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The Do's and Don'ts of Now Loading. . .

B

Brannon

Member
DO copy Gears of War's loading method.

--There is this one part in the game where you and Dom split up and you both go to open a door. It doesn't matter who pushes it, because the door will stay closed for a moment. High chance that it's loading the next section and purging the previous one. Best part is that you hear some noises and then *BAM!*, one of you gets a visit from an exploding wretch. Then the door opens. I've been in that section countless times while fooling around in co-op mode, and it doesn't bother me one bit. It's a nice little surprise, something to do, hey, have fun and sorry for the inconvenience. Considering that the rest of the game is impossibly more seamless than it should be, it can be forgiven. Besides, everybody likes to shoot the exploding wretches; they're like free ephemeral achievement points.

On the other side of the coin...

DON'T copy This... (No, it's not the WWE PSP video, btw)

--If you have ten minutes to waste, go ahead and click it. There is just so much wrong in it and it just... I don't have to comment on it, I believe; a video is worth millions of words, but you'll only have enough consciousness to say "shit". Also if you're masochistic enough, read the comments. But those of us who have played and beaten the game know the truth... oh god do we know the truth...
 
S

Sage00

Once And Future Member
If the game can't stream while the level is going on I'd at least like an interactive loading screen like some EA games now have. Sonic looks terrible. :lol
 
X

X26

Banned
Interactive loading screens FTW

Castlevania: SotN. Spinning the loadng text around is almost as fun as the game itself

DMC3. Gets old, but shooting/slashing the loading text was kinda neat
 
Tieno

Tieno

Member
I think Gears also disguises loading during the 'slow walking' parts where you get radio info. It's pretty neat.
 
T

theBishop

Banned
Don't put a minigame in the loading screen if the load isn't long enough to play it
Don't have a loading screen so long that it needs a minigame to distract the player
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
If you can't hide the loading screen, show something interesting to read or look at. Halo had intereting and moody level transitions including music, Oblivion runs notes and tips about the game by to read. Things like that made getting through load times bearable.

It reminds me of a case study from a class in college. There was a lot of complaints in a hotel about the elevator wait times. A consulting group came in, looked at the situation, and installed mirrors on the front of the elevator doors. Complaints dropped to near zero. People didn't mind the wait, it turns out, they minded not having anything to do or look at while they waited. I'm the same way.

I'd rather they be hidden or minimized, but at least make them interesting. Also, provide a visual indication for how long the load is, no just a repeating "loading" message.

All that said, nothing excuses that Sonic video. In a game called "sonic" you'd expect some decent load times. :lol
 
D

darscot

Member
This is where being a Nintendo fan really spoils you. As soon as I see the a load screen I think WTF is this crap. Sure Nintendo games still have them but they hide them very well. Also by Nintendo I mean there stuff, I know there are lots of crap games that still have load screens on there systems.
 
P

Patrickula

Member
DON'T have a load screen before a load screen (see: Okami)
DON'T have a load screen for something minor that you do all the time (see: feeding animals in Okami)

Speaking of Okami, how do you play the load screen game? I haven't actually done that and it might make the game less irritating.
 
G

Greenpanda

Banned
Metroid Prime also does the "hiding" loading thing -- when you shoot a door, the door doesn't open until the game has finished loading the next room.

This works reasonably well, I guess, although sometimes you can't tell if the door isn't opening because you didn't shoot it or if the game is still loading.
 
K

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
I sorta think that games with such incredibly poor loading schemes as Sonic 360 show a form of contempt for the player - as if nobody will notice or be able to tell how awful it is.
 
J

jvm

Gamasutra.
Ok, this is cosmetic, but there was some game I've played that used a loading progress bar that was simply a gradient treated as a sprite that stretched to fill the available space. That is, you didn't slowly see more of the bar revealed but instead saw a bar stretch to fill the space. I always felt it made the creators look lazy for making a tacky looking loading bar animation.
 
F

Fireblend

Banned
Patrickula said:
Speaking of Okami, how do you play the load screen game? I haven't actually done that and it might make the game less irritating.
Click to expand...

