*spin-off* Next Gen Gameplay and/or Graphics Differentiators

[Silent_Buddha]

In the case of Euphoria, the motion sampling has already taken place and the library base exists. Now that library just needs to be added to, and tweaked.

Except that isn't the case. Every project that uses Euphoria has to submit a design document outlining their requirements. At which point the team at Euphoria does their best to figure out a way to implement what the developer requires. There are no standard libraries to be used. I really have no idea where you are getting the idea that those even exist currently.

Obviously as time goes on the team at Euphoria will have a growing library of existing work that they can use to tailor animations for games. Eventually it may even get to the point where it's as robust as some of the physics SDKs.

But what do you know? Even those well researched, constantly developed physics SDKs require significant time and money on the developers part to get the effects they want.

And that's FAR FAR less computationally intensive than something like Natural Motion.

It's a comparison of a restriction imposed on developers. I'm pretty sure you can follow the logic there.

Now I have to start questioning if you're just trolling for trollings sake or you actually believe some of the dribble you are spouting?

PS3 has no such restrictions on keyboard and mouse use. Yet how many titles on the platform use keyboard and mouse? Hmmm, I wonder if developers use console controllers because they have determined it's the best hardware control scheme for a game that is most likely to be played from a couch?

Shockingly, games are more than just graphics. Interaction is a key element. Having more realistic graphics just helps to point out other elements which stand out as being unrealistic in the game world.

Absolutely true. Minecraft doesn't have spectacular graphics. Many indie titles don't have spectacular graphics. Wonder why that might be?

Could it be lack of money and/or time? Noooo...

As we've all been trying to say to you. It's all a game of compromises, picking and choosing what you can do within the limitations (very real and NOT going away) of time, money, and hardware capabilities.

Natural Motion is just another one of those compromises. In order to implement it, now or in the future, will require NOT using other techniques in your game. For some companies it's a choice they want to go with, for other companies it's not. How hard is that to understand?

You mean enemies couldn't spin on a dime anymore once "alert_mode" was activated? Forgive me as I wipe away my tears to mourn the loss of unrealistic actions in modern games.

What, you mean players that can instantly spin on a dime? You have trouble with enemies reacting quickly but not players? And hence don't see how every single action game becomes incredibly easier if that dichotomy exists?

And if you force it on players as well, you end up with disgruntled players (players weren't happy about KZ2's attempt for a more realistic weapon simulation, imagine how angry they would have been if there was more realistic player movement simulation as well).

Significant indeed. In fact, I'm not even sure they be able to render enough characters on screen to create a believable open world, much less throw cars in the mix while still having enough CPU power to have AI for them all and then render on top of it? No way...

Never said it didn't look good. Although if you peruse any PC centric forums, you'll see lots of complaints about how the graphics quality of the title was so low, or how performance was absolutely abysmal for the level of graphics it provided. I don't frequent many console forums so have no clue if people complained about it on consoles as well.

But looking good does not mean that compromises weren't made in many areas. Sure those compromises may have fit THIS title quite well but it's not a compromise that would fit all titles equally well.

I'm not sure how many more times I need to say it, but I'll try again, my concept is for Euphoria to be bought out and improved by the platform holders to be provided in the SDK to developers use.

I get perfectly well what you want. I, along with most of the people in this thread (including game Developers), just don't agree with your rather naive assumption that either Sony or MS or even both working together would get it to a point where it's just plug and play.

Physics SDKs have been actively worked on for over a decade now and that still isnt' plug and play. And it is far FAR simpler and far less computationally intensive than trying to simulate uncanned Natural Motions.

And yet, multiple developers and titles did not have an issue with them and in fact, were fairly successful. Whoda thunk it with such a huge disadvantage on their hands?

Yes, titles with a large budget that can afford to pay for Euphoria's services in developing natural motion for them. Are we then to start making tiered requirements? If your title has X budget than you MUST spend Y computational resources, thus reducing the amount of resources available for that developer to do what they want?

So only lower budget titles are allowed to choose what techniques they wish to use in their game?

And you have every right to suggest that belief. I believe that investing broadly into Euphoria for the entire platform by the platform holders and mandating some form of it for a certain class of games will yield more innovation in that field and create more believable worlds and characters with greater interactivity.

Greater innovation? Really? Anytime, something is made into a standard, innovation virtually stops. Look at what happened to innovation in the area of realistic sound. As soon as MS had a relatively solid multichannel sound implemention in DirectX all research and developement into more realistic sound modeling stopped. We now have sound in games that is far WORSE than it was 10+ years ago before multichannel sound became a standard in various API's/SDK's/developement kits.

A major pet peeve of mine.

Instead of depending on a small company such as a developer or publisher to invest on a per game basis, the platform holder can absorb costs incurred to develop the tech into the broad range of the platform's AAA games which are for the most part featuring human or human-like characters.

Sony most likely still hasn't recouped the investment in the PS3, and you want to pile on hundreds of millions more onto their loss sheet in order to support a very very niche feature? Niche not due to how little it may benefit a title but due to how computationally intensive it would be, even with well developed libraries.

As mentioned previously. And in the specific case you love to bring up. One of the better looking game that use it (GTA IV) was able to lessen the impact by using it very sparingly. Mostly relying on canned animations and only occasionally using Euphoria's natural motion.

Graphics are great, but interactivity helps to sell the believability (and fun) of the world just as much if not more so.

