Realm Reborn = downgrade?

[Nemy]

I have one question to all viewing this thread :

Since most of you appreciate the current character animation, and you would like to have such quality animation without the few problems that it causes, (that are also related to server lag, animation just emphasizes them) and you would hate to see this animation turn into generic korean mmo-style, why would you risk not addressing the issue early on?

What exactly is the downside of making our views known and asking for clarification?

Because the way i see it, what happens in this thread is some people are making their views known and asking for clarification, and some other people complain and whine about the people that make their views known and ask for clarification

(Again, discussing the actual issue, not if we should make a thread about it or not is always a good thing.)

You act like i'm not trying to make us play a better game.

Anyway, that's it for tonight folks, i'm exhausted.

[Nemy]

And thank you for reaffirming my hope in humanity and logic. They tend to oppose each other on these threads.

Thank you for showing up, i could really use the help.

(and the sleep... talk to you tomorrow.)

[Shougun]

There are logical complaints on some threads and then there are the "I couldnt think of anything else to contribute so no-one can" complaints. :P

The only risk involved in this particular question/suggestion is that they would have to fix some code if they botched it again. However doing animation blending wrong is quite hard as the concept is fairly simple "blend the animations together" (not saying blending itself is easy - but saying that there is little room for interpretation).

They should easily be able to add back into the initial lean and breaking out lean.

I really hope they include real time animation modifications to walking on offset ground as well - the floating stair stepping has silently bothered me for a long time.

[yukikaze_yanagi]

I have one question to all viewing this thread :

Since most of you appreciate the current character animation, and you would like to have such quality animation without the few problems that it causes, (that are also related to server lag, animation just emphasizes them) and you would hate to see this animation turn into generic korean mmo-style, why would you risk not addressing the issue early on?

What exactly is the downside of making our views known and asking for clarification?

Because the way i see it, what happens in this thread is some people are making their views known and asking for clarification, and some other people complain and whine about the people that make their views known and ask for clarification

(Again, discussing the actual issue, not if we should make a thread about it or not is always a good thing.)

You act like i'm not trying to make us play a better game.

Anyway, that's it for tonight folks, i'm exhausted.

your view implied the game will have the very same problem we have now with animations: after a skill your pc will be blocked in a place for several time, resulting in danger and/or wipe in fight with envimental danger, like ifrit's eruption. That allow devs to build more interesting encounters instead slower fights

[Xmbei]

And thank you for reaffirming my hope in humanity and logic. They tend to oppose each other on these threads.

Keep on rocking out Nemy, you're putting up a great defense and you have a lot of supporters who feel the same way about our role as a constructive community. SE has basically given us the role of community consultants, why pass that up if they are listening?

Regardless, it isn't that huge a problem (not a gamebreaker). We're all just wondering what's going on and would simply like an simple explanation, verification, update, or anything that can explain what we are seeing in the Alpha footage. This is a very critical moment in ARR's development cycle (probably the most) since its still early. Noticing things like this should be expected of a vigilant community such as ours.

This is not an attack on you, but your comment worries me. So... let me get this straight.... us who want to actually test it first before making assumptions, are for a paraphrased term "fanboys/nonconstructive/don't care about the future of the game/illogical thinkers" because we don't have the EXACT same thought as you?

You and others here are just as bad an example as the rest of us.

I am sure as hell wanting to be constructive and helpful on the build of ARR so that it is a success, and yes I will be all for "fix these missing animations" when I know after testing the game that they are TRULY not there. I don't know maybe I am the only one with this thought process. I haven't stuck through this game for the past 2 years to see it fail again, but I am not basing my opinions off a test demo video that I didn't even get a hands on to test.

Hell example, I went to Comic Con 2008 tested out (pre)Alpha DC Universe Online and applied to be a tester. I was turned off by all aspects of it, told them at the show on the questionnaire what was wrong with it, and if I was in the testing phase probably would of given more feedback. In the end, the game was nothing like it was at CC'08 and I enjoyed it for the month I played it... They had fixed most of my gripes. It is the same here... I actually tested it didn't like what I tested and told them. Now if I said, man I watched this god awful (pre)Alpha video of the same game I would of taken it as "Oh well it isn't finalized yet so that is why it looks so horrible right now" without even knowing the underlying further problems there with controls and glitches.

Take that as you will, but I like to take my opinions on something I tried, not on a video, of a demonstration video of an unfinished product that won't have all the refinement of a released game. That in and of itself is ridiculous. I go into this not thinking of it as FFXIV 1.0 redux with the name ARR (2.0) I go into it as a mindset of a completely new and unrelated game. That has, yes a basis to work off of, but I am not going to let my likes or hates of 1.0 influence my opinion of 2.0 until I actually have it under my fingertips to critique with an informed/educated mind on what is actually there.

[Zaireeka2025]

Animations are not done by the server*, how we got onto "animation lock" and only solution is losing quality is wild.. I'm going to have to run through some pages....

Animations are client side*, their engine having to play one animation after another and having server side lag (only data center is in japan) has made animation lock - redoing their engine code appropriately will fix this (server side lag will help reduce what used to appear as animation lock).

*I say animations are client side (not done by server) because it means that your delays are all based on -their- programming and -your- systems strengths (or weaknesses). Play any FPS worth its pennies and you will see thousands of possible animations on each character transferring and rendering seamlessly - no "cant move while reloading" messages.

