Why don’t you do all cutscenes in the art-y, drawn style the end part was in? Those are incredible!
But the first part… my god. It was glitchy, their mouths weren’t moving, and Queen Jennah’s movements were… bizarre.
Edit: I feel this post was a bit negative. I’d like to say the invasion events have grown on me, and thank you to Bobby for the feedback regarding the cutscene. I still have my dislikes with this patch’s content but overall it’s okay.
1: Because it obviously takes alot of effort to make those kinds of cutscenes.
2: I disagree. I’m glad they’ve started making the cutscenes this way instead of the boring “2 characters facing each other while talking, phasing in and out when a third character shows up”-kind of cutscene. The cutscene was pretty cool imo.
Well yes I very much agree with your second point, much better than the two people talking, no doubt about it.
The one they did of Marjory was about as long as the cutscene we just had, they managed that. I believe they have the time to do cutscenes in that time, but I’d like to hear back from them on that.
Yea more like the Faren and Marjory cutscenes please! Totally matches the style GW2 has with the artwork anyway! Can have the same impact, perhaps more than a slightly buggy video style one.
Blood And Metal is a guild on Gunnars Hold that is all about metal, punk,hard rock etc.. Join us!
cliché bad guy steps in and blows things up
the in game cinematics weren’t too bad
likewise the ‘cutscenes’ could use some work, but are overall pretty good
let me take this opportunity to say the Marjory Delaqua Diary was possibly the worse game cinematic i’ve ever witnessed.. props to the people who worked on it, but i simply can’t relate to the final product
oh, and is queen jennah good for anything other than getting people killed!
i can outswim a centaur!
when i’m done on an issue
i start talking in nerglish
The Faren cutscene was the best thing about the whole instance IMO
Oh god, his expressions… I almost fell out of my chair laughing.
As to the “glitchiness” of the first part – Jennah was doing a typical “talking emote” NPCs can do, and for me her mouth was moving (problem with that ‘talking emote’ is that the mouth moves on its own, and then you have the voice-mouthing so often enough you got them flapping their jaws twice as much than needed), but Scarlet’s wasn’t.
I loved the showing of the Twisted machines’ activation. That was superbly done.
let me take this opportunity to say the Marjory Delaqua Diary was possibly the worse game cinematic i’ve ever witnessed.. props to the people who worked on it, but i simply can’t relate to the final product
Concur, it was well done but it just broke the flow of GW2’s feeling to me.
DR is set up as a place which is all bright and charming although with crime, but that cinematic was going the typical 1920s “dark and danky city of crime and corrupt police” vibe. Felt way to out of place for me to really feel it.
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
I loved everything about the cutscene, and prefer these traditional cutscenes to the weird dialogue stuff elsewhere.
I will say though, the camera does NOT need to swoop around dramatically every single second. Every cutscene they’ve done like this has the camera just flying around like crazy instead of just sitting still to focus on what’s actually happening. It is REALLY annoying.
While it may have been my laptop being slow, the lines at the bottom of the screen seemed to be out of sync with the voices, the voices would come first and the text a second or two after. Seeing the watchknights get turned into monsters was neat though.
The Faren cut-scene was nicely done. His emotions seemed okay, while Jennah’s looked kinda fake (since that one was a fake). I’m a little down at seeing him (maybe?) die. And it’s sadder since the Jennah he reached for was illusionary, so…does this mean she’s gotten 3 people killed now? Hmm… >_>
And whoever said Sylvari can’t be beautiful clearly hasn’t seen too many. Scarlet’s not ugly, just not pretty either. Sadly she also seems to be another “hey, let’s kill everyone” kind of villain. At least she actually did something this time besides just teleporting in and being annoyi—-wait, no. That was all she did. The minions were doing the rest.
Meh. Still, the cut-scenes were rather well done. Good job. Wish the Personal Story had more of these.
While it may have been my laptop being slow, the lines at the bottom of the screen seemed to be out of sync with the voices, the voices would come first and the text a second or two after. Seeing the watchknights get turned into monsters was neat though.
