My main issue with games nowadays and how there's almost no immersion anymore. - Games

Even though with all these pointers and stuffs, I think Spec Ops : The Line did a great job on the immersion imo. But I think that's mostly because of the story actually means something instead of some shitty plot that's used over and over again.

[QUOTE=jason3232;39631000]Even though with all these pointers and stuffs, I think Spec Ops : The Line did a great job on the immersion imo. But I think that's mostly because of the story actually means something instead of some shitty plot that's used over and over again.[/QUOTE] Spec Ops loses a lot of the immersion when you realised you're railroaded into almost every bad decision.

The gaming world has shown repeatedly that you need very few resources to make an immersive, enjoyable game. It is incomparably more important for the graphical and audio representation to have a strong character and be stylized, rather than being "high spec". Game feel is infinitely more important than the graphics themselves. Good graphics do not remotely equate to good immersion and game feel. A title focusing on "good graphics" frequently ends up feeling plasticy, artificial, and detached, while a game should feel organic and alive. I have no interest in glorified rig testers (frequently barely glorified.) HL1 mods, Doom mods, and the majority of older titles, have more immersion in a single pixel, than many of the newer games have in their entirety, the same unfortunately being true for gameplay length. A number of people are stating that we are on the verge of a "videogame bankruptcy". Hopefully that is not the actual case, and that we are instead on the verge of videogame delusion bankruptcy, after which emphasis will be placed on WHAT ACTUALLY MAKES A GOOD GAME. It is irrelevant whether this is a pipe dream or not, the point must be made.

[QUOTE=genkaz92;39631372]HL1 mods, [B]Doom[/B] mods, and the majority of older titles, have more immersion in a single pixel, than many of the newer games have in their entirety, the same unfortunately being true for gameplay length. [/QUOTE] [t]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Spider_Mastermind_model.jpg[/t] [editline]18th February 2013[/editline] probably one of the reasons it looked so real back then, the plasma rifle is simply a picture of the back of a toy gun. The chainsaw is a photograph of a chainsaw someone Romero knew had

I can't tell you how much immersion a game loses when a floating objective marker shows up or when you're shoved into an event in a game that was marketed more as an open world game. If a game is linear, market it as such. Mission to mission, linear games can still work and can still be quite immersive. Freespace is an example of this, it was a purely mission to mission space sim with ZERO saving during a mission. You ONLY progressed if you either completed the mission or you like, failed it 6 times in a row and it asked if you wanted to just skip it. You also had the option of saying to never ask that again. Freespace 2 felt even more immersive than the first because there was so much more going on. Yeah, you were still "Alpha 1", but you were [I]tiny[/I] compared to the grand scheme of things. Massive destroyers with crews of 10000 each broadsiding each other with beam cannons and lasers while the air wing duked it out inbetween them. Bombers flying in, you shoot down the torps, and if you're close enough it fucks with your steering, the screen shakes, and you're pushed off by the shockwave. If you stuck yourself behind the engine of a capital ship, your ship shook with the -ENGINE WASH- indicator flashing as it slowly tore you apart until you left the area or died. It really drove home that while you're "Alpha 1", you aren't the end all be all of the universe. You may be the most competent simply because you're the only actual player, but that destroyer will still fuck you up if you get too close to it. You were a fighter pilot, nothing more. And again I find myself promoting Star Citizen. Pledge for this game, its advertising ALL the immersion you guys are looking for, and more. REAL space combat, REAL EVA combat, trading, crime, a dynamic game universe. Make your money through mining, trade, piracy, mercenary work, insurance fraud, anything. Steal other people's ships and sell em for scrap. Use em yourself if you want. Know the right people and you can "steal" a friend's ship and reap the insurance policy with no penalty to either of you. He gets a new one from his insurance company, and you get a ship... HOWEVER you can't fly it in civilized space until you get it a new Ship ID (spaceship VIN), and you can't do that without knowing where to go and who to talk to. And if the insurance company ever finds out from anyone at ALL that you two did this, then he loses his insurance policy and BOTH of you become wanted in empire space for insurance fraud.

