Horrible! Actually playing this kind of game!

…

Time flies, and in a blink of an eye, we arrive at August 14, 1999. This day is POKENI’s usual internal demonstration before the launch of new games.

In fact, pokeni has quite a few masterpieces. In addition to the games that have been booked for release next year, there is also a game called "Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos" that is under development at Blizzard Studio in the United States.

However, judging from Qing Zhiyuan’s understanding of Blizzard’s gang, if it doesn’t take two or three years to produce, I’m afraid it won’t be released if it’s delayed a few times.

In the previous life, the initial release date of Warcraft 3 was 2002, and Qing Zhiyuan only asked them to release it in 2001.

When the time comes, Warcraft 3 will be integrated with the Dandelion gaming platform and become an exclusive game, which will also help the gaming platform boost sales.

It doesn't matter at all whether the game is released on DC or PC.

Warcraft 3 is actually a very typical game suitable for keyboard and mouse operation. It is almost impossible to micro-manage multiple units at the same time on a console, and the effective operations per minute are as high as two to three hundred.

The latest pokeni upcoming game is——

"monster hunter"

Finally waited for this day.

The Monster Hunter team is located in Pokeni's main conference room in Ginza, which is still far away from Sega.

But when Kamiya Hideki was giving a demonstration, there were many colleagues who came from Sega to watch.

The entire large conference room was full of people. To be precise, there were many people standing against the wall, densely packed, blocking the entire conference room.

This shows the influence of this game within the company.

The internal demonstration of the game can also be regarded as the last preview work for the release. In addition to the usual testers of the project team running the game, the internal display has also become a repertoire.

What is displayed and performed at the E3 electronics exhibition does not necessarily mean that the development was completed at that time. It is very likely that the demo version or unfinished version, also known as the trial version, will be brought to the electronics exhibition for display and production for publicity purposes. The warm-up work also serves as a facade to keep players looking forward to the company's games.

Therefore, internal company demonstrations are still necessary later.

The main purpose is to let colleagues from other departments, especially Sega students who are new to the pokeni family, come and observe and learn.

On the other hand, there is quite a sense of ceremony in it, just like a swearing-in ceremony. You need to build up your morale before going out for the expedition. After reviewing the game content through the demonstration, Qing Zhiyuan feels more confident.

If something goes wrong on site, it will be necessary to take some time to review.

But under normal circumstances it won't be a big problem.

…

Countless people came here, even squeezing out the seats that were originally supposed to be occupied by colleagues from the Monster Hunter project team.

After all, the conference room has limited space and can only accommodate about 40 people at most, assuming everyone has to stand.

Although everyone has a certain understanding of "Monster Hunter" at the E3 electronics exhibition or through online media and printed newspapers, and knows how awesome this game is, it can almost outshine the others and shine at the E3 electronics exhibition. to describe.

However, I haven’t seen much real-life experience, so I came here to see what this game masterpiece, which has been praised by media magazines and has high hopes from the company, is like.

Seeing that it was almost time and the boss was already in place, Hideki Kamiya turned on the game console and started his demonstration process.

The icon of Monster Hunter is specially designed. The image of Laoshanlong is integrated with the font of Monster Hunter. It looks very freehand and high-end at the same time.

Hideki Kamiya starts the game.

He ran through the process. It started with a cutscene, then switched back to the real scene. When the other party had a conversation with the character you were operating, this was the first time he entered the character creation interface.

Because time is limited, and the current engine has not yet developed the face pinching and mouthparts systems, the game model is to choose 1 from 4, two male and two female, plus about 10 sets of hair and hair color combinations, players can choose from limited combinations Splice it into your own character image.

The advantage of doing this is——

Save the difficulty of game development, otherwise it will take a lot of manpower and energy to make a face-pinching system. The face-pinching system is one of the goals of future engines, and there is no need to implement it now.

