Rant Games trivialise almost everything that they come into contact with, because as of yet A.I and acting isn't anywhere near developed enough to suck you in and have you believe that what you see is anything beyond a preprogrammed routine set up by the developers. When a character goes arrghhh! in a game they aren't feeling real pain, coz they don't bluddy well exist. PERIOD. They are just an illusion, they aren't real people. If an in-game person is ill, with cancer they don't suffer and any pretence that they do is just a hollow act. and a mockery of people who are suffering in real life. Maybe it would be better to examine emotive issues in an ironic / post-modern way. Like acknowledging that the game is a game. and saying that the character "ran out of continues". Or making sure that a character who has died remains dead, even if you restart your game by deleting them FULL-STOP. Agree / Disagree?

I disagree. While games are obviously fake and I myself have not gotten emotionally attacthed to a character or scene in a game they are only as fake as TV shows which at times can be quite engaging. I know a number of people who have got quite involved emotionally with computer games and their characters. Last months PC Gamer had someone writing in saying how they cried during EE's death in MGS2. We are always aware that we are playing a game, same way as we are always aware we are watching a TV show or movie.

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Original post by Ketchaval [...]Agree / Disagree?

With what exactly? I'm not seeing a real point to your rant. Are you angry that games use abstractions but try to hide that fact a little bit by almost being a tiny bit like reality?

Sure, they could abandon the pretense of realism to good effect (see EarthBound), but I don't think some psuedorealism is too bad. When it gets bad is when developers of games like Counter-Strike believe their game truly is realistic, and impose gameplay mechanics like the jump-stumble that detract from gameplay and add nothing.

If it gets rid of retarted bunny hoppers I'm all for it. :)

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Original post by DrEvil If it gets rid of retarted bunny hoppers I'm all for it. :)

I just can't help but point out the irony in "retarded" being misspelled.

Back on topic. I don't really see what you're ranting about. The only time characters don't "feel" pre-programmed is when you are against human players.

I guess I can agree that a lot of production time is spent making game characters communicate emotions when they fail to do so. But still, it's just eye candy (for now) and pushing the envelope (for later). It's like complaining that silent movies aren't emersive when, 80 years later, you have multi-million dollar productions that draw the viewer in. We gotta walk before we can run.

If you have ever truly gotten into a game, you will notice that your perception of reality is altered by the game.

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Original post by Ketchaval Games trivialise almost everything that they come into contact with, because as of yet A.I and acting isn't anywhere near developed enough to suck you in and have you believe that what you see is anything beyond a preprogrammed routine set up by the developers. When a character goes arrghhh! in a game they aren't feeling real pain, coz they don't bluddy well exist. PERIOD. They are just an illusion, they aren't real people. If an in-game person is ill, with cancer they don't suffer and any pretence that they do is just a hollow act. and a mockery of people who are suffering in real life.

Characters in game are like characters in the book. They're prescripted, have no emotions because they are not real, and when you finish the book and start reading it again they are all alive there in the beginning even if they kicked the bucket somewhere along the story.

But if no book/no game ever manages to suck you in enough to make you suspend the disbelief and feel something for the characters, and if you always remember while playing/reading that these characters are not real and their emotions also don't exist... then there's only one common factor to all these books and games. You.

Disagree! - The power to turn abstraction into a meaningful story that connects with your emotions is largely in your head, not in the various entertainment media. I remember being 12 or so and creating vivid stories with just some plastic horses, building blocks, and scraps of cloth. In historical times, people looked with awe and fear at heiroglyphs, petroglyphs, and murals that just seem clumsy to us today because we are not taught as children to read their symbolism and revere their style. Modern Graffiti that seems like meaningless scribbles to an outsider can hold a lot of meaning and emotion for an audience used to interpreting the conventions of that style. Look at the amazingly powerful stories South Park manages to create with construction-paper cut-outs. Characters in games are at least as real as characters in South Park, or an anime, or a live-action movie, or a novel. (Which are, after all, pre-created linear paths created by entertainers.)

For that matter, how do you know that real people you see every day are feeling real pain, how can you be certain that they really exist? Maybe you're really in an alien research facility plugged into a VR simulator while they study your brain. :P

Personally I think the reason games are seen as a trivial medium is the sad lack of great writing in games, because it's almost all done by inexperienced writers who aren't being paid, or designers who haven't specialized in writing. And the interactivity is a problem, because writing a script that can flexibly respond to the player's actions is difficult even for the most talented writer. But there are games I would consider works of art, which mostly succeed in maintaining one's suspension of disbelief. Some of these succeed by having great but linear writing (good RPGs), and some of these succeed by having great graphics and minimal writing (myst-style adventure games). But if you personally will only be happy with both non-linearity and great writing, then maybe you ought to be working on figuring out what kind of AI would make you happy and how one might go about creating it.

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Original post by Ketchaval Maybe it would be better to examine emotive issues in an ironic / post-modern way. Like acknowledging that the game is a game. and saying that the character "ran out of continues". Or making sure that a character who has died remains dead, even if you restart your game by deleting them FULL-STOP.

Max Payne hinted on this. I seem to remember it being funny at the time.

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Original post by Ketchaval When a character goes arrghhh! in a game they aren't feeling real pain

By any chance are you one of those crazy people that thinks tv is real?