KickStarter Kingdom Come: Deliverance Pre-Release Thread [RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Smejki]

- no dragons or romances

 

[ArchAngel]

Yeah the common dialogue scenes are probably the weakest part, presenation-wise. It is very inferior to Witcher 3, but understandable given the less than quarter of a budget it had.
I do hope they are still polishing those right until the release though.

God, I hate these comparisons to Witcher 3. Least of all is it a matter of budget. I'm not gonna comment on the resulting quality of our dialogues. You be the judges. It's gotten much better in the last months but it will never be Witcher 3. Bear in mind that 99% of all dialogs in Witcher 3 have predefined placement in the gameworld, sometimes even game time (or it's suddenly forced). This allowed the devs to:
- adjust lighting for different conditions (time of day, weather)
- prepare the stage for custom actor movements (Ciri is sitting on this chair, then while geralt is saying B, Ciri will stand up, pick an apple from the table right there and lean against the wall just to the right)
- use a wide variety of prebaked basic stances (again heavily dependent on surroundings) where each comes with a "gesture variation"
All of which results in "cinematic feeling". In other words - every dialog in Witcher 3 is a cutscene.
Cutscenes come with some shortcomings of course. The biggest one is that every NPC with important dialog can be interacted with only in predefined places where they stand 24/7. The NPCs cannot move around or if they do they are confined to a small place and their exact placement is not taken into account anyway (Tris is sleepsin a room during the night or sitting on a chair next to the bed during the day, and if you trigger the dialog, none of that matters). You cannot have a dialog with them at a place of you choosing. The relevant parts of the world are static and inert as fuck, just like in Morrowind. The rest is generated extras. These can move, they don't matter. TTL 20 seconds.
It's not like we couldn't do the same with our dialogs (ignoring limited workforce on our part). Cryengine has very similar tech to the what they've built for their dialogs. We didn't do that for one crucial reason - the core concept of our game is in clash with this.
Just like in Bethesda games 99% of dialogs in our game are tied to NPC who can and do move through the world and you can trigger the dialogs at any time and any place. Be it in the kitchen in the middle of the woods during high noon or on the way between the pub and their home after sunset. Cameras must be placed dynamically, shots must be cut dynamically, it is impossible to tailor lighting to the situation at hand, dialogs cannot take the surroundings into consideration (there's no table with an apple nor a wall to lean against). In that regard I think we nailed the system quite well. Similar to us is Bethesda's Fallout 4 which has taken the lazy route and is simply placing the dialog cameras on either of skeleton bones which are just behind the actor shoulders or defaults to first person. Which results to boring shot reverse-shot cameras and if the actors is jerking due to physics, camera is jerking with them. We have much more complex system which allows for truly dynamic camera positioning independent from actors' state (but computed from it). It should be noted that some dialogs in Witcher 3 can be executed anywhere as well so the game also features a similar but much simpler system and you will notice when it's triggered - the results are most of the time horrible (but it doesn't matter because it's rare).
Many people have expressed wishes along "hopefully Bethesda will learn from CD Projekt and will up their game (and tech) so we could get the next TES more cinematic-y!". No, unless Bethesda rolls back their formula to Morrowind era of static NPCs they will not. Even the almighty and super rich Bethesda can't go down this route. And the thing that Witcher 3 does the same way we and Bethesda do CD Projekt does way way worse (so they should up their game too! :-P).

Ok but that does not explain the unnatural body movements and positions during these unscripted dialogues that were seen in released promotional videos and gameplay. In the end nobody cares how the sausage is made, only that it tastes good.

 

[Paul_cz]

Yeah the common dialogue scenes are probably the weakest part, presenation-wise. It is very inferior to Witcher 3, but understandable given the less than quarter of a budget it had.
I do hope they are still polishing those right until the release though.

