Originally posted by Camthylion

I just watched all the profession videos on the offical site... from MMORPG I got the impression this game was the next best thing since WoW launch... it looks like crap imo, its so anime and the animations are silly/laughable/chessey.  I dunno why this game is at the top of the hype listed, I think it will be a big let down, and drop off the radar after a couple months just like the first one.

If you want to start another thread explaining why you think the game looks like crap, by all means, but this is completely offtopic in the thread you're in.

Originally posted by cali59

Originally posted by Camthylion

I just watched all the profession videos on the offical site... from MMORPG I got the impression this game was the next best thing since WoW launch... it looks like crap imo, its so anime and the animations are silly/laughable/chessey.  I dunno why this game is at the top of the hype listed, I think it will be a big let down, and drop off the radar after a couple months just like the first one.

If you want to start another thread explaining why you think the game looks like crap, by all means, but this is completely offtopic in the thread you're in.

{mod edit}

But about the trailers, I'm pretty sure if Anet released a super spiffy trailer on GW2 people would get angry.  We would get pissed off that they weren't giving us the next profession, or more combat footage, or new dungeon run footage, or WvWvW footage.  There is soooo much stuff about the game that hasn't been anounced yet that a CGI trailer is probably the last thing on people's minds.  Hate to say but the OP pretty much answered his own question in his first post.  There is no reason to make a CGI trailer, and they have plenty of hype already without a CGI trailer as we can see with the hype meter being pegged since the game was shown at gamescom 2010 I think, could be wrong on that.  Point is there is no reason for one, team should focus on getting more info of the game to us, AND get the beta out that they have promised us this year.

Originally posted by Camthylion

I just watched all the profession videos on the offical site... from MMORPG I got the impression this game was the next best thing since WoW launch... it looks like crap imo, its so anime and the animations are silly/laughable/chessey.  I dunno why this game is at the top of the hype listed, I think it will be a big let down, and drop off the radar after a couple months just like the first one.

You don't really know what anime is, do you?

Originally posted by Camthylion

I just watched all the profession videos on the offical site... from MMORPG I got the impression this game was the next best thing since WoW launch... it looks like crap imo, its so anime and the animations are silly/laughable/chessey.  I dunno why this game is at the top of the hype listed, I think it will be a big let down, and drop off the radar after a couple months just like the first one.

 So you get all your information from pre beta gameplay videos?  You must play a lot of good games?  I can never understand why morons post their opinions on games based on videos and trailers without actually reading what a game is about (not calling you a moron just throwing that out there and if the shoe fits.....)  So in this case I guess we both don't understand something. I can promise you one thing though..... it won't drop off the radar after a couple months and no the first one didn't either. You not caring for it is one thing but lets not go overboard here.

Originally posted by just1opinion

Originally posted by Camthylion

I just watched all the profession videos on the offical site... from MMORPG I got the impression this game was the next best thing since WoW launch... it looks like crap imo, its so anime and the animations are silly/laughable/chessey.  I dunno why this game is at the top of the hype listed, I think it will be a big let down, and drop off the radar after a couple months just like the first one.

 You don't really know what anime is, do you?

I also don't get why people call anything anime these days. Heck, I watch a ton of anime and Guild Wars 2 looks nothing like it. The closest I've seen is the obcurse anime Guin Saga, but that's really not what people think when they think anime.

Why would you want to see a CGI trailer of GW2 that has nothing whatsoever to do with the gameplay. The manifesto trailer is all I need to see trailer-wise. I've seen some really cool cinematic trailers for TOR, they however raise expectations that can never be met in-game. Why would you want them to spend money to basically just lie to you?

I don't get the appeal of trailers. With films it's either stuff that's never actually going to happen in the film, or it's spoilers, and with games it's stuff that you're never going to experience. And do you know what that makes trailers? Poppycock. That's what. Bullhockey, a pile of old hogwash, whatever you like. I've never understood the appeal.

It's the desire to be fooled. That is a peculiar notion to me.