The quantity of game development resources that are frequently being implemented into completely wrong things really can be astonishing. There are essentially two or three things that should be the number one priority: gameplay, immersion, and storyline, with storyline being an extremely close situational third. It is important to keep in mind that game feel and replayability fall into those broad categories. Let's briefly examine if a few of the revolutionary titles follow this: Starcraft: fantastic game feel, immersion, unlimited replayability, wonderful storyline original Counter Strike: fantastic game feel, immersion, unlimited replayability, situational storyline importance not applied Half Life: fantastic game feel, immersion, unlimited replayability due do modding support, wonderful storyline. And one of the most important things about this, is the fact that games of that level would require immeasurably less resources to produce today, with even their MODS completely blowing a hilarious portion of the triple A titles out of the water. Minecraft is somewhere in between Doom and HL in terms of graphics, was put together with extremely few resources, is a modern title, and was a tiled randomly generated world shattering success, just to give an example. This whole thing quite tragically displays the high probability of these "mistakes" being an intentional vehicle of greed, instead of being the result of incompetence. From my opinion anyway, with the resources that many of the developers have, not making a genuinely good game that focuses on the right things simply does not make sense. I am not stating any particular epiphanies here whatsoever, I am reciting basic crap that people "fail to follow" game after game, explaining it with incompetence stopped making sense a while ago. While I would certainly not completely rule out the possibility of incompetence, it definitely does not fully explain things by itself.

[video=youtube;42u0KB6f5eU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42u0KB6f5eU[/video] [video=youtube;26I-Pw-yPJ4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26I-Pw-yPJ4[/video] [video=youtube;qm8-Ty0_wFQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm8-Ty0_wFQ[/video] All the feels I loved games like these, they had music that was extremely memorable and melodic, yet was also extremely atmospheric without having to resort to using a lot of ambient noise.

Gonna be honest, I have a hard time taking posts seriously that talk about how old games were more immersive and in the old days the developers didn't care so much about money and more about the art and this and that when many of the people posting weren't even in their teens when the 90s ended. Not saying this applies to everyone, but there are definitely some people in here praising games that they are too young to have played on release. There have always been developers concerned with making money. There have always been developers concerned with making art. There have been games that are easy, and games that are hard. IMO, the main change between games made in the 90s and games made nowadays is the amount of focus testing and revision that goes into a game to create the most polished experience. A side effect of this is that, yes, the game is made to the lowest common denominator, as it is better for a mandatory sequence to be a little bit simple than for a paying customer to be totally stuck and unable to progress. And for all the praising of the depth and complexity of old games, I can't help but find it hypocritical when a lot of gamers tell me they can't play 90s games because the interface sucks, the graphics are nonsensical, the game is absurdly difficult, they don't know where to go, or a combination of all of the above. Modern games may tend to be more straightforward and require less thought but it's a lot harder to get completely stuck because you failed a pixel hunt or missed a critical piece of data two levels ago. Half-Life 2, a game that isn't even very old, hand-holds and organically teaches in equal measure. Sure, the Metro Cop tells you to pick up a can. Notice how a 'press E to pick up' prompt comes onto the screen. Later in the game, when you get the gravity gun, you get a fun little tutorial sequence that pretty explicitly tells you how to play. People keep talking about Half-Life 2 as if it's this paragon of game design that beams knowledge directly into your brain, but come on, it is full of gimmicky training sequences and onscreen prompts. Doom 3 teaches you how to play in one tutorial and then you're good to go. How many of you have played System Shock? Marathon? Pathways Into Darkness? How many of you spent hours trying to find a key in Doom, or figuring out where you're supposed to jump in Unreal? How many of you struggled to figure out how the fuck to play Carrier Command, or swore at your screen when failing a Tomb Raider jumping puzzle for the tenth time, or gave up and had to go look up a FAQ to figure out Myst? If you want a masochistic, no-hand-holding, challenging game, there are titles like STALKER and Metro 2033 that continue the trend. But they're not the only kind of game available, and despite the temptation to look with rose-tinted glasses I don't wish for 90s gaming trends to be the norm.

Most of the most memorable 90s titles weren't as hard or confusing as you make them out to be. Also thanks thread for reminding me how awesome Metroid is, just set up a GC emu to play it

Jesus, each post is like an essay on game design. What, is everyone here secretly a game developer?

