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58 Comments
- kirakun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18I'm not sure how freeform swording control would work at all on the Wii controller that does not have *motion feedback*.
For example, suppose you move the Wii controller to your left in real life to place your sword to the left of your character in the game. Then, suppose the enemy hits your sword and knocks it to your right in the game. Now you would find yourself holding your Wii controller in your left side in real life while your character in the game will be holding the sword to right side. Now to move the sword back to the left side of your character, you in real life would have to move the controller even further left. So, if the enemy continues to do this to you, you would need a lot of left space in your room to play this game.
Ultimately, the Wii controller, lacking motion feedback, cannot implement true freeform motion without some kind of reset of position to allow resynchronization of the object's position in the game and the Wii controller's in real life. - jdstorer2, on 10/12/2007, -4/+21Because this game will not be being played by *just* people who are used to any kind of fighting. Red Steel must be built so that a large group of people *can* play it, and not feel intimidated. Can you imagine picking up a sword, then watching some bad-guy attempt to hack-n-slash you, with you having absolutely no sword training? You'd put the game away, or if you had the ability, return it, because obviously you'll not be able to play a game that doesn't allow you to get better at it, and learn.
Now, I would understand, from the other perspective, if there were, say, a button that allowed FreeForm sword fighting, so that pressing it gives you the opportunity to battle with your own moves, leaving the rest of us untrained monkeys the ability to play as well with canned moves. - oriondr, on 10/12/2007, -12/+25What is the problem with having to increase your OWN skills rather than increase your character's 'stats'. This guy doesn't actually know what he's talking about: He is neither a developer OR a swordsman; thus he is simply speculating wildly.
At the beginning of the game, when you start playing, you will play poorly, as the game goes on it will become more difficult and you will become better. That is the way twitch gameplay WORKS. Now if this game is supposed to be an RPG, more power to it, but the developers were talking about 'sword fighting' and 'first persion', and since this is such a revolutionary controller (hence the codename, 'revolution'), why not make use of the controller's unique abilities? You could have left thrust/right thrust/stab in any old D-pad. - Bob042, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14I agree with this. While freeform would be interesting, it wouldn't be very practical. Either it would be way too easy, with you being able to perform crazy samurai moves on the stunned enemy, or way too hard, if the AI is good. I thought I had heard about them putting some kind of option for a free sword, but I don't know the specifics on that.
- ohmar, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16Amazing what a little thought into the matter can reveal. I imagined myself going crazy and slaching all over the place, but in reality, learning a few left, right, up, down, squiggle, down, up combos would be way more fun.
- tizz66, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13Now I think about it, I agree.
Think back to the days of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. Would they have been as fun if you actually had to become a master of fighting to do anything, or had to throw together random moves? The fun was in first knowing, then learning, then executing combos to achieve something. It wasn't about the fighting, it was about the skill in executing the moves on a controller. I think Red Steel is the same, just in a different environment. - jonnyeh, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12I'm sure someone will develop a proper fencing simulator
- xgravix, on 10/12/2007, -6/+16Clearly arunforce did not read the article.
- Foo667, on 10/12/2007, -7/+17I've read and appreciate his points, but I still disagree with the conclusion.
The Wii's controller is being 'sold' on the point of freeform movement. Regardless of the gameplay mechanics of Red Steel and how it would work with canned movements, that doesn't excuse the controller being dumbed down into canned moves.
It's not a far push to see that a freeform sword fighting game would word, but they've just gone in a different direction. Fair enough, but they could have done to be more upfront about it from the outset as many got the impression from Wii previewing that is was freeform and taking advantage of the controller to it's fullest. Hence being a lead title for the console. - dwbell, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13Good points, but as a fencer (swords not barbwire) I'm still disappointed. It would have been great to have a video game that could keep me somewhat sharp.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I believe a freeform game will come out, and the real challenge with be PvP, of course.
- christianboutin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I used to play a game on the PC called "Die by the Sword". DbtS had free-form sword fights. Cool concept, but it didn't work that well because you only had the mouse to move your sword. That game screamed for a wii-like controller and I'm sure that free-form sword fights would really be kickass if a decent company dared to do it. I agree it would break typical game stereotypes in terms of character progression. But character progression as we know it is not an immutable law, it's a design decision.