For the longest time I've just wanted gameplay trailers that show actual gameplay footage. If you hang around gaming sites like Rock, Paper, Shotgun you'll see a lot of people saying the same thing. I just want some gameplay footage. And with Guild Wars 2 we're getting just that, we're seeing the game as it truly is, we're watching it being developed and taking shape, we're a part of what ArenaNet is doing. Their approach has been a real revelation for me, and if I had my way then I'd strike all those worthlesss CGI trailers from existence and insist on gameplay trailers.

For me, a trailer is like going on vacation, but where you're shown this beautiful five star hotel, and you end up in a roadside motel. It's false advertising, and more than that, it shows a profound lack of confidence in the product.

To me, a CGI trailer tells me that you're not feeling very safe with your product, you're not proud of it, you want to shove it in a corner and hide it. You want to hide the product behind beautiful trailers, you want to pull every political stunt to have people thinking that your product is amazing, when really you're keeping it out of sight, because you know when it lands that people will finally see it for what it is. What ArenaNet does, in contrast, shows a love for their product.

They love Guild Wars 2, they're proud of it, so they're sharing it with us.

See, that's one thing I definitely think ArenaNet is doing so, so right. I'm trying not to outright praise ArenaNet all the time, but you have to understand that this is a thing for me. For years and years I've been so sick of big publishers hiding their actual game behind trailers, like they're ashamed of the game. How do you think that makes the developer feel? How do you think those artists, coders, audio people, and designers feel when their game is hidden away, and all you're shown is CGI pap, like their PR department doesn't think it's good enough to capture the hearts and minds of gamers?

I don't know about you, but I'd feel like shit, I wouldn't feel good about it at all. I'd lose faith in my own product, I'd not feel like I was doing a good enough job, I'd think that I was some sort of secret shame. I'd continue doing my job, but I wouldn't actually feel it any more, my self-respect would just go out the window. And how many game developers do you think that's happened at? There are so many developers where they've had amazing trailers, but the game has turned out to be a bit shit, or the game started off great, but you could see they were losing interest toward the end.

How much do you think a CGI trailer hurts developer morale? I'd say a friggin' lot.

When an independent developer shows a game, like say, Terry Cavanagh and VVVVVV, they actually show the game. Their attitude is pretty much: I made this. I was passionate about it, I loved making it, and I'm proud of it. Here it is. Look at it. I'll let it stand or fall by its own merits. But I feel good about what I did with this game. This is my game.

But if you're surrounding a game with CGI trailers, can you really say that? In fact, I dare even say that there's a direct correlation between how poor a game is, how low a developer's morale is, and how many CGI trailers and how big the PR budget is by comparison. I think that the larger the promotion, the crappier the game, overall. And the more money spent on promotion is less money spent on the game. You could be paying for Quality of Life improvements for your developers, right, yeah? But instead all that money is going to the PR department.

If I were a little guy working at Bioware, and I were looking at ArenaNet, I'd be feeling like shit right now and wishing that I could work there. Do you see that? ArenaNet are showing their actual game and talking about it with such passion, Bioware are doing the exact opposite.

This is why I think that TOR and similar games that have that sort of PR poppycock going on won't be as good as they could be, and ultimately they'll just be average, very average. I can't count the amount of games lately that have had amazing trailers, but have turned out to be distinctly, profoundly average. This is one of the reaons why I'm becoming more and more of an independent game player, but I'm always interested when I see a developer showing their actual game and taling about it as though it's something they care about.

Look at Firefall. They're doing the same thing as ArenaNet are with Guild Wars 2. They feel that they actually have something to show off, they feel that they have something worth showcasing, worth sharing with us. And that gives me confidence that Firefall is actually going to be a decent game. I feel interested in Firefall. Even despite the downer of having a hateful bigot like orson Scott Card writing for them, I still feel that their game may just be alright. They clearly give a damn about what they're doing. Do I get that same feeling from Bioware? No, I don't.

I can't be the only gamer that thinks this way or realises this, surely?

Originally posted by romanator0

Originally posted by onehunerdper

Originally posted by bazak

dude, the sense of awe your talking about i get that from the official trailers they have released the graphics are friggen awesome. i dont see how the cgi for swtor is any better looking than the gameplay trailers and such.

