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Do you think the game will get a CGI cinematic trailer? What would you like it to look like?
Ironhope
Member
Personally I would love to see an AoC cinematic CGI trailer just like WoW vanilla had when it came out.
Do you guys think we're going to get one?
How would you like it to look like? How would you make it?
Pesonally, I would do my best for it to evoke the gameplay qualities of the game and it's ''old school MMO - RPG'' nature as much as possible.
I would make it as such:
So you have a basic human adventurer out there in the world adventuring (yeah I know, what a shock) when he gets into trouble and just when it seems he is about to get wrecked, a dwarf ranger comes and saves him --> They form a friendship and they're shown adventuring together --> An elf assassin joins their group --> their group grows in number and power and becomes tied to a node --> The human and dwarf confront their elf friend for raiding the city's caravans while masked and they banish him --> Next part shows the human and dwarf defending their node from a siege lead by their former elf friend, together with a bunch of orcs --> The corrupt elf kills the dwarf --> Next part shows the human fighting a ''brotherhood without banners'' style fight to liberate his lands and to avenge his dwarf friend --> Final part is the siege of the castle where the human protagonist breaks into the throne room and charges the elf assassin --> The end.
Simple --> shows the most basic and enjoyable part of an mmo-rpg, needing and fiding friends out there in the world to do stuff with --> shows the node system --> shows a node siege --> shows the corrupt mechanic and ''freer pvp'' nature of the game and the reality of mmo-rpgs, that friends will be made but also lost (in this case the elf was griefing too hard) --> shows how nodes can raise and fall but groups of friends will keep on fighting --> shows the caravan system --> shows the sieges
The only thing I miss is the naval warfare, but I guess that could be compensated for with some longer, cool, gameplay trailer.
Either way... I'm not saying the trailer scenario I just wrote is top level or anything, or that ''yeah, this is what you should do, to the letter''.
It's just an idea.
How would you guys like the trailer to be (assuming we ever get one)?
Do you guys think we're going to get one?
How would you like it to look like? How would you make it?
Pesonally, I would do my best for it to evoke the gameplay qualities of the game and it's ''old school MMO - RPG'' nature as much as possible.
I would make it as such:
So you have a basic human adventurer out there in the world adventuring (yeah I know, what a shock) when he gets into trouble and just when it seems he is about to get wrecked, a dwarf ranger comes and saves him --> They form a friendship and they're shown adventuring together --> An elf assassin joins their group --> their group grows in number and power and becomes tied to a node --> The human and dwarf confront their elf friend for raiding the city's caravans while masked and they banish him --> Next part shows the human and dwarf defending their node from a siege lead by their former elf friend, together with a bunch of orcs --> The corrupt elf kills the dwarf --> Next part shows the human fighting a ''brotherhood without banners'' style fight to liberate his lands and to avenge his dwarf friend --> Final part is the siege of the castle where the human protagonist breaks into the throne room and charges the elf assassin --> The end.
Simple --> shows the most basic and enjoyable part of an mmo-rpg, needing and fiding friends out there in the world to do stuff with --> shows the node system --> shows a node siege --> shows the corrupt mechanic and ''freer pvp'' nature of the game and the reality of mmo-rpgs, that friends will be made but also lost (in this case the elf was griefing too hard) --> shows how nodes can raise and fall but groups of friends will keep on fighting --> shows the caravan system --> shows the sieges
The only thing I miss is the naval warfare, but I guess that could be compensated for with some longer, cool, gameplay trailer.
Either way... I'm not saying the trailer scenario I just wrote is top level or anything, or that ''yeah, this is what you should do, to the letter''.
It's just an idea.
How would you guys like the trailer to be (assuming we ever get one)?
2
Comments
However, if you're doing a cinematic for trailer purposes - you NEED it to be mostly actual gameplay these days, otherwise gamers tend to view cinematic-only trailers with suspicion.
