quote: Original post by Impossible
Sure, I guess these things aren''t necessary, especially if you have a good imagination, but they definitely give us more tangible, physical elements to relate to, which in turn makes things more realistic and emmersive, which makes the game better.

But that''s just it - it doesn''t make the game better, it just makes it nicer to look at. Is Chess actually more fun if you have beautifully hand crafted marble pieces, than if you have carboard cutout pieces?

Of course it isn''t. The marble set looks more attractive and can be a nice decorative piece, but as far as game is concerned it is exactly the same .

Lets expand on this analogy, seeing as you didn''t like my last one. Lets say you are a chess set manufacturer. You have a fixed price point to sell your chess sets, and therefore the cost of each set has a strict upper limit. Given this scenario, which of the following options should you choose?

(a) Manufacture extremely high quality marble chess sets with half the pieces missing
(b) Manufacture tacky plastic chess sets, which are complete.

The mantra of content over style holds true - the complete set is vastly superior - although it may not look as nice, at least it is playable . If you have the resources to spare for the graphics, then do so, but never at the expense of the gameplay - the gameplay is far more important.



Also, I think a lot of people on this board are very guilty of the following stereotype:

"A game is something you play on a computer"

quote: Original post by MSW
Which is why I find FPS like Duke 3D and Doom so much more immersive then most of the 3D FPS made sense then...I don''t need a fully 3D game enviroment, with fully 3D texturemapped, pixel shaded perfect polygon characters...to me, all that detail gets in the way

Can you take it further? What about a 3D game environment with no texture-mapping at all? Old flight-simulators and other games (like Faceball 2000 for Gameboy) had no texture mapping whatsoever. By your logic, these games should be even more immersive.

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Can you take it further? What about a 3D game environment with no texture-mapping at all?

Yeah, it doesn''t matter...SNES Starfox was quite cool..The old I, Robot arcade game...

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Old flight-simulators and other games (like Faceball 2000 for Gameboy) had no texture mapping whatsoever. By your logic, these games should be even more immersive.

It doesn''t quite work that way...I have to be interested in the games theme...flight sims don''t intrest me (a flight sim about birds or insects might though...but not realistic aircraft).


Think of it this way...every video game, on PC/console/even hand held, is presented on a flat 2D screen with a number of speakers produceing sounds...you know this...you know that no matter how realistic a image is, it still exists on a 2D screen...no matter how realistic the sounds are, they originate from the speakers...the ONLY possable way for you to be drawn into the game is to use your imagination...your imagination tells you "this image is really happening" and/or "that sound you heard was''nt from your speakers, but from the creature hideing around the corner"...no matter how important "great" graphics and/or sounds are to you...if you don''t make this connection with the game, it isn''t immersive.


I know Doom is only 2.5D...that the monsters are only sprites...that there are limits to what can be shown and heard in the game...but when I play it...all of that is forgotten, and I''m drawn into the game...yeah, the textures and sprites get real pixelated up close...but my imagination fills in the gaps...yeah, there cannot be room over room levels...but my imagination is able to create a world for me where that is a feature rather then a distraction...

For me, the trick is to develop a game that:
1) intrests me...mainly by gameplay
2) provides a minimum set of detail...enough that you know what is going on...but not so much that my imagination isn''t allowed to play too.

I think it''s hilarious that everyone is citing Doom as a game with great gameplay but poor graphics. It''s just the opposite! The gameplay is tedious, and the graphics, were, for their time, cutting-edge! It''s gameplay, also, simply was not inovative, even in its day. Doom may be presented in 3d, but its gameplay is entirely 2d, and the mechanics are no different from countless top-down shooters. Doom bored me to tears. Doom really is a prime example of one of those games that were developed from a "let''s do cool graphics and see what happens" point of view. It''s funny that, since it''s old, and its graphics are now outdated, nobody sees that.

That said, though, graphics can contribute to gameplay. I absolutely loved Return to Castle Wolfenstein, even if it was exactly the same as countless other shooters. I loved it because it was immersive. Fact is, graphics contribute to immersion. Really, RTCW was essentially the same game even as the original Doom that I found so boring - but I loved it. It came down to the graphics.

Graphics alone certainly don''t make a game. Quake III got pretty boring pretty fast. But, when used effectively in combination with good level design, graphics really can make a game more immersive, and therefore more enjoyable. Eye candy doesn''t make fun games, but immersive environments can!!.

quote: Original post by MSW
2) provides a minimum set of detail...enough that you know what is going on...but not so much that my imagination isn''t allowed to play too.

