942 réponses à ce sujet

[hoorayforicecream]

eyesofastorm wrote...

hoorayforicecream wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...

hoorayforicecream wrote...
The 'interactivity' argument can be applied to having anything that stops gameplay, including dialogue.

Dialog is gameplay. The only thing that isn't gameplay is when you aren't inputting anything at all.

What are you inputting while you're reading through the swaths of text that get thrown at you?

Responses?

You respond before you're finished reading?

[the_one_54321]

hoorayforicecream wrote...
You respond before you're finished reading?

Do you wait for the monsters to kill you before you fight back?

Dialog is an interaction. Unless it's not. Then it's mostly like a cinematic.

[Maria Caliban]

the_one_54321 wrote...

hoorayforicecream wrote...
You respond before you're finished reading?

Do you wait for the monsters to kill you before you fight back?

That analogy makes no sense.

Reading an entire line of text is nothing like dying. It's not a failure state, it doesn't require a reload. In fact, if you want to know what someone is saying to you, you have to read the text in many games.

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 30 mars 2012 - 09:51 .

[upsettingshorts]

Tesclo wrote...

Mass Effect does it. I don't see why the Dragon Age series couldnt too. Besides she's a major character in the series. Others were brought back from the dead to be apart of da2. Where is my Morrigan?!

Where and how, exactly?

Keep in mind for the comparison to have any value to Morrigan, the character must be tied into a major decision involving the potential death of another character, may/may not be romanced, might have slept with the protagonist, might have slept with one of two other characters, might possibly have a normal son, might possibly have an Old God son, might be in love with the protagonist, might be vaguely indifferent to the protagonist, or might resent the protagonist.

Furthermore, the status of that child conceived as a result of the Dark Ritual was given importance, how will you support the existence or nonexistence of the OGB? 

It's not as simple as bringing back Miranda for a conversation, a quick lay, and a quest.  Questions would be raised, big ones, and answers demanded, even bigger ones.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 30 mars 2012 - 09:51 .

[eyesofastorm]

hoorayforicecream wrote...

eyesofastorm wrote...

hoorayforicecream wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...

hoorayforicecream wrote...
The 'interactivity' argument can be applied to having anything that stops gameplay, including dialogue.

Dialog is gameplay. The only thing that isn't gameplay is when you aren't inputting anything at all.

What are you inputting while you're reading through the swaths of text that get thrown at you?

Responses?

You respond before you're finished reading?

This looks like another semantics type of argument.  My argument rests on the fact that cinematics and the voicework that accompanies them cost significantly more to create than swaths of text.  As such, responses are necesarily limited thereby reducing net interactivity.  I am OK with cinematics.  I am OK with voiceover.  In fact, I really, really enjoy them both.  But interactivity is more important to me... not to the point that I would choose 100% interactivity and 0% cinematics.  But to the point where I feel that cinematics should be the crutch for the interactivity rather than the other way around.  And I feel this way because interactivity is the obvious strength of games over all other forms of entertainment.  To do otherwise is to waste the inherent potential of the medium.

Modifié par eyesofastorm, 30 mars 2012 - 09:53 .

[the_one_54321]

Maria Caliban wrote...
Reading an entire line of text is nothing like dying.

Interaction == interaction.

Dialog has interaction. Fighting has interaction. Both are examples of gameplay. Unless they don't have interaction. Like cinematics.

edit: I'm not arguing against cinematics, btw. I believe they have a purpose and a place. It's just a fact that cinematics and gameplay are usually seperate from each other.

Modifié par the_one_54321, 30 mars 2012 - 09:52 .

[Brockololly]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Brockololly wrote...

I get what you're saying but at the same time, going overly cinematic with close ups or different camera moves to try and elicit certain emotions from the player can just come across as very heavy handed and cheap too. Especially if you're trying to push certain motivations on to the PC this way, when the player might not be thinking the same way.

If anything, I'd like to see more effort and style put into the cinematics.

I guess I'd rather BioWare have more of an investment in the actual digital acting of characters or whatever you want to call it than the cinematics.

