Skipping the Cinematics

Why's it seem like everybody always continues to attack the most poorly thought out, rashly made statements, and ignores what I post, whenever I post an argument in a topic? >.>

It's sad, because I always try to maintain a balanced perspective and provide reasonable compromise between different ideals and objectives, and I put a LOT of time and thought into what I write, and it just seems like it goes to waste

Maybe I'll just make my own suggestion using some of the ideas I suggested in Sardelac Sanitarium.

By not addressing my statements, you make me think of 2 possibilities:
1) They're either so good that you can't refute them and would rather ignore them.
2) They're so bad you won't give them the time of day.

Either way, I think I lose. I love debate, and I could go on, and on, and on, and on, and ON, because it's fun, even over something as seemingly silly as an aspect of a video game. (and don't think I won't go on and on and on, just ask around, because I WILL )

That being said, I still don't see why it has to be one way or the other entirely, instead of a golden mean of sorts.

But what is obvious is the bug needs fixing right out, regardless of whatever else may happen. That's just rediculous.

And it's obvious that there're times where many people don't want to see the movies, and if there's a method to make it up to them that doesn't detract from the experience of others, why not?

You know what else might be fun, aside from a mini-game or chat window? That radar doodling tool. It'd be immature, but oh so fun to be able to click a button and see what others, and you, draw on an overlay on the cutscenes. Put mustaches on various characters, write in quippy little commentary, it'd be crazy fun Of course, like with the radar, I'm sure people would find less than appropriate things to draw, but if that offends you (can't say I'm happy about it), click off the interactive tool and see the movie as it was meant to be seen.

And these are just the random spontaneous crazy ideas of a single person. If everybody accepted the idea of change for the sake of improvement without causing problems for anybody else, I'm sure there'd be 100's of better ideas than mine.

(hope the desperate ploy at the beginning for a little mental loving didn't upset anyone >.> Horrible horrible thing to put forward ideas you've actually put a little effort into expressing only to find yourself ignored :'( )

My first time playing through the Elona's Reach mission i did not skip the cinematic b/c i wanted to know what to do and see the storyline. I was the 1 out of 8 that did not vote to skip it. Little did i know that if I did skip the mission i would save an extra 2 min. on the mission. After viewing the cutscene the time was at 58 min instead of the full amount of time alotted. After a few runs and some different people joined up along the way, we ended up telling everyone to skip the movie. As i look back i think that was a little hypocritical. Is this a bug?

On another note.. on the solo mission immediatly after you ascend if you sit through the cutscene, you will end up naturally facing your opponent. However if you opt to skip the cutscene due to the fact that you have seen it too many time b/c of mission failure, you end up w/ your back facing your opponent.. leaving yourself vulnerable for attacks. It was only a few missions later that i discovered the "X" key

Or do it Mav's way but let people watch them later if they want. But there is no way anyone should miss out on content just because other people want them to.

Mav, pretend for a moment that you wanted to watch all of them, but some other player had the power to cause you to miss out on a part of the game you wanted to experience, how is that right?

So if the majority wins, and I can find a majority of people that say Mav should not be able to participate in PvP or GvG, should we be able to have to power to limit your game experience?

So don't think about it as the majority wins, think about it as everyone should be able to experience all of the game content that they wish to. We all paid for it right?

Well, if you bring it up that way;

There are limits to what a majority can do. Example A, the majority of people want to seriously murder someone in real life, if they do they get away with it? No. Example B, if the majority of people want something in a simple game, they usually get it or at least there is a comprimise met in the middle (see my example for allowing people out of cinematic or letting them watch it by choice)

So while something that affects real life (in your case your example of majority not allowing me or any person to play based on majority choice) versus the majority vote in a aspect of the game, well you can see how thats a flawed analogy.

GW is the first CORPG/MMORPG that I've ever seen or played that forces players to sit through such a thing even when the majority wish to skip onwards. It's getting to the point where the really long cinematics are a chore to sit through, when I sit down to play I am sitting down to play. I'm not sitting down to watch a ingame cinematic, or series of cinematics, I am not sitting down just so I can get up and go do whatever for 5 minutes while 1 guy watches the cinematic, I'm playing to play not watch. It's bad enough the game was advertised as no grind, and the fact I am grinding while having to deal with cinematics..


