Debate about Vert- in Mass Effect ...

[JohnnyWakko]

... but more casual gamers often won't explot it. Again, developers often create their envoriments with such considerations in mind, and narrowing the FOV for narrower aspect ratios would subvert such intents.

Again, seems like you think you represent a large range if not the entire sample of gamers and developers that exist and are speaking for that entire sample.

I agree with the Blue Mak. You are just trolling.

[Sweetz]

So if someone expresses an opinion that's contrary to yours in a civil manner it's trolling?

Have you guys so easily given up on making valid counterarguments that now you just resort to name calling?

I've had my fill of discussing this topic on the Insiders forum, but there is merit to what kyleb says. No one is saying that vert-/+ is a preferable solution - only that if indeed these games were designed for 16:9 first and foremost then the widescreen experience is not being impacted as much as we believe.

Whether you believe the games were developed for 16:9 screens is a point of contention, but certainly as 360 games it's not like they loaded them up on a 16:9 TV a day before the game went gold and said "meh it's ok, print it". They had to be running and testing on HDTVs throughout development.

[BlueMak]

WHAT point of cutting the view and zooming in just to fit a widescreen view you DON'T get?

And all the previous mentioned games were made with the UNREAL 3 engine, so everyone single of those games, their developers have the SAME artistic view? Are you kidding me?

[Sweetz]

WHAT point of cutting the view and zooming in just to fit a widescreen view you DON'T get?

And all the previous mentioned games were made with the UNREAL 3 engine, so everyone single of those games, their developers have the SAME artistic view? Are you kidding me?

What part of "No one is saying that vert-/+ is a preferable solution" don't you get?

We're all in agreement that the way these games implement widescreen is not optimal and I agree that it's a result of the UE3 engine defaults.

However, if the games were designed at 16:9, and the developers chose the FOV specifically for that aspect, then it's really a matter of taller resolutions seeing more vertical space than the developer intended, not widescreen resolutions seeing less. That's all we're saying man. We're saying 16:9 isn't a compromised experience because that's (what we think) the game was designed at.

[kyleb]

However, if the games were designed at 16:9...

I don't understand how this can rightly be considered be a matter of question. The games being discussed here, and UE3 itself, were all designed to target current generation consoles, where 16:9 HD output is the optimal output and 4:3 support is secondary. That is an obvious fact supported by an abundance of evidence which you, as well as Glottis and myself presented previously, Furthermore as you noted, that fact has yet to be addressed with anything beyond ad hominem attacks. So, I am left at a loss here, where is there any "if" at all in this?

[Sweetz]

[quote]
However, if the games were designed at 16:9...

I don't understand how this can rightly be considered be a matter of question. The games being discussed here, and UE3 itself, were all designed to target current generation consoles, where 16:9 HD output is the optimal output and 4:3 support is secondary. That is an obvious fact supported by an abundance of evidence which you, as well as Glottis and myself presented previously, Furthermore as you noted, that fact has yet to be addressed with anything beyond ad hominem attacks. So, I am left at a loss here, where is there any "if" at all in this?
I agree, but I was trying to compromise a little in my diction.

It is still an assumption, one that I think is very reasonable based on the context and available evidence, but an assumption nonetheless. We weren't actually present for the development.

[kyleb]

What does actually being present matter when we have countless 16:9 screenshots and video from the development of these games all over the web? Surely the charge of assumption is better suited to those wanting to belive all that evidence is just some giant conspiracy?

[Sweetz]

What does actually being present matter when we have countless 16:9 screenshots and video from the development of these games all over the web? Surely the charge of assumption is better suited to those wanting to belive all that evidence is just some giant conspiracy?

A safe assumption is still an assumption. It's highly unlikely, but not impossible that they could still have developed the games at 4:3 despite all promo media being made at 16:9.

Anyway, I'm on your side man, don't argue with your supporters; that if was for the other side :) Just trying to get them to consider the fact that if the game was developed at 16:9 as we're asserting, then we're not really "missing" anything from the intended experience.

[BlueMak]

[quote]WHAT point of cutting the view and zooming in just to fit a widescreen view you DON'T get?

And all the previous mentioned games were made with the UNREAL 3 engine, so everyone single of those games, their developers have the SAME artistic view? Are you kidding me?

What part of "No one is saying that vert-/+ is a preferable solution" don't you get?

We're all in agreement that the way these games implement widescreen is not optimal and I agree that it's a result of the UE3 engine defaults.

However, if the games were designed at 16:9, and the developers chose the FOV specifically for that aspect, then it's really a matter of taller resolutions seeing more vertical space than the developer intended, not widescreen resolutions seeing less. That's all we're saying man. We're saying 16:9 isn't a compromised experience because that's (what we think) the game was designed at.

So you are saying that what the developers do is give height that they didn't want to, to the 4:3 users and that basicaly it is the 4:3 users that they suffer since they can't play the game as the developers originaly wanted?


hahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahaha
hahahahahahahahahahahaha
hahaha
hahahahahahahahahahahaha
HA

[Abram]

Looks liek this thread is becoming fairly unproductive.

See? I didn;t even have anything useful to add...

Let's hope they remedy it for the sequel.

[kyleb]

[quote]What does actually being present matter when we have countless 16:9 screenshots and video from the development of these games all over the web? Surely the charge of assumption is better suited to those wanting to belive all that evidence is just some giant conspiracy?

A safe assumption is still an assumption. It's highly unlikely, but not impossible that they could still have developed the games at 4:3 despite all promo media being made at 16:9.
And the videos of various early demonstrations, play testing, and such? And the framing of environments and action, as well as the HUDs and the menus, all demonstratively formatted to 16:9? And the comments from developers saying as much? I would like you have your support on this, and I do appreciate the sentiment, but I don't see how is discounting and ignoring the mounds of evidence widely available as anything less than proof will ever going to persuade anyone to accept that these games were designed for 16:9 displays.

Perhaps it would help if I explained the reason behind my interest in this issue. Since previous generation of games targeted 4:3 views, environments and action were often designed around that view. Hence, us widescreen users either wound extra view added with horz+, or part of the intended view cropped out with vert-. Granted, the former means of adapting a game to widescreen is obviously the preferable choice. However, that extra view added to a game designed at 4:3 and adapted to widescreen with with horz+ is superfluous to the experience in situations where the environments and action are framed to a narrower view. Now, thanks to consoles move to HD, we are starting to get games actually designed for 16:9, with the environment and the action in the gameplay deigned to fill our widescreen views. Quite simply, I'm happy that we are starting to get real widescreen games and would be disappointed to see pubic outcry persuade developers revert to the 4:3 safe widescreen implementations of yesteryear.

[Aziraphale Jasra]

The Xbox 360 version is forced letterboxed to 16:9 (just like Assassin's Creed) and the PC 16:9 uses the same FOV.

The Following comparisons are from the detailed report thread and this youtube video.



The character is running in the shot from the youtube video, but the FOV looks the same.



The bottom of the screen lines up with the character's waist in both OTS shots.

The codex does look as though it's been changed (i can't imagine they constrained themselves to a 4:3 safe area on the letterboxed version, but I'm not certain, as I've only seen the gameplay portions in action) and the windows in the character creator have been moved from the edges of the 16:9 frame into a 4:3 safe area (the same portion of the character bust is still displayed, this too is vert+ in 4:3).

In conclusion, Mass Effect is a 16:9 game, the FOV used in in the PC version is the same as that of the letterbox only/Anamorphic Xbox 360 version. The porters (Demiurge Studios) are the ones who open matted it. If they fix the issue in a patch, the proper way to do so would be to fix the codex and character creation screen alignment and then either add black bars to the non-16:9 ARs or add a FOV selector, leaving the current settings as the default, preferably letterboxed to 16:9 by default with an open matte option (the latter would be the ideal solution for everyone, as those of us who want the original intended AR and FOV get it by default, surround gaming is supported, and those who dislike letterboxing for whatever reason can remove the AR correction).


Just in case anyone wants to know due to the possibility of bias, I use a 16:10 CRT (a HP GDM-FW9012 specifically, which is an OEM version of the venerable Sony FW-900 Trinitron). I don't own an Xbox 360 and my current video card doesn't support Shader Model 3, otherwise I would have taken matched shots for the comparison.

[JohnnyWakko]

Have you guys so easily given up on making valid counterarguments that now you just resort to name calling?

Where?

[Sweetz]

So you are saying that what the developers do is give height that they didn't want to, to the 4:3 users and that basicaly it is the 4:3 users that they suffer since they can't play the game as the developers originaly wanted?

Yes exactly. First understand that vert-/+ is not really active choice of adding or removing height; it's merely the result of not changing the FOV based on different aspects. vert+ and vert- are the result of the exact same thing at the programmatic level (something which I believe I have a bit more experience with than you, to be a bit snarky), the only question is whether the static FOV was chosen at 4:3 or at 16:9.

Based on Aziraphale Jasra's post (thank you very, very much for that) there can't be any question anymore. The 360 has the same FOV at 16:9 as the PC version and goes anamorphic for 4:3. The PC version does not go anamorphic at 4:3, hence 4:3 users are seeing more vertical space than originally intended.

I understand that most people would not qualify that seeing more vertical space than the developer intended as "suffering". However, all standards established by WSGF is that keeping the same vertical space visible is ideal and adjusting the horizontal space visible is best. So open your mind for a second and at least consider for a moment that the game was developed at 16:9 - in that is case then 4:3 users are indeed seeing too much. We would consider an error just as seeing too little vertical height. This is why we're not arguing that vert+ is an ideal solution, only that it's not 16:9 users that aren't getting the "ideal" experience.

