Guild Wars 2

bug squish

15 chars…………….

Torsailr.8456:

A bit old, but I was looking at the patch notes and found this…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-January-13-2015/first#post4695845
*Removed the skip button from the Heart of Thorns trailer which plays the first time an account completes the episode “Point of No Return”.

So really, out of everyone asking for skippable cut scenes you thought it was better to remove the ability to skip it?

I…I try to stay positive…but this just…why would you do this?

Surely you can see this is a special case.

First of all this isn’t a cut scene, it’s not in the middle, it’s the payoff. It’s a full blown cinematic. And it’s not a minor one. It’s a major thing.

People who are used to just skipping without looking miss the announcement that Anet wants to get out.

Anet never said I will allow you to skip every single cut scene forever, anyway. But due to people who skip everything without even seeing it once, this is a logical precaution in my mind.

I bet before they changed it, tons of people skipped it and didn’t know about the big announcement at all. Not everyone comes to the forums.

Its 2015 and this game still has unskippable cutscenes, there is no excuses to be had.

As the Japanese guy would say, THIS IS A SHAMEFUL DISPRAY.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

There’s a bigger technical issue—during “in game” scenes, the NPCs are moving around and things are happening (gadgets might be activating, props may be animating, etc.) and if you just skipped all that, it could lead to some really bizarre behavior. Trying to manually set a “failsafe” to teleport the NPCs, fire off effects, etc. to replicate what the world state is if the cutscene plays is extremely tedious and error prone.

That’s why the old style “dialogue cutscenes” (and the fancy but rare full blown cinematic sequences, like the Order movies and racial intros) are skippable, because we aren’t doing anything to the world while the dialogue plays, so skipping it doesn’t have any effect. We’ve moved away from those, because the in-game scenes are a lot more satisfying, but there’s a trade off.

GW1 featured fully skippable cutscenes. The cutscenes in that game did the same thing where the cinematics were being rendered in real-time, actually moving your characters and NPCs around. Basically the game removed the UI and control from the player and moved characters where they needed to be as the scenes played out. When a player skipped the cutscene everything just jumped to wherever the game intended that the player/NPCs be at. For players that didn’t skip the cutscene, they could just sit back and enjoy the cutscene while the others went ahead and continued doing things and killing bad guys. Once the cutscene was over for them, those players be right where the other players were when they skipped it and just ran to catch up with the rest of the party and continue like normal. If that cinematic was the end of the mission instance, the player was instantly transported to the next town/outpost that the mission intended.

I get that it’s not the exact same game, and it was developed mostly by different people who are no longer part of ArenaNet, but I was under the impression that the GW2 engine is heavily modified version of the GW1 game engine. If this is the case, how is it not possible to do the same thing as before? Would it be possible for you guys to look back at GW1 and take inspiration from it? I know that’s asking a lot, but maybe you can?

The GW2 engine is much more complex and has more sophisticated features and effects than the GW1 engine.

Imagine some kind of weapon is fired during a cutscene and the bullet impact has some lingering effect afterwards, that is pertaining even after the cutscene ended.

What if the player skips the scene and the bullets are not fired? How should the bullet effects be applied to the would in the instance without them being fired off in the first place? These kind of things are what Jeffrey Vaughn was trying to explain.

It’s not only the positioning of NPCs or players that are moved within the video. It’s the whole environment that may be changed during the video. Vines grow and become borders to a combat arena, buildings are set on flame, etc… We have seen all this before.

One more example, how difficult it is to move and hide things during cinematics: if you look at the cinematic before Caithe kills Wynne, you see some strange things. If you are going in with a party, your minipets are moved to a place behind the heads of Caithe and Wynne. The cinematic ends and the party members find themselves being invisible at the same location as their minipets. The main player is Caithe and interacts with Wynne, and during this time the invisible party members are able to move. You can move behind Wynne, for example. Your minipets follow. Then the cinematic starts where Caithe kills Wynne. The party members are still invisible, but the minipets are visible and running around in the video! We made fun of it by positioning them in a way so they appear in the video. Very funny to see some Skritta Claws in this scene next to Wynne – it tells us the developers are still humans who create not perfect things like all of us.

But: this mix of history reminiscence, video and interaction with NPCs is what makes the story very alive and immersive . Arenanet should make more of these things in the future. I enjoyed this part especially. I’d prefer this over skippable videos, if I had the choice of having either this or that.

Zera Allimatti.2541:

GW1 featured fully skippable cutscenes.

Often, they were either at the begining of a mission or at the very end so it wasn’t hard to make them skippable.

