The way that I see it is that nothing needs be based on this reality as such. What you should do is have an understanding of your game reality, and you must make it consistent. Therefore you model something that is consistent with what people believe and know and you end up modelling on reality. But wait! You are saying ''you said not to base it on reality''. I did and I didn''t. What I said was that you should not model on reality as is, you should model on consistency to create an immersable game. By doing so you will be required to model what people know and understand and so therefor you are modeling reality, though you are not actually modeling reality.

One thought here, to come up with a reasonably alternate reality for a game, you should speak to some people who have some strange psychological conditions (I know a fair few, and I probably could be considered one myself, though to a lesser degree). They are likely to have a different understanding on what they see because they don''t always see reality (some don''t). From this you can model a strange new half-realistic world which has different physical laws and a whole new view on everything...

It all comes back to fight club - it was based on reality, but it was more immersible because of the finer aspects that made it unreal.

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

Hmm. It seems folks are confusing terms again.

Consistency - the internal logic of the game is sound (if Fred can jump 20 ft straight up, and Bob is a clone of Fred, then Bob can jump 20ft straight up).

Realism - the game (mechanics usually) attempts to approximate reality (normal humans cannot jump 20 ft straight up).

Detail - the level of fidelity of the game mechanics (graphics, etc). (Fred can jump in multiples of 10 ft vs multiples of 1 ft)


You can have a very realistic game that has a low level of detail. And you can have a very detailed, internally consistent game that has nothing to do with reality.

Consistency is a sign of good game design.
Detail may or may not be what you''re after, depending on what you''re creating. In general, more details in the graphics and sound never hurt.
Realism is only useful to help immersion. A game should never sacrifice gameplay for realism, IMO.

Research is another matter entirely, and always provides good source material.

I really don''t think that ANYBODY is mixing up terms. I am just saying that realism is used as a model in your game so that the model is consistent. It would be very difficult to come up with a totally consistent model that was 100% removed from reality. You are talking small, where as I am looking on the grand scale. Details in a model can be consistent and not based on reality... but the whole model must at least seemingly be based on solid reality so that people feel comfortable to interact with it.

As for your consistent jumping routine, it is based on reality as a part. You assume that jumping is a form of removing yourself from the ground by force in such a way as you work against gravity. If there was no gravity then there would be no reason to jump. The fact that you have incorporated gravity means that you have an aspect of reality in your game already. As for the 10m jump, well, the gravity on the world you are on is less than earths. Otherwise it was a spell, and you had better hope that your magic system is consistent with itself and with the rest of the game world.

Ways that a magic system becomes inconsistent is if in a specific character class you claim that magic is something that cannot be randomly generated, but when the character walks around, the ground occassionally attacks them with lightning bolts, or if you say that magic must always have a specific target (object that has to be selected), and in another character class you can just generally cast a spell which causes anything in a radius from the player to be affected.

Most often, consistency is acheived by using reality as a base. If reality was not used then consistency may be lost. It required a lot of work to keep a system consistent, but it is easier if you stick mainly to reality.

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

The more a game reflects the real world around us, the more believable that game becomes, and so the more the world sucks you in - suspension of disbelief. Of course there are some games that do not require realism at all, eg abstract puzzle games like Tetris, but for the majority of games available at the moment I would say that this is true.

I would say that designers should aim for as much realism as possible - provided this does not adversely effect gameplay.
Take space flight simulators for example - if they were totally realistic they would be dull as shit. No sound for a start - except maybe the sound of your own ship. Control would be a nightmare (although many do have accurate space physics, they always offer some computer thingy that makes it more like conventional flying) And then there are the huge open spaces - finding your opponent would most often be a case of shooting at a tiny white dot moving against a background of stars.

As for the snow, I am inclined to agree with kill. Effects like that should look good - modelling snowfall exactly would almost certainly be a complete waste of processor power.

Edited by - Sandman on October 29, 2000 6:10:03 AM

Actually I was trying to use the examples to illustrate terms.
Bishop_pass seemed to be talking about level of detail or reality as source material, both of which can be done without having a realistic game.

Dwarfsoft''s question - can a game that is completely unrelated to reality be popular? Of course. Look at abstract games like Othello or Pente. Look at PacMan or Tetris if you want an electronic equivalent.

Realism is useful for immersion, that is all.

Pacmans motion was based on reality and physics. It had relational speed... It also had intelligence in tracking that was based on human thought, like what was the quickest way to pacman. It was slightly based on reality, but in a 2D way with a very abstract view...

