291 réponses à ce sujet

[TomY90]

you got to remember the movie industry is taking ideas from the game industry look at the mass effect film in development, hitman, heavy rain etc in development.

and their has been ideas been thrown around having a cinema system where the audience decides what the actors do in the scenes.

[AlexXIV]

Brockololly wrote...

JohnEpler wrote..

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.

On the other hand, with respect to having the PC just walk while looking forward and not paying attention to somebody talking, depending on any context, that could make it seem like the PC is being dismissive or ignoring whoever may be talking to them too, which might be the opposite of what the player wants the PC to be acting like.

Yeah my thought is this:

If you are doing something. Like watching TV, or say fixing something. And a friend is with you and you have a chat. You don't look in his face everytime he says something. You just nod and answer while staying focused on what you do. Or even if you are having a talk. Sometimes you take a sip of your drink or ... just look down on your hand or something. You wouldn't focus all the time. If someone did that to me I would rather feel uncomfortable. I mean eye contanct is a sign of respect etc., but not all the time as if the opposite was studying your face for some reason.

[Fraevar]

JohnEpler wrote...

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!

Hmm, I think the thing that struck me was in Act 3 when Anders commented on my Hawke's involvement with Merrill. This is actually less a case of taking away my player agency and more about not matching movement to the scene, but it is still a cinematics issue. As it plays out in the game, Anders states his accusation, Hawke responds with a given tone and Merril gets angry. Cutscene ends. I think that this is one moment where some additional animation and cinematography would have gone a long way, since Hawke is suddenly dealing with a very personal issue, but asides from making a frowny face, all we have to go on here is the voice-actor performance. I'd have liked more body language, showing Hawke to be either shaken, angry or annoyed over this, and the same for Merrill. Given her nature, I could picture her stubbornly grabbing Hawke's hand in this scene.

Sorry, not really a case of my losing interactivity, but rather making that interactivity feel like something more than just clicking Option X on the wheel. Cinematrography can help you out immensely there, if it's grounded in a character with a strong personality.

[Travie]

I actually thought there wasn't enough 'visual storytelling' in the DA2 cinematics. I was expecting a lot more scenes like the ones in the demo.

Examples: Mage Hawke makes a darkspawn burst into flames, Flemeth still holds onto a darkspawn as she shifts from dragon to (human?), Isabella throws a knife which is followed by the camera.

These were very well done and set a stage (I thought) for the rest of the game, but save for a few moments (like the character introductions of Merril and Fenris) there wasn't much 'there, there'.

I would have liked to have seen more context for the personalities of the characters, like walking into the Qunari compound and seeing a cutscene that gives a window into their culture.

Since there were so few interactions with the companions I see no reason they couldn't have been a bit more interesting. Isabella for example (you talk to her several times when she is leaning over the bar) could have accused one of the characters with you of looking at her ass while she wiggled her hips, or you could have walked in on Varric whispering sweet nothings to his crossbow, or possibly more of daily life at the alienage interrupting one of your talks with Merril (maybe a tax collector extorting the elves or another elf in the alienage who took a liking to her).

To your questions, I really didn't feel that the game took away control at a moment that I would have liked to have more of it except in a FFXIII way of 'too many cutscenes close together'. Honestly, I wanted MORE cutscene material to tell the story, even if it was just in the context of the cutscenes that already existed... just with bigger maps and more content.

I might be expecting too much from a game with such a short development cycle.

[AlexXIV]

TomY90 wrote...

you got to remember the movie industry is taking ideas from the game industry look at the mass effect film in development, hitman, heavy rain etc in development.

and their has been ideas been thrown around having a cinema system where the audience decides what the actors do in the scenes.

Yeah and when you are watching with your girlfriend or wife you're getting in trouble for making the wrong choice. I can totally see that going the wrong way.

[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.

[Foolsfolly]

I'm with this. Because I play as protagonist. If I don't play as protagonist I might as well don't play at all because it's not fun for me. The fun of role playing for me is to dive into the world by being the protagonist. It's connected me to the world deeply. I can't reach the character by watching him converse like I watch movie actor. It's disconnect me from the character because that's not how my character see thing is. That's not how we view things when we converse in real life.