 

just dont see it cgi is great and all but when they can use the actual game to make epic trailers ill choose the trailers that use the actual game every time.

?

that was a troll post right?

You think this

snip

looks as good as this

double snip

Sure, TOR's CGI is pretty an all, but it barely has anything to do with the game at all.

I prefer trailers like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBAQiIesrGg&feature=feedu

Yea I agree, thats a great trailer, GW2 has some amazing art direction.

Dream Chaser.

Yes. I don't want to quote your massive post, but if people would read it, they might have some more insight into why people want gameplay footage. The entire mentality, as you explain, of Anet and Bioware is so very different, that it is astonishing.

I mentioned before, I really like lore CGI videos (much like, sad to say, for WoW), in which amazing things happen that tell a story. But these sorts of things should not be used for marketing, and the marketing trailers with CGI are usually just fight scenes and have nothing to do with anything.

I just don't understand why you would want to see that sort of thing, when you can see actual footage, and listen to actual writers and developers talk about the game they are creating like it is a work of love and passion.

That said, there is evidence they increase sales, so maybe they should have some? Of course, what does that say about the populace? And what does it say about Anet that they aren't doing it? I think the way they are marketing the game is very telling, and you explain it in detail and well.

I really enjoyed this commentary of the Forsaken World CGI Trailer. Pretty much epitomises all that these trailers amount to... they get people excited, for all the wrong reasons, until they realized exactly what they are excited. Dream_Chaser pretty much summed it up... in yet another Wall of Text. XD

Originally posted by slicknslim88

Originally posted by cali59

Originally posted by Camthylion

I just watched all the profession videos on the offical site... from MMORPG I got the impression this game was the next best thing since WoW launch... it looks like crap imo, its so anime and the animations are silly/laughable/chessey.  I dunno why this game is at the top of the hype listed, I think it will be a big let down, and drop off the radar after a couple months just like the first one.

If you want to start another thread explaining why you think the game looks like crap, by all means, but this is completely offtopic in the thread you're in.

{mod edit}

But about the trailers, I'm pretty sure if Anet released a super spiffy trailer on GW2 people would get angry.  We would get pissed off that they weren't giving us the next profession, or more combat footage, or new dungeon run footage, or WvWvW footage.  There is soooo much stuff about the game that hasn't been anounced yet that a CGI trailer is probably the last thing on people's minds.  Hate to say but the OP pretty much answered his own question in his first post.  There is no reason to make a CGI trailer, and they have plenty of hype already without a CGI trailer as we can see with the hype meter being pegged since the game was shown at gamescom 2010 I think, could be wrong on that.  Point is there is no reason for one, team should focus on getting more info of the game to us, AND get the beta out that they have promised us this year.

Hmm, well actually, CGI trailers aren't normally made in house, so it would take away from development.  Not sure where you're getting plenty of hype idea from.  MMORPG is just a fraction of the MMO community.  Most of my friends have never even heard of it and they've played WOW and other MMO's for years.

Originally posted by just1opinion

Originally posted by Camthylion

I just watched all the profession videos on the offical site... from MMORPG I got the impression this game was the next best thing since WoW launch... it looks like crap imo, its so anime and the animations are silly/laughable/chessey.  I dunno why this game is at the top of the hype listed, I think it will be a big let down, and drop off the radar after a couple months just like the first one.

 

You don't really know what anime is, do you?

^bahaha^ QFT

Dream Chaser,

The point of trailers is to get people to know about the film.  It's marketting.  I guess you may not grasp what that is, at least it seems obvious you don't.  Sometimes companies use deceptive trailers to give a false impression of awesomness, but that's just because their movie sucks.  If that was the only reason to create a trailer guess what, movies that their makers thought were awesome wouldn't have trailers at all.  That's not the case, again it's called marketting.