On the other hand, if it's more about the lore - then cinematics are really good
Regardless, I wouldn't mind a CGI trailer narrated by Steven
Many people are emotional and get inspired by a good opening cut scene. It only has to work once for that group of people to be more likely to spend more time figuring out if your game is for them because they have more emotional energy/excitement. The longer a person plays the longer they are likely to become committed to the game if the game was their cup of tea. Just because it wouldn't do that for you doesn't really mean 'it has no effect'.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
Sure, but you can make a good opening sequence cinematic without having to have a separate CGI swanky version done. There are people that get turned off by blizzards constantly using fancy CGI movies and them not looking anything close to actual in-game footage. I have a feeling that ashes will look sharp enough that they could choreograph an intro movie by just using in-game assets. As far as marketing goes being able to slap an "actual in-game footage" banner at the bottom usually helps.
Why couldn't they do both?
A CGI trailer to get people hyped by evoking the ''spirit'' and lore of the game and a gameplay-trailer showing that what the CGI trailer evoked is actually part of the game.
Why not compile both (gameplay one follows right after the CGI one) them like Blizzard has done so many times (in this case correctly)
Then the solution is simple.
Make a CGI trailer in good-faith, that matches the gameplay.
Didn't the example I give fit this (showed gameplay and how it works) decently?
Can I touch up the end there? - I want to see other massive cities rising up on the horizon - so it's like... Here comes the competition!
U.S. East
Very few people played in first-person. Made it too hard to spot the battle mechanics. Much easier in third-person.
Cool idea but, come on guys, we also need to fit ships in the trailer!
Even if someone doesn't give a damn about the trailer, that someone likely gives a big damn about having more people to play with and the game doing well.
Well, I'm pretty sure thats what a trailer does.
The expenses depend greatly. Films usually take more people and time due to overlaying the real world with the digital, and the fact that humanbodies are involved makes any scene with intensity requiring a lot of careful work. So your random anecdote could be true. The 50 people are not all doing work in that year though most likely. Its more like 14-15 people working half the year on it full time and another 14-15 people working on it in post the other half while producer yells at you to make sure you don't have to reshoot. The rest involved are mainly involved in shooting/taking care of the backend logistics of doing a shoot. Depends how big the scene is and how much they plan around doing in post.
An opening trailer for Ashes would be a much simpler affair as no real humans will probably be over layed in the scene unless they want really smooth animations or facial expressions. But I don't think they'd be necessary beyond what they already plan for in game content. It's also a factor of how many assets they can reuse in the various scenes. A lot of Ironhope's requests were pretty trivial relative to that. Things that usually make a cinematic look good are about the smoothness of the animations and details and lighting you couldn't necessarily use for optimization purposes, to give more gravitas and weight. Also music and camera choreography add a ton.
All that nerding out was a long way to point out they already have most of the skillset on hand for making such a scene. It wouldn't cost them thast much more. WoW vs trailer WoW is the dumbest comparison due to how much we have improved in graphics. That's like whining about ff-7 looking like lego people out of cutscene. Like sure... Complain, but the game would be impossible to play if every scene was that graphical quality. In Ashes case the graphics and art style are already pretty good and well set. A cinematic is going to mostly look sharper and move smoother, but there won't be as big a graphical gap because it's no longer about polygon count. It's about lighting and smoothness of motion.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
Because personally I see a good CGI trailer as a top-tier hype creator, alongside the way content-creators see the game (which realistically doesn't require a huge budget and can see good results for free if done smartly).
You can ignore the WoW part that was someone else.
If you are talking 'the day after tomorrow' I now know what scene you are referring to. My understanding was that part of their problem was they essentially had to do a ton of assets due to the director's vision. Yes cgi was more nacent back then so the rendering time for scenes was much longer, but they had to do a lot of polishing and stuff from scratch. Back then they didn't have New York fully modeled in the software in question. So they had to use a bunch of live fly overs. Which made the cgi much harder. Later, full rendering of New York was now widely available so movies like Marvel series could reuse assets for that quite a lot. It is part of why they were able to stay on schedule for bigger fight scenes.
Ashes already has many solutions to the problems that came up in that example. The talent pool is also a bit better versed im the more up to date tools. Rendering is still a fucking drag, much better than before though.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
Oh I missed your other question. It depends on what aspect they are working on but the part most people think of is in fact 'animator', FX artists is also a thing and they are usually on teams with more specialized requirements in the trailers. So you got the titles quite right on both fronts.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw