Excessive cut scenes
By
Blue_Centurion,
Posted on: 2011-05-11 21:01 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
I thought of what'd happen if they add a skip button months ago; veterans would hit skip, then the "noob" with the long loading time who wanted to watch the cutscene would load in to being yelled at for not participating in the WarWorks phase with the League 
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That right there is probably why they don't allow skipping it, pressure would be put onto participants to skip over it even if they didn't want to just to keep up with the group.
I just recently started reading the missiontext and clues of storyarcs/TFs I wasn't leader of, I'm a pretty fast reader, but with some of them (especially new content where the devs turn some missiontext into a short book) I start hearing blips in chat "you coming PG?". I've always thought of CoH cutscenes as an immovable anchor, making sure the players are given the story related to the content they are doing even if they don't read the text involved.
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Or they could do something sane and logical and code in a precaution that Guild Wars has: the cutscene only skips if *everyone* hits the skip button. Sure, some will whine and moan if they have to watch it every once in a while because of a new player or someone wandering off during the trial countdown, but odds are they'll be able to skip it more often than not.
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Originally Posted by Psychic Guardian
I thought of what'd happen if they add a skip button months ago; veterans would hit skip, then the "noob" with the long loading time who wanted to watch the cutscene would load in to being yelled at for not participating in the WarWorks phase with the League
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this pls
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Originally Posted by JD_Gumby
Or they could do something sane and logical and code in a precaution that Guild Wars has: the cutscene only skips if *everyone* hits the skip button. Sure, some will whine and moan if they have to watch it every once in a while because of a new player or someone wandering off during the trial countdown, but odds are they'll be able to skip it more often than not.
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perma jump is ---> /up 1
Everytime this complaint comes up, its also pointed out that the cutscene is time for the server to load the instance and other tech tasks.
I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.
Thank you Devs & Community people for a great game.
So sad to be ending ):
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Sorry, I don't buy this. The server loads the instance, the first people in the group run to the door and open it, THEN the cut scene plays. Cut scene time is in addition to loading time, and only runs after the instance is fully loaded. I suppose that really slow loaders would be the exception here, but they don't actually get to see the whole cut scene.|
Originally Posted by tanstaafl
Everytime this complaint comes up, its also pointed out that the cutscene is time for the server to load the instance and other tech tasks.
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I think that the button that everyone has to press to skip is the reasonable compromise for this. I'm ok with letting the noobs watch them, but please give us veterans something to do besides joking about the camera angles and bad acting.
I'm going to be honest, I find the cut scene for the BAF annoying. Usually I get a drink or take the opportunity to use the litter box.
But there is something I find even more annoying.
Usually, my connection is good and I load into the trials about the same time as everyone else. But there are times when I get there a bit late to find half the league already started. Even when I do load in quickly, I find it rude when everyone does not wait for the entire league to load into the map and they take off before half the players are there.
Just a pet peeve I guess, and every time I think, "Would it really hurt you to wait 30 seconds more?"
Removing them for only some that don't want to see them any more would be a mistake if only because of this. It needs to be an all or nothing. Either everyone chooses to skips it or everyone is forced to wait.
But on the other hand, the cut scene on the BAF pretty much ensures that everyone is on the map before anyone can start.
Personally, a few more cut scenes at the beginning, to ensure everyone is there before anyone can start, well, I'm sure I won't get any agreement on this, but I feel it would be a good thing.
I like cut scenes.
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The same one over and over and over again?...really? i doubt it.|
Originally Posted by Xzero45
I like cut scenes.
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TBH i can't remember there every being a cry out for cutscenes before they put them in. Just a game cliché that coulda been done without. we'll have underwater levels next >.< (no please don't) it aint even voiced over -.-
If i want to know the storyline i'll lead the tf/trial or run a team and do the arcs and read it. We don't need to be forced into watching the same thing over and over!
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You're living in a fantasy world (as opposed to a fantasy game) if you think having a Skip option would work out this way. People who want to see the cut scene would still feel pressured to select skip if practically everyone else on the team does. Or there would ALWAYS be someone who doesn't choose Skip just out of spite.
