Animations

[Beloyar]

Yeah, I heard you the first time.

Wow, he lumped me in this category. I guess he doesn't know me very well.

I like graphics and animation, I buy games just because of the cool graphics. I replace the graphics in games that are good, but I don't like the graphics *cough*Civ3*cough*.

I won't keep playing a game if the main point of it is the "cool graphics". After I've seen them, where's the draw? If engaging game play is secondary to graphics, I likely won't buy the sequels to the game.

 

[KaNick]

In a game like Civ, graphics mean nothing to me. But rest assured, there will be great graphics in Civ 4.

 

[Beloyar]

I already mentioned that animations could be optional, depending on available system resources. But they could still be included in the game.

It still appears that some people go to all threads to campaign for their point of view and shut the "competition" out, so as to convince Firaxis that there is a stronger call for improved gameplay. This is becoming too political.

If you like ice cream you should admit it, without saying that if you had a choice between ice cream and barbeque with beer, you'd choose BBQ w/beer. Same thing about animations/graphics. This is not a vote or a poll, asking you to choose one over another.

...Nevertheless, I think a lot of people fear that too much attention could go to graphics and too less to the desired improvement of gameplay...

We don't deal with paranoia problems here. We just discuss new improvements.

Maybe someone could post links to gameplay discussion threads here, so we can go there and inform ppl about the "evils" of animations.

I only have PTW now. I have my own budget, too. And there are a lot of gameplay options in it that I haven't played yet. It's still available for me to discover.

Ballazic, I don't know how animations make it harder to mod. If you mean harder to create new units, then yes. But this calls for Firaxis to include a few new units with their own animations, so that we can mod them in if we want.

 

[ShADoW^HawK]

Yes. There will be graphics and graphics are good, but, if they're as good or a little better as they are in Civ3, I will already be satisfied. Besides, if you don't like a graphic, you can easily mod it. It's much harder to change the GAMEPLAY in a game, because if you are able to do it, you might as well just make your own game.

Most of the people here aren't anti good graphics, but they just don't want to see graphics being substituted for precious gameplay values. And, we're just imagining the worst possible situations, because if we imagine that gameplay will be horrible and we keep recommending that they improve gameplay and not worry too much about animations and graphics, they will improve the gameplay. Besides, the animations they have are already quite good.

Also, when I said "first-timers" I wasn't reffering to you because you've obviously played Civ (1, 2, or 3) before. I was refering to people who have never played a civ game and will buy the game sometime after it comes out just because they see "ohh... pretty colors!"
Also, video games are made as ways to represent something that isn't true in real life, or is hard to experience in real life (for example, being the commander of a civilization for 6,000 years is pretty hard to experience). The graphics only add appeal to the game, and are a bonus, but the true "goldmine" of the game is the gameplay and the features and flexibility of the game.

Another point is that both extra code into the game and animations/new graphics take up Hard Disk space as well as RAM during the game, and some people won't want to upgrade to an incredible machine or buy a new one since they don't want to spend that money on one game. Also, generally, what I do is I turn off all enemy unit actions (except actions), not because it's too heavy for my comp, but because it's very tedious to wait 5 minutes for your turn to come back, and then during your turn you have to manage 50 workers (this is in later game--Industrial/Modern), and any military units you will be using that turn. This gets incredibly extensive when you're playing on a HUGE map with all the different races.

 

[Beloyar]

Don't you still like to play those old video games with their cartoonish graphics? I still consider platformers to be one of the best genres of video games, yet there aren't many graphically-focused platformers out there.

I don't have any of those old things. The games on my color cell phone are better than that.

 

[Beloyar]

Yes. There will be graphics and graphics are good, but, if they're as good or a little better as they are in Civ3, I will already be satisfied. Besides, if you don't like a graphic, you can easily mod it. It's much harder to change the GAMEPLAY in a game, because if you are able to do it, you might as well just make your own game.

Most of the people here aren't anti good graphics, but they just don't want to see graphics being substituted for precious gameplay values. And, we're just imagining the worst possible situations, because if we imagine that gameplay will be horrible and we keep recommending that they improve gameplay and not worry too much about animations and graphics, they will improve the gameplay. Besides, the animations they have are already quite good.

Also, when I said "first-timers" I wasn't reffering to you because you've obviously played Civ (1, 2, or 3) before. I was refering to people who have never played a civ game and will buy the game sometime after it comes out just because they see "ohh... pretty colors!"
Also, video games are made as ways to represent something that isn't true in real life, or is hard to experience in real life (for example, being the commander of a civilization for 6,000 years is pretty hard to experience). The graphics only add appeal to the game, and are a bonus, but the true "goldmine" of the game is the gameplay and the features and flexibility of the game.

