by Jeff Woleslagle on Sep 18, 2007
by Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle
June 1, 2007 - As Gods & Heroes moves toward release later this year, we were anxious to see what Perpetual Entertainment was working on in the lull between the industry's spring and summer conventions and expos (where soon-to-launch titles like Gods & Heroes always take the fore). Travis George, Systems Designer for Gods & Heroes, was kind enough to talk with us about the tweaks and improvements to the game's combat animations, minion system, and class structure that he and the Perpetual team continue to implement during the game's closed beta.
Jeff Woleslagle , Ten Ton Hammer: In a recent interview at GamersInfo.net, Perpetual President and Gods & Heroes Executive Producer Chris McKibbin introduced us to targeted animations. Can you give us your take on this newly announced feature?
Travis George : So essentially what that system is, is when you're engaged in combat, the animations are more than just generic hit animations. What they actually do is, when a player will dodge, it'll actually line up perfectly. Everything's synched up exactly so that when I hit someone in a certain area, we can animate a specific move to look like he was hit in that area.
Ten Ton Hammer: And targeted animations are something totally different than the paired animations you've previously introduced us to?
Travis:They're both are kind of the same system, but specifically the paired [animation] is when a gladiator, for instance, will grab someone and do an intricate, perfectly lined-up wrestling move or whatever that particular move might be. We call those paired moves because they're actually outside of the normal combat; they're essentially feats that the player has and can use whenever they want as a special move. They're actually more intricate than the usual targeted animations that happen during combat.
[Ed. note - To see paired and targetted animations in action, please check out our video interviews with Chris McKibbin and Chris Launius, which contain in-game footage.]
Ten Ton Hammer: Paired and targeted animations are intended to be more than eye-candy, right? They're informational in that you're seeing which member of your party is targeting which mob very easily, and being targeted in turn?
Travis: Let's say we have a group of a couple players and I'll use the example of a gladiator again. I'm a gladiator, so obviously I'm going to have the mob tied up and on the ground more doing whatever I am for my moves (there's a wide variety of moves – they're really cool!). Everybody else will be able to see the moves, it's not just a client-side only thing. Everybody gets to see and it doesn't actually interrupt combat for anybody else.
Ten Ton Hammer: One thing we noticed with the paired animations at GDC 2007 in March was that the paired animations didn't always match up so well. For example, the animation went too high when attacking a short mob and looked out of place when attacking an epic-sized enemy. I'm sure this is something that's being constantly tweaked, but will the animations change depending on the size of the monster?
Travis: In some cases we have actual animations that will line up with different types of creatures. I couldn't confirm that those are actually in there, but I know that that discussion's been ongoing. We really want to make sure that I can use my paired moves against any kind of target that I run into.
Ten Ton Hammer: This is something really different you guys are doing. In the traditional MMO, you're just kind of swinging your sword through the air, it's not connecting, and doing damage. While having one race probably helps with scaling animations, has the fact that Gods & Heroes is one-Roman-fits-all ever felt creatively limiting?
Travis: Having one race really helps on [animations]. I don't want to compare it in terms of numbers to other MMOs, but we have a lot of different animations. As you said, it's not just a typical thing where you just map a different animation to a different skeleton. We have such a wide variety of moves – depending on which weapon I hold, I have a different set of animations.
I think [having one race] fits within our game world pretty well, in that we're all Romans and we're all working and trying to accomplish our own goals. But you encounter so many different creatures in the outside world; it's so big. From playing now, I think that humans were a good choice. You encounter so many different cool creatures out in the world that you'll probably forget that you're in a world with only that one [playable] race.