Messages

[should still]

Mine is almost as messy as Ben's.


(I just moved the desk recently into a different room, so it should still be pretty clean)

That vast expanse you see before you is 18 square feet of solid oak.

I'm having a hard time telling if that's actually oak.. especially with the grainy image quality (hoho!). But no, I'm serious.. How do YOU know it's actually oak.
I'm going to have to make a trip over there right this moment to see if it's actually oak. Though, you don't have to clean the counter for me, I don't mind.

[or because they are luddites]

Some people use the old one because they know how it works or because they are luddites.

Yep! It was freakin hilarious.

Image Hint #2:

I had believed the stripes on his coat combined with the tie would give this away quite easily. This is actually a man, not really a furby creature, he just appears not to be human in this one quick and hilarious scene.

I'll post another hint tomorrow if no one gets it.

Very close!!   (actually, no.. not at all)

Nope.

I can always correctly guess a set of breasts or a fine ass.

How about this:

What's Your Number? (2011)

Also, Oblivion had none of GODDAMN SPIDERS

Really? As a fear that you dislike them or are they a challenge to you? I have only had one spider attack me up close but that was because I was sent to prison for a quest and temporarily lost my bow and sword. I find them to be quite easy and not scary in the slightest. A single shot with the bow in sneak mode and they're laying on their backs - the big guy might need 3 shots, but he's generally dead before he even realizes what hit him.

I actually found the spiders in the LIMBO game to be creepy, and I don't even have a spider phobia except to the ones that can kill me in real life.

As for the dungeons, I agree. In both Oblivion and Skyrim I find them to be quite copy/paste. After your 5th or so dungeon you're left saying: I've done this before but it's different. Oblivion was worse for that. I've been to a few dungeons lately that actually surprise me with a little combat. Where I enter a room to have a dozen dead guys coming out of their sarcophagus to greet me with a fun battle. Other than that, I find the average dungeon experience to be quite unentertaining. I like a little combat mixed in with my exploring. Maybe that's something I'll look forward to once my bow reaches its max limit - I'm at 90 I think and my one handed sword is like 72. I definitely use the bow a lot. Once it maxes out I'll start using the sword only.

Another odd glitch. I won't give away the quest I was doing and who's house I was breaking into for anyone who hasn't done it yet.

Anyway, I was breaking into a house who had guards inside that would kill me on sight. I went to pick up the coin purse when I accidentally picked up up a mug. I decided since I was nearly over encumbered that I would just drop the mug right away. So I did. Next thing I knew a guard runs towards my room from behind me so I quickly moved behind a stone pillar just in time where he couldn't see me. I guess he ran into the room because I had dropped the mug. He picked it up and gave it to me through the pillar, saying "You should be careful where you put your things". lol

The Elder Scrolls games have the oddest glitches. I'm assuming they programmed that for when you're in a town or something and drop an item from your inventory - but to me it's an annoying feature regardless because I had to drop the mug again. I guess they just forgot to check whether the person handing you something you dropped was on alert to kill.

The swamps of the Eastmarch? One of my favorite places in Skyrim. And also rich of alchemic ingredients .

Yeah, the volcanic wasteland. So far it was my favorite place to be in Skyrim. I was doing that sap retrieval quest with the giant holy tree underground - btw that underground forest had my jaw drop when I first entered it.

There is a number of followers around, and they progress in level with you (until 50th lev, I think). Interesting thing is that they are, in fact, relatively invulnerable.

Lydia is super tough and fast to heal. I've only had her die on me twice because I got greedy and started attacking the guy she was attacking, then I accidentally hit her a few times. Also she sometimes gets greedy and jumps in front of me. That drives me nuts. And yes, I've given her superior heavy armor and swords as soon as I got it.