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Originally Posted by JD_Gumby
Or they could do something sane and logical and code in a precaution that Guild Wars has: the cutscene only skips if *everyone* hits the skip button. Sure, some will whine and moan if they have to watch it every once in a while because of a new player or someone wandering off during the trial countdown, but odds are they'll be able to skip it more often than not.
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or everyone could just go over the wall and wait for the event timer to count-down... you know... the timer that buries all of scripts that have to be loaded and initialized that are otherwise buried in the cut-scene. |
Originally Posted by Mythological
Sorry, I don't buy this. The server loads the instance, the first people in the group run to the door and open it, THEN the cut scene plays. Cut scene time is in addition to loading time, and only runs after the instance is fully loaded. I suppose that really slow loaders would be the exception here, but they don't actually get to see the whole cut scene.
I think that the button that everyone has to press to skip is the reasonable compromise for this. I'm ok with letting the noobs watch them, but please give us veterans something to do besides joking about the camera angles and bad acting. |
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Anyways, the thread is actually rather irrelevant. The developers have made it clear that the cut-scene system uses real-time placed models and locations, something that is a little more than obvious in the Mortimer Kal Strike Force cut-scene with Positron.
The method of cut-scene implementation is piggy-backed on-top of an engine that was never designed to do cut-scenes to begin with. The implementation the devs use is an effective "cheat"
Comparing this game, City of Heroes, to Guild Wars in the cut-scene isn't just asinine, it's outright idiotic. Fact is the Arena-Net developers planned on cut-scenes in their game early on in the initial development cycle. City of Heroes was not developed with cut-scenes in mind. The engines for both games are radically different, with Guild Wars utilizing a completely different method of rendering (they use the DirectX API for example). The capabilities of each engine are as radically different as their architecture.
Something else to consider is that Guild Wars also launched on 4-26-2005, literally a calendar year after the 4-27-2004 launch of City of Heroes. Arena-Net developers had basically another year of tech-advancements to work with their system, even though their minimum requirements were close to those for this game, City of Heroes.
Now, should the City of Heroes engine be reworked so that it can support full-service cut-scenes?
Probably.
Is it worth the development team's time to do so?
No.
Reality butting in here again, cut-scenes are attached to a vast minority of playable content. Outside of task-forces and trials there are only a couple of cut-scenes in villain missions, such as the Ace-McKnight Arc, and maybe 1 or two that I can think of available in hero-side missions.
Reality is, there are better things the developers could be doing with the engine, such as replacing the aging Novadex physics engine with one backed by OpenCL, which would more than likely take less time to implement than adding full-service cut-scene capabilities.
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Originally Posted by Psychic Guardian
I thought of what'd happen if they add a skip button months ago; veterans would hit skip, then the "noob" with the long loading time who wanted to watch the cutscene would load in to being yelled at for not participating in the WarWorks phase with the League
.That right there is probably why they don't allow skipping it, pressure would be put onto participants to skip over it even if they didn't want to just to keep up with the group. I just recently started reading the missiontext and clues of storyarcs/TFs I wasn't leader of, I'm a pretty fast reader, but with some of them (especially new content where the devs turn some missiontext into a short book) I start hearing blips in chat "you coming PG?". I've always thought of CoH cutscenes as an immovable anchor, making sure the players are given the story related to the content they are doing even if they don't read the text involved. |
Okay then here's another idea ..shorten the silly thing. And they HAVE done that before.. The cut scene with Romulus used to longer and no idea if people complained or just some tech issue forced it.. they made it shorter and all that HUGE text that showed up in your chat box was gone.. I AM NICTUS! I'm just not as loud anymore
It was bad enough when we were working our Alpha slots and endured a week of Doc Aeon when the STF was the WST. People were complaining then but that was one week and we moved on. We are over a month into I-20 and I personally have watched MM chat with Siege and Nightstar hundreds of times now. I consider myself lucky when I have a slow load and arrive when he thing is half over.
