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

While I'd hate to turn this thread into an Oblivion vs Skyrim argument, for me I think that the aspect of a game that increases immersion is whatever feature that Oblivion has that Skyrim doesn't. A good friend of mine and I were talking recently about the two games, and tried to find out why we thought better of oblivion than skyrim. Going down the list the two seem to be completely the same: mechanics are similar, there are similar needs fulfilled (lore, random events, unforeseen plot twists, funny moments etc) but for some reason everyone that I've met that's played oblivion and then skyrim has always rated oblivion better. Just to remind, I'm not talking about nostalgia here: my friend and I put our two PS3s together, put skyrim in one and oblivion in the other, and it was more interesting to play oblivion than skyrim. I think that the difference, although I'm probably wrong, is a child-like quality to the games. Like explained in the Extra-Creditz episode 'Hard boiled', a game that's all gritty all the time isn't immersive or believable at all because a big part of being mature and realistic is holding childhood ideals and habits dear. In oblivion, the aesthetics of the game were bright and fantasy like. In Metro there are characters like Bourbon that try to deal with all of the hardships by calling dangerous creatures "Bitches", and making jokes about the outside world. In STALKER the threats and insults that are hurled around between fighters are hilarious, and despite the danger some people will drink their ass off, or pull out a guitar and play a song, or tell a funny story around a campfire. I'm probably dead wrong on this, but I think that for me it's a big difference between a game that's really immersive and a game that's just sitting in a chair and watching pixels change on a screen. [editline]22nd February 2013[/editline] Here's the video too, in case anyone was interested. [url]http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/hard-boiled[/url]

[QUOTE=Mobon1;39604061]i feel like this is why minecraft had so much appeal to a lot of people it basically just left you out to dry, and you had to fend for yourself while simultaneously finding lots of cool shit[/QUOTE] And I think this is why the Xbox version of Minecraft suddenly feels like a child's game [editline]23rd February 2013[/editline] Also I like ArmA II. Very immersive game, for me at least.

Certainly. Especially if you get on mic and headset and work together. The the vast open space in ARMA 1 and 2 make me feel isolation and immersion like no other game when I give them a proper play.

[QUOTE=willer;39685285]While I'd hate to turn this thread into an Oblivion vs Skyrim argument, for me I think that the aspect of a game that increases immersion is whatever feature that Oblivion has that Skyrim doesn't. A good friend of mine and I were talking recently about the two games, and tried to find out why we thought better of oblivion than skyrim. Going down the list the two seem to be completely the same: mechanics are similar, there are similar needs fulfilled (lore, random events, unforeseen plot twists, funny moments etc) but for some reason everyone that I've met that's played oblivion and then skyrim has always rated oblivion better. Just to remind, I'm not talking about nostalgia here: my friend and I put our two PS3s together, put skyrim in one and oblivion in the other, and it was more interesting to play oblivion than skyrim. I think that the difference, although I'm probably wrong, is a child-like quality to the games. Like explained in the Extra-Creditz episode 'Hard boiled', a game that's all gritty all the time isn't immersive or believable at all because a big part of being mature and realistic is holding childhood ideals and habits dear. In oblivion, the aesthetics of the game were bright and fantasy like. In Metro there are characters like Bourbon that try to deal with all of the hardships by calling dangerous creatures "Bitches", and making jokes about the outside world. In STALKER the threats and insults that are hurled around between fighters are hilarious, and despite the danger some people will drink their ass off, or pull out a guitar and play a song, or tell a funny story around a campfire. I'm probably dead wrong on this, but I think that for me it's a big difference between a game that's really immersive and a game that's just sitting in a chair and watching pixels change on a screen. [editline]22nd February 2013[/editline] Here's the video too, in case anyone was interested. [url]http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/hard-boiled[/url][/QUOTE] I do not get how people like Oblivion more than Skyrim. Oblivion was one of the most trash talked games until skyrim came out then somehow I see all these posts flipping entirely from how bad Oblivion was to how good it was, and there's definite sides of Oblivion that are better, but as a whole, I don't see it at all. Almost everything Skyrim did was to better what Oblivion had, and while it became a samey dungeon crawler if you followed missions it corrected so many of the flaws that were present in Oblivion