There are two interactive loading screens; the first one you have to press X to match every "footprint" when it appears. If you complete the sequence, then you get an item.
The second one, you have to rapidly press X to make footprints appear until eventually an item appears.
 
Tieno

Tieno

Member
Also, when load times are slow, don't have 'fast' load animations (like in the sonic example). It makes it seem even slower. The big (though pretty fast) loads in Halo seem faster because of the slow and heavy load animation accompanied with fitting music.
 
G

Greenpanda

Banned
re: Okami -
press the button as each of Ammy's footsteps appears on the screen. if you get them all, you'll get a Monster Fang reward
 
F

Flynn

Member
I hate the phrase "Now Loading." It's redundant.

No shit you're loading now. It's not like you're going to load later or tell me that you're loading when you've already finished.

The fact that I'm looking at a loading screen tells me that loading is happening "now."

Either say simply "Loading" or come up with something clever.
 
M

mre

Golden Domers are chickenshit!!
DJ Brannon said:
DON'T copy This... (No, it's not the WWE PSP video, btw)

--If you have ten minutes to waste, go ahead and click it. There is just so much wrong in it and it just... I don't have to comment on it, I believe; a video is worth millions of words, but you'll only have enough consciousness to say "shit". Also if you're masochistic enough, read the comments. But those of us who have played and beaten the game know the truth... oh god do we know the truth...
Click to expand...

Holy hell... what were they thinking? That's awful.
 
P

Patrickula

Member
Fireblend said:
There are two interactive loading screens; the first one you have to press X to match every "footprint" when it appears. If you complete the sequence, then you get an item.
The second one, you have to rapidly press X to make footprints appear until eventually an item appears.
Click to expand...
Thanks, you're blowin' my mind here.
 
K

Kiriku

SWEDISH PERFECTION
Greenpanda said:
Okami has some nice interactive loading screens. You can actually earn items to use in the main game.
Click to expand...

Exactly, I thought that was a great idea (although I would of course prefer not to have loading at all :p). Made the loading parts go by in a flash. Eventually I started getting frustrated when the loading ended because I didn't manage to get a fang in time. :lol
 
D

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
Flynn said:
I hate the phrase "Now Loading." It's redundant.

No shit you're loading now. It's not like you're going to load later or tell me that you're loading when you've already finished.

The fact that I'm looking at a loading screen tells me that loading is happening "now."

Either say simply "Loading" or come up with something clever.
Click to expand...
It's worse when you are hit with a black screen for a few seconds, THEN a "now loading" screen, and finally another black screen (or something else in its place) before actually getting into the game.
 
S

speculawyer

Member
DON'T have a static loading screen such that if the system crashed, the player would never know.

DO have at least some sort of animation happening that will stop if the system crashes, overheats, etc. . . . ideally, every major load should have both some kind of animation (so you know the system is still working) AND a progress bar (so you know how much more you have to wait . . . i.e., Can I go get a beer?).

DON'T EVER have progress bars that fill up and start over again . . . that sh!t is just cruel taunting. Use some other animation.

DO put up game tips, hints, secrets, control lay-outs, etc.

DON'T put up game info, hints, etc. but change them so quickly that the player can't really read them without concentrating hard. (I'm talking to you Big Bumpin'.) We are playing games, not taking a test.
 
S

Sullichin

Member
I was going to say Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex for PS2 had the worst, longest, most annoying, frequent loading i've ever seen, but Sonic is like 10x worse. What a piece of shit. I will never buy that game.
 
S

SuperBanjo

Member
Wow, that Sonic video just blows my mind. Did Sega really think 20 seconds of loading just to have some guy say "correct" was really necessary?
 
S

speculawyer

Member
Holy crap on that Sonic 360 video . . . I was thinking of picking up that game when the price drops because I wanna play some platformers (WHERE ARE THE NEXT-GEN PLATFORMERS?!?!) . . . but after that video, you couldn't pay me to play that game.

I stopped watching after a couple minutes because it was so annoying.
 
R

radioheadrule83

Banned
I hate it when games try to copy the Half Life esque method (which can be annoying itself at times) but when said game(s) load, they load more frequently and take longer to do so.

The spinning disc on Red Steel's loading screen sucks... and those artwork cutscenes really shouldn't require them surely!!
 
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