No one ever said that we didn't want gameplay videos, well some probably did.  I didn't.  I want gameplay videos.  I also no the impact that an awesome CGI trailer has.  It draws attention to the game.  It makes people want to see what it's about.  If someone sees a CGI trailer for an MMO and somehow idiotically thinks this is what the game actually looks like...well they are a moron, and would have been disappointed with the actual game anyways, CGI or no CGI.  But, I also don't want to see endless hours of gameplay videos, unless I'm, you know, playing the game. I understand that you have convinced yourself of the evils of CGI and how it's polluting gaming just like WOW was the mostest evilest thing to ever happen to MMO's, but hey unlike you, I understand the power of good marketting.  Which isn't to show endless videos of gameplay to gamers who by now kinda just want to see something that looks amazing, which honestly can't be done with MMO graphics, no matter how much better than the rest of the MMO's they look.

If CGI tells you that your not proud of the game, then I guess almost every successful MMO on the market isn't very proud of their game. That includes WOW, SWTOR, WAR, City of Heros, RIFT, and on and on.  It also includes Guild Wars, and every title that NCSoft makes.

I would be amazed if there wasn't a CGI trailer released before the game goes on sale.  It's just plain unintelligent to not have something like that to mass market.

I really don't see how developers would be hurt, unless the company actually told them, hey we think you're game looks terrible so we're going to make a CGI trailer so we don't have to show people you're stuff.  That's not what the CGI trailers are for.  They are strictly for marketting the game.  I mean no one wants to be watching TV on their 55" flatscreen HD TV and watching some amazing high quality program and then an MMO commercial comes on and it looks like...well an MMO. No offense to the graphics, because as far as MMOs go, they're amazing, but MMOs do not have the graphics that can compete with other games on the market.  It isn't possible.

You're equivocating a game sucking to whether or not it has a CGI trailer.  The two don't go together.  If a game sucks it sucks, it has nothing to do with a CGI trailer, unless the company spent half their capital on the trailer.  If they surround a game with CGI trailers and never show you acutal gameplay, there may be cause for worry, but to say that by making a CGI trailer shows that across the board the game is bad, is just illogical.  They make CGI trailers because it's good marketting.  Plain and simple, and it's what a lot of people like to see.  That doesn't mean that's all people want to see, but it is an excellent marketting tool.

To close, I'll repeat this, if you see a CGI trailer for a game, any game, even a single player game, and you think that's gameplay...you're an idiot.  It's an interest grabber, MARKETTING!

There is really no longer an excuse to use CGI pre-rendred trailers to promote games. In game graphics are were cinematics were several years ago. For some non-MMOs, the gap is even smaller. It's much better to do something cinematic with the game engine, than to pre-render something and put that forward as the face of the game.

In game graphics impress me. Pre-rendered stuff usually just provides a contrast to make the in game gpahics look worse.

I have seen commercials for games that looked interesting, only to check out game play videos and see that the game itself looks nothing like the commercial or trailer. I almost always pass on those games, as I resent the "bait and switch".

I think this effect is very dramatic for SW:TOR. As I have stated in a previous post, I stopped watching the CGI TOR videos after the first one or two, once I realized how huge a gap in quality there was between the pre-rendered video and the actual game graphics. The pre-rendered stuff was actually killing my enthusiasm for TOR, as it was a reminder of how far from the ideal the TOR graphics engine actually is.

The OP has his opinion, noted. However, I don't get the point of just continuing to insist that somehow his point of view makes so much sense that it's silly to disagree. Most of us seem to agree with the decision to stick to game rendered video for GW2, don't see the need for CGI and can't believe this thread has gone on so long arguing something so pointless.

I agree, fiontar, and I'm still of the opinion that the negatives for both gamers and developers alike are more noteworthy than the positives. I think we've already come up with a number of good reasons as to why CGI promotions aren't only undesirable to some of us, but even detrimental to the game itself. I honestly believe that the constant use of CGI actually kills my interest in a game, and I think that counts for most players.

Like I said earlier, on sites like Rock, Paper, Shotgun, when people run CGI trailers all of the time, the most common question is: But where is the game? Do you even have a game? And then this evolves into: Oh, another CGI trailer for this forgettable game that I hadn't even remembered the name of, woo-hoo. I think that's entirely understandable, because i think that except for perhaps a tiny demographic who find shallow, pointless, shiny things attractive, for most players CGI trailers can kill the interest a player has in a game. Because a CGI traler doesn't tell people why they should be excited about the game.

