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I returned a game because of the font size

The "recommended distance" defense is getting old. That distance is based on when your eyes stop discerning individual pixels and the image looks cohesive. You don't want to spot pixels when watching a movie, and you don't need to spot pixels to play a game. If anything recommended distance is the minimum you want to sit at, not the maximum. I sit at the recommended distance from my 46" and my friends think I'm nuts for it, but I'm also in a tiny apartment so there's a good reason for doing so.

But if I was in a house I would definitely be organised differently. If I was a heavy Kinect user it would be different. Would any of the people going on about getting a bigger TV or sitting closer be any less able to play a game with a larger font? No. So why are any of you railing against people having the option to arrange their house the way it should be, i.e. aesthetics and optimal use of space, not beholden to the size of the TV?

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=43928288&postcount=48
http://www.hdhes.com/tv/hdtvsize.aspx

Recommended distance is usually a range between a minimum and a maximum distance

Of course everyone is free to design their own setup however they want, but in order to get the most out of your HDTV you probably should at least be near that recommended range. That may not be important to everyone though.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Games these days have you adjust where the border of the screen is, and your gamma - often forcing you to go through that before you even start playing. Being able to read text is probably more important than those things yet gets ignored.
 

dock

Member
Loading screen tips are stupid and useless; ignore them and enjoy experimentation.

http://starfruitgames.com/dump/dishonoured-textsize1.jpg
This looks like story and mission info, not a 'tip'.

Dialogue decisions in the game don't matter too much, your actual actions determine the outcome. I do understand wanting to see them, but there are few dialogue branches in the game.
It's impossible for me to judge at this point. I don't have an intimate knowledge of the game, I've just heard it spoken of fondly in podcasts. I doubt the Dishonoured developers would thank me for not reading any of the text in the game either, they'd probably prefer I played another time and setup.
 

drkOne

Member
But if I was in a house I would definitely be organised differently. If I was a heavy Kinect user it would be different. Would any of the people going on about getting a bigger TV or sitting closer be any less able to play a game with a larger font? No. So why are any of you railing against people having the option to arrange their house the way it should be, i.e. aesthetics and optimal use of space, not beholden to the size of the TV?
If subtitles start taking 1/3 of the screen, again, just because some people like to sit too far away from their TV, I'd be pissed yeah.
At the distance the OP is playing subtitles should be the least of his concerns seriously. Playing racing games with traffic has to be hard as fuck, shooters online have him with a disadvantage too. And this is my experience with 42" at 12 feet, I don't dare imagine OP's setup.

And it's not like you have to organize your setup depending on your TV size. You should actually pick a TV size that fits your setup the best.

I do agree with font size option. But even I still feel like anyone sitting way too far is losing far more than just subtitles.
 

Nome

Member
http://starfruitgames.com/dump/dishonoured-textsize1.jpg
This looks like story and mission info, not a 'tip'.


It's impossible for me to judge at this point. I don't have an intimate knowledge of the game, I've just heard it spoken of fondly in podcasts. I doubt the Dishonoured developers would thank me for not reading any of the text in the game either, they'd probably prefer I played another time and setup.
It's a loading screen recap... completely useless if you've been following the story by ear. Also, Dishonored is one of the most comprehensive games when it comes to keeping a log of all the text you come across in the game (it's stored in your journal).

It's a valid reason for a return though.
 

Koren

Member
It's disappointing that developers seem to be making games designed for a 24" monitor at 18", or a 6 foot living room, or a 46"+ TV. It's bad enough that HD is now a requirement, but requiring needlessly oversized TVs is really disappointing.]
I fully agree...

There's basic rules about font size when you're doing a presentation with slides, I don't see why they wouldn't apply for a game (in a more laxist way, of course). I loathe small fonts.
 
So... at this point I should know that this is a 'summary' of text I'm yet to hear?

No, but that's the very beginning of the game. They don't pull that ever again as far as I know. NPCs explain the stuff described on that screen in the first 5 minutes of the game, and then every other loading screen after that is just recapping things you've already heard.
 

VOOK

We don't know why he keeps buying PAL, either.
lM3y0.png
 

Udham

Member
Agree.
Test in many games is not legible, either due to bad contrast or the size. There should be some standard enforced by console manufacturers.
 

