really what I was getting at. Films have been around for over a century, now. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel when it comes to the parts of a game that are similar to what a film does, why not take a look at what they're doing through the lens of 'this is still a game and not a movie'?

Films do much of what they do because the people making them have discovered that certain visual techniques create and reinforce particular emotions/mindsets among the audience. Stuff like the rule of thirds, crossing the line, pushes and pulls, hitchcock zooms - those came about as a result of an understanding of the visual medium and how people process information presented to them in a particular way.

Again, games are not movies, and there are things that games can do that movies cannot, which is something that I strongly believe needs to be kept in mind. However, there is certainly crossover, and where that crossover occurs, why shouldn't we try and learn from the medium with the most experience?

[John Epler]

Bostur wrote...

Now I'd like to be a party pooper and say that the lesson "Show, don't tell", is so last century and was made due to the limitations of movies. Instead of showing the action why not play it? I think Half-Life 1 was revolutionary in this respect because it was one of the first games I played that tried to really meld the story into the gameplay. Later many games got a bit more lazy and mostly tried to show it.
You guys do tell a lot of the story by allowing us to play it, no doubt about it. But I fear the cinematic capabilities may sometimes be used as a bit of crutch instead of as a needed tool.

And that's a fair criticism. I'm of the mind that you should always try to maintain player agency. Certainly, there are moments where the compromise is going to be between 'give the player control and let them do something moderately interesting' or 'take some control away and let them do something really, really neat'.

I believe those instances should be used sparingly, though - I'm generally opposed to taking control away from the player for too long. Cinematics should support the gameplay, not replace it.

[John Epler]

I've actually got a question for you guys - what scenes in DA2 did you feel took too much control away from you as a player? We've actually taken things out of scenes before because we felt that some players might look at it and say 'Hey, my Hawke would never do that!' so I'm interested in hearing where you felt we missed the mark in DA2. The more specific the examples, the better!

[John Epler]

Let me clarify - I'm looking mostly for those moments where you felt cinematics took control away from you as a player, and more importantly, why you felt that was the case. For example, if you felt that to be the case at moment X, what was it you felt the cinematics caused your Hawke to do that you wouldn't have done?

[John Epler]

Just to clarify - the feedback I'm looking for here is more cinematic specific. Writing-related feedback, while fair feedback to give, isn't really my department - I'd like to have a list of things that people felt worked and didn't work, cinematically, so we can take a look and see if there are any common threads that we can try to address in the future.

[John Epler]

Dragoonlordz wrote...

If my 'long' rant reply to your question John isn't what you were looking for, I can throw one thing your way.

If do a companion quest and forget to put the companion in you get cinematics with a ghost in place of the companion (or not as it were) talking out of thin air like Fenris one -which cannot complete if start without him to the detriment of finding out after happened on mine.

While fair feedback, again, this is more of a technical issue than a cinematics one. I can certainly pass it along, but what I'm looking for is mostly the following - examples of places where you felt the cinematics took over from you as a player, or where you felt the cinematics made your Hawke do something that you, yourself, would not have done.  Or, also good, examples where you felt there were opportunities for cinematic moments that weren't capitalized on. The craft of Cinematic Design is still very new, and any feedback we can get from the consumer is valuable feedback to build on and hopefully will allow us to give you guys an improved experience in the future.

[John Epler]

AlexXIV wrote...

JohnEpler wrote...

Dragoonlordz wrote...

If my 'long' rant reply to your question John isn't what you were looking for, I can throw one thing your way.

If do a companion quest and forget to put the companion in you get cinematics with a ghost in place of the companion (or not as it were) talking out of thin air like Fenris one -which cannot complete if start without him to the detriment of finding out after happened on mine.

While fair feedback, again, this is more of a technical issue than a cinematics one. I can certainly pass it along, but what I'm looking for is mostly the following - examples of places where you felt the cinematics took over from you as a player, or where you felt the cinematics made your Hawke do something that you, yourself, would not have done.  Or, also good, examples where you felt there were opportunities for cinematic moments that weren't capitalized on. The craft of Cinematic Design is still very new, and any feedback we can get from the consumer is valuable feedback to build on and hopefully will allow us to give you guys an improved experience in the future.

