TBCB 2.5 commentary team update

[Lee]

Just an update on the commentary database for TBCB 2.5

The game has 258 different commentary groups and thus far the team has completed 21 of these with nearly 200 lines of new commentary added to date. At this rate I expect the finished product will have 1200 - 1500 lines of new commentary, not including tweaks to the existing commentary.

When we are done it will hopefully add some more color and variety to the game.

I will continue to update this thread as we move along.

[CONN CHRIS]

Thanks for taking this on Lee! The variety and instances of repetativeness should improve greatly.

[Cap]

Originally Posted by Lee

Just an update on the commentary database for TBCB 2.5

The game has 258 different commentary groups and thus far the team has completed 21 of these with nearly 200 lines of new commentary added to date. At this rate I expect the finished product will have 1200 - 1500 lines of new commentary, not including tweaks to the existing commentary.

When we are done it will hopefully add some more color and variety to the game.

I will continue to update this thread as we move along.

I think your efforts in this regard will be greatly appreciated, Lee. How many lines of commentary were there to begin with? (Can you get rid of the "personal dance floor" line. Sorry, Mike.) Is it possible to limit the number of times a particular line is seen in a bout? Unfortunately, the more colourful the line is, the more likely it will be remembered from one fight to the next.

It used to be that there were way too many knockdowns and knockouts from body shots. Is this still the case, and can editing commentary fix it?

Cap

[mh2365]

No worries Cap, I don't think anyone cares if their lines don't make it the dance one maybe a little too modern. I believe there is a % for the lines to show up so you can make the more colorful ones appear less.

[Cap]

It's just that the dance floor one clashed with my mental image of some mutt throwing sawdust on the floor to soak up the blood...

Cap

[Lee]

Originally Posted by Cap

I think your efforts in this regard will be greatly appreciated, Lee. How many lines of commentary were there to begin with? (Can you get rid of the "personal dance floor" line. Sorry, Mike.) Is it possible to limit the number of times a particular line is seen in a bout? Unfortunately, the more colourful the line is, the more likely it will be remembered from one fight to the next.

It used to be that there were way too many knockdowns and knockouts from body shots. Is this still the case, and can editing commentary fix it?

Cap

LOL, funny you mention that line. I already set that line to come up less frequently and will be doing the same with others that are more unique as well. Adding more variety will help and there is also a way to reduce the chance that the AI will even select a line prior to a fight. This way you can have a few really colorful descriptions in the game, but they may only pop up every 20-25 fights or even less.

In terms of the KD from body shots issue, yes there are some things that can be done in the commentary to cause it happen less, so in the final version don't expect to see it happen nearly as frequently as it does now.

There was roughly 2200 + lines of commentary related in some way to the in Ring happenings when we started, so we will be increasing the current DB by 30 - 40%. It could actually be even more than that. Every group we have worked on to date has doubled in size, but we haven't tackled the commentary related to punches landed yet, so I don't know if we can keep that pace up

[Ric915]

Great work Lee seems like a daunting task thats for sure

[rickert]

Sorry to be the naysayer here. But this will likely keep me from buying the new version. I wanted far less commentary and far less color rather than more. I was even under the impression from another thread that there were several others voicing support for this as well.

But if it is the will of the majority then I understand it being implemented. It just isn't to my tastes.

[Lee]

Originally Posted by rickert

Sorry to be the naysayer here. But this will likely keep me from buying the new version. I wanted far less commentary and far less color rather than more. I was even under the impression from another thread that there were several others voicing support for this as well.

But if it is the will of the majority then I understand it being implemented. It just isn't to my tastes.

I think the opinion a lot of people had was less commentary that does not relate to the action. Some "filler" commentary is necessary or you would only see blank screen when there was nothing happening. We are going to try and make that type of commentary brief.

In terms of adding lines, it is just to provide more variety so the commentary is not repeated as much, and the common lines will be brief and to the point. Anything overly unique or "colorful" if you will, is set up to occur with less frequency.

Hopefully it will be a nice balance for all.

[rickert]

Originally Posted by Lee

I think the opinion a lot of people had was less commentary that does not relate to the action. Some "filler" commentary is necessary or you would only see blank screen when there was nothing happening. We are going to try and make that type of commentary brief.

In terms of adding lines, it is just to provide more variety so the commentary is not repeated as much, and the common lines will be brief and to the point. Anything overly unique or "colorful" if you will, is set up to occur with less frequency.

Hopefully it will be a nice balance for all.

Well then I will withhold judgment until I see a sample of it. The problem I have with the very descriptive text is that it seems to come up randomly and not out of the tendencies of the fighters involved and with little regard for what has transpired before it in the bout.

