Namdrol on 30/11/2009 at 08:39
I've tried not to get sucked back into this discussion but oh well...
First Shroud my man it's good, compromise and understanding but it is a little odd to say -
Quote Posted by The Shroud
- and to that extent, the arguments on both sides are covered exhaustively in the many pages of this thread. I have not seen any new points raised in
that argument for some time now. Are there any
new pro or con points about that?
Because we thought we'd got to that point in October and then the thread got resurrected by someone. ;)
Fafhrd forgive me for being stupid but can you explain something.
You say that the hands don't have to do anything delicate, so what happens?
The arms are swinging about and visible during movement (and if they're not then what is body awareness?), and then they disappear as soon as the character does anything?
I assume you'll allow the arms to be seen during combat (imo an insignificant part of the game if played correctly) but then when you come to doing what Thief is about they go. Where? Do they remain static?
Do you get locked into a scripted animation as soon as you interact with anything?
Isn't the whole idea to create something which improves immersion?
But if you're constantly reminded that the game can't do this or that then doesn't this break that immersion?
It's a convenient side step to a strong obstacle against implementing body awareness, to just say; "Oh nobody wants that."
The Shroud on 30/11/2009 at 17:19
Quote Posted by Namdrol
First Shroud my man it's good, compromise and understanding but it is a little odd to say -
Because we thought we'd got to that point in October and then the thread got resurrected by someone. ;)
Quote Posted by Namdrol
I've tried not to get sucked back into this discussion but oh well...
I rest my case. :D
Myagi on 30/11/2009 at 19:48
Quote Posted by Namdrol
But if you're constantly reminded that the game can't do this or that then doesn't this break that immersion?
if you're constantly reminded, when looking down that you're a floating camera, doesn't this break that immersion?
see how that works both ways, it's pretty useless arguing over what is more or less immersive. There is no right or wrong from an immersion POV. For some people BA enhances it further (flaws included), and for other people it's the other way around (other flaws included). Both alternatives will have things you could list as immersion lessening, and there is no absolute thruth to how those things rank wrt to eachother, that's entiirely personal preference.
New Horizon on 30/11/2009 at 20:14
If it doesn't take time away from other things, and if I can turn it off. They can fill their boots and do it for all I care.
The Shroud on 30/11/2009 at 21:06
Amen.
Platinumoxicity on 30/11/2009 at 21:28
Quote Posted by Myagi
if you're constantly reminded, when looking down that you're a floating camera, doesn't this break that immersion?
see how that works both ways, it's pretty useless arguing over what is more or less immersive. There is no right or wrong from an immersion POV. For some people BA enhances it further (flaws included), and for other people it's the other way around (other flaws included). Both alternatives will have things you could list as immersion lessening, and there is no absolute thruth to how those things rank wrt to eachother, that's entiirely personal preference.
That's exactly right. All the aspects can be looked from a pro-BA or con-BA standpoint. Pro-BA would go like this: "If you're constantly reminded, when looking down that you're a floating camera, doesn't this break that immersion?" and con-BA standpoint of the same argument: "When you're immersed into the 1st person experience and try to look down on the floor below you, you don't expect to suddenly have some stranger's legs blocking your view, do you?."
The Shroud on 30/11/2009 at 21:48
Quote Posted by aidakeeley
Yeah, well, I've been gotting my popcorn, all along... yerk erect.
It's a demand for more fist-pounding, god-damned-holodecking!, hate-the-very-idea-of-bawdy-awarenessess!... fun.
:sly:
:laff:
Quote Posted by Namdrol
Hmm, Namdrol wonders about altniks...
Quote Posted by aidakeeley
Bursted, I am.