[QUOTE=catbarf;39638832]another fine addition to the thread.[/QUOTE] I fully respect your truly fantastic post, and I understand your opinions, I just respectfully disagree with them. A lot of the famous older titles were straightforward enough. and actually made the exploration feel interesting and rewarding. I would much rather be stuck in an area for a short while, or even a longer while, than to immediately receive effortless directions for the next one, because it makes you feel genuinely satisfied when you do find the solution, it encourages independent thinking. That is not to say that older games never went overboard, but the norm should certainly revolve itself around pleasantly challenging independence. A number of us are also not necessarily saying that it was a direct case of money vs art. I mentioned greed in my last post for a very good reason, for a rather ironic one. By focusing on the lower common denominator, on the graphical glamour without substance, and a number of other questionable things, the finished product achieves its intended cash-in result significantly less effectively than with a genuinely good game. By doing all of these things, it not only attracts a significantly lower amount of "lowest common denominators" than it would have, but also uses up endlessly more resources than it would have used in a more positive scenario. Just to give the same example: Counter Strike started as a game mod, and ended up being one of the most popular games in the world, generating mind boggling amounts of revenue, as well as attracting every type of gamer out there, their grandma, and their cat. All while using less resources than it probably takes to re-stock a candy machine at a triple A game development studio. And let us keep in mind that there are apparently STILL tournaments being played for it (not positive though.) I also disagree about Half-Life 2 training sequences being gimmicky. They were integrated beautifully, and only added to the storyline by giving it organic breaks, making you feel more immersed, human, and attached. We are not saying that the 90's games were perfect. They were rough, solid beginnings that required polishing and improvement, similar to a sketch. What they certainly DID NOT require, was ripping them out of the ground with the roots while decapitating them.

I think immersion is an issue but I honestly think gameplay is a bigger issue. Gameplay is just so generic, unpolished, and restricted these days.

[QUOTE=harryh11;39639515]Jesus, each post is like an essay on game design. What, is everyone here secretly a game developer?[/QUOTE] I can't speak for anyone else but I've worked as a programmer for a couple of (admittedly small) game studios. It's not really a fun industry. [QUOTE=genkaz92;39639932]I fully respect your truly fantastic post, and I understand your opinions, I just respectfully disagree with them. A lot of the famous older titles were straightforward enough. and actually made the exploration feel interesting and rewarding. I would much rather be stuck in an area for a short while, or even a longer while, than to immediately receive effortless directions for the next one, because it makes you feel genuinely satisfied when you do find the solution, it encourages independent thinking. That is not to say that older games never went overboard, but the norm should certainly revolve itself around pleasantly challenging independence. A number of us are also not necessarily saying that it was a direct case of money vs art. I mentioned greed in my last post for a very good reason, for a rather ironic one. By focusing on the lower common denominator, on the graphical glamour without substance, and a number of other questionable things, the finished product achieves its intended cash-in result significantly less effectively than with a genuinely good game. By doing all of these things, it not only attracts a significantly lower amount of "lowest common denominators" than it would have, but also uses up endlessly more resources than it would have used in a more positive scenario. Just to give the same example: Counter Strike started as a game mod, and ended up being one of the most popular games in the world, generating mind boggling amounts of revenue, as well as attracting every type of gamer out there, their grandma, and their cat. All while using less resources than it probably takes to re-stock a candy machine at a triple A game development studio. And let us keep in mind that there are apparently STILL tournaments being played for it (not positive though.) I also disagree about Half-Life 2 training sequences being gimmicky. They were integrated beautifully, and only added to the storyline by giving it organic breaks, making you feel more immersed, human, and attached. We are not saying that the 90's games were perfect. They were rough, solid beginnings that required polishing and improvement, similar to a sketch. What they certainly DID NOT require, was ripping them out of the ground with the roots while decapitating them.[/QUOTE] I understand what you're saying, and I agree, I just don't think the paradigm has changed all that much, just a difference of style. Many games in the 90s expected you to read through and understand a manual before playing, and in-game expected that you had already read what to do. It's not that they didn't provide hand-holding because they wanted you to be independent, it's more that it was expected that you already know what to do. Even today you can find plenty of games that don't really hold your hand, and give a challenge as well as independence. X-Com (the remake), STALKER, Metro 2033, Fallout 3 and New Vegas are just a few examples. As for Counter-Strike, keep in mind that it is fundamentally a mod of an existing game, and multiplayer-only. Those two traits mean that most of the design overhead was done for the developers (by Valve, no less), and so only a shoestring budget was necessary. Try to make a shooter from scratch, and it's a LOT harder. The engine alone is a huge time and resource sink. Lastly, remember that wide open worlds with enormous maps and limitless freedom are becoming more the minority as a direct result of the increased cost of content. In the days of Doom, you could make a big, sprawling map full of different rooms containing all sorts of items and enemies in an afternoon. Nowadays, building a level takes a team of mappers, AI programmers, modellers, and artists days or even weeks to get to completion. That's why you get linear, extremely polished experiences, because it's just so expensive to make a huge world if the typical player won't even see half of it, not because developers think you're an idiot. The people developing games nowadays are the same people who grew up on or at least played games back in the 90s. They see the changes, they know the differences between then and today, just as well as we do.