I'm not blasting Ubisoft for this. If free-form sword fight isn't what they had in mind for that game then so be it. They shouldn't just throw it in to please anyone. However I must admit that in my eye the game lost a lot of it's appeal when I learned swordplay was scripted.
Perhaps a Wii port of Die by the Sword should be in the pipe? - CanoeCanoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Ultimately, it doesn't matter why it has to use pre-programmed moves.
And that's because it just went from _interesting_ to _not interesting_. - icantdrawanime, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I'm still waiting for a real swordfighting simulator... Unfortunately, It would probably have a pretty steep learning curve to be any good (ie, not hack and slash wave your sword wildly).
- joshlewis, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10Great article! Got me thinking.
- justice7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5i was going to post about Die by the Sword, but you beat me to it!
Agreed the mouse made the "free-form" swinging kind of troublesome, but it did indeed make the game unique and fun as hell!
Ever play Die by the sword in multiplayer? I played it with some friends during some old school LAN days, and we all got quite adept at chopping the head off of our opponent in a single swoop.
With a Wii like controller DBTS would be amazing.
I would LOVE to see DBTS remade for the Wii. I'd buy that on release day. - vhold, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You didn't have to use the mouse to move the sword. You could use the number pad, which is what I did the whole game. I thought it worked pretty well, although it did definitely tend to look funky, especially when weapons got tangled up.
- nPlastic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Given that the sword in the game is ceremonial, what else could you do besides wipe off the blood and sharpen it?
Getting a new, better sword might hurt the storyline a bit. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I thought I read somewhere an interview in which the folks at Ubisoft said basically the same thing - they wanted to do freeform, but decided that, being that most people are not master swordsmen, it would be far too challenging for the average player. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought that was the official word on the subject.
- pbaehr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Half way through the game you find the Master Sword and can shoot beams of light out of the tip of your sword after that. But only when you have full health.
- brilliantshadow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I read the article, and I completely disagree with a lot of his assumptions and conclusions. Free form would not get boring eventually, and it would not be impossible to master. What it would be is hard to implement correctly, and that I believe is the real reason it was not put into the game. As a developer who plays around with game development as a hobby, I would tackle this sort of problem as a physics simulator on the sword fighting side, and the controller would be essentially be driving the force vectors to fling the sword around. The fun in mastering the system would be understanding what the right way to swing around a sword would be, because there really in all honesty is so many ways it can work, given the laws of physics(A body in motion tends to stay in motions, etc...)
You would be getting better through the course of the game, because you would at the beginning be making movements that would not map to efficient responses in the simulator, leaving you vulnerable at the wrong points in time. So yeah, you would die a lot in the beginning. But people don't care if they die a lot as long as the cost of dieing isn't high, and you are making improvements in your skills, and therefore feel like you are making progress, and thus having fun. Canned moves really hearkens back to an old school controller, and definitely makes the AI easier to implement.
So I still say the reason it wasn't done the "right way" is because they don't know how to do it, therefore it would cost too much, therefore it's a bad business decision.
Somebody will get it right.. and that game I will buy.. not anything with canned actions. - sherlok, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I don't think the canned moves do anything to hinder the fact that a.) the controller emulates 3d space and b.) that ubisoft or nintendo are being untrue to the console.
Just because the gestures are canned doesn't mean they're simple, I'm sure there'll be plenty of poking and stabbing along with horizontal and vertical movements. Ubisoft has a very solid track record with games (barring Rainbowsix: lockdown), and I'd trust them to do this right.
As far as the comment about ubisoft rushing past ai into game mechanics, I believe it was someone at blizzard who said it's extremely easy to make a game hard, but it's making a game enjoyable and difficult at the same time that's tough for a developer to do. I wouldn't believe for a second that Ubi would have trouble making the AI tough in free form, but I think the article made a very solid point about the ability for the character to need to train and learn new moves. In free form you'd get your sword and that'd be it, no progression, and if they do the same thing with the fire-arms in the game then all your left with is the progression of the story (which isn't an all together bad thing, but why would they offer 1 type of in game progression when they could offer 3). I don't believe for a second that we're at a point where AI is adaptive enough to make free-form sword fighting enjoyable. It'd lose it's appeal in about 20 minutes of game play after you figure out the right 'combo' of moves that the ai can't come back from, and then the game would go back up on the old shelf.
