Poll: Elevators or loading screens? Poll.

[scw55]

I prefer 'elevators' as it gives the illution of travel. A loading screen sorts of takes you out of immersion briefly.

Dragon Age Origins was sort of nice. It *was* a loading screen of sorts when on the world map but the red dotted line gave the illution of travel.

 

[Sir Prize]

Elevators, they made it feel more interesting.

 

[Griphphin]

It depends on the type of game for me. Some games provide good info/tips about their games and the mechanics in loading screens. Others have fun little diversions that you can do to pass the time.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

I liked the Elevators in ME1 okay. Except when they froze up.

I actually liked the loading screens in ME2 a lot too - particularly at first. I liked seeing the plans for my ship, the mass relays, the shuttle, other parts of my ship, the various levels of my ship.....

Several hours later, I was bored with the loading screens and missing the elevators.

So, um... I don't know. **shrug** Both? Have the game sometimes (or in some locations) use the loading screen, and at other times/places use the elevator? Too much to program?

 

[DudeistBelieve]

loading screens.

It was very rare to have chatter in the elevator or the radio playing, and if your gonna do that I demand to be entertained. Or at least give me control of my character so that I can run in circles or do something, your giving me the illusion of playing but really I'm not.

I honestly got to the point where I wondered what Biowares problem was and why they couldn't of made the normandy more load time efficient. It was incredibly annoying to have to wait 2 minutes to talk to the other half of my crew and then a another 2 minutes to come back up.

 

[Jodah]

Loading screens if they have progress bars, are relatively short, and their placement makes sense.

 

[DSK-]

The loading screens broke up the gameplay way to much for me. It was always stop and start in ME2. In ME1 it felt like I was actually playing through an entire level. Sure, I had to travel in elevators and stuff but at least I was doing something instead of staring at screens and magically appearing in places.

 

[Cursed Frogurt]

This is why developers need to stop listening to whiny "fans". The elevators and Mako were fine.

 

[Telemachus]

loading elevating screens

but no really, probably elevators. unless the loading screens are nice and pretty full of useful information about how i can kill bad guys by shooting them

 

[Pakkie]

Games need an option (for PC only I would presume) to start loading the next level, DURING THE CURRENT LEVEL.
Considering how many people are moving to quad cores, ssd's and 4+ gigs of ram it shouldn't be too hard, at least in the near future anyway.
(Consoles would probably struggle a lot with this due to their tiiiny amount of ram, Maybe next gen consoles could do something like this)

 

[mexicola]

Loading screens if they have a progress bar. And playing on powerful enough PC, elevators sometime prolong the loading just so they can play out the elevator animations.

That being said I liked the elevator and crawling loading times on Dead Space 2 enough, what I really hate is the ones used in ME where you were basically stuck in one place without the option to move so any pretence of "Oh, nothing happening here player, just a normal elevator *nudge nudge*" is completely out the window.

 

[Wolfram23]

Whatever is faster - usually loading screens.

 

[Twitchy Racoon]

You what they should do in Duke Nukem for a loading screen? A POLL DANCER. THat would be fucking perfect

 

[aaronobst]

PORTAL 2 the best of both worlds

 

[Wicky_42]

This bugged me in Portal 2 because in the original the lift was fairly plain and they had no loading screen, just the inside of the lift. You couldn't move for a little while but I thought it was much better. Although I like the glass lifts in the sequel the loading screens sort of break up the wonderful flow the first game had.

This. Portal 1 did it great - the loading stutter was so small for me on the PC I barely even noticed it. Portal 2 broke the immersion with a full-screen hammer - I was disappoint.

Mass Effect loading screens are so nearly acceptable, with all that animation. They would be ok if the 'entering FTL' or 'changing level' animations ACTUALLY MARRIED UP TO LOADING PROGRESSION - like a fully and intricately animated loading bar rather than just some pretty gif filling up the screen. Just a teensy bit of effort could have made the loading screen something of a feature and actually functional. Oh well - doubt they've changed anything for the third instalment either.

 

[GeorgW]

For ME, elevators. The loading screens there are so damn boring. But I don't know, some loading screens are both informative and funny.

 

[Rhinzual26]

I like the Soul Reaver approach. Everything is loaded as you walk through a door or similar, the only loading message you ever get is when loading a saved game. It was fluid and completely seamless.

 

[Sean0925]

I prefer to be kept in the game because it at least gives the illusion that I'm still doing something. Fifa games do this rather well in that when waiting for the game to load a match you get to play around in the arena taking shots at the keeper while you wait.

 

[aussiebee]

Elevators. They don't make it impossible to do something else while you wait for the next area; personally I go straight into steam overlay and chat to people or browse wikis or whatnot. When you have stuff like the random squadmate banter added it's even occasionally entertaining, which loading screens never are in my experience.

That said, if an elevator doesn't fit into the setting and some loading needs doing, I'd rather not have elevators/travelators in places that make utterly no sense. I just wish they'd give me a loading screen that didn't lock me out of doing ANYTHING on my computer.

 

[Owlslayer]

I wasn't bother by the elevators in ME1 at all. I actually really enjoyed them, new news all the time,s sometimes even quite funny. However, a loading bar seems so boring, just look at the bar and wait for it to fill out....yay!
So, yeah. I say: elevators!