That's interesting to me. I always see the protags as characters in the stories. And that's key to me, they have to be characters. I can role-play and supply some of that character but it's never just me. I pick predefined dialogue, choose between set choices, and play the same story over and over again.

So I never play a game where it's me as the character. I always come from a more story based not 'what would I do' kind of thing.

It's cool hearing how different people play these kinds of games.

[Wulfram]

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".

[Sacred_Fantasy]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

What errant_knight and Sacred_Fantasy are talking about ties into my usual third person vs. first person narrative spiel, so I'll repost it here.

The short version of the reason I am is because it seems to be a decision that has broader implications well beyond cinematics:

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Many previous Bioware games were in my opinion implicitly third person narratives. But they didn't go so far as to demand that everyone have this view. Adding a voiceover and a paraphrase system makes the games explicitly third person. So if you always played Bioware games as a third person narrative, this doesn't bother you and is possibly seen as an improvement. If you always played Bioware games as a first person narrative, this is a radical departure.

I didn't specifically mention cinematics but they're part of the explicit third person narrative nature of the more recent games as well. 

See.. that's why I asked you earlier. Do you want me to leave Bioware games because it doesn't cater to first person style? I have other friends who don't buy BioWare games because they don't like playing third person narrative. For years I'm comfortable with NW, NW 2 and DAO POV become those game compromise both first person POV and third person POV. 

Modifié par Sacred_Fantasy, 19 avril 2011 - 04:47 .

[DarthCaine]

That MGS1 scene gave me goosebumps

[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.

[upsettingshorts]

Foolsfolly wrote...

It's cool hearing how different people play these kinds of games.

The problem however is that in the final analysis these playstyles are not compatible - and if they ever were it was an accident.  As a third person narrative player, any design decision that improves my enjoyment of the game is going to actively detract from say, errant_knight.  Somebody is going to win and somebody is going to lose.

Granted, that's just my interpretation of how Bioware games have been moving lately. 

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

See.. that's why I asked you earlier. Do you want me to leave Bioware games because it doesn't cater to first person style? I have other friends who don't buy BioWare games because they don't like playing third person narrative.

And I responded by saying that I was making an observation not a recommendation.  I don't know, can you adapt to play an explicitly third person narrative game?  Do you think arguing for a return to the first person narrative - either implicitly or explicitly - on the boards would be worth your time?  If your answer to either of those questions is yes, then my answer would be no.

But if Bioware continues to make games that actively work against your preferred playstyle, why do you need me to tell you what you should do?

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 19 avril 2011 - 04:52 .

[Foolsfolly]

Travie wrote...

I actually thought there wasn't enough 'visual storytelling' in the DA2 cinematics. I was expecting a lot more scenes like the ones in the demo.

Examples: Mage Hawke makes a darkspawn burst into flames, Flemeth still holds onto a darkspawn as she shifts from dragon to (human?), Isabella throws a knife which is followed by the camera.

These were very well done and set a stage (I thought) for the rest of the game, but save for a few moments (like the character introductions of Merril and Fenris) there wasn't much 'there, there'.

I would have liked to have seen more context for the personalities of the characters, like walking into the Qunari compound and seeing a cutscene that gives a window into their culture.

Since there were so few interactions with the companions I see no reason they couldn't have been a bit more interesting. Isabella for example (you talk to her several times when she is leaning over the bar) could have accused one of the characters with you of looking at her ass while she wiggled her hips, or you could have walked in on Varric whispering sweet nothings to his crossbow, or possibly more of daily life at the alienage interrupting one of your talks with Merril (maybe a tax collector extorting the elves or another elf in the alienage who took a liking to her).

To your questions, I really didn't feel that the game took away control at a moment that I would have liked to have more of it except in a FFXIII way of 'too many cutscenes close together'. Honestly, I wanted MORE cutscene material to tell the story, even if it was just in the context of the cutscenes that already existed... just with bigger maps and more content.

I might be expecting too much from a game with such a short development cycle.

