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alway
Join Date 06/2007
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Loading Screen Quotes...

March 6, 2009 9:18:05 PM from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Ok, this idea is very inspired by the Total War series. On loading screens, Total War games have quotes from historical figures, philosophers, ect. Which lead me to an intriguing idea... What if Elemental had quotes on it's loading screens. Not from historical figures in reality, but from historical figures in game lore. They could be from in game quotes or just made up stuff... As long as they sound insightful it could be interesting.

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NTJedi
Join Date 03/2006
+39
Reply #1 March 6, 2009 11:33:25 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Perhaps anytime a champion or channeller strikes an unusually very effective blow during combat the game could capture a screenshot (JPG) which is later used as one of the random loading screens.   This strike might be from melee combat, ranged combat or spells used during combat.  Gamers could then remove undesired screenshots and/or possibly add their own as well.

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landisaurus
Join Date 06/2008
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Reply #2 March 7, 2009 1:10:48 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

I just like good quotes in general.    They don't even have to be real.    Black and white had some good loading screen quotes, thought they were quotes from the regular dialogue.  I'd be more than happy to help compile a list of quotes that could be used.

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WildBoarPie
Join Date 03/2009
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Reply #3 March 7, 2009 2:52:38 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Couple of other things:

- The game Warlords Battlecry 3 (which is great, and has been permanently on my hard drive since v#1, even tho an older 2D game - presumably recognised greatness, as it's on Impulse ) - Had rather good loading screen 'history snippets' that were little slices of gameworld lore presented in faux-documentary historical style. I quite enjoyed this - although hilariously now the game is 5 years old you have to read quite fast to get it all in b4 the load is over! It gave an atmosphere of more epic scope than the game alone.

- One can use real-world quotes in fantasy and preserve atmosphere - the original 'Magic the Gathering' cards used to have such, and excerpts from books &c.

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alway
alway
Join Date 06/2007
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Reply #4 March 7, 2009 3:16:59 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Quoting WildBoarPie,
reply 3
Couple of other things:

- The game Warlords Battlecry 3 (which is great, and has been permanently on my hard drive since v#1, even tho an older 2D game - presumably recognised greatness, as it's on Impulse ) - Had rather good loading screen 'history snippets' that were little slices of gameworld lore presented in faux-documentary historical style. I quite enjoyed this - although hilariously now the game is 5 years old you have to read quite fast to get it all in b4 the load is over! It gave an atmosphere of more epic scope than the game alone.

- One can use real-world quotes in fantasy and preserve atmosphere - the original 'Magic the Gathering' cards used to have such, and excerpts from books &c.

Ah yes! The flavor texts on the cards were awesome! Some were downright hillarious.

The biggest thing I think the Total War quotes give is something to ponder while waiting during the loading screen. Giving the player something to do during loading screens really increases willingness to sit through any load screen. Take for example the concept art of starbases used as loading screens for Entrenchment. I find these much more interesting than the old images since there is quite a bit of text to read describing various parts and components of the starbase. In my experience text on loading screens make them a bit more bearable.

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Netaddict45
Join Date 03/2006
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Reply #5 March 7, 2009 3:48:13 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Hmm.  Fake elemental Trading Cards with art and flavor text as loading screen pieces?  All in favor say "aye"

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Gnats3
Join Date 05/2008
+17
Reply #6 March 9, 2009 5:04:15 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

I think having quotes would be great; they are certainly better and more interesting than "tips" that don't really help anyone.  Fake trading cards might be a little much but a large pool of a mix of fictional and historical quotes would make the loading times very bearable, especially if they are thought-provoking.  Maybe the devs could even let community members suggest quotes to be added to the final game

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landisaurus
Join Date 06/2008
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Reply #7 March 10, 2009 12:43:00 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Quoting Gnats3,
reply 6
 Maybe the devs could even let community members suggest quotes to be added to the final game

Totally, I would love if we got to do that.    

n fact its now on my to-do-list to create a thread of compiled ideas for quotes.  Not right now though, right now I just have a text file of good quotes (which has only 2 quotes right now), which I will be adding to as time goes on.   Then once we've seen the game (maybe it won't have loading screens thus voiding the idea entirely) We can start working to come up with what can fill in the gaps.

