Blazing the Way - Mage Alpha One Preview

✨ Are you ready to rain raw destruction on your foes? 🔥

Meet the Mage and find out more about their might from level 1-10 in our Alpha One Preview: https://ashesofcreation.com/news/2020-12-23-blazing-the-way-mage-alpha-one-preview

https://youtu.be/lQo1WK0HkcI

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Merek

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

Honshu wrote: »

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

The forums should have an auto-reply feature that reminds players the game is still in pre-Alpha 1.

All the more reason to voice criticism early, before things start getting cemented.

Khronus wrote: »

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

The forums should have an auto-reply feature that reminds players the game is still in pre-Alpha 1.

Nah, that wouldn't be productive. The original posters comments are true and Intrepid will reflect on the feedback (especially since this viewpoint is overwhelmingly consistent). Just because we are in Alpha 1, doesn't mean our feedback should be silenced.

I'm not saying we shouldn't voice our opinions.

I am saying that it's too early to have a meaningful discussion of animations that are a long way (maybe years) from being polished ... especially when Steven has pre-empted game footage clips by noting animations are placeholders not in their final form.

I'd rather annoy the shit out of the developers by constantly reminding them these animations suck, so they don't get complacent. If nobody said anything, who knows what could happen? Maybe they'd think, "Well, guess we don't need to polish these up too much, nobody said anything!?", screw that.

Noaani

Merek wrote: »

I'd rather annoy the shit out of the developers by constantly reminding them these animations suck, so they don't get complacent.

It isn't anoying them, only other posters here.

Telling Intrepid that you think that the thing that they have no intention of keeping is not what you would consider to be good enough is fine.

However, others coming along and telling people that Intrepid have no intention of keeping the animations the way they are is also fine.

Another thing that is fine is posters pointing out how often these threads come up.

Volgaire

The only people who really get annoying is those who act as if they know what everything should be and the devs are wrong, other than that it is all feeback and even if one point gets brought up many times it should not be viewed as something bad, rather it really shows how much the community wants/does not want something.

Bot

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

The forums should have an auto-reply feature that reminds players the game is still in pre-Alpha 1.

And biting your tongue is exactly how you don't operate in a pre-alpha, alpha, beta, or any state of the game. Address it early. This isn't a matter of incomplete animations that aren't fully developed yet, these are issues in creative design.

Noaani

bot wrote: »

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

The forums should have an auto-reply feature that reminds players the game is still in pre-Alpha 1.

And biting your tongue is exactly how you don't operate in a pre-alpha, alpha, beta, or any state of the game. Address it early. This isn't a matter of incomplete animations that aren't fully developed yet, these are issues in creative design.

No, these "issues"are in the work not being done yet.

People seem to not realize that in development of a large project like this, everything gets finished off around the same time.

We have at least 2 years to go of class development, which means we have at least 2 years to go of animation, particle effect development and such.

If it were done now,or if it were so close that it would be done early, that is poor project management.

WhitneyHagasMatsumoto

I think @Noaani-san is right.
But I think the reason why so many people are worried is because they are skeptical that the animators at Intrepid Studios have a different basic policy for animation than what we imagine.

Because of this lack of clarity, we can't reassure ourselves that each animation is okay because it's still in alpha.

It's nonsense to make too many detailed orders at this stage, but I'd like to hear what Intrepid Studios' basic policy is for animation.
Otherwise, we'll end up with the same old controversy every time ......😣

I'm sorry if this has already been said in an official video or something.
I can't listen to English, so it's hard for me to get information from the videos.😅

Noaani

WhitneyHagasMatsumoto wrote: »

But I think the reason why so many people are worried is because they are skeptical that the animators at Intrepid Studios have a different basic policy for animation than what we imagine.

I think the reason so many people are worried is because we are looking at animations for this game at a point that is at least 18 months earlier in development than would be the case for seeing actual in game footage for almost all other games.

People that are worried are really just people that don't understand the process of project development, at least at this stage.

WhitneyHagasMatsumoto

@Noaani -san.
Hmmm, rather than saying that they don't understand the development process, I personally think it's more accurate to say that they don't know the quality of animation 18 months before release in normal game development.

The only thing I can compare it to is the completed animations in other games, so I'm not sure if the current state is good enough.

At least in Japanese game development, users are never involved from such an early stage, so for me, I am at a loss due to lack of experience.😅

I hope that when the game is released, I will be able to laugh at myself for being worried about the animations. lol

P.S
If you think about it, you end up saying the same thing as Noaani-san ......
Well, I hope you'll forgive me for pursuing a more detailed expression, lol.
We seem to be similar after all.😉

Noaani

WhitneyHagasMatsumoto wrote: »

The only thing I can compare it to is the completed animations in other games, so I'm not sure if the current state is good enough.

