This is just the demostration itself
I mean I think I understand, it’s a nice technical challenge to make things look good, period. It’s really impressive though when you can do so efficiently… And the improbable is when you can use the technology to make a good game. This game is still struggling to be efficient… not sure there is a game there at all to back up the visuals. They’ve failed to accomplish a third of what the Crysis engine managed years ago.
6 minutes in. Not sure if it is just the YT encode, but framerate looks to be mostly woeful and all over the place.
A generic corridor shooter with space elements was done better last year by Activision in COD Infinity Warfare. I know they brought this upon themsleves to some extent but I feel pity for the fans.
256 color 320x200 VGA version of the tigers claw lockers and beds looked way better than the sterile shiny Abrams Trek corridors of the apple Enterprise.
Barring the framerate and animation/polish issues it looks pretty much exactly like what I expected (and hoped) Squadron 42 to look like. I love the fact that it is so “uncinematic”, in that it starts with waking up, then I can explore the whole ship, get to the briefing, get to my ship, fly somewhere far away, go EVA and explore some derelict, come back to my ship, fly to a planet, land there, shoot some enemies…and all seamlessly without any loading screens. Like some space based immersive sim.
Hopefully they can pull at least this singleplayer game off fully, regardless of how many more rich people have to give them money.
Recording with commentary (haven’t seen yet)
This is not surprising. With young game developers still in training as it were, like the senior college students in our Game Studio, populating even a very small space with enough stuff to make it feel realistic, or even just natural or satisfactory within the game’s own context always turns out to be much harder than anyone expected. “We can do a Victorian mansion, no problem!” becomes"We can do one floor of a mansion, sure!" which becomes “Ok, one room seems doable!” which ultimately becomes either “Erm, yeah, here’s our room, but it’s kind of empty” or “Screw it, we’re doing a platformer.”
But even for professionals with often lots of industry experience, the sheer volume of stuff you need to populate even modest environments is mind-boggling. And whey you’re trying to do that while, in all likelihood, the core game systems are still being worked on, and maybe even the core design vision is in flux, well, I’m surprised they have this much to show.
Holy crap, that framerate at ship launch! lol!
See why he quickly switched to the external camera view?
It’s people like you that have cruelled this games chances.
Is that a Cruella de Vil reference?
Hmm, a coat made from the pelts of…Kilrathi?
Thanks @Timex for the heads up. As I was going through the video, I loved the fact that the ship you are stationed on is more than the 4-5 rooms we got in WC3. Also, mission briefings with GoT characters are pretty cool too.
Some of my favourite scenes were:
- The flight between the 2 asteroids looking for the wreck (so claustrophobic and love the lightning) before meeting a salvager protective of her find.
- First arriving around the planet with a belt of debris (and seeing the falling pieces burn up in the atmosphere)
- Flying into the ship for a bit of exploratory EVA. It’s the kind of thing I’d have loved to be able to do in WC too.
- The planet surface flight was pretty moody too.
- Oh, and that scene with the marines and prisoners was so nicely tense. Loved it.
I’m not super psyched about having a FPS in my space sim, but I do like that you can choose the path you take while you explore. Also, I like the actress playing Trejo. Need to look her up.
As a vertical slice of gameplay demonstrating elements without being an actual game, I thought it was pretty awesome.
@Paul_cze, I have been watching that commentary video next. It’s very interesting. CR is pretty candid about what’s in, what’s missing, why the framerate is janky (yes, they are aware and no it’s not the final product), what more they plan to add, why player aids are thin on the ground, …
To quote the TL;DW from Reddit:
Summary:
Perfomance issues: They are aware but have not had time to work on this yet since they are currently still focused on actually bringing tech and systems/mechanics in.
Missing mechanics: Scanning (almost made it), atmospherical flight model tweaks, space combat and flight tweaks, FPS tactical visor
Missing Graphics Tech: Gas Cloud iterations, facial animation (skin jittering), hair shader improvements, render to texture improvements,
UI needs a lot of work and they acknowledged that. 3D Map of Interiors, Tactical Visor, improved UX etc
All cinematics can optionally be viewed from player view instead.
Core gameplay loops (Dogfighting, Flight, FPS) are off, because they were 100% focused on getting everything work together on a systemic and tech level. Next step is tweaking it to make it fun and user friendly.