It is definately a game that eats through its big cinematic moments quickly. Flemeth's dive bomb, grabbing the darkspawn, and gaining altitude's easily one of the better cinematic moments of the game. And it's like 7 minutes into the game.

[Dragoonlordz]

JohnEpler wrote...
While fair feedback, again, this is more of a technical issue than a cinematics one. I can certainly pass it along.

One thing and this is off topic I know but is in response to something you mentioned highlighted above, is that we have more respect for you and others who interact with us here on these forums because your here listening to us probing for feedback and discuss it with us while all the other features from other aspects we get no discussion or feeling that the ones in charge of those other aspects either hear us or care what it is we say. So we feel like we are not being heard in general on the other aspects, that is why specific threads diverge into other aspects.

It would be nice if other devs who were in charge of other aspects did the same as you that way we wouldn't feel so frustrated by the lack of interaction and taking onboard what it is we talk about here. It's a major flaw in this forum that we can only be sure that things we feel are only being discussed and debated between us are limited to certain aspects of the game. Even when say something is passed onto these other people in charge of other areas for all we know it's just ending up on their desk in piles of paperwork that is possibly being ignored. We end up having to wait a year or more before have any clue anything we said about those aspects (might) have been listened too.

I don't require a response to this post but I did feel I should say it.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 19 avril 2011 - 05:01 .

[Foolsfolly]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Foolsfolly wrote...

It's cool hearing how different people play these kinds of games.

The problem however is that in the final analysis these playstyles are not compatible - and if they ever were it was an accident.  As a third person narrative player, any design decision that improves my enjoyment of the game is going to actively detract from say, errant_knight.  Somebody is going to win and somebody is going to lose.

Granted, that's just my interpretation of how Bioware games have been moving lately. 

You're never going to please everyone. I prefer the more third person feel of creating and playing a character instead of the character being an extension of myself. But I still play New Vegas and played DA:O many many times.

It's just a preference of mine. It's nothing I'd scream about and say "It's ruined forever!" It's just jarring to me to have characters speak through my character and to me, instead of to the character I'm playing. You get used to it eventually.

[DahliaLynn]

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

errant_knight wrote...

JohnEpler wrote...

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!

Every conversation where the camera switches away from the person you're speaking to and to 'yourself.' You instantly stop being your character and become an outside observer watching other people. At that moment, Hawke becomes an NPC. We're no longer him/her, we're the camera.

I'm with this. Because I play as protagonist. If I don't play as protagonist I might as well don't play at all because it's not fun for me. The fun of role playing for me is to dive into the world by being the protagonist. It's connected me to the world deeply. I can't reach the character by watching him converse like I watch movie actor. It's disconnect me from the character  because that's not how my character see thing is. That's not how we view things when we converse in real life. 

I'll play a bit of Devil's Advocate here and ask, where do you draw the line when it comes to viewing your PC in third person? It's alright to see him fight in front of you, talk to the NPCs "next to you", but to view his/her reactions straight on is a no no? Would the ultimate solution in your eyes be first person camera? where you run around your world only able to see your arms and weapon,  and refer to NPCs looking directly at you? the Camera? Where do you think it's safe to draw the line?

Personally, I feel most people accept the fact that they view their PCs in third person when fighting, and be the onlooker when in conversation, as long as the onlooker sees the same things the PC sees, only from an over the shoulder angle (As in Origins). Seeing your PCs reaction on the other hand, might take away from that, as this is more of a personal feeling to be determined by the player.

The PC voice adds to that disconnection, but it seems that getting used to listening to that could be easier than actually watching "yourself" talk. The problem is that it makes more cinematic sense when you have a voiced PC,  to watch them as well. The downside is less personal immersion.  

For the sake of immersion, I would say that cam on PC is less desireable, and should be used mostly in action cinematics, since third person action is something easily accepted through general gameplay. When in conversation, switch it over viewing the PCs point of view through over the shoulder third person. 

Modifié par DahliaLynn, 19 avril 2011 - 05:06 .