This attitude is very prevalent in the gaming sites I visit. And to be honest, I find the OP's attitude to be bizarre and out of the ordinary. I... honestly don't think I've seen anyone ever say that they like advertisements and PR hokum. I mean, that's his opipnion sure, but I'm utterly baffled by it. Maybe it's because I'm British and thus from a less corporate society, but usually when i'm exposed to adverts, I just walk away, I have no interest.

And ultimately, that's all a CGI trailer is. It's shallow, but at the same time it's manipulative, it's supposed to get me excited, but about what? What am i getting excited about? An ethereal piece of marketing? I'm all grown up now, so that doesn't exactly work anymore. So perhaps age is another factor in this? I can't even begin to speculate, really, but I do find it really weird.

Let's look at what the OP is actually saying to me in his reply to my post as to why I dislike CGI trailers, and how they exist solely to deceive and beguile those who should really know better. Apparently I "don't grasp" marketing. So there's a shot to my intellilgence off the bat. Nice. No, I understand what marketing is all too well, but the truth of the matter is that I'm an intelligent person, so I don't buy into marketing. Not buying into marketing and not grasping marketing are two entirely different things. I don't sit in front of the telly with rapt interest when I'm being shown a flashy advertisement for toilet paper, so why should I afford the marketing of any particular game any amount of interest beyond that?

Really, if I see a big Coka Cola billboard and I don't immediately desire coke, do I not grasp the billboard? That's silly. OP, you're silly. I mean, really now. Does marketing have that much of an effect on how you live your life, OP? Advertising is a necessary evil that I live with as a part of modern society, not something I really enjoy.

Anyway, if we're making shots below the belt, I'd actually have to say that the you both are currently and in the OP pushing the idea that most people are actually too stupid to decide on whether a game is good or not, and that they need things like CGI trailers to make up their minds for them. Unlike the OP, I suppose despite being a curmudgeon and a mouthy jerk (and I know I am, in both cases), I still have more faith in people. I do have faith in people. They annoy me, they frequently get on my nerves, and very often I find myself hating people I've never met. But overall I generally have faith in people. And I believe that most people, at least, aren't stupid enough that they actually require a flashy CGI trailer to make up their minds for them in regards to which products they buy.

I am purposefully understating the impact of marketing, yes, and I believe that the OP is overstating it. I hold the position that marketing does not control the lives of people and the decisions that they make. I believe that my position is the sensible one. :P I don't believe in brand loyalty, I don't believe in thinking more highly of a company for constantly spamming me with fallacious reasons as to why their product is so great (CGI trailers included), and thus I just don't buy into the big sell in the way that the OP does.

I actually have a mind and a will of my own. Gosh, imagine that.

Aside from that, I still uphold that aside from CGI trailers being bad for us, that they're bad for the morale of developers, which is a point that I'm sure that the OP is wilfully misunderstanding. (I don't think that he's not grasping this point, I think that he's just dismissing it.) The idea here is that if you're hiding a product behind CGI trailers all the time as opposed to actually showing the product, as Bioware was with The Old Republic for the longest time, then that can't be good for developer morale. Consider this: I'm on the art team of ArenaNet, and I'm watching the Internet for the coverage of my game. What I'm seeing is that TOR is hiding behind these flashy CGI trailers, but ArenaNet is standing on the merits of the game, purely the game, without needing the inherent dishonesty of marketing to show people how great it is. Now that's got to be a morale boost for ArenaNet.

If I were working for ArenaNet's art department, that would be such a morale boost, because on the Internet I'd see people like Colin Johansen talking with such passion about the game I'm working on, and I'd see actual gameplay footage being shown off. And I'd see my product being proudly put out there, with no PR hokum, just standing purely on its own merits. And I'd feel absolutely fantastic about that.

To the contrary, if I were working for Bioware, I'd be asking myself why they feel that the game is so bad that they need to hide behind CGI trailers, why they're releasing one after the other, without ever showing off the game, despite the game being at a point where they can show it off. Why they're hiding the product itself away like it's some kind of secret shame, trying to sell the game to weak-willed people on the merits of marketing rather than by the merits of the game itself. I'd think that that would have to have a negative impact on developer morale, I'd be depressed, and I'd lose interest in my job.

