Give me a great story that draws me into the reason I am doing A task, B task, Questing here, raiding here. Then surprise me with a cut scene. Make that cut scene be a huge part of the story, doesn't have to be the ending. It could be the beginning, middle. Keep me surprised with the recipe on what triggers a cut scene. Then make sure you put nothing short of 100% effort into the cut scene.
Keep it related to maybe the level of the node when the cut scene triggers, or the type of node.
For quality, I always recommend to people watching the film maker/youtuber KAI ZAMMIT. He has amazing reaction videos to cinematics (which can be used as cut scenes). He goes over what makes those cinematics amazing and these same concepts are what draws me into cut scenes. Whether they are cinematic cut scenes, or in-game cut scenes. I love his reaction to this, some of it even takes his breath away just watching it.
Cutscenes that are more on the brief side (~2 minutes or less.)
Dialogue that assumes my character is a product of the environment and has been following the story of up until this point.
Provides clues through context and avoids exposition as a means for me to deduce anything I do not understand.
I love cutscenes provide as many questions as they provide answers.
Ones that can oscillate between drama and lighter topics. (Thinking like Buffy tv series. She can save the world but still worried about funny/smaller life concerns in the next breath.)
Exposition, when used, should be reflective of a character's speech pattern and not a way to recap content covered in previously in the quest. Here is an example of a cutscene that leans into exposition but is both brief and appropriate for the character. It covers the perspective of a character on several different races in under 1:30 and moves the plot forward. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn4M1q-a38E
A great example of the opposite (less exposition with a lot communicated) comes from the same game. It could easily be cut up into pieces for different cutscenes throughout a story or simply a reference on how to communicate visually over verbally. Personal favorite of mine too. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW_h0qf9vpA&t=4s
I think it is really important to discuss the use of cutscenes. To me, they're most often used to be an emotional capstone. However, I like when they are used to generate interest (think like a teaser trailer for a quest, storyline, etc.) or to punctuate progression (ending of a chapter and cliffhanger for the next.)
Sorry it isn't my best organized post but I've been busy lately. Cheers!
Generally a more compelling story and more interesting characters means that I will be less likely to skip cutscenes, it's less about the pacing and cinematic but it's very important that the cutscenes will advance the story in a meaningful way and not just be generic fluff talk made by cardboard npcs.
However I always wished, Cut scenes has context clues or secret side-quests / clues to other things. if there is only going to be a handful of cut scenes - it's not to either SEE or be told of some context clues that may lead to a secret or new side quest, as a reward for those who paid attention.
Example:
Visual - it could be a random NPC bumped into someone and a Urchin disguised as a cat runs by and steal the coin purse and ran up the tree. Not everyone will catch it and realize that they could interact with the cat once the cut scene is over and retrieve the coin purse.
Hearing: The cut scene is telling you about the main quest - Lore storyline. But they can also randomly mentioned a NPC that is not required to the story beat. So and So would know more info if you wish to learn more. But this doesn't trigger or open up a Quest log for you to go to. You should go on your own for that if you cared. And maybe that can lead to a small reward and more lore info but it's not something big that is mandatory for the main story.
One of the reason I always adore Everquest is - You couldnt skip dialogue. You literally had to read and comprehend and remember the conversation to do a quest. You got no quest log to remind you. You also had to pick up on the context clues in the dialogue to talk back to the NPC. THAT WAS IMMERSIVE. That is the Definition of IMMERSIVE. Those who took the time to read and do quests were rewarded. It felt rewarding too.
{UPK} United Player Killer - All your loot belongs to us.
- Walls of text to read with no narrator
- Super long build up before it gets to the point
- super long endings after the point
- anything that turns into a fucking musical...
- Iv already been waiting to play prior to this and have had to sit there through other parts of no interaction.
- bad art (subjective)
- static images
- it's odd but not having the choice to skip makes me want to skip even more
- would rather a fast forward by x amount rather than full skip
- would be cool to be able to access chat or inventory while watching (tick-tock brain)
Anyhow thats my off the top of mind take.
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To me, growing up, cutscenes where an opertunity to see the advancements in technology and watch as they blew your mind with new graphics. Story aside, that is what I felt made the final fantasy games so iconic for so long.
With today's advancements that new graphics wow factor isn't as prevalent with people today.