Yes I know eventually we are getting more trial. Yes I know that one or maybe two are being prepped for beta testing if they aren't in testing already. But considering past history of how the player base reacts when new content arrives didn't in ever cross a single Dev's mind .. "Gee this thing is sort of long and the players will be seeing it over and over and over. Maybe we need to rethink this!" Obviously NO
I think the placement has a lot to do with it as well. I have seen people complaining about the Maurader cut scene in Lambda too but that usually involves a discussion of the emotes Maurader uses etc not the length. At least with that one its fairly short and comes toward the end of the trial and as a way of signalling the end of a phase. Mother M's cut scene starts as soon as the first player starts to zone through the front door. You haven't even gotten inside yet, haven't SEEN a single enemy, and everything grinds to a halt while the terrible trio yak at one another fro a good minute or more. Maybe they could have cut the length of the thing and placed it to run after we breech the facility and take out those first warwalkers? Change the tone a bit to one of gloating..
"Ah they have taken the bait and fallen for our scheme. Now that they are attacking the facility we can release our sleeper agents and infiltrate the Resistance!"
At least we'd actually get to attack something before hand and if they made it shorter on top of that I think a lot of players would be happier!
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Well that would be great je_saist but it brings up another slight problem we have all seen with these trials. I have been on teams where REPEATED it was briefed | or everyone could just go over the wall and wait for the event timer to count-down... you know... the timer that buries all of scripts that have to be loaded and initialized that are otherwise buried in the cut-scene. |
"If we all go over the wall instead of through the door we can avoid the CS!"
Team enters queue, team arrives outside facility and sure enough one, two or MORE players head straight for the door and we all get another opportunity to take a Bio break while Mother Mayhem blabs.
Let's see...
On the BAF we have to SCREAM at players to let Siege get closer so once he dies and rezzes he will be near Nightstar. Otherwise they start attacking him half way between the Admin building and the helipad. I know he's slow but can you be a LITTLE patient?
On the LAMBDA players can't figure out something a simple as I am on team 2 I am suppose to look for grenades.. So why am I shooting at the containment chamber?
On the BAF they can't fathom the notion of stay at your chock point don't chase them. "Hey why ARE all these prisoners escaping?"
To be honest while I don't doubt scaling the walls of the BAS would work.. I personally have never seen it happen because there has always been one idiot that used the door. LOL
�We�re always the good guys. In D&D, we�re lawful good. In City of Heroes we�re the heroes. In Grand Theft Auto we pay the prostitutes promptly and never hit them with a bat.� � Leonard
�Those women are prostitutes? You said they were raising money for stem cell research!� � Sheldon
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*shrug* I've played Guild Wars for several years now. There's rarely such pressure (really, only in the daily Zaishan Mission) and you only rarely have to sit through the entire thing (whether it be from people seeing it for the first time, someone who's AFK'd or, rarest situation, a jerk). Little reason to think that it'd be different here, unless we've a higher percentage of jerks running around CoH than over in GW.|
Originally Posted by Indiramourning
You're living in a fantasy world (as opposed to a fantasy game) if you think having a Skip option would work out this way. People who want to see the cut scene would still feel pressured to select skip if practically everyone else on the team does. Or there would ALWAYS be someone who doesn't choose Skip just out of spite.
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Originally Posted by Wicked_Wendy
On the LAMBDA players can't figure out something a simple as I am on team 2 I am suppose to look for grenades.. So why am I shooting at the containment chamber?
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I have seen that cutscene 10-30 times a day for 2 months or so. I just got one question, "Are those real?"
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I think this is pretty much the problem, no patience. It only takes a few seconds to be patience.|
Originally Posted by Wicked_Wendy
... I know he's slow but can you be a LITTLE patient?
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The lack of patience and total refusal on the part of many (not some, but many) to be patient and to follow any type of direction is the main reason I don't lead these things and really only do them because I have to in order to get what I want. Knowing my lack of patience for impatient people I'd probably just start kicking them
Is it so hard to wait for the tank or brute to pull Siege a few more feet? Is is so hard to wait for the escapees to get to the choke point before you attack instead of running out to meet them?