[Sacred_Fantasy]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

See.. that's why I asked you earlier. Do you want me to leave Bioware games because it doesn't cater to first person style? I have other friends who don't buy BioWare games because they don't like playing third person narrative.

And I responded with I was making an observation not a recommendation.  I don't know, can you adapt to play a third person narrative game?  Do you think arguing for a return to the first person narrative - either implicitly or explicitly - on the boards would be worth your time?  If your answer to either of those questions is yes, then my answer would be no.

But if Bioware continues to make games that actively work against your preferred playstyle, why do you need me to tell you what you should do?

I've tried with Alpha Protocol, Assassin Creed and Mass Effect 2. This are all great games. But none of them work for me. As I mentioned in earlier, NW NW 2 and DA O maintained well balance  POV.  DA 2 is the only one that start to move away.

[AlexXIV]

Foolsfolly wrote...

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Foolsfolly wrote...

It's cool hearing how different people play these kinds of games.

The problem however is that in the final analysis these playstyles are not compatible - and if they ever were it was an accident.  As a third person narrative player, any design decision that improves my enjoyment of the game is going to actively detract from say, errant_knight.  Somebody is going to win and somebody is going to lose.

Granted, that's just my interpretation of how Bioware games have been moving lately. 

You're never going to please everyone. I prefer the more third person feel of creating and playing a character instead of the character being an extension of myself. But I still play New Vegas and played DA:O many many times.

It's just a preference of mine. It's nothing I'd scream about and say "It's ruined forever!" It's just jarring to me to have characters speak through my character and to me, instead of to the character I'm playing. You get used to it eventually.

For me FONV is one of my fav games, but even though I noticed often in playthroughs that the conversations where you zoom on the npcs face isn't my thing and I really missed the DA and ME dialogues that are much more animated.

Modifié par AlexXIV, 19 avril 2011 - 04:58 .

[BWpimper]

For me, the only one I can think of was at the end of Act 2 when the Arishok decides to take over Kirkwall, and Hawke is just outside the gate matching eyes with the Arishok. At that point I just wanted my Hawke to say something like "I didn't want it to end like this", or "If it's a fight you want, its a fight you'll get!", and the Arishok replying. Just to indicated my Hawke position now that the fight has started, and to finalize the relationship between Hawke and the Arishok, which I felt wasn't fully developed.

[upsettingshorts]

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

 DA 2 is the only one that start to move away.

Mass Effect did it as well, and Origins was sort of a clumsy half-breed, but if we're only talking about fantasy games then sure.

The balance you speak of is what I mean by it being an accident.  Of the games you list, the one that was least compatible with how I like to play these games was Dragon Age: Origins.  Not the games that preceeded it or followed it.

There are some rather prolific third person gamer posters on this board who will say similar things, for different specific reasons, but they boil down to being ruined for the non-cinematic approach because it emphatically improves the third person experience.  In hindsight, games that lacked this suffer for that kind of player.  So while we approved of it then, it was because we didn't know any better.  That's why when I'm endorsing things like the paraphrased dialogue wheel and cinematics I'm describing them in terms of an evolution.  Of course I understand that first person gamers are going to disagree, that's not really the point, the point is that for us - we don't want to go back to that "compromise" because it would demand giving up what we've already "won" so to speak.

It cuts both ways.  The older Bioware games - this is just my opinion - allowed for first person narrative gameplay due primarily to a lack of explicit contradictions of this approach.  Such as for example hearing your character say things you might not expect, or doing things you view as out of character, or seeing a cutscene involving characters miles away (DAO did this).  Third person gamers like myself - though I don't speak for all of them, obviously - viewed these things as missing, a result of the limitations of technology, or something else entirely, but certainly not ideal.  The very foundations of what makes a first person approach possible are the same things that I list in the negative category for these kinds of games. 

That's why the playstyles aren't compatible.  Any explicit attempt to improve the experience for one approach will harm the other.  

