• Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor Pre-Alpha Walkthrough
    71 replies, posted
as cool as the nemesis system sounds, i hope it's not like what it seems with the history part where the character shout "YOU VERBED MY NOUN" every 3 seconds to remind the player what they did
Ugh, this is literally just Assassins Creed, complete with weird ropes, same animations, same combat, same eagle vision, same shitty chase scenes. [editline]25th January 2014[/editline] Wait, this isn't being made by Ubisoft? I'm even more confused now. Did it also really have to be based on this IP? It just doesn't feel/look anything like a game based on Tolkien's work (so it ends up feeling like its just trying to ride the Hobbit wave).
They could be using lots of the AC2 animations still as placeholders. So when does this take place then? During the second age? I'm confused.
The game is being written by Christian Cantamessa, who was a lead-writer and lead-designer on Rockstar San Diego's Red Dead Redemption. [editline]24th January 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Saxon;43660591]They could be using lots of the AC2 animations still as placeholders. So when does this take place then? During the second age? I'm confused.[/QUOTE] I think so. Mordor looks pretty lush and not at all fucked up.
Fuck please change the combat. More games should copy the Demon/Dark Souls combat system.
[QUOTE=Paul McCartney;43661098]The game is being written by Christian Cantamessa, who was a lead-writer and lead-designer on Rockstar San Diego's Red Dead Redemption.[/QUOTE] Dan Houser has always been the head writer for Rockstar's projects. Cantamessa was a co-writer with Unsworth and Houser. [QUOTE=ijyt;43660178] Did it also really have to be based on this IP? It just doesn't feel/look anything like a game based on Tolkien's work (so it ends up feeling like its just trying to ride the Hobbit wave).[/QUOTE] Monolith exclusively works on LOTR games now. They don't have much else to do since WB took Fear away from them. [QUOTE=Gprimeisback;43645811]Mordor only? Are they fucking going the Dragon age 2 route and making piss poor attempt at unique areas? Mordor is a barren wasteland. Guaranteed 90% of the game zones look like what we just saw in that video As a huge Tolkien fan I will not be buying this and I'm not even getting into the lore breaking.[/QUOTE] As a huge Tolkien fan you'd know that Mordor wasn't always completely barren. Nurn, for example. Personally I think the game looks neat, but pretty tired out already other than the nemesis system. I'm just happy Monolith has been working on something they don't hate.
[QUOTE=Linkmister;43655552]He initially said he was sure then he began to back up when he tweeted this out [url]https://twitter.com/charlesrandall/status/426396133762424832[/url] As an animator myself I understand how he feels but I don't think the devs stole his animations, they more than likely used the animations as a sort of reference since the AC games have always been known for their gorgeous animations. Also the link you posted is dead, here's an alive one for you. [url]http://www.gamespot.com/articles/former-ubisoft-developer-accuses-shadow-of-mordor-of-using-code-from-assassin-s-creed/1100-6417307/[/url][/QUOTE] As an animator I'd be offended as fuck that they had the gall to steal those anims The reason AC has gorgeous animations is because a bunch of people put a lot of hard work and many years into refining them It's no different than someone stealing another's artwork [editline]24th January 2014[/editline] And it isn't just the anims, it's the same fucking climbing system down to the pauses Even if it is just a copy paste without stealing code and anims, tracing art doesn't give you the right to say it's yours
I'm a huge fan of Lord of the Rings and honestly this just doesn't really feel like a Lord of the Rings game. That and I got bored of the Assassin's Creed games after a while, not sure how much I'll like this.
[QUOTE=Jund;43661393]As an animator I'd be offended as fuck that they had the gall to steal those anims The reason AC has gorgeous animations is because a bunch of people put a lot of hard work and many years into refining them It's no different than someone stealing another's artwork [editline]24th January 2014[/editline] And it isn't just the anims, it's the same fucking climbing system down to the pauses Even if it is just a copy paste without stealing code and anims, tracing art doesn't give you the right to say it's yours[/QUOTE] I think its far more likely ubi sold all the animations and some assests for AC2, no ones that is that stupid to make a full AAA game with stolen unlicensed content.
i think it's more likely they just referenced the ac2 animations but references them exactly. like tracing a drawing
I'm really tired of all these games with slick fighting animations for the main character - why can't we have a character that doesn't jump around doing backflips each time he needs to kill someone? I mean, in LOTR Boromir is basically one of the finest swordsmen (and even though the movies aren't the bastion of realistic fighting), but his not nearly as graceful as this guy: [video=youtube;dc6aciIhO6c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc6aciIhO6c[/video] Having character jumping around really takes away from the immersion, in my opinion. It just makes the game unappealing to me.