, you are, jtr7.
jtr7 on 30/11/2009 at 23:27
Quote Posted by Myagi
if you're constantly reminded, when looking down that you're a floating camera, doesn't this break that immersion?
see how that works both ways, it's pretty useless arguing over what is more or less immersive. There is no right or wrong from an immersion POV. For some people BA enhances it further (flaws included), and for other people it's the other way around (other flaws included). Both alternatives will have things you could list as immersion lessening, and there is no absolute thruth to how those things rank wrt to eachother, that's entiirely personal preference.
What NH said. One preference eats up development and playtesting time--
BIG time. The other? Roughly, um, zero time. It's not mere preference, can you understand that?
Fafhrd on 1/12/2009 at 03:33
Quote Posted by Namdrol
Fafhrd forgive me for being stupid but can you explain something.
You say that the hands don't have to do anything delicate, so what happens?
The arms are swinging about and visible during movement (and if they're not then what is body awareness?), and then they disappear as soon as the character does anything?
I assume you'll allow the arms to be seen during combat (imo an insignificant part of the game if played correctly) but then when you come to doing what Thief is about they go. Where? Do they remain static?
Do you get locked into a scripted animation as soon as you interact with anything?
Isn't the whole idea to create something which improves immersion?
But if you're constantly reminded that the game can't do this or that then doesn't this break that immersion?
Are you being deliberately obtuse here? What part of 'frobbing and lockpicking could work exactly how they do in Thief 1 and 2' was so hard to understand? But to answer your question
again: The arms only move when the player is moving or wielding a weapon (and possibly when carrying large junk objects like crates), everything else would be done through telefrobesis, the same way it's done in
pretty much every other game that uses body awareness that's ever been made (exceptions include: Mirror's Edge, which used a locked animation for button presses and operating valves, which was just as much about slowing the player down for a second to allow the level to stream in as anything else; Left 4 Dead, which does a cursory 'extend arm' animation when a frob highlight is active; and Chronicles of Riddick, (iirc, don't feel like double checking right now) which used an IK rig that attached the Riddick model to an AI model when dragging bodies).
It's no more immersion breaking than a magical pair of floating arms that appear when a weapon is equipped, and then vanish into their pocket dimension when the weapon goes away.
And it's not side-stepping to stick to the same argument I've been making since I started posting in this thread.
Quote:
"When you're immersed into the 1st person experience and try to look down on the floor below you, you don't expect to suddenly have some stranger's legs blocking your view, do you?."
If you're
immersed in the first person experience, then you're looking at your own legs.
Quote:
What NH said. One preference eats up development and playtesting time--BIG time.
And what you both continue to fail to understand is that if you weren't conflating body
awareness with body
simulation, that the time required to implement it isn't actually that long (and it sure as hell isn't going to eat up as much QA time as you think. Kind of silly that you seem to think the programmers are all going to be spinning plates while juggling, but QA will only be able to focus on one system at a time).
And that the Thief 4 team isn't working from scratch from day one, as the majority of the core systems are going to be shared between it and Deus Ex 3.
And really: 'if I can turn it off' betrays where you're really coming from, doesn't it.
Myagi on 1/12/2009 at 04:08
Quote Posted by jtr7
What NH said. One preference eats up development and playtesting time--
BIG time. The other? Roughly, um, zero time. It's not mere preference, can you understand that?
umm, I did say from an immersion POV, not a developement POV. As many arguments in this thread have also been about one being more immersive than the other, and why one is more immersive or not than the other. In some instances making it sound like one standpoint is the absolute truth about which is "better".
As far as developement goes, it's up to the dev (or publisher) to decide if they think it's worth the effort or not on a case by case basis, that's a different discussion which I didn't comment on.
Just to add one thing about developement, while we're at it. In plenty of cases for non-BA games, it's not that simple that you can skip the player char alltogether, so saying it takes zero time isn't always true.
If the game has mirrors and/or MP for example (like D3), you'll still end up having to code and animate a 3d character object along with it, roughly doing the player's motion. Sure that is usually less detailed, and needs less attention, but it's not "zero time" and something that has to be done on top of the FP hand model and all its code/animations.
