Sui Generis - Combat Video

I'm curious about the tech they're using - jujst saying 'realistic physics' is not enough. They seemed to imply that character animation was based on muscle models etc? That is way more sophisticated than usual…I rememeber when I was on sabbatical in the UK some years back (OK, many years back - 2006!) a company where I was based was working on realistic biologically correct animation, correct gait, physical response to contact forces, etc. Mainly for VFX. Anyway, just curious. I am also curious about the computational cost of high fidelity physics. I have a student working on sand simulation (particle-based with LOD etc) - to get accurate behaviour sucks up a lot of GPU resources, which are no longer available for rendering. So, my question is always what has to go? A lot of the physics engines I have seen have quite poor (unstable) physics when using lower fidelity settings i.e. ones that most use. Its one thing to have an empty game world with a few interactions simulated at high fidelity, but once you start scaling up, or having a dozen animated characters with 'correct' physics? Just asking. I still like what I have seen and they have my dinero ;-)
 
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There is a post on their forums that goes into that, if only skin deep:
http://www.baremettle.com/sg/forums/index.php?threads/system-requirements.14/
Madoc said:
Actually optimisation was a huge part of the development process and at the core of the engine design, not an afterthought. It's what makes much of what we are doing possible. We've also achieved better results than expected.

The engine is OpenGL based and hugely scalable. You need a reasonable graphics card, we don't expect it to run well on Intel integrateds or the lowest end cards, but it doesn't need to particularly recent. The CPU and ram requirements are also extremely moderate.

I will quote part of what I posted on Rock Paper Shotgun:

"The videos are recorded in real time on an off the shelf mid-range computer. To compensate for the video’s horrible 30 fps we have the engine render each frame 8 times for smoother motion (yes, in real time). This is a feature available also in game. The computer doesn’t have fast storage (just a regular HDD) so we have to compress the video in real time which is a huge load on the system. Bottom line, it’s fast, really fast. In the videos I personally play one character and the other is AI controlled, all in real time while recording the video at effectively 240 fps."

Our character physics and animation system are also very efficient and we can have plenty of characters on screen.

We want to support both Mac and Linux with native clients. With Mac this should be trivial, we have less direct experience with Linux so we're not being particularly official about it yet.

I don't see a touchpad as being the most suitable input method for much of our combat but perhaps someone who is used to it could fair well. Typically only small movements of the cursor are required. Perhaps something could be done to improve controls for such devices.
 
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I see there's a ranged spell that knocks an opponent to the ground. Wouldn't that basically become an "I win" button?

For that to be, your character if equipped with close combat weaponry, should be able to close in before the other guy stands up. Looking at the video, it does not seem as easy as the character might regain movement capacity after achieving the power's gesture, giving the other guy enough time to stand up.

It is also stated that characters 'health' is related more to resistance capabilities than a health bar or something. Some characters might be immune to knock down effects.
 
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I see there's a ranged spell that knocks an opponent to the ground. Wouldn't that basically become an "I win" button?

Like in all games that uses spells i'm pretty sure it has both cooldown + requires mana.. This is hardly the first game to use such ordinary spell.

I get the impression there's a lot of thought and time put into the tech, but very little in terms of world/lore/story.. i think this puts people off a bit, it's all very "anonymous", on too many levels.
 
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Vurt, that is certainly the weakness of the pitch so far, at least for the RPG hard-core. Basically they are showing a tech demo, and promise to make a game, but the exact nature of that game is still vague. What do we know about the game so far (based on KS and forum info - please add and correct)?

Combat:
- Real-time, physics based action combat
- Melee: single and two handed weapons, dual wielding, shields
- Skills provide additional efficiency - no "limits to use"
- Ranged combat (planned)
- Thaumaturgy - effects that can be combined and shaped in various ways
- Effects seen or mentioned: Force blast(directional to wave), Shield (directional to bubble)


RPG system:
- No character stats, you choose one of three body types that determines physical attributes of your character
- 5 weapon skilss (Light-, Heavy-, Ranged weapons, Shields, Armor)
- 5 Thaumaturgy related skills (Insight, Concentration, Meditation)
- Skills have 6 main levels, that grant perk-like bonuses
- Skills do not influence dialog
- Skills increase by use, but not by simple repetitive "training". Can be untrained.
- Global skill total.
- 6 "forms" of Thaumaturgy (magic)
- Character chooses an "innate" (main) thaumaturgy form
- Thaumatrugy is improved by absorbing power from other thaumaturges, improving related skills, and "other sources" (Probably books, shrines, teachers, quest rewards etc.?)
- Customisable character appearance (skin, hair, etc.)
- "The game is not specifically designed to have a persistent party of companions". But NPC may be recruitable.
- No crafting system, but some item modification and NPC craftsmen making special customizable items