There is nothing more obnoxious than having some dramatic close up in ME or DA2 only to see low resolution textures or a character "acting" with all the subtlety of a muppet. I'd gladly sacrifice cinematics in terms of the camera moving about if it meant giving NPCs more convincing animations and gestures and body language in conversations, while leaving the player in the PC's point of view, something like Human Revolution's dialogue battles.

Basically avoid the whole thing with Vent Kid in ME3....thats an issue that goes beyond cinematics but those scenes are exacerbated by the cinematics if the player didn't give a rat's ass what happened to that kid. They're trying to convey an emotion to the player, but if the player doesn't bite, the whole thing comes across as melodramatic and laughable.

[Maria Caliban]

the_one_54321 wrote...

Maria Caliban wrote...
Reading an entire line of text is nothing like dying.

Interaction == interaction.

Dialog has interaction. Fighting has interaction. Both are examples of gameplay. Unless they don't have interaction. Like cinematics.

edit: I'm not arguing against cinematics, btw. I believe they have a purpose and a place. It's just a fact that cinematics and gameplay are usually seperate from each other.

If interaction == interaction then cinematics are interactive. Viewing and listening to something is a form of interaction.

[CoS Sarah Jinstar]

Maria Caliban wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...

Maria Caliban wrote...
Reading an entire line of text is nothing like dying.

Interaction == interaction.

Dialog has interaction. Fighting has interaction. Both are examples of gameplay. Unless they don't have interaction. Like cinematics.

edit: I'm not arguing against cinematics, btw. I believe they have a purpose and a place. It's just a fact that cinematics and gameplay are usually seperate from each other.

If interaction == interaction then cinematics are interactive. Viewing and listening to something is a form of interaction.

Watching a movie is hardly interactive. Just saying.

[hoorayforicecream]

the_one_54321 wrote...

hoorayforicecream wrote...
You respond before you're finished reading?

Do you wait for the monsters to kill you before you fight back?

Not analogous. If I finish reading/listening/watching, I can make an informed choice because I have context. The less I read/listen/watch, the less context I have to make that decision. Thus, the interactivity here comes at a penalty. The more time I spend not interacting by making choices, the more informed I am.

If I can attack a monster, I can already make an informed choice, because I already have context. I know whether my attacks can hit the monster, I know how much HP I have, I know what powers I can use to deal with the monster. Maybe the monster is immune to fire magic. Maybe it is weak to ice magic. The more time I spend interacting by making choices, the more informed I am.

[Sylvius the Mad]

John Epler wrote...

They break the game for you. Do I think we can take steps to bring back a lot of interactivity? Sure. I'm proud of what we did on DA2, but I do think that, at times, we went too far in the 'cinematics' direction. There are reasons for it, of course, but the end user doesn't really care about those reasons.

I care about those reasons.  Those reasons might highlight something I'm missing.  Maybe there's a cost (even an opportunity cost) associated with my suggested design that I haven't considered.

I don't believe in rhetorical questions.  If I ask why something was done a certain way, I'm looking for answers. 

What they care about is an experience they can enjoy, and I can certainly get behind putting more into in-world interactions and activities.

Are we going to get rid of the cinematics entirely? No. And if that's a deal breaker for you, so be it.

The best game BioWare ever made (and one of my five favourite games of all time) - Baldur's Gate - had cinematics.  Cinematics, in and of themselves, are not a deal-breaker.

John Epler wrote...

And interactivity is important. I don't disagree with that in the slightest. Nor do I think that you'll find anyone on the team who disagrees. That being said, cinematics serve a purpose - and as much as we'd like to make them more interactive, there are technical limitations, as you've said. In the interim, while they're not interactive, I think there's value in looking to other non-interactive visual media in terms of techniques and how to evoke certain emotions.

Okay, here's where I think you're heading in the wrong direction.

For example, your cinematics currently use techniques like rack focus to move the viewer's focus of attention around within the scene.  I think you need to remember during these scenes that the viewer's point of view is his character's point of view (or, at least, it might be), and if you take control of what his character's focus of attention is you're redcusing player agency.