That's the thing, you are not sure because you (and most other people posting here) have absolutely nothing at all to compare animations 2 years + before release.

The issue then is - if you have nothing to compare those animations to, why is the assumption being made that they are not good enough?

I mean, people have nothing to compare them to, so when deciding if they are good enough or not these people are either not taking in to account the actual and absolute fact that they have no body of work to accurately compare these animations to, or they are taking that absolute fact in to consideration and actively deciding that they are going to make the assumption that the animations are not good enough.

If you are going to make an assumption with the developers of an MMO that you are interested in - if you are in a situation where you need to make an assumption - make the assumption that the developers know better than you do.

If you then look at the situation from that perspective, what you have is the understanding that you do not know what the animations should look like at this point in development, but the assumption and trust that the development team know what they are doing.

WhitneyHagasMatsumoto

@Noaani -san
Haha, that's a good one.

You're right.

You're right, my point is that I don't trust the skills and knowledge of the developers!😅

At first I thought you were sarcastic, but you're still very rational and likeable!

If you were a little less sarcastic, you'd be perfect LOL

No, it's a joke!
I don't know what you think of me, but at least I have a good feeling about you.
I'm sorry to be so abrupt, but it's my policy to be upfront about positive things.😉

Tacualeon

For what I've read from people more prepared than me, there are certain ways to sell the animation, a lot of time using body mechanics in the 3d models to sell the power of hits.

I've seen some animations that are completely off when it comes to body mechanics and the stylistic choices doesn't pay off. That's my only concern.

Noaani

Tacualeon wrote: »

For what I've read from people more prepared than me, there are certain ways to sell the animation, a lot of time using body mechanics in the 3d models to sell the power of hits.

I've seen some animations that are completely off when it comes to body mechanics and the stylistic choices doesn't pay off. That's my only concern.

I'm going to try and say the same thing I have been saying for a while now, but from a different perspective.

Go off and google initial sketches of famous artworks. Most pieces of art (paintings, sculptures, buildings, everything) have some form of initial rough sketch. Often these sketches are little more than a general layout of the painting, with little to no resemblance to the final work. These sketches do serve a purpose though - they are placeholders while the final piece is being composed - they give the artist something to work with, something to look at to see what they want to change, to see what works and what doesn't.

Right now, people are looking at a sketch of animations and complaining that they are not up to the standard of a finished piece of art.

Of course they aren't.

Tacualeon

Noaani wrote: »

I'm going to try and say the same thing I have been saying for a while now, but from a different perspective.

Go off and google initial sketches of famous artworks. Most pieces of art (paintings, sculptures, buildings, everything) have some form of initial rough sketch. Often these sketches are little more than a general layout of the painting, with little to no resemblance to the final work. These sketches do serve a purpose though - they are placeholders while the final piece is being composed - they give the artist something to work with, something to look at to see what they want to change, to see what works and what doesn't.

Right now, people are looking at a sketch of animations and complaining that they are not up to the standard of a finished piece of art.

Of course they aren't.

I understand the point you are trying to make but comparing 2d artwork, sculpture and buildings to animated 3d animation is a bad example.

2d art don't move, over time, in a 3d space, over different 3 axis
sculptures don't have placeholders
Construction of building doesn't work anything like you described

Are you serious?
Every reasoning and word you wrote is this particular post is horribly wrong, I don't even know how to respond.

My landlord just called me, we need to evacuate because the building seems like it's falling apart and we might be in mortal danger. I guess the structure and the fundaments in which is was built upon just didn't work 🤷‍♂️

But what do I know, I'm just a regular dude with logic and reasoning. Art is art.

maouw

Open discussion about pre-alpha animations is really difficult, because I have no idea what extent of polish is possible, and what parts of the skill are core - the parts that polish won't fix.

I think Steven has been very explicit that particle effects and their sizes are 100% placeholder and so I am ignoring them for the most part. (except that cleric skill where the particles were shooting out, when they should have been sucking in)

I'm also struggling to gauge the feel of the combat from stationary demonstration of the ability - and without knowledge of the wider context of the spell's use. I can't tell if the mage spells are too fast for other people to respond to, or if they're so slow that anyone can just run at you and ignore spells you cast.
This is something that needs hands-on experience to know.

I feel similar to WhitneyHagasMatsumoto in that I don't have much experience in seeing prototype 3rd person combat abilities partially animated in 3D - except for keyframe demonstrations of skills (which were ~3 frames per second), or basic sketches of Tarzan 2 when it was in production.