So I feel cutscenes are best used when showcasing future unreleased events in order to get people excited for what is happening next. So basically at the beginning of a game, or at the end of the game, leading to the next big expansion.
Anything in between the start and end is typically less funded and not as high quality. So I'd rather see that money go towards advancing/developing the core of the game itself.
I don't thing cutscenes are good idea in a MMO at all unless its a story based game like ff14.
Things that will make me skip include people needing to wait for me at all even a little bit, if its randomly thrown in mid combat or an event happening and I feel like stuff is happening around me I cant do until I get out of the cutscene, and if it just not interesting or feel like its important like small one when talking to an npc its just annoying and I hate feeling like I am losing control of my charter for no good reason. oh and last but defiantly not least is having to watch it every single time I doing something like a boss in a dungeon.
The only time I can even see being a slightly good idea is big events like possibly a node upgrading everyone inside gets one to have a better view or a major story beat while in a safe zone turning in a quest without a chain it feels like I need to rush for so a party isn't waiting for me.
Cutscenes are awesome as long as there is dialogue and background music if it fits. A HUGE plus is if there can be player engagement with the cut scenes and a choice dynamic (see SWTOR as an example).
Diablo 4 Campaign was a joy to play through.
I can't remember any cut scenes in WoW that come to mine when it was first released.
I'd rather be actively playing the mmorpg than watching cutscenes.
Give us something to look for in the cutscene. On it's own a cutscene is just a barrier to me playing the game I want to play. But if I can learn something useful or gain something from a cutscene then I'm going to watch it.
It's even better if it becomes competitive like I might get some kind of advantage for recognizing a pattern of events or some other detail through the cutscene that helps me resolve a quest or progress through something or maybe gain a useful character boost in some way if I can pick up on the gist of the cutscene.
Please don't play us a video. If you're going to do a cutscene, it better be using in-game engine assets. It takes up less space, you don't have to worry about licensing video codecs, and it's more immersive.
Sure, I don't have any reason to expect you will, and I feel like most people in this thread are assuming this is the case. But I haven't seen it stated outright, and I think it's really important to say that outside of something that plays literally the first time you boot up the game, everything should be happening live in-engine in some form (teleporting to an instanced special room to run the cutscene is fine!)
Grilled cheese always tastes better when you eat it together!
I skip most cut-scenes in mmos just because they're boring or poorly made. There is no point in having a cut-scene of people talking.
If there is one kind of cut-scene that i LOVE is the intro in World of warcraft for each race, Camera goes through the land and narrating some background lore until it stops at your character and you start your adventure.
I absolutely hate them. I don’t want to be forced to watch a clip - I want to play. Tell the story through text, or as you are playing. Don’t make people stop what they’re doing to watch a stupid video.
At the very least, make it an option to completely turn off for those who do not want to watch them.
GW2 has cutscenes, which I hate, but they also do a good job of telling some of the story while you’re playing. They use voice acting so you can hear the interactions but don’t get stuck not doing anything. FXIV cutscenes are the WORST. They’re so slow, you can’t skip half of them, they’re terribly animated, and the voice acting is usually mediocre, at best. Don’t do that - don’t be like FFXIV. Please gawd no.
FF14 had way too many and the early ones (the first several hundred hours) were all crap that just made you lose control of your character for awhile.
I suppose brief (repeatable) intros to pve boss/lair or an overview of a town (key locations) might be fine - but don’t make us watch them every time and figure out what to do if some people skip them but others don’t.
When it comes to cut scenes in an MMORPG, if there is the ability to skip them, I will
I don't care how good your cut scene is, or how important you think it is, or how much time you spend on it - don't take control of my character away from me.
If you have a cutscene of two people talking, make that something I can trigger as an in game conversation. If it is a mob spawning, let me see it from my characters perspective.
In regards to which are memorable and unique - none of them, they are all shit and should not exist.
I don't mind reading a lot of found lore in game as long as there's a safe space to do so and the lore is engaging. I do think it's important that cut-scenes are voiced though, it's a huge improvement over reading dialogue. I enjoy watching cut-scenes, but they ABSOLUTELY should be skippable if I've seen it before, the alternative is 100% disengagement with the game, people are going to get up to make food or watch something on another screen, it's really bad for the game. The decision to force people to watch cut-scenes or sit through long monologues in-game for the 10th time + is an absolutely baffling design choice to me.