Zia

Member
But the subtitle typesetting on Criterion Blu-rays is atrocious, especially on contrasty b&w movies. Watching High & Low on the disc is a pain in the ass.

But unlike a [console] game, I can make my own subtitle styling in Aegisub with ease. Shitty analogy.

Yeah, I don't think 99.9% of people complaining about the legibility of the subtitles in Criterion's BDs are going to go to the trouble of using Aegisub. In fact, I know nobody in my film circle would ever bother with that, so that's a pretty backwards lens to view the situation through.

My obvious point was, dock has a legitimate concern, but the idea of returning a fantastic game because the unnecessary subtitles are difficult to read (and, honestly, they aren't that bad) is a little absurd.
 
I already stated that I'm unable to move the furniture in that room, so I'd rather not.

I've had no problem spending hundreds of hours with other games, and I'm playing fewer console games recently because of very long work & travel times. You mustn't overestimate how important playing Dishonoured (etc) is to other people.

Huh? I didn't say anything about moving furniture. Just wondering how far it really looks with a TV that size.
 
Agree.
Test in many games is not legible, either due to bad contrast or the size. There should be some standard enforced by console manufacturers.

Yep. I prefer to have subtitles on given the awful audio mix in many games, but they're just pathetically tiny so often that I end up turning them off and missing the occasional line of dialogue.
 
God only knows why a gamer would set up their living room so they are 12ft away from a 32in screen. Completely pointless.

Also dishonored is not even a text heavy game. Maybe you should sit your arse closer to the fucking telly and give a great game a chance rather than whine about it on the internet. Be a bit more proactive.
 

dock

Member
No whining. It's obvious that lots of people are happy with Dishonoured as a product and I'm not necessarily complaining, I'm just stating that there's no reason for me or anyone else to suffer a product that is uncomfortable in terms of accessibility. I don't want games to be harmed by pandering to accessibility standards, but unless you're heavily invest in a product you needn't suffer an uncomfortable interface.

It's plain that plenty of people aren't satisfied with the text size in games, and it's peculiar that there's hostility towards people unable to read the text in games.

I have definitely come away from this thinking how important it is that I consider this with my own games. This is even true in the mobile market, where the same content can be experienced on radically different screen sizes. Android tablets vary in size a lot, and even the iPad mini compared to the iPad regular. Resolution has never been a good measure of screen 'size'.
 

Mandoric

Banned
No whining. It's obvious that lots of people are happy with Dishonoured as a product and I'm not necessarily complaining, I'm just stating that there's no reason for me or anyone else to suffer a product that is uncomfortable in terms of accessibility. I don't want games to be harmed by pandering to accessibility standards, but unless you're heavily invest in a product you needn't suffer an uncomfortable interface.

It's plain that plenty of people aren't satisfied with the text size in games, and it's peculiar that there's hostility towards people unable to read the text in games.

I have definitely come away from this thinking how important it is that I consider this with my own games. This is even true in the mobile market, where the same content can be experienced on radically different screen sizes. Android tablets vary in size a lot, and even the iPad mini compared to the iPad regular. Resolution has never been a good measure of screen 'size'.

Phones are also designed to be used with a bent elbow, tablets with a bent wrist. Within those size ranges they all work out to a roughly similar proportion of visible arc.

You're the guy holding his phone at arm's length and complaining that the interface looks bad.
 

NinjaBoiX

Member
Sorry OP, if you're playing it on a 32" 720p set through HDMI, and you can't read the text, you need glasses.

It's a simple as that.
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Id say thats a fair decision and am sure no one will judge you for it.

Hell I was half tempted to return blue dragon (JP) as it was almost unreadable without component cables. (My system is the one without a HDMI output, not sure if HDMI was avail back then anyways) Seeing kanji smashed together into tiny blobby unreadable squares is not fun at all.

I remember the first Dead Rising game got a lot of shit too for its tiny ass subtitles.
 

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
Pretty sure I quit the steaming turd that was Madworld for this exact reason. Almost entirely unreadable, and that shit was SD.
 
Just exchange for another game that does what Dishonored does...

Pie and Beans said:
Pretty sure I quit the steaming turd that was Madworld for this exact reason. Almost entirely unreadable, and that shit was SD.
Sounds like you had other problems with it.
 
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