Original post by Trapper Zoid Actually, that's one of things that bugs me in most RPGs; that they don't give a reason why there's a limit on the number of characters in a team. Most of them just limit it to something between three and six, but they never explain why.
I'm not saying that I hate this limitation; the limitation is fine. I just want there to be a reason, even if (say in your case of spaceships) it's just something like "Starfleet says you can only command up to six vessels, no more!". Then I'm perfectly happy!
Interesting. In a freeform game where you're expected to make your own fortune, this is going to be hard to do. But it raises an interesting point...
How do you appease this desire for more explanation of limits when we're all going to have such individualized pet peeves?
I know it's probably just me [grin]. But all I mean is for there to be any other reason other than the physical constraints of the computer.
In the case of a fixed maximum of characters in a RPG team, there are a few examples that I can think of that gave a reason that I thought made sense:
In Chrono Trigger, there's a limit of three characters in the team at a time. When you finally get a fourth character and try to travel through time, the team ends up in limbo at the 'end of time', where it's explained that only three people can go through the time portals at once. Totally arbitary, but it made the limit make sense in the context of the story.
The other way which I've seen a few RPGs do this is to simply have the NPC who would join the party if it wasn't full say something like "Hmm, looks like you've got too many followers already. Don't want to be a burden". I think this was done in Fallout, where the number of characters you could have in your team was dependent on the player character's charisma. This could work too.
As I've been reading this thread, I started thinking about what could be done to make games more realistic while still keeping the fun, and other important elements of a game. It occured to me that realism in a game doesn't just depend on things like not being able to shoot through your team mates, getting killed by a single bullet to the head, etc. It also comes from the storyline.
The problem with that (IMO), is that for most (if not all) games, the storyline is static. Sure the story might unfold as you complete more missions, but there are still only two possible outcomes, you either succeed and see the ending, or you fail and get to start over. Not only is the storyline static, but the object of a lot of games is too simple, for example the object of almost any shoot-em-up type game (be it the latest greatest FPS, or a classic side-scroller) is simply: kill, or be killed.
After a while of thinking about this I came up with an idea that I think would add a lot of realism to games. I can't possibly be the first person to come up with this as I'm a complete newbie when it comes to game design and programming but the idea is that games should have "dynamic storylines" and by that I mean there is a basic story that changes over the course of the game depending on the choices the player makes. Kