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MMRPG’S & MOTION CAPTURE(MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ROLE PLAYING GAMES)
By Isaac Tingey
BRIEF HISTORY
MMRPGS (Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Games) these are games that are played
socially online with friends or strangers. These types of games allow you to create
appearances and personalities for your character within a fantasy setting. You walk around
trying to survive and to pick up skills and weapons to increase your characters stats. Many
forms of the genre have been created over the years but the the first to hit our slow old
computer screens was Never Winter Nights in the year 1991. The next leap from this game
was ‘Ultima online’ released in 1997. And let but not least we have what is arguably the
biggest game ever made ‘World Of Warcraft’ released in 2004. There were other releases
such as EVE and Runescape that were both played on a massive scale still to this day but
these 3 seemed to be the peak of the genre throughout the years.
NEVER WINTER NIGHTS
Never winter nights was the very first online game to start of
the MMRPGS craze. although this game was the birth of an
era it had its major downfalls. Due to the computers available
when this was released the speed of the game was very slow
and the graphics were very pixelated. The game run at 14KB
a second and was 2D. even though the graphics were 2D
they gave off a 3D illusion in some of the graphics by using
layers and shading. The games background story followed
from the board game ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ It was the first
online digital version of the popular board game. When
combat occurs gameplay switches to full-screen combat
mode, in which a player's characters and enemies are
represented by icons which move around in the course of
battle. That was the closest to getting real life action due to
computer speeds at the time. Neverwinter Nights was a co-
development of AOL, Stormfront Studios, SSI, and TSR.
Even though this was a break though for online games the
scale of people playing it was still very small because the
access of computers was much harder than the present day.
The capacity of each server grew from 50 players in 1991 to
500 players by 1995 and the game peaked at only 115,000
players online at any one time and 617,000 hosts in total.
ULTIMA ONLINE
Ultima Online was the next big step within the
MMRPGS. With a improvement of up to 56Kb modem
speed per second it was an improvement from its
predecessor. the Online community was slightly larger
to with a peak user stat of 250,00 and a whopping total
of 19,540,000 hosts. The game was made by origin
systems and electronic arts. Ultima Online was The first
MMORPG to reach the 100,000 subscriber base, far
exceeding that of any game that went before it. Ultima
Online continued the tradition of previous Ultima games
in many ways, but due to advancing technology and the
simple fact that it was Origin's first persistent online
game, there were many new game mechanics as well.
The games graphics were better than its predecessors
due to the computers available at the time and the 2D-
3D perspective was better than ever. they angled the
view of the game in a special birds eye way to show
structures along with people in the perspective of flying
over them. It was much better and easier to portray the
3D illusion this way than doing it POV face on.
WORLD OF WARCRAFT World of Warcraft was released in 2004 with a uprising of
staggering 1billion hosts to date making it the biggest online
game ever made. By 2004 the age of computers was
advancing quick and the game was allowed to run at a
increased speed of 1000KB a second and was one of the first
MMRPGS to use 3D graphics. The peak amount of users was
recorded at 7,000,000 users at any one time. The development
company that produced and made the game was Blizzard
Entertainment. since the release of the game they have
released two other versions which include different worlds and
extension packs e.g more weapons and costumes. The game
is all online and the map goes on for days. The user interface
for this game was a risk as it changed the normal birds eye
view that people were used to playing in the past and changed
it to a 3D perspective in a POV angle. Due to the amount of
sales it was a risk worth taking in the end. As you can see in
the image on the bottom corner you can see that there is high
amounts of buttons and text shown, the game takes a long
time to get used to and is very complex on what you can do
and play with. due to the high extent of features this is perhaps
why it was so popular, as there was so much to do within the
game it resulted in people never getting bored. The game got
to point were some people couldn't stop playing it and would
be on the game for days and described iras some sort of
‘addiction’ and ‘drug’.
DIFFERENCES IN MODEM
SPEEDS OVER THE YEARS
MOTION CAPTURE FIFA 13 - 3D HEAD SCANNING
The capture lab at EA sports HQ came up with a
new idea on how to capture as much detail as
possible within the game. This was called 3D head
scanning. The process would be set up by placing
18 cameras rigged in a circle of this dome which
would surround an athlete sitting in a chair. Giving
a 3D perspective view of the the players head.
With this process giving off higher detail you are left
with a higher expectation and standard for making
them look and move like real life. Humans are all
experts at noticing things when they are slightly
wrong or out of place, this could be from a facial
expression or the way someone is walking, so
making them seem as realistic as possible can
become a more challenging exercise for the
animators. When all the photos have been taken
they are sent into the fifa artists where the refine
the models and touch up on things like the finer
details of the hair as the programme cant pick up
every little detail of the face.
MOTION CAPTURE FIFA 13 - MOTION SUITS
Motion capture is a much more time
efficient and professional way of doing
animation. How the suits work is a set
of players would get suited up into
these black latex ‘Morph Suits’ with
20-30 reflective balls placed on the
joints and main body parts. These
players would act out scenarios within
a football game and they would be
recorded and transferred into 3D data
into a skeleton on the computer and
then that skeleton would be
transferred to the fully animated
characters. The players simulate
things like ball control kicking and
celebrations to make the game as
authentic and fun as possible.
SOURCES • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
• http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4m-qZl0Yqw
• http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a433631/motion-
capture-in-games-behind-the-scenes-in-total-war-splinter-
cell.html
• http://www.easports.com/fifa/products