I'm pretty certain I'm very close to level 20 (maybe I'm at 19). I think I killed my first dragon around level 8-10. The funny thing is, I've watched my brother play on the 360 (he was around level 20 at the time) and he's struggled when he's in combat with creatures or dragons, and some kind of ice wolf that would attack in packs (which I haven't encountered yet, so it might only be easy right now). So far everything has been a breeze for me. It has been just the right balance of enemy and weapon leveling. I've only encountered one enemy I couldn't beat without cheating (other than the three giants I killed for fun). I didn't have Lydia with me because I accidentally told her to stay behind and had forgot that I did. So I simply ran from this enemy until I reached a wall I could jump on and climb. He could still lob powerful magic at me, but at least I didn't die from his powerful two hit kills with a sword anymore. I just kept dropping arrows on him.

Oh and my brother also had troubles with lockpicking. He'd be breaking pick after pick. On the Master lock I can manage to pick it without breaking no more than 5 on average. On a side note: I hate their wording system to describe what a lock level is! Who's to know what adept is. Is that before "whatever" or after "whatever"? I still haven't a blasted clue - I just pick the lock either way. I think they can still have their wording, just slap a number system beside it. Like:  Beginner [1]. Who designs this shit.

Same for determining whether the sword is a one handed or two handed sword. Unless there is a way to find out, I pretty much just equip the sword and see if my shield is still equipped.

I played as a warrior for some time, and I found it is safer to strafe around the landed dragon and attack him from sides.

Yeah, I generally just stay just out of reach and lob arrows at the dragons. I've got a pretty high archery level. When I do go in with a sword though, I try to go for his neck. It was just that this very moment I was worried about a stupid follower that shouldn't even get himself involved in fights, and then I had two characters chatting with me like I was only playing a video game or something.

Overall, I'm really starting to enjoy the hell out of Skyrim. Very beautiful environments and a tons of little details you'll see if you keep your eyes open.

Then there's the tiny little glitches that should be easy to fix and you'd think any decent game tester could inform them of. One very noticeable one: if you're sneaking while you mine ore from a vein, after the cutscene you're still in sneak mode but the sneak crosshair is replaced with the regular crosshair.

As for you guys saying my follower doesn't take the shortcuts I take, it's true. She pretty much stands around if her pathfinding can't find a path, or she wanders off in the opposite direction. But if your back is turned and you're in a flat area she teleports close to you. I'm cool with that. So far I haven't been too bothered with the followers in this game.

[beautiful]

So here I am playing Skyrim. I'm trying to get somewhere for a quest and I stumble upon this beautiful area of water geysers and bones everywhere. It was amazing looking! I've got that girl Lydia following me who's been with me since I killed the first dragon (whether that's the same person for everyone, I don't know). And beside her is some random guy who wanted to follow me to where I was going (he's got no armor and he dies easily).

Well if the scenery wasn't enough to keep me distracted, this blasted dragon comes flying in. So here I am trying to find the nicest flat ground amongst all these ponds and trenches and I'm also worried my hitchhiker friend will get killed. The dragon lands in front of me and I'm lobbing arrows at it. I've got the dragon blasting fire at me and Guess what happens... A random man runs up to and he STARTS talking to me! If it were Oblivion I would be fine, but I'm getting my ass roasted while this guy wants to give me something. I couldn't really spend time choosing any dialog options, I was quickly ramming buttons to shut this guy up (luckily I turn on the subtitles, that way I can read quickly instead of missing what he was telling me). The guy gives me his shit and runs off. Good good.. I haven't died yet.

I'm back to hacking away at this dragon and gulping down my monster drinks of health potion when ANOTHER guy comes hopping on over with a smile on his face. He ALSO starts talking to me! This time I'm in a worse area standing right next to the dragon. Fuck! I'm smacking the buttons quickly choosing the dialog options. I quickly pressed the option to Lie to him that I never saw who he was looking for. The dialog stops and luckily the man actually sticks around and starts lobbing arrows at the dragon.

Man! Talk about the worst timing for me to walk into an infamous Bethesda dialog trigger. Bloody dragon.



Anyway, thanks for the suggestions on downloading the SkyUI mod. I've loved it so far. It's still lacking in the sorting that I'd prefer. I don't want to see my Apparel having a necklace here, chest plating there, ring here, then back to chest plating. Bethesda is really shitty for that.

I remember in Oblivion I visited the Arena once, as a spectator. There was a woman sitting there with a big precious-looking necklace. She told nothing about the necklace, and nobody else did. Yet, since I was roleplaying a thief (you just escaped from the prison - remember?), I decided to steal it. Nobody ever asked me to do this! I just waited for that woman to exit Arena, followed her to her house, waited for the midniht, picklocked the door, crouched into her bedroom, stole the necklace (which appeared to have good magical properties btw), she noticed me and called guards.

Man, that's awesome. I didn't know Oblivion went into that much detail to show people wearing necklaces. And I only just played a little bit of the game again a couple months ago.

You guys are really making me understand that I should treat the towns/cities as a different environment. That I should play differently while I'm in the towns opposed to how I play out in the fields, caves or dungeons.

I never do like to play the thief or murderer unless a mission gets me to do these things. I want my first play through to have me being an upstanding young traveler doing good deeds for everyone.

[bigger]

Warning: This is a long message!

NPCs - well I think that's just you not getting in the game mood, realism has nothing to with it, I'd like more people to be in the world

Even if the towns were as realistic as possible, I still wouldn't like them. I play the games to explore dungeons, temples, caves, etc, not to learn a culture or what an NPC does after work.

But I do like how NPCs aren't randomly generated. That every time you enter the town the characters will always be there. How you can follow an NPC finish work and head off to the bar for a few drinks, then back off to bed at home. It's nice. It can be interesting while following these characters as a mission (like Oblivion's mission where that guy thought people in town were all watching him - it was indeed a little too boring though since everyone walked so slowly and you had to rely on the Wait function while they were in their houses or working).

But yes, I would prefer to see just little villages and farm houses opposed to large towns and cities. I want the game to feel like it's only starting the colonization, that everything hasn't quite been explored just yet except for the odd daring soul or marauder. I think every character, unless they actually have something worthwhile to talk about, shouldn't have a dialog tree.

I actually didn't mind the ring thing for dialogues mini game

I didn't overly mind it, but a part of me prefers the Skyrim system. I don't like how if you want to use Intimidation, Persuasion or Charm, etc, the outcome depends on a hidden randomizer based off of your levels and then you don't have the opportunity to do it over. That's why I would either prefer some kind of interactive system, or just don't give the player the option at all. I don't like random events that might work if I press the button now or won't work if I press it 2 seconds later.

[..] would've liked to see more magical/fantastic scenery.

Which is one reason I believe I'm very fond of Morrowind. Large creatures floating over my head. Large merman creatures in the water (whatever they were called - you'd get dough wax from them). Big mushrooms. Swampy areas with cattail looking plants instead with a bright blue seed thing on top. There were even flying pterodactyl creatures (with a bad AI, but still)! The game was clearly NOT Earth. Then Oblivion and Skyrim come along and it looks more like a fantasy past version of Earth.

Also there were things you pick up but can't drop because it's a "quest item" even though you don't have the quest, you can't even drop it off in your house, and the weight really stacks up quickly if you're not careful.

I was wondering about this. I picked up a stone slab from an undead creature that weighed a whopping 25 units. It was a quest item and I cannot drop it; actually it happened to be the first quest item I picked up without knowing what quest it belonged to. Now this bugs me. I wanted to assume it was letting me know what it actually weight, but for me it was 0 weight since it was a quest item. Now I know I'm wrong. So yes, at least give the option to drop it off into a chest at your house. That's kinda bull.

...oh, and those freaking ice trolls and giants, although that's not that big of a deal.

Haha, yeah. I've actually encountered two giants already hanging out together by some giant fire on a stone platform. I'm kind of a cheater when it comes to killing things I know I can't beat. I climb up on something I very well know the AI path-finding can't navigate to. Then as they hide behind rocks I lob arrows at them until they're dead. I don't even feel guilty about it.