Tetris is a puzzle, not a game

Nuff said

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

You know, to put all this in perspective, it is interesting to go back and read the original post titled Snow on Terrain? started by me on the 30th of June, and kill's immediate response to it, which was to essentially say my motivation was ill founded, and there was no need for realistic snow at all. In that post, I stated that current snow in games was not very realistic, and could benefit from looking at the real world dynamics of it with the intent to create better textures.

Now, the really interesting thing is the fact that on the 5th of September, kill started his own topic titled Realistic terrain textures where he says, and I quote:

quote: Original post by kill

Hi. I'm thinking here... How DO you make realistic terrain textures? In all games I've seen grass doesn't really look like grass, it looks more like a surface with a bunch of green spots, with some weird photoshop filters applied to it. Same thing with stone, and any other terrain texture.

How do you make something realistic? Bumpmapping may be? Something else? Any ideas?

It appears here that we have some conflicting ideals bouncing around inside kill's head.

For those interested, there were two 'companion' topics:
Light on Terrain? started by me.
Water on a Terrain? started by thekid.



Edited by - bishop_pass on October 29, 2000 10:02:54 AM

I''m cool with good looking snow. I was impressed with the rain in a game, I think it was Heavy Gear 2. The game was ok, but the rain looked tight. The way it rippled in the puddles and light refracted through it, it was great. I must admit that it did at to the gaming experience.

I agree with the AP about the RTSs. In most RTSs, realism was sacrificed to increase the gameplay.

I think we all can agree on two things: 1) That realism should never take away from the actual gameplay, and 2) That consistency is of utmost importance as well. If you''re going to rewrite the laws of physics, you better adhere to them.


"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dreams."
- Willy Wonka

Realism is also useful as a form of shorthand. In action-based games, realism is very useful. When you're demanding split-second reactions of the player, you want to take any short-cuts you can from presentation to player comprehension. This means simplifying in some cases, and making things completely unrealistic, and in other cases, it means hewing to true physics models, etc. as much as possible. In other words, if you're playing an FPS, you expect a shotgun to shoot and kill, not sprout daisies. Reversing expectations can be good for shock value, but in cases like these, if it becomes too common, you lose the player. Now, in turn-based games, or hard-core "gamer" games, players will often meet you halfway and RTFM. The main thing *blah*blah*blah* is of course consistency, but you don't want to go half-way in modelling reality. Pac-man and Tetris work because they are very clear in the limited systems they model. In Pac-Man, you can not pass through solids (walls), in Tetris the same goes for its pseudo-gravity.

The main thing is that games are a form of communication. You are communicating something through a multi-threaded rather than linear system, (like a book, say, or a movie) but it is still communication. Likewise to other media, the communication should not be self-contradictory, and also like other media, the subset of reality represented may be very limited (Pac-man) or more comprehensive (Quake, esp. Rainbow Six) but in either case, it is a subset of reality, and you need to be consistent about what is contained w/in that subset, or communicate through some means why you are deviating from that subset. This comes down to audience expectations.

In conclusion, the question is "what are you communicating"? If you are not clear on that, you will run up against questions of realism, but as (someone) has mentioned, you are better off disregarding questions of realism because everything we do as humans is modelled in some way, from some form of reality. Now, before someone dredges up RPG's again, it is important to remember that magic & dragons, etc. once modelled very real and very terrifying aspects of reality in ancient times. In more modern times, these still model psychic realities, and the best fantasy writers recognize these and utilize the archetypal power of these symbols. That is probably the key to why RPG's are floundering these days. They fail to tap into the meaning inherent in these myths, and are exploitive rather than constructive (or even deconstructive) of these themes.

Pttth. . . ummm, but snow is pretty, yeah. . .it kicked some butt in Bushido Blade

If you see the Buddha on the road, Kill Him. -apocryphal

Edited by - Anonymous Poster. on October 29, 2000 12:21:51 PM

Oh, and isn''t it great how a "Down w/ Reality Threads" post spawned a multiple page reality thread? ;P

I guess the best way to sum up the above post in one sentence (captioning for the Attention-Span Impaired, I suppose ) is to say that if your game is about snow-drifts, then model snow-patterns, and do it perfectly, otherwise fake it. I don''t believe a word of this "but if its a realistic wind-pattern model, it will be more immersive" stuff. Anyone buying that should research Foley sound effects and draw their own conclusions.

If you see the Buddha on the road, Kill Him. -apocryphal