Game of Thrones

Lotherio

but my taste in shows is terrible

You and me both, I'm tired of enjoying a new season of some show that gets cancelled after the 1st/premiere season or even before the pilot run has finished.

Lisse24

@Rinel said in Game of Thrones:

Modern fantasy is actually quite popular. Sabrina is getting rave reviews on Netflix, and The Magicians seems to be doing well (though boy oh boy did they shake things up at the end of the last season). People aren't too happy with American Gods, though (personally, I love it, but my taste in shows is terrible), and I can't imagine that the Lakeside arc will make people any happier.

I think the lodestar for whether epic fantasy will continue on TV in a big way is going to be Amazon's LotR project. Whatever it is. The maps show Númenórë, so it's gonna be Second Age. If it does well, then I think things will improve.

All of those popular projects are modern fantasy, though, which I think is more accessible. GoT edged itself into accessibility by being a non-fantasy fantasy. I'm really, really doubtful that the LoTR project is going to do well, but then, that's just because I'm a bit over LoTR. I'm finding it hard to reconcile my 'meh' for LoTR with my excitement for the Kingkiller chronicles so, basically, ignore everything I just said.

Arkandel

@Lisse24 said in Game of Thrones:

I'm really, really doubtful that the LoTR project is going to do well, but then, that's just because I'm a bit over LoTR.

BURN THE HERETIC

... Also a Warhammer property might be fun, come to think of it.

Alamias

I'd really like to see a well done Dresden Files show. The old one that was on Sci-Fi was ok, but (In my opinion) strayed just a bit to far off from the source material. If we could get one that stuck more to the books I think it would do well.

But that may just be me.

Rinel

@Arkandel said in Game of Thrones:

BURN THE HERETIC

... Also a Warhammer property might be fun, come to think of it.

WHF or 40K? Because, I'll be honest--WHF bores the absolute heck out of me. Unless you're doing pre-Age of Sigmar, and it heavily features the most important character in the setting (don't care if hero or villain as long as displayed properly):

Settra the Imperishable, Khemrikhara, The Great King of Nehekhara, King of Kings, Opener of the Way, Wielder of the Divine Flame, Punisher of Nomads, The Great Unifier, Commander of the Golden Legion, Sacred of Appearance, Bringer of Light, Father of Hawks, Builder of Cities, Protector of the Two Worlds, Keeper of the Hours, Chosen of Ptra, High Steward of the Horizon, Sailor of the Great Vitae, Sentinel of the Two Realms, The Undisputed, Begetter of the Begat, Scourge of the Faithless, Carrion-feeder, First of the Charnel Valley, Rider of the Sacred Chariot, Vanquisher of Vermin, Champion of the Death Arena, Mighty Lion of the Infinite Desert, Emperor of the Shifting Sands, He Who Holds The Sceptre, Great Hawk Of The Heavens, Arch-Sultan of Atalan, Waker of the Hierotitan, Monarch of the Sky, Majestic Emperor of the Shifting Sands, Champion of the Desert Gods, Breaker of the Ogre Clans, Builder of the Great Pyramid, Terror of the Living, Master of the Never-Ending Horizon, Master of the Necropolises, Taker of Souls, Tyrant to the Foolish, Bearer of Ptra's Holy Blade, Scion of Usirian, Scion of Nehek, The Great, Chaser of Nightmares, Keeper of the Royal Herat, Founder of the Mortuary Cult, Banisher of the Grand Hierophant, High Lord Admiral of the Deathfleets, Guardian of the Charnal Pass, Tamer of the Liche King, Unliving Jackal Lord, Dismisser of the Warrior Queen, Charioteer of the Gods, He Who Does Not Serve, Slayer of Reddittras, Scarab Purger, Favoured of Usirian, Player of the Great Game, Liberator of Life, Lord Sand, Wrangler of Scorpions, Emperor of the Dunes, Eternal Sovereign of Khemri's Legions, Seneschal of the Great Sandy Desert, Curserer of the Living, Regent of the Eastern Mountains, Warden of the Eternal Necropolis, Herald of all Heralds, Caller of the Bitter Wind, God-Tamer, Master of the Mortis River, Guardian of the Dead, Great Keeper of the Obelisks, Deacon of the Ash River, Belated of Wakers, General of the Mighty Frame, Summoner of Sandstorms, Master of all Necrotects, Prince of Dust, Tyrant of Araby, Purger of the Greenskin Breathers, Killer of the False God's Champions, Tyrant of the Gold Dunes, Golden Bone Lord, Avenger of the Dead, Carrion Master, Eternal Warden of Nehek's Lands, Breaker of Djaf's Bonds, &c., &c.

