The People Problem

It's all in your head

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Harle
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Postby Harle » Thu Aug 12, 2010 5:03 am

Of course it's always possible things will change from now to release, but it sounds very much from descriptions like speech in general is being dealt with in the abstract. I doubt there will be any sort of dialogue tree stuff going on in the missions, which is just as well. It'd bog things down, probably.
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xander
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Postby xander » Thu Aug 12, 2010 3:41 pm

Harle wrote:Of course it's always possible things will change from now to release, but it sounds very much from descriptions like speech in general is being dealt with in the abstract. I doubt there will be any sort of dialogue tree stuff going on in the missions, which is just as well. It'd bog things down, probably.

This.

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Treefrog
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Postby Treefrog » Fri Aug 27, 2010 10:07 pm

So I like the placeholder people at the moment, but they lack a bit of personality.

In keeping with the minimalistic approach just add a few characterizing features.

For instance. Have security guards wear blue baseball caps, FBI agents have sunglasses and an ear piece, engineers have a brown toolbelt, spys/scouts are in disguise such as a tie etc. Keeps the people looking simple, but also means you can recognize them at a moments notice.

At the moment, they all appear the same, and only reading their name on the floor tells you exactly who they are.
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Postby halcyonforever » Tue Aug 31, 2010 4:56 am

Keep it simple. I agree with the above post that the characters should be instantly recognizeable but keep them simple to reduce overhead. If I am coordinating a master plan I don't particularly care what detail the minions may have. Heck I play Evil Genius (RIP Elixer) alot and you get the same set of minions for the whole game, and mostly you just identify them by color of their outfit.
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Cooper42
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Postby Cooper42 » Wed Sep 08, 2010 8:02 pm

Been playing a bit of XCOM recently, and I love how the equipment you provide a character basically gives them their appearance. It also makes playing the game much easier. I know exactly where my lass with the rockets is. You don't even need the inventory on screen.

Commandos never quite got this - sure the different characters were well differentiated - I knew which was my sapper, commando, spy etc. But if I wanted to know who had picked up that German sniper rifle, it was not immediately apparent.

I liked the preview where people are simple outlines, and it is the equipment that they carry which is picked out. I'm assuming this is not going to be a heavily character-story-driven game... In which case, abstracting bodies as much as possible and picking out relevant items on their person seems a great way to go about it. If done well enough, it could bypass much need for an 'inventory screen'

I'm not even sure you need facial features, (except maybe the nose so you know which way they are facing) especially as that adds a whole (difficult) layer of animation to get done...

On the subject of "Backpack Tetris": I am still amazed this is something that remains so ubiquitous. Few developers try to better it.
I can imagine in Subversion that the 'inventory screen' simply involves zooming into the person and being able to mouse-over various bits of equipment to interact with them.
And, on that thought, why has this not been done?
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