And to be honest, I'm actually being very calm and polite on the subject since the game has no monthly fee (though I did pay $50 like most people). If I was paying a monthly fee, ArenaNet would be fixing this system or they'd be losing a customer. (please, save your "you wouldnt be missed" crap).

*edit*

And yes, you're right, we all paid and we're all customers who paid for the game we're enjoying. I'm simply saying the system is flawed. Party Leader is a farce, you aren't a leader of anything your only powers are grouping the party in town and that's it, beyond that you are powerless and the whole point of being party leader then is moot and a waste of time. Hell I even listed a very coherent and logical middle ground to meet in; if players wanna watch, let those watch. if players choose to skip, let those skip. if they skip they deal with possibly losing party members and playing "down" people, if they choose to watch they choose to possibly fall behind the party. Fair to BOTH sides, and something that satifies both sides.

Why are you calling people (like me) that's havn't seen the cutscene an a-hole? I want to know what's going on in the story, you may not, but I do.

Wow, what? 99%? If 7.92 people wanted to skip a cinematic in an 8 man party there's something severely wrong with the voting system.

*sigh*

Performs elementalist dance in undergarments for attention, and when that fails, goes to bed.

Brains before beauty is totally overrated >.<

Not even a single courtesy comment, like, "I see your point, however ..." and then going off on a totally different and irrelavent tangent, but saying that just to make the point that you actually read it.

Is it that they're miniature essay length? (written much longer ones for my Psychology professor about trivial behavioural observation experiments, even.)

Or that I manage to draw out a point for too long?

What do I have to do to get a little loving around here? :'(

(Please bear in mind, it's late, and I'm going to bed after this post, and if you bring it up tomorrow, I'll deny everything )

At the very least, people who refuse to be anything but firmly on one side of the issue should concede that others may have their character's lives in danger, or may have seen the cutscene so many times, their brain is burning out, whereas, it'd most likely cost more time for the person who wants to see the cutscene to get there again than it would to see it now, and who's to say unless it's henchmen that the exact same situation wouldn't repeat itself?
Both sides would like to say, "Tough, stomach it", and both sides have valid points, yet there've been multiple suggestions, and not all by me, as to how to make everyone win. For starters, EVERYBODY would definitely win if you couldn't die because monsters were killing you during a cut scene.

And since the game is obviously resuming while you watch the movie, and there is testimony that if there is a timer, it goes down while the movie plays, if nothing else, the issue could be settled on a case by case basis, as in the tombs. (which was not my idea!)

Now, the Voice of Reason is going to bed, before she explodes unreasonably for no apparent reason, attributable to lack of sleep, and is taking her pretentious, holier-than-thou, attention whoring, third-person, pseudo-intellectual attitude with her. (just to save people the trouble of saying them themselves ) And if nobody addresses a single point I make by morning, why, I'll just break down and... ignore the topic back. So there =.=

Goodnight all, and don't be TOO stubborn. Concessions must be made for progress at times.

To the people who said if more Players vote "No to watch the Cinematic" then the ones who want to see it don't get to:

So it's ok for you to have the priviledge to view the cinematic, but when it comes down to having someone with you who hasn't seen it, there not allowed to see it? Sorry, but that's pure selfishness.

Heh, beat me to it.

To the OP: If dying during cutscenes is your concern, shouldn't you be lobbying to have that fixed rather than screeching for a way to ruin the storyline element for everyone else?

Is this a serious reply? By 99% (based on a 100% scale), if a party of 8 people goes into a cinematic for a mission or quest, it only takes 1 person that does not choose the "Skip" option to force the entire party to view the cinematic regardless of how they voted. The "party leader" is completely helpless as his/her power ends as soon as they leave the town or outpost.

The maths behind it was quite serious - 7 is not 99% of 8. I understood the rest of the post, just the bolded 99% caught me off guard and I thought I'd right the wrong! I'm a saint like that.

Dying during the cut scenes is a bug yes. I've had it happen before, several times, yes. And I agree it needs to be fixed, yes.

