Next-Gen Wish List?
polycounter lvl 17
"Now with the Next-Gen systems upon us what gaming innovations would you like to see in the next couple of years? We all know the graphics will be better but with the extra horse power what would you like to see developers do with it?"
Realistically for me I would love to see developers make a push towards filling the worlds we play in with more NPC's. This would greatly benefit RPG's and open ended games like GTA. Imagine in GTA running through crowded streets being chased by the cops or in an RPG going into a fully populated town or city! I would trade toned down graphics for more characters to interact with any day of the week. I believe Capcom has a Zombie game in the works (Dead Rising : http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/...mg_3090133.html ) where the streets are over run with zombies for you to interact with; I feel it's a start.
What are your thoughts?
Realistically for me I would love to see developers make a push towards filling the worlds we play in with more NPC's. This would greatly benefit RPG's and open ended games like GTA. Imagine in GTA running through crowded streets being chased by the cops or in an RPG going into a fully populated town or city! I would trade toned down graphics for more characters to interact with any day of the week. I believe Capcom has a Zombie game in the works (Dead Rising : http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/...mg_3090133.html ) where the streets are over run with zombies for you to interact with; I feel it's a start.
What are your thoughts?
Replies
I've love to see a major improvement smoothness and transition in character animation. I am quite annoyed at current-gen 3d characters popping and snapping in realtime gameplay. Basicly i want realtime gameplay to look like cutscene animation with all the subtle details we call realistic. I'd like the 3d human skeleton to use methods of balance, weight, anticipation alternate pivot points, yadda yadda.. and muscles to really control animation in real time.
Also.. ragdoll is old. Humans arent made of rags. I'd like to see better applicates in animation for how characters really react when shot, or fall down (half protecting their head, and having some muscle control still involved)
would trade toned down graphics for more characters to interact with any day of the week.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ah, but some things fuck up gameplay - having a city full of people might look cool, but its a bugger to navigate and pass all those people.
What do I want? With the bigger teams adn more money, I want some to be spent on playtesters. Too many games lack game focus: I recently played a good game that was let down horribly by a bad pointless ending that took me about 40 attempts. I've worked in the past on games with horrible control systems and cameras, where the entire team would scream that it was bad but this was ignored by the producers, or the designer has a pissy fit. Then an outside producer/publisher says "the controls/camera is shit" and they are told "ah, it's too late to change it now."
I'd like to see more time spent by the coders on perfecting recurring game elements rather than coding some stupid throwaway set piece move.
I'd like more boobs.
REALTIME ANIMATION!
I've love to see a major improvement smoothness and transition in character animation. I am quite annoyed at current-gen 3d characters popping and snapping in realtime gameplay. Basicly i want realtime gameplay to look like cutscene animation with all the subtle details we call realistic. I'd like the 3d human skeleton to use methods of balance, weight, anticipation alternate pivot points, yadda yadda.. and muscles to really control animation in real time.
Also.. ragdoll is old. Humans arent made of rags. I'd like to see better applicates in animation for how characters really react when shot, or fall down (half protecting their head, and having some muscle control still involved)
[/ QUOTE ]
I've worked with Unreal 3, and you can get that. plus having precise control with the feet on the "floor" collision plane(s). The problem is, is that it takes a lot of animation to make it work. The best I have seen so far, using Unreal 2 was Splinter Cel: CHaos theory. Another problem is that eveyone is learning it at the same time, but falling back on previous experience for schedule reasons. You have to do make a lot of single frame blends, and adjust the timing. The timing and blending is a separate, and rather technical tool, as compared to animating it fully.
There has been some exploration into "Proceedural" animation, but a lot of that is still theoretical, and also for the smoothly blended animation to work, it neds to anticipate the player, and the AI moves 2 moves ahead, otherwise the character is not responsive to player inputs. That right there may be the death of smooth blending.
Scott
Takes a lot of time; it also looks smooth as butter and more cinematic ingame though so it's deemed worth it here.
r.
With all the new processor power I'd also like to see some revolutionary improments in AI, for both combat and non-combat situations. It would blow my mind to be able to at least have a semi-intelligent conversation with an npc in a game, instead of a "pick what you want from the choices" kind of system.
And gorgeous graphics with atmospheric sound & an orchestal score.
why haven't we got that yet
Better physics. Its time the rest of the game was as advanced as the graphics.
Better AI and or Path finding. Hey whered my guys go?
Better input devices. I love my old, clicky, IBM keyboard but there has got to be a better way. Im looking to the Nintendo revolution to see if this will be going anywhere in the near future. This includes being able to talk to my game and have it talk back at least quasi-intelligently (how hard is speech synth anyway?). Fingers crossed.
Better tools. Im lazy and I want it fast and easy.
next-generation gameplay
why haven't we got that yet
[/ QUOTE ]
Define it?
Scott
[ QUOTE ]
next-generation gameplay
why haven't we got that yet
[/ QUOTE ]
Define it?
Scott
[/ QUOTE ]
Easy: by not taking out vital/revolutionary gameplay features past games had. Where's my fucking following ai buddies, swimmable water, shrinkray and mirrors, etc.
r.
Personally, I'd like to see realtime volumetric liquid, if that's the right wording for it.
Marcus Dublin
This is true for many features discussed in this thread. The more advanced and "life-like" something is the chances are you'll need more time spent testing it. So I'm with Rick, more testers (even though I can't stand dealing with most of them)
I'd love to see better AI, as well as better lighting systems like realtime GI and Sub Surface Scattering. I've seen these in demos, but not in any production games.
Malcolm - CoD2 certainly has lightmapping in it. Not sure if you're playing the PC version on low or not? I own the 360 version, and there's plenty of lightmappin' going on. It's not like individual blades of grass have shadows or anything, but it's defineatly there and visible.