Springheel on 18/11/2013 at 22:16
Quote:
The thing is, NH and Spring, that there are far far more important things to get right before you start spending time on swimmable water, which is what makes it less important.
I wouldn't disagree with that. I don't think either NH or myself said swimable water was the MOST important thing.
demagogue on 18/11/2013 at 22:32
These are great interviews. I don't like all the games represented, but I'm always interested in hearing devs perspectives on game design. You can learn things from even games you don't like.
Re: swimming, having it in Dishonored reminded me that it adds to the stealth genre. The whole genre is about awareness of & using your environment, and swimming opens up that space. I wouldn't say it's the biggest thing either, but it reduces the diversity of spaces we'll be navigating.
New Horizon on 19/11/2013 at 04:09
Quote Posted by NuEffect
Desperate? What are you on about?
Fwiw, and despite, well - you, I agree with you on water. Nice but not essential. I didn't find it odf that it was missing in TDS though I did find it odd to die if I feel in it.
The thing is, NH and Spring, that there are far far more important things to get right before you start spending time on swimmable water, which is what makes it less important.
The unreal engine supports water simulation / swimmable water right out of the box. It's not like they have to actually code it into the engine. Pretty sure that's why Unreal is so popular, it's a full featured engine.
jay pettitt on 19/11/2013 at 07:42
The engine might support watery environments out the box. But I bet their mo-cap studio doesn't.
jay pettitt on 19/11/2013 at 07:58
They sure are. Thanks Starker. And there's what could be in that giant Eidos Montreal shaped hole that's missing from the whole T4 discourse. The fans are going yadda yadda yadda. The press are going yadda yadda yadda. And EM saying virtually nothing about their game - save a few tedious sound-bites.
The worst thing is the (slight) possibility that behind closed doors EM might be doing stuff that's interesting and worthwhile. Obviously not in quite the same way as what Raphael is talking about - I'm all but sure T4 will have objects baked left right and centre and maybe one or two of them will be a bit interactive. But they might be doing other stuff that's good - and they're not telling anyone about it.
Chade on 19/11/2013 at 09:50
I don't see why animations for swimming should prove any trouble. First person swimming animations are commonplace. Dunno about mo-capped swimming animations. Still, swimming animations are so basic, even if a pool was too much trouble, surely you could just whack someone on a table and go for it* ...
* Spoken with a level of confidence that only someone who has no idea what they're talking about could muster.
jay pettitt on 19/11/2013 at 10:20
Obviously they *could* have (and arguably should have) included swimming. But it plainly wasn't a priority for them. Whereas I (cynically) think that playing in the mo-cap studio was a big priority. If they had a tank/pool I'm sure we'd have water sections to show off the cool underwater mo-cap tricks.
In short, I don't think they say sat down in a meeting early on and said - hey, how can we make the best possible Thief game. At least, I'm not seeing any evidence for it. I suspect they sat down starstruck and said - hey, how can we use the latest shiny game dev toys and shiny game dev tech? ...and then they sort of forgot about everything else. At least, that's what my tiny brain comes up with when it tries to make sense of T4.
New Horizon on 19/11/2013 at 10:50
The Deadly Shadows devs said they had to give up on swimming because they couldn't get the water working with havok physics and now there is a possibility they opted out of it due to a silly insistence on mocap, although I doubt that is true since swimming would be in first person anyway. Would be a real shame if that turned out to be true though because you literally could suspend someone from a harness and have them make the swimming motions with their hands, or as suggested above have them lie on a table.
Llama on 19/11/2013 at 15:30
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
Obviously they *could* have (and arguably should have) included swimming. But it plainly wasn't a priority for them.
They had 5 years. Priority? No. They didn't want swimming. period.
SubJeff on 19/11/2013 at 16:08
Maybe it just wasn't in the level designs. Which doesn't say much for the level designs. Dishonored made really good use of water, where it featured, imho.
It's a shame it's not in but really, the amount of time and effort spent discussing it is silly - especially with the main problematic issue; contextual movement.