[Lee]

Originally Posted by rickert

Well then I will withhold judgment until I see a sample of it. The problem I have with the very descriptive text is that it seems to come up randomly and not out of the tendencies of the fighters involved and with little regard for what has transpired before it in the bout.

Understood. One good thing is this can be managed to a degree with qualifiers. It won't cover every situation, but it will take care of some things. This can be monitored during testing.

[Cap]

Tend to agree with rickert about some aspects of random commentary. If people have a problem with the future commentary they will likely tune it out and just speed through each bout. Which is what I often do now. Good tight relevant commentary would be a definite asset however.

One thing that still bugs me is having a round where one fighter doesn't throw a single punch. Unless he's hurt, I can't see this happening, as the ref would almost certainly stop the match. There aren't too many Willie Peps out there.

Cap

[Lee]

Deleted

[Lee]

We are hopefully going to have all the major commentary done in time for release, and whatever doesn't get redone will be complete for a patch/update.

Here is what is complete and in the Datebase (This means old commentary tweaked and new stuff added)

• All 2 pt punch categories to the head and body are done as well as the 3 pt jab category to both the head and body. (Remaining Punch categories are 3 pt head and body punch types hook, cross, combo and uppercut, as well as Special punch descriptions and missed punches to the head and body)
• All categories related to the announcing (Not much to do here, just minor stuff)
• All Crowd reaction categories
  • Rounds with lots of action
  • Slow rounds
  • Rounds in which knockdowns occurred
• All Foul categories
• All knockout and knockdown commentary as well as sub categories related to these (Mandatory 8 count, follow up to knockdown, saved by the Bell, etc)
• Application Parameter (Not much involved here and it is such a small part of things I won't even explain what it contains)
• All Movement Categories (mostly tweaking here)
• All Filler Commentary

Whats new/changed in the categories above

• Added new\tweaked existing punch commentary that indicates a punch was thrown with a specific hand so it relates better to whether a boxer is a lefty or righty.
  • An example would be right handed Boxers will throw a "left - right combination" and Southpaws will throw a "right - left combination"
• Also added style specific commentary (Boxer/Slugger) to both the movement categories and some to the punch categories. Here is an actual example of a line you will only see if both Boxers are sluggers.
  • "Both fighters are looking to bang inside, as [Fighter Name] lands an uppercut to the jaw."
• Greatly reduced the number of knockdowns from body blows (Which is commentary driven)
• Tweaked Filler commentary so that it shows up less. This involved adjusting the time algorythm that indicates when filler commentary is inserted. It may not be what everyone wants on release, but it should be much tighter, and can be tweaked in a future update if needed.
• Currently over 3000 lines in the commentary database, includes 600 plus brand new lines and over almost 300 of the existing lines tweaked in one fashion or another. (Keep in mind not all 3000 of those lines are actual commentary) When complete we are still looking at over 1000 new lines of actual game commentary.
• Added "unique" commentary that will appear very rarely within the game. The final number in this category should be close to 100 when complete. Some of these lines may pop up every 15-20 fights, while others may only be seen every 50-60 fights or more. Here is one actual example of a rare line that you may only see 2-3 times over 100 fights.
  • "[Fighter-A Name] swarms [Fighter-B Name] scoring with both hands, [Fighter - B Name] looks hurt!!........And down he goes!!! [Fighter - B Name] just folded under [Fighter - A's Name] blistering attack!!"

There are likely other things I am missing, but that is the meat of it so far, feedback is welcome.

[mh2365]

Great job Lee ... and your wife is hot! Merry Christmas and sorry your son can't be home for it this year. Best wishes to you and to him for protecting the US.

[Romdawg88]

Hell of a job Lee.

[CONN CHRIS]

'm really looking forward to the fesh commentary. Thanks for taking this on Lee!

[Ric915]

Awesome Work

[Lee]

Thanks for the kind words and support guys. This has been a lot of fun and I hope it enhances the game experience, even just a little bit when we are done....which brings us to....

12/23/07 update
Somehow today I had time to sleep in, go watch the Cardinals play the Falcons, go out to dinner, catch "I am Legend" AND get all punch categories finished

We are now approaching 3200 lines of commentary and next on the agenda is TKO and Injury commentary. I was thinking there would be a 1000 - 1200 new lines when we started and I definitely think we are still on track to end up with at least that much as we are close to 800 after getting the punches done.

With the release getting pushed back all commentary will be done and should be thoroughly tested as well.

[Ric915]

How the heck did you get all that done yesterday?..very impressive