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Seraphim73

@Alamias said in Game of Thrones:

I'd really like to see a well done Dresden Files show.

Lucas Bryant (Nathan Wournos from Haven) would make a good Dresden. I think Kristin Bell would make a good Murphy. Of course James Marsters has to be Bob. But really, as long as the casting fits, I really want to see a closer-to-the-books Dresden Files too.

Arkandel

@Seraphim73 Since we're on a Game of Thrones thread here's a general wish: May the casting directors for all these new high-end shows luck out as much as GoT's did in finding the perfect actors for each role.

Because GoT knocked it out of the fucking park.

Arkandel

Double post but I had a general question for the class.

After watching yet another amazing trailer by World of Wacraft I keep wondering why they don't make full feature versions of these things.

Like... live action costs so much. Green screens, stunts, costume designers, high profile actors and then the special effects on top of it. Why not do something like the Safe Haven cinematic instead?

Maybe it's because of how much longer it'd take but surely once they have the models down it'd be greatly expedited. And then you can do whatever the hell you want with them - the 'actors' would never grow old (unless you wanted them to) and you just need the right voice talent for them which is far, far cheaper as well.

I would watch the shit out of such a thing. Even relatively cool fantasy animation movies (Castlevania comes to mind) isn't up to these cinematics' standards.

Rinel

@Arkandel

I'm not sure you fully appreciate exactly how much work goes into those cinematics.

Some choice excerpts:

Varian takes 4-6 hours per frame and 20-30 GB of memory to render.

The gunship model was very detailed. 7 million faces, 3000 of the 4000x4000 texture maps, raytracing. It takes 4-6 hours to render each frame.

Varian texture maps were based on real people. Pictures of 40 year old white males that worked in the office were used for reference. These detailed shots are used to make Varian's skin look real.

To put it another, simpler way, the budget of Pixar's "Coco" was 175 million dollars.

Rinel

That said, if you would be happy with the in-game cutscenes, they could probably quite easily churn out stuff to watch.

bored

@Arkandel said in Game of Thrones:

Sure, but that doesn't impact how a different series ran by D&D will turn out.

Apparently it would have involved the south winning the Civil War?

Perhaps, they will bring valuable experience as successful showrunners to the SW trilogy, leave the creative stuff to others, and it will go well. Yet their creative instincts do not seem particularly good, and their writing has been hacky at best.

Sparks

@Rinel said in Game of Thrones:

That said, if you would be happy with the in-game cutscenes, they could probably quite easily churn out stuff to watch.

I mean, there's actually a fair number of fairly impressive cinematics that have been done real-time in game engines, like the ones that Unreal Engine and Unity showed off at GDC back in March, But to be fair, even those take a fair amount of time and money to do.

One of the things I actually kind of liked about WildStar was that they used the game to do all their cinematic videos leading up to release. It allowed them to do those in-house with a ridiculously short turnaround time (two weeks or something, I think it was?), so they could make a lot of them.

Of course, they did have the benefit of being able to use all the game's assets, which meant they didn't have to create nearly so much from scratch as someone doing a completely new CG film would've. And the results are nowhere near as detailed as the complex real-time Unreal and Unity GDC demos this year, much less the fully rendered insanity that WoW's cinematics are.

