[Axem]

And I was a little underwhelmed by the choice of the soundtrack. It's too ****ing iconic. Instead of me being amazed by what I am seeing that is novel, and feeling the music and so on, all that goes in my head is "What has Deus Ex to do with this?", and I knew right away, it depicts Wargods as Icarus, but it's too ****in literal. It's a wink wink that is not worth the unoriginality of it all.

I'll be sure to change the music to "We are the Champions" for the next release.

[Luis Dias]

derp

[Crybertrance]

Well for what its worth, I thought the choice of music was really good....I had goosebumps. It was epic! 

Oh, and:

And I was a little underwhelmed by the choice of the soundtrack. It's too ****ing iconic. Instead of me being amazed by what I am seeing that is novel, and feeling the music and so on, all that goes in my head is "What has Deus Ex to do with this?", and I knew right away, it depicts Wargods as Icarus, but it's too ****in literal. It's a wink wink that is not worth the unoriginality of it all.

Respectfully, even though I have played Deus Ex multiple times (and watched the trailer countless times) I never felt Icarus "underwhelming" during Icarus (no pun intended).

[General Battuta]

To understand better my criticism, compare it with the cutscene in WiH1. It doesn't portray the original frigate being slashed to pieces by the 14th battlegroup in a WOWish angle. We had seen it, no need to rehash it. Instead it showed us a completely new battle with new issues, new problems, new themes, new questions. What a waste of time would have been spent in recreating the initial encounter between the GTVA and Sol at the end of AoA. Even worse if the soundtrack was something to the tune of something iconic as "Leaving Earth" by Mansell or anyother.

edit: After seeing the old intro, I have to say I disagree with Axem's take that it was repeting what we were already seeing.... because what it shows is more important than the fireworks. It shows the emotions behind the fireworks, culminating in Calder's frustration. (imagine WiH1 intro without the spoken words... can you?)

/Angry Rant

The intro as it stands is so necessary. It has to recapitulate the emotional arc from Delenda Est (without just replaying Delenda Est) so that it can deposit Laporte on the Masyaf, and the player into the narrative, at exactly the right point - both temporally and affectively. The danger we had to avoid was bringing in anything new - just amping up the magnitude on the events of DE so the whole magnitude of the effort behind that failure could be seen.

It was so much weaker with dialogue, too. One of the risks with these threads is people latch onto cut stuff and think it 'should be in', but it was all cut for a reason, and we don't crowdsource our designs. 

[Luis Dias]

To be clear, I'm not suggesting you should crowdsource anything, or even take anyone's advice. I'm a complete believer on "do what you believe nevermind the others". However, once the product is shipped it is utterly exposed to every criticism others are able to regurgitate from their keyboards/mouths...

Regarding the effort, it's a choice. I am moved by Calder's words, and how they strike an emotional punch of frustration. The intro as it stands merely show three large commitments and a final sad twist, placing us again near Sol waiting to be rescued. There is no emotional connection to Calder. Don't read my "suggestion" as a "real" suggestion. It is not. I am not aware of the problems you faced (and I truly understand the nature of them) nor your hacks around things you wanted to do, etc. What the cut speech provides us with is a notion on what the intro cutscene is lacking. IMHO.

Don't read into my words too much harshness though. I love this campaign. I'm still collecting emotions and feedbacks while I am still to finish it (it's too hard and I haven't touched it for weeks now, no time for it). I'll be much more even-handed when I am finally able to make an exegetic analysis (ah!) of it all.

[General Battuta]

Yeah, I gotcha.

I don't feel like the dialogue adds any emotion to the cutscene. It does paint it with some - I'm not sure what to call them. Fake feelings? The kind of thing you get when you're watching a trailer and the music's all dooo dooooooo DAHHHHH and the trailer cuts together a bunch of disconnected lines of men yelling about how much they've sacrificed and how it's a very dark night but they're going to hold until the dawn doo doooaooahhhhhhhh wahhhhhh. (It was far from final dialogue when it was cut.) Calder can't say anything really substantive beyond 'we're waiting for the Wargods, uh oh, the Wargods are screwed!' Which, narratively, makes it all feel rather peripheral: the real story happened somewhere else, in those missions we just played last act. What's the point of a beautiful cutscene that describes a peripheral commentary on something we already saw?

The genuine problem, though, is that dialogue there centers the narrative on Calder and his feelings, his antagonism with Steele, whereas the scene needs to draw the viewer back to the Wargods and Laporte in order to deposit both the character and the player at the right place to begin Act 3. That's why I think the wordless final version works so much better - we see all the enormous weight balanced on the Wargods, all the battles depending on you, and then the moment of failure and retreat. It focuses down from the huge sweep of the war to the end of Sunglare and the beginning of the Act 3 narrative.

Those message beeps also totally kill the mood.

[Gray113]

If this was voice acted then I could understand the desire for dialog to add emotion to the scene, however I think that the music already sets the mood and reading Calder's transmissions just distracts from the fireworks going on around. I dont think that the opening cutscene would have had the same wow factor with that distraction.