Then, the several model combinations given by the art were carefully selected and carefully designed by them, so no matter how players match them, the aesthetics of the characters are guaranteed, and they will not appear like in the previous life of "Monster Hunter: World" There are all kinds of strange images of veteran cadres making faces.

But Qing Zhiyuan is not disgusted with [veteran cadres] pinching their faces, but thinks it is a very good marketing tool.

Some players spontaneously provide their own face-shaping parameters on the Internet, whether it is beautiful or ugly, it is always a good gimmick and can trigger topics.

There are even many players who may have never played Monster Hunter in the first place, but they bought it because they wanted to try it after Wang Laoju’s ugly video of an old cadre pinching his face.

On the one hand, it is topical, and on the other hand, topicality will bring traffic.

So in the future, if I have the time and energy, I will definitely do face-shaping.

And another important appearance system——

The mouthpart system, as the name suggests, means that when the game character speaks, the mouth will open and close like a normal human being, and the tongue inside can be vaguely seen.

This is to increase the sense of reality, but the same problem -

The cost performance of the mouthpart system is very low, and it takes a lot of time to develop this system.

When the mouthpart system reaches its extreme, it actually needs to capture the person's facial expressions through the motion capture system in advance, and then match the pronunciation with the mouth shape.

In this way, after the player pinches the face, when the character speaks in the game, you will find that the shape of his lips actually matches the voice.

It’s not difficult to do this, it just takes time to polish.

Technology also needs to be accumulated.

But even if "Monster Hunter" doesn't do these, it doesn't matter much, because the original Monster Hunter didn't either.

In terms of graphics, "Monster Hunter" can now completely beat the first generation of Monster Hunter.

Qing Zhiyuan’s inner evaluation is——

Although affected by the hardware, the number of faces of the character cannot be too many, which means that the refinement of the character cannot be high.

But judging by the level of this era, what Monster Hunter can do now is definitely world-leading.

With a limited number of faces, it is quite remarkable to be able to improve the picture quality to such a good level.

A large part of this is due to Qing Zhiyuan. His art design has made up for the lack of number of faces to a large extent. Although the improvement is limited, it is already far ahead of this era.

After matching the character image, Kamiya Hideki operated his character. He first ran through the novice process, then simply took over the main mission and started the first inevitable plot event.

After the plot event ended, a battle took place between Kamiya Hideki and Blue Speed ​​Dragon King, which ended with the player winning and Blue Speed ​​Dragon King escaping.

The optimization of the program is very good. Judging from the battle process with the Blue Dragon King demonstrated by Hideki Kamiya just now, the whole process is very smooth, and the monster's response is very agile. The battle process can be described as hearty and heart-stirring.

Colleagues around me have all stepped in, which is excellent proof:

Proof that this game is really well done.

The whole process lasted about half an hour, and Kamiya Hideki did not continue the demonstration.

Due to limited time, it is estimated that it will take more than 40 hours to complete the main process. It is definitely unrealistic to give a complete demonstration in the conference room.

…

"Monster Hunter" has developed a large world so far, which is divided into 4 different map sections. Each section has its own characteristics, and the structure of the entire ecosystem is very complete.

There are nearly 50 kinds of monsters, and although half of them are distinguished by different dyeing, the types are already quite rich.

There are also various matching gameplays - such as collecting plants, which can also be used to set traps and make props.

There are different hunting methods according to the attributes of different beasts. Players can rely on their own skills to hunt, or they can outwit the monsters based on their characteristics...

The richness and fun of the game are definitely guaranteed.

When players experience it in the big world, they will feel that the world described in "Monster Hunter" is real.

Moreover, different parts of the monster itself drop different items. There are more than 40 kinds of equipment that players can use to make matching items, and the equipment itself can trigger the appearance of the monster.

At the same time, the parts of these monsters can be used for cooking, medicine, etc...

The game system is very diversified, and the purpose is to allow players to experience an almost real Monster Hunter world.

After the demonstration was completed, the entire conference room was silent.