I would do this in Oblivion too. Like the one mission where the shopkeeper tells you people are breaking into his shop at night. So he asks you to stay behind while he locks up and you intercept the thieves. I wasn't quite tough enough for these men and didn't have any health potions. Anyway, I couldn't beat them so the one time I checked out the furniture upstairs. I saw a dresser and a bed next to it. I went downstairs and lobbed a fireball at one of the bastards and ran off to use the bed as a jumping platform to get onto the dresser. Then from there I climbed onto the wall in the attic where I could just shoot them with fire until they died. I use this technique quite often.

I'll just say straight out that I am a total Morrowind fanboy .

What makes that game so popular? Including myself, everyone seems to like it more than the two sequels (minus the bow and arrows being shoddy as all hell). There are obvious elements in the 2 latest games that I would love to see in Morrowind, but yes, the atmosphere and quests were very fun.

Is it the things I mentioned? Having it feel like you're exploring a different world. All these creatures that are completely alien to us. I enjoyed exploring those Dwemer dungeons with robotic species and all the mechanical stuff moving about. I heard they have them in Skyrim but I haven't encountered them just yet. So far I do prefer the tombs in Skyrim over that of Morrowind. The bloody ghosts that you can't kill unless you have a silver weapon. Blah! And the ghouls that make a terrible moaning noise and are stupid hard to kill when you start out.

I'll admit that I've never used the enchantment or spell-making in Morrowind. It always felt like cheating to me. I wanted to earn everything I had by finding it or buying it - not making it.

Oblivion made it worse, unfortunately. [..] and the addition of so much useless stuff you could pick up, while it made it more realistic, also worsened it, if you ask me.

I remember there being quite a few useless things in Morrowind. Was there really that many more useless items in Oblivion? I remember opening crate after crate and you could almost guess what it was going to be. The Morrowind crate randomizer was very predictable. You'd always find a couple coins in a crate, no matter where it was. I always found that to be very immersion breaking. Who would stuff a couple gold coins into a crate with some fabric and a clay pot and leave it outside their shop?

Not sure if you don't know this, or maybe it isn't applicable because you have the xbox version, but there are mods out on the PC version of Skyrim that totally revamps the inventory and other menus (including sorting by weight).

Perhaps I should download some mods for the inventory then. Skyrim is actually the first of the Elder Scrolls game I bought for the PC. The rest were Xbox and 360. I'm also not sure if I'll be doing it again. I kind of prefer the ironed out 360 version with basic graphics. It turns out my laptop isn't as great as I thought it was. It has a dramatic FPS drop in busy environments - I may have to drop down to a lower graphic setting.

Then for the later games, they not only went smaller, but turned all the cool ideas from Morrowind into a checklist: Shipwreck- check, tombs- check, daedric shrines with crazy quests- check, M'Aiq the Liar- check etc.

That's hard not to do. Shipwrecks were my favorite thing in Morrowind. But they definitely over did them in Oblivion it actually killed my excitement for them.

I actually loved all the underwater levels in Morrowind. Where the entrance was literally underwater. I don't even know if there was a shipwreck in that game that was fully submerged. I wouldn't doubt it - it would be awesome.

I would like to see a large forest with abandoned forts attached to trees with rope bridges connecting them and such. It would be nice. Or a large evil head carving on a mountain wall and you have to enter through the mouth.

I saw towns in Daggerfall - they were really towns - with lots of big buildings and hungreds of people around (alright, they were mostly randomly generated, but you don't have to meet and remember every single person in a town do you?)

Towns were actually bigger in Daggerfall? Shit. I wouldn't like that at all.
And no, I don't need to talk to every single person in town. All I want to talk to are the ones with a quest. If I could press a button that adds a crown above every NPC's head that has a quest for me, I would. Then I would avoid the rest unless they looked like they might have something interesting to say. Like someone sick and moaning as they lay in bed.

You may kill any unimportant character and nobody seem to give a damn, unless guard saw you. After you pay your fines you may walk to the wife of a man you've just killed and she will greet you like nothing happened. So absurd...

