Fiddling with the intro for my Bachelor's degree on in-game-

Post » Wed Jun 20, 2012 8:00 pm

Hello everyone

I'm currently writing my bachelor's project on game introductions and the 4th wall. I can't post the link to Wikipedia, but it is basically a stage performance theory about not breaking the illusion of the act.

I am using Skyrim (among other games) as a reference point of state-of-the-art within video game tutorials.

My work so far has been gathering alot of player's data to see how they handled the introduction. This is from players new to The Elder Scrolls, and some new to gaming.

What I wish to do now, is to take this knowledge and improve upon the introduction of Skyrim. This will include making the "Use WASD to move" into a static box, making the hovering tooltips last a little longer, rearranging the rubble in the top of the tower the dragon breaks just before you are told to jump through the roof to the inn on the other side, and more. I will then proceed to have other newcomers playtest the same scenarios, but with the differences, and see the impact.

Now, I am 100% new to the Creation Kit (I have not installed it), but before I go as far as to install it and watch hours of tutorial videos, I wish to know if you think this is possible at all.

I hope you can help me out, either by confirming that I can do this (some of the things atleast), or even linking a tutorial or write a few words on the direction I should take.

Thank you very much in advance :-)

/Emil
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Antony Holdsworth
 
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Post » Wed Jun 20, 2012 2:19 pm

Hrmm, well. I'm not sure what you mean by 'WASD into a static box'. Like a popup box that you must click OK to continue? To get that you click one button in the editor, to make the messages last longer you change one value in the editor. Rearranging the rubble; well, the actual wall that Alduin breaks in an animated peice, and would be tough to alter. However, moving the static piles of rubble around is very easy and definitly possible.

For the most part it should all be possible, and fairly simple stuff.
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ShOrty
 
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Post » Wed Jun 20, 2012 6:32 pm

Sorry about not explaining properly.

The rubble I am talking about is the rubble just to the next of the broken wall, on the stairs which lead further up into the tower. I experienced that a large portion of the informants actually tried to scale the tower, when they were instructed to "Jump through the roof". What happened then was that they would get stuck, and the jump mechanic would screw up for them, leading them to having a hard time getting out.

About WASD and more, yes - many tooltips fade in and out, and I wish to create them like the ones you MUST click to get out of the way. The boxes would be made depending on how important the tooltip is. I experienced many informants not equipping their gear properly due to having missed, for example, press R to sheath or unholster your weapon. What would happen is that to re-use the sword, they would actually go into the the inventory instead of simply pressing R (or mouse 1) - leading to them UN-equipipng the gear and getting confused when they then attacked bare-fisted.

I also wish to change the abbreviation M1 to Left Mouse Button, in some of the tooltips, as this was also an issue with many informants.

Enough rambling! It appears that, from what you say, it is an easier task than what most people are working with! I will install the Creation Kit immediatly, and have a look.

Thanks for the info.
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JERMAINE VIDAURRI
 
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