Developer Direct presentation

[Wormerine]

I am still somewhat disappointed, that main focus seems to be on combat. It seems like it is going to be a much more action centric experience. Combat doesn't look bad, but I am also doubtful how much depth it will have. RPG nature of the game still seems to be mostly sidelined, at least as far as talking point go. One branching quest is shown, but it didn't fire up my imagination.

The logo looks cool, though.

Edited January 18 by Wormerine

[Keyrock]

It's sad how many games, even now in 2024, still have cutscene conversations with characters just standing in place. The hand gestures help a bit, but it's a far cry from watching characters naturally walking next to a wall and leaning against it while talking to you, or starting seated then standing up and pacing around. Maybe they walk over to a desk and pick up a book. I guess we can still only count on CDPR and Rockstar for proper blocking and business. Oh well.

On the positive side, guns akimbo. Also, I like how vibrant the environments are. 

Overall, I'm still on the fence about this game, but I'm mildly more positive about it than after the last trailer.

Edited January 18 by Keyrock

[Wormerine]

1 minute ago, Keyrock said:

It's sad how many games, even now in 2024, still have cutscene conversations with characters just standing in place.

Making sully blown cinematics for conversation is no doubt a big investment of resources. Personally, I tend to tolerate those basic ones better, than something like Baldur's Gate3 - I will probably get used to awkwardness of Avowed conversations and treat as I would a game like Pillars. BG3 for me, though, hit the awkward spot of sometimes having decent cinematics, and sometimes being awkward.

I am still in wait and see camp (I mean I gonna play it on account of it being on gamepass and Eora). It could be good, but they are not really selling it to me.

[uuuhhii]

first person combat still look weird

scenery is nice

wonder if hardware requirement would be high

[Theonlygarby]

Mostly focused on combat, which is the thing I'm least interested in.  It looks fine.  I'm sure I'll enjoy it, but nothing has made me more excited than I initially was.

 

In conclusion I want poe3, but avowed still interests me.

[HoonDing]

Looks a bit clunky.

[Wormerine]

4 hours ago, HoonDing said:

Looks a bit clunky.

Yup. That said I learned not to judge the game by how it looks - I will be more interested in hand on previews. Quite often games that look great in trailers, play like crap, and games that don’t look that appealing in trailers, play pretty good.

Combat seems to have a bit of “Skyrim” quality, but there is enough feedback from enemies getting hit, that I choose to stay optimistic. 

[kanisatha]

18 hours ago, Keyrock said:

It's sad how many games, even now in 2024, still have cutscene conversations with characters just standing in place. The hand gestures help a bit, but it's a far cry from watching characters naturally walking next to a wall and leaning against it while talking to you, or starting seated then standing up and pacing around. Maybe they walk over to a desk and pick up a book.

I seem to recall the DA games having this type of animations in cutscenes and dialogue.

[kanisatha]

The first-person combat is definitely going to be problematic for me. Even just watching it fullscreen was extremely disorienting for me.

[Keyrock]

I think blocking and business are more important in a 1st person game than 3rd person. I guess I should explain what blocking and business are, I shouldn't assume people know. Blocking is the range of movement of characters in a scene, what ground they cover walking around or whatever. This is especially important for framing if a fixed camera is used. Business is what the characters do in the scene. For example, two characters are having a conversation in a hotel room. If one of the characters puts a suitcase on the bed, opens it, and begins unpacking the clothing within while they talk it makes the scene a lot more dynamic and interesting than if they just stand there and talk. The reason that these things are more important in 1st person is that in 3rd person they can, and and usually do, swap between camera angles to show the character that is currently talking, including your character. So even if's a 1 on 1 conversation and both characters are glued in place, the scene is somewhat dynamic feeling because of the camera swapping back and forth, though some blocking and business would still be helpful. In 1st person the camera is always on the character you are talking to because the devs don't want to break the immersion of looking through your character's eyes. If you are talking to a group of characters it's not as big of a deal because the focus shifts from character to character as they speak, helping to keep the scene dynamic and interesting. However, if it's just you talking to 1 other character, as is more often than not the case, them just standing in place really makes the scene dull, because there's nothing to break it up. The longer the conversation the more this becomes an issue. Stuff like hand gestures and body language do help, it's way better than if they just stand there like a statue, but a bit of blocking and/or business goes a long way. Even just something as simple as having them pace back and forth a little helps make the scene more dynamic and interesting. Something so that you are not just staring at a fixed point for a prolonged period of time.

