POStudios Forum

Well?... ;)

I like the side-scroller view option :p

I voted overr-the-shoulder, although first person would be all right as well, and the ability to switch between the two, as in KQ-8, would be the best.  Although I won't be able to form an opinion until I see the game, I was slightly disappointed that the game will be using mostly static cameras.  The one thing that I liked about KQ-8 was that the camera moved along with the player character.  I'd like TSL to work the same way.  I understand that the reason for the mostly static camera is to retain the feel of individual rooms from the official games, and that does make sense.  Furthermore, there will be some (I hope many) dynamic cameras in the game.  But I personally would have prefered the roomless open feel of KQ-8 to the compartmented feel of the earlier games.

First person, assuming the scenes are fully contained. XD

But how could the scenes be fully contained in a first-person view?  If the player walked to the edge of the seen, he would be able to see into the next room?  Even without walking to the edge, if he turned to the side, he would be able to see into the next room.

Rooms are actually easier, because they could just be cubes.  As for outside areas, they can be designed the same way, just larger "cubes".  Of course, if scenes are physically side by side, you wouldn't need to isolate them from each other. :)

Oh, I see what you mean.  If you turned to the side, you would be able to see an image of the next room painted on the wall of the room you were in, but not the next room itself.  If you walked through the wall, the next room would load, and you would walk into that room.  I think that that would be difficult to do without the human player noticing the change of rooms.  The texture of the wall would have to match exactly the view of the new room as you enter it.  But I think what you mean is that, as the player approached the wall, there would be a kind of jump or discontinunity, making it obvious that the player was entering a new room.

One thing about KQ-8 that was quite annoying was that you could only see so far into the distance.  As you walked forward, objects would materialize out of thin air.  I realize that that was necessary, because if the engine rendered every object in a region, the game would be too slow to be playable.  Dividing the game into smaller rooms makes it feasible to render every object in the room.  That way, the human player can see into the distance, since objects in the distance are simply painted on the walls.

Another thing about KQ-8 that was annoying was the few instances where there actually were more than one room in the same region.  Then there was sometimes a jump when you moved from one room to another.  When you traveled between regions, you had to go through a portal.  The use of portals seemed rather contrived, but at least it covered up reasonably well the discontinuity of changing rooms.

If you wanted to do the same thing with TSL, you could have "doorways" connecting the rooms.  They would be small passages through which the player could move where the jump wouldn't be too noticeable.

But, as I'm impatient to see this game come out, I don't want to wait for that feature to be added, so I'll be happy to play it with static cameras!

Oh sorry, I meant that the walls are opaque and inpenetrable (just like rooms in real life :P).  The only way to enter and exit a room would be via it's doorway.

Regarding MoE, there have been many advances in hardware since 1998.  The rendering distance can now be configured to a very large value and still not impact performance much.  There are also things like anisotropic filtering (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anisotropic_filtering) which degrade render quality based on exponential distance (the photo on the right).  The human eye can't see extreme detail further than 20 feet away anyway and it does the same thing.

As for continuity between inadjacent scenes, that might be a problem in 1st player games, but the simple solution would be to just fade to & from black during transitions.  That's what we have to use here and it works excellently. :)

Keep in mind that the ability to see all objects from different camera angles means that they'll need to be fully 3D.  We've been doing that already in TSL, but most walls are 2D, and since we're using static cameras we can get away with a lot of tricks that we wouldn't be able to in 1st person. :P

First-person. That would make my dream of a Cedric-killing mod so much closer to reality.

An "over the shoulder" view :D

First-person. I love the feel of "you" being the one exploring the land, and not watching someone else have all the fun (even if you ARE controlling him :P).

Side scroller! XD

I want to see different fiters! XD

 ;B absolutely sidescroller

Either first-person or over the shoulder. Can't decide. :)

I don't know...I am stuck between side-scroller and first person. Isometric sounds intriguing, too... :P