No loading times huh? What does it really mean?

[WorstUsernameEver]

Ok, the topic title is simple enough, so I shouldn't have to write much.

Both the preview and a brief sort of interview/transcript of a dialogue with Feargus Urquhart, mentioned the fact that apparently the demo had no loading times, and that's important to Obsidian, that you can enter seamlessly into dungeons etc...

Now.. what does this really mean?

Can we expect all the game been streamlined a-l

[Nathaniel Chapman]

Ok, the topic title is simple enough, so I shouldn't have to write much.

Both the preview and a brief sort of interview/transcript of a dialogue with Feargus Urquhart, mentioned the fact that apparently the demo had no loading times, and that's important to Obsidian, that you can enter seamlessly into dungeons etc...

Now.. what does this really mean?

Can we expect all the game been streamlined a-l

[taviow]

Ok, the topic title is simple enough, so I shouldn't have to write much.

Both the preview and a brief sort of interview/transcript of a dialogue with Feargus Urquhart, mentioned the fact that apparently the demo had no loading times, and that's important to Obsidian, that you can enter seamlessly into dungeons etc...

Now.. what does this really mean?

Can we expect all the game been streamlined a-l

Edited June 18, 2010 by taviow

[WorstUsernameEver]

Ok, the topic title is simple enough, so I shouldn't have to write much.

Both the preview and a brief sort of interview/transcript of a dialogue with Feargus Urquhart, mentioned the fact that apparently the demo had no loading times, and that's important to Obsidian, that you can enter seamlessly into dungeons etc...

Now.. what does this really mean?

Can we expect all the game been streamlined a-l

[mkreku]

I did. It means that the levels are basically corridors filled with monsters that you have to beat up in order to progress. When you go from one level to another, you do so by entering a featureless actual corridor while the game loads the new corridor-like level in the background.

 

It's not actually a loading screen, more like.. an interactive loading screen.

[Tigranes]

You mean... like an elevator?

 

OH GAWD

[Jean-Eric Khalife]

Early on in the project I remember someone sending out a technical document they found online describing how the loading system working in DS1... I can't seem to find it now... maybe funcroc can use his skillz to locate it.

[Humodour]

From a memory and resource management standpoint in programming, seamless loading is pretty cool.

[Monte Carlo]

From what I remember from DS1, the illusion of seamlessness worked pretty well. In fact, were it quite so mindlessly H&S it would have been a good game, it looked great in 2002.

[Trebushido]

I loved this about DS1, but I think Obsidian might be taking this a step further on the right direction. I

[Wombat]

An article at RPGfan

The environments are what most caught my eye, as unlike most hack-and-slash titles, where you navigate by your minimap and often never look at the actual environments, there are lots of visual cues in the environments themselves. Players can see other zones and treasures as they travel near overlooks, and branching paths can be traced to where they end.

This sounds interesting and please forgive me for (yet another) naive question but, doesn't it only work when the player characters are outside of dungeons and going down from higher places? Or are you going to design maps like what Escher would do?

[Jean-Eric Khalife]

It's a very technical document, but if you're into that kind of thing, here you go:

http://scottbilas.com/files/2003/gdc_san_j...world_paper.pdf

[mkreku]

It's a very technical document, but if you're into that kind of thing, here you go:

http://scottbilas.com/files/2003/gdc_san_j...world_paper.pdf

I read through that thing (and I actually think I read it once before around when it was released), but I must say that it feels a tad dated. It seems to focus on trying to maintain CPU usage balancing for a world streamer using just one CPU core. I know that Piranha Bytes, for example, rewrote their world streaming code to take advantage of the fact that all consoles and most PC's of today are multi core, and Risen (their latest game, released in 2009) actually uses one core solely for streaming world data.

 

In fact, I would love to read one of their technical papers. I will have to ask for one on their official board, methinks! Risen's world streaming code is perfectly hitch free and very impressive, especially the way that they never teleport an actor from one place to another when it needs to move. If a character (NPC) in the game tells you that he's going somewhere, he actually walks there. There's never any cheating, you can follow these characters for hours (all the Gothic games and Risen are very big) as they traverse the terrain the same way you would, until they either reach their goal or are killed by wandering wildlife.

 

Thanks for the link though, it was interesting reading it.

[Tigranes]

Damn you mkreku, now I want to play Risen. Again.

 

But yes, the document is very interesting - you don't have to know code to get a gist of what's being said. Thanks Jean-Eric.

[Wombat]

It's a very technical document, but if you're into that kind of thing, here you go:

http://scottbilas.com/files/2003/gdc_san_j...world_paper.pdf

...this makes me feel Escher wasn't that irrelevant.

 

So, does this mean that Gas Powered Games don't only offer the franchise and ideas by Chris Taylor but also technology around "continuous" world? For, as long as I see it from designer's comments about Aliens RPG, Onyx engine does seem to have a hybrid action/tactical combat game play but "continuous" world was not packaged with that.

 

I'm not so technical but, from the glimpse of the document, it seems to be tough to implement some popular features like fast travel. So, does this mean the player(s) go back and force (in squad) or do you already have work around for this?

[Monte Carlo]

^ Dude, all you need is a hammer and some duct tape.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Now that's a more general question to devs, and as busy as they are, I'm not sure if they'll answer but.. will you try to use a similar type of 'no loading times' solution for all the Onyx-based games or is it just for Dungeon Siege III?

[Jean-Eric Khalife]

I'm not so technical but, from the glimpse of the document, it seems to be tough to implement some popular features like fast travel. So, does this mean the player(s) go back and force (in squad) or do you already have work around for this?

 

It can be tough, but the original DS games were able to come up with solutions for it, so it wasn't too tough for us to build off of what they did.

 

 

Now that's a more general question to devs, and as busy as they are, I'm not sure if they'll answer but.. will you try to use a similar type of 'no loading times' solution for all the Onyx-based games or is it just for Dungeon Siege III?

 

It all depends on the game and the situation. It would be silly for us not to re-use and expand on our code, but if doing so hinders the quality of the game then we'll have to look at other solutions.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Now that's a more general question to devs, and as busy as they are, I'm not sure if they'll answer but.. will you try to use a similar type of 'no loading times' solution for all the Onyx-based games or is it just for Dungeon Siege III?

 

It all depends on the game and the situation. It would be silly for us not to re-use and expand on our code, but if doing so hinders the quality of the game then we'll have to look at other solutions.

 

Interesting to know, and thanks for the quick answer!

[Wombat]

Interesting to know, and thanks for the quick answer!

Ditto.