Its funny nowadays Im either playing more F2P games and older games instead of new games. The majority of them follow a stupid fucking bandwagon which is for money rather then players enjoyment.

[QUOTE=catbarf;39640804]A reply to my post[/QUOTE] I agree with a lot of things that you are saying as well. It is just that I have a rather strong impression of many older titles having an organic educating nature, with the manuals being more of an emergency fallback than anything. I would also like to re-state my opinion that the older game formulas were definitely not perfect, and could always use improvement. When it comes to a field such as this one, there is no perfection, there is only better. The mod factor of CS is indeed important to keep in mind, but does it not further strengthen its admirable display of resource management? Both Dota and CS originated from modding, becoming extremely successful pillars of gaming. I understand that you were not saying this, but there is really nothing wrong with using already existent materials, considering that HL was based on a modded quake engine, and that HL2 was based on a modded Havok engine. I also agree about the limitless freedom factor. By pleasantly challenging independence, I definitely did not mean utilizing mind boggling amounts of resources for pointlessly enormous areas, but rather on completely reasonable replayability elements, which exist within the reasonable proportions of the project. In other words, we may be saying exactly the same things in different ways here, which is sometimes known as a violent agreement. Even if that is not the case, we are definitely having a positive disagreement.

[QUOTE=genkaz92;39641006]I agree with a lot of things that you are saying as well. It is just that I have a rather strong impression of many older titles having an organic educating nature, with the manuals being more of an emergency fallback than anything. I would also like to re-state my opinion that the older game formulas were definitely not perfect, and could always use improvement. When it comes to a field such as this one, there is no perfection, there is only better. The mod factor of CS is indeed important to keep in mind, but does it not further strengthen its admirable display of resource management? Both Dota and CS originated from modding, becoming extremely successful pillars of gaming. I understand that you were not saying this, but there is really nothing wrong with using already existent materials, considering that HL was based on a modded quake engine, and that HL2 was based on a modded Havok engine. I also agree about the limitless freedom factor. By pleasantly challenging independence, I definitely did not mean utilizing mind boggling amounts of resources for pointlessly enormous areas, but rather on completely reasonable replayability elements, which exist within the reasonable proportions of the project. In other words, we may be saying exactly the same things in different ways here, which is sometimes known as a violent agreement. Even if that is not the case, we are definitely having a positive disagreement.[/QUOTE] Some good points, but I strongly disagree about older games being better at educating organically. I would like to suggest you download System Shock Portable and give it a try- many old games simply drop you in and expect you've already read the manual. Videogames began under a paradigm similar to board games- the idea being that you sit down with someone who knows how to play, and they show you the ropes. The idea of games teaching you through play is a relatively recent one.

[QUOTE=catbarf;39641094]Some good points, but I strongly disagree about older games being better at educating organically. I would like to suggest you download System Shock Portable and give it a try- many old games simply drop you in and expect you've already read the manual. Videogames began under a paradigm similar to board games- the idea being that you sit down with someone who knows how to play, and they show you the ropes. The idea of games teaching you through play is a relatively recent one.[/QUOTE] You know, on the second thought, I probably am wrong about that one. Recalling the older games, I would definitely say that they required... a sophisticated and patient approach. Hilariously enough I did play the first System Shock (non portable), and it did take some time getting used to. When I was younger, I also played many of those games in a completely shoot the shit fashion, without actually learning what was going on in them whatsoever. :v: It was most entertaining, although Age of Empires was a pretty good teacher by itself.

I've never been immersed by any game What does it feel like?

[QUOTE=ojcoolj;39642872]I've never been immersed by any game What does it feel like?[/QUOTE] It's fuckawesome, man. I remember when I used to get really into Doom. Whenever I'd see a baron of hell come around the corner I'd actually get scared and when I beat one of them I felt like a god damn hero. I mean, I just slew a fuckin' lord of hell. How badass is that. These days when I fire up Doom I just laugh at how stupid fast Doomguy moves and blow everything up indiscriminately. I can't get into it the same way as when I was younger but it's still a blast [editline]19th February 2013[/editline] Also I can't really believe you've never ever been immersed in a game.

The last time I was really immersed was at the start of dayz, everything was so unknown and fresh. I had heartpumping and hand sweating moments all the time. I hope dayz SA brings that back, rocket wants to archieve immersion.

