Guild Wars 2

I really enjoy the first person cam, but i have to say i really hope for improvements.
For Example I want to see my feet, i have too look up all the time when running through LA on my Asura, but when I happen to look down this emptiness is… odd, I don’t know how well this can be implemented, since Tes: V had to be modded in order to show my body as well, but there I saw at least my hands & weapons.

I posted about this on one of WP’s videos when he mentioned this issue. There are some pretty big problems with implementing this which the average gamer won’t realize.

You simply cannot stick the camera inside the character’s head and call it a day. You would only be able to see the inside of the head polygon, effectively blinding you to the game environment. To solve this you could turn the head invisible, but then you will run in to animation clipping issues. When the character swings a sword or waves a staff, the animation is designed to look pretty from 3rd person. It wasn’t animated to look good from 1st person. Arms, torso, and other objects will clip through the camera randomly.

The reason games like Skyrim work is because they animated everything twice essentially. There are a full set of animations for 3rd person, and there are a completely different set of animations for the arms in 1st person. When you go into 1st person in Skyrim, your 3rd person model is switched for a different version which has no head, torso, or legs. It’s just a pair of floating arms.

What does this mean for GW2? You are basically asking Anet to go back and create a whole new set of animations for every weapon, and every skill in the game, on every race, for the arms and legs in 1rst person mode. And you are asking Anet to design a system for swapping the 3rd person character model for the 1st person floating arms/legs version.

This isn’t as easy as ticking a couple check boxes in Maya. It’s possible to implement, just not easy or cost-effective. It requires a hell of a lot more work from multiple departments. Easy way out? Just turn the whole body invisible, which is what we got.

No offense or anything, I just wanted to point out how some animators and game designers cringe when people say there was a “missed opportunity” here or that this update was disappointing. Some things are just out of scope and would cost too much time and resources. If GW2 had been designed from the beginning for this feature, it would be a different story. You are trying to put wheels on a car that don’t really fit the frame.

Oh, thanks for the enlightenment, so this is really nothing I should hope for? Well fair enough, but i once more Gw2 could be modded

This is always something that bothers me with nearly all 1st person games. There’s very few games that do it. I was happy to see Dying Light do it realistically. I mostly consider 1st person in GW2 to just be used to look at things better. Not so much as something to do combat in.

Horus.9685:

Oh, thanks for the enlightenment, so this is really nothing I should hope for? Well fair enough, but i once more Gw2 could be modded

Like I said, it’s totally possible for Anet to do it, it’s just unlikely because it’s a significant amount of work that could be better spent elsewhere. They are mainly focused on getting HoT ready. Maybe in a year or so when they have less on their plate, and enough demand for the feature. Still it’s hard to say because animation seems to be an expensive thing Anet tries to avoid. And this feature would require animations for 5 races, a dozen or so weapons, and tons of skills.

Good luck seeing that burning circle by your feet in first person without having to keep looking down lol

If u can’t see your feet then you won’t see what’s tickling them :-)

Stanley parable camera, can’t see your hands, can’t see your feet, can’t even see your own nose!

Bathos.6341:

Stanley parable camera, can’t see your hands, can’t see your feet, can’t even see your own nose!

Because we all want a random glob of a nose floating in the middle of the screen…

I want to be able to see my hands and weapons while we’re at it.