But if you look at, say, the "Classes" video where they unveiled the playable classes, you can see that they're watchable and they have a lot of personality. So I think it's actually quite possible to be happy with films made with in-game cutscenes!

(Though man, watching these six-year-old WildStar videos also made me nostalgic. I'm never gonna find another MMO where I can play a gun-mage who shoots holes through reality and then jumps through them. Or one where I can play a cybernetic zombie space elf or psychopathic science gerbil.)

Wretched

@Sparks Wildstar was my game, i had hundreds of hours in the housing, I will never forgive them for fucking up so hard it closed.

Sparks

@Wretched said in Game of Thrones:

@Sparks Wildstar was my game, i had hundreds of hours in the housing, I will never forgive them for fucking up so hard it closed.

I feel you; it was my game, too. It had an impact on my life even outside of gaming like no other game has ever had, and it seems unlikely to me that any other MMO will ever really eclipse it in my heart; it was kind of irreplaceable.

I was one of the original beta crew for the game, and I made a lot of friends there, both among the other testers and among the devs (and ended up somewhat infamous). Many of the people I still game with today, I met through WildStar, either in the closed beta crew or post-launch. Heck, the early days of the WildStar beta were where my gamertag, "Packetdancer", first got abbreviated to "Pax", which ended up becoming my lasting online nickname.

I loved that game—and the community—dearly. And I miss it fiercely.

Wretched

@Sparks Holyshit, yes, I def heard of PAX, i was following the game deep into beta. When i got a beta key we were... learning Garrosh? That was so long ago.

They just fumbled the ball so hard, thier focous on 'hardkore' stuff with so little for more casual player (outside of housing which was the best there was the end). They are my example when I use the phrase 'sucking on the teats of nostalgia'. Like the raiding was amazeballs, the sense of humor, the art, the world.. so much good... but servers that couldn't handle not one but multiple relaunches, nothing atr endgame, the unbelievably annoying attunements, no one wanted 40 man raids for real you fuck faces, they just wanted to eat the memberberries.

I loved that game but i am also bitter.

But Zemti did give me a top score for my toilet.

Sparks

@Wretched said in Game of Thrones:

They just fumbled the ball so hard, thier focous on 'hardkore' stuff with so little for more casual player (outside of housing which was the best there was the end).

Honestly, despite the talk about how endgame would be hardcore early on, the game still felt fairly well-balanced in the beginning; a good amount of casual content along with stuff for hardcore folks to sink their teeth into. But there were not a lot of other MMOs that had any serious hardcore content at that level, and so even before launch, some of the loudest voices were the hardcore folks who wanted more of that since they weren't getting it anywhere else. And so the game kind of started to pivot towards the hardcore folks.

But while the hardcore crowd were maybe the loudest population in a lot of ways, they were not by any means the largest. So, catering to them had somewhat predictable long-term results.

Watching that happen to a game that I loved so fiercely kind of broke my heart.

@Wretched said in Game of Thrones:

But Zemti did give me a top score for my toilet.

A worthy accolade! The housing showcase blogs and contests out there were amazing.

(Alas, though, I think we're making the increasing topic drift in this thread worse, so I shall stop reminiscing. Good to find another former resident of Nexus around, though!)

Rinel

@Sparks Absolutely. And there have been incredibly successful shows like the Clone Wars. I'm just raining on the parade of Blizzard-style hyperrealistic movies being viable at present. Soon, hopefully, but not now.

Back to GoT: tomorrow is gonna be hilarious.

Arkandel

@Rinel said in Game of Thrones:

Back to GoT: tomorrow is gonna be hilarious.

I don't see any outcome that won't enrage some people. But I also don't predict any outcome won't delight many others, either.

surreality

Yeah, not gonna lie, the real popcornfest is going to be watching the reactions to whatever happens at this point.

Roz

As things come a close tomorrow, this Twitter thread has a collection of some of the most magnificent moments of this series. It's really nice to look back to see how many remarkable things they did manage to deliver, even if they're faltering at the end.