Once again I don''t mean to sound arrogant or mean but this is a strong opinion that is not, like you said, shared by many other gamers. And I think if you were in a position to design a AAA 3D game, you''d need to put that personal opinion aside because it is not likely shared by your audience.

I am in the group of people that prefer to let my mind stretch when I'm playing a game. If the game is showing me everything and not giving me a chance to imagine, my enjoyment is affected, too.

I adored StarFox. I also loved Doom (I found it boring until I discovered Ultra-Violence mode).

beantas, you sound convinced that this way of enjoying a game is very much in the minority.

Perhaps this could be the next poll that GameDev holds: Do you like realistic graphics with accurate physics, or do you prefer somewhat incomplete graphics and unrealistic physics in the games you play?

I personally am not insulted if a game I buy doesn't make full use of my GeForce3 Ti 500. Freespace 2, however, was a spectacular game with all the pretty effects. I sometimes play certain missions just to see the eye candy.

I suppose the perfect solution is let the player decide. Turn on all pretty effects and details, or turn some of them off to make the game seem more gamey.

[edited by - Waverider on November 8, 2002 2:15:49 PM]

quote: Original post by Waverider
beantas, you sound convinced that this way of enjoying a game is very much in the minority.

Maybe you're interpreting his post as "A game does not need to have advanced graphics to be fun". I interpreted his posts as "I dislike advanced graphics in general." People that would dislike a game _because_ it has advanced graphics: I believe that those people are a minority.

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Perhaps this could be the next poll that GameDev holds: Do you like realistic graphics with accurate physics, or do you prefer somewhat incomplete graphics and unrealistic physics in the games you play?

I think a poll of that nature would totally get misinterpreted and skew the results, just like many of these posts are getting misinterpreted. But I'm still up for it.

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I suppose the perfect solution is let the player decide. Turn on all pretty effects and details, or turn some of them off to make the game seem more gamey.

Notice how many people buy upgrade, overclock, tweak settings, all to get better graphics? But how many times have you heard "Yeah I got UT2K3 but it looked so real that, damn, I couldn't enjoy it until I turned down the resolution and went to 16-bit color"


[edited by - beantas on November 8, 2002 3:03:38 PM]

quote: Original post by MSW
Think of it this way...every video game, on PC/console/even hand held, is presented on a flat 2D screen with a number of speakers produceing sounds...you know this...you know that no matter how realistic a image is, it still exists on a 2D screen...no matter how realistic the sounds are, they originate from the speakers...the ONLY possable way for you to be drawn into the game is to use your imagination...your imagination tells you "this image is really happening" and/or "that sound you heard was''nt from your speakers, but from the creature hideing around the corner"...no matter how important "great" graphics and/or sounds are to you...if you don''t make this connection with the game, it isn''t immersive.

My point has been that getting drawn into the game is easier for many people if the graphics are more advanced.

quote: Original post by Sandman
The mantra of content over style holds true - the complete set is vastly superior - although it may not look as nice, at least it is playable . If you have the resources to spare for the graphics, then do so, but never at the expense of the gameplay - the gameplay is far more important.

When did I say that gameplay should be neglected in favor of graphics? People are misintrepreting my argument, I''m just saying that a computer or video game can be more enjoyable if it has better graphics. I''m not saying graphics are better than gameplay, or that companies should neglect gameplay in favor of graphics, I''m just saying that graphics add to the game as an overall package, not to the gameplay, and that I personally like graphics. If you don''t like graphics, make and play games with shitty stick figures or blobs of random pixels, I don''t really care. Maybe the industry is going the wrong way entirely, maybe we should still all be playing 2D sprite based games with 4 colors, that way everyone would only work on gameplay and all the games would be a lot better and more original...

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My point has been that getting drawn into the game is easier for many people if the graphics are more advanced.

Yes, I understand that...I''m only trying to describe why some people (like myself) arn''t drawn to advanced graphics.

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Once again I don''t mean to sound arrogant or mean but this is a strong opinion that is not, like you said, shared by many other gamers. And I think if you were in a position to design a AAA 3D game, you''d need to put that personal opinion aside because it is not likely shared by your audience.

Yes, I agree...if I were working on a AAA 3D game, I would have to put my personal opinion about game graphics aside.

But I have no deep burning desire to work on AAA games