Dugg the article BTW, very well written. - xmpcray, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Good post...but I would love an easter egg where you could go free form (till, as the blog says - "...it turns into a tiring, rampant arm flailing experience")
- ryke12, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Did you read the article? The author contends that it's not a problem with free-form. He says that it's more of a human limitation, and I agree with him. While free-form fighting is possible, it's liable to become very boring very quickly because the game would literally degenerate into a "hack-slash" in that you'd have two, maybe three attacks: vertical, horizontal, and poke.
I'd like to see you pull off some of the canned moves on your own as easily as it is with gestures.
(note: I do like the idea of a hybrid game, where you freeform some stuff, and gestures with buttons for moves.) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -9/+12I agree completely, if the movements are canned, you might as well just use an analog controller, there's no very compelling reason, and it's just a gimmick if so. I don't like how they tried to demonstrate Red Steel as being freeform; it was a blatant attempt at psuedo-truth for hype.
If the competing AI-swordman can't fight you as it is, then they rushed too quickly into a game-mechanic which doesn't have a good repetoire of games which to collate AI from. - vhold, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3He makes good points, but inevitably somebody is going to eventually make a free form game that works, probably will be a bit awkward, but will be awesome.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Seems like they just decided people would prefer a game where they appeared to be pulling off cool sword moves rather than one that reflected what most people will actually do with the controller, namely waving a sword around in a spastic and random fashion. Makes sense to me, particularly for a first generation game. I have no doubt other developers will get more experimental as time goes by.
- dracula7, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4i cant imagine free-form sword fighting ever getting old, personally - in the 1st publication that unveiled red steel it talked about freezing time to "draw" combos on the screen. this, or gestures in combination with button pressing seem like the obvious answers to extend beyond hack/slash - which the game obviously wont be limited to.
- MaskedPixelante, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Anyone remember Die by the Sword? Anyone prefer the free-form sword controls to the standard controls for the whole game?
Edit: I was beaten to it :P - vhold, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yea, I thought that game was great. I used the freeform controls the whole game, but admitedly I was mostly just slashing back and forth.
What made it feel good though was that the way you combined your body and sword made a giant difference in the damage you dealt, and as you got the knack for it it became second nature to see openings and line a sequence of moves up for a massive hit. - Broccoli, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Well i can see the logic for making the game playable for the masses. Now if i were ubi soft i would give people an option. Either you can have it completely free or tied to gesture recognition. or make it when the game is in easy and medium you get gesture recognition but once you go up in difficulty it makes you use the free mode.
- kadio, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3this article is *****. there is an arcade game with free sword movement and it is tons of fun. in the beginning wild sword flailing will get you past the first few levels, but as the game progresses, the enemies are better able to block. getting your attack blocked knocks you back and leaves you open to attack yourself...thus discouraging wild sword play and forcing the player to decide when where and how to strike. in the end though, you still have free control of the sword.
- vhold, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Very true. I think the first game to successfully get people to have to realistically move the 'sword' around will basically have the sword move lagged according to how the body would have to position itself to get that sword into the position of the controller.
Once it does that, people will either just not move it so fast and play more tactically, picking and holding positions and waiting the split-second or so for the character to catch up, or they'll start following the natural movements of the character which will give them the greatest advantage since they'll always have minimal controller lag for small corrections that way. - vhold, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Well, the key to that game is that it is entirely on rails, the only thing you worry about is the sword. Also, you are actually holding a sword, so you are limited by your own ability to manipulate that thing within it's little sensor towers.
- dracula7, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3sherlok, there's a reason why everyone who has played red steel says it sucks ATM. gestures wont be responsive - there would have to be a delay. see for yourself
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXG0fQRbRaI - kingfelix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1yes, but what initially makes a fighting game possible for everyone to play (button-mashers included) is what ultimately renders it hopelessly boring. you speak of "fun" in memorizing and executing combos, and say "it wasn't about the fighting"...
well, imagine a new kind of game that IS about the fighting. where you CAN do anything you can imagine, within the physical limits of the game's reality. now that is exciting!
it's too bad that red steel has turned out not to be that game - Frax421, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm glad to see that someone understands the logic behind a game designers motive. I'm getting sick and tired of hearing people bitch and moan about the lack of free form sword control. I'm not a master swordsman nor do I want to be. But I do want to be able to ***** someone up with a katana ... WHICH IS WHY I PLAY VIDEO GAMES!!! If I wanted free form sword control I would go out and buy a sword.
