Manwe on 23/9/2009 at 17:26
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
You're talking as if all games are, or should be, story-driven. This is obviously false. Pac-Man doesn't need a smegging story.
Yes indeed you are right, not every game needs to be story-driven. What I was trying to say was that immersion and and interactivity is the biggest strength of video games, it's what they should strive to achieve. And it's exactly what they avoid like the plague. I like playing a good Zelda game or a platformer or a shooter from time to time like anyone else but I still prefer an "immersive sim" ala Deus EX, System Shock or Thief. But how often do we see those kind of games seriously ? When was the last time we had a commercial game of the scope of TNM ? There are just too many Pacmans in this world and not enough Deus Ex's.
mgeorge on 23/9/2009 at 17:30
Papy, you should just play the game.
And although I don't know how much you enjoyed DE, if you did enjoy it, (and I have a feeling you did), you owe it to yourself to play this.
It's that good IMO. Play the game and then critique it.
I'm not saying it's perfect. I've had quite a few random crashes, and some of the maps do feel a bit empty, but so did the original.
As to immersion, game design, meaningful choices blah blah blah. It's all there. I'm not going into a long dissertation on that shit. I'm not smart enough. I just know that the game is fun. It has everything the original did, and then some. What more do you want?
DDL on 23/9/2009 at 18:43
And it has me in it! And Chris the Cynic! And Jonas! And none of us are invincible (or in my case, even particularly relevant).
So you can express your critiques WITH A GUN.
Jonas Wæver on 23/9/2009 at 20:10
Quote Posted by Manwe
What I was trying to say was that immersion and and interactivity is the biggest strength of video games, it's what they should strive to achieve.
I have to say I dislike it when people use the word "immersion" without qualifying it. Sometimes it's easy to understand what they mean, but a lot of the time you'll find somebody arguing that immersion is something completely unique to games, and it's kinda hard to tell what they really mean. For example, if by immersion you just mean that you become so engaged by the game that you completely forget everything around you - your gold fish needs feeding, you're late for work, you haven't eaten in 3 days, and your girlfriend keeps calling on your cell phone, but you're too busy playing to worry about any of that - this is somewhat different from the kind of immersion where you feel like you're in the zone (often called flow) or the kind of immersion where you become one with your avatar (what I would call role-play, but I forget if there's a proper term for it). Before anybody says "shut up you pedant, you know what I mean" the problem is that no, in fact I don't know what you mean.
Anyway, perhaps more constructively, the kind of immersion where you almost feel like you're present inside the fictional world (the term there is "presence", if you will) is not unique to video games, I experience it every time I read a good book :)
chris the cynic on 23/9/2009 at 20:26
Quote Posted by Papy
And if I don't like it will you allow me to criticize it?
Jonas is usually pretty welcoming of criticism. You just saw him agree with some of ZB's criticism on the 18th.
There are certain types of criticism he won't tolerate. He usually doesn't have much love for those who offer criticism that doesn't apply (for example "It sucks because you can't do X" when you can do X but the person never tried.) He also doesn't take kindly to people who take the position that what they like is automatically right and what they don't like is automatically wrong.
If you steer clear of things like that Jonas will probably be very interested in your criticism.
Quote Posted by DDL
And it has me in it! And Chris the Cynic! And Jonas! And none of us are invincible (or in my case, even particularly relevant).
Pretty sure I'm equally irrelevant. Easier to find, but just as irrelevant.
Jonas Wæver on 23/9/2009 at 21:19
Quote Posted by chris the cynic
There are certain types of criticism he won't tolerate. He usually doesn't have much love for those who offer criticism that doesn't apply (for example "It sucks because you can't do X" when you can do X but the person never tried.) He also doesn't take kindly to people who take the position that what they like is automatically right and what they don't like is automatically wrong.
If you steer clear of things like that Jonas will probably be very interested in your criticism.
That's pretty bang on the money, but even so, anybody is entitled to criticise TNM in any way they like; I try to keep my blood pressure in check, because I recognise that we have freedom of speech. I don't pretend to be able to control what anybody writes. All I'm saying is that such criticisms are worthless to me as a designer. I'm interested in people pointing out actual design flaws and poor decisions, and TNM should have enough of those that you won't have to make stuff up.
Thankfully the most dire mistakes have been patched away already.
Manwe on 23/9/2009 at 23:31
Quote Posted by Jonas Wæver
I have to say I dislike it when people use the word "immersion" without qualifying it. Sometimes it's easy to understand what they mean, but a lot of the time you'll find somebody arguing that immersion is something completely unique to games, and it's kinda hard to tell what they really mean. For example, if by immersion you just mean that you become so engaged by the game that you completely forget everything around you - your gold fish needs feeding, you're late for work, you haven't eaten in 3 days, and your girlfriend keeps calling on your cell phone, but you're too busy playing to worry about any of that - this is somewhat different from the kind of immersion where you feel like you're in the zone (often called flow) or the kind of immersion where you become one with your avatar (what I would call role-play, but I forget if there's a proper term for it). Before anybody says "shut up you pedant, you know what I mean" the problem is that no, in fact I don't know what you mean.