Some of the cutscenes that could be skipped and weren’t at the start/end of a mission could be abused by the players, for example the Malyx skip/bug that was never fixed.

maddoctor.2738:

Zera Allimatti.2541:

GW1 featured fully skippable cutscenes.

Often, they were either at the begining of a mission or at the very end so it wasn’t hard to make them skippable.

Some of the cutscenes that could be skipped and weren’t at the start/end of a mission could be abused by the players, for example the Malyx skip/bug that was never fixed.

Yeah, but there were plenty of cutscenes mid-mission that transitioned along with the mission just fine. Like the first time we meet Vizier Khilbron or during the mission where we accompany Rurik through the shiverpeaks to Kryta and he offers the player an ale.

With the GW2 engine being a better engine than GW1, shouldn’t that mean it is capable of doing what GW1 did plus more?

The exploits like the Mallyx one, that is not the fault of skippable cutscenes, that is the fault of ArenaNet making a programming mistake somewhere. It’s only worse that they didn’t fix it. I think they were working on GW2 and GW Beyond stuff by then, though, so naturally GW1 issues that didn’t revolve around that fell on the priority list.

I, like everyone, would also support for skipping cut-scenes. After perusing the thread, some cut-scenes are skippable while others cannot. Impossible to skip is not stated. Rather, it is tedious and error prone. So, Anet has told us that it is not impossible to program it to skip. It’s just very hard to make it a reality. While I sympathize with the complexities of computer programming and coding, is there not a bright graduate in the company? Not to step on anyone’s tail, but would just like to add my name to the list of supporters for the skip button.

BentoDetective.6491:

I, like everyone, would also support for skipping cut-scenes. After perusing the thread, some cut-scenes are skippable while others cannot. Impossible to skip is not stated. Rather, it is tedious and error prone. So, Anet has told us that it is not impossible to program it to skip. It’s just very hard to make it a reality. While I sympathize with the complexities of computer programming and coding, is there not a bright graduate in the company? Not to step on anyone’s tail, but would just like to add my name to the list of supporters for the skip button.

I’m sure there are many bright graduates in that company. Which doesn’t mean that when you prioritize all things that need to be done this will fall to the top of that bright graduates list.

The worst part isn’t skipping cut scenes. The worst part is having to repeat those scene multiple times to even attempt an achievement you failed. It feels unnecessarily punishing.

It’s stopped me from completeing at least one achievement out of sheer annoyance.

Vayne.8563:

BentoDetective.6491:

I, like everyone, would also support for skipping cut-scenes. After perusing the thread, some cut-scenes are skippable while others cannot. Impossible to skip is not stated. Rather, it is tedious and error prone. So, Anet has told us that it is not impossible to program it to skip. It’s just very hard to make it a reality. While I sympathize with the complexities of computer programming and coding, is there not a bright graduate in the company? Not to step on anyone’s tail, but would just like to add my name to the list of supporters for the skip button.

I’m sure there are many bright graduates in that company. Which doesn’t mean that when you prioritize all things that need to be done this will fall to the top of that bright graduates list.

The worst part isn’t skipping cut scenes. The worst part is having to repeat those scene multiple times to even attempt an achievement you failed. It feels unnecessarily punishing.

It’s stopped me from completeing at least one achievement out of sheer annoyance.

They are learning on the achievements at least. The mote for the fight in the cave just needs to be implemented for all of them.

Pockets.3201:

Vayne.8563:

BentoDetective.6491:

I, like everyone, would also support for skipping cut-scenes. After perusing the thread, some cut-scenes are skippable while others cannot. Impossible to skip is not stated. Rather, it is tedious and error prone. So, Anet has told us that it is not impossible to program it to skip. It’s just very hard to make it a reality. While I sympathize with the complexities of computer programming and coding, is there not a bright graduate in the company? Not to step on anyone’s tail, but would just like to add my name to the list of supporters for the skip button.

I’m sure there are many bright graduates in that company. Which doesn’t mean that when you prioritize all things that need to be done this will fall to the top of that bright graduates list.

The worst part isn’t skipping cut scenes. The worst part is having to repeat those scene multiple times to even attempt an achievement you failed. It feels unnecessarily punishing.

It’s stopped me from completeing at least one achievement out of sheer annoyance.

They are learning on the achievements at least. The mote for the fight in the cave just needs to be implemented for all of them.

Yeah I have one of the World Summit Achievements left. I failed it at least twice due to lag, and I’m just not willing to sit through the whole procession or click through the whole convincing the world leader thing again.