If you want to immerse yourself for hours, invest in a good camera.

[shawn]

Alright kids, here's how a proper ridiculous whine thread works.

See, Phase Three of my Secret Hidden Agenda is now underway. There are elected officials whom I control from my underground lair positioned strategically throughout the forum. They will lay in wait while threads such as these are posted to undermine GW2, and then, on my command, we shall launch the friendship nuke, bringing gwo down upon itself from the inside. Why am I telling you this? Because the evil villain always explains his plan in like, every movie ever, duh? Besides, not having a site to check while on break at work would make sense because.. well. I don't know. Who said conspiracy theories had to make sense?!

Or, I'm just bored and happened to find something on reddit I wanted to talk about.

You know, whichever makes more sense to you.

---

So here's the deal, there have been some complaints cropping up in several threads about how the character model moves in relation to the camera. It's almost reaching beaten-dead-horse status, however this latest thread has several handy images explaining the alleged problem:





It can apparently be seen in the majority of videos, with this one linked as an example of it happening:


And this linked as an example of it fixed (which is, strangely, from the same gstar game build):



I'll admit that I had no idea what they were on about at first, since the talk of 'sliding' led me to believe the issue was with the actual animation or speed of the character models legs/feet, as opposed to the entire models position relative to the camera. But after noticing it, I must admit that the latter seems to provide a higher level of immersion, somehow. It may just be that I'm used to other MMOs/Assassin's Creed 2.

But regardless, it's certainly got some people riled up:

This is gonna sound stupid to a lot of people but this makes me not want to get GW2, and I've been pumped about it for a couple years now.
The way your character interacts with the world is probably the single most immersive element in an MMORPG. If my character is gonna slide around on the ground like they're just a computer sprite instead of a character in a world I'm gonna find it next to impossible to stay immersed in the game.
If Arenanet want to compete with WoW and make the best PC game ever (as they've claimed they intend to) they need to match or exceed WoW's level of polish. WoW did foot-to-ground contact and "character weightiness" the best I've seen so far. That's the benchmark Arenanet need to reach and they're nowhere near it based on the footage I've seen (tons).

I am actually pretty shocked they have not yet addressed this, it makes it look very amateur which is silly given the quality of the rest of the game. So many games get this wrong and one game that they should take note of is assassins creed, they have pretty much nailed running and walking animations including changing direction.

The only thing I dislike about what I've seen of this game is that the characters have the same "floatiness" they had in GW1, where your character's feet don't always seem to be in contact with the ground. It's like they're ice-skating or something.
I found it extremely immersion breaking in the original game and I'll probably feel the same in GW2.
Very few MMOs get this right, and for all it's flaws (and the fact that Blizzard eventually ruined it) WoW did it perfectly.

Ive never noticed this, but now I will notice it in every video and in every game that has this issue and I already know it will really annoy me. THANKS. I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY NOW.

So what do you think? Legitimate issue that has the potential to ruin immersion, an issue which seems fixed in the latest builds, a vocal minority crying over something ridiculous yet again, or something that should be a toggleable option? Or do you not care as long as the grass doesn't look the same as gw1?

[Guided Daggers]

I never found this immersion-breaking in GW1. I never even noticed that the characters were 'floating'. Now that ArenaNet knows, I'm sure it'll be fixed. Let's celebrate!

[Vana]

[shawn]

Leopards do not bite their tails in real life. That image is photoshopped, and is ruining my forum immersion.

[Mehtis]

I... have to check those videos more carefully later, but right now, don't see a problem.

[raspberry jam]

I think it should be the other way around. If you strafe. the camera should shift to show more of the side you are moving towards, because that's where you'd be looking if this was in real life. Try it yourself. Get up right now and strafe. You'll notice that you are looking in the direction you're moving cause you don't want to run into a wall and look ridiculous. In short the bottom picture of post #1 is correct since it aligns you to what you are seeing in real life when you do the same motion in real life that's what you see in real life.

Also I agree it looks like GW2 chars look like they are moonwalking all over the place. However that is the same for any MMO especially when you run backwards (try it and see).

[Akirai Annuvil]

If you strafe. the camera should shift to show more of the side you are moving towards, because that's where you'd be looking if this was in real life.

That'd be fine but isn't really the issue.

The issue can be summarized thusly: when strafing, the camera centers on the place your character model is when moving forward, while in actuality your actual character model is located slightly in the direction you're strafing. The character model goes slightly off center.
This is conflated by (possibly erroneous) animation, which causes the movement to not be lended the weight it should have.
Unless shawn wants to correct me?

Anyway, animation's pretty important for immersion but they're not going to get strafing animation right. Too many animations have to work in a range of size options. Camera focus remaining on your character model (possibly with a slight tilt in the direction you're moving) seems an easy fix though and would improve the look of the game.

[raspberry jam]

That'd be fine but isn't really the issue.

The issue can be summarized thusly: when strafing, the camera centers on the place your character model is when moving forward, while in actuality your actual character model is located slightly in the direction you're strafing. The character model goes slightly off center.
This is conflated by (possibly erroneous) animation, which causes the movement to not be lended the weight it should have.
Unless shawn wants to correct me?

Anyway, animation's pretty important for immersion but they're not going to get strafing animation right. Too many animations have to work in a range of size options. Camera focus remaining on your character model (possibly with a slight tilt in the direction you're moving) seems an easy fix though and would improve the look of the game.

It's because the camera following algorithm. They use the same way to move the camera when the character turns as it runs forward. That is to say there is a certain "inertia" (in starting movements only, not stopping them) in the camera.

It's standard in a lot of third person games.

[Alaris]

It's actually easier to make characters still on the screen, which imo means ANet had a reason to make it this way. Perhaps it gives you a greater feeling of movement or something.

If people complain about this, life is good. Honestly, if this is the biggest thing you can find to complain about, then learn to be happy instead.

-----

A toggle option would be fine if enough people dislike this.

[Amywien]

Maybe it's to make it easier to strafe (and dodge) while targetting something with the mouse at the same time.