Another example for static cutscenes is where the camera is fixed in one position and the npcs seem glued with their feet on the ground. Like they are gesturing and flailing with heir hands and looking in around alot. but it seems they couldn't move if they tried. So if the camera moved and the npcs would for example assume differnt 'stances' it would look more 'life-like'. I don't really like when hands and arms move and the rest of the body is rather stiff.

Also in some cutscenes the group is talking while walking. I don't think the spoken-to character always needs to face the one who is talking to him/her. Sometimes I thought ... look where you are walking dude. I mean for example Hawke could look straight ahead while walking despite the fact Varric or someone is saying something to their right or left. Sometimes the 'facing the one you talk to' animation seems a bit robotic. So it clearly reminds you that it is a sort of script or animation and not 'reaL'. It didn't happen as often in DA2 as for example in DA:O though, so I guess you are already working on it.

And those are both fair criticisms. 

For the former, the issue that does come up is that as soon as you start moving people around, the complexity of the scene goes up exponentially. Because of the way our conversation system and staging system works, you're starting to run into issues where you might introduce bugs as a result of changing people's positions and having them move around a lot while speaking.

That being said, of course, it is something we're aware of and we've been looking at ways to improve that aspect. Of course, you don't want to run into a situation where there are unmotivated movements in a conversation - perhaps the biggest issue most cinematic designers run into with their early work is the 'Stan the Salesman' conversation style, where people seem to be gesturing for what seems like no reason other than to have them doing something with their hands.

As for the second, that's our lookat system some of the time, and a conscious choice the rest of the time. But you're correct - there's a few conversations that I myself worked on that, looking back, I made the wrong call on. Some of it can be chalked up to inexperience, and some of it to simply choosing a particular direction when it was difficult to make a clear call on which was the right choice.

[John Epler]

Brockololly wrote...

JohnEpler wrote...

While fair feedback, again, this is more of a technical issue than a cinematics one. I can certainly pass it along, but what I'm looking for is mostly the following - examples of places where you felt the cinematics took over from you as a player, or where you felt the cinematics made your Hawke do something that you, yourself, would not have done.  Or, also good, examples where you felt there were opportunities for cinematic moments that weren't capitalized on. The craft of Cinematic Design is still very new, and any feedback we can get from the consumer is valuable feedback to build on and hopefully will allow us to give you guys an improved experience in the future.

Just off the top of my head, consistency overall in the presentation would be one of my big things. It wasn't too bad, but it often felt like you could sort of tell certain scenes were being made by different people.

You had the super Zack Snyder slo-mo Isabela dagger throw which seemed a bit out of place, then in one of the conversations at Gamlen's house with Leandra  (I can't remember if its afer you get the will or after you realize he's pissed away the money?) its cutting back and forth between everyone, but its done in an almost Paul Greengrass style shakey-cam and I think thats the only time you see that in the whole game- so its sort of jarring.

I have issues with player agency with the whole voiced PC deal, but in terms of cinematics, I'd prefer more subtle  movements  that don't get super detached from the PC when the PC is talking. Sometimes in the more mundane conversations it felt like there was some quota to move the camera around or stick it in odd places for the hell of it- I think in one of Merrill's conversations its arbitrarily giving you this ultra high angle shot, but its just Hawke and her talking.

If games are intent on going the whole cinematic route, it would be nice if each game/franchise had a more consistent cinematic feel or look to tie the whole thing together.

This is an entirely fair point, and I'll quickly speak to it.

One of the things the DA Cinematic Design team has been working on is establishing a particular style that is consistent and unique to the Dragon Age franchise. DA:O's cinematic style was a bit random, simply as a result of a small team and a large amount of dialogue to cover. On DA2, we started to abide by certain rules - player on the left side of the screen (in Western visual media, after all, we understand progression as going from left to right), but we were pulling in a lot of people who'd cut their teeth on Mass Effect and they brought some of their own particular stylistic choices into the mix. Not bad choices by any means, but different from the rest of what was being done.

So for any future projects in the Dragon Age franchise, we'd like to have a consistent and clear cinematic style that is, for example, different from Mass Effect's style, which is itself different from TOR's style. Fantasy (in my opinion) lends itself to slower camera movements, wider shots, that sort of thing. Of course, the style guide has to be nailed down, and it's a living document, but still. You raise a good point and it's one I'd love to address as thoroughly as possible in the future.