Yeah that's also bothered me but I do understand why it hasn't been added yet. It's a tremendous amount of work and most players won't know the difference since they usually play the Good person.

One thing that should definitely be modified is the terrible response to when someone finds a dead body. Today in Skyrim I was sneaking into a camp of bandits. I shot and killed one of them and the other heard the noise. He investigated the general area. Once he saw the dead body he was immediately shouting and looking for who killed his buddy. Less than 20 seconds pass and he says "I must be hearing things", he then shrugs it off and goes back to his post. I'm sorry, but if he noticed a dead body, he shouldn't be shrugging it off and claiming he ate some strong chili and needs an antacid. He should be on high alert until he either finds me or I kill him.

[..] after about half of game merchandizing does not have much sense anymore anyway. First, you can steal or salvage so much stuff that you won't be able to sell anything.

That's not really the point. I want to be able to do it if I want to or not. I don't want to have to rely on fast travel to head to a town that has a willing merchant or a fence.
In Morrowind, when I was a child, I used to try to get as much gold as possible. Even though I was buying anything with it anymore, I used to use it a bragging rights with my brothers. Showing them I'm thriftier than they are, and they'd put it into high gear to compete against me. Of course the brotherly rivalry wouldn't exist anymore now that we've grown, but just the idea of being able to steal what I want and sell to whom I want is enough. Given the option today, I would mostly just take jewelry or high valuables and leave the junk.

Skyrim menu is terrible. It amazes me how, in the age of well-developed GUI, someone could do anything like that. I want them use this menu in hell.

Thank-you! You have no idea how that comment made me feel. I thought I was going crazy thinking it was the worst design. Even a chipmunk could tell you it was a poor design. How do all these game designers, their beta testers, and whoever else let this shit slide by? How is it even possible? Are they hiring terrible beta testers that don't give their honest input. Just smile, nodding their heads while waiting for a paycheck? Argh!

They provide an engine where you can have various types of items, yet very limited ways to use them.

Do you have an idea of how they could extend the use of these items?

Hell, I would love to live in some cave and not in town. But it will be nearly impossible with all containers and enemies being reset every one or two weeks or so.

This is something I've also wanted. To be able to establish any area as my home. Drop some chests down, a bed, some furniture. Or if I couldn't drop these items down at least let me use a preexisting environment as you've suggested.

Does anyone find the chests randomizing after a couple weeks useful? How dungeons and caves will repopulate with creatures. I kind of like it, but at the same time find it annoying. Like finding a chest behind a waterfall and not being able to drop my stuff into it for safekeeping is a little sad. At least have a spell that locks the chest, where my own personal key will automatically unlock it for me later. Once I've used the spell, the chest will always remain mine and it will lock itself after I've opened it.

If the player can eat food and drink water and wines, why not make him NEED to eat and drink?

Oddly enough, I actually agree with this. There's food almost everywhere. I always find an apple or carrot in a barrel, so why not. Once you fill up the bar it last for a while (just like Minecraft) and after a vigorous battle or lots of running around the bar starts decreasing. I wouldn't want my character to lose his health if he's not eating.. but at least have him noticeably weaker.


Sorry for my long message.

[Towns and NPCs]

I'll start off by saying I've played all 3 of the Elder Scrolls games since Morrowind, although I never actually did beat Morrowind but came pretty close. I also haven't played all the much of Skyrim since I've only started it a few days ago. Anyway, I have always found the games to be very impressive, exciting and vast.. but I have always gotten a little bored of the games. There really isn't anything to motivate you to do every side quest, or to find every weapon or priceless artifact, or to even explore and search every nook and cranny.

With Morrowind I remember finding hidden things everywhere I looked. I'd enter someone's house and there would be an expensive ring sitting on the ledge that wrapped around the wall - if I hadn't been looking at the ledge, I never would have found it. Or renting a room to find a dagger that was left under the head of the bed. There was often something hiding, something to push you to explore everything. With Oblivion and Skyrim, I've noticed they removed what I enjoyed about Morrowind with the hidden objects everywhere. Also them removing levitation keeps me from even wanting to look up now.