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;39686712]I do not get how people like Oblivion more than Skyrim. Oblivion was one of the most trash talked games until skyrim came out then somehow I see all these posts flipping entirely from how bad Oblivion was to how good it was, and there's definite sides of Oblivion that are better, but as a whole, I don't see it at all. Almost everything Skyrim did was to better what Oblivion had, and while it became a samey dungeon crawler if you followed missions it corrected so many of the flaws that were present in Oblivion[/QUOTE] That's kind of what I'm saying, but spun off somewhere. Skyrim has pretty much all of the features of oblivion, and most of them have either been improved on or increased, or toned down to avoid complexity. Yet almost everyone that I've met who isn't trying to be a "rebel" (tons of those people at colleges and high schools, who will state an unpopular opinion and then having nothing to back it up with when called on it) liked Oblivion more. Maybe complexity is another part to immer- no....that's stupid nevermind.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;39686712]I do not get how people like Oblivion more than Skyrim. Oblivion was one of the most trash talked games until skyrim came out then somehow I see all these posts flipping entirely from how bad Oblivion was to how good it was, and there's definite sides of Oblivion that are better, but as a whole, I don't see it at all. Almost everything Skyrim did was to better what Oblivion had, and while it became a samey dungeon crawler if you followed missions it corrected so many of the flaws that were present in Oblivion[/QUOTE] Just my opinion here, but when Oblivion came out it brought something new and different to the table. Comparing Morrowind and Oblivion, they are radically different. Not going to argue which one is better as that's irrelevant. Skyrim didn't bring anything new, at least I didn't notice anything. The only thing that changed is the map. When doing guild quests in Skyrim I felt like I was playing Oblivion on a different map. If you like "more of the same" then that's good, but I would've preferred something more different. Though the whole 60 hours I played I had this feeling of "I've done this before" and would remember Oblivion. Technically Skyrim is a huge improvement yes, but actual game as such didn't change. The combat was still terrible, the quests were arguably worse, the world felt even more static and lifeless to me. As I said before, so much was removed or streamlined that it felt more like an action game with RPG elements instead of full blown RPG. Don't get me wrong Skyrim is a great game and I enjoyed it all 60 hours I played it but it's not higher than Oblivion in my list.

[QUOTE=willer;39685285]In Metro there are characters like Bourbon that try to deal with all of the hardships by calling dangerous creatures "Bitches", and making jokes about the outside world. In STALKER the threats and insults that are hurled around between fighters are hilarious, and despite the danger some people will drink their ass off, or pull out a guitar and play a song, or tell a funny story around a campfire. [/QUOTE] That's not being 'childlike', that's just having believable and relatable characters [editline]23rd February 2013[/editline] [QUOTE] a game that's all gritty all the time isn't immersive or believable at all because a big part of being mature and realistic is holding childhood ideals and habits dear[/QUOTE] And what's that even supposed to mean?

[QUOTE=RobbL;39688516]That's not being 'childlike', that's just having believable and relatable characters [editline]23rd February 2013[/editline] And what's that even supposed to mean?[/QUOTE] Guess he's just talking about how not having everything so ~gritty and srs~ makes games much more believable, since I'm pretty sure that there's a ton of people who like to joke about the danger when exposed to it. Take Niko from GTA IV, who, while being serious and pretty depressed, still manages to churn out a ton of sarcasm which really humanizes him in my eyes. Hell, go watch Generation Kill or something: soldiers are constantly in danger, and yet they keep fooling around and making (often darkly humorous) jokes. I don't wanna sound like an armchair psychologist, but that's just how people tend to react - they aren't moping all the time because [friend/relative/important plot character] died. Well, unless they're Max Payne, but hell, even he keeps mouthing off to his enemies and being hilariously self-depreciating in his noir styled internal monologue.

[QUOTE=RobbL;39688516]That's not being 'childlike', that's just having believable and relatable characters [editline]23rd February 2013[/editline] And what's that even supposed to mean?[/QUOTE] I'm pretty sure he didn't really want to use "childlike". More like "lighthearted". Even then it's not hard to understand what he was trying to say. M.Ciaster had the right idea, I think. Seeing how people try to cope with incredibly tense situations does humanize them quite a bit and important for a believable character.