[Spoon]

Really interesting read on some inside dev thought and development process!
Not that it needed confirming, but it really cements that Axem is truely the king of FREDing cutscenes and that Battuta has great insight in game development.

/Angry Rant

After typing all of this you really should have thought to yourself "should I really put this for all to see on the internet?" Before hitting that post button.
Too bad you didn't. Now you just look like a...

(No really. You are getting angry over how this amazing cutscene doesn't fit your definition of amazing. I don't wanna call you autistic but... thats pretty damn assburgerish, brah.)

Edit: I've seen the version with dialogue in it. The version without it is definitely better.

[General Battuta]

I like Luis Dias rants, I feel they are often thoughtful and contain interesting and nuanced criticism!

[cmap38]

I actually thought the real intro was pretty engaging storywise, mainly because I wasn't sure how those "distraction" enagements were going to end. Yes, the end credits of WiH R1 showed the destroyers parked in various places, but I wasn't convinced that I should consider that canon. So I was watching the intro for the first time wondering if a Solaris was going to bite the dust - or, less likely I suppose, a GTVA destroyer. After all, Wih R1 ended on such a down note for the Wargods that I could imagine the BP team really taking a hammer to the UEF and knocking out a Solaris to impress upon us the scale of the strategic defeat. All three chapters have impressed upon us how integral the Solaris destroyers are to the UEF's defense efforts, so I think there's definitely some emotional engagement whenever one might come in harms way.

At the same time, it was very gratifying to see the alternate (and inferior) intro for a number of reasons. I found the real intro to be hard to follow, and I immediately rewatched it twice to glean everything I could from it. It's so fast-paced, and it took some amount of seconds for me to be sure that I was indeed watching battles going on during Delenda Est. You're not really given any clear indications as to whether Calder's and Netreba's battles were wins, losses, or stalemates, nor what sort of losses the different fleets incurred. This information might not be necessary for the narrative, and that's fine. But learning a bit more about what was actually happening in those battles in this cut intro was definitely interesting, and so I really enjoyed watching it.

I do agree, however, that the cut intro is inferior to the final product. It just falls a bit flat, cinematically. By comparison, actively contrasting all three major engagements as the real intro did was a powerful storytelling device.

One final thing: that very first shot in the real intro, with the fighter first coming into view... and that music... is a little awe inspiring.

[Spoon]

I like Luis Dias rants, I feel they are often thoughtful and contain interesting and nuanced criticism!

Welp, its your party.
I mean, I'm all for critcism, but I feel the way this rant was delivered left something to be desired.

[crazy_dave]

Thank's for the inside scoop! Always cool to see these things.

I like both versions of the intro scene. I can both see why some people prefer the old and why some, including yourselves, prefer the new. They're different, emphasising different aspects. I agree with the others that it is nice to see Calder's being depicted in the original scene, but revisiting the horror of Delenda Est, wordless, is a great emotional starting point for the story. So in the end, I prefer the version you guys settled on.

[crazy_dave]

However, a similar cut scene with Calder and Laporte fighting Steele to begin Act 4 could be a great way to start that Act

BTW for the ending cutscene for Act 3, why was it chosen to have the Toutatis receive Laporte at Mars, wouldn't it have been at Neptune?

[The E]

No. Toutatis was at Mars getting a refit (You did notice the two humongous mass drivers mounted to her prow, yes?).

[-Norbert-]

It would also have been easier to let Laportes new identity pop into existance on Mars rather, without raising suspicoun, than in a just recently re-conquered terretory.

[crazy_dave]

No. Toutatis was at Mars getting a refit (You did notice the two humongous mass drivers mounted to her prow, yes?).

I did not notice that ... but I like it.

EDIT: Went back and looked, now I see them.

It would also have been easier to let Laportes new identity pop into existance on Mars rather, without raising suspicoun, than in a just recently re-conquered terretory.

That's going to be tough regardless ... though despite what I said in an another thread about the UEF's lack of cross communication between the fleets and the council being a problem, that would actually help Laporte's anonymity.

[Gray113]

Will the Toutatis get any more additions to her armament? Do these upgrades also apply to the other Solarises?

[Luis Dias]

(No really. You are getting angry over how this amazing cutscene doesn't fit your definition of amazing. I don't wanna call you autistic but... thats pretty damn assburgerish, brah.)

"Angry" was a misnomer, yes.

[Echelon9]

As a coder, I found in the inclusion of adjustaudiovolumebug.fs2, a single mission to reproduce consistently a bug report, very pleasing.

Given the assistance these have towards fixing bug reports, I'm going to make an effort to resolve it for the BP team Why "JOSHUA" though?

[Phantom Hoover]

Will the Toutatis get any more additions to her armament? Do these upgrades also apply to the other Solarises?

The Eris has all kinds of integrated AWACS magic, the Solaris simply hasn't been shot half to pieces.