The Faren cut-scene was nicely done. His emotions seemed okay, while Jennah’s looked kinda fake (since that one was a fake). I’m a little down at seeing him (maybe?) die. And it’s sadder since the Jennah he reached for was illusionary, so…does this mean she’s gotten 3 people killed now? Hmm… >_>
And whoever said Sylvari can’t be beautiful clearly hasn’t seen too many. Scarlet’s not ugly, just not pretty either. Sadly she also seems to be another “hey, let’s kill everyone” kind of villain. At least she actually did something this time besides just teleporting in and being annoyi—-wait, no. That was all she did. The minions were doing the rest.
Meh. Still, the cut-scenes were rather well done. Good job. Wish the Personal Story had more of these.
No it’s not just you, I had that too. Also their mouths were out of sync for me, or not even moving.
I also loved Faren’s part, very well done and beautiful.
My problem with Scarlet is she’s too cheeky-chappy looking. From her name, and her ways, I expected a seductive, you can’t catch me because I’m too good kind of look.
Yeah…that would’ve been much better. A deep, seductive voice taunting you slowly as you go about. (Maybe Laura Bailey?) She should’ve kept the hood on too, that hair/headpiece thing looked silly.
Agreed. The cutscene was poorly done. Subtitles didn’t match up, and neither did the lips on the characters. My character was even floating when i first started it. I guess this is what happens when you have to rush content every 2 weeks.
I didn’t like the cutscene, personally. For all of the hype regarding the speech itself, it only lasted two seconds and was rather abrupt. It would have been cool to have seen her slowly walk up to the podium in front of a massive audience, like the movie the title was referencing (The King’s Speech). But instead it was an incredibly quick reveal with no buildup whatsoever.
That being said, I love the rest of the content. Giant zone invasions are sort of my thing.
If I’m going to be fairly blunt, compared to other AAA games with good cutscenes and cinematics, Guild Wars 2’s are very weak. Compare anything from GW2 to this:
- Unique animations for close ups of characters (i.e. characters in cinematics are using the same animations that they are when in open world)
- Good cinematography for cutscenes
- In depth facial animations/speech simulation
These things are some of many elements that are required for engaging cutscenes. I don’t blame the GW2 team – their living story content is not “replayable” therefore it doesn’t make much sense for them to invest a lot into cutscenes. Additionally, as an MMORPG, GW2 is going to place a lot more emphasis on gameplay over story. I suppose the day will come when story and narrative become more valuable in MMOs, but investing in these things has an opportunity cost that right now isn’t worth it for most companies (See: SWTOR).
My heart stopped when Faren fell…
Really, I like him a lot. Luckily, I read the achievements, or I would have cried my heart out (ok, not really, but…).
Tarnished Coast
Astrid Strongheart, Norn Ranger.
“I wish juvenile wolves were bigger”
If I’m going to be fairly blunt, compared to other AAA games with good cutscenes and cinematics, Guild Wars 2’s are very weak. Compare anything from GW2 to this:
- Unique animations for close ups of characters (i.e. characters in cinematics are using the same animations that they are when in open world)
- Good cinematography for cutscenes
- In depth facial animations/speech simulation
These things are some of many elements that are required for engaging cutscenes. I don’t blame the GW2 team – their living story content is not “replayable” therefore it doesn’t make much sense for them to invest a lot into cutscenes. Additionally, as an MMORPG, GW2 is going to place a lot more emphasis on gameplay over story. I suppose the day will come when story and narrative become more valuable in MMOs, but investing in these things has an opportunity cost that right now isn’t worth it for most companies (See: SWTOR).
Quotes from Massively
It seems like everyone is obsessed with the exact amount of money EA spent creating its most expensive title ever, but the Los Angeles Times may have a final number to end the discussion: Apparently, Star Wars: The Old Republic cost $200 million. Other interesting details from the Times’ investigation into what it calls a “galactic gamble” include the fact that it was made by 800 people on four continents with an additional 1,000 voice actors (doing three languages) handling 4,000 characters.