[BlueMak]

You make a good point, but, only if you do not consider that there are too many assumptions in that logic.
Also with 1st Person Shooters, like Bioshit, it is very clear how the "intended" FOV for WS users is too narrow and causes nausia to some level to too many users, when the 4:3 FOV works fine due to the different FOV and this only because the WS fov is too small AND zoomed in (you see less of the gun/hand for example).

Also the fact that ALL Unreal 3 engine based games have the exact same FOV as default is hardly a coincidence so how that supports that this is the artistic design view of the games' developers and not just using the default settings is something that I would LOVE to hear/read about from them.

[Sweetz]

You make a good point, but, only if you do not consider that there are too many assumptions in that logic.

Well, at least with Mass Effect, based on how the 360 version works, I think even the doubters have to admit that the game was made for 16:9.

I agree that UE3 games being vert-/+ is a result of the way the UE3 engine does things by default. The question is was the FOV in these games chosen at 16:9 or 4:3.

Also with 1st Person Shooters, like Bioshit, it is very clear how the "intended" FOV for WS users is too narrow and causes nausia to some level to too many users, when the 4:3 FOV works fine due to the different FOV and this only because the WS fov is too small AND zoomed in (you see less of the gun/hand for example).

Hey, I totally agree with you that Bioshock's FOV is much too narrow for widescreen PC users. It was a bad choice on their part - but that doesn't mean it wasn't their choice. On consoles where you typically sit much further away from the screen it's not such an issue - so it could just be lazy a holdover from console development.

Developers make bad choices all the time. Poor interfaces, annoying gameplay elements, etc. They can choose bad FOVs too. Just because they made a bad choice for an FOV at 16:9 doesn't mean they didn't actually choose that FOV at 16:9.

However, once you start bringing personal preference into it it get's tricky to have standards. I mean you can look at a game that is hor+, and still claim that the game would be better with an even larger FOV, because, for example, the game is based on a 75° FOV at 4:3 instead of a 90° FOV. Do we penalize them because we still think the FOV is too small even though it's hor+? If seeing more is better why, in our detailed reports, do we recommend people set their widescreen FOV based on whatever the 4:3 FOV is, instead of just telling them to set the largest FOV possible that doesn't have too much distortion?

Again I think we're all agree that vert-/+, is not an ideal solution. The only thing that we want people to consider is that if a game was designed at 16:9, then it's not a matter of widescreen users being "gyped", it's really non-widescreens seeing more than intended.

[BlueMak]

You are right, if we accept that they wanted it to be like this due to artistic views. But since that wasn't the reason, I don't see how what you just said is valid.
It's irrelevant IMO.

[kyleb]

You make a good point, but, only if you do not consider that there are too many assumptions in that logic.
Also with 1st Person Shooters, like Bioshit, it is very clear how the "intended" FOV for WS users is too narrow and causes nausia to some level to too many users, when the 4:3 FOV works fine due to the different FOV and this only because the WS fov is too small AND zoomed in (you see less of the gun/hand for example).

BioShock filled with examples of how the game's FOV was chosen for 16:9 and then adapted to 4:3 with vert+. For instance, on the inlatal ride on the bathysphere into Rapture, a screen drops down and a film plays on it while is the player locked in a fixed postion. That postion allows the video to fill most of the vertical hight of the 16:9 view to provide an optimal view, as seen here:


On the other hand, the 4:3 view of the same film is is far from optimal, barely using half of the the area of the screen:

[BlueMak]

Got any in game footage (where you move or shoot at things) that show how the 4:3 users lose from the extra view?

Also, Kyleb, do you mind answering for once how you explain that ALL Unreal 3 engine based games have the exact same FOV and deal with widescreen resolutions vs 4:3? Or do you still suggest that the developers of all those games just happen to have the same artistic view and belief on what looks better for widescreen users, including the more limited camera view and zoomed in aspect.

[Aziraphale Jasra]

@BlueMak: Even though Vert- in 16:9 is a Unreal Engine 3 default, we need to look at each game individually.
UT3 is almost certainly designed for 4:3, as it uses the same default FOV that its designed for 4:3 precursors used.
Blacksite: Area 51 is probably designed for 16:9, as the loading screen is Hor- in every other AR.
Mass Effect is 100% definitely designed for 16:9, as it was letterboxed to that AR in all resolutions on the Xbox 360 version.
The idea that none of the developers are choosing to use 16:9 as the base ratio is every bit as ludicrous as suggesting that all of them are.

As for problems in 4:3 mode resulting from the heightened FOV, I've heard that there are points in Bioshock where your arms pass through the camera. Not certain about that one though, as I haven't seen pictures or video. Can anyone confirm whether or not this is the case in 4:3 or widescreen with increased FOV?