As you gain skill with your weapons you're able to chain longer combos, provided you can manage the peculiar timing. Other games have used similar systems to great effect, this isn't the point. The point is that the animations enacted by the player and the responses of your enemies aren't really synchronized to anything. They saunter up and start wigging out, then you begin to wig in earnest, and then someone (hopefully for you, it's the bipedal reptile) collapses. I recognize that this is the way it works in virtually every existing case. What I'm saying is that I have expectations about this generation of games that do not include combatants having spasms that don't relate to the combat situation.
Notable examples to the contrary include the special melee circumstances you see in Dawn of War, where units interact with one another in physical, gruesome form. The Matrix Online endeavors to avoid these super-generic interactions with its Interlock system, which absolutely serves this purpose even if the rest of the game might not be universally appreciated. God of War really sort of ruined me on generic animations, as they took the time to hand-make a custom "fatality" for each enemy creature that cemented your grim interventions securely in the world. Killzone again, the game itself didn't turn my crank but those guys know how to make you feel party to a melee maneuver. All I'm looking for is a few indications that my opponent and myself exist in concomitant universes - unique interactions between the weapon and enemies, the occasional customized finale.
This was all one thing with Diablo 2's tiny sprites. With comparatively massive, three dimensional enemies and protagonists, the "seam" of the simulation starts to show with generalized sword flailing and injures immersion, especially when you see NPCs over there just kind of rubbing against one another. I probably shouldn't have said anything, and I wouldn't have, but they gave me a piece of paper and specifically asked for it. That'll teach 'em.
(As a brief aside, have you ever read Snow Crash? You really should. It posits a kind of proto-"Matrix" called the Metaverse, what we'd think of as a fairly advanced sort of Avatar Chat, but the etiquette there is such that you don't physically touch other people because it breaks the immersion of it. Or, at any rate, that's what I remember it saying. It seemed apropos.)
This is my exact problem with Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, too. Understand that we're talking about a game whose prisons, homes, and forests might as well be real places, for all their visual fidelity. It's better than you hoped. The stone wall in the first room was so beautiful I thought I would cry, screenshots of the game are absolutely worthless as a means of conveying it. I liked Morrowind, as you might recall - I had a Tiger-Man in there I was quite fond of - but the combat is philosophically identical in Oblivion, which, you know, whatever. I doubt it's a problem for most people. What I'd hoped was for the conflict in Oblivion to make the same kind of leap that Tamriel itself had - more elaborate means of dodging, special tactics, timed attacks, parries, ripostes, etcetera. Richness. It's hardly going to make me leave it on the shelf, but I can see where the experience goes from here and I'd just like to go with it.
(CW)TB out.
'cause we pimpin' all over the world
The initial plan was to press against the glass, shouting "Do You Know Who I Am," which we eventually ruled out as indecorous.
(CW)TB
Saw your post on Oblivion. Thanks for the kind comments reg the visuals and world. I thought you might be interested to read a response from one of our developers (the guy who did most of the combat programming). While I can certainly appreciate your want for an even more in-depth combat system, I think saying that Oblivion's combat is "philosophically identical" to Morrowind's is more than a bit of a stretch. But check this out and judge for yourself. Thanks for coming by, and if you have any questions about the game, let me know!
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Combat in Morrowind had no variety and no strategy -- you just clicked as fast as you could. You COULD choose different attacks (slash, chop, or thrust) by pressing a directional key while you attacked, but that was pointless because there was always a "best" attack, and a checkbox in the options to always use that best attack.
In Oblivion, there are many attacks. You have standard attacks, where you click the attack button, and power attacks, where you hold the attack button. Power attacks do more damage, but take longer to perform and burn more fatigue. If you press a directional button while doing a power attack, you can select different power attacks. And you earn more attacks (plus perks like a chance to knockdown or disarm) as your skills get better. But the control scheme stays the same, so you don't have to do Soul Calibur like button combos to access them.
There are also more animations for the standard attacks, and you can string them together by pressing attack again while your character is following through after a strike. Plus, the animations are always appropriate for the type of weapon. No more thrust attack with a hammer, for example.
Blocking is now active -- you hold a button to block. And you can block with your weapon or even your hands (although neither is as effective as blocking with a shield). If you block a strike, your opponent's weapon may recoil, giving you an opportunity to attack. There are also animations we call "staggers" for all characters. Do enough damage, and there's a chance your opponent will stagger backwards, leaving them open for more attacks. Staggers and recoils also affect you as the player.
You can also cast spells at any time. In Morrowind you had to "ready magic", which meant unequipping your weapon and raising your hands into the "casting position". In Oblivion you just press the casting button.
