[MUD-Dev] Neverwinter Nights

[Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Koster, Raph [mailto:rkoster at verant.com]
> Sent: 07 June 2001 22:24
> To: 'mud-dev at kanga.nu'
> Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] Neverwinter Nights
 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Valerio Santinelli
>> Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 1:38 AM
>> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
>> Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Neverwinter Nights
 
>> I wonder why nobody is talking about leaving the player the
>> option to put the camera wherever they want around or inside
>> their character (with certain restrictions obviously). After all
>> we're talking about 3D games, and there isn't any limitation to
>> cameras in 3D spaces.

> Because it's really hard. We're wrestling with these issues on SWG
> right now. To list off some of the major hurdles:

>   - control mechanisms and other interfaces change when you go
>   from 1st person to overhead--there are many many conventions to
>   worry about.
 
>   - occlusion matters as soon as you leave 1st person. And
>   solutions are different depending on whether you're trying a
>   chase cam or an overhead cam.
 
>   - you will have to build your world geometry differently based
>   on what your occlusion solution is.

One thing that struct me on reading your post relates to
Mario64. Mario 64 is widely regarded as one of the better attempts,
but when you think about the environment, its all massively wide
open spaces - even when indoors.  That doesn't really sit well with
the cramped corridors so many games favour. To do third person well
with less forgiving/compromised geometry almost demands shoulder cam
(which may as well be first person), or precomputed camera
tracks/hints/etc... Personally I'd rather have one system that works
well, than a hacked mess of trying to support everything. In the
end, first person is the easiest, and to me, the most immersive.

If you look at games like AC, and possibly AO if they don't get
their act together, they do/will alienate a lot of their players
simply through poor interface choices. Not being able to chat whilst
running is just an insane design choice which is the case in AC if I
recall correctly (no autorun I believe).

I just find it sad that people always seem to cut corners on the
controls.  They often seem to be unevolved from what the developers
semi-randomly picked from their very first test-harnesses. Sadly,
its one of those things thats harder to adjust once the game goes
live.

Dan
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