Dancer Archive
Thread: I don't see any problems with the new dance
Page 1 of 2
Akaara
Thu Oct 21, 2004 5:55 am
#1
I watched the video of the new dance, and honestly I don't see anything wrong with it. Thanks to whoever posted that video. The action between the flos looked fine to me. I can envision the next Miss Galaxy contest using this dance with group bandflos and it's gonna look sweet. I didn't see anything 'broken' in the dance and it had a full 8 flos!
FuschiaD
Thu Oct 21, 2004 6:07 am
#2
Akaara wrote:
I watched the video of the new dance, and honestly I don't see anything wrong with it. Thanks to whoever posted that video. The action between the flos looked fine to me. I can envision the next Miss Galaxy contest using this dance with group bandflos and it's gonna look sweet. I didn't see anything 'broken' in the dance and it had a full 8 flos!
I haven't watched thevideo, so I could be wrong here... butI'm gonna guessthat whoever made the video also starred in it. In which case, the dance will not look broken, as the person who's doing the dance can see the animation just fine, but anyone else in-game (due to lag issues) who is watching just sees a lot of twitching.
Ravenmist
Thu Oct 21, 2004 6:28 am
#3
Akaara wrote:
I watched the video of the new dance, and honestly I don't see anything wrong with it. Thanks to whoever posted that video. The action between the flos looked fine to me. I can envision the next Miss Galaxy contest using this dance with group bandflos and it's gonna look sweet. I didn't see anything 'broken' in the dance and it had a full 8 flos!
Maybe you haven't been a dancer for long, and thats okay. So I'll explain things to you. The base dance is broken... as in all anyone watching you is going to see is you jerking like a coke addict with hicups jerking along the dance floor. It has the same problem as Formal and Lyrical dances, ONLY YOU, the person dancing see's the base dance the way its suppose to be. This has the same problem only worse because you jerk ever further around the dance floor. You won't see this dance being used for any group activities until they fix the issues with the base dances.
Far as full 8 flos go.. some of them are just lame imo, but I agree that this dance would be awesome with a group of people lined up properly. Oh.. and on a theater stage! Because theres No other venue big enough to handle the flourishes for this dance, hehe. Which sorta sucks but I guess it makes sense.
Esharra
Thu Oct 21, 2004 6:52 am
#4
The vid Goldy posted is filmed from the dancer's perspective. The viewer sees the base animations differently. The cause, explained below,affects all of our dances but is only blatantly noticable in the "wide-area" dances; formal, lyrical and now theatrical.
(reposted from another thread with a few minor edits for clarification, you mayhave read this before) There are acouple ofcontributing factors, most notable is the game's attempts to sync client/server information of player position in the game world. Hence why /dance looks fine but lyrical doesn't; /dance is an emote and uninterruptible, lyrical is an interruptible animation. The server updates avatar position for uninterruptible movements such as emotes at the time the emote is called but not during the animation of the emote (thusly, you could stop your bike, /cough then dismount and have no bike warp). For interruptible animations like the base dances, the server attempts to sync the viewers' client's location for uswiththe location that our client has provided to the servereverycouple ofseconds, thereforeour avatarwarps to a new location and welook likesomeone having a seizure while ice skating(to those viewing us).
Latency between server and client contributes secondarily. A friend who lives very close to the servers and is on a T1sees slightly less distortion than I do watching my avatar from my second computer on a shared DSL in central Texas but it is still noticable.
A few months back they said they had fixed the bike warp problem. While I've seen a couple of instances of slight warp since then, it has been tremendously improved. I suspect the warping I still see is due to latency. If there aren't other factors that I'm unaware of,our base dance warping problemis fixable but will require a re-work of our base code. I'm not holding my breath but it could happen.
Message Edited by Esharra on 10-21-2004 10:52 AM
Xyrdre
Thu Oct 21, 2004 6:58 am
#5
Yes, I thought there was a notewith the Theatrical video mentioning that the base dance was as it appeared to the dancer, meaning that Goldy captured her own dancing. In that case, yes, of course you can see the base dance correctly in the video.