Yeah…..I doubt Guild Wars 2 even came close to that number…
Does anyone have a link to the recording of the cutscene? After seeing it, I kind of want an item to rewatch like we got before – I really like those videos!
If you’ve experienced some strangeness with the flythrough cinematic during the Queen’s speech, it’s likely related to system specs and graphics settings. Due to the length of the flythrough, lower spec machines may notice the caption timing and lip sync misaligned, graphics anomalies (like Scarlet’s gun floating in the air), or other weirdness.
This shouldn’t affect the painterly cinematic (with Lord Faren and Queen Jennah), as the VO is “baked in” with the movie file.
We apologize for this inconvenience and will be looking at ways to solve this issue in future updates.
I would like to add that I do not have a low spec machine. I have a core-i7 processor with a radeon 7950 HD and 16gb of ram. My fps was over 40 for the duration of the cutscene. I don’t think it is anything wrong on my end.
Isn’t that why the personal story has the stylised conversations?
That was the original plan, but a variety of factors led to the decision of shortening the painterly cinematic and doing the rest via the in-game systems.
I would like to add that I do not have a low spec machine. I have a core-i7 processor with a radeon 7950 HD and 16gb of ram. My fps was over 40 for the duration of the cutscene. I don’t think it is anything wrong on my end.
I run the game flawlessly on ultra and the cutscene didn’t even come close to making my FPS dip, yet Scarlet’s lips never moved a single time throughout the whole thing and at the end I did see her disappear before her gun. (Edit: My latency is usually sub 100, but I have no idea what it was during the scene.)
I don’t understand why I appear to be the only one that enjoyed the large face to face conversation scenes that make up the rest of the game. Suddenly veering away from that style is totally screwing with the feel of the game. It seems out of place, and obviously not something the engine/server/scripters can handle.
I loved it – but as I’ve said elsewhere, having NPCs refer to Divinity’s Reach as “DR” is extremely immersion breaking. Scarlet might as well have said “LOL” instead of laughing.
I loved it – but as I’ve said elsewhere, having NPCs refer to Divinity’s Reach as “DR” is extremely immersion breaking. Scarlet might as well have said “LOL” instead of laughing.
Otherwise, I found it fantastic.
Is it really that immersion breaking? Throughout history, people have always come up with shortened or slang versions of names, places, people, &c.
Do you find it odd that people refer to Los Angeles as “LA” all the time? You probably don’t because the abbreviation is used so commonly. It’s the same thing with Divinity’s Reach as “DR”. If anything, I’d say it enhances the immersion because it’s something that the people of such a city might do.
I loved it – but as I’ve said elsewhere, having NPCs refer to Divinity’s Reach as “DR” is extremely immersion breaking. Scarlet might as well have said “LOL” instead of laughing.
Otherwise, I found it fantastic.
Is it really that immersion breaking? Throughout history, people have always come up with shortened or slang versions of names, places, people, &c.
Do you find it odd that people refer to Los Angeles as “LA” all the time? You probably don’t because the abbreviation is used so commonly. It’s the same thing with Divinity’s Reach as “DR”. If anything, I’d say it enhances the immersion because it’s something that the people of such a city might do.
This. Also, Lord Faren referred to Divinity’s Reach as DR when talking to Kasmeer at the beach, in Southsun Cove.
Tarnished Coast
Astrid Strongheart, Norn Ranger.
“I wish juvenile wolves were bigger”
That was the original plan, but a variety of factors led to the decision of shortening the painterly cinematic and doing the rest via the in-game systems.
Please please please try to put more of it into either the painterly cinematics or into the Personal Story style dialogues. I’m guessing that Personal Story style dialogues are really easy to produce compared to the painterly style, and using them will probably let you completely bypass these problems.
If you’ve experienced some strangeness with the flythrough cinematic during the Queen’s speech, it’s likely related to system specs and graphics settings. Due to the length of the flythrough, lower spec machines may notice the caption timing and lip sync misaligned, graphics anomalies (like Scarlet’s gun floating in the air), or other weirdness.