I find the most exciting thing about exploring these games is the feeling that I'm the only person that's been there. I will lose that feeling even with seeing marauders outside the entryway of a cave or especially inside the cave.

I've never liked Oblivion's introduction to the Fast Travel. It makes it feel like I've skipped out on all the dangers or exploring by just pressing a button and I am instantly hours away from where I was. I've always liked that Morrowind had the walkers that would take you to the nearest towns, or the person in the Mage's guild that could teleport you.


Towns and NPCs
My main question is: am I the only one who really dislikes towns and finds them the most boring thing about the game?

I'm dead serious here. I try to avoid towns as much as possible! I never explore them. I pretty much just find out where the Merchants are and that's pretty much it. I find they like to make towns too large with very little purpose to explore. I try to avoid talking to characters because I find they talk too much and more than they need to on a single subject (cut the fat). I like the NPCs that don't have a dialog tree when you try to talk to them and they simply just shout out a random message. That's how most characters should be unless they have something important to tell you, or a quest. I would actually prefer to see an indication above NPC's heads if they have a quest for me or not.

I get bothered with their verbal diarrhea responses as you walk passed them "Good day! I work at so-and-so's place. Been there for years". I don't need to hear this. Do you ever walk around in real life, and without starting a conversation, having people you've never met share their life with you?

I also believe it was the removal of being able to sell whatever I had stolen to any merchant (except to the person I stole from) that makes exploring houses much less interesting. Morrowind had that right. I understand why they removed it, but I don't like that they did. Needing a fence to sell my goods, or that one crooked merchant, doesn't exactly make it worth my while. Like, how do they even know something was stolen anyway? If I'm a thief I want to sell to whomever I please.


L..O..A..D..I..N..G..
The thing that drives me most crazy is all the loading. I understand it's a vast world and there's so much to load. But it's a little overkill. It kills the flow of the game.
Entering someone's house.. Loading.. Going into their basement.. Loading.. Leaving their basement.. Loading.. Leaving the house.. Loading.. Leaving the town.. Loading..

Looking at GTA, Red Dead Redemption and other games that have asynchronous loading, it makes me wonder why Elder Scrolls hasn't done this yet.

I want to enter a town and look through the glossy windows of a house. I want to be able to see them sleeping in their bed while I sneak around outside their windows to find where I should break in. Instead I pick a lock, watch a loading screen, then find out the person was standing on the other side of the door staring at me as I loaded entered the house. I would love it if the doors would just open and you could enter and leave without any loading. No more of this NPCs fading in and out as they enter or leave a loading environment.

I also wouldn't mind walking along through a forest to see a weathered hole in the ground that leads to a dungeon. Jumping into the hole and entering the dungeon and immediately having free roam. Looking up and seeing the trees still there.

So it's not just the loading screen or waiting that bothers me. It's the lack of immersion and realistic gameplay. I would LOVE to see the next Elder Scrolls not having any noticeable loading unless you're "fast traveling" or loading a saved game.


The Menu and Favorite system
I never did like the Menu in Oblivion but I liked how organized it was within the tabs. Skyrim comes along and completely revamps the menu, but removes the good features that Oblivion had and makes it worse.

I don't want to see the Items only sorted alphabetically. For instance: items in the Apparel section shouldn't be sorted alphabetically only. With this system as you scroll down the list you'll see an amulet, then some kind of shield, then back to an amulet, then another shield etc. I want to see my items grouped together. Main groups and subgroups. Within the Apparel section I should see subgroups of: Helmets, Gauntlets, Greaves, Shoes, etc. The way they have it is beyond logical and it makes me wonder who decided that it was a good idea.

Heck, I can't even sort by weight anymore. If I'm trying to drop the heaviest items, I want to sort by weight. Also not being able to see the item's weight and price within the list without actually selecting the item, is beyond bizarre. Oblivion had so much right - of course it was still flawed and stupid, but at least it was more organized and somewhat easier to manage.