It's that no one else can. Just like Formal and Lyrical, as has been mentioned. And that's how it's broken.
The other big problem I see with it at this point is that with a broken base, we're back to stringing flos to avoid the base dance, as we do with Formal and Lyrical when we're brave enough to try those publically. 
Problem is... a lot of the Theatrical flos don't look to me like they string together very well. The Formal and Lyrical flos used back to back can pass as a cohesive dance. I'm not so sure about Theatrical in that light. It looked to me like the dance needs the base as essentially a transition from flo to flo to lend cohesion... and without that, the flos seem like disjointed moves.
Problem is... a lot of the Theatrical flos don't look to me like they string together very well. The Formal and Lyrical flos used back to back can pass as a cohesive dance. I'm not so sure about Theatrical in that light. It looked to me like the dance needs the base as essentially a transition from flo to flo to lend cohesion... and without that, the flos seem like disjointed moves.I'm in no rush to get this broken dance myself. Maybe it'll get fixed one glorious day. Maybe not. Maybe the XP cost will come down on it, maybe not. I see no reason to rush out and pay 400,000 XP for a dance with a broken base that has weird flos that don't string together all that well, which greatly limits its usefulness to a performer. It'll still be there in a couple of weeks, or months, or years...
Esharra
Thu Oct 21, 2004 7:02 am
#6
Exactly why I'm working on getting the song first. I'll eventually get around to the dance, but outside of maybe being able to use a couple of the flos for transitioning between dances, I don't think I'll use it.
Xyrdre wrote:
Problem is... a lot of the Theatrical flos don't look to me like they string together very well.
Akaara
Thu Oct 21, 2004 9:17 am
#7
Esharra wrote:
The vid Goldy posted is filmed from the dancer's perspective. The viewer sees the base animations differently. The cause, explained below,affects all of our dances but is only blatantly noticable in the "wide-area" dances; formal, lyrical and now theatrical.
(reposted from another thread with a few minor edits for clarification, you mayhave read this before) There are acouple ofcontributing factors, most notable is the game's attempts to sync client/server information of player position in the game world. Hence why /dance looks fine but lyrical doesn't; /dance is an emote and uninterruptible, lyrical is an interruptible animation. The server updates avatar position for uninterruptible movements such as emotes at the time the emote is called but not during the animation of the emote (thusly, you could stop your bike, /cough then dismount and have no bike warp). For interruptible animations like the base dances, the server attempts to sync the viewers' client's location for uswiththe location that our client has provided to the servereverycouple ofseconds, thereforeour avatarwarps to a new location and welook likesomeone having a seizure while ice skating(to those viewing us).
Latency between server and client contributes secondarily. A friend who lives very close to the servers and is on a T1sees slightly less distortion than I do watching my avatar from my second computer on a shared DSL in central Texas but it is still noticable.
A few months back they said they had fixed the bike warp problem. While I've seen a couple of instances of slight warp since then, it has been tremendously improved. I suspect the warping I still see is due to latency. If there aren't other factors that I'm unaware of,our base dance warping problemis fixable but will require a re-work of our base code. I'm not holding my breath but it could happen.
Message Edited by Esharra on 10-21-2004 10:52 AM
Esharra, nice post!
I just don't see HOW it is possible to really fix this. (the game's attempts to sync client/server information of player position in the game world). I am sure if it was something easy to fix, they would have done it by now.
I alsodon't think that constantly complaining about it is going to help your cause. (not you personally Esharra, I am speaking in general). I am happy they added a new dance. I use the formal dance all the time, the flos look so nice. I'm just happy to get anything new and fun. Maybe I'm just not as nitpicky as the rest of the dancers and by the way.... I DO have a master dancer on Eclipse and have performed alot in front of people in SWG. Not once has anyone watching said, "Hey, your base dance is broken." I think the majority of people ignore the little things like that.
