Replays

I mentioned this in another thread but zeto suggested that I break it off into its own thread.

PoE should absolutely allow you to save replays. This feature is becoming very common in almost all games to the point where it's pretty much expected now. From what I gather, they aren't too difficult to implement either because the save file just contains movement and action cues that allow the entire battle to be recreated in the game engine. Throw in a basic replay editor that allowed you some camera control, the ability to crop out individual clips, and a video encoding options and you'll have a lot of very happy fans posting a whole lot of youtube videos.

This feature is important enough that it should be included sooner rather than later. What other capabilities would people want with their replays?

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zeto wrote:

from the other thread
This needs its own thread. Replays are so mandatory... they are a fantastic way to share a game and relive other people's experiences.

I played a game once where the implementation of replays occurred relatively soon after closed beta release, however even that was too late and a lot of great unique moments were lost.

There's always fraps until that happens, but i do agree its a great feature especially for PvP and tutorial videos. Plus more videos on youtube equal free advertising.

I agree. That would be very useful feature.

yep indeed.
Videos on youtube are nice extra advertising for free and with a build in feature u probably get a lot more.

Fraps is ok but not everyone has a full version and as far as i remember the free one could only save very short clips.

It would be really great if you still would make this feature.
I would even drop some builds to youtube as soon as i would find out any good build..
Its always good to share your ideas with others.

I think replays would be awesome.

Sure, not many (or any that I know of?) ARPG's use this feature, but that should change. It's just an awesome feature.

Anyways, it's good to hear that you guys are at least considering it.

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Chris wrote:

For RTS games (and MOBAs such as HoN), replays are of course mandatory, but they're not yet typical in Action RPGs.

All the more reason to get out ahead of the curve.

It doesn't need a fully featured editor immediately. Even if it was just a bare bones command line toolset, that would be way better than nothing.

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Chris wrote:

We currently don't support replays, though it's possible we will in the future. I'd definitely like to have them, but it's a matter of budget and logistics.

The actual task of logging actions in a deterministic way is not the hardest part - it's the user interface and infrastructure that has to go with it. These would consume a lot of time and money that we've allocated towards getting the game to a nearly complete state for the August beta.

For RTS games (and MOBAs such as HoN), replays are of course mandatory, but they're not yet typical in Action RPGs.

In another game, I know the methodology of providing replays was to compress the packet stream for the player and save it. The game then simply played a replay by accepting the linear stream. I'm unsure how long that would take to implement, but I can't imagine it'd be outrageously hard.

Early development is THE best time to do it. It can show you bugs that otherwise cannot be explained, and early development is a time where unique things happen that will never happen again later (once they are changed or fixed.)

Anyway, the packet streams are usually quite small once compressed (you might already compress/encrypt them.) Then you just need replay functions to load the stream and step through it.

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they're not yet typical in Action RPGs

I was gonna say I have a lot of games and I can't think of any that have it but I mostly play RPGs.Amazingly the Ngage had this feature for a few games(3d only)which seemed pretty cool for a handheld.

It would be a nice feature though I agree,captures with Fraps tend to take up a lot of space.