One of the few things WoW has over SWToR is how characters move.
The different races & classes move and fight in different ways, but I think this game could take that much further in terms of giving characters personality...
How about having, say, 4 different movement sets for traveling, character interactions and fighting?
For example, traveling could have:
- Running
- Lumbering
- Skating (just the motion, like Frozone)
- Floating (like an inch above the ground)
For each type of movement you can pick during character gen which set your character uses.
Of course these wouldn't interfere with any powers or fast travel etc.
With those 3 types movements alone, having 4 sets to choose from gives players a large number of variations and a unique way to personalize their character.
The plan for this game is already supposed to involve what they called "power customization" back in CoH. This should allow for things like getting to choose either your left or right hand to shoot power beams from but it will also hopefully involve things like getting to pick "flight poses" so that we can choose how you want to look while flying.
The problem with coming up with completely different "animation sets" for movement like you're suggesting is that they would take quite a bit of extra work beyond what I just mentioned for power customization. Most of what I mentioned for power customization would be "pose oriented" which wouldn't take large amounts of animation to produce. On the other hand the difference between what you for instance call "Running" and "Lumbering" would likely involve an entire range of animation motion (in all directions and body positions) to implement.
Obviously what you are suggesting is not impossible to do software-wise. It would just involve a very large amount of EXTRA work above and beyond just getting the basic styles of movement working for the launch of the game. This is the kind of thing that might be doable after launch once they have plenty of time to work on secondary things such as this. While what you're asking for would definitely be cool to have it's certainly not a top priority in terms of getting a baseline functional game launched.
We must remember that MWM is working very hard to produce this game on a purely grassroots style volunteer basis. While I'm sure they'll do their best to throw in as many features as they can manage they literally can't afford (at least at this point) anything that would require huge amounts of extra time/effort that aren't absolutely necessary to produce a functional game.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
The OP seems to be someone newer here. Let me say, welcome! Now, there is quite a bit of info about movement powers for the game that has come up in the past. Keep in mind that the following may change but is / are the current plans in progress.
Everyone will get a free, optional travel power at level one. There are currently 5 travel powers set to launch, but we're testing out 6. Those sets are:
Flight
Teleportation
Super Leaping
Super Speed
Acrobatics (think parkour)
The sixth set we're working on is Wall Climbing (think your friendly neighborhood web themed hero), because much of its work is related to the Acrobatics travel power.
As Lothic mentioned, one of the goals of our character creation system is to have customized animations of powers. The same holds true for our travel powers.
So here is where the speculation can get fun:
Take your Super Speed travel power. Give it the sliding animation. You now have Super Sliding. Color the trail buish-white. You're now sliding on 'ice'.
Of course, different animations will take time to come out for each travel set, but the plan is to provide them with time.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Awesome :D
Thanks for the warm welcome, and for the insight into how this kind of game is put together.
I'm loving the look of it and as an ex CoH player I was excited to find this page!
Btw I'm not much of an animator/coder but I'd love to help with this project in any way, what kind of things does it need? Is there a forum page or sth for that?
Question. If I had super speed and wall crawling, could I keep the run/walk animation and run/walk up the sides of buildings?
[img]https://s15.postimg.cc/z9bk1znkb/Black_Falcon_Sig_in_Progess.jpg[/img]
In some cases, superspeed alone would allow you to do that. I don't mean real physics, I mean, like, the Flash DOEN'T have webs or sticky hands and feet, but still runs up straight vertical walls all the time. In that case, it remains an open question if you'll need both or just Super Speed to be able to run up the side of a building. And honestly, if SS gives you that, then Wall Crawling is just strictly worse, isn't it? As such, I would vote for "no vertical running included with Super Speed" regardless of what The Flash can do.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Yes sadly despite what various travel powers might technically allow for (at least in the comic books) they will likely have to be arbitrarily limited (in this game) just to make sure that we don't have any of them be so much better in all situations that no one would want the lesser power(s).
For instance here's a bit of a secret from CoH: The reason the standard Fly power was set to be so relatively slow had effectively nothing to do with the supposed "excuse" from the Devs that letting people fly too fast would screw up your graphics or frame rates. The REAL reason was if they let Fly be as fast (or even faster) than Super Speed then who in their right mind would ever take Super Speed except for maybe a few die-hard purists? CoH could clearly handle people moving at least as fast as Super Speed allowed for so the idea that Fly couldn't be as fast "for technical reasons" was grade-A bull manure. Think about it... ;)
So yeah even if you could argue the case that The Flash could run up the side of a building it'll probably be better for all concerned if they let Wall Crawling do that as its special/unique thing.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Probably. Although it might be amusing if SS could run straight up walls but you started slowing down the higher you went, until you would hit zero and fall to the ground far below if you didn't reach a roof in time.
Or if you couldn't stop when speeding up a wall or else you'd fall although I like your idea of running out of momentum or something the higher you go giving you a theoretical upper limit to how high you could get speeding up a building.
I'd also give wall-crawling a super leap. Not as far as the super leap power, but enough to get from one building to another, at least.
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
Perhaps Wall Climbing could be customized so that you choose to either have "mini Super Leaps" like you suggested OR have some kind of grapple animation so that you could look a little more like what it would be if like if Batman choose to "suction cup" his way up a building and then used a grappling hook to get to another building. The net effect would be the same but you'd have a choice on how it "appears" to function.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Maybe take a few concepts/ideas from DCUO on this.
Super speed can climb/run on any building but only as long as you keep moving, I think DCUO allows for a 5 second stop before it makes you loose your "grip".
Acrobatics would be able to hang on to a building indefinitely, making them be able to attack while hanging on to the side of a building or even a ceiling. And preferably having a quick way of getting between/to buildings, the grappling/leaping concept.
Eh, if I went so far as to allow Super Speed to let people run up to any height on a vertical surface I would make it so that you would fall pretty much instantly (within one second?) if you stopped running. Giving them 5 full seconds to stand still and defy gravity seems like that would give Super Speed a little too much "capability". On the other hand I wouldn't have any trouble letting a Super Speeder run across open water, again as long as they kept moving.
P.S. Technically giving a teleporter a few seconds of "hover" time while teleporting in mid-air doesn't strictly make any sense either. Gravity ought to work on them the instant they become solid. But I'm willing to overlook that because of the way the game interface forces a player to control that indirectly. Theoretically an actual person who had the innate ability to teleport could do it quickly enough that they would only "fall" a few feet between jumps and could correct for that issue the same way a bird can naturally adjust its flight pattern to go where it wants to go despite shifting wind gusts or whatever.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Yeah, the hover-time is really just a concession to communication lag. It takes a small amount of time to render the re-emergence into normal space, to react and press the teleport key, and for the command to make it back to the server.
The looney-toons "delayed fall" aspect was due to the realities of "teh intarwebs" and even of the user's hardware. It makes sense to have a small "grace period" of a few seconds just as a quality of life feature.
Going back to just the animations themselves, even CoX had "Ninja Run" and several "Prestige Run" options. I could see that as the stuff of Cash Shop purchases over time.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising