Dancer Archive

On the main developer board is a post from the art department of SOE asking what new socials should be added to the game. I think the fact that they are even debating adding new social animation when the flourishes we have are sooooooo bad they are unusable is about the final insult to the dancer community. We are get no attention to our needs. We are given crap and now they have moved on to socials! Spend your animation time getting our new flourises on par with our old ones, then make it possible for Bob to /fart on Bill ok?! We need to raise a fuss about this, we are being slapped around and spit on over here.

Min'Tora Ehi

Yes, it's kind of insulting. After all, what is a Dancer but an advanced profession tree based around animations?

If the new flourishes are any indication, any new socials would be so stupid looking no one would use them anyway.

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Mivora wrote:

On the main developer board is a post from the art department of SOE asking what new socials should be added to the game. I think the fact that they are even debating adding new social animation when the flourishes we have are sooooooo bad they are unusable is about the final insult to the dancer community. We are get no attention to our needs. We are given crap and now they have moved on to socials! Spend your animation time getting our new flourises on par with our old ones, then make it possible for Bob to /fart on Bill ok?! We need to raise a fuss about this, we are being slapped around and spit on over here.

Min'Tora Ehi

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I hope that they add more flourishes, the exotic dances are hurting really bad right now: only 3 flourishes each? I thought they just wanted room for expansion, but that's when I found out that master wasn't any different at all. Lyrical 2 is the same as Lyrical 1.

I have this strange feeling that these are bugs preventing us from seeing the correct flourishes or the CDs that came with our game didn't have the complete data.

I didn't look at it as them ignoring us.. Instead, I am being hopeful that they decided to go back to the MC studios afterall and will be giving us new proper flourishes.. And in an interest of using their time optimally, are going to add other types of animations instead.

Yes, I was a little insulted by it as well. Particularly after I read the first several pages and saw that most everyone was asking for more variations of /dance, that last longer, and couples dancing for everyone.

I can already see it, they'll listen to those people. They'll put in lots of longer lasting /dances and couples dancing for everyone, it'll be all motion capped and lovely to all viewers.

My response to the thread is burried on page 13 (I think). I read some of yours as well Velvet, good points. I'd like to stand and walk like a girl too.

Okay I can sort of understand getting insulted by the devs seeming to ignore the dancers in something that effects them most..........

But getting insulted at the devs for mere suggestions by players?

I don't mean to be blunt, and don't take this wrong, but think about this logically for a second. One of two things will happen. Either these new animations they are adding will have the animation quality of the new flourishes... Or they are going to do MC, and do the new dance moves properly at the same time.

I still think they are going to MC and going to do new dance moves at the same time. The reason they gave us the poorly animated moves is because MC is expensive, takes time to setup and execute, and is a pain. I think at this point they KNOW what we want. We want more dances, and we want more flourishes for the dances we have. So they don't need to ask us, they just need to read our forums. Thats half of what we talk about.

Now if I were in their shoes, and I was going to spend time and money doing more motion capture, I'd make the best out of the time I could get. Remember, dancing is not the only thing in the game motion captured. Every single move the characters make was motion captured. So, if they want to find out how best to spend their time, they want to get player input. The two biggest things they would need input on are dances and social animations. As I already pointed out, they have all the input they need on dances in one convenient place already. No need to ask for input there, we give it plenty already. There is no such place they can go to get player input on social animations. Therefore, they start a thread asking for it.

By all means though, post to the thread asking for more dances and more flourishes. I know I did. But don't go getting insulted yet. Now, if they go and do it and we get all these beautiful new MC social animations and no new dance moves, then you can get insulted. But I doubt that will happen. Either the new socials will be poorly animated, or we will also get new MC dance moves.

I wish I had your faith Tiaga, I do not.

And to clear up something, when I said I was insulted. I meant I was insulted by the devs for ignoring us (correspondent feedback anyone?) yet asking everyone and their brother about socials. And alsoinsulted bythe community at large for thinking so little of us as to essentially request every get our abilities to dance, only better.

Heck, everyone can pull a trigger, right?Anyone should be able to use any gun there is then, no?

That's the tone the whole thread took to me. But that's just me I guess.

Yeah I am kind of annoyed at the people for basically saying "Let us dance without being dancers" but I doubt that will get put in. Maybe the unflourished step for a few types of dances, or just some random gyration like what you'd find in a club. That would be more appropriate for a /dance.

But I still don't think we're being ignored. Go read the past correspondants. The first were just one liners mostly "We're looking into it" or something equally unfulfilling. The second batch were a little better. The third batch is actually just one, which is a post that got not a single negative comment from the Ranger community. By the time they get to us they will have lots and lots of good news.

And from a business sense.. How many bands do you know of that go to a recording studio to record one song? It doesn't happen that way, they go to a recording studio and do a bunch of work. The reason is it takes money just to get in there.. Getting setup takes time, and the studio charges for every bit of time spent at quite an expensive rate. So they want to get setup and get as much done as possible. I imagine the motion capture studio is similar. It is an ecenomic use of resources. It's not faith I am going on, it is pure business sense. And as much as you can fault SoE, business sense is not something they lack. You don't get the most popular MMORPG with poor business sense. Thats why I think that we'll either see awful new animations, or wonderful new flourishes at least, if not new dances.

Unfortunately I don't have that much faith in their business sense. They have to do what is it? like 3 - 5 flourishes for each of our dances. We're probably looking at 50 motion canpture flourishes if they are going to flesh out each dance. If they are trying to do that and social animations at the same time then they are either going to have the motion capture studio for 6 months or they are going to rush them all and we will still have a poor quality result. Besides, since SOE does several of these extremely large games they are doing motion capture work all the time. I would think it would be most cost effective if they had their own studio. But they probably outsource it or something.

I want a response from the coorespondents even if it just says " we are looking at the new flourishes". That would take what, a whole 5 minutes tops and it's been two weeks since we were supposed to hear something? Face it, we have been bumped way down on the priority list while they take care of the fighting classes. I'm just very very frustrated.

Lets see what needs new flourishes..

Basic has em..
Rhytmic needs em (4)
Footloose needs em (4)
Formal needs em (5)
Poplock needs em (4)
Popular needs em (4)
Lyrical needs em (4)
Exotic needs em (24)

Huh... 49 new flourishes.. Good estimate.

I won't admit to be an expert on motion capture.. But with what I do know (And thinking about it as a software developer) it doesn't seem to me that the time between "takes" is that much. They might even be able to get someone in there to perform a string of dance steps and cut them up as flourishes later.

But my point stands.. I suspect either we will see poorly animated socials, or well animated flourishes as well.

As to the response... Good things come to those who wait. I think that holds true in this case. Go read what the response to rangers was.

Tiaga, what the heck?! Optimists aren't supposed to frequent game boards, that's where we whiners and complainers hold sway! lol

I certainly hope you're right!

I'm not an optimist.. I'm a software developer. While I don't deal in games, it does give me some insight in how the whole system works. I don't look at things optimistically, I just look at them from a development point of view. From that angle, everything they've done makes sense. I may not agree with it, but it makes sense.