However my concern is the overall party system and how it operates. I don't wanna repeat myself, for the umpteenth time but, the party leader loses all purpose once outside town. Since it's PvE we don't even have an option to forcefully "eject" someone (not solely because they choose to watch a cinematic but there are literally dozens of reasons; purposely aggroing stuff, getting important mission NPC's killed, etc), and of course the skip voting system itself is flawed. there should be either a comprimise in the middle (read above for my idea on that) or no system at all, its a slap in the face to have a system that is circumvented by 1 person out of 8.

Of course at the end of the day, we aren't paying a monthly fee so its a moot point, I'm simply discussing it in hopes maybe some day if theres time, we might at least tweak the current system if not change it.

Ah, heh. Well yea the math isn't correct but you can easily see how 7 out of 8 people comprises a 90+ percentile of a group, or to simplify it without math: the majority

*edit* and with that its time for some sleep, ill check in on this thread later today

It's not a vote, it just lists how many wants to skip the cinematic.

I think the current system works other than the fact that people can die asap after the cut-scene. The list is just a list. If it was a vote then it would not be fair to the people who are playing for the first time. Party leaders dont deserve to control the fate of the team either. Their purpose is just to form a team. Sometimes that person will control the group if designated by the team. The game is a team game, that means teams decision. Everyone counts.

I'd be pissed, excuse the language, if someone overrode the cutscene for me and I hadn't seen it yet. You get alot of useful info in the cutscenes and it helps link WHY you do things together somtimes.

Such as last night, we finally went back and did Aurora Glade and apparently Glint was talking in the end of the scene. We haven't completed the wilds yet either so maybe another suprise there for us.

If there was a button to override the cinematic, it would cause even more disharmony.

Dying During a cutscene? Interesting, the only thing i've seen die are bone horrors/minions/fiends during one, which is funny listening to them still fighting in the background as you pull away from the shore XD or something like that...

That's irrelevant. In the end, it still comes down to the slight inconvenience of 7 people against the continuation of the game for 1. You may be bored, but if he's forced to miss it, he's losing out on way more than you.

I think a compromise system would be usful, however. At least give the skippers access to the chat bar!

I personally wouldn't want to miss plot storylines just because you don't want to see them yourself. I can understand skipping the cutscenes in missions such as Elona, because of the countdown timer. Otherwise, you should just let others enjoy the game. Forcing your ideas onto others, isn't exactly enjoying the game to everyone.

I hope I'm never in your group then. That's far more than being a jerk. I like to watch all the cutscenes in the game at least once. Why should I have to take flack because I enjoy seeing every aspect of the story I've spent over 100 hours of my life on? Who are you to decide what I can and can't see?

very good point. I agree 100%

I havn't yet completed every mission ingame yet so i havn't seen all cinematics. I can care less if people dont want to see one that i havnt seen yet, if they have a problem then kick me from group and enjoy henchman or find someone else. I didn't buy this game so inpatient players could tell me what i can and cant do on it. Only times I'll skip one is if i've seen it or it hurts the timer, other than that if your in my group get prepared for some watching

EDIT: was thinking... if you can't handle a small 5 minutes away from gameplay then you may have issues < not directed at anyone in general

The cut scenes don't exist? What is that supposed to mean? There is no spoon? They don't exist as pre-rendered FMVs, but they do exist. They are simply sets of character model positions fed sequentially to the graphics engine instead of frames fed sequentially to the video buffer. And I for one am glad for it. It's the reason the game didn't come on 6 discs.

The videos being rendered on the fly would not prevent re-viewing of them, or really even make it difficult to do. Sure the party is visible in the scenes, but in a re-viewing they could simply generate some preset or even random character models to use in their place and have the viewer always be the "party leader" that does any interacting in the clip.

I've wished for this option since day one. Not so that I could skip them and come back to them later, but because my memory sucks and it would be nice to watch them all at once in order instead of sometimes going days between them where I forget what's going on.

As for the action not stopping during the cut scenes, yeah that can be annoying, but it can also be entertaining. I watched a cut scene where the speaker was saying something about “<so and so> will fall” and right then, with the most ironically perfect timing, one of our necro’s bone buddies runs out of life and does a face plant. I was laughing at that for the rest of the day.