God, I hate these comparisons to Witcher 3. Least of all is it a matter of budget. I'm not gonna comment on the resulting quality of our dialogues. You be the judges. It's gotten much better in the last months but it will never be Witcher 3. Bear in mind that 99% of all dialogs in Witcher 3 have predefined placement in the gameworld, sometimes even game time (or it's suddenly forced). This allowed the devs to:
- adjust lighting for different conditions (time of day, weather)
- prepare the stage for custom actor movements (Ciri is sitting on this chair, then while geralt is saying B, Ciri will stand up, pick an apple from the table right there and lean against the wall just to the right)
- use a wide variety of prebaked basic stances (again heavily dependent on surroundings) where each comes with a "gesture variation"
All of which results in "cinematic feeling". In other words - every dialog in Witcher 3 is a cutscene.
Cutscenes come with some shortcomings of course. The biggest one is that every NPC with important dialog can be interacted with only in predefined places where they stand 24/7. The NPCs cannot move around or if they do they are confined to a small place and their exact placement is not taken into account anyway (Tris is sleepsin a room during the night or sitting on a chair next to the bed during the day, and if you trigger the dialog, none of that matters). You cannot have a dialog with them at a place of you choosing. The relevant parts of the world are static and inert as fuck, just like in Morrowind. The rest is generated extras. These can move, they don't matter. TTL 20 seconds.
It's not like we couldn't do the same with our dialogs (ignoring limited workforce on our part). Cryengine has very similar tech to the what they've built for their dialogs. We didn't do that for one crucial reason - the core concept of our game is in clash with this.
Just like in Bethesda games 99% of dialogs in our game are tied to NPC who can and do move through the world and you can trigger the dialogs at any time and any place. Be it in the kitchen in the middle of the woods during high noon or on the way between the pub and their home after sunset. Cameras must be placed dynamically, shots must be cut dynamically, it is impossible to tailor lighting to the situation at hand, dialogs cannot take the surroundings into consideration (there's no table with an apple nor a wall to lean against). In that regard I think we nailed the system quite well. Similar to us is Bethesda's Fallout 4 which has taken the lazy route and is simply placing the dialog cameras on either of skeleton bones which are just behind the actor shoulders or defaults to first person. Which results to boring shot reverse-shot cameras and if the actors is jerking due to physics, camera is jerking with them. We have much more complex system which allows for truly dynamic camera positioning independent from actors' state (but computed from it). It should be noted that some dialogs in Witcher 3 can be executed anywhere as well so the game also features a similar but much simpler system and you will notice when it's triggered - the results are most of the time horrible (but it doesn't matter because it's rare).
Many people have expressed wishes along "hopefully Bethesda will learn from CD Projekt and will up their game (and tech) so we could get the next TES more cinematic-y!". No, unless Bethesda rolls back their formula to Morrowind era of static NPCs they will not. Even the almighty and super rich Bethesda can't go down this route. And the thing that Witcher 3 does the same way we and Bethesda do CD Projekt does way way worse (so they should up their game too! :-P).

Great explanation. The unfortunate fact is that most gamers are used to Witcher 3 level dialogue quality now (when 3D games are concerned), and will not actually consider the differences in design you laid out here. That said, I do appreciate that you guys took the harder route and went for much more open ended design.

 

[Sentinel]

Yeah the common dialogue scenes are probably the weakest part, presenation-wise. It is very inferior to Witcher 3, but understandable given the less than quarter of a budget it had.
I do hope they are still polishing those right until the release though.

God, I hate these comparisons to Witcher 3. Least of all is it a matter of budget. I'm not gonna comment on the resulting quality of our dialogues. You be the judges. It's gotten much better in the last months but it will never be Witcher 3. Bear in mind that 99% of all dialogs in Witcher 3 have predefined placement in the gameworld, sometimes even game time (or it's suddenly forced). This allowed the devs to:
- adjust lighting for different conditions (time of day, weather)
- prepare the stage for custom actor movements (Ciri is sitting on this chair, then while geralt is saying B, Ciri will stand up, pick an apple from the table right there and lean against the wall just to the right)
- use a wide variety of prebaked basic stances (again heavily dependent on surroundings) where each comes with a "gesture variation"
All of which results in "cinematic feeling". In other words - every dialog in Witcher 3 is a cutscene.
Cutscenes come with some shortcomings of course. The biggest one is that every NPC with important dialog can be interacted with only in predefined places where they stand 24/7. The NPCs cannot move around or if they do they are confined to a small place and their exact placement is not taken into account anyway (Tris is sleepsin a room during the night or sitting on a chair next to the bed during the day, and if you trigger the dialog, none of that matters). You cannot have a dialog with them at a place of you choosing. The relevant parts of the world are static and inert as fuck, just like in Morrowind. The rest is generated extras. These can move, they don't matter. TTL 20 seconds.
It's not like we couldn't do the same with our dialogs (ignoring limited workforce on our part). Cryengine has very similar tech to the what they've built for their dialogs. We didn't do that for one crucial reason - the core concept of our game is in clash with this.
Just like in Bethesda games 99% of dialogs in our game are tied to NPC who can and do move through the world and you can trigger the dialogs at any time and any place. Be it in the kitchen in the middle of the woods during high noon or on the way between the pub and their home after sunset. Cameras must be placed dynamically, shots must be cut dynamically, it is impossible to tailor lighting to the situation at hand, dialogs cannot take the surroundings into consideration (there's no table with an apple nor a wall to lean against). In that regard I think we nailed the system quite well. Similar to us is Bethesda's Fallout 4 which has taken the lazy route and is simply placing the dialog cameras on either of skeleton bones which are just behind the actor shoulders or defaults to first person. Which results to boring shot reverse-shot cameras and if the actors is jerking due to physics, camera is jerking with them. We have much more complex system which allows for truly dynamic camera positioning independent from actors' state (but computed from it). It should be noted that some dialogs in Witcher 3 can be executed anywhere as well so the game also features a similar but much simpler system and you will notice when it's triggered - the results are most of the time horrible (but it doesn't matter because it's rare).
Many people have expressed wishes along "hopefully Bethesda will learn from CD Projekt and will up their game (and tech) so we could get the next TES more cinematic-y!". No, unless Bethesda rolls back their formula to Morrowind era of static NPCs they will not. Even the almighty and super rich Bethesda can't go down this route. And the thing that Witcher 3 does the same way we and Bethesda do CD Projekt does way way worse (so they should up their game too! :-P).