Anyway, perhaps more constructively, the kind of immersion where you almost feel like you're present inside the fictional world (the term there is "presence", if you will) is not unique to video games, I experience it every time I read a good book :)
Well I guess you're right there are certainly different ways to be immersed while playing a game. What I mean by immersion personally is what I feel when I play games like Deus Ex, System Shock or Thief (those three specifically). I dont know how to explain it but when I play these games I'm just transported in the gameworld and I forget about everything else. I become the characters and actually live their adventures. This is due to the fact that they're in first person, they give me a lot of freedom and the story is mostly told through interactive means (or actually interactive in the case of TNM and DX) like reading e-mails, newspapers and notes, listening to audio logs or overhearing a conversation, interacting with npc's and so on. Also the fact that the interface is part of the gameworld really helps in the case of SS and DX (in SS2 the interface you see on the screen is actually the cyber interface the guy has in his head and it's pretty easy to imagine the same for DX). All of these things basically add up to make you forget you're playing a game and totally immerse you in the experience. This is why you hear people complaining about intrusive interface in certain games. Having a big message appearing on screen saying "PRESS H TO SAVE THE LITTLE SISTER" tends to remind you you're playing a game.
Anyway I don't get the same kind of immersion from other games. And I wouldn't call forgetting about the real world around you immersion cause that can happen with pretty much anything that requires your attention. Actually that's probably the very definition of it, but complete immersion into a video game is more than that to me. For example I don't consider multiplayer games immersive, even though you can easily lose track of time in those. These are more like a sport albeit a virtual one or an actual "game", just a challenge with your friends to see who's the best. Same thing with some "roleplaying" games. Particularly those that rely on repetitive grinding. I'm thinking of games like diablo or mmo's here, not saying they're necessarily bad or anything. I don't actually feel like I'm on an adventure while playing those games, I just feel like I'm in front of my pc clicking on some random icons and seeing numbers popping on my screen while interacting with other people in front of their pc's doing the exact same thing (I actually play wow from time to time, don't ask me why I don't know myself). That's immersion for some people but not for me.
Other singleplayer games offer yet a different kind of immersion. But I'm not sure I can explain it cause I've never really thought about what I feel when I play those games. These days it's usually disgust or boredom I guess but then again I don't play that many games anymore. The last console games I played were Tomb Raider Underworld and the last Prince of Persia both of which I enjoyed. But I'm not sure I can explain what I felt when I played them or why I enjoy them so much. But it's certainly a different kind of experience than DX (not saying one is better than the other).
I hope that clears it up.
Papy on 28/9/2009 at 00:17
Quote Posted by Manwe
I'm not sure I understand the difference you make between playing "with" and "against" a video game
The difference is challenge. If choices are there to make sure the player can do whatever he feels like, if the game is "well-balanced" to make sure that every choices are "good" choices, then I view those choices as pointless. A game like Oblivion (vanilla) is the perfect example of this. There is virtually no challenge and no choices offer an advantage. The game is just about doing whatever you feel like and everything feels artificial. Personally, I have absolutely no interest for those game. I'd rather take a pen and write my own short story on a piece of paper.
Choices alone to not give a feeling of being there. Having a believable game world is much more important. Deus Ex, System Shock and Thief had "believable" game world, Invisible War or Oblivion did not.
Quote Posted by Manwe
The game you play with is the roller coaster, that's the toy, the halos and half lives and call of duties.
I never played Halo or call of duty and I hated Half-Life or games like Medal of Honor. And Deus Ex was a roller coaster game.
Quote Posted by Manwe
And you can never have too much freedom in a game.
Oblivion had too much freedom.
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
Nonetheless, not even you can deny having posted the statement "If choices give a sense of control, then you end up with a toy." A choice that gives a sense of control is what's known in game design circles as "(
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&safe=off&q=%22meaningful+choice%22) meaningful choice", and this is in fact considered one of the most important aspects of good gameplay. By your reasoning, even Chess is a "toy", since it's nothing but decisions which, if well-made, give the player a sense of control.
If you play chess alone (both side at once), then it is obviously a toy (unless you have a severe case of split personality).
If I feel I control the game, if I feel I can do whatever I want, then choices are meaningless.
Quote Posted by Jonas Wæver
I must admit I don't sympathise at all with this point of view. Are you really saying that you regard protagonists in old-fashioned linear fiction as no different from each other (that's pretty much what generic means) unless you're given a complete and extensive description of their character at the beginning?
The model for most linear fiction is : Introduction - development - conclusion. It's the introduction that makes the protagonists lose their generic status.