Why do we still see dozens and dozens of keys within our miscellaneous section but not grouped together. When do you look through miscellaneous items to check up on your keys? Why not have a "key chain" that holds all the keys. If you want to find out what keys you have within that, then it enters another submenu.


Then it leaves me with the favorite system (which is also not sorted by groups!). Also when you're in your favorite menu you can't remove a favorite; the only way is to search it up manually in your Items and remove from favorites.

This is what you should see on the Xbox version (or a variation of this - perhaps even customizable):

• Press Left on the D-Pad it enters Magic
• Press Right on the D-Pad it enters Weapons (being able to access the inventory from this)
• Press Up on the D-Pad enters your Inventory
• You press Down on the D-Pad and it enters your list of favorites or your list of frequently used items (all sorted by groups and subgroups). Having this allow access to a list of frequently equipped items would also be nice. So one can quickly go between their bow and sword without scrolling (since those two items will likely be at the top - for me anyway).
  

I find there's nothing that shows me my weight anymore unless I enter my Items menu. Like come on. So if I'm bartering with someone I still don't know my weight (at least I'm pretty sure). Instead I have to stop bartering with them, stop the conversation, then enter my items menu and check out my weight. Argh! Yes, as you can tell, I'm very frustrated by this game's UI.



I'm not certain why I'm writing this. Maybe I have hopes someone from Bethesda will see this and it'll make sense to them. Maybe I'd like to know I'm not the only one who dislikes nearly everything with their new Inventory menu and UI.

Is there anything about the Elder Scrolls games you guys find unbelievably frustrating or thing you'd like to see changed and improved? I'd love to hear it.

In what way are you lost? Have you even tried the code I provided at the bottom? Basically it's like the crosshair on an fps game, move the invisible cursor 10 pixels to the right, the viewport moves 10 pixels to the right. That's it. (assuming I didn't screw up on the code - I typed it all within the browser)

[A)]

Code: ags

  SetViewport(mouse.x - System.ViewportWidth/2, mouse.y - System.ViewportHeight/2);

Khris, I know you said the code won't work. But yeah, you're dead right. lol It wouldn't be able to move the viewport beyond the half of the system viewport width/height (assuming the viewport started 0,0). You forgot the Viewport x/y position, but even that is a pretty wacky camera.

Since changing the mouse position, although possible, isn't recommend because a) the user might have to lift the mouse off of the table if the physical mouse can't be moved any further and b) the movement will get jittery due to the user interfering, direct movement of the viewport isn't going to work.

Your A argument is what everyone needs to do while playing a first person 3D game while looking around. And I don't understand B. The camera being shaky because you're lifting your mouse and shifting it over?


FrankT, there are two types of screen movement you may be asking for (scrolling the viewport around a room larger than game resolution).
A) One where it follows the mouse like a first person shooter.
B) One where if your mouse moves in one direction and stops, the camera will constantly be moving around. Kind of like holding down on a joystick that controls the view (where it would keep spinning and spinning). To stop it you have to bring the cursor back to the center region of the screen. There's also just the edge boundaries like Starcraft where it will only move the viewport if you're near the edge.

I'm assuming you want the viewport to be centered on the cursor like an FPS game (unless the viewport is touching the edge of the room background).


This is what I would do, when you're in the mode where the center of the viewport is supposed to follow the cursor:

When this segment of gameplay starts, I would do three things:

1) In a windowed game I would set a cursor boundary of:

Code: ags

if (System.Windowed) mouse.SetBounds(0, 0, System.ViewportWidth - 1, System.ViewportHeight - 1);

This boundary prevents the cursor from leaving the window. ALWAYS remember to turn off this boundary whenever the menu is open, someone presses esc, or when the viewport isn't following the cursor anymore - that way you aren't angering any players because they can't leave the cursor from your game window without Alt-tabbing or quitting the game

2) I would then center the cursor in the center of the screen. You want the viewport to stay still until the mouse moves.