Quests:
- Emphasis on simulation vs. scripted content
- Emphasis on mystery and discovery
- Evolving world, events happen without player input
- "the game does not revolve around completing tasks and progressing stages of the plot. Success or failure are of equal value"
- "We are not doing a typical quest with reward system but being hired to perform tasks will certainly be there"
- An example: "You are offered a valuable object to complete some task. This could be a lie, it could be a way to lure you into a trap and rob you, for example. If the reward does exist, you might decide to find out where the person offering it lives and look for it in their house rather than completing the task. You may get caught doing this, or you may even be hired by the same person to retrieve the stolen item. And so on and so forth."


Story:
- You start as a common villager, being exiled.
- Thaumaturges that recently turned to evil
- Dormant threats in the underworld stirring
- Non-involvement in important events may have dire consequences
- Some hints towards major plot twists, hopefully subverting the cliché setup a bit (one can hope, right?)

World:
- Medival fantasy
- Feudal society
- "under pressure of powerful Thaumaturges"
- Relatively small aboveground world, with high density of content. Different landscape types, but not climatic zones
- Large Underworld featuring differently themed areas
- (Conclusion from the last two: don't expect a TES like experience!)
- Many NPCs who may become friends or enemies.
- Non human NPC "monster" races, no Orcs, dwarves, elves.

Other gameplay features:
- Single constant save - all decisions are permanent
- Death is not permanent (separate permadeath game mode is available)
- No level scaling
- Multiplayer - apparently planned (peronally that worries me - overambitous?)
- Pseudo-isometric camera angle. (Rotation / zooming allowed?)


Big unknowns (imho)
- Dialog system /quality of writing: unknown
- Modding tools: "maybe"
- Non combat gameplay: unknown
- Extent of NPC schedules?
- Combat control scheme?
- Quality of content building (vs. world building) tools?


Hope this helps some of you to decide whether they want to back this or not.
 
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- Emphasis on simulation vs. scripted content
- Emphasis on mystery and discovery
- Evolving world, events happen without player input
These three are enough to get me excited. Far too few games are developed in this direction, and none have lived up to its promises, though STALKER was a very good game in its own right anyway.
 
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Extremely impressive. Hopefully, they can do as good a job with gameplay as they've done with tech.
 
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Ah, thanks for the summary GhanBuriGhan - this sounds more like Mount and Blade to me (which is good) but with isometric view. This probably then means it is up to the player to make the story, and this is probably why they have not yet mentioned much about a 'scripted' story. Keeping my eyes on this one then!
 
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Big unknowns (imho)
- Dialog system /quality of writing: unknown
- Modding tools: "maybe"
- Non combat gameplay: unknown
- Extent of NPC schedules?
- Combat control scheme?
- Quality of content building (vs. world building) tools?

Nice list GhanBuriGhan, but I want to say a few things on the unknowns.

Quality of writing: They are indie, don't expect anything amazing here.
Combat control scheme: We know it's mouse based for the swings.
Non combat gameplay: I personally don't expect any.
 
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These three are enough to get me excited. Far too few games are developed in this direction, and none have lived up to its promises, though STALKER was a very good game in its own right anyway.

It's what piqued my interest too, but it should be pointed out that at this point this is just a promise - it's not actually shown in the video or elsewhere.
 
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I backed it at the £20 amount. If it looks like it's going to make it, I'll bump it up a bit. This guy really needs to get the other members involved in the marketing. It looks like a one man project with some phantom members providing photos. You can be the most talented programmer in the world and still be unable to sell $20 bills for $10 :D
 
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Thanks for the excellent summary, Ghan. It's good to see all the info bulleted in one place. They should copy your post to their kickstarter. Would go a long way towards having a better sales pitch! :)
 
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lol at all the comments on RPS that want an "old school RPG" with TB combat and lots of C&C out of Sui Generis. Soon people will try to dictate what kind of games can be put on Kickstarter...

On the brighter news, Sui Generis had a nice bump today, probably because of RPS and PC Gamer articles. They should do another update soon if they want to "monetize" the bump.
 
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Perhaps Madoc is using the kickstarter as a resume to get a programming job at a gaming studio. If so, then I'd say it was a brilliant idea ;)

Ian Frazier of Lazarus fame got a paying job after showcasing his skills in the making of that game. Madoc might get a similar opportunity with the kickstarter of Sui Generis.
 
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