Talk:Oni/Positioning

Positioning Statement - Oni	Commentary by Oni fans
Genre Platforms Expected Action Windows 95/98, Windows NT, MacOS October, 1999	Just to emphasize, this file was dated Jan. 1999, and they still thought Oni was coming out in 10 months. Well, as long as their planned feature list was reasonable, I suppose there wasn't an issue.... --Iritscen
Buyer Analysis Action gamers High-end/3D gamers Anime fans Fighting game fans
Flavor Konoko crouched behind a pile of debris as a TCTF car rumbled by, thumping along the potholed road. Twilight was approaching, and people had already retreated into their homes. The street was no place for the innocent. She had set the trap to terminate the criminals, but still, her former compatriots would not approve of her actions. Soon, they would go too. With fatal recklessness, a group of men swaggered from hiding and entered the building, obviously armed, obviously armored. Silence stretched for two seconds, three. The night exploded as a burst of shots, ricochets and screams pierced the air. Konoko closed her eyes, relishing the sounds of vengeance. A roomful of her enemies dead, and she hadn’t fired a shot.	"Relishing the sounds of vengeance", eh? This isn't your daddy's Konoko. --Iritscen
Innovations Merging of shooter and fighter into a new gaming experience Inverse kinematic body animations – characters will realistically fall onto and over objects. Body parts will react independently to bullets, fists and tables. Realistic Radiosity lighting Advanced interpolation gives instantaneous response and eliminates all animation popping Real time free form shadow generation Dynamically destructible environments Agile and responsive character control Dynamic character (appearance, personality and animations)	These are elaborated on below, so let's comment there. --Iritscen
Selling Points Full Contact Action™: the first seamless fusion of gunplay and martial arts “Fistfights and firefights”; empty your clip into a pack of opponents, then drop the gun and take out the survivors with flying kicks and neck-snapping throws.	I don't know if Oni was the first in this area, but I do have to say that this is the one selling point that they really came through with. Incidentally, that trademark symbol is purely decorative, as I see no record of Bungie trademarking the phrase Full Contact Action. --Iritscen
Realistic 3D Environment: a brand new 3D engine designed to bring extremely realistic environments to life Huge, multi-elevation 3D urban environments, accurately modeled by architects Radiosity Lighting Real-time shadow generation	I think it's safe to say that Brent was always planning on baking in the radiosity solutions generated by 3D Studio Max. He never claims that this lighting will be dynamic, so in fact they met this promise, although it does seem that the use of radiosity solutions was of rather inconsistent quality. Real-time shadow generation would refer to the primitive shadow seen under Konoko in pre-beta shots like THIS and THIS. --Iritscen
Instant Interaction Technology: Interpolation - go smoothly from a run into a sidestep into a flip over a box into a spinning kick into a slide under a quickly closing door. Instantaneous response to the controls. Inverse kinematics - target individual body parts, smash your opponent’s head into a nearby wall, watching his body slump to the floor. Destructible environments - shoot holes through walls, collapse pillars on opponents. Rigid-body physics - move any object around.	Well, at least they got the interpolation in there. When it comes to IK, destructible environments, and rigid-body physics, I have no idea how they still planned to write all that code and release in 10 months, but perhaps Brent generated this wish list at the start of the project (1997) and just never updated it to reflect their gradually lowering ambitions. In this note on the old forum by PR guy Matt Soell, he explains that IK was no longer needed because they achieved their goals (such as disarm moves) through other means. Well, disarm moves are nice, but this original doc indicates that they had higher goals than that for IK. Also, is Soell saying that they had IK quasi-working before they changed their minds? Could this mid-stream change explain the primitive physics in the retail version of the game? --Iritscen
Wide-open Gameplay: Multiplayer Multiple ways to progress through levels. Compelling main character. Anime style. Detailed/interesting plot. Dynamic characters that transform in skills, behavior and appearance as the story develops	Before we jump on Bungie West for too many unfulfilled goals, it might be worth noting that this version of the document far pre-dates the MS acquisition, which brought a swift halt to development. MP was not publicly cut until mid-2000, a month before the MS buyout was announced. --Iritscen