3) Turn off the cursor visiblity

Code: ags

mouse.Visible = false;

If you're going to have a cursor visible, you'll have to make a crosshair in the center of the screen with a GUI.

Next is the part where you move the viewport. It's pretty easy stuff:

Code: ags

int thisPositionX = mouse.x - System.ViewportWidth / 2;
int thisPositionY = mouse.y - System.ViewportHeight / 2;
SetViewport(GetViewportX() + (thisPositionX - lastPositionX), GetViewportY() + (thisPositionY - lastPositionY));
lastPositionX = thisPositionX;
lastPositionY = thisPositionY;

Lastly I would center the cursor to the center off the screen whenever it passes a certain boundary, like so (if this were a 320x240 game, I'd probably use a boundary like this):

Code: ags

if (mouse.x < 80 || mouse.x > 240 || mouse.y < 80 || mouse.y > 160) {
  mouse.SetPosition(System.ViewportWidth / 2, System.ViewportHeight / 2);
  lastPositionX = 0;
  lastPositionY = 0;
}

You do NOT want to set the position of the mouse every gameloop. Since we do not have access to the float position of the cursor, the viewport would only move if the mouse actually moved 1 pixel from the center point between the last game loop. Which would mean the cursor would be stuck in the center if you're moving the mouse slowly. The player would have to quickly slide the mouse to have it move at all. So don't do that!


Basically the whole code:

Code: ags

int lastPositionX, lastPositionY;

function repeatedly_execute()  {
  int thisPositionX = mouse.x - System.ViewportWidth / 2;
  int thisPositionY = mouse.y - System.ViewportHeight / 2;
  // of course - AGS crashes if you don't check if the viewport is being changed beyond the boundaries
  int viewX = GetViewportX() + (thisPositionX - lastPositionX);
  int viewY = GetViewportY() + (thisPositionY - lastPositionY);
  if (viewX < 0) viewX = 0;
  else if (viewX >= Room.Width - System.ViewportWidth) viewX = Room.Width - System.ViewportWidth; 
  if (viewY < 0) viewY = 0;
  else if (viewY >= Room.Height - System.ViewportHeight) viewY = Room.Height - System.ViewportHeight;
  SetViewport(viewX, viewY);
  lastPositionX = thisPositionX;
  lastPositionY = thisPositionY;

  if (mouse.x < 80 || mouse.x > 240 || mouse.y < 80 || mouse.y > 160) {
    mouse.SetPosition(System.ViewportWidth / 2, System.ViewportHeight / 2);
    lastPositionX = 0;
    lastPositionY = 0;
  }
}

(I did not test anything)

Now there's numerous ways to do this. You didn't exactly give us much to work with on your question.
You could also add a smooth transition to where the cursor is actually pointing, instead of a crosshair design. But for this it requires a bit more work. You'd need a fake cursor by using a GUI. It's very possible, but it would be more like a drunken camera if you were moving the cursor around quite fast or doing zigzags. Of course the faster the cursor is moving, the faster the viewport should move, but it may look strange and delayed. I won't be posting code for this design.

Edit: I'm an idiot.. just a fixing a few copy/past issues.

What I did not know is that this setting overrides any script changes. I assumed it was a kind of default value.

I did not know that even existed, so thank you as well. I never did play around with the room editor all that much throughout these years - generally just scripts.

Also make sure that the new view has at least four loops and at least two frames in every loop, just to be on the safe side.

I've never had an issue with a single framed loop; even if it's just meant as a precaution it doesn't sound like a good suggestion to me.


Cerno, you wouldn't happen to have the code that changes the character to View 1 inside the repeatedly execute or repeatedly execute always function?
The other possibility I believe is likely the case: in the room editor, you wouldn't happen to have the walkable area the character is standing on having AreaSpecificView set as 1, would you?

Of course. I'm not a camera guru but I've had my share of low light motion blurring like this only when i don't press down on the capture button half way to allow it to focus and determine light levels and the other funky stuff it does.