Interview IGN: Two Worlds II Interview

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: Reality Pump Studios; Two Worlds

... <a href="http://twoworldsvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Editorials.Detail&id=65">with Jake DiGennaro and Devon Smith</a> from Topware US (publisher of TW2)
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<blockquote><b>TWVault: What about QTE's or maybe dialogues that require timed input - those are increasingly popular (Heavy Rain being the best examples), and Antaloor Post revealed that there're going to be realtime interactive cutscenes and conversations. Can you expand on the features used to make conversations more lively and unpredictable...?</b>
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Devon: QTE's have kind of become a bit of a crutch haven't they? It's kinda gaming's way of dangling a carrot that they never intend to give the player. Heavy Rain was an incredibly cinematic experience in the most literal sense.
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In contrast, Two Worlds II is an open world RPG where the player has control of the character. What we really wanted to do was to blur the line between slashing and talking. Players maintain control of the camera (which uses a slight rack-focus on the speaking characters), as well as the hero himself. This doesn't mean that we don't have cutscenes -- we simply wanted to use them for only the most dramatic or eyecatching moments.
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Jake: Agreed, it's really nice to have a dialogue system that makes a more seamless transition between the active gameplay and NPC interaction. It brings the player into the conversation more effectively than our first venture into the RPG world, and makes the experience more enjoyable as a whole. </blockquote>
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Seeing that those 2 guys are most likely some marketing dudes I anticipated the interview to be very informative.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/97767-two-worlds-ii-interview.html">GB</A>

 

[Fez]

I will take this opportunity to say that I despise QTEs in almost all cases I've come across them.

 

[Achilles]

I will take this opportunity to say that I agree with you. FFS, I thought we had evolved past the Dragon's Lair phase of gaming and now it's coming back. FFS.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Heavy Rain was an incredibly cinematic experience in the most literal sense.

Heh. Someday, people will realize how stupid this "cinematic experience" shit is. Someday...I expect it to be more embarrassing than the "mascots with attitude" craze of the 90's.

"What a deep and involving game. I press the button that occasionally flashes on the screen, so I can watch an animation."

 

[Micmu]

I will take this oppurtunity to rage and swear a lot.
"QTE" is a retard piece of permanoob-wanna-be-smart shit acronym for a really piece of shit feature and needs to be destroyed by fucking fire. Twice.

 

[ChristofferC]

I will take this opportunity and say that QTE:s are even much worse than popamole shooter mechanics. God I hate QTE:s.

 

[Gobbo]

I hate the cinematic trend of nowadays gaming. I wanna experience everything from the point of the player character and the surroundings should be according to Me, I don't want to be a part of someone's narration.

 

[Fez]

I will take this opportunity to say that I agree with you. FFS, I thought we had evolved past the Dragon's Lair phase of gaming and now it's coming back. FFS.

It's far worse than Dragon's Lair. At least in that the whole game set you up to expect it all the time, so it wasn't such a jarring "event". In other games you'll be leisurely watching a cut scene or trying to do a puzzle like the rest of the 99% of the game and then - think fast, QTE time!!! - you've either died or you are going to be reloading to do it properly and get the satisfactory outcome you wanted. Awful mechanic and completely unfair. If you want to give the player variation in the story or cut scenes then either give them dialogue style choices for their actions (presuming it is an adventure or RPG) or base it on their stats and past choices have it run one of the possible outcomes automatically from that.

If it's more of an action game then it still needs some kind of fair warning to get the player ready to move in case he was drinking coffee, stretching, scratching, etc. It's meant to be a game, after all.

QTEs seem like a terrible idea someone had as a cheap and easy compromise to add some variation to the cut scenes and make them more "engaging" for the player (to avoid half the people skipping them the first time and about 90% skipping them the second). Instead it almost always adds an unwelcome piece of frustration and an interruption to the flow of the game. Fahrenheit/ Indigo Prophecy was a monstrous example of how badly it can end up, an otherwise very promising adventure game completely trampled with twitch elements that had no place in the genre and forced the player to reload (and heaven help you if you simply weren't able to complete such twitch elements - your otherwise okay adventure experience is down the toilet prematurely unless you can find someone to play it for you).