As for the original post; having to watch a cut scene more than once might be annoying, but never being able to see it at all because some are impatient is far worse. I DO agree they need to fix the "action keeps going during cut scenes" bug, but everyone has a right to see the cut scenes. They are part of the game that people payed money to enjoy.


EDIT: I just noticed that there were 3 pages in this thread. Sorry if this babble seems out of place, it was based only on the first page's worth of posts. For the record, I'm retarded (and apparently blind).

i like the cinamatics

Then the game needs to be tweaked.

Change the title of "party leader" to something that doesn't by definition mean leader, say "party former". This way there is no confusion about it, we would know for a fact this person is simply put the guy who forms a party in town and that his power ends there. "leader" misleads you into thinking he/she may have other abilities other than forming a party. Its a pointless title that just adds to the frustration of problems you encounter in instances.

And you're quoting team decisions on me? It's a team game right? Well my team decides we want to skip the cinematic, except for one person. Team game so the majority should win. Everyone counts yes but trust me when I say if we had an ability to get rid of, or remove that one person, we would. Every, single, time.

Because unlike some, I believe the party system to be a democracy. And DESPITE what people say, it is. Example, you've got a large party, 8 people. And you're doing a mission and you come to a crossroads. 6 guys go one direction, 2 guys go the other. Everyone stops and communicates about which way to go. Nine out of ten times, the party will follow the democracy, even if it was the wrong road to choose, people go with the majority. Sure the other 2 guys might have still gone on their way but as you can see from hunting, you stand a better chance at survival in the pack of 6 than you do with 2 people.

I, as a party leader for example, do not decide FOR you. A cinematic comes up, theres 8 people in our party. You choose to watch, the other 7 of us don't. That, DESPITE, what people say, is a vote. I am voting to skip, as are 6 other people, while 1 does not. When it's over, yes sometimes we've gone back to town and reformed the party, cause THE PARTY decides to remove people who will not skip. It was a GROUP choice to remove them. While I agreed with it, and still do, it was not solely my decision. So don't take it as such.

And the funny part is, is that if there was some way to (other than aggroing stuff) to remove people in PvE (i.e. killing them in pvp style combat) you can bet we'd do that. The only reason some of us, mainly myself so far in this thread, are discussing alternative means because; we can't remove you. We can't kill you and get you out of our way, we can't stop you from watching every cinematic. The best we can do is attempt the proven to be flawed voting system, or go back to town and reform.

You may think, oh he's taking this too seriously. Or "omg shut up and watch the cinematics already who cares" well I for one, do care. Every single computer game I've installed that FORCES me to watch a cinematic, I've uninstalled. Straight out. This game, doesn't force us, we have options to get around it, it's just these options are currently flawed in the fact they favor the 1 lone person in a party of 8 who wants to watch it. I don't know about you but in a party I expect a democratic choice system of where we go, what we do, and when we do it. Not a system of dictatorship which says despite 7 others being aganist it, the 1 wins.

While I, too, think there should at least be the chat window for people that want to skip that cinematic, or some other stuff to get them thru it, IMHO the one that hasn't seen the flick has all the right on the world to see it.

I am mostly one of those guys. With my best character I just arrived at Druid's Overlook some hour ago, and play all the missions from Yak's Bend on for the first time. And I really care about the story and the NPCs, that's what makes the world our Avatars inhabit real and gives us a justification to save it.

I would be more than angry if I was cheated thru a cutscene just because 5 other guys have seen it or just don't care about it!

There's already no confusion by virtue of the fact that the leader doesn't have any powers beyond forming the party in town and taking it back when a mission is failed.

Then you, sir, are rude, and more than a little bit petulant. I'm sorry, but you are.

[QUOTE=Mav]Because unlike some, I believe the party system to be a democracy. And DESPITE what people say, it is. QUOTE]

MAV
unless you say BEFORE going out *we skip the cutscenes* to give someone the chance to say later dude i want to watch them it is completely your own fault

and in that case you have no right to complain

Is that a threat? Oh no! Please don't uninstall the game and deprive us all of your whining and selfish attitude!

