The problem with cutscenes

[Dhalmel]

Clearly the OP does. I'm just glad she's part of the minority here. It just baffles me why anyone would want to remove one of the game's strong points. Clearly the OP finds better enjoyment in most of the recent mmorpg's where you get a window with the text in it. Which nobody then ends up reading and just clicks "accept".

Nothing really against the OP. As it is his/her personal opinion. Still, I can't understand why you would hate those two cutscenes, just because they're long. I'm happy to see cutscenes, at least it breaks the regular repetitive tasks of this mmorpg.

To the defense of those quests with just a "window of text". While some of them are plain boring, there's quite a few with some good humor.

For exmaple:

Guildleve -Pleasure & Pain:
The piercing of various "sensitive" locations on the body has become popular amongst the consortiers and courtesans employed at Ul'dah's many pillowhouses. As a result, Eshtaime's Aesthetics stock of earrings has dried up, forcing the guild to seek eager goldsmiths willing to create them more. All interested are to visit Baron Roarich of Ashgana's Exports to receive the necessary materials.


Kinda feel sorry for the translators and localizers who at least try to make some good dialog to read just for them to be skipped.

[Dhalmel]

Here is a [poor] demonstration of one the issues with the in game cutscenes. These two cut scenes relate to each other but serve questionable purpose. The second one is ten minutes long also. And if you are into cutscenes and haven't seen all the Hildibrande ones then you may wanna skip these.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79AQgsg0n7I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKXseDACsU4

The first one, the nightmare, is about a minute. The second is over ten minutes though.

You're kidding me right. Those have nothing to due with battle or anything that disturbs "gameplay flow".

The nightmare cutscene was perfect, it made your character not so 2D and lifeless.

Just play a different MMO if you have no care for story or cutscenes, because you're probably going to hate what Rebirth brings. more cutescenes, more story, more side plots, and more character development.

[Ehl]

The biggest problem with cutscenes though is they disrupt the "flow" of the game. Regardless how cool they may look they act as an interruption with the gameplay.

I agree. Yesterday I ran DH with a group for the first time to get WHM AF and knock out a GC quest and just before the fight with the ogre there is a CS. Of course the group leader told us to skip all the CS and I did, but by the time I had skipped the cut scene and the dungeon reloaded the group had pretty much wiped. I am not sure if everyone got the CS or if it only plays for players that have never been, but the placement of this cinema is terrible.

I can understand your frustration.

[Awdogsgo2heaven]

The real solution is to not start the timers until everyone exits cutscene. Most of the time people are just worried about time.

[Alhanelem]

I'd actually be a lot happier with cutcenes in boss fights and such if THE CLOCK WASN'T TICKING WHILE YOU WATCH THEM.

[Rau]

I'd actually be a lot happier with cutcenes in boss fights and such if THE CLOCK WASN'T TICKING WHILE YOU WATCH THEM.

This is more or less OP's main problem. I'm not sure why they resorted to blaming ALL cutscenes, as framing it like this would have garnered support.

[Orophin]

The skip option is like for other games; you've seen it once, you don't necessarily want to see it again or it's holding up the other people in your group if you watch it every single time. I personally watch every cutscene and read the dialog closely the first time, regardless if I'm playing solo or if it's a primal fight. Afterwards I tend to skip them. I'll go to my inn room if I really want to watch something again.

[faris]

Cutscenes are awesome, and whoever is the CS director for this game deserves a medal for how good a job s/he's done on them. It's a MMO, but the cutscenes feel like those of FF. Whether it's hilarious ones like Hildibrand's storyline, suspense ones like Calamity Cometh or really sad ones like the BLM AF quest, they've come on leaps and bounds and they're awesome. For speedruns / Darnus we can skip and watch them later, so what's the problem? OP, press ESC twice. then the arrow key up, then enter when ~your gameplay experience is ruined~. Far less effort than making a thread just to whine.

EDIT: and they won't start timers when everyone's finished the CS, sadly. :<
If they did that, they could have people buffing / invigorating before the fight begins, while not subject to timers. If, like FFXI, they had people come into the fight when they've finished CS, unable to be buffed / whatevs until it's done, you could have an important tank or whm or whatevs not telling folk they're in CS and shanking your attempt if your communication's bad. Or the inverse; only one or two party members engaging and everyone else coming in to find they're dead and the boss is attacking them before they've had time to buff. Furthermore, it's a Shadowlord situation. Personally, my LS told me when I was first doing Shadowlord to watch the CS, it was fine. They killed him so quickly as soon as I'd finished his entrance CS, I saw his first death CS and then his second form's death CS. That kind of killed the Rank 5 mission for me.

[Jennestia]

Yes, I know that everyone thinks they oogle the in game cutscenes in awe. But in reality before prime/boss fights people always encourage you to skip these cinematically. If you don't they do and many times when a player emerges from a cinematic the fight is already well in play. If a cutscene is skippable then it probably doesn't belong. People aren't interested in the cutscenes so much. They just want to win.

The biggest problem with cutscenes though is they disrupt the "flow" of the game. It. Regardless how cool they may look they act as an interruption with the gameplay. It doesn't help that cinematic often feel disjointed since they aren't often viewed in linear sequence. Ultimately many of the cutscenes feel like an interruption to the gameplay rather than an addition.

I should also add many of the cutscenes are long-winded. Other cutscenes are poorly placed (like the one that plays every time you use the lift) or the cutscenes at the start of some of the instanced dungeons.

I want to point out while I do enjoy the cutscenes, they are often too intrusive and often have little connection with the overall plot. Often they feel included for the sake of simply including a cinematic. This is a multiplayer game, and viewing a cutscene means you are forcing others to wait on you. In my opinion, cutscenes should be far and few in-between. The shouldn't exceed three to five minutes at most.

People are just impatient and while true most MMORPG gamers don't care for stories and just care for loot, this is exactly what made FFXI and FFXIV actually different from the crowd -- It had an actual storyline with actual cutscenes. Most MMOs out there have no cutscenes and the ones that do are so poorly directed a film school student would win an oscar in comparison.

They pushed past XI's cutscenes by adding your entire party into it -- that I have yet to see in another MMO. This is a FF game which are known for it's FMVs, there should be more -- even FFXI had small cutscenes for minor quest chains.

[Laraul]

Just for clarification I went back and rewrote my earlier response that included some examples.