Sure, I abolutely agree it can help to sell realism. Whether it can do it more than graphics is debatable. What use is NPCs moving around the world perfectly if the surrounding world continues to look as unrealistic as it does on current gen consoles or even the much higher spec'd PCs.

Graphical capability and the ability to turn that into realistic looking scenes took a huge leap forward this generation, but it's still a far cry from what I would consider realistic. Next gen I hope to see more work put into natural movement, improving the graphical quality to make things slightly more realistic, more realistic physics animations (still HUGELY unrealistic even after over a decade of physics developement), and a whole host of other things.

I wouldn't put natural motion as more or less important than any of those. Wooden crates tumbling around like cardboard boxes at the slightest nudge from a player still drive me nuts even in the newest games. Object floating in water still don't react realistically. Still little to no simulation of weather effects and their impact on the surroundings. And when that is attempted it's still a long way towards being realistic. And those are just very basic physics operations that remain too computationally intensive to model realistically.

On the graphics front. The world becoming a blurry mess anytime you come withing a few feet of an object. Flat textures trying to give the illusion of 3 dimensions on things like walls, ground, characters, etc.

All those things I find just as important and in some cases more important than Natural Motion.

Just like I'd never imagine a platform holdering mandating the use of tessellation or even POM, I certainly wouldn't imagine a platform holder mandating natural motion. Or realtime lighting. Or better universal physics. Or accurately modeled sound. Or universal spoken voice. Or particles that react correctly to the players movement, NPCs movement, or when colliding with the scenery. Or debris from destroyed objects staying around permanently. Or everything being destructable. Or... Hopefully you get the idea, but I have a feeling you won't.

Anyway, the bottom line here is that noone disagree's that natural motion isn't something worth pursuing and can be a differentiator. Just like all the other things mentioned. Only that it isn't a good idea to mandate it. And when most people and even game developers don't think it should be mandated, I think you're fighting a losing uphill battle.

You can have the last word as I won't be replying to this line of posts anymore.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I am curious to know why you assume that "twitch" based game mechanics are somehow less inviting to casual players especially when there is plenty of data to suggest otherwise. I am also curious of your encouragement of a return to a more stat based rpg mechanic to attract casuals when stat based rpgs (outside of wow and a few other titles) arent especially known as casual friendly.

Ipad and Android the two biggest platforms for casual gamers arent really crowded with rpgs and have a healthy representation of twitch based games as popular downloads.

Maybe the reason rpgs arent as stat based and are moving to a more twitched based mechanic is because developers are trying to widen the demographics of the genre.

Without having demographic breakdowns of who is buying what, there's now way to even comment on the purchasing habits or people on iOS.

However, you don't have to go far to see that the research that both Nintendo and MS have done with regards to the various market demographics does show casual consumers aren't attracted to the games that are most often featured on the X360/PS3. Whether due to controller complexity, fast action gameplay with high reaction skill requirements, or just content. Hence Nintendo with different controller and game design philosophies and MS ditching the controller entirely.

You can also look at the decline of many traditional RPGs as they moved away from simple controls and stat based gameplay to more action oriented and twitch based gameplay.

This even applies to the strategy market. Granted the Strategy market isn't casual, but it's different from the twitch market. But as previously successful TBS titles moved to RTS (requiring faster reaction times, more twitch based skills) they also lost most of their player base without gaining enough new players to replace those they lost. X-Com for example basically took a nosedive when they went realtime or partial realtime. I have a feeling the recently released Jagged Alliance remake isn't going to do as well for similar reasons.

So what does this all say? That twitched based can't be popular? No. But that by going to twitch based you will lose people. Whether it's casuals or non-casuals doesn't matter. You're losing people from the overall pool of people you can get to buy your system. On a game by game basis, you may or may not lose more people than you gain. Some games end up with better sales, some don't.

On PS3/X360 you probably usually end up gaining more as they are both consoles heavily biased towards the twitch gaming demographic, but even there that isn't always the case. On PC where there's a much broader demographic of players that definitely isn't always the case as you see multiple franchises suicide moving from non-twitch gameplay to twitch inspired gameplay.

And as mentioned stat based RPGs is just one potential avenue to gain back casual or non-twitch gaming type of players.

But I certainly agree that for X360/PS3, their playerbase is certainly mostly dominated by twitch action gamers, and that's something that Shifty and I seem to agree is an area that Sony and MS could address by making games more attractive to those people that are turned off by twitch action games or just find twitch action games difficult or impossible to play.

Regards,
SB

 

[Prophecy2k]

SB, I was thinking about this whole "twitch" inspiring gaming being inaccessible to many more casual less seasoned gamers, and i remembered your post where you compared the situation on PC to that of consoles.

I actually think that the control interface has shown itself to be quite a big deal in this regard, and I think that something as easy to use and intuitive as motion/pointer based controls could (and has) help(ed) loads in this regard.

Sony in particular has the Move controller that makes FPS games, and shooter type games far more accessible by lowering the (skill) barrier to entry (as well as granting hardcore players the added benefit of better percision and accuracy).

I wonder whether on PC the ease of use and intuitiveness of the PC mouse makes the difference. Hence why there are so many casual users that play and enjoy stuff like facebook games and do not see the control interface as a barrier to entry.

Perhaps both the control interface and fundamental game design (i.e. either stat based or twitch-based) could generate more interest in console gaming wholesale amongst the more casual user.