It all makes combat much more dynamic and adds a strategic element that simply wasn't there in Morrowind.
While you, the player, still control combat -- i.e. how you move around, whom you are targeting, when you attack, block & cast -- your level of success is still dependent upon your character's stats, as well as those of your opponent. It's a balance between player skills and character stats. It's more twitch than a pure turn-based game, but it's nowhere near as twitch as a first person shooter or fighting game.
The goal is to make combat more exciting, more involving, and have more depth than Morrowind's. I guess they didn't get that from the demo.
No, not really. I would say that your E3 demo focused on the engine's graphical prowess, your unique method for generating realistic forests, and the "Radiant AI" that makes character wishes and needs affect the way they relate to one another. To the eye, the combat was practically identical - except for the occasional touch like the "off-hand spellcasting" you refer to, and manually raised shields. As I said in my previous post, I doubt the things I brought up really matter to most people. I am pleased to hear that the above additions have been made to your system. What I saw in the demo still still looked like an elaborate, medieval version of tag to me, especially when two AI units fight, and relating the fact brought me no pleasure.
Just the same, new combat tactics are only half of my wish: recoils and staggers are a great direction, but I think you are trying to maintain the accessibility of the series where I would trash the whole thing just to believe that I were actually a knight for ten consecutive seconds. I would begin by watching Ridley Scott movies. Then, I would manipulate the camera in slight ways to track attacks and enemy weapons, add ground attacks, let swords cross and ring, and add an opponent selection mechanism to help manage these new views. I would endeavor in all things to emulate the subjective experience of pitched melee. No-one would buy it, or it would never actually come out, and then I would understand why you did it the way you did.
(CW)TB
I suppose that, in a way, I was blessed then when I merely had to endure ordinary, run of the mill horror, as opposed to losing control of the right side of my face. It's all funny ha-has now, but at the time, his discomfort was inexpressible. You'd think that being paralyzed on that side would close the eye, but it doesn't - and the vesuvian pressures building behind the eye cause it to press slightly forward, and this conflux of phenomena shamed him, and he covered his whole face with both hands, rocking gently on the precipice of tears. I tried not to laugh when I saw it, and I wish that I hadn't, but the left side of his face was such an exaggeration of a frown that I imagined it was the intensity of his misery that made it so, as opposed to some transient malady.
It was really just the malevolent cherry atop a sundae of despair. Our friend Mike dislocated his knee, we all got sick, and to be perfectly honest this was the least satisfying E3 I've ever attended. I've only been to six, so it's altogether possible that seven years ago they just shot every tenth person. That might - might - have been worse.
I think with "three systems launching" we thought there would be a lot more beef, but as I've established before only one system actually launched, and the titles that would really sell me the system weren't actually there to play. Sony wasn't really ready to launch either, but they made it seem as though they had, and Nintendo showed us what the Revolution might look like. I appreciate that they didn't make a spectacle out of what they didn't have, like some companies. That's just the console side of things.
For my part, seeing what wonders PC developers have in store, I think I've bought my last video card. I didn't even get top of the line this time, I squeaked in under four hundred dollars, but I've had it up to fucking here subsidizing the next generation of consoles with my early adopter money. Before Doom 3, I was satisfied with a hitch or two here and there when I was really putting a machine to work - but seeing the way it is supposed to look, on hardware with the strength to manipulate those realms effortlessly made it clear. They've priced me, as a financially stable adult, straight out of entertainment software on the personal computer. I crave the esoteric strategy titles and wild experiments found on PCs, but it no longer makes a lick of sense to maintain this rig in the face of four hundred dollar, triple core consoles. The WOPR taught us as much in WarGames: the only way to win that game is not to play it.
(CW)TB out.
but leave the handle sticking out
At around three in the morning, we arrived at the hotel and emerged from our cab. We had conceived of several canonically appropriate explanations for some of the oddities present in Episode III, and we were pleased with ourselves for having done so.
As my associates passed through the automatic doors of our temporary residence, a bumper sticker on a parked car caught my eye.
What Would Scooby-Do?
There's a lot wrong with it. At the same time, the statement filled me with a kind of dread. I'd never really considered the full range of canine response.
I looked up to see what sort of person would put that kind of thing on a vehicle where anyone could see it. The woman smiled at me. I couldn't imagine why. Was this an appendage of some PR agency I my path had crossed earlier in the day? She took a meticulously proportioned bite of her Cobb Salad. I could only see it for a moment, but I felt certain that its entire mouth-watering pantheon had been represented.
What are you doing?, she asked.
Going inside this building, I replied.
Do you need some company tonight, babe?
I said that I was probably alright.
(CW)TB