Finally, I'm not familiar enough with Intrepid's Concept Design process - which seems to be quite different to what I've seen in League of Legend's approach (from the few videos I've seen) - particularly because we are involved so early in the design process and Intrepid does a semi-polish on the things they show to us (it's not completely raw). For example: on LoL's PBE, when they occasionally haven't settled on a skill animation, they just use a single pose for the duration of the skill as a placeholder until they have an animation they're happy with. It's much more behind closed doors compared to Intrepid's approach.

Songcaller

Noaani wrote: »

I mean, people have nothing to compare them to, so when deciding if they are good enough or not these people are either not taking in to account the actual and absolute fact that they have no body of work to accurately compare these animations to, or they are taking that absolute fact in to consideration and actively deciding that they are going to make the assumption that the animations are not good enough.

There is nothing to compare them to because they suck. It is plain to see they suck. It is fine they suck at this point but if IS thinks they can simply polish these animations they are wrong. The animations suck and the animations need to be changed before they are polished.

Noaani

Tacualeon wrote: »

2d art don't move, over time, in a 3d space, over different 3 axis
sculptures don't have placeholders
Construction of building doesn't work anything like you described

Every analogy is flawed if you look deep enough in to it - the point of an analogy is to provide people with something similar so they better understand what is being said, not to give them an exact model.

And yes, some buildings are designed off of rough sketches first. Not the engineering aspects of the buildings design, but the aesthetics of it - which are often what is first conceived when designing (specifically) public buildings. Almost every purpose built art gallery in the world started it's life as a rough sketch.

As to how the sketch notion works with animations - as with many paintings and sculptures, they are placeholders. They are there right now to ensure the over all thing (the entirety of the character, model, skins, animations, particle effects, movement etc) work together.

Perhaps another analogy for you would be stand-ins for actors on movie sets. They are there to ensure the composition of the shot is correct - the lighting, the frame, the movement of the camera - yet there is no intention for the stand in to ever be on film.

rikardp98

@Noaani it doesn't matter if the game have 10 years left in development. They decided to make a video (which is great and they should do more) showing off the animation of a lvl 1-10 mage. We then have the opportunity to both criticise and/or praise them.

We are not here to say that everything they are doing is perfect. We are here because we want this game to be perfect, and if someone thinks something is off, like animations, then that should be brought up and discussed. It's then up to the developers to either take that criticism and make changes or ignore it and follow what they think its best.

So please stop with the "the game is not done yet", we know that, and that is why we give this criticism now when the developers still have time to change things.

ashleyyn

Gentle Snow wrote: »

The only people who really get annoying is those who act as if they know what everything should be and the devs are wrong, other than that it is all feeback and even if one point gets brought up many times it should not be viewed as something bad, rather it really shows how much the community wants/does not want something.

I feel that the fearless staff in the forum will not change for the sake of making the game better. I saw a staff member’s reply before and he said so. I have been in this industry for ten years, and I am also the former excellent one. In this way, I will not learn new things to look at in the future, I just feel that what I am learning at present is perfect and able to cope with the current situation, even if your idea is better than him, it is just useless to him. That’s it, they don’t want to learn and think about how to change in the future

Noaani

rikardp98 wrote: »

@Noaani it doesn't matter if the game have 10 years left in development. They decided to make a video (which is great and they should do more) showing off the animation of a lvl 1-10 mage. We then have the opportunity to both criticise and/or praise them.

Two points.

First, they weren't specifically showing off the animations.

Second, I never said people cant criticize them.

If you read what I have been saying, across a half dozen threads over the last few months, you would see that I am saying that sharing your opinion is fine, just be aware that the animations as we see them are not intended to make it to the final game.

I'd you read what I am saying, you will also note that I have said several times across those same threads that the reason I am adding what I am to the threads in question is largely for people that are reading, but not posting. These people need to know that it is not all doom and gloom, and that the animations literally everyone is complaining about are simply not intended to make it to the final game.

That is what I am saying. That is literally ALL I am saying.

You telling me to stop saying "the game isn't done yet" is the same as me saying "stop complaining about the animations" - which is straight up not something I have said, nor something I would say.

Now, you tell me which part of the above you take issue with.

rikardp98

Two points

First, yes they were showing off the mage abilities and it's animation.

Two, you are saying that people should not comment on things just because they are not finished. (No feedback during development)

"and that the animations literally everyone is complaining about are simply not intended to make it to the final game." @Noaani

There, you said it again.

If you were to write and essay, and you sent the first draft to an editor (or what to call them), and he or she said that everything is perfect and he or she have nothing to comment about. Then how would you know that something is bad or not? Nothing is perfect, and small things need to be addressed as well.

And what most people is complaining about (from my understanding) is the direction of the animation direction, and not the animation it self.

Finally, you don't need to remind people that the game is still in development, we know that. And if someone don't, then that's not your problem but the person its selfs problem.

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