Very good explanation. However, I don't think the majority of the complaints about dialogues were about the animations (at least mine weren't), but the way the characters, and Henry particularly, seems to stare into the abyss with dead eyes. The eyes of the characters do not meet, ever. They both just stare in a straight line like they're dead inside.
Is this something that has been fixed? Can you comment on it?
These posts of devs explaining stuff are always great.

 

[cvv]

- no dragons or romances

Codex just scored a world exclusive folks - Warhorse just confirmed you can romance a dragon in KCD.

 

[Smejki]

It made me think though about the review copy which the media are going to get. The devs have mentioned already working on Day 1 patch, but will the reviewers get the vanilla version or the Day 1 patched one?

day 1 patched of course

 

[Haba]

- no dragons or romances

[problematic]

So where are the trailers about dragon romances? Do you hate money?

Or this some kind of a potato thing, where a real man's romance is a bottle of slivovitz?

 

[Smejki]

Im a little afraid about the world size -16 square kilometers, thats seriously nothing. 4km by 4km, That's only 8 minutes to cross the map while galloping on the horse.

GTAV map can be crossed in under 2 minutes with the fighter jet. Fukken shite!

 

[Paul_cz]

It made me think though about the review copy which the media are going to get. The devs have mentioned already working on Day 1 patch, but will the reviewers get the vanilla version or the Day 1 patched one?

day 1 patched of course

Do you know when will they get it? Will there be reviews for launch or will they trickle one by one after, thus minimizing the marketing impact..

 

[Smejki]

By the way, can you tell me why there were no arrow trails in the latest video?

no idea. a bug? suppressed with some cvar because reasons? lost in Youtube compression?

they are in the latest version for sure.

 

[cvv]

By the way, can you tell me why there were no arrow trails in the latest video?

no idea. a bug? suppressed with some cvar because reasons? lost in Youtube compression?

they are in the latest version for sure.

Just curious: is it generally trivial or difficult to make all those HUD features that people are bitching about - the reticle, the arrow trails, the compass - optional?

 

[mildTea]

It made me think though about the review copy which the media are going to get. The devs have mentioned already working on Day 1 patch, but will the reviewers get the vanilla version or the Day 1 patched one?

day 1 patched of course

Glad to hear that.

(Díky za odpověď)

 

[Smejki]

It made me think though about the review copy which the media are going to get. The devs have mentioned already working on Day 1 patch, but will the reviewers get the vanilla version or the Day 1 patched one?

day 1 patched of course

Do you know when will they get it? Will there be reviews for launch or will they trickle one by one after, thus minimizing the marketing impact..

in a matter of days.

 

[Drax]

I hope Bubbles receives his review copy soon.

 

[skacky]

 

[The Wall]

Did you ever want to see all the scheming, plotting, politics, war and intrigue in Crusader Kings II from the perspective of one soldier who is but a statical number in CK2 and on macro scale but also so much more? Who can't change the fate of kingdoms but can participate in it and change his fate and of those around him. I always did. And I hope I do in this game.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance - what Oblivion was supposed to be and Skyrim never was. Balanced balance of RPG mechanics, action twitchy gameplay and simulation. Also larper's heaven.



Edit:

I should have just posted fucking link and cut all the praise. Ninjad.