All that being said, I want to make a point about how this tangent is on topic.  Cinematics are more or less by definition an enhancement of the third person narrative.  It would be interesting to think about ways in which they could be used to improve a first person experience I'm just... not sure how it would work.  But I really do think any post that even touches upon the thought process of "I hate cinematics, scrap them" is going to fall on deaf ears, given Bioware's latest trends.  Doesn't mean you can't make that argument, though.  

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 19 avril 2011 - 05:15 .

[Foolsfolly]

BWpimper wrote...

For me, the only one I can think of was at the end of Act 2 when the Arishok decides to take over Kirkwall, and Hawke is just outside the gate matching eyes with the Arishok. At that point I just wanted my Hawke to say something like "I didn't want it to end like this", or "If it's a fight you want, its a fight you'll get!", and the Arishok replying. Just to indicated my Hawke position now that the fight has started, and to finalize the relationship between Hawke and the Arishok, which I felt wasn't fully developed.

I gotta disagree big time here.

Those two characters staring at each other said LOADS more than any line of dialogue could. That was a great shot. From the moment that cinematic starts with the Arishok cutting off Aveline to that stare....it's great.

[Sacred_Fantasy]

DahliaLynn wrote...
I'll play a bit of Devil's Advocate here and ask, where do you draw the line when it comes to viewing your PC in third person? It's alright to see him fight in front of you, talk to the NPCs "next to you", but to view his/her reactions straight on is a no no? Would the ultimate solution in your eyes be first person camera? where you run around your world only able to see your arms and weapon,  and refer to NPCs looking directly at you? the Camera? Where do you think it's safe to draw the line? 

As long as I don't view my character face during conversion, I'm fine with the rest. 

DahliaLynn wrote...
Personally, I feel most people accept the fact that they view their PCs in third person when fighting, and be the onlooker when in conversation, as long as the onlooker sees the same things the PC sees, only from an over the shoulder angle (As in Origins). Seeing your PCs reaction on the other hand, might take away from that, as this is more of a personal feeling to be determined by the player.

The PC voice adds to that disconnection, but it seems that getting used to listening to that could be easier than actually watching "yourself" talk. The problem is that it makes more cinematic sense when you have a voiced PC,  to watch them as well. The downside is less personal immersion.  

For the sake of immersion, I would say that cam on PC is less desireable, and should be used mostly in action cinematics, since third person action is something easily accepted through general gameplay. When in conversation, switch it over viewing the PCs point of view from third person. 

I'm with most other people you mentioned above.

[Foolsfolly]

All that being said, I want to make a point about how this tangent is on topic. Cinematics are more or less by definition an enhancement of the third person narrative. It would be interesting to think about ways in which they could be used to improve a first person experience I'm just... not sure how it would work. But I really do think any post that even touches upon the thought process of "I hate cinematics, scrap them" is going to fall on deaf ears, given Bioware's latest trends. Doesn't mean you can't make that argument, though.

Truth.

The Half-Life series has no cinematics. It's all done in first person. It's all about the player seeing and doing the things. The character Gordon Freeman never speaks, has no character, has a small backstory, but largely it's about the player doing things and rarely stopping the player.

There's always a portion of each Half-Life game where the PC is tied up, captured, or otherwise unable to move so we can hear plot important dialogue.

But since the beginning Half-Life games have lacked cutscenes. Gordon Freeman is whoever you think Gordon is, the game doesn't even try to define Gordon. Other than he's a hero and a scientist.

A first person RPG without cutscenes and all.....you may have to wait until Skyrim comes out. The industry as a whole is leaving those kinds of trappings behind. You can tell more complex and deeper stories when the PC is someone with a name and past. The nameless faceless hero who saves everything and then cannot be mentioned in sequels is slowly dying out.

[upsettingshorts]

Hmm, now that I think of it Dead Space 2 - I watched a Livestream of a playthrough - does a good job of introducing cinematic moments to the character through a fixed first person perspective. That kind of thing could possibly work.

But ultimately, though I wasn't playing the game only watching so my input on its effectiveness is limited, it wouldn't be ideal for me in a cRPG for reasons stated above.  It does serve as a fair example of cinematic moments and a first person point of view being used in conjunction however.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 19 avril 2011 - 05:19 .