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alway
Join Date 06/2007
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Reply #8 March 10, 2009 6:57:21 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Ya, this thread would be somewhat pointless if it loads so fast there is no loading screen.

But looking at past Stardock games, it will have a loading screen on starting or loading a game which will last aproximately 30 seconds to 1 minutes. Since Stardock games only have 1 load screen as opposed to the hundreds in Total War, they also would only need a fraction of the number of quotes.

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ScottTykoski
Join Date 03/2001
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Reply #9 March 10, 2009 9:47:10 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Building each world will take a bit of time, even once optimizations are enabled and the code is fully tweaked. We'll be making heavy use of quote (or 'Excerpts', as they're called in code) throughout the game to drive the narrative.

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landisaurus
Join Date 06/2008
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Reply #10 March 10, 2009 2:29:08 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Quoting BoogieBac,
reply 9
Building each world will take a bit of time, even once optimizations are enabled and the code is fully tweaked. We'll be making heavy use of quote (or 'Excerpts', as they're called in code) throughout the game to drive the narrative.

Each world?  Just, how many worlds are there?   can I interpret this as confirmation that there is more than one?  (I'm glad to see the quote thing is already planned)

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Philocthetes
Join Date 10/2003
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Reply #11 March 10, 2009 3:07:18 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Quoting landisaurus,
reply 10
... Each world?  Just, how many worlds are there?   can I interpret this as confirmation that there is more than one?  (I'm glad to see the quote thing is already planned)

I'd about bet that the phrase refers to game instances, not worlds within a game. But I'm just trying to protec myself from disappointment when I learn that there's only the main map, no other planes, no territory on moons, no islands in the sky, sigh...

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ScottTykoski
Join Date 03/2001
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Reply #12 March 10, 2009 3:08:50 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Each world? Just, how many worlds are there?

'Each world' = the randomly generated world created on game start. And there are an infinate number of worlds   my first major journal will be on map generation...it's pretty awesome and results in some pretty interesting worlds every time.

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Gnats3
Join Date 05/2008
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Reply #13 March 10, 2009 6:03:02 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Having a mix of game-lore excerpts and real quotes depending on the situation would be great .  I'm not sure exactly how the games in Elemental are set up but for example if you had a map/campaign that specifically followed the storyline, you could use the excerpts, and for "normal" skirmishs you could use real quotes.

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Philocthetes
Join Date 10/2003
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Reply #14 March 10, 2009 6:41:08 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Quoting Gnats3,
reply 13
Having a mix of game-lore excerpts and real quotes depending on the situation would be great .  I'm not sure exactly how the games in Elemental are set up but for example if you had a map/campaign that specifically followed the storyline, you could use the excerpts, and for "normal" skirmishs you could use real quotes.

That's a really neat idea, and I hope it isn't too hard to code. But I wonder if we have the same idea about what "real quotes" are. I'd like to see wait screens for my sandbox games include a *very* wide selection of quotes from popular fantasy fiction. The Lord of the Rings alone could provide several tens of blurbs and putting them in the Elemental code should be "fair use" quotation, AFAIK, and hence not a lawyer-problem.

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Gnats3
Join Date 05/2008
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Reply #15 March 10, 2009 7:19:29 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

I was thinking more like quotes from older sources, like the ones that Medieval 2: Total War and probably the rest of the TW series had, although some from fiction would be good as well if they are legal to use

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Ynglaur
Join Date 05/2006
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Reply #16 March 12, 2009 10:32:03 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

I really like Landisaurus' idea of having the engine grab screenshots.  Since Elemental will be using a content distribution model, you could see loading screens of other people's games...perhaps with characters, units, and buildings you've never seen!

Sorry: just realized it was NTJedi's idea.

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