Even when Kamiya Hideki raised his head and looked at them, these people had not come back to their senses.

After a few seconds, I don't know who took the lead. Deafening applause broke out in the room.

“Oh my God, this is the game that was so hyped at the E3 electronics show. When I read the newspapers and magazines, I thought it was a bit exaggerated. Now that I see the actual results, I can only say that my imagination is too poor.

The effect of the game is much better than what was reported, right? "

"This game is amazing."

But when everyone witnessed all this with their own eyes, "Monster Hunter" gave POKENI employees great confidence.

Everyone believes that POKENI will get better and better, and there will be more and more projects like Monster Hunter in the future.

…

After the internal demonstration ended, the next more than a month was the promotion period for "Monster Hunter".

At the end of August, the PV of Monster Hunter was broadcast on major TV stations and pokeni’s official website.

In addition to the promotional videos previously shown at the E3 electronics show, P has also edited several different promotional animations and actual machine demonstrations.

In order to let players know more clearly what kind of game this is, Qing Zhiyuan asked several of the company's more powerful colleagues to record the battles in the game from their perspectives, and the final results were quite good.

When the big scene of the game came out, the giant guys in Monster Hunter World appeared one after another, accompanied by the magnificent BGM of "Proof of Heroes", which directly shocked the players when they saw the PV.

Just hearing the music makes me feel like my heavenly spirit cap has been lifted off.

"Wow, this scene is too grand, isn't it? Is this the legendary Monster Hunter that caused a standing ovation at the E3 electronics exhibition and caused a sensation?"

"When I read the reports and publicity, I thought it was almost the same as Mushi Master but with more battles. Now when I saw the battle demonstration animation, I suddenly felt that this game was much more interesting than I imagined."

"Indeed, there seem to be very few other games I've seen that have such large monsters."

"But don't you think the combat movements in the PV are a bit stiff? I always feel that the weapons are very heavy, and the movements every time I attack are quite exaggerated, and they look very cumbersome."

"Well...it's hard to say, but the action of P Club's previous combat games were quite agile and smooth, especially the Diablo series. When the attack speed is increased, it feels like a convulsion.

On the contrary, I think Monster Hunter’s display is quite realistic. "

The design of Monster Hunter’s action and strike sense is indeed very unique. It is different from the current mainstream games that pursue fast, gorgeous, agile and strong action sense——

In Monster Hunter, when players use different weapons to attack, their actions will be different.

The larger the weapon, the more cumbersome it is, and it has a long forward and backward swing time. For example, if a sledgehammer goes out, you cannot interrupt the process from carrying it to hitting the ground. You can only interrupt the whole set. After completing an action, you can take on the next action.

The so-called forward swing is the time between swinging the sledgehammer and smashing it out, and the backswing is the period between when the hammer hits the ground and when the player lifts the hammer to take the next action.

In fact, it is not very friendly to players, and sometimes it may even lead to very negative benefits because your attack timing is wrong, but this is the characteristic of Monster Hunter. While pursuing realism, it also seizes the opportunity for players. The requirements have become higher.

It is not a game that can be cleared by simply adding attributes, but requires more command and effective and precise reactions, and mastering the characteristics of different monsters to become a qualified monster hunter.

"Perhaps this kind of experience is what people want. The specific feeling in the game will have to wait until the game is released to know."

"Yeah, yes indeed."

"POKENI! Hurry up and sell it, I will definitely buy it!"

"When Monster Hunter is released, I will definitely get a copy and experience it."

"Anyway, POKENI, hurry up and send out the game. I'm already so horny and thirsty."

"Ah! What should I do? Why do you want me to see the promotional video of "Monster Hunter" so early? Why?! I feel like I'm going to die without playing "Monster Hunter"!"

"Together, POKENI, please post it quickly! I will definitely support you, I just ask you to post it quickly!"

…

…

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No updates tonight

thank you all

See you tomorrow (end of chapter)