I actually really like this feature of the game. It makes it so that everybody stays together, and nobody has to miss the cinematics if they don't want to. It's a well thought-out feature.

Welcome to the world of mmos (or corpgs in gw's case). The majority pretty much always wins, and as such shit happens. Im rude? So be it thats fine with me. But I take comfort in the fact that 6 others out of a 8 person party also feel the same as I do (in general) and would do the same if given the choice to get rid of the person.

I see more whining here from 'certain' people than I do any real statements on why they are right, so to speak.

Why is this an issue, honestly? I have to agree with alot of others here, Mav, you're rude, and I really hope never to end up in your group, because, man, thats just harsh.

If you don't like it, then go out with the henchies, what else are they there for eh? So YOU don't have to play with other players.

If you have such a problem with the system, then like someone else said, MAKE IT CLEAR that you want to skip the cinematics. Otherwise, I feel you have no place to whine about the system of things. Group Leader doesn't mean you should dictate EVERYTHING in the group, starting missions sure, but depriving people of the cinematics for which they want to see the story? I don't think so...

Here's a question, what exactly is your point for playing if you don't even care about the RPG aspect or story of it, at all? You sound like you'd be happier over in PvP land than PvE land personally, where there is no story, just Player Vs. Player action, no cutscenes, aside from those random ones in Tombs/HoH.

[QUOTE=Loviatar]Yes, of course. When the party is formed and we enter the mission, even as a non party leader I say in Team chat: please skip the cinematics. And most times the majority, as said, will agree and say so in team chat. Until that is, a cinematic comes on and 1 person, out of 8, doesn't skip. And no he/she couldnt have missed us saying to skip as they moved around, killed mobs etc

nice attitude

do you bother to warn people you skip cutscenes or do you ambush them and then try to force them to skip?

and isnt it nice that GW lets an individual see it if he/she wants to even if the majority yells

Are you as stupid as your forum avatar? Seriously?

I LOVE mofos that quote a certain sentance and leave out the important ones that follow;

- I say I uninstall games that force me 100% no options to watch a cinematic, true. Is this some obvious "threat" of me not playing GW? Grow, the ****, up mother ****er

- I say just after that, the part you LEAVE OUT, that GW has options for skipping cinematics however they are FLAWED and need tweaking.

K thx owned

Ok, that was uncalled for even if its just a bunch of ***'s...

Time for someone to go bye bye for awhile and learn a few manners...

99.9999999999~% of the time, yes myself and several other team members will say in team chat that we are skipping. we often repeat this several times, just to make sure even the legally blind people whom have trouble reading, can see it.

You're kidding me right

Not only is there a profanity filter (yes I learned to live with that some time ago) but if some ****'s hurt your wittle itty bitty ears then Little Timmy needs to get mommy and daddy to install a V-Chip on his computa!



It's the internet, if you can't take some strong opinionated discussion, maybe the internet isn't for you *shrug* And this is GW after all, my god some of yall would get eaten alive by players of other games like Quake or Counter Strike. You think I'M rude? www.steampowered.com there are some rude mofos

Honestly, 99% of the time I miss the text on the side due to being used to being on Teamspeak, and not needing to pay attention to it. SO if I'm with people not on TS, I sometimes miss things due to the flow of battle. Quite easy to do when taking out six or so enemies, enough to bump the chat buffer up a whole nother screen.

Also note, for no real reason, I AM legally blind in real life. >^_^<

EDIT: It seems to me that you are more whining than actually discussing...

And, you do realize how insanely stupid you sounded right? Anyway...

We don't need flamers, or name calling of THAT calibur. This is Guild Wars, rated T for teen, but does that mean everyone should be rude, flaming and obnoxious? It shows bad character and also gives GW fans a bad name if the majority were to act in the same manner you have with the extreme profanity.

do you get confirmation from any *new* people or do you just assume since you said it they had to have seen it?

if they confirmed it than i consider it a done deal

if no confirmation it is up in the air

it takes only a moment to get agreement on terms of the mission and/bonus confirmed and avoids a mess later