Is it so hard to take a moment to explain to someone that has never done a Lambda what to do after you beet the "Security Team"? Where the doors are? Why they are running in a smash and grab though the warehouse like maniac ITF speed run instead of taking out the mobs? (by the way, I hate Speed ITFs or any SPEED runs, I'd rather get poked in the eye with a stick.)
I realize, many of us have all seen the cut scenes a hundred times or more and they're getting to the point of making us puke, but, is it really that hard to just be a little patient? Is your life that pressed for time that a couple minutes is making you this upset?
Relax a little, take the moment to refill your glass, you'll live longer.
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Considering I don't grind anything to the point of it not being fun, and that I do, in fact, enjoy watching cut scenes, yes. I do like them.
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Originally Posted by _gohan661_
The same one over and over and over again?...really? i doubt it.
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Patience*
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Originally Posted by Hube02
I think this is pretty much the problem, no patients. It only takes a few seconds to be patient.
The lack of patients and total refusal on the part of many (not some, but many) to be patient and to follow any type of direction is the main reason I don't lead these things and really only do them because I have to in order to get what I want. Knowing my lack of patients for impatient people I'd probably just start kicking them Is it so hard to wait for the tank or brute to pull Siege a few more feet? Is is so hard to wait for the escapees to get to the choke point before you attack instead of running out to meet them? Is it so hard to take a moment to explain to someone that has never done a Lambda what to do after you beet the "Security Team"? Where the doors are? Why they are running in a smash and grab though the warehouse like maniac ITF speed run instead of taking out the mobs? (by the way, I hate Speed ITFs or any SPEED runs, I'd rather get poked in the eye with a stick.) I realize, many of us have all seen the cut scenes a hundred times or more and they're getting to the point of making us puke, but, is it really that hard to just be a little patient? Is your life that pressed for time that a couple minutes is making you this upset? Relax a little, take the moment to refill your glass, you'll live longer. |
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So, I can't speell :P
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Originally Posted by Xzero45
Patience*
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Hyperbole post is hyperbol...ic(?).|
Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
I have seen that cutscene 10-30 times a day for 2 months or so.
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Issue 20 has only been out since early April, or just over one month ago. And I doubt you're running 30 BAFs (at about 25 min apiece)... that would be 12½ hours a day of repeat BAFing, not counting any recruiting time. Even 10 a day would be four hours.
If you are BAFing for 12 hours straight every day, then... um... uh... go outside!
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!
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If only you had included my entire post you would know how, er, fully?, serious I am....
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Originally Posted by Chad Gulzow-Man
Hyperbole post is hyperbol...ic(?).
Issue 20 has only been out since early April, or just over one month ago. And I doubt you're running 30 BAFs (at about 25 min apiece)... that would be 12½ hours a day of repeat BAFing, not counting any recruiting time. Even 10 a day would be four hours. If you are BAFing for 12 hours straight every day, then... um... uh... go outside! |
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That's why I made mention of the hyperbole. |
Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
If only you had included my entire post you would know how, er, fully?, serious I am....
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!
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the cut scenes are annoying the 1st time and grow exponentially more so everytime you see it and developing tech to make them skipable would not be a waste of time that's all I'm gonna say
Should put cutscenes in a contact window that you can click to watch in full screen, minimize or completely close. It would also add some interesting interaction with the contacts rather than the white caption text that they recently added to newer story arcs.
Think like the contact window in SWG when Jabba the Hutt or someone contacts you during a mission. For any that have played it, you know what I'm referring to.
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One of the most annoying things about CoH has always been that you can't skip a cut scene even after you've watched it about fifty times. This has recently become a serious nuisance with the BAF trial. I'm sure your developers consider the conversation incredibly important, maybe even a cult classic, but for every player I know the long load time plus ludicrously long cut scene immediately after is nothing more than an excuse to go get a drink.
I realize that there will occasionally be someone who hasn't seen it enough times to memorize the dialog, but it would be nice if a group of experienced players had a way of skipping over it. At dead minimum, you really aught to limit their length to something considerably shorter.