Bugged Cutscenes Animations?

[saranka]

I’m not sure if I should put this in Support or Bug Report. Then again, I’m not sure if happens only to me. So I come here to ask if this also happens to you.

At least I know now that I’m not insane (well, at least where this matter concerns). Here goes:

From some years now, I got the impression that some animations in the game became different. That is, they didn’t happen or were glitchy, if that’s the correct expression. These didn’t happen when I first start playing the game circa 2010, already in the new engine.

There’s always the Kalantes animation in the intro where he kneels two times. There’s the waves animation, when I put in high quality (square checked), that seem more static in comparison with the ‘low’ quality where the sea rises and falls more realistically. And why the character model, when drowning in the intro, is different from the one we create?

But the proof that my memory wasn’t playing any tricks on me, is the Mithrele animation when she makes the ritual sacrifice and the volcano explodes. This animation doesn’t occur to me. She just stands still there and then the camera moves up to the volcano.

Watch at 1:20

There’s also this old trailer. This one is even different from the above. But since is in the first days, Funcom probably changed it. Watch Mithrele at 1:03

They are only for a few seconds, but make me wonder how many others may be also bugged. I think these errors spoil the immersion of the game, at least to me, and kind of show the attention that is given to it’s quality.

Do these animations happen to you also? Or the errors (if they are such) happen only to me? I change my computer once and my graphics card twice (nvidia) in the meantime, but this things still happen.

Maybe I’m just nitpicking, I don’t know. If you think so, then forget it. Please ignore the ramblings.

[Malediluna]

I confirm your impression. Even for me (but prolly for everyone) some animations don’t play anymore as intended. When I started playing, in 2012, the Mithrelle’s animation was like in the video, expecially the part where she drops the blood on the body (now she just stands without doing any movement, like in your case). This happens since a long while (at least a couple of years for sure). That and other animations are broken. It possible the code wasn’t well described, wasn’t clean, and so patches and hotfixes can easily introduce errors, glitchs and break some working code (Just for example, after a weekly reboot of the server at the end of 2016, when I play Dead Man Hand, the game “freezes” alway for just one second when I reach the last tree with hanged bodies coming from the volcano area. It’s just a glitch, but it happens always since a specific date)
However, I think the Mithrelle’s animation should be fix. It still happens new players join the game and that broken animation at the beginning of the game (same for the double kneele of Kalantes) gives not a good impression to newcomers.

[saranka]

My thoughts exactly, Malediluna. Along with small font in higher resolutions, more than 1920x1080, I think this kind of thing really hampers the game to modern players. That and a low key promotion. I think more people would love the game if not for these small things. Although I admit I’m saying this because I want to enjoy the game myself in the most perfect way.

Well, if it wasn’t fixed by now, it probably never will be. I think the engine itself must be too old now that even any new blood on Funcom would have to study it all over from scratch to make any kind of big changes, despite similarities with the more modern Secret World Legends. But that’s just me presuming

Maybe I’ll ask the Youtuber of the first video if it’s a recent one, or something she had from a long time ago and only posted on May, this year. If it’s recent then how she managed to get the complete animation.

I confess I just love to frustrate Mithrelle. From so many times repeating Tortage and the Eglopian Mountains, she became a dear nemesis to my characters, specially the mage ones. I love Tortage storyline, even when frustratedly repeating it over and over (I have a character/race/class/appearance problem ), and she and Strom are two of AoC favorite NPCs.

This reminded me: What about that problem with Strom (in Nadini’s vision) and the ToS’ Snake Lady’s heads? Isn’t that also never going to be fixed?

Sorry for any rant. Burn out because of the game’s lag yesterday and having to leave the session. Feeling a little reluctant to go back now. I know it will not be for long. I guess I really like a game to be perfect and wishing the best to it. And Funcom is still in my opinion a good game company. At least while maintaining AoC, of course.