[QUOTE=RobbL;39688516] And what's that even supposed to mean?[/QUOTE] What I'm saying is that a character that's doing nothing but being depressed and serious and grim all the time isn't interesting at all. It makes the character seem like some angsty teenager, or not even a person at all, which would ruin the immersion of a game if there were too many characters with those traits. A game that has at least a little bit of humor or shows what life is like for people who aren't steeped in bloodshed all the time would add a lot to the story and immersion. Another bad example, but I'm best at these anyways: I never made it past a few missions at the beginning of the last Call of Duty game. From the very start of Black Ops 2, every character that I saw that brought an interesting point to the plot didn't seem like any kind of person I'd like to even know, much less play as. All of the characters, from the old retired veteran to the new(ish) modern soldier (sorry, I can't remember their names) just seemed like depressing fucks that had no emotion or care for anyone else. While this kind of makes sense because they're soldiers, it sucks the fun out of the game because they don't seem to have any reaction to anything that isn't "Oh well I guess I'll just go over here and kill some more". You could change out the characters that are around the same age and I wouldn't have noticed anything different. [QUOTE=Wolfos;39690170]I'm pretty sure he didn't really want to use "childlike". More like "lighthearted". Even then it's not hard to understand what he was trying to say. M.Ciaster had the right idea, I think. Seeing how people try to cope with incredibly tense situations does humanize them quite a bit and important for a believable character.[/QUOTE] Yes that is what I meant to say. Not exactly childlike, but just not so serious at all times. Like with these guys: they're soldiers, they almost either die or get wounded, everything about this should be serious, but instead they laugh because it would be too much to suddenly consider that everyone in the area could have been hurt, and they need a quick way to deal with the stress. [editline]February 23, 2013[/editline] Fuck this example and fuck media tags.

someone should link this thread to major game developers and tell them to read the posts with lots of green "Agree" marks

And then FP experiences an influx of new users targeting a single thread where they merely rate a lot of posts with disagrees and boxes.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;39686712]I do not get how people like Oblivion more than Skyrim. Oblivion was one of the most trash talked games until skyrim came out then somehow I see all these posts flipping entirely from how bad Oblivion was to how good it was, and there's definite sides of Oblivion that are better, but as a whole, I don't see it at all. Almost everything Skyrim did was to better what Oblivion had, and while it became a samey dungeon crawler if you followed missions it corrected so many of the flaws that were present in Oblivion[/QUOTE] I may have trash talked Oblivion a lot but the game had fucking excellent quests, they were way better then most of skyrims. [B]especially[/B] Skyrim's laughable guild questlines.

Earthsiege 2 - This game I thought did a great job of immersion. The first thing being the cockpit to the herc, you can see all the dials and instruments with other little things on the HUD, then, for more advanced stuff you had too look down at the computer, taking your eyes off the world to check on your status, squadmate status, and maps etc. Then actually moving around was really neat because you could hear every step as a thud and the herc would lurch in sync with the steps, then as your taking damage you can see components falling off, when leg servos take damage you'll slowly limp and have issues turning. And turning that around against the enemy, you could target individual parts of the enemies. (My personal favorite was to shoot out their legs yielding way more scrap and recycled weapons than blowing them sky high.) System Shock 2 does a good job as well, even though today the models look incredibly dated, you usually aren't staring long enough to notice, the real kicker would be the PDAs that yield pretty much the whole story. Some of my favorite times being when an enemy is introduced and I only then start finding PDAs about it. Like finding information on the birth of the midwives after you've killed a few. The eerie sound affects from the growth, the buzzing and whirring of computers, and the distant moans of hybrids. if you pay attention, you can hear doors opening behind you. It makes finding PDAs a beautiful sight because it's another human voice. Jurassic Park Trespasser. Yes, it was unfinished and is riddled with endless bugs but that doesn't mean we can't learn anything from it. No hud, your health is on your boob and ammo counts are given vocally by your character. You can only carry two items at a time. The whole hand mechanic kinda screws things up a bit, but the ideas weren't bad. Another game where you are totally alone and given no direction under than a very worn dirt path. It's still linear, but you can still get lost sometimes.

I don't have any problem immersing myself into games. Maybe you're just getting old, OP.