Of all the issues to pick from, you pick weapon holstering?  My god man!  I'd rather see MMOs return to what they were pre WoW.  You know a game that actually rewarded grouping and social behavior vice every kid gets a trophy push buttons to win dumbed down garbage WoW has transferred the genre into.

i will live with floating weapons if we can get a real MMO made and not another game that continues to dumb down the genre until a toddler can raid successfully while taking a nap and soiling a diaper.

Originally posted by Latronus

Of all the issues to pick from, you pick weapon holstering?  My god man!  I'd rather see MMOs return to what they were pre WoW.  You know a game that actually rewarded grouping and social behavior vice every kid gets a trophy push buttons to win dumbed down garbage WoW has transferred the genre into.

i will live with floating weapons if we can get a real MMO made and not another game that continues to dumb down the genre until a toddler can raid successfully while taking a nap and soiling a diaper.

except "weapons floating" seems like a much easier thing to address than changing the game design back to where it came from; don't you think?

And I'm with you, I prefer a more old school type of game.

I would agree however there are a couple problems:

I like people to see my weapons. When I get a giant flaming sword from the gods themselves, I want people to see it. I don't want it hidden behind some sheath.

Clipping. Each weapon is different, so unless you want the same shaped weapon or one sheath fits all (which imo would be even weirder) I would rather have them focus on the weapons more themselves.

Now, maybe a see through... or invisible sheath that goes on the back that still shows the weapon without any hinderance... oh wait. That is what flaoting weapons are :P

Originally posted by KingJiggly

Clipping. Each weapon is different, so unless you want the same shaped weapon or one sheath fits all (which imo would be even weirder) I would rather have them focus on the weapons more themselves.

If the weapon is simply warping into the sheath, then you simply wouldn't draw the blade or whatever when it's sheathed.  Not drawing the portion that is sheathed for an animation that shows you sticking your sword in a sheathe would be harder, because you would have to determine what to draw at the pixel level rather than the model level.  It's certainly possible, but trying to do it without any graphical artifacting as the pixels "disappear" could be anything from very easy to very hard, likely depending on depth buffer rounding errors.  It could easily look fine up close but give horrible artifacting if seen from far away.

Originally posted by 3-4thElf

Originally posted by aRtFuLThinG

Originally posted by mmoDAD

FLOATING WEAPONS: Why are we still dealing with the primitive way weapons are holstered?

 Because for an mmo such pointless aesthetics wastes bandwidth and is irrelevant to gameplay.

 

mmos have to consider performance in terms of the everyday computer because it is about getting many people to play at the same time, and not just the super gaming rigs of the few fanatics playing by themselves.

Well it'd not be a bandwidth problem actually. All graphic and animation assets sit on the hard drive. All the network sees is the 1s and 0s that'd tell the world that you indeed drew your weapon from a scabbard then hopefully translate that on screen to other users.

 That might be, and you and me both won't know for sure because don't code their games; however technicalities asides it is still an issue of performance/time & resources vs aesthetics.

It is just not worth the developer's time/material to dwell on these trivial problem such as sheathing of weap in a mmo. It is like asking why we don't actually see the avatar animate change out of an armor and into another when we change armor on a toon - it is redundant and unnecessary and is like watching a movie that also films actors going to toilet and brushing teeth in the morning everyday.

Originally posted by aRtFuLThinG

Originally posted by 3-4thElf

Originally posted by aRtFuLThinG

Originally posted by mmoDAD

FLOATING WEAPONS: Why are we still dealing with the primitive way weapons are holstered?

 Because for an mmo such pointless aesthetics wastes bandwidth and is irrelevant to gameplay.

 

mmos have to consider performance in terms of the everyday computer because it is about getting many people to play at the same time, and not just the super gaming rigs of the few fanatics playing by themselves.

Well it'd not be a bandwidth problem actually. All graphic and animation assets sit on the hard drive. All the network sees is the 1s and 0s that'd tell the world that you indeed drew your weapon from a scabbard then hopefully translate that on screen to other users.