 

[Paul_cz]

Beautiful trailer, that Vávra-modeled character being at the forefront is sure to trigger the idiots again :D

 

[Sentinel]

that music
fucking hell lads
only reason I haven't pre-ordered yet is because I'm worried about the performance

 

[cvv]

A really, really good trailer. Did you make those last two yourself at the studio Smejki?

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Just preordered—

 

[Sentinel]

Yeah the common dialogue scenes are probably the weakest part, presenation-wise. It is very inferior to Witcher 3, but understandable given the less than quarter of a budget it had.
I do hope they are still polishing those right until the release though.

God, I hate these comparisons to Witcher 3. Least of all is it a matter of budget. I'm not gonna comment on the resulting quality of our dialogues. You be the judges. It's gotten much better in the last months but it will never be Witcher 3. Bear in mind that 99% of all dialogs in Witcher 3 have predefined placement in the gameworld, sometimes even game time (or it's suddenly forced). This allowed the devs to:
- adjust lighting for different conditions (time of day, weather)
- prepare the stage for custom actor movements (Ciri is sitting on this chair, then while geralt is saying B, Ciri will stand up, pick an apple from the table right there and lean against the wall just to the right)
- use a wide variety of prebaked basic stances (again heavily dependent on surroundings) where each comes with a "gesture variation"
All of which results in "cinematic feeling". In other words - every dialog in Witcher 3 is a cutscene.
Cutscenes come with some shortcomings of course. The biggest one is that every NPC with important dialog can be interacted with only in predefined places where they stand 24/7. The NPCs cannot move around or if they do they are confined to a small place and their exact placement is not taken into account anyway (Tris is sleepsin a room during the night or sitting on a chair next to the bed during the day, and if you trigger the dialog, none of that matters). You cannot have a dialog with them at a place of you choosing. The relevant parts of the world are static and inert as fuck, just like in Morrowind. The rest is generated extras. These can move, they don't matter. TTL 20 seconds.
It's not like we couldn't do the same with our dialogs (ignoring limited workforce on our part). Cryengine has very similar tech to the what they've built for their dialogs. We didn't do that for one crucial reason - the core concept of our game is in clash with this.
Just like in Bethesda games 99% of dialogs in our game are tied to NPC who can and do move through the world and you can trigger the dialogs at any time and any place. Be it in the kitchen in the middle of the woods during high noon or on the way between the pub and their home after sunset. Cameras must be placed dynamically, shots must be cut dynamically, it is impossible to tailor lighting to the situation at hand, dialogs cannot take the surroundings into consideration (there's no table with an apple nor a wall to lean against). In that regard I think we nailed the system quite well. Similar to us is Bethesda's Fallout 4 which has taken the lazy route and is simply placing the dialog cameras on either of skeleton bones which are just behind the actor shoulders or defaults to first person. Which results to boring shot reverse-shot cameras and if the actors is jerking due to physics, camera is jerking with them. We have much more complex system which allows for truly dynamic camera positioning independent from actors' state (but computed from it). It should be noted that some dialogs in Witcher 3 can be executed anywhere as well so the game also features a similar but much simpler system and you will notice when it's triggered - the results are most of the time horrible (but it doesn't matter because it's rare).
Many people have expressed wishes along "hopefully Bethesda will learn from CD Projekt and will up their game (and tech) so we could get the next TES more cinematic-y!". No, unless Bethesda rolls back their formula to Morrowind era of static NPCs they will not. Even the almighty and super rich Bethesda can't go down this route. And the thing that Witcher 3 does the same way we and Bethesda do CD Projekt does way way worse (so they should up their game too! :-P).

Very good explanation. However, I don't think the majority of the complaints about dialogues were about the animations (at least mine weren't), but the way the characters, and Henry particularly, seems to stare into the abyss with dead eyes. The eyes of the characters do not meet, ever. They both just stare in a straight line like they're dead inside.
Is this something that has been fixed? Can you comment on it?
These posts of devs explaining stuff are always great.

*crickets*

 

[---]

pleasebegoodpleasebegoodpleasebegood

 

[Rahdulan]

King of Hungary AND Croatia? Oh, they're in trouble now.

 

[Haba]

[--] the way the characters, and Henry particularly, seems to stare into the abyss with dead eyes. The eyes of the characters do not meet, ever. They both just stare in a straight line like they're dead inside.

Look dude, it is intentional. The guy just lost his parents AND realized there are no dragons to romance in his world.

He looks dead inside 'cuz he is dead inside.

 

[abnaxus]

Grab some tavern wenches by the pussy.