On a side note, my character should NEVER be central to the games story, it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever in an MMO and I hate it. If I want to be the one and only hero of the story there's many, many, many high-quality single-player games for me to play. MMOs should stop trying to do everything and focus on the strengths of the genre.
Just let me be an adventurer who ocasionally participates in the major events and conflicts, not as a king or general or supersoldier, but just as one of many combatants.
tie it to a multi tier achievement with a big reward at the end (this is actually the first point, except the player is being blueballed until the end for maximum satisfaction)
I really enjoy cutscenes however if in a group I would prefer these to be mandatory to watch for all players... otherwise I feel as tho I'm slowing down the group if I watch it and everyone else skips it.if you make them able to skip I would love these to be saved somewhere I can access to watch later
The first MMO that ever made me interested in the story is Guild Wars 2.
It's the first time a MMO makes me want to play the next expansion or the next living story season just to see what happens in the story. Voice acting, even when they show "chat bubbles", characters that stand out, (some)cutscenes that are something more than camera pointing at a model ingame.
I never understood why there are walls of text for kill/fetch quests that nobody reads (except for the red shirt guy) but seeing the text in a form of a bubble that is voice acted makes it much more immersive than having an artificial widget open over the game with an A4 of text that sums up to "kill 10 boars, go".
I wouldn't even mind if we'd have AI generated voices for non-storyline quests that would be delivered as chat bubbles or displayed in message window while being spoken by the character.
I already saw that Ashes is going the "bad, old" approach of "showing a4 of text with quest rewards" that nobody will read, please dont.
What might encourage me to skip:
- Not voiced when people are meant to be speaking
- Unimpactful/unemotional moment (Ex. two people speaking about something of little consequence. GW2 story cutscenes are very guilty of this.)
- The player character is present as a silent setpiece while also being portrayed as important. (WoW is guilty of this, often featuring the PC silently listening while being called hero or champion. It's a contradiction, the cutscene tries to imply you're important, but the character isn't doing anything. Important people have a voice.)
This is not an easy question to answer for me, especially in an MMO. The main factor is where the cutscene is placed. Typically, if there is a cutscene before an activity that you grind, such as a dungeon you run hundreds of times to get a gear set you like, then I'm usually going to skip this cutscene because it's just more efficient.
I'm not sure how much that will apply to Ashes of Creation, though, since the dungeons and the node system are quite different from other MMOs. Also, if there is a main story, I'll probably watch the cutscenes only on my main character and skip them on alts. This is because a lot of MMOs do not have good stories for me, and often the cutscenes are just passive anyway. I don't like that cutscenes often make your character act in a certain way that fits the storyline but not your personal backstory for the character.
A good cutscene would let me decide how to act and possibly give me different outcomes or rewards, i do want to play a game after all and not watch a movie. I also like cutscenes that introduce certain NPC factions, showing their way of life, etc.
Also and this might sound stupid but its similar to quest texts, if i actually missout on some information that makes my quest more easy like spawnlocations or something like that when skipping the cutscene then im less likely to skip the cutscene.
Personally I like a interactive cutscene that drives a personal story, or archetype story. SWTOR comes to mind with choices having dark and light side implications to the player character. Provide mood, lore, etc. to intensify the particular area or story. For me voiced goes without saying but no I don't want to read a cutscene. Well written please!! Can't stand a poor story. Lastly I think they are best used sparsely... it helps them to really drive home the importance of the particular area or story arc. Keep up the good work and see you in A2.
I personally enjoy cutscenes, I think if there are any npc interactions they should be voiced as that is just a way to draw me deeper into the story, but I also enjoy just a brief cinematic introducing an area that I've entered for the first time.
One of my only negatives with a cutscene is if it is one that leads into a fight, it feels bad to come out of one and my party is already in a fight with a boss half dead or I'm dead because I got attacked while watching the scene. Most people skip cutscenes if they have already seen them I do as well but making sure you don't die because you were trying to enjoy one seems important to me. Maybe if I could view them out of a video library or something later.
Comments
Keep it related to maybe the level of the node when the cut scene triggers, or the type of node.
For quality, I always recommend to people watching the film maker/youtuber KAI ZAMMIT. He has amazing reaction videos to cinematics (which can be used as cut scenes). He goes over what makes those cinematics amazing and these same concepts are what draws me into cut scenes. Whether they are cinematic cut scenes, or in-game cut scenes. I love his reaction to this, some of it even takes his breath away just watching it.
