ANIMATIONS: Really a selling point?

[TechWins]

I think the graphics now look very good. They may not be the greatestout of all games but I believe they are the best graphics in this genre. The screenshots we saw before looked terrible, wich I still do believe. It's just that now the new screenshots look very good. Maybe I'm just used to the boring Civ2 graphics, though.

I'm still not sure what your point is in this thread. It seems to me like you're not trying to figure out if animations actually do sell a game, you're trying to bad mouth the graphics and animations. What could you possibly have against the graphics now that you know won't be polished and tweaked? If they fixed the graphics once why would they stop here?

[Buck Birdseed]

Yin - it's a screensaver, done in flash, with little animate gif files floating about on top of a .jpg picture. It's not like it's in-game footage or anything...

You have a bad habit on passing judgement on things you have not seen.

[Grim Legacy]

While I'm in favor of visual glory, I don't think the animations do justice to the nature of Civ.

The thing is -Civ is an abstract game. It's not a single soldier with a spear walking about in some fields, it's a band of warriors roaming the vast plains.

The emphasis on that single guy swinging his axe misses this point, and, indeed, reminds me of RTS-esque games.

There is an additional problem -what about custom units? Is it still feasible to make your own units, now that they are made out of pre-rendered, animated graphics?

On a more personal note, I also think the 'look' of the animated units and also leaders and advisors is childish...somewhat candy-coated. Of course...this is done exactly to appeal to children, so that more copies are sold...but still...

[yin26]

Yin - it's a screensaver, done in flash, with little animate gif files floating about on top of a .jpg picture. It's not like it's in-game footage or anything...

Let me ask you: Have YOU seen the game? Assuming that the game looks EXACTLY the way we seen the screensaver--will you have any problems with it? Clearly you are speaking of it as if it is somehow dummied down with flash, yet that may well be PRECISELY what units look like moving over the terrain.

Tech: Do you see my point? It honestly seems to me we'll have fluid animated units floating over the landscape. No big deal, mind you, but if you re-read my point, I think you'll understand.

However, if it's just flash making it look this way, I'd be happy to see the "real deal" somewhere.

[yin26]

Another reason I think this is what we'll be basically seeing is: Scale. The units are HUGE compared to the landscape. This is by design of course. But scale must be the deciding factor in making these units simply glide across the map.

So, my "bad habit" is often backed up with a whole lot of common sense.

[Steve Clark]

yin, good topic (for once ). You are right, flashy graphics are for the casual games and for the younger crowd but as concluded last year when it was first brought up, most of us will be turning them off right away. As far as they being huge, they have to be, that is the trademark of ALL of Sid's games. The unit is the focus of the user's control and therefore, must stand out in order to view, select and move.

[loinburger]

I've got no problem with a little eye candy. I doubt that the animations will be a selling point for any single gamer ("Oooh, the unit movements are animated! Move aside Quake IV, hello Civ III!"), even a "casual gamer", but hey, they probably won't hurt anything and Wutang, a little bit of something extra can help make tedious parts of a Civ game much less tedious.

For example, Lords of the Realm II offered major improvements in unit animation and graphical richness over Lords of the Realm. Both games are a bit tedious at times (IMO this is unavoidable in an economic simulator), but the tedium in LOTR II is much easier to stomach thanks to the eye candy.

[SITS]

For me the questions I ask about CIV3 graphics are:-

1) When I look at it do I know what it is?
2) Does it make sense in the world it is in?
3) Are they consistent with a theme that runs all the way through it?
4) Are they pretty?
5) Does the prettiness get in the way of playing the game? (I.E. uses too many resources, is distracting, slow...)

From what I have seen I can answer yes to the first four and no to the second. Which is more than good enough for me.