Player guiding: Will improve with better HUD. Since the mission is 1/3 into the game, less tutorials are apparent. There is actual tactical instruction where to land and what to do based on both intel acquired and the tactical visor.
Future AI improvements: AI readability (communication between agents), AI behaviour (Coordination, tactics), fleeing when the player is rambo-ing everyone etc, search mechanics for when the player is taking a stealth approach
General comments: -too much space trash in orbit of that planet -lighting in hangar is missing, thus too dark -they have more than 32768 animations in the game (stock Cryengine limit) -more than 100 scanned heads -you can interact with most crew members -Point of interest system for AI to interact with player and environment (i.e. reacting to player looking at sth, etc) -was getting caught part of his plan?
I think it’s interesting and gives more context to the vertical slice.
I’m still really looking forward to playing SQ42 when it finally comes out.
Thanks for pointing that out. It was great to watch, because it is such a great example of what they seem to be going for. Chris Roberts is making an in-game movie, not a game. They go on and on in the discussion about the facial expressions, and the conversations, and make joke about the AI cutting between the player and an NPC when they are talking because the AI doesn’t recognize the conversation taking place due to the distance. “The guy is not always standing there using the microwave,” Chris says. That’s about creating a virtual reality, not a game. All of the things he says about the facial expressions, and the way that “it makes a difference to have triple-A actors instead of the guy who works on the sound voicing the characters” is something that is obvious if you watch a film-school short and compare it to a big-budget film. I feel like they’re marveling about stuff that is obvious, but they are somehow amazed that they have had enough money to put it all in a game. The amount of time they spend discussing environmental fidelity is ridiculous. There is one part where they are looking at the character take his helmet out of a locker and Chris says “the pick-up tech is not what we want yet, it’s a bit janky. [We’re going to have to] put a lot of work into that.” The pick-up tech? It’s your guy equipping a helmet.
It seems like PUBG has shown that gameplay beats fidelity. I was wondering why gameplay gets such short shrift in this game’s discussion. I guess this is why: he is making a movie, not a game. Pretty much end of story.
I’m not sure what you mean, but I’m intrigued! :)
In a nutshell that’s my biggest problem. For a demo that took well over an hour, less than 5 minutes was spent doing any potentially enjoyable gameplay action. That percentage is inherent in the design of that mission - it’s not a feature or performance issue that you tweak away later. That gets baked into the DNA of your game. The lions share of that demo was spent moving in a straight line, turning very occasionally, and listening to dialog outside of action. It’s like wing commander 3 got 400 extra elevator scenes.
Yes, clearly it is for people who want this kind of cinematic space immersive sim where you can walk around a ship and talk to everyone and not be in combat all the time. Or where you can just fly around space and take screenshots of stuff. Still the complaint that he is making movie and not a game is idiotic. There are tons of brilliant games that rely on cinematics and we call them games, not movies.
I have zero interest in PUBG, all of its gameplay be damned, and I am super excited by this.
Sometimes, ideas get a life of their own and they undergo a process of evolution which goes even beyond the intentions of those who put the idea forward, Roberts in this case. The reason why you aren’t seeing much in terms of gameplay is quite simple: it’s not something the “hive mind” of the backers is interested in. What they are interested in is a new, better “Universe” in which their dreams can come true. I’ve been reading the comments on Reddit for years, mostly because the drama behind this game can be quite amusing, and I’ve noticed this recurrent theme from the very beginning and to this day. Instead of having concerns about the gameplay mechanics, where the fun comes from or what the early/mid/end game will look like, a significant and influential part of the backers have concerns such as (quoting from my head):
- I was thinking about parking my Idris in orbit, jump one of my docked fighters, descend on the planet and do some missions and it hit me. What if someone finds it and tries to steal it while I’m away? There should be sensor on the ship with a direct link to our mobiglass (or whatever it’s called) that alerts us whenever it is approached or even invaded!
or
- Will the cities have central squares in which people can gather to protest or make joint statements?
These ideas are everywhere on Reddit and probably on the project’s own forums, they get upvoted, they get expanded even if most of them are impossible to implement. Eventually, some of them reach Roberts, who by the way is also a big “dreamer” with plenty of personal ideas, so he commands “Do it, I don’t care what it takes”.
The result? After all of these years, 5 minutes of gameplay mechanics, 55 minutes of walking/flying through a dream. One that could turn into reality, maybe, possibly, one day, IF the dreamers buy enough tanks.
23 minutes just to get to the cockpit. Blech.