Firewarrior
Newcomer
We will see that's for sure
NEW Lair Screens Plus Interview!
- Thread starter Bad_Boy
- Start date
We will see that's for sure
Well last interview at TGS I saw he mentioned Spring 2007.
scooby_dooby
Legend
I've got a bridge I want to sell ya...
I have no idea about how far they are content wise, but since this first level is up and running, with a tutorial and everything, I don't think the game is *that* far from release. Spring is anywhere between 21 March and 21 June, and that leaves them about 6-9 months, or 5-8 if we take off a month before the actual release date. Assuming their content creators aren't also graphics developers, then there's a whole lot of work that they can still do.
scooby_dooby
Legend
The game does not look anywhere close to being a playable game, if they get it out by June I'll be very surprised. It'll most likely be a Fall 07 release.
The game does not look anywhere close to being a playable game? Am I going nuts? Didn't I see several people play this game at TGS? You must have very interesting definitions of what makes a playable game.
Well, it was interactive, but playable kinda implies an amount of actual gameplay. The actual game content looked remarkably light to me. Unchallenging and uninteresting.
Yeah... Same bridge castle looking environment with water underneath. Fly and shoot around the same very limited space... That was it... It was "playable", but it seemed more like a very simple and limited tech demo than even a real game demo which usually is the first level or part of the game...
Okay, so basically, if you think you're not going to like a game, it's not a playable game. Others would argue that by mere fact of you being able to control a dragon, with motion sensing no less, both in flight and on the ground, being able to shoot at other dragons with both long-range fireballs and short range fire, being able to engage them in mid flight attacking them dragon-to-dragon with gesture recognition, fight them while falling down with several different combos possible, being able to engage in a rider-to-rider fight, or use several dragon-to-rider fight combos, being able to engage in a rider-to-dragon fight, being able to land anywhere and engage in killing, buring, stomping (with gesture recognition) and eating thousands of soldiers, influence the moral (Populous style) of your side vs the opponents side reflected by a bar on top, having a tutorial mission where you among others have to among others (that was all I saw) fly through several markers to reach the destination (the bridge), being able to make sudden dodge movements in-flight with gesture recognition, receive objective commands like kill those newly arrived monsters and kill those newly arrived dragons, and so on (hey, I might have missed something, and I'm leaving out stuff like being able to control the camera to show all sides of the dragon, as that might be interpreted as not being part of 'gameplay').
So, maybe not all this looks great, and maybe some of it seems too simple or easy, but then again, this is the first level.
I personally think that what you lack is the game's objectives and instruction, story and so on. Because it hasn't been spelt out to you what you need to do and why, you have no idea about what your objectives are and against what background. I think you don't understand the game, but assuming this means there is no gameplay, is your mistake. If a game like gears of war had you running around shooting monsters, I could have just as easily complained of a lack of gameplay as you do here now, but it would also have been just as silly.
My main concern with the gameplay, and why I don't think it counted, was it seemed as though you were an indestructable monster that just randomly mashes baddies. Ina game, it's normally a balance of trying to attack and at the same time, protecting yourself. That's what constitutes the gameplay. In this game, what I've seen so far, it seems you're omnipotent. Yeah, you can land and mash baddies with 1000 different control methods, but without any need to vary your attacks to mash them effectively or manage your attacks so you don't get killed in the process. No-one appeared to be attacking you. Where was the dog-fight style dodging the dragons tailing you while trying to attack the one flaming your troops? I didn't notice any. If the current task was 'stop the enemy dragons' you just wandered up to them and squish, without anyone trying to beat you off.
It's that lack of any resistence that to me means no game. No matter how much control you have over the protagonist, if there's no challenge, no resistence from the forces you're combating, there's no game and you just have an interactive tech-demo.
It's that lack of any resistence that to me means no game. No matter how much control you have over the protagonist, if there's no challenge, no resistence from the forces you're combating, there's no game and you just have an interactive tech-demo.
So basically, if any kind of 'god-mode' is enabled in a game, suddenly all gameplay is gone.
You know, if that's your opinion that's fine with me. At least now I know what you mean when you say there is no gameplay.
But very often in these demonstrations the easiest difficulty or even invulnerability is used as to allow the players in the very limited play-time to get used to the game and its controls without constantly dying or being interrupted.
scooby_dooby
Legend
Exactly. The lack of polish was ridiculous, nowhere near a final game, not even close. For example, combat between the dragons, brutal, the transition whena rider attacks the other dragon, terrible, the shooting fireballs, boring, stomping around on the bridge, none of the enemies react, the list goes on...
If it were just GFX I could believe we'll see a Spring release but with this? It's like Too Human, after seeing it at E3, you just knew it wasn't making it's release datey, same with LAIR after TGS. There's soooo much work left to be done on this game...
R:FOM gameplay vids display the same omnipotence for the player, but the consensus thus far is that the gameplay is pretty darn good...at the least.
Just as it was intentional that you were somewhat godlike in playing R:FOM I think the same applied for Lair and probably a healthy chunk of the game on display at the TGS.
Players were given the opportunity to see what they can do vs. being forced to gather just what exactly they should be doing i.e. play intelligently.
I don't think real gameplay was on display for most games other than perhaps the racers. (real = lack of unlimited health and whatnot)
(whoop...seems others, got out my point before I did. My bad.)
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scooby_dooby
Legend
Obviously you're blind if you can't see the huge deficiencies in gameplay that have nothing to do with being in god mode.
It would be great if someone from Lair can clarify but the possibilities are:
* Launch is Summer/Fall 2007 for a "comfortable" roll out
* Launch is Spring 2007 with a short game
* Launch is Spring 2007. The current demo is an old build. Just like Heavenly Sword... the new codebase is not ready/has some bugs that prevent showing.
* Game will be cancelled
etc. etc.
But at least we are talking about gameplay elements now. I was trying to imagine what kind of scenarios are possible. The interviewer said you can decide how to help the army to win the war. Unfortunately, we can only see the basic moves and not the game strategy (e.g., establish air superiority first, take out catapult, hunt for specific general, ...).
* Launch is Summer/Fall 2007 for a "comfortable" roll out
* Launch is Spring 2007 with a short game
* Launch is Spring 2007. The current demo is an old build. Just like Heavenly Sword... the new codebase is not ready/has some bugs that prevent showing.
* Game will be cancelled
etc. etc.
But at least we are talking about gameplay elements now. I was trying to imagine what kind of scenarios are possible. The interviewer said you can decide how to help the army to win the war. Unfortunately, we can only see the basic moves and not the game strategy (e.g., establish air superiority first, take out catapult, hunt for specific general, ...).
Generally yes because there's no challenge. Perhaps you like playing games with cheats enabled where you can't lose? Anyhow, God mode made have affected the apparent lack of gameplay, but even factoring in the fact you can take damage, it still didn't look like any sort of game. It looked to have as much gameplay as FIFA on easy mode - the opposition pretty much run ut the way and let you pepper the goal with shots. Where's the challenge? Where could things go wrong? Now again, as a first level and something of a tutorial, you would want it to be easy. A combination of easy mode, god mode and first level might come together to explain everything. But that just accounts for why there's no real gameplay, and doesn't actually make for any!
mckmas8808
Legend
Eagle-Vision
Regular
What the hell... They do react in different ways. Some of them attack you (like the archers), some run away scared, and others well, they just stay there with their shields up XD.
They only issue was polish. Other than that you guys are just trolling it for no apparent reason.
The demo had godmode enabled for the TGS only, it's not like the final game is gonna be like that... And yes, there was opposition, in the videos you can see dragons shooting you fireballs (and actually hitting you several times).
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