jtr7 on 4/4/2013 at 00:00
Nostalgia has zero to do with it, Jomero. I know it will break your brain to accept that, so I expect you won't, but from here it's a straw man, even if you don't think it is.
Quote Posted by fett
To be fair, I don't think any of us are attached to Garrett's appearance. It's been different in every game, on every gamebox, and even between cutscenes in TDS ffs. You can't hardly blame them - no one really knows what Garrett looks like. Still, doesn't help to dissuade fans from the worry that the game will be an AC clone...
Yeah, we aren't attached to his face, but since EM made his face more important than his voice, placing the superficial over the depth of character, his face is getting undue attention.
Renzatic on 4/4/2013 at 00:11
Quote Posted by jtr7
Yeah, we aren't attached to his face, but since EM made his face more important than his voice, placing the superficial over the depth of character, his face is getting undue attention.
You're jumping to conclusions, and assuming the worst. What they want is a digital actor. Face, voice, movement, everything. One guy doing it all. They're not necessarily putting the superficial over the depth of characters because of this.
Random_Taffer on 4/4/2013 at 00:13
The whole full performance capture business just sounds so gimmicky to me. Like 3d movies.
I want to be wrong, though.
Renzatic on 4/4/2013 at 00:15
Could be. It worked pretty well for LA Noire, though.
jay pettitt on 4/4/2013 at 00:32
It's obviously hugely difficult to be objective about this sort of stuff - but I reckon whether or not you want Russell as Garrett is a value judgement, not a technical one. Lots of folk seemed to enjoy Russell's Mr G in the original games so maybe a lot of them would want to see him back. And if they were at the reigns maybe would want to work around whatever mo-cap workflow issues might arise.
Eidos Montreal seemed not to put a lot of value on Russell as Mr G. Fair enough.
Again, objectivity ain't gonna happen, but what are the odds that Eidos Montreal's Mr G. will be as noteworthy as Looking Glass' Mr G? How many video games have protagonists that are as memorable?
Random_Taffer on 4/4/2013 at 00:33
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
It's obviously hugely difficult to be objective about this sort of stuff - but I reckon whether or not you want Russell as Garrett is a value judgement, not a technical one. Lots of folk seemed to enjoy Russell's Mr G in the original games so maybe a lot of them would want to see him back. And if they were at the reigns maybe would want to work around whatever mo-cap workflow issues might arise.
Eidos Montreal seemed not to put a lot of value on Russell as Mr G. Fair enough.
Again, objectivity ain't gonna happen, but what are the odds that Eidos Montreal's Mr G. will be as noteworthy as Looking Glass' Mr G? How many video games have protagonists that are as memorable?
Giovanni Auditore da Firenze certainly wasn't, that's for sure.
thiefobsessedgirl on 4/4/2013 at 00:35
Quote Posted by Jomero
I am torn not hearing Stephen Russell's voice come out of Garrett's mouth. I am saddened by it.
But my joy of having a new Thief game outweighs my sadness, I think. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to see another Thief game after 2004 (despite confirmations of one being worked on).
I'll just be happy to hear Mr. Russell's voice littered throughout Skyrim, including as the guildmaster of the Thieve's Guild.
YES. Me too 100%
Starker on 4/4/2013 at 00:43
Quote Posted by Renzatic
But anyway, great games are still around. You don't even have to look very hard for them. Just glance around and see what you find.
I've played every Spiderweb game since Exile 2, and while they are not too bad, the guy really does keep making the same game over and over again. The recent Avadon was pretty bland, especially in comparison with the older titles.
Legend of Grimrock was actually pretty average for a Dungeon Master clone. Lands of Lore it ain't...
As for others, a little too much action in my RPG. What about the other criteria like reactivity or quality storytelling? Witcher is basically one of the very few modern games that has tried to do anything with C&C; most of today's games are more in the lines of "what you choose is what you get".
Quote Posted by Renzatic
On the up and coming front we've got Wasteland 2, Shadowrun, and the new Torment game coming out. The latter three being made by golden age developers without any big studio say whatsoever. They succeed or fail by the strengths of their own talent.
That was kind of my point... Exactly those are the games we have been missing. Why else would people throw millions at them?
SuicideMachine on 4/4/2013 at 00:57
Quote Posted by Renzatic
Could be. It worked pretty well for LA Noire, though.
LA Noire was a different thing. They were essentially generating 3D meshes in realtime, based on data from all of the cameras, as well as generating animated texture that was projected onto it. It was an impressive tech, but far from perfect and areas between the nose and an eye as well as mouth itself showed that clearly. It was essentially a tech, that could have worked only in a game, where a camera is often located in predetermined places. Many action games for example have such a nice detail, that characters that are near you, tend to turn their head towards your character - this is already problematic with LA Noire tech... and then go even further - Valve for example, for years had even more complex system, where it was not only face, but minor eye movement (they are crazy like this, but their reasoning is entirely valid) - and this becomes impossible when using LA Noire tech. But a game of a detective that talks to people, where it's important to get character animation and emotions right - a perfect fit. Anyway...
Based on Game's informer
(http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2013/03/11/watch-the-creation-of-a-scene-from-thief.aspx) Creation Of A Scene From Thief, it's obvious to me, what they're just going to do is, they'll just throw the footage from face cameras to some tracking software to get a bunch of points and use this on their models (since they can't really get anything more from one or two cameras pointing at the face) - it wouldn't be anything new, really. Starbreeze Studios was doing something very similar 4 years ago with
The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena ((
http://youtu.be/bhDZ7C65n5U?t=5m57s) source)... hell, even Call of Duty Black Ops did facial capture of voice actors. Anyway - so a reason may be, that they designed NuGarrett and modeled his body and face and it totally doesn't fit Russell's face, to the point where all of the facial expressions end up being completely glitched and they
are just too lazy don't want to fix it by hand, so they looked for a replacement with a more appropriate face.
-- EDIT --
Oh wait... Black Ops 2 did full motion capture... crap. (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc3jD3GOvv4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc3jD3GOvv4
-- EDIT 2 --
Black Ops 1 - this presents the technology better - (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BT8s1CI7Uc)
jtr7 on 4/4/2013 at 01:05
They chose the face first, and were too invested in it to tweak it for Russell. And they mock us for holding onto ideas we are invested in! They are fans but had to do their homework? They told us that in 2009, too! And they still went with an Assassin's Creed flavor, 3rd-Person cinematic views... The fact that they toyed with the idea of having a new character and decided against it was where they went wrong. I'd be more open to a new character with a new toolset, but they shoehorned a faux-Garrett in and undid much of the world and it's history. They shoulda just went with a pure reboot in every sense and skipped the Garrett, Keepers, Hammer vs Pagans, elemental/necromancy, lines entirely!