- spidoman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I agree with oriondr. You can either get new moves because of how long you've played, how far you've gotten in the game, or you can get new moves because you're actually improving in the game. Personally I'd like the latter of the two. Make sword training tutorials in between lessons, that will teach you good and proper ways to sword fight in the game. It's just not a real step forward. But some game will put it in, if not Red Stee, then maybe a Star Wars game, or anything else.
- neocitron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1it makes sense, he's trying to remain practical.. but what would be awesome is "selective" freeform... say you strike the opponent off guard.... now you enter this "bullet time free form" and you can choose any spot you would like to hit. it doesn't damage progression or development at all.
- BuGz213, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6brings up alot of good points
- RandomSkratch, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4watching a movie does not mean you instantly aquire the skills witnessed.
Freeform movement would be extremly hard to implement (definitely slowed down and choppy graphics from translating everything).
Now if there was perhaps an option for a Master Setting, that might be useful. But for the majority, canned moves are the best choice. - martinus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1As a software developer and doing a bit of martial arts with bokken training, I can tell you that a real swords simulator would have been absolutely uber-cool and definitely possible with the Wii. For example, with the first easy opponents it is ok to just slash the sword from left to right for a kill. Later on you will have to learn to evade the first slash, step to the left, and swing the sword sideways. The opponents should get more and more sophisticated so that YOU (not the avatar) has to learn new techniques. You could even learn cool kata's with a swords trainer to fight two opponents at the same time. A game like this would have been a real hit.
The only reason that Ubisoft uses "Canned" sword movements is that they want to reduce risk and development effort, because hey, they can market their game like it was an uber-cool swords game, and still sell you a simple and not innovative game. - consoneo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2He doesn't know why you would need to upgrade a sword.... !!! Nooooo! Someone is not versed in swordplay!
- dracula7, on 10/12/2007, -6/+6i dont understand the logic in the blog's argument. free form movement doesnt immediately indicate a precise realistic simulation. its not like you need to be a professional athlete to play the wii sports games, and the baseball simulation's control scheme is essentially what we want.
id personally rather play with an analog stick than make gestures, with delayed reaction times. the wii controller is about being IN 3d space (and im a huge wii fan) - this kind of implementation of the wii technology is dumb and untrue to the console's innovations. - atmofunk, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Streetfighter, DOA, Tekken, et al have always used canned moves -- how is this any different on a fundamental level? At any rate, my guess is that once the Wii matures and developers get more experience and ideas based off released games, we will see a second generation where such gameplay mechanics are introduced..
This *is* a new tech for everyone afterall -- even the developers. Where's the sense in asking them for perfection on their first attempt? - TrainwreckX, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Agreed. Great article. Dugg.
- tg16, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's possible that as the you progress through the game, the techniques get more difficult. At the end of the game, you can be fighting in an almost-freestyle form. Just like any game, the first levels are easy and the latter levels get more difficult. We haven't seen the whole game yet. We've just been shown one sword fighting sequence and it's early in the game.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1The answer is because the Wiimote is not precise enough to do it:
http://www.xgaming.com/newsletter/Wii%20Dupe.shtml - vman456, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Good to see a lot of DBTS fans here! :D
I'm currently in a beta test for a game called Determinance that uses free-form sword movement with the mouse. It's very intriguing and quite skill demanding. Control in this game is much easier than in DBTS. If you want to check it out here's the link:
http://www.mode7games.com/
It's really fun and the developers are very involved and very nice. :)
As for free form on the topic of Red Steel:
You guys need to understand that it's not easy to become a 1337 ninja or swordsman, it does take years of dedication and practice, however it would probably be much easier in a game against A.I.
Sword on sword dueling isn't just about knowing how to swing a blade, half of the combat is the footwork. Footwork is a very important factor in martial arts and it would be hard to replicate something so complicated in a game like this.
So if you want free-form sword fighting buy a few longsword wasters and protective gear and have fun with your friends. I'm still waiting for the day of virtual reality. Seriously, how cool would it be to be able to fight a horde of orcs alongside many friends? I dream too much... -
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