Disappearing Corpses

[VladWorks]

     Before I begin let me say that when I play an RPG I like an immersion factor (perfect example would be Skyrim i.e. killed enemies stay for a certain time as well as the ability to pick up fired arrows...etc...) When I saw a recent trailer for Wasteland 2 (Alpha gameplay Unity engine) I notice a thing that did bother me from immersion standpoint, after killing enemies they vanish into thin air. Since Project: Eternity is being developed using Unity engine will that be the case with it as well (I really hope not.)

 

Thanks in advance for anyone who can shed some light on this.

[Tigranes]

Corpse retention is usually limited by hardware, since having all those dead bodies on the screen can be pretty tough. I'd be surprised if it was a Unity problem. I don't even know if they made a hard decision about that for WL2, or if that might change.

 

Edited topic title to make it more specific.

[Lephys]

For what it's worth, that might've only happened in the Wasteland 2 video because it was an Alpha build. "Make sure the corpses don't vanish" isn't exactly at the top of the priority list for getting a game build to the Alpha stage. *shrug*

[Gorgon]

Usually only a problem for 3d engines. If it's just a sprite you can have as many as you like. It's pretty borked in Skyrim by the way. The engine leaves the corpses for 20 game days before it starts cleaning them up if I recall. That's a whole lot. Makes saves incrementally larger the longer you play, totally unnecessary.

 

It also illustrates that having 200 dead bandits scattered by the roadsides is quite possible with today's hardware. In Divine Divinity they stopped being lootable after a while. Seems like a good compromise.

[Aoyagi]

Rotting bodies (like in Age of Empires 2) would be nice too. Am I asking too much?

Disappearing of bodies and of meshes caused by combat has always bothered me.

Edited March 25, 2013 by Aoyagi

[teknoman2]

i dont mind them disappearing, as long as it happens after i ve left the area. if i kill 10 guys in village A then go to village B, i dont mind the bodies in village A gone when i get back. but as long as i am in village A they should stay  put unless there is a plausible reason for them to be gone (villagers actively go an pick them up in front of me or i rest for the night at the inn and someone cleaned the mess in the meantime). as long as they dont just vanish in thin air before my eyes its fine

[Osvir]

For immersion factors, it can work as simple as a God sucking up the flesh/soul/entity/being or whatever of the fallen one in an "instance" so to speak. Perhaps not Final Fantasy styled where it directly "disappears" but like in Baldur's Gate, if you leave the area and come back the bodies are gone (I think they are gone after a little while if you walk around a bit as well). But yeah, it can be easily be explained as some underworld God that feeds on bodies or whatnot.

Or souls.
Or magic.
Or the Project: Eternity physical earth~

Tons of stuff that can be used to add the immersion factor and "explain" why they disapper.

[Merlkir]

Oh, this is something that really bothered me in the Shadowrun Returns video recently. Immersion breaker indeed.

[Amentep]

Once a battle is over, a legion of high-speed 3 foot long carrion worms erupt from the ground devouring all of the corpses and dragging their bones underground to decorate carrion worm living rooms before the player can react.

 

Problem solved!

[Dwarfare]

Once a battle is over, a legion of high-speed 3 foot long carrion worms erupt from the ground devouring all of the corpses and dragging their bones underground to decorate carrion worm living rooms before the player can react.

 

Problem solved!

 

"Well fought, men!  It was a fine battle, but despite all odds, we conq-What's that noise?  Anyone else hear tha-Oh god, worms!  They're huge!  They're stealing the corpses!  Close call, glad they didn't grab the lot of u-OH GOD, THE LOOT!  DAMNIT!  NO!  SOMEONE GRAB THEM!  NO NO NO!  Shovels!  Now!  We need shovels, fast!  Move, you idiots, move!"

Edited March 25, 2013 by Dwarfare

[Osvir]

 

Once a battle is over, a legion of high-speed 3 foot long carrion worms erupt from the ground devouring all of the corpses and dragging their bones underground to decorate carrion worm living rooms before the player can react.

 

Problem solved!

 

"Well fought, men!  It was a fine battle, but despite all odds, we conq-What's that noise?  Anyone else hear tha-Oh god, worms!  They're huge!  They're stealing the corpses!  Close call, glad they didn't grab the lot of u-OH GOD, THE LOOT!  DAMNIT!  NO!  SOMEONE GRAB THEM!  NO NO NO!  Shovels!  Now!  We need shovels, fast!  Move, you idiots, move!"

 

Something that a Digging mechanic could use every now and then? (as in, rarely & prompted)

 

Could totally see it happening at some point in the game, in some murky scary cave battling a horde of Goblins, then realizing that the Goblins weren't fighting you to fight you, they were fighting you to get past you and escape from this "horror".

[Amentep]

See - problem solved AND a useful reason to have a little used in console RPGs digging skill!

 

Giant carrion worms - the gift that keeps on giving.

[rjshae]

Perhaps, upon return to the area, the corpses should all leave a mysterious stain behind with drag marks leading off toward the exits?

 

I enjoyed the way they did it in the old Warcraft games where an animation caused the corpse to decay into the ground.