I come to the dancer forum on and off... I've seen mostly complaintsand very few upbeat posts so wanted to add my two cents even if it's different from the majority of the rest of the dancer community. I am not trying to stir up trouble here (honest)... sometimes I just feel like people complain about everything!
So thanks for the new dance I'm sure I'll find a unique way to use it in the game
I'm sure I'll find a unique way to use it in the game
Esharra
Thu Oct 21, 2004 10:48 am
#8
That's the trick, Chi..it is Not going to be an easy one to fix. It will require a change in how the server treats movement in the dance animations and will require a re-write of our base code. Changing the code so that dance animations are addressed the same way that emotes are won't do it either as we would lose the ability to break a base dance cyclewith a flo. It is an unfortunate,though not necessarily unexpected, situation. While there are innumerable volumes written about game design for combat, there is nothing addressing the esthetic challenges that our profession presents. We are on a journey with no maps.
Akaara wrote:
I just don't see HOW it is possible to really fix this. (the game's attempts to sync client/server information of player position in the game world). I am sure if it was something easy to fix, they would have done it by now.
Message Edited by Esharra on 10-21-2004 12:51 PM
Schardour
Thu Oct 21, 2004 2:35 pm
#9
AtheneNoctua wrote:
How difficult would it be to fix the "you direct your performance to %TT." message?
I think it's some sort of mean inside joke the devs would like to keep in the game 
Akaara
Thu Oct 21, 2004 4:50 pm
#10
AtheneNoctua wrote:
Esharra wrote:
Akaara wrote:
What drives me nuts is why in the world did they design/select another dance susceptible to the 'broken base dance' problem when it is a known issue since before launch? Makes one wonder.
Because dancers were asking for new stuff.
Panthu
Thu Oct 21, 2004 5:03 pm
#11
Akaara wrote:
Because dancers were asking for new stuff.
Well, actually, Tiaga and I just had this same little exchange. It was the Entertainers that asked for "new dances." The last things we (Dancers) asked for were Dance tools and other Performance Enhancements.
Personally, I wish this was an Ent level quest, but, you know... *wanders off talking to self*
Luciee_Depri
Thu Oct 21, 2004 6:56 pm
#12
Maybe the solution to fixing the broken base dances is to make them more stationery, like the other dances that aren't broken. Maybe then I could use them...as they are now, I just don't bother.
What gripes me about the new dance (aside from the 400k xp issue) is that they used another floating base dance, KNOWING that floating base dances don't translate to the audience. Why would you do that? Why would you ADD another broken animation if you had the chance to do something completely new? My bet is this base dance is left over from some other project or from the beginning and the truth is they didn't bother to create something new but dragged out something old that didn't make the cut before.
*mutters and twitches about the area*
AtheneNoctua
Fri Oct 22, 2004 12:14 am
#13
Esharra wrote:That's the trick, Chi..it is Not going to be an easy one to fix. It will require a change in how the server treats movement in the dance animations and will require a re-write of our base code. Changing the code so that dance animations are addressed the same way that emotes are won't do it either as we would lose the ability to break a base dance cycle with a flo. It is an unfortunate, though not necessarily unexpected, situation. While there are innumerable volumes written about game design for combat, there is nothing addressing the esthetic challenges that our profession presents. We are on a journey with no maps.
Akaara wrote:I just don't see HOW it is possible to really fix this. (the game's attempts to sync client/server information of player position in the game world). I am sure if it was something easy to fix, they would have done it by now.Message Edited by Esharra on 10-21-2004 12:51 PM
I don't think fixing the broken display of the base dance would be that difficult. One possible solution would be for the client to just interpret the dancer's position differently while skill animating and to treat the base dance like a flourish that can be interrupted by an other flourish.
And honestly I don't see the connection between how difficult something is to fix and the duration until it get fixed - how long did it take to fix the typos in our skill titles? How difficult would it be to fix the "you direct your performance to %TT." message?
What drives me nuts is why in the world did they design/select another dance susceptible to the 'broken base dance' problem when it is a known issue since before launch? Makes one wonder.
Page 1 of 2