I won't pander off older games on some high-horse, simply because I go back and play them enough to know that Doom is hilarious, Marathon is a time-sinking objective hunt, and Morrowind was chunky, for lack of a better word. Yet, I do want to note: As games stuff themselves full of more cut-scenes and prompts - that's what kills some of my immersion these days. This thread has already beaten the hand-holding aspect in pretty well; but even that is sometimes acceptable if it isn't insulting to the player. Put a little differently, any time a game pulls you out of the 'game' aspect to drive home some event or function; it's a huge whistle in your face of "Hey! You're playing a game!" The worst combination of the two would be a scripted quick-time event. I'm only putting this out here because I had the realization that modern games I've been immersed in (STALKER, Metro) have had practically no quick-time events, few on-screen prompts and small HUDs. Whereas those that have had a lot of scripted scenes and quick-time events have been less immersive; even if fun to some extent (Dead Space series, Skyrim, Far Cry 3.) I also want to note that I don't think poorly of Dead Space 1/2 at all. I loved what they did with the HUD and inventory - but getting pulled to watch a scene and mash buttons really drew me out of it. They could have had a more interactive mechanic then windows popping up, telling you which button to press less you lose progress or get killed - but it was still a great game.

A lot of people have mentioned Far Cry 3 as an example of the hand holding and immersion breaking type of game, and while I love the game I have to agree. After playing a lot of FC3 I went back and gave FC2 another chance after not liking it much the first time round (first time was on console, second on PC) What I found was that I enjoyed Far Cry 2 a lot more, in much the same way that I love STALKER, sure it was buggy and had some glaring issues, but it really dropped you into this world, gave you a nudge and a short, somewhat immersive tutorial, and then left you there in Africa. It rarely takes control away, it gives you situations but you tackle them, or fail to, yourself. Much of the point I'm trying to make is [url=http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/dishonoreds-harvey-smith-explains-the-genius-of-far-cry-2]here[/url], and I have to agree. Ignoring the ninja-cars and respawning baddies, Far Cry 2 was a great and immersive game, things went wrong, rockets failed, you gun jammed, and it let you fail. It even gave you a fallback system for if you fail to keep you immersed rather than an instant "You are dead" screen.

Vietcong was amazing for immersion, you had to keep track of where you was on the map, or if you were lost you had to rely on the point-man. You died easily and had to think about how you were going to engage in a fight, the squad based combat was fantastic.

I find it easier to get immersed when Im baked out of my mind, its the best

I think the most immersed I've ever been in a game was probably the first time I played Quake - I was really young and didn't know much about anything, so I literally believed the monitor was like a window into another world. Sure, I've been immersed in games since then but it's never been as amazing as that.

visual cues can be good if they're properly contextual, aiming reticles in mech games, etc.

[QUOTE=trotskygrad;39647333]visual cues can be good if they're properly contextual, aiming reticles in mech games, etc.[/QUOTE] MechWarrior 3 is one game that really did that well for me, it's pretty dated now, but it was unmatched in it's day. It makes a great job of everything, the UI puts you in the cockpit, you've got the HUD, your windows can get cracked, the computer tells you about the status of your mech, goes through a startup sequence and gives missile lock tones, you can look left and right and see the outside of your mech. Recoil pushes your view around, the whole mech rocks when you get hit and can even fall over giving you a nice view of either the ground or the sky depending where you got hit from. [video=youtube;cLan9dguo2s]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLan9dguo2s[/video]

The last game that truly immersed me without mods was Half Life 2. Almost no HUD, no leaving first-person at all. Truly remarkable game.

I torrented a game called Iron Storm, which takes place in an alternate history 1964 where WWI never ended. After playing for a bit, I started to realize that I was becoming paranoid of snipers and traps, the same way a commando in that situation would be. The game also does a great job with the atmosphere of a world where war is fought for profit instead of for country. It's very bleak and very depressing. [highlight](User was banned for this post ("warez" - postal))[/highlight]

The real trick to immersion is no quick time events, no cutscenes that take place outside of the character's PoV, and a minimal HUD. Take Fallout: New Vegas for example (there are other options but this is the one that stands out for me). There are no quicktime events, the HUD is small and the menus make sense as a physical object, the Pip-Boy. There are no cutscenes at all, every conversation and piece of information that conveys the story happens directly in your face. on the other hand, of course, developers are trying to tell a story, and it's hard to tell a story with no cutscenes unless you're willing to accept that you're not just playing a game, but you're watching a story unfold that you're a part of. this tends to happen more with rpgs than action games, though.