 That might be, and you and me both won't know for sure because don't code their games; however technicalities asides it is still an issue of performance/time & resources vs aesthetics.

 

It is just not worth the developer's time/material to dwell on these trivial problem such as sheathing of weap in a mmo. It is like asking why we don't actually see the avatar animate change out of an armor and into another when we change armor on a toon - it is redundant and unnecessary and is like watching a movie that also films actors going to toilet and brushing teeth in the morning everyday.

oh please...

it's a small thing. There are a lot more graphically intense things that are added to games, especially to games that have incredibly intense graphical effects on their weapons and armor.

It's not any more redundant than adding anything else to a character, their weapons, armor, spell effects, etc. It's as redundant as adding squirrels and bunnies to a game but their addition helps create a realistic world.

've never understood why clipping is so intolerable.  I think a lot of good ideas get scrapped because of clipping issues.  Devs seem to have OCD when it comes to clipping, like its worse than anything else.   Take away customization, simplify animations, whatever, as long as there's no clipping.  It must be due to a sort of tunnel vision, regarding their own work.  They don't always see the big picture, just the little mistakes that they think need to be fixed.

Originally posted by Vhaln

've never understood why clipping is so intolerable.  I think a lot of good ideas get scrapped because of clipping issues.  Devs seem to have OCD when it comes to clipping, like its worse than anything else.   Take away customization, simplify animations, whatever, as long as there's no clipping.  It must be due to a sort of tunnel vision, regarding their own work.  They don't always see the big picture, just the little mistakes that they think need to be fixed.

You know those ads with bright colors jumping around or flashing or whatever desperately trying to get your attention?  Imagine an entire game that looked about like that.  That's what you'll end up with if you don't worry about clipping at all.  We might think of clipping as an occasional graphical glitch here and there, but it takes a ton of work to get it down to that point.

I don't mind the lack of sheaths at all (showing off those hard-earned weapons is almost as rewarding as using them) but when weapons are obviously floating 6 inches away from a character's hip / back? Yeah, that really bugs me. I understand that it may be difficult to get them completely flush due to clipping issues (which most weapons have anyway grrrr), but in many cases it's so blatantly obvious that you can't help but wonder if the dev team was even trying.

The Secret World is a HUGE offender in this regard.

This IS from someone who obsesses over the lack of symmetry in some of EVE Online's ship designs however, so take it all with a few grains of salt.

So just a couple things I'd like to point out. In the OP it was said that it made it feel more realistic and point to a video of AoC in beta, and in that video the sword the character is using, I would guess, is around 4ft long. (just a guess cause it goes from about his shoulder, down to the back of his knee). Now I'm just gonna use some average figures here, but lets say he is 6ft tall. His arm length should be around 2.5 to 3 ft. Would it be physically possible for him to draw the sword from the scabbard on his back?

Most games have swords that are much much bigger than the one pictured in the video. I know that it would be impossible for them to be pulled from a scabbard on the back. So I always just pictured it as having a strap that connected at the hilt and held it over the shoulder. A little imagination goes a long way. I'm going to post a couple pictures of some options of scabbards to hold large swords on your back. and if you notice both of them only put about the first foot or so of the blade in them and then they are strapped at the top. So just how easy would that be to model? Personally I can deal with the way things are.. because if I have a huge greatsword in a fully enclosed scabbard on my back, it's going to be very unrealistic to draw it without cutting the damn thing off. 

http://www.sjleather.com/osCommerce/images/backscabbard.jpg

http://www.armsofvalour.com/miva/graphics/00000001/OL1038.jpg

Mage staff look silly floating on the back of my mage.I would rather have the option out of combat to use it as a walking stick or just carry by my side in the hand and in idle animation lean on it. Huge hammers or maces maybe looks silly too but swords daggers and axes i dont mind floating it looks more natural than a staff but sure i would love to have sheated weapons as standard in future mmorpgs.