Exposition, when used, should be reflective of a character's speech pattern and not a way to recap content covered in previously in the quest. Here is an example of a cutscene that leans into exposition but is both brief and appropriate for the character. It covers the perspective of a character on several different races in under 1:30 and moves the plot forward. Link:
A great example of the opposite (less exposition with a lot communicated) comes from the same game. It could easily be cut up into pieces for different cutscenes throughout a story or simply a reference on how to communicate visually over verbally. Personal favorite of mine too. Link:
I think it is really important to discuss the use of cutscenes. To me, they're most often used to be an emotional capstone. However, I like when they are used to generate interest (think like a teaser trailer for a quest, storyline, etc.) or to punctuate progression (ending of a chapter and cliffhanger for the next.)
Sorry it isn't my best organized post but I've been busy lately. Cheers!
However I always wished, Cut scenes has context clues or secret side-quests / clues to other things. if there is only going to be a handful of cut scenes - it's not to either SEE or be told of some context clues that may lead to a secret or new side quest, as a reward for those who paid attention.
Example:
Visual - it could be a random NPC bumped into someone and a Urchin disguised as a cat runs by and steal the coin purse and ran up the tree. Not everyone will catch it and realize that they could interact with the cat once the cut scene is over and retrieve the coin purse.
Hearing: The cut scene is telling you about the main quest - Lore storyline. But they can also randomly mentioned a NPC that is not required to the story beat. So and So would know more info if you wish to learn more. But this doesn't trigger or open up a Quest log for you to go to. You should go on your own for that if you cared. And maybe that can lead to a small reward and more lore info but it's not something big that is mandatory for the main story.
One of the reason I always adore Everquest is - You couldnt skip dialogue. You literally had to read and comprehend and remember the conversation to do a quest. You got no quest log to remind you. You also had to pick up on the context clues in the dialogue to talk back to the NPC. THAT WAS IMMERSIVE. That is the Definition of IMMERSIVE. Those who took the time to read and do quests were rewarded. It felt rewarding too.
Cutscenes in the Storyline are a nice thing! Hope for it with Voicelines it would be nice
- Walls of text to read with no narrator
- Super long build up before it gets to the point
- super long endings after the point
- anything that turns into a fucking musical...
- Iv already been waiting to play prior to this and have had to sit there through other parts of no interaction.
- bad art (subjective)
- static images
- it's odd but not having the choice to skip makes me want to skip even more
- would rather a fast forward by x amount rather than full skip
- would be cool to be able to access chat or inventory while watching (tick-tock brain)
Anyhow thats my off the top of mind take.
With today's advancements that new graphics wow factor isn't as prevalent with people today.
So I feel cutscenes are best used when showcasing future unreleased events in order to get people excited for what is happening next. So basically at the beginning of a game, or at the end of the game, leading to the next big expansion.
Anything in between the start and end is typically less funded and not as high quality. So I'd rather see that money go towards advancing/developing the core of the game itself.
Things that will make me skip include people needing to wait for me at all even a little bit, if its randomly thrown in mid combat or an event happening and I feel like stuff is happening around me I cant do until I get out of the cutscene, and if it just not interesting or feel like its important like small one when talking to an npc its just annoying and I hate feeling like I am losing control of my charter for no good reason. oh and last but defiantly not least is having to watch it every single time I doing something like a boss in a dungeon.
The only time I can even see being a slightly good idea is big events like possibly a node upgrading everyone inside gets one to have a better view or a major story beat while in a safe zone turning in a quest without a chain it feels like I need to rush for so a party isn't waiting for me.
I can't remember any cut scenes in WoW that come to mine when it was first released.
I'd rather be actively playing the mmorpg than watching cutscenes.
Very little
The intro to the game, and the racial introductions are the cutscenes I remember most from vanilla.
It's even better if it becomes competitive like I might get some kind of advantage for recognizing a pattern of events or some other detail through the cutscene that helps me resolve a quest or progress through something or maybe gain a useful character boost in some way if I can pick up on the gist of the cutscene.
Sure, I don't have any reason to expect you will, and I feel like most people in this thread are assuming this is the case. But I haven't seen it stated outright, and I think it's really important to say that outside of something that plays literally the first time you boot up the game, everything should be happening live in-engine in some form (teleporting to an instanced special room to run the cutscene is fine!)