I can see TOR suffering for its marketing approach, due to low developer morale.

The thing is is that developer morale might not have been so low if not for another upstart developer showing people how it's done, and genuinely believing that their product is good enough to not need marketing hokum.

Do you see what I'm getting at here? If you don't, then I'm never going to be able to explain this to you. Oh, and your WoW example is a fallacious one, by the way, due to how WoW didn't have any competition at the time. If a product doesn't have any competition then how it's marketed isn't going to hurt morale, obviously. The only people whom were even trying to think of competing with WoW at the time (Everquest II) actually were using the same CGI nonsense. So there you go. There was Guild Wars at the time, as well, but that actually also used gameplay footage, but more importantly it wasn't in direct competition with WoW. ArenaNet marketed Guild Wars as a Co-op RPG, not an MMORPG.

And no, I wasn't equivocating anything. That's a straw-man. Look at the post you're talking about. I didn't actually say that 'TOR sucks,' those are your words. No, what I said is that it would hurt developer morale if one developer was hiding a game behind marketing hokum (such as CGI trailers), and another developer was showing their game proudly. This isn't too hard of a concept to understand, and I'm sure you do understand it, I know you do, you're just trying to obfuscate it and bury it under a landslide of fallacies. But that's not going to work, not with me.

In closing: If your decisions are purely driven by marketing hokum and that factors into whether you buy a game more than the qualities inherent in the game itself, then you're an idiot. No one was saying that people believe that CGI trailers show the game as it is, after all. But rather that some (such as myself) find CGI trailers patronising. An insult to our intelligence.

(Edited due to a typo I didn't catch. It was a soundalike word rather than an incorrectly typed one.)

Originally posted by Dream_Chaser

I agree, fiontar, and I'm still of the opinion that the negatives for both gamers and developers alike are more noteworthy than the positives. I think we've already come up with a number of good reasons as to why CGI promotions aren't only undesirable to some of us, but even detrimental to the game itself. I honestly believe that the constant use of CGI actually kills my interest in a game, and I think that counts for most players.

Like I said earlier, on sites like Rock, Paper, Shotgun, when people run CGI trailers all of the time, the most common question is: But where is the game? Do you even have a game? And then this evolves into: Oh, another CGI trailer for this forgettable game that I hadn't even remembered the name of, woo-hoo. I think that's entirely understandable, because i think that except for perhaps a tiny demographic who find shallow, pointless, shiny things attractive, for most players CGI trailers can kill the interest a player has in a game. Because a CGI traler doesn't tell people why they should be excited about the game.

<cropped due to length>

I have to agree with this gentleman's lengthy post.

I actually saw the gameplay footage of SWtOR before I saw the trailer and the gameplay itself was already a huge letdown. After playing the Jedi Knight series, I had hoped for gameplay to be more fluid and mobile than it was. Sadly, they went the route of too many others in regard to combat mechanics.

On the other hand, the trailers and gameplay footage have only increased my excitement for GW2. I love the art direction and the short snippets of storyline found in their videos. It's also great to see the enthusiasm of the developers and artists. They are excited and it enhances my excitement as well. The graphics of the game may not be top of the line, but graphics do not make a game. Hell, I still think two of the best RPG's ever made were on the SNES. (Final Fantasy 6 (3 in US) and Chrono Trigger) What made them special? The stories that unfolded while I played through and, of course, the gameplay. That's what really matters though. It's the experiences you have within the game world that keep you coming back for more, not a flashy trailer.

A video of actual gameplay can have a lasting effect on a player. If you played EverQuest back at the beginning (and loved it), you would know that nostalgia is a powerful thing. Try watching "Sayonara Norrath" on youtube without wanting to experience it all again. Trust me, I've returned many times because of that single video and all it is is screenshots set to great music. I become more attached to things I will be able to relate to and experience within the game world itself, than a CGI video that gives me false hopes on gameplay. Luckily, I saw gameplay first and wasn't impressed with what I saw.

Will I play GW2 at release? Hell yeah.

Will I play SWtOR at release? Probably not.