Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Shroud of the Avatar: Latest Update Showcases Male Avatar Animations
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
The latest update from the Shroud of the Avatar team allows players to check out the latest animations from the team with regard to the male avatar. The post indicates that the animations have been redone and much, much more.
Project Updates Transitioning to SotA Website and Emails!Since we completed our Kickstarter campaign on April 7, 2013, we have been double-posting our project updates to both Kickstarter and the SotA project website. To help consolidate our communications with our community of backers, we will start posting the updates only on the SotA website, but we will continue to send an email version of the updates to all of our Kickstarter backers using the email addresses provided to us by Kickstarter. This way we can consolidate all of your replies and comments to our updates in one place.
We're currently using MailChimp as our email distribution platform, so keep an eye out for our future emailed updates. You should continue to receive these email updates even if you haven't yet registered on the SotA website. If you don't see them, then make sure your spam filters aren't blocking them from your inbox!
Please Register on SotA and Link Your Kickstarter Account!Stay on top of all the latest game development news by registering on our website, https://www.
shroudoftheavatar.com. And if you have not already done so, please be sure to Link your Kickstarter Account, so we can ensure that you receive all of your backer rewards as soon as they are ready to roll out!
Head to the links above for more information.
Comments
You... you did say animation(S), plural, right? While the short video of a basic 'axe attack' animation is all well and good (better than anything in Rift, not that such a thing is difficult), it hardly constitutes a proper update.
Ah, there's another one on their website, I see. It's nice, but again hardly something for a programmer / modeler to give to their mom so it can be stuck on the fridge door with one of those annoying magnets which always falls down for no reason. It's a standard attack animation, the same type found in any game where axes & bows are wielded.
While I respect Mr. Garriott's attempt to keep myself & other backers (as well as the general public) abreast of the game's development, I think it would perhaps be a bit wiser of him to wait until there's something worth showing. These videos are the equivalent of jingling your keys in front of a toddler's face.
"Wooo, look at that animation! Look at it! Woooeeeeooooo!!!!" *insert random noises adults make to babies here*
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
I bought all 5 games and I expect it to be good,its still early development and it is going to be real roleplaying where you can create and do anything you want maybe its to complicated for people that want to kill 5 rats the whole time just to level up.
thank goodness for crowd funding I don't have to play stuped mindless grind fests with no interesting quests just to level up.
True and sad.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Did you just say that was not hard to do, oh really, animating characters is the hardest thing to do, so some of you gamers are looking at something you may... think is easy, think again... I been in the gaming industry for 20 years, so I think I would know, I find it funny every time, I hear how someone who has never done something is so easy... I will be waiting for the next animation you make , please link it soon..
The thing is, that today there are various companies out there that are specialized in Motion Capture and Animation and sell Complete animation suites/packages on the net!
These vary from the most basic (cheap) to the more complex (expensive) or even customized on order.
As long as you use industry standard Tools in Your Game Studio, you can directly import and incorporate these Animation suits. Saving studios a lot of time and Money.
Sure, if you have a large Budget and/or work in a very large studio(s), like EA, etc they have their own Motion Capture & Animation facility to facilitates all their studios.
I never said animations as a whole are easy. I said that it isn't hard to do animations better than those in Rift, and I stand by that statement. Rift's animations are absolutely atrocious, and attacks which are supposed to represent smashing / cutting / burning / crushing your foes into a fine paste or powder have all the apparent forcefulness of lightly smacking somebody with a dry water noodle.
the key here is 'not so long ago' ... first webpages where very simple, and yet - amazing back then. Times change - games and webpages evolve - so do our expectations.
And yes - I remember myself being amazed while looking at mob/char animations .. but that was for Asherons Call in around 2001.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
While the animations are nice, it seems at this pace this game will be irrelevant when it eventually launches in what... 2017 if we're lucky?
Or if you don't have a large budget you skip the motion capture studio and purchasing other peoples stuff and make your own. These guys probably don't want to purchase other peoples crap (neither would I) and would rather sell a product THEY made. Someone made and sold a game using the base models,etc that come with Poser and what did people do? Give them shit for not making their own.
Vannor: Tracy Hickman is the lead story guy, and writing a book to go with the game.
If you want story, this is the game for you. Don't put to much into the graphics yet, ignore the nay-sayers. The games only about 120 days into development.. and its slated for a 2014 release (not something like 2017). Made possible so quickly only because of Unity and crowd sourcing activities. Most of the negative comments floating around are really from people not having a clue to what they are talking about (some people have negative opinos that are educated about what they are talking about, which is ok.. its the ones that dont have a clue i find annoying). Show me a game company that had the guts to put out game animations at 90 and 120 days? if there are others, there sure arent many.
Anyway, if you do check Shroud of the Avatar out and decide its for you, please do me the return favor of using me as a referal. Stile@the caverns.net (or id#147). But this game is all about story and depth!
Your being too nice. It seems like people aren't interested in anything anymore unless its never been done. As if every bit of progress needs to be earth shattering or the first thing out of people's mouths is "insert some snide remark here."
The only time I poke fun at developers is when they claim one thing in writing or verbally then do something completely average. I will use the EQNext hype train as an example. Claiming they have reinvented the MMO then showing us nothing that hasn't been done somewhere else.
Garriott has never claimed anything more than wanting to make a fun game. But apparently that's just not good enough these days now is it guys?