VIEWS -- Pan, Pitch, Rotate, and Zoom

We've talked about this stuff in the past, but I think that now is a good time to bring it back up since we are nearing beta. Plus, we never got any Blue on the issues, so perhaps this could get them to come out of their little holes for a bit. Anyway, these four features are viewing options that come with many RTS games, especially those of a 3D nature:

PAN
This is the must-have view manipulation feature in all RTS games.
It is simply being able to scroll the screen to the right, left, top, or bottom in order to view another place on the map.

PITCH
This is the angle at which view the terrain.
As pitch increases, the angle at which you view the becomes more perpendicular to the terrain.
As the pitch decreases, the angle at which you view becomes more parallel to the terrain.

ROTATE
This is the control of which "compass heading" you are looking towards on the map.
In most cases, you can view from any of the 360° that are available.

ZOOM
Simply being able to alter the area of terrain within your field of vision.
This is caused by your "eye" moving along the line that is between your "eye" and the point directly ahead.

A game I have which came out around the time of SC1 allowed you to pan and rotate your view and then combined pitch and zoom as one. The viewing possibilities were endless. If I could have only one more feature along with pan (which is in the game by default) it would be rotate, that way stuff like this wouldn't cause problems:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDFp6ENWNVA#t=7m20s

As you can see, a pack of Hellions gets behind that terrain tower, out of the view of the player. This is one of the "drawbacks" of a 3D game. If rotation were enabled, then the player could rotate his/her view so that he/she could see the small battle that was happening. Pitch would've also done the trick, as it would've enabled the player to view over the top of the tower with ease by raising the "eye" higher into the sky.

Although I do not support Zoom and Pitch as much as I do Rotate, I am still providing them as options for others to consider. These features are possible to add into the game, for they were used in the original gameplay video, which especially featured the Protoss. It is only a matter of allowing the players to have the features. They would not only be helpful in terms of gameplay, but they would also be helpful in terms of tournament observation.

Be sure to answer the poll.

I don't think there needs to be anything other than Paning
there shouldn't be any sort of other variables to the game
someone zoomed out all the way will have an advantage over someone zoomed a bit in
and some people with cameras rotated or pitched a certain way could have an advantage is some cases

Just leave the camera as it is in Starcraft, If you NEED to, add a zoom if only just for UMS and single player

and you might wanna fix your URL link :p

Definitely rotate, with the ability to permanently change rotation and reset position back to normal view with the press of a button. The implementation they had in WC3 was pointless.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RainbowToeSocks

someone zoomed out all the way will have an advantage over someone zoomed a bit in

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Not necessarily. Both zooming out too far and zooming in to near have their advantages and disadvantages. Zooming in too near would allow you to micro more accurately, but you wouldn't be able to see very far. Zooming out too far would allow you too see a whole lot of the playing field, but the accuracy of your micro would be decreased.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RainbowToeSocks

and some people with cameras rotated or pitched a certain way could have an advantage is some cases

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Again, the more of one kind of advantage the player gains, the more of another kind of advantage the player loses. These viewing features balance themselves out very well simply because they are available to everyone.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RainbowToeSocks

Just leave the camera as it is in Starcraft, If you NEED to, add a zoom if only just for UMS and single player

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Normally I would say UMS only, but it would be much better if it was available by default, instead of having to set up an ass load of triggers just to pull of a simple UI feature. If it really came down to it, tournaments, ladder, and/or whatever else could force zooming levels and viewing angles, or even limit them to particular intervals. Even hosts could be allowed to lock these features. But UMS only? Not worth the effort -- not worth it at all.

I'm convinced that they would at least need to allow rotation at 90 degree intervals so that units could not be hidden behind obstacles. That would certainly create situations in which the player would lose control of his/her units, which is bad for any RTS -- especially Star Craft.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RainbowToeSocks

and you might wanna fix your URL link :p

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lolz yeah -- I'm too used to another site :p

No one can have an advantage over someone else because of camera controls because everyone use the same camera controls... Your opponent as an advantage because he zoomed in? Then why don't you just zoom in too... I'm gonna cry if they don't add such a feature in StarCraft II. It's one the major improvement that every new rts got.

As Blizzard had said, they don't want people to mess with the viewing position, as they think that messes with the gameplay. However, i would like to have at least zoom and rotate on some configurable key combination, but not assigned by default to any key, so people won't just mess with it before playing the game as it should be.
At the very least, make that available in single player.

I think these are all fine for single player, providing you cant zoom out more than you already could.

Multiplayer, I'd keep Pan and pitch, like WC3. But really, it doesnt hurt to add all of these.

Rotate and Zoom in addition to what we already have, but have both of them limited (say 45° for rotation and 2-3 zoom levels).

I don't see why we can't have all of it. Pros will simply opt not to have it affect them or just turn it off. People who want to watch epic massed battles at different angles would really enjoy all of them.

I would love to be able to pitch in and see thing close up. And rotate to see things from a different angle, even if most of the time these wouldn't be used in a multiplayer game.

It doesn't really matter that much, except you must not be allowed to zoom out more than the normal view.