Yeah, but you need to realize that it's a game and not a movie.
in fairness, i think most of the swordlplay in ac2 at least avoided most of the ninja shit. it's a bit dance-y but there's no backflips or anything
They're not even subtle about the "hey it's assassins creed but LOTR" are they lol, they're basically just "it's the same, deal with it"
People seem not to realize that cloning a somethingand adding your own features on top of it is kinda how media evolution generally works.
[QUOTE=proch;43665017]People seem not to realize that cloning a somethingand adding your own features on top of it is kinda how media evolution generally works.[/QUOTE] if this counts as 'adding features' to you then i think you're being really way too kind [editline]25th January 2014[/editline] this whole thing reminds me of the video game crash-era of clones where people would literally make 1:1 copies of stuff and reskin it to a new film IP because that's almost exactly what this is
[QUOTE=ChestyMcGee;43665242] because that's almost exactly what this is[/QUOTE] Damn you right, remember how you could roam around in Mordor settlements and kill orcs in Assassins Creed? Damn that sure was awesome.
[QUOTE=Jund;43661393]As an animator I'd be offended as fuck that they had the gall to steal those anims The reason AC has gorgeous animations is because a bunch of people put a lot of hard work and many years into refining them It's no different than someone stealing another's artwork [editline]24th January 2014[/editline] And it isn't just the anims, it's the same fucking climbing system down to the pauses Even if it is just a copy paste without stealing code and anims, tracing art doesn't give you the right to say it's yours[/QUOTE] Yeah if they stole or even copy-pasted the animations then that's pretty low of them but I don't think that was the case, as ChestyMcgee pointed it they more than likely just used the AC2 animations as a reference take but copied them nearly down to the letter instead of divulging them out and making it their own.
Yeah I'd like to see more games where you aren't an amazing combat parkour specialist, just slower and brutal fighting One of the reasons I enjoyed Condemned so much
I think a LOTR game would benefit from The Witcher's style of combat.
[QUOTE=proch;43666052]Damn you right, remember how you could roam around in Mordor settlements and kill orcs in Assassins Creed? Damn that sure was awesome.[/QUOTE] wow ur dumb [quote]1:1 copies of stuff and reskin it to a new film IP[/quote] making it mordor instead of florence isn't a feature. that's not a USP. the gameplay is exactly the same. you could sell this as a fantasy world DLC for asscreed and no one would bat an eyelid
Having the ability to climb shit, some similar (or even possibly copied) animations, and the general flow of combat being the same doesn't make the game "exactly assassin's creed lol" We've got one pre-alpha gameplay footage wherin the character climbs something and then he attacks a guy. Literally the only thing you guys are doing is saying "oh you can climb stuff? asscreed did it!" "oh, there's person to person combat? asscreed did it!"
the gameplay we've seen is: walking/sneaking animations that are almost exactly the same as asscreed (that are so noticeable because asscreed's player animations are really stylised and exaggerated) climbing stuff (in exactly the same way climbing is done in asscreed, with almost exactly the same animations, presumably with the same control scheme) stealth killing a sentry some ropes that make no architectural sense but look eerily like the exact ropes in asscreed that also make no architectural sense contextual stealth animation for walking along said ropes that looks exactly like the animation from asscreed for contextual rope walking a mission to assassinate a warlord/leader-type character detective vision from batman combat that was basically invented by asscreed2 that every action game since has ripped off including batman (yeh certain earlier games like some of the spiderman games had a similar system but asscreed2 perfected it) so yeh if you want to kid yourself that for some reason the final game is going to be somehow completely different from the 8 minutes of gameplay we've seen then okay but that's a bit sad. if you can name a genuine USP from this game that we've seen then i'll be glad to be corrected but let's face it this is a clone game
Visuals and animations nice and smooth but the gameplay? it's.... -yawn-.