If there is one kind of cut-scene that i LOVE is the intro in World of warcraft for each race, Camera goes through the land and narrating some background lore until it stops at your character and you start your adventure.
At the very least, make it an option to completely turn off for those who do not want to watch them.
GW2 has cutscenes, which I hate, but they also do a good job of telling some of the story while you’re playing. They use voice acting so you can hear the interactions but don’t get stuck not doing anything. FXIV cutscenes are the WORST. They’re so slow, you can’t skip half of them, they’re terribly animated, and the voice acting is usually mediocre, at best. Don’t do that - don’t be like FFXIV. Please gawd no.
FF14 had way too many and the early ones (the first several hundred hours) were all crap that just made you lose control of your character for awhile.
I suppose brief (repeatable) intros to pve boss/lair or an overview of a town (key locations) might be fine - but don’t make us watch them every time and figure out what to do if some people skip them but others don’t.
I don't care how good your cut scene is, or how important you think it is, or how much time you spend on it - don't take control of my character away from me.
If you have a cutscene of two people talking, make that something I can trigger as an in game conversation. If it is a mob spawning, let me see it from my characters perspective.
In regards to which are memorable and unique - none of them, they are all shit and should not exist.
On a side note, my character should NEVER be central to the games story, it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever in an MMO and I hate it. If I want to be the one and only hero of the story there's many, many, many high-quality single-player games for me to play. MMOs should stop trying to do everything and focus on the strengths of the genre.
Just let me be an adventurer who ocasionally participates in the major events and conflicts, not as a king or general or supersoldier, but just as one of many combatants.
It's the first time a MMO makes me want to play the next expansion or the next living story season just to see what happens in the story. Voice acting, even when they show "chat bubbles", characters that stand out, (some)cutscenes that are something more than camera pointing at a model ingame.
Cinematic conversations are also great:
I never understood why there are walls of text for kill/fetch quests that nobody reads (except for the red shirt guy) but seeing the text in a form of a bubble that is voice acted makes it much more immersive than having an artificial widget open over the game with an A4 of text that sums up to "kill 10 boars, go".
I wouldn't even mind if we'd have AI generated voices for non-storyline quests that would be delivered as chat bubbles or displayed in message window while being spoken by the character.
I already saw that Ashes is going the "bad, old" approach of "showing a4 of text with quest rewards" that nobody will read, please dont.
- Not voiced when people are meant to be speaking
- Unimpactful/unemotional moment (Ex. two people speaking about something of little consequence. GW2 story cutscenes are very guilty of this.)
- The player character is present as a silent setpiece while also being portrayed as important. (WoW is guilty of this, often featuring the PC silently listening while being called hero or champion. It's a contradiction, the cutscene tries to imply you're important, but the character isn't doing anything. Important people have a voice.)
1. It's at the beginning/end of the game
2. It's at the beginning/end of a dungeon
3. Has my glorious character and party members in it.
If a cutscenes has me and my party in it, I'll always watch to take screenshots and see how others showoff their armor and character customization
Otherwise, I prefer reading and experiencing the game atmosphere with quests and exploring rather than a short movie.
I'm not sure how much that will apply to Ashes of Creation, though, since the dungeons and the node system are quite different from other MMOs. Also, if there is a main story, I'll probably watch the cutscenes only on my main character and skip them on alts. This is because a lot of MMOs do not have good stories for me, and often the cutscenes are just passive anyway. I don't like that cutscenes often make your character act in a certain way that fits the storyline but not your personal backstory for the character.
A good cutscene would let me decide how to act and possibly give me different outcomes or rewards, i do want to play a game after all and not watch a movie. I also like cutscenes that introduce certain NPC factions, showing their way of life, etc.
Also and this might sound stupid but its similar to quest texts, if i actually missout on some information that makes my quest more easy like spawnlocations or something like that when skipping the cutscene then im less likely to skip the cutscene.
Amar
One of my only negatives with a cutscene is if it is one that leads into a fight, it feels bad to come out of one and my party is already in a fight with a boss half dead or I'm dead because I got attacked while watching the scene. Most people skip cutscenes if they have already seen them I do as well but making sure you don't die because you were trying to enjoy one seems important to me. Maybe if I could view them out of a video library or something later.
Overall I love cutscenes.