As such, I would implore either to stop using depth of field effects, or at least find a way to let us turn them off.

Cinematic tricks of the sort to which you refer were developed for use on an outside observer - someone outside the scene.  A roleplayer, though, isn't outside the scene.

There's a reason why things like the rule of thirds or left-to-right progression exist, after all, and it'd be silly of us to not recognize and respect the reasoning behind these rules.

Absolutely, but remember that reasoning was designed around a passive medium.  Not all of those rules are directly transferrable.

Also, if I may, I'd like to ask for a switch (perhaps during character creation) to disable all cinematics featuring events that occur away from the PC.  If the PC doesn't know about those events, showing them to the player can be detrimental to roleplaying.  I'd love to be able to avoid those cutscenes.  If I'm going to make in-character decisions, I don't need out-of-character background information.

[the_one_54321]

Maria Caliban wrote...
If interaction == interaction then cinematics are interactive. Viewing and listening to something is a form of interaction.

hoorayforicecream wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...

hoorayforicecream wrote...
You respond before you're finished reading?

Do you wait for the monsters to kill you before you fight back?

Not analogous. If I finish reading/listening/watching, I can make an informed choice because I have context. The less I read/listen/watch, the less context I have to make that decision. Thus, the interactivity here comes at a penalty. The more time I spend not interacting by making choices, the more informed I am.

If I can attack a monster, I can already make an informed choice, because I already have context. I know whether my attacks can hit the monster, I know how much HP I have, I know what powers I can use to deal with the monster. Maybe the monster is immune to fire magic. Maybe it is weak to ice magic. The more time I spend interacting by making choices, the more informed I am.

You're both grasping at straws here.

The distinction is painfully obvious. I take action within the game. I don't take action within a cinematic/movie/music.

[upsettingshorts]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

The best game BioWare ever made (and one of my five favourite games of all time) - Baldur's Gate - had cinematics.  Cinematics, in and of themselves, are not a deal-breaker.

Are you referring to scenes such as those when Imoen, the protagonist, and Gorion are confronted outside the walls of Candlekeep?

Because that seems like the kind of scene David Gaider has described as one showcasing the weakness of a silent protagonist.  The protagonist was mute and couldn't make his/her impact on the scene, aside from being forced to watch quietly.

I could be remembering the scene wrong, but I don't recall any dialogue options until after Gorion was dead and you regained total control of the PC.

[CoS Sarah Jinstar]

Rojahar wrote...

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Watching a movie is hardly interactive. Just saying.

You still input dialog choice responses, even with cinematics in Bioware games, and that's interactivity. Are you people really trying to argue that there's no interactivity in the game, just because they can't bunny hop and swing their sword while they listen to a whole sentence? If you're so ADHD, press the skip dialog button. There you go, button pressing, fast forward to the dialog input interraction or pewpew action.

Again you're missing what I said, I don't have a problem with cinematics, I have a problem with paraphrased voice overs that leave the player guessing and removing any sort of player agency from what's going on.

[Maria Caliban]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Watching a movie is hardly interactive. Just saying.

In order for you to perceive something, there has to be basic interaction between you and it.

In the traditional sense, you wouldn't call a movie interactive because you're referring to a certain threshold of interactivity, but the_one is stating that all interaction as equal. If all interaction is equal, watching something is a form of interaction and should satisfy his desire for interactivity.

[Maria Caliban]

the_one_54321 wrote...

The distinction is painfully obvious.

Interaction == interaction. If that's true, there is no distinction. If distinctions can be made, then you can't say that reading an entire line of text is the same as dying. The distinction between them is painfully obvious.

[the_one_54321]

Maria Caliban wrote...

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...
Watching a movie is hardly interactive. Just saying.

In order for you to perceive something, there has to be basic interaction between you and it.

In the traditional sense, you wouldn't call a movie interactive because you're referring to a certain threshold of interactivity, but the_one is stating that all interaction as equal. If all interaction is equal, watching something is a form of interaction and should satisfy his desire for interactivity.