[John Epler]

Wulfram wrote...

Generally my problems were more with Hawke's inexplicable lack of action. If the bad guy is up to no good, then Hawke should at least try to respond.

The worst examples would be those which result in NPC deaths, like in the alienage in "On the Loose" and at the end of "Best Served Cold".

As the person who worked on the end of "Best Served Cold", I can agree to a point. I think that's a key area where an interrupt-style system would have been nice. Not all players are going to want to try and intervene, of course, but giving them the option to at least -try- might have been neat. Of course, you then run into the situation of 'if you let them try but they fail, is that satisfying?'. And for some players, the answer might be 'yes, as long as there's a good reason why I failed'. For others, though, they don't want to see their character rendered impotent, no matter what the cause for it is.

[John Epler]

Foolsfolly wrote...

Closer to the topic at hand....

I think DA2 could have used more cinematic moments. I think whenever an achievement happens (slogging through a long dungeon, beating a boss, clearing an act, etc.) a cinematic can be a reward to the player.

The player beat this thing, did that task, whatever, and a small cutscene plays. Maybe a cutscene that pulls the camera back and we see something new.

I'll give an example. The opening escape from Lothering. Right before Flemeth shows up there was a chance for a cutscene as a reward. (Not saying it was a missed opportunity it's just a spoiler light area of discussion).

The player's fought their way here, killed an Ogre. Now the story says that there are Darkspawn closing in. The cutscene shows a small handful Hurlocks up close. Hardly anything really, but the characters are behaving as if they're surrounded and escape is impossible.

A cutscene showing the hill Hawke and company are on in the distance as Hurlocks charge towards it, their backs to us (a limited number is needed just to give the impression of larger sizes) would have fit the story and rewarded the player with a sight that should inspire dread or that "Oh, here we go!" attitude of being surrounded. A handful of close up shots didn't convey this as well.

There can also be cutscene rewards that offer vistas, like reaching the top of Sundermount and fighting the enemies there. Then you show a small cutscene of Hawke and company looking down Sundermount and onto Kirkwall in the distance. The camera rising to allow the player to take it all in. We can finally see the whole scale and scope of the city, and make out some of the landmarks.

A little thing like that would go a long way in opening the scope.

At least that's my two cents. Hope it makes sense.

You raise an interesting point. As I see it, there are two types of cinematics - 'reward' cinematics, where the player is rewarded with a neat scene for accomplishing a task (killing blows would fall under this heading, I think) and 'story' cinematics, which are cinematics which occur as a way to propel the story forward. I think, perhaps, DA2 suffered from a dearth of the former and perhaps an overabundance of the latter in some areas.

Ideally, the latter should be minimized wherever it takes agency away from the player. Sometimes, of course, it can be necessary to take away at least some agency, at least temporarily, but if you do it too often you run the risk of ending up with what feels like an interactive movie. Those latter should also be relatively short - a minute, two minutes of stuff happening that the player can't control and it can feel a bit like you're being shoved down a specific path and told 'here's what we wanted you to do, now go do it'.

That's not to say there aren't exceptions, of course - there are exceptions to every rule. However, the exceptions are stronger due to their status as exceptions - if it occurs too often, they become the norm and can damage the interactivity of the game experience.

[John Epler]

BobSmith101 wrote...

Heres another case of cinematics taking over.

Hawke goes somewhere expecting a fight. The cinematic marches him into the most tatically disadvantagous position possible.

Did you have specific examples of this? I know we were cognizant of this being a huge complaint about DA:O, and we tried to address it wherever possible in DA2. There are a couple of instances I can think of where this might have happened (the skeletons in the cave in Act of Mercy being the one that stands out) but I didn't feel that we did this too often in DA2, particularly as compared to DA:O.

[John Epler]

This has been some very good discussion thus far, folks, and I want to thank you for the feedback. While I don't necessarily agree on all points (or, if I agree, there are other factors in play that prevent specific issues from being resolved with current tech), it's all been very well presented and you guys give good reasoning behind your points. So thanks.

I'm coming up with some more questions to ask you, but I invite and encourage you to continue to give feedback on the cinematics in Dragon Age 2, including the general visual 'feel' of conversations.