I shouldn't assume that there isn't blocking nor business in Avowed, because I'm basing it off that one conversation they showed in the sample quest. It's entirely possible there are other conversations you have in the game where the characters do move around some, perhaps they start seated and get up during the conversation or they walk over to a table and pick up a cup and drink from it. Tiny sample size, I shouldn't draw conclusions from it.

Edited January 19 by Keyrock

[Wormerine]

43 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

I shouldn't assume that there isn't blocking nor business in Avowed, because I'm basing it off that one conversation they showed in the sample quest. It's entirely possible there are other conversations you have in the game where the characters do move around some, perhaps they start seated and get up during the conversation or they walk over to a table and pick up a cup and drink from it. Tiny sample size, I shouldn't draw conclusions from it.

I think if done well, visually simple conversations can work. For example, Outer Words I thought worked really, really well. There were some neat stalistic choices there, that leaned into the artifice of the conversation system, and made it work, IMO. What was showed in Avowed, however, looked rather plain and unappealing.

What you describe would take a lot of production - mocap, syncing animations with the enviroment etc. Would definitely be welcome, but I definitely see it as luxury, rather than expectation or necessity.

[Hurlshort]

3 hours ago, Wormerine said:

What you describe would take a lot of production - mocap, syncing animations with the enviroment etc. Would definitely be welcome, but I definitely see it as luxury, rather than expectation or necessity.

I tend to agree. I love what Rockstar does, but I realize they are operating on a different scale. 

[thelee]

On 1/18/2024 at 12:57 PM, Wormerine said:

RPG nature of the game still seems to be mostly sidelined

i'm vaguely concerned the mechanics will be relatively shallow like the outer worlds but we'll have more updates till fall to learn more

Edited January 20 by thelee

[Keyrock]

11 hours ago, Wormerine said:

What you describe would take a lot of production - mocap, syncing animations with the enviroment etc. Would definitely be welcome, but I definitely see it as luxury, rather than expectation or necessity.

 

7 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

I tend to agree. I love what Rockstar does, but I realize they are operating on a different scale. 

Fair enough, making the scenes more dynamic and cinematic does indeed increase cost. However, Obsidian was one of Microsoft's big acquisitions and is being prominently pushed as a 1st party developer for them. Microsoft didn't exactly have a wonderful 1st party 2023, what with the  that is Redfall and the wet fart that is Starfield. They desperately need a big hit or two this year. If Microsoft wants to compete with Sony they gotta go HARD. Toss Obsidian some more money and hook that $#!+ up. They ain't gonna beat Sony by half-assin' it. All the bells and whistles or they gonna be playin' second fiddle forever. I don't know, maybe Microsoft is cool with being second place? That's all they've ever been, except for the times they've been third.

Edited January 20 by Keyrock

[Hurlshort]

I believe Starfield has sold well, so I'm not sure it is the disaster that Redfall was. It's basically Skyrim in space, so I don't know why it wouldn't meet expectations. I guess being a new IP might be the only difficult sales part.

[the_dog_days]

Starfield sold great despite most players playing on Gamepass. So basically they sold millions just on Steam.

[LadyCrimson]

Late to the party - finally we get more info/footage of this game.

Sadly I am not all that impressed. I don't mean in a super negative way, only that what's shown didn't make me feel super interested or pumped up. It just was kind of ... "ah, I see."  That said as always it's hard to truly gauge until one is actually playing. I'm probably going to wait for some actual gamer-play footage tho, vs. buying it at release hour.