Watching a film or listening to music is not interaction. You are not affecting or changing the music or film. If, on the other hand, you have editing software and are making changes, then that's interaction, but it is not only watching/listening. Similarly, turnning off the TV/stereo is interaction, but you are no longer listening/watching.

Affecting the subject is interacting with the subject. If your action has no effect, you are not interacting. Listening/watching is not interaction.

Maria Caliban wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...
The distinction is painfully obvious.

Interaction == interaction. If that's true, there is no distinction. If distinctions can be made, then you can't say that reading an entire line of text is the same as dying. The distinction between them is painfully obvious.

In a dialog string, I affect the game. In combat, I affect the game. In a cinematic, I do not affect the game. In hearing the game music, I do not affect the game.

Modifié par the_one_54321, 30 mars 2012 - 10:12 .

[hoorayforicecream]

the_one_54321 wrote...

The distinction is painfully obvious. I take action within the game. I don't take action within a cinematic/movie/music.

It isn't. It's a question of what you find acceptable and others don't. Typically, for normal gameplay (e.g. combat), you have a very tight feedback loop. I attack, and I need to only wait a fraction of a second at most to see a result. Typically, the response I see is within milliseconds. Then I can choose again. Shoot a gun. Swing a sword. Cast a spell. Dodge. Run. That's a tight feedback loop. That's what most consider gameplay.

With dialog, the response I see can take significantly longer. I have to sit and wait to read what's going on, or sit and watch the resulting cinematic from the choice I made. The time between the option to interact, and the recognition time on screen is significantly lengthened. The text and the cinematics effectively function as interstitial padding between decisions you make. This is a very loose feedback loop, and as such feels offputting to many people. That's why many people don't consider them gameplay, including several game developers I know.

[eyesofastorm]

Was I too reasonable? Is it because the cinematic designer agreed with my assessment?

[the_one_54321]

hoorayforicecream wrote...
This is a very loose feedback loop, and as such feels offputting to many people. That's why many people don't consider them gameplay, including several game developers I know.

Don't care. I always try my hardest to speak using strict definitions. Interactivity means that I can affect what I am interacting with. In a dialog string, I can affect what I am interacting with.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
If the PC doesn't know about those events, showing them to the player can be detrimental to roleplaying. I'd love to be able to avoid those cutscenes.

In these instances, developing the story is treated as more important than maintaining perfect roleplay. As I described with the dampened pendulum explanation. You lose roleplaying, but gain something else.

The distinction here is designating roleplay as less important than exposition, in these specific instances.

Modifié par the_one_54321, 30 mars 2012 - 10:17 .

[Maria Caliban]

the_one_54321 wrote...

Watching a film or listening to music is not interaction. You are not affecting or changing the music or film.

But it's affecting and changing you, which means you're interacting with it. You're trying to say there are different *types* of interaction, but if interaction == interaction, that's not relevant.

If you don't like the implications of breaking down complex concepts into 'X == X' then maybe you should stop doing so.

eyesofastorm wrote...

Was I too reasonable?

Yes. You can do better.

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 30 mars 2012 - 10:20 .

[the_one_54321]

Maria Caliban wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...

Watching a film or listening to music is not interaction. You are not affecting or changing the music or film.

But it's affecting and changing you, which means you're interacting with it. You're trying to say there are different *types* of interaction, but if interaction == interaction, that's not relevant.

If you don't like the implications of breaking down complex concepts into 'X == X' then maybe you should stop doing so.

It affecting me is not mutual. The game is always affecting me. Thus it is only interaction when I am also affecting it.

"==" is typically applied as a line of code designating equivilancey. In logical structure, "equvilance" implies mutual equality. That is to say, something is only "equivilant" if the relationship works in both directions. In this specific situation, interaction is only applicable as "equivilant" to itself if I can affect the game and the game can affect me. The digital of this is the "==" in code.

"I affect it and it affects me," is the analog of the digital "interaction == interaction."

Modifié par the_one_54321, 30 mars 2012 - 10:24 .