[QUOTE=ChestyMcGee;43667053]wow ur dumb making it mordor instead of florence isn't a feature. that's not a USP. the gameplay is exactly the same. you could sell this as a fantasy world DLC for asscreed and no one would bat an eyelid[/QUOTE] By that logic every FPS ever is the same thing
maybe they're placeholder animations
[QUOTE=ChestyMcGee;43667599]the gameplay we've seen is: walking/sneaking animations that are almost exactly the same as asscreed (that are so noticeable because asscreed's player animations are really stylised and exaggerated) climbing stuff (in exactly the same way climbing is done in asscreed, with almost exactly the same animations, presumably with the same control scheme) stealth killing a sentry some ropes that make no architectural sense but look eerily like the exact ropes in asscreed that also make no architectural sense contextual stealth animation for walking along said ropes that looks exactly like the animation from asscreed for contextual rope walking a mission to assassinate a warlord/leader-type character detective vision from batman combat that was basically invented by asscreed2 that every action game since has ripped off including batman (yeh certain earlier games like some of the spiderman games had a similar system but asscreed2 perfected it) so yeh if you want to kid yourself that for some reason the final game is going to be somehow completely different from the 8 minutes of gameplay we've seen then okay but that's a bit sad. if you can name a genuine USP from this game that we've seen then i'll be glad to be corrected but let's face it this is a clone game[/QUOTE] Talking about the animations of basic movement is pretty much beating around the bush, I don't know how you can do it differently. Animations of combat can be changed for different combat styles, sure. I agree that combat needs a change, it can get really boring when you just mash the parry button, so I'd rather have it Witcher style or something similar. Talking about the ropes is really absurd and just sounds desperate to prove your point. No architectural sense? Sure. "Rope that works similar to asscreed"? C'mon. Assassinating things also not really a good reason, there's plenty of games where you assassinate people (Dishonored, Splinter Cell, Hitman). It's pretty much the basis of a stealth game, but we don't know if this is going to be mainly stealth. What we've seen is a snippet and there could be more types of missions. Detective vision is pretty much making its way into many stealth games; makes a game really easier that I can do without, but you don't have to use it. There's also nothing wrong with wanting a game to succeed and I find generalizing from 8 minutes of gameplay from a pre-alpha quite as sad. There's multiple outputs who will show gameplay and reviews, so if the game doesn't come to expectations, we can just not buy it.
[QUOTE=proch;43668702]By that logic every FPS ever is the same thing[/QUOTE] no not at all. fps is a whole genre. action adventure is a genre. making an action adventure with the exact same movement and combat mechanics and animations of asscreed is called a clone
I said this before in another earlier thread for this, but This game looks really, really awesome, but it absolutely shouldn't have been called Lord of the Rings.
[QUOTE=Hellsing4682;43668927]Talking about the animations of basic movement is pretty much beating around the bush[/QUOTE] i dont think it's beating around the bush at all. they're almost exactly the same. i mean obviously i can say you're not seeing it and you can say i'm seeing what i want to see, but that's just our opinions i guess [quote]I don't know how you can do it differently[/quote] loads of ways? the movement animations in assassins creed are deliberately stylised. they were designed to create a character who moves in a really cool, unique, and interesting way. it's an integral part of the IP. there's a reason you can spot an assassin's creed game from a mile away and why the assassin characters are so iconic. i could show you any model from any game running through the assassins creed animations and you'd know exactly where they're from instantly. why the hell would you clone that 1:1 for a lord of the rings game? oh yeh cos it's a lazy cashgrab [quote]Talking about the ropes is really absurd and just sounds desperate to prove your point. No architectural sense? Sure. "Rope that works similar to asscreed"? C'mon.[/quote] it's not absurd at all. i've never seen ropes like that in a game. ever. the reason they're in asscreed is because it's the only way they could think to maintain the flow of the movement mechanics. the reason they're in this game is because it has the exact same movement mechanics. i mean of course they could have thought of another arbitrary asset to slot into that position but that would have required too much thought and effort
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