Quote Posted by Jonas Wæver
Uhm... so in your opinion, there are only two ways to approach the avatar in game design: you either try to eliminate the protagonist completely by using a blank slate character like in Myst or Half-Life, or you frontload the story with an extensive background and personality description of the main character?
Neither. My opinion is that you should never leave the player wondering what the hell a conversation between his character and an NPC is about. When Paul talked about "our father", it just didn't make sense. Thief was not "terribly designed" because that situation never happened.
Quote Posted by Jonas Wæver
I vaguely gather that your idea of immersion is to feel that you are personally present inside the game world? It's not eg. flow or role-play (other aspects of immersion), but presence, correct?
Yes
Quote Posted by Jonas Wæver
I believe I stated way up there in my first reply to ZylonBane that it was not a goal to create an illusion that you were the protagonist. If we wanted to create an illusion like that, we would've made a game that never leaves the 1st-person perspective, where the characters specifically talk to you instead of your character
Gothic was not 1st person perspective and I was able to see the protagonist as myself. Deus Ex (which is my favorite game) went out of 1st person for dialogs and it never caused problems.
Quote Posted by Jonas Wæver
So far, we're just discussing design theory, right? ;)
Obviously.
Quote Posted by mgeorge
Papy, you should just play the game.
I will.
ZylonBane on 28/9/2009 at 00:36
Quote Posted by Papy
If you play chess alone (both side at once), then it is obviously a toy (unless you have a severe case of split personality).
If I feel I control the game, if I feel I can do whatever I want, then choices are meaningless.
What psychotic part of your brain came up with the idea of playing chess against yourself? That's goddamn idiotic, and nobody said anything to even begin to suggest it. WTF is wrong with you?
Furthermore, by your logic, if you're playing chess against an opponent who's not as good as you, it magically transforms from a game to a toy.
Manwe on 28/9/2009 at 09:28
Quote Posted by Papy
The difference is challenge. If choices are there to make sure the player can do whatever he feels like, if the game is "well-balanced" to make sure that every choices are "good" choices, then I view those choices as pointless. A game like Oblivion (vanilla) is the perfect example of this. There is virtually no challenge and no choices offer an advantage. The game is just about doing whatever you feel like and everything feels artificial. Personally, I have absolutely no interest for those game. I'd rather take a pen and write my own short story on a piece of paper.
Ok I don't really know what to say here, I didn't play oblivion all that much but from what little I've seen it has nothing in common with TNM. Sure they both go for a fairly open world where you can supposedly do anything you want. But they both do it in a completely different way. Oblivion does it with quantity, as in let's put the biggest world possible even if it has to feel completely randomly generated, the biggest possible number of NPC's even if they must all share the same 3 lines of dialogues told by the same 2 voice actors, and the biggest number of dungeons and quests even if that means they must all be bland and repetitive.
Besides you really didn't have all that much freedom on the actual main storyline in oblivion. If I remember correctly when you tried to kill an important character in the storyline that character would be invincible and he would just be knocked out for a few seconds instead. In morrowind if you killed an important character for the main storyline it would actually be broken and you would have to reload an old save. There is no real consequence to your actions in those games. That's what you don't understand. Oblivion does not give you any freedom. It just gives you a big generic boring world to have fun with. Kind of like a big gta with magic, swords and a first person view. Goddammit the game even had invisible walls to limit the game world.
What TNM does is completely different. First it takes place on a much smaller scale in a fairly small, closed off place (a small city), which means the developpers have complete control over it and it's easier for them to create a rich and detailed world with real consequences to your actions. It's also easier for them to create interesting NPC's and quests/missions, since they don't have to create 2 billions of them. And they can actually focus on writing a real story and to offer a wide variety of "paths" for the player to follow.
What TNM does is quality over quantity, and choices with consequences instead of just choices. In TNM unlike in GTA or Oblivion you don't just choose between quest A or quest B you also choose how you want to accomplish that quest (shall I enter that building from the front door or from the sewers, or maybe from the roof ?), with what weapons and in what way to accomplish it (shall I sneak in unnoticed, or shall I kill everyone in sight rambo style, shall I hack the security or get past it), and finally you actually choose how the quest ends (shall I accomplish my mission as asked or shall I screw the guy over and go away with the loot to keep it for myself, or shall I go to his enemy with it maybe, or shall I just kill the guy cause I'm a raving psychopath ?).
All this helps to create a sense of freedom and a sense of immersion, and to me it's absolutely fantastic game design. It's the same design philosophy as Deus Ex only pushed further. And again you're complaining about it on the Deus Ex forum. Or I probably don't get what you're complaining about. Is it challenge ? Cause let me tell you, try to play TNM with all the difficulty sliders pushed to the max and you'll be crying as soon as you have to fight an augmented character.