[Amentep]

Maybe after leaving the area, all the corpses should be re-animated as the living dead.  Giving you more reason to loot their body and carry all their stuff in the deep stash so they can't use that +7 Mace of Skull Bashing on you a second time around.

 

And then giant carrion worms can get involved...

[FlintlockJazz]

It can be immersion breaking if the other way around: the bodies never disappearing.  Having tons of bodies just lying everywhere can look...bad....

[Lephys]

 

Once a battle is over, a legion of high-speed 3 foot long carrion worms erupt from the ground devouring all of the corpses and dragging their bones underground to decorate carrion worm living rooms before the player can react.

 

Problem solved!

 

"Well fought, men!  It was a fine battle, but despite all odds, we conq-What's that noise?  Anyone else hear tha-Oh god, worms!  They're huge!  They're stealing the corpses!  Close call, glad they didn't grab the lot of u-OH GOD, THE LOOT!  DAMNIT!  NO!  SOMEONE GRAB THEM!  NO NO NO!  Shovels!  Now!  We need shovels, fast!  Move, you idiots, move!"

 

Hahaha. But... who takes the corpses of the corpse-takers? o_O

 

 

Oh, this is something that really bothered me in the Shadowrun Returns video recently. Immersion breaker indeed.

 

In their defense, that is still an alpha build, as far as I know. They commented, specifically, on all the spell effects still being "programmer art," So I would bet that corpses disappearing in that video doesn't necessarily mean that's the planned, final effect.

Edited March 25, 2013 by Lephys

[motorizer]

Corpse retention is usually limited by hardware, since having all those dead bodies on the screen can be pretty tough. I'd be surprised if it was a Unity problem. I don't even know if they made a hard decision about that for WL2, or if that might change.

 

Edited topic title to make it more specific.

I do wonder about this....it's suddenly a hardware issue to have them lying motionless, when seconds earlier they were walking around...with animation, AI and everything

I can understand it causing save game bloat, but surely clearing them up after you've left would be the best option

 

I like to see the aftermath of the chaos I've caused

[Tsuga C]

Let the bodies disappear once they've been looted.  I don't need more strain on the GPU and bodies have the potential to fall across something I'm looking for.

[LadyCrimson]

At the risk of sounding like a parrot, seems like these days this could be one of those graphic menu options (squawk, lots of options, squawk!). That way people can choose, either for aesthetics or performance.

 

I like it when corpses stick around for at least 15 minutes or so - after that I don't care because I've usually moved on. On the flip side, I'd rather corpses don't even really exist vs. having to watch them "blink out" on the ground after only 30 seconds or something. I find that distracting.

[motorizer]

Let the bodies disappear once they've been looted.  I don't need more strain on the GPU and bodies have the potential to fall across something I'm looking for.

How can it be more strain on the GPU than them running about trying to hit you with stuff and hurling spells though?

 

Optional would be good.....

[Vaeliorin]

 

Let the bodies disappear once they've been looted.  I don't need more strain on the GPU and bodies have the potential to fall across something I'm looking for.

How can it be more strain on the GPU than them running about trying to hit you with stuff and hurling spells though?

 

Optional would be good.....

The problem comes in when you get piles and piles of bodies hanging around.  If they're not on screen, it won't effect the GPU, but it will effect memory usage.

 

That said...I don't particularly care if corpses hang around.  It doesn't break my immersion either way.  My personal preference would probably be to have them disappear, just because I don't want them cluttering up the landscape.

[motorizer]

I remain pretty far from convinced that it's a problem, If "dead baddie at x+y coordinates" brings your computer to a standstill then you're going to have bigger problems trying to run games on it. and it's going to have to remember whether they are there or not anyway...unless you want everything to respawn constantly

 

Making it an option is the best solution, I don't want to see things disappearing into thin air, but if someone thinks that enemies take up more resources when not moving then they can turn them off....

[JFSOCC]

Maybe a lot of work, but how-about corpse-states on a timer. 1-3 days: fresh 4-7 days bloated, ugly messes, carrion flies droning and making you miserable, oh and the smell!

2nd week, half-disembowelled by predators (provided in the wild) or gone (urban or other non-isolated environment)

3rd week, skeletal remains (isolated or wild) or gone (public)

 

I dunno, sounds like a lot of work. still, would add a great deal to immersion.

[Blackstream]

It should be logical on how the bodies disappear.

 

If enemies respawn there, the bodies should disappear some time after you leave (once enemies respawn). Partially because you could potentially end up with infinite corpses, partially because the enemies themselves would clean up the bodies.

 

If the enemies die in a place trafficked by people, they should be cleaned up after some time even if enemies don't respawn there.

 

If enemies die in a place that there is no respawn and no one would logically go by there (except you), then they should just stay there for a long time. Maybe after like a week or two in game passes you could say critters get to them and despawn them then. Or if they're out of reach of critters, the corpse could turn into a rotting corpse, and after a long time, a skeleton. That'd be cool too.

[JFSOCC]

that's probably a much better idea than mine.