This shouldn’t affect the painterly cinematic (with Lord Faren and Queen Jennah), as the VO is “baked in” with the movie file.
We apologize for this inconvenience and will be looking at ways to solve this issue in future updates.
Ah, thanks for the reply, I also noticed the floating gun, heh.
Isn’t that why the personal story has the stylised conversations?
That was the original plan, but a variety of factors led to the decision of shortening the painterly cinematic and doing the rest via the in-game systems.
personally, the painterly ones can look a bit jarring sometimes. i really like the in-game ones (you guys should get a system to control the player character during these ASAP), and i absolutely love the ones that used concept art in motion.
the painterly ones are kind of this odd mix that looks kinda plastic and jagged, not to mention some of the character faces are (unintentionally, i hope) hilarious, in a cringe worthy way.
not asking to drop them, but there’s certainly room for improvement, and i hope you haven’t dropped those concept art motion comics from whatever major story update you have planned.
The Faren cutscene was the best thing about the whole instance IMO
I liked it except for when he referred to himself in the 3rd person. I mean, who does that? Besides the Hulk…
That’s Lord Faren for you. “The Mouth of Shaemoor”.
Really, that cutscene was really in character for him.
I’m getting real tired of Anise, talking about him like if he was just an idle noble. (human noble personal story)Faren risked his life for a bunch of peasants, killed a lot of bandits and if it wasn't for him my human nobles would have been killed by Zamon and his pet norn.
Tarnished Coast
Astrid Strongheart, Norn Ranger.
“I wish juvenile wolves were bigger”
I loved it – but as I’ve said elsewhere, having NPCs refer to Divinity’s Reach as “DR” is extremely immersion breaking. Scarlet might as well have said “LOL” instead of laughing.
Otherwise, I found it fantastic.
Is it really that immersion breaking? Throughout history, people have always come up with shortened or slang versions of names, places, people, &c.
Do you find it odd that people refer to Los Angeles as “LA” all the time? You probably don’t because the abbreviation is used so commonly. It’s the same thing with Divinity’s Reach as “DR”. If anything, I’d say it enhances the immersion because it’s something that the people of such a city might do.
It is immersion breaking, yes. In all of the first game, no NPC ever referred to Lion’s Arch as “LA”. Or Droknar’s Forge as “Droks”. Or any of the other abbreviations the players used – and until the living story, nobody did it in GW2 either. They certainly didn’t in the personal story that I can recall. It sounds like an editing mistake – like it was shorthanded while writing but nobody remembered to fix it before it was sent on to the voice actors – it makes the whole thing jarring, it sounds out of place for the NPCs to suddenly start using player slang.
But hey, that’s just my opinion, man.
I loved it – but as I’ve said elsewhere, having NPCs refer to Divinity’s Reach as “DR” is extremely immersion breaking. Scarlet might as well have said “LOL” instead of laughing.
Otherwise, I found it fantastic.
Is it really that immersion breaking? Throughout history, people have always come up with shortened or slang versions of names, places, people, &c.
Do you find it odd that people refer to Los Angeles as “LA” all the time? You probably don’t because the abbreviation is used so commonly. It’s the same thing with Divinity’s Reach as “DR”. If anything, I’d say it enhances the immersion because it’s something that the people of such a city might do.
It is immersion breaking, yes. In all of the first game, no NPC ever referred to Lion’s Arch as “LA”. Or Droknar’s Forge as “Droks”. Or any of the other abbreviations the players used – and until the living story, nobody did it in GW2 either. They certainly didn’t in the personal story that I can recall. It sounds like an editing mistake – like it was shorthanded while writing but nobody remembered to fix it before it was sent on to the voice actors – it makes the whole thing jarring, it sounds out of place for the NPCs to suddenly start using player slang.
But hey, that’s just my opinion, man.
It’s not “player slang”, though. People call cities by their abbreviated names all the time. NYC? LA? SF? Every American state name?
I still have my dislikes with this patch’s content but overall it’s okay.