Originally posted by Jonoku

All I know is that I love the SWTOR combat animations and it's the best I have seen. I want to know about other MMOs that also have great animations.

What are your thoughts?

We agree here. They are not just animations either. The animation and the damage is connected all the way to projectile travel time. 

This and the resource system, Swtor abosolutely nailed.

For me: TERA.

I loved the many little details added, down to each individual finger. And the clear differences between race, male and female. A lot of work and love went into that. ^^

http://youtu.be/YUzfnqMSsdQ?t=1m4s

Lineage Eternal animations are so cool, for me the best so far.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCdbdsFgNGI

Gotta admit EvE does pretty good, they simulate battle turrets swiveling like they're real as can be :P.

In reality Tera did an amazing job for me, never had one of those moments where you had that "reality breaking WTF moment".  then again only got to level 20 or so till I realized the only thing the game had to offer was awesome combat, with everything else being pretty bland.

WoW operated pretty smoothly then again they're so far out of reality that it's hard to hit uncanny valleys.

______

As for motion capture...  Any game that isn't using mocap of some sort or another is pretty far behind.  It's literally the developers saying "we're doing what everyone else does, but calling it a feature" in the case of SWG.

Originally posted by Torgrim

Age of Conan hands down,  This is not an opinion it's fact beacuse they used motion capture.

/thread.

Oh, like this?  Age of Wushu "Weapons in Motion" Video

Originally posted by Metanol

Originally posted by Pivotelite

Originally posted by Metanol

Tera? Looks absolutely horrible, unless you like anime and all that.

 What does that even mean... the animations are horrible unless you like anime... I can not even comprehend this statement.

I don't see the problem here. What do you not understand?

 

I was talking about the style of animations: See Dragon Age Origins -> Dragon Age 2 animation argument.

Fluid, more realistic animations > Anime super epic animations.

Are you now able to understand my opinion, or do I need to go more in detail with this case?

No i'm not able to comprehend it still, because I don't like anime but can still see that TERAs animations are fantastic, every finger, eyes, tongue, mouth, it's all animated and animated very well.

age of wushu

swtor

age of conan

I don't like anime.  Never have.  it just nevr resonated with me.  But the TERA character combat animations are amazingly good. 

If you take a snapshot of an extremely fast combat action by a slayer, for example, then close up to the face, you can see the characters detailed facial expression, the direction the eyes are looking in are consistent with the direction of the attack, The overall action feels "heroic" meaning, your character feels like it knows what it's doing and its fully confident in every move.  In game the impacts connects and the full force can be seen even with a gentle shake of the screen and perfect spurt of blood - you feel your blow connect very well.

In swtor (which overall I actually enjoyed for its storytelling ~ only) I was kinda let down by the combat animations.  Specifically if you were a Marauder casting that "channeled" strike whatever its name was I could be striking ahead but the target could be on the side - or heck over behind you and your character would still be happily striking air (and connecting too).  Force Lightingin was well done, but I was unhappy with the crowching the character did, almost wished they used the character pose used in lightning strike for the channeled effect.

Originally posted by Torgrim

Age of Conan hands down,  This is not an opinion it's fact beacuse they used motion capture.

/thread.

What if I dont like realistic animations? I might like more cartoony stuff or unrealistic super hero moves :P

I like TERA's animations very much, it feels like they have power behind all those blows. Also SWTOR has pretty nice animations, and a nice variety, unlike WoW which has like 2 melee animations per 1h/2h and one animation for defensive and offensive casting each per race. Time for Blizz to put some of the earned billions into upgrading and adding some animations while re-modeling the old races!

WoW and GW2 are my favorites.  Although I dont like how the off hands in dont swing unless the 4 or 5 are activated.  Its more realistic but do not like how in combat with a DW setup the offhand rarely swings in relation to the MH.

IMO that no better combat animation then a WoW Rogue's Mutilate attack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=DXL7kYiqJBc&NR=1

From al games I played SWTOR has the best combat animations. I love also how they emplemented cover and throwing sticky granades at mobs is fun to watch. And I absolutely love orbital strike and all saber throws on my sith warriors:)

The new HK-51 has one of the coolest companion animation, but I love also how Andronicos destroys his enemies:)

HK-51

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfdXoBl_Jt4

Andronicos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wn66y1X7m4

I love FFXI's and by a lot.Sure they could use better hi res textures but we are talking animations,not graphics.

To be honest ,i do remeber most games,but SWTOR turned me off becuase of it doing everything half ass ,that i sort of forgot what their animations looked like.I guess since i don't  remember them being bad and i would,they must have been ok.

Most games ,especially F2p do not put enough animation frames in each animation.You get what you pay for.FFXI for example is often said to be too slow,well the cheap games couldn't pull off slow becuase the lack of animation frames woudl really stand out,so they have everything happen at break neck arcade speeds.

I have seen some god awful animations in games people praise,like GW2 arrow shooting and the constant spamming of fire coming from a staff.I know we are talking Fantasy but to keep the lore decently in tact,you don't spam fire from the staff,you use the staff to summon fire from the elements in the sky.Imagine a wooden staff firing fire for a week,the thing would burn up lol.

I actually don't mind the animations in most games,they are just hit and miss from game to game.F2p definitely stands out for having the worst.

Great post, love combat animations when done well it just adds to the immersion for me. For all the games I've played, Tera and Vindictus are my top choice. In Tera you can tell they went into great detail with casting and melee animations, right down to leg placement, facial changes, real shouts and even finger movement it never gets old. Vindictus is just amazing, slapping mobs around flipping them over your back, grabbing everything around you for weapons the list goes on. The Evie class is one of the coolest classes I've ever played to date.

I see many say Aoc, it's one of my favorite with graphics and armor detail and a game that I'm still subbed. But sad to say combat looks down right geriatric, especially the legs and feet and how they swivel side to side, looks like they're on ice. And it transfered over to TSW, boo. Fataltys in Aoc are just cool as hell. Is that considered combat or a cut scene?

In Eq2 the monk wielding dual weapons was very cool. Rift is another I like alot, some spell animations look great and melee makes sense. Gw2 did a decent job with some melee weapons (dual axe) but that damn casting leaning forward position just looks horrible. Knockdown although funny looks bad also, It's all seems a bit fast too. I love GW2 but all my girls do is brag while fighting, with the small numbers you do in this game for dps it's nothing to brag about. =) SWOTR was decent but looked like you were having a conversation between strikes, very slow and choppy. Wow for it's time was smooth and looked great but by todays standard its to dated. I liked in wow how you were breathing and had breath. I guess everybody else in games these days must be undead. All in all, In my opinion I've found asian games to excel when it comes to combat animations. Sure sometimes weapons are to damn big and spells are a bit flashy, boobs defy gravity, but it's their flavor and an asian thang.

Vindictus Online does it best IMO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnKJpXZxmyU&feature=g-vrec