The anatomy of a cut scene

FFXI to me nailed this aspect pretty much perfectly. You're character is part of the cutscene. It really makes you feel unique in a world full of people doing the same thing you are doing. Maybe it was the camera angles, the music that played during the cutscene...I'm not sure. I just know that this game nailed the story telling to a tee and produced one of the greatest game atmospheres I have ever been a part of.

Supposedly Mines of Moria uses a cinematic camera for these things. I've not seen in it action and they've not talked much about it... It'll be interesting to see how well it works.

That was one of the things I did like more in Guildwars and thats one of the reasons I want more GW 2 :D

Nothing is more immersion breaking than getting plopped right into a cutscene you have no control over.

I much prefer games to tell the story through the eyes of the player, and to allow them to (at the least) move their head as what goes on, well, goes on.

Half life and Half Life 2 are excelent examples of this. They never force you through a cut scene and instead all of the story you know is seen through Gordon's eyes. It seems small but having some control makes all of the difference.



So really, I hate cut scenes. Some games it is fine, because they aren't exactly narrative experiences, but for story driven games cut scenes are the best way to bore the player and make them wonder why they just didn't rent a damned movie instead (I'm looking at you, MGS4).

The new LOTRO way of doing them can be seen at the end of Book 14, and supposedly it'll be used alot more. I didn't care much for the cutscenes where you could walk around and all but ignore what was going on, nor did I like the ones where a boss would just stun you while they did their thing.

The new way is pretty cool cause it is much more dramatic. You can have more story w/o it just being a wall of /say text. Being able to keep the player's attention easier means they can do some more dramatic scenes.

I also happen to know they use a combination of the 2 with some parts of Moria to pretty cool effect.

I love cutscenes, but very rarely in the context of the game itself. At least, not in situations where the player loses control of their character, unless there's a very good reason to, such as having their character knocked unconscious, bound in chains, magically bound, something of the sort. Even then, I feel it should be used sparingly.

However, I admit I'm a sucker for a well-done cinematic, especially if it's depicting major events. Nothing annoys me more than when a huge event takes place and it isn't done justice because they had to or felt the desire to have it play out with the in-game engine.

To use a common example, and spoilers are ahead for people who have been living under a rock, when Maiev kills Illidan in the Black Temple. That's a huge event. But it's just done through a quick, somewhat boring and anti-climactic game-engine scene, when it was an event that deserved at least a short cinematic.

In other words: Let the player control it all, put the player at the forefront and don't force him to be a bystander. When you have to for the sake of the story - which should only be done for major plot points - give us a short and exciting cinematic and not some underwhelming game-engine + text scene.

I know this isn't taking into account the time and money it takes to produce a cinematic, but just me speaking as what I would ideally enjoy, unrealistic though it may be.

The cinematic during the wrathgate quests in dragonblight is amazing.

I like cut scenes, unless they reach Japanese RPG proportions.

However ; I'm really bugged by conversation cutscenes where your character is just a spectator - I don't mind not being able to control what they say or do, I just don't like it when they don't say or do ANYTHING.

Guild Wars is an example of doing it well - you don't even get to choose your character's voice, but they wisely chose generically cool ones and recorded just the right amount of lines for plot progression without dragging on.

I have to give WAR the boobyprize, for not even making the scripted scenes cut scenes !
Darn annoying in PQs that there are no cutaways to the action - early on you can miss giant bombing runs & 50ft warpspace portals because your camera is busy engaging a lowly Squig, while later on the PQ areas are so huge you can be screens away from dragon battles & dark lords riding dinosaurs.

I love GW cutscenes, because my character actually speaks! It's always awesome to be the leader of the party for one of those and see your character ACTUALLY CONVERSE with the other characters. And with great voice actors like Steven Blum too!

More games need to give you a badass voice, instead of being the mute everyone tells what to do...