Another point is that both extra code into the game and animations/new graphics take up Hard Disk space as well as RAM during the game, and some people won't want to upgrade to an incredible machine or buy a new one since they don't want to spend that money on one game. Also, generally, what I do is I turn off all enemy unit actions (except actions), not because it's too heavy for my comp, but because it's very tedious to wait 5 minutes for your turn to come back, and then during your turn you have to manage 50 workers (this is in later game--Industrial/Modern), and any military units you will be using that turn. This gets incredibly extensive when you're playing on a HUGE map with all the different races.

Dude, you're still campaigning for your personal pet peeve, the gameplay. If you think gameplay sucks, just post about it in the appropriate thread. I don't think other features should be taken out or blocked just to take gameplay to a level as realistic as possible, or whatever its proponents are talking about.

I also turn movement animations off for faster gameplay, in part due to the stalling when the computer makes its moves. But how many times do you witness a plane being shot down? Only a few times and only towards the end of the game. And so on.

I would agree that gameplay presently sucks. Turn after turn all I do is move workers around and keep other civs off my territory. Diplomatic negotiations are very limited . Maybe some animations should be taking place while you wait. Or if you want gameplay, you should be able to do stuff while the computer makes its moves.

Actually, the first-timers you mentioned are probably a good consideration for Firaxis. They are kids just coming of age to play games, and will most likely buy a civ game for their first time, which will be Civ 4, when it comes out. For this purpose I think its name might not be civ 4, the "4" might make it look real old.

In short, go to the gameplay thread. I can come with you if you want.

 

[toh6wy]

Improved graphics are cool and all, and will probably attract more first-time civ-ers, but overall I can't say they're high on my priority list for Civ 4. All they really are are eye candy. I can download the eye candy if need be; give me (or improve) more features!

(Yes, I know you can't download stuff like burnt-out tank graphics for when a tank dies. But so what? It's just more eye candy. The time spent to create it would be much better spent creating a new feature IMO.)

 

[ShADoW^HawK]

Actually, you can just modify the death animation of tanks to make that feature, just like you can modify the death animation of planes to make them spiral down and die. I'm sure there are many people out their that can do that (hell, I can probably do it if I actually put some time to it, and you can simply dl it as a mod). If you want, Bayoral, I'll or some other people can try and make a mod with all the things that can be done for this eye candy that you want and you can simply dl it and apply it to Civ3. There's your Civ4 right there, except at a much cheaper cost!

 

[1wheel]

A good compromise would be to have the option to aminate just SOME of the battles. Most of them would go really fast and not show much, while 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 would have a nice, detailed animation. Or maybe battles that are really close (both units get redlined), or battles where leaders are born would get the longer, more detailed animations.

DD

This is a good idea. The most intense and intresting battlesd are those that have a risk of your unit dying. The game could calculte the battle before showing the graphic, and if both units (our just your unit) got down to 1 hit point, it would show the graphic.

It would also be nice if their were diferent combat graphics that would be selected randomly, or by the type of unit being fought.

 

[Commander Bello]

This is a good idea. The most intense and intresting battlesd are those that have a risk of your unit dying. The game could calculte the battle before showing the graphic, and if both units (our just your unit) got down to 1 hit point, it would show the graphic.

It would also be nice if their were diferent combat graphics that would be selected randomly, or by the type of unit being fought.

This idea was implemented at Panzer General I, IIRC.
Different animations were shown depending on terrain and units involved. This was quite nice, but PG had to less of different animations for my taste. After some time you could predict from the start of the animation what would be the outcome of the battle.

I think, those different animations could contribute to the flair of the game, but there should be many different ones.
OTOH, this makes modding more difficult. Say, in the standard game you have 35 different unit types (probably more) and currently nine different terrain types. If you would have just 5 different animations for each possible fight, this would mean 35*35*9*5 = 55,125 animations needed.
If you want to have the chance to add your own units by the editor, then you have to allow to replace units of the standard game as well. Now, first you need the animations for the new units (say, 3 new units => 3*35*9*5 = 4.725 new animations) and you need to know which standard animations are to be replaced.
I don't think that any modder will make almost 5,000 animations for his mod, nor will he replace 5,000 of the standard ones (going to some .ini-file, changing all the names and all this stuff).

This is the general problem with graphics: they have to cover all possible combinations, otherwise they spoil the fun.
So, at the bottom line: sometimes less just means more.