[Aphelion]

Does anyone remember the opening cinematic to Jumpgate?

"Oh noes! The conflux are attacking the miners!"

or

"There's a good vein over there, angle your thrusters to get it."

I'd rather time be spent on the game, but an opening cinematic can have a nice way of psyching up a new player, or even an old player if the cinematic has new features in it. Blizzard has made a reputation of insane cinematics, even releasing them years before a game is released for hype (they made a Ghost cinematic even...).

I'm assuming that ND doesn't have the resources to pull off an epic cinematic, but I really wanted to just bring up the original Jumpgate one. No offense to whoever made it (or wrote it), but the first time I saw it it made me laugh. I also thought it would be cool to get good at "discovering" mineral veins in astroids though too...

[GrimGriz]

My favorite part was how an oct noob shuttle was mining

[Pyrophred]

and being assisted by a nix no less

[Injustice]

Did you ever see the AutoAssault cinematics they made for E3? There's also that CG netdevil cinematic that got uncerimoniously put in front of the loading screen of Jumpgate awhile back.

I don't know if ND does it in-house or contracts it to another studio, but I'm thinking the capability is available? Scorch would be the only reliable source of info on this though.

[GrimGriz]

Or steve the janitor

[Karash]

Not to bring it up...but if you want some kickass Cinematics, you should DL some of the Eve Online trailers. Anyone that likes good game trailers should watch them

[Chemdog]

I have to agree with Aph. I know that watching both cinematics upon first load for both WoW and The Burning Crusade gave me chills.

[Ambrosius]

Does anyone really watch those things more than one or twice?

Seems like a massive waste of resource to me.

@Karash: Eve trailers are beautiful (as is the game). But they "over-promise" (IMO).

[Injustice]

Originally Posted by Ambrosius

Does anyone really watch those things more than one or twice?

Seems like a massive waste of resource to me.

@Karash: Eve trailers are beautiful (as is the game). But they "over-promise" (IMO).

One word. Three syllables. Outsourcing.

[Pyrophred]

are you applying for the job?

[daslog]

It's VERY important to have a good one. It's one of the first things New players will see, and getting them hooked in the first 10 minutes is crucial to retention.

[Lordopic]

eye candy sells games.

[Aphelion]

Originally Posted by Chemdog

I have to agree with Aph. I know that watching both cinematics upon first load for both WoW and The Burning Crusade gave me chills.

Originally Posted by Ambrosius

Does anyone really watch those things more than one or twice?

Seems like a massive waste of resource to me.

@Karash: Eve trailers are beautiful (as is the game). But they "over-promise" (IMO).

The WoW cinematic got me very hyped for the game, but didn't give me chills so much as the Diablo II and Warcraft III opening cinematics did. At the same time, the D2 and War3 cinematics were, IMO, closer to the actual gameplay versus the WoW or Starcraft II cinematics. Since I knew that WoW and SC2 weren't going to be like the cinematics, I treated them as such and they didn't create the emotion like the old D2 and War3 ones did.

Not all cinematics or trailers over-promise, but I'd say a majority of them misrepresent the game in multiple ways. The WoW and War3 trailers "over-hyped" the game a bit in terms of graphics and gameplay while the SC2 trailer simply showed a Terran Marine being created. Over-promised, since it will never be in the game, and yet oppositely under-representing the game since you'll probably never see any part of the cinematic make it into the final game.

Originally Posted by Lordopic

eye candy sells games.

This is true and the second reason I brought the original cinematic up. The main reason was simply to laugh at how far the game was from the cinematic (as are most games).

Originally Posted by Injustice

Did you ever see the AutoAssault cinematics they made for E3? There's also that CG netdevil cinematic that got uncerimoniously put in front of the loading screen of Jumpgate awhile back.

I don't know if ND does it in-house or contracts it to another studio, but I'm thinking the capability is available? Scorch would be the only reliable source of info on this though.

Wow, just checked out the AA cinematics and I'm pretty impressed. This had to be outsourced, right? And the NetDevil fish was awesome for me BEFORE Finding Nemo came out. Maybe the new logo should try to step away from Nemo as much as possible.

Honestly, with how beautiful the screenshots look, I don't think a cinematic trailer is necessary at all. Gameplay footage should suffice for the "wow-factor," no pun intended, and there's much less chance that the game will be over-hyped into something it's not when new players enter the server for the first time (and it doesn't look like the movie).

I'm still undecided on an opening cinematic though, but I bet a large part of the reason Jumpgate:TRI and AA had cinematics was due to publisher pressures. Now that ND isn't using a publisher for Jumpgate Evolution, they're not forced to buy a cinematic to push their game. Is a cinematic an "industry standard" that can't be left behind? We'll see.

[Lordopic]

One of my fav's, ok its not game play graphics but the Feel you get from the intro is pretty much what you get in game.

Dwan of War.

the 2nd trailer is the one you want.

[Scorch]

3DO actually made the original Jumpgate trailer.

We did the NetDevil animation internally.

The AA trailers were outsourced to the company in Japan that made appleseed (amazing people BTW).

We are focusing more on gameplay so I doubt there will be a CG trailer for Evolution but anythings possible.

We will be making some gameplay trailers however, hopefully soon. (ok I know soonTM)