There is no reason to be talking about "work around" when they are working from the ground up, thats basically saying "Its ok if you do a bad job on your engine code". No, they are writing their code now - lets make sure they do it right this time. Dont be an excusing fan please, let's instead be courteous pushers for greatness ..

That being said - if they made some wonky code again and have to rewrite it to include 2 more movement animations I'd live with this new system. However, if they have any general sense of programming it shouldn't be set in stone yet (changing it - if not already possible should only be a few pages of code).

Edit: Yoshida has previously talked about animation lock and that they are adding animation blending - this is to improve combat looks and to fix what animation lock intended.
(That is animation blending, blends two distinct animations together getting a new animation - in theory if they made a good enough system they could also make characters feet actually stand on steps.... animation lock was originally in as a way to ensure characters couldn't break animations on different actions and then therefore look stupid - however this made fights like Ifrit hard for a bad reason (its also a cheap fix.. - animation blending is the way to go)).

This is EXACTLY what I was thinking on a more basic level earlier in this thread. Animation lock has to do more with battle and timing with ability animations vs. casting effect. Well explained, Shougun. I may not be a programmer myself, but the basic concept should be evident based on what's been said about FFXIV 1.xx's animation lock issues. A new animation code is being programmed in from the ground up. There's no reason why we can't have fluid movement if (and I know I sound like a broken record) Guild Wars 2 can do it.

/justsayin

[Seirra_Lanzce]

Although i agree with the OP, i would like to address some of the sacrifice that was made in the pre-alpha footage,

The control or more to say the handling of the character, moving forward, strafe walk, back pedal, is an OK for me, but what my concern is more towards the way that they pull the Animation.

Like people have said, may be is physic, maybe they haven't add in. But nevertheless they are PROMOTING with it. Therefore if there is something I see that doesn't fit, I will try to get their attentions for it and hope we get a clarification on it.

and i will say it again. It's totally up to them if they adding it in or purposely not. But yea.. i think my concern is more toward the "FLUID" of it's animation... .

[AlexNiculaie]

The problem is, you are complaining about something that (by the developers own admission) is not ready, that the developers didn't think should be seen yet because of that. What help is whining about something you don't even know is an actual problem? Until alpha comes out, we have no clue what to bitch about and what to praise. You are jumping to conclusions, and quite frankly there is no way in hell that this could possibly be helpful to SE.

Now, when alpha starts (you know, the point in which the developers are actually looking for input) that is when you should start voicing displeasure should such things not be implemented. But the demo in that presentation is not indicative of what will be final. They made that point very clear.

I personally don't have a problem with speculation. That's fine, and had you been "I seriously hope this isn't what will be the final product," I would support that. Instead, you are freaking out over an incomplete demo, and acting like this is what we are getting.

Asking for people to wait until alpha isn't a cop out response, it's common sense.

[Zaireeka2025]

This is not an attack on you, but your comment worries me. So... let me get this straight.... us who want to actually test it first before making assumptions, are for a paraphrased term "fanboys/nonconstructive/don't care about the future of the game/illogical thinkers" because we don't have the EXACT same thought as you?

You and others here are just as bad an example as the rest of us.

I am sure as hell wanting to be constructive and helpful on the build of ARR so that it is a success, and yes I will be all for "fix these missing animations" when I know after testing the game that they are TRULY not there. I don't know maybe I am the only one with this thought process. I haven't stuck through this game for the past 2 years to see it fail again, but I am not basic my opinions off a test demo video that I didn't even get a hands on to test.

Hell example, I went to Comic Con 2008 tested out (pre)Alpha DC Universe Online and applied to be a tester. I was turned off by all aspects of it, told them at the show on the questionnaire what was wrong with it, and if I was in the testing phase probably would of given more feedback. In the end, the game was nothing like it was at CC'08 and I enjoyed it for the month I played it... They had fixed most of my gripes. It is the same here... I actually tested it didn't like what I tested and told them. Now if I said, man I watched this god awful (pre)Alpha video of the same game I would of taken it as "Oh well it isn't finalized yet so that is why it looks so horrible right now" without even knowing the underlying further problems there with controls and glitches.

Take that as you will, but I like to take my opinions on something I tried not on a video, of a demonstration video of an unfinished product that won't have all the refinement of a released game. That in and of itself is ridiculous. I go into this not thinking of it as FFXIV 1.0 redux with the name ARR (2.0) I go into it as a mindset of a completely new and unrelated game. That has, yes a basis to work off of, but I am not going to let my likes or hates of 1.0 influence my opinion of 2.0 until I actually have it under my fingertips to critique with an informed/educated mind on what is actually there.

Let's take a step back for a second. There is no assumption being made when I can see what's missing. I'm not judging the game's funfactor or quality of gameplay based on the ARR footage. The alpha footage looks phenomenal and even with stiff animations I will enjoy the shit outta this game.

Understand that all I'm saying is there's a lack visual quality I got used to from FFXIV 1.xx and I wanna know why it's missing. I don't have to hold a controller/keyboard/mouse in my hands to make a judgement on something visually apparent. Things like how responsive the controls feel represent things that you have to physically play to make a judgement on. Our criticism isn't on whether the game will be a good game with these animations (because it will), but it is with how the character's animations are less appealing.

I don't need a controller to judge a Pixar movie's level of animation quality if I can see it with my eyeballs.

[Seirra_Lanzce]

The problem is, you are complaining

We come to an age where complaining and concern are the same thing