Competition & Analysis Tomb Raider III     Most successful third person action/adventure series to date. Oni is much more action oriented and will have a distinct look. We also have hand to hand fighting and much cooler and more varied animation. Our technology should also be superior.	This one came out in 1998. I haven't played much Tomb Raider, but this sounds like a fair assessment to me. --Iritscen
Max Payne     [Remedy/3D Realms, GT] 3rd person, real world full of character and atmosphere. Graffiti textures, cool smoke effects and particle effects. Dark comic book characters. Choose playing style, two-fisted action or stealth. Intense action.	Brent forgot to explain what would make Oni different or better. --Iritscen
Unreal     Very successful first person shooter and currently the most technologically advanced. Third person pov gives our characters much more potency. Story and dynamic character will create more emotional involvement. Hand to hand and cool body physics will create a larger cool factor.	Comparing Oni to Unreal is a serious case of "apples to oranges". --Iritscen
Prince of Persia 3D     The main feature of Prince of Persia 3D seems to be its “stunning animation”. While we cannot know exactly how we compare in this aspect until more is known, we will most likely differ on a number of issues. Prince of Persia will most likely be an adventure oriented game in the same vein as Tomb Raider. Oni’s advantages over Prince should be similar to our advantages of Tomb Raider III including: action orientation, hand to hand combat and a distinct style.	I don't even remember hearing about this game, but it came out in 1999, thus it wasn't much of a competitor after all. --Iritscen
Beneath     “Use your caving equipment to climb, rappel, and swing your way through puzzles.” This is clearly a puzzle oriented adventure game with heavy dependence on exploration. This should be a very different game than Oni for generally the same reasons as Tomb Raider III and Prince of Persia 3D. It’s nice that many of our competitors seem to be aiming for the same type of game play, but we need to make sure we are differentiated from them in our marketing. We also need to note their 3D technology as well as animation and character control.	This game was cancelled in 1999. Though it was slated to come out alongside Oni (going by Oni's planned release date at the time), it sounds like it was an adventure platformer with no combat, so it would not have been a strong competitor with Oni on the basis of any similarity. --Iritscen
Omikron     This seems to be our most similar competitor. As such, I’ve added more information. From the Gamespot preview: It's a 3D action-adventure game, replete with a full combat system, one actually said to be like that in Tekken 2. According to Marx, "Omikron combines three 'genres' of gameplay - adventure, action, and fighting - in one seamless, real-time whole. Making the transitions between modes of play as invisible as possible reinforces the cohesive feeling of participating in a 'real' world." According to a different Gamespot article “This game's hallmark is its extensive dialogue and character interaction.” From the Quantum Dream page: “Arcade/Adventure game, mixing a complex and original scenario with arcade sequences. Complete freedom within a city in real time 3Dwith passers-by and vehicles. – New concept of ‘Virtual Reincarnation’, -Real time 3d combat game in motion capture with incredible moves made by several martial arts world champions,-Shooting scenes in real time 3D with spectacular action,- game play based on “Instant fun”. Omikron seems to be aiming for the same general audience as Oni though with a lesser emphasis on action and greater on npc interaction. It is unclear from their literature how integrated the various aspects of the game are. The phrase “mixing a complex and original scenario with arcade sequences” seems to indicate that fighting and exploring are separate and distinct portions of game play. However, the Gamespot preview indicated that the game is “seamless” and has a combat system comparable to the Tekken series. Oni will definitely be seamless and will have a better flow than Omikron where it seems that you stop and fight Tekken style. Oni also has superior technology in both our IK system and our 3D system. Omikron screenshots were not overly impressive, especially their characters.	"Quantum Dream" is actually Quantic Dream, makers of Heavy Rain and Indigo Prophecy. Yeah, those guys. This is the game they did before those. It came out right around when Oni was planned to come out, Nov. 1999. It sounds like it was quite unique, but the action seems to be rather unlike Oni's. --Iritscen
Messiah     Messiah is a highly technology based game from Shiny. Shiny is capable of impressive technology as well as impressive hype. From a Gamespot-UK article: “The game's two biggest features are the possession gameplay and the revolutionary engine. The gameplay is unique in that you have to possess enemies to overcome obstacles. You might take over a cop to bypass a security gate or possess a powerful monster to fight a legion of bad guys. “The technology behind the game is called RT-DAT (Real-Time Deformation and Tessellation). Deformation simply refers to the skeletal animation system of the game, whereby creatures are composed of skeletons, with muscles and skins wrapped around the bones. “The result is more realistic characters, with the skin moving to simulate rippling cloth or the rising of a chest as a character breathes. Tessellation basically means the game generates only the polygons you need to maintain a high frame-rate. If a scene gets complicated, with huge explosions and enemies onscreen, the game will simply subtract polygons from peripheral areas (like from a character on the edge of your vision rather than from the explosion in the middle of the screen) to maintain the high frame-rate. If your machine can handle more polygons, the game will add as many as it can take to increase the quality of the graphics. “ From a Gamer’s Alliance article: “The characters that you see on the sites are the original models that are imported into the game. They range from about 80,000 up to 500,000 polygons. Now, when they get imported into the game and displayed when you're playing, the engine displays as many polygons as possible to create the same shape as the original model. The detailed textures over the top of the polygons stay the same. “In the game, the characters will have between 500 and 8,000 polygons or so - depending on where they are within the scene and how beefy your machine is. You might ask, "So why do such a hi-rez version of them to begin with?". Well, if we just did a model that had say 800 polygons (like Quake or TombRaider) then you can't really 'add in' detail when you get right up to a character's face. But, in Messiah, when you get into a character's face, we can dedicate all the polygons that your machine can display into just that tiny area of the character's features. That's why we make them so detailed.” Oni is much more of an action game and much less of an adventure game than Messiah seems to be. While they seem to be working on impressive 3D technology, Oni will incorporate advanced physics and IK technologies as well.	Although Oni didn't end up having much to compete with Messiah on a technological level, Messiah released in 2000 to a fairly unimpressed reception. The reviews here vary wildly, but based on the tech demos/hype sessions which I saw for Messiah during its development, the game may have been a victim of tech being prioritized over fun -- though I haven't played it myself. --Iritscen
Urban Chaos     LOT of similarities to Oni – sprawling city setting, “unbelievable” physics, interactive environment, freedonm of exploration, hand-to-hand combat, two characters, one female one male, multiple ways to achieve objectives, use of scenery in combat (swing around telephone poles). Only thing it doesn’t have is shooting.	Brent correctly pegged this as the most similar game to Oni, though it ended up coming out in late 1999. The gameplay looks as unique and interesting as Oni's, though there are no guns, as mentioned, and combat is simpler. The world was much more alive than Oni's, though not as nice-looking (it did come out over a year earlier). --Iritscen
Shogo     Only other mainstream PC anime game. First person shooter, focused on mecha.	This was a well-received and uniquely-styled game when it came out in 1998, though as an on-foot FPS-slash-mecha FPS, it has nothing to do with Oni except being anime-flavored. --Iritscen
Amen: The Awakening	Brent lists no information for Amen, which is strangely foreshadowing of the fact that it was canceled in 2000. Apparently the game was over-ambitious and could not work successfully on the limited technology of the time. It was also supposed to be set in 2032, when a global cataclysm occurs shortly before Christmas. What the...?! --Iritscen
Overall, Oni seems to be the only third-person game (in the near future) aiming directly at the action crowd without incorporating substantial puzzle or exploration elements. [more to be added in this section]
Other Important Points Remember, this is an action game. This is not an adventure game. People will get killed and they’ll die quickly.
Avoid comparisons to Tomb Raider – Don’t use the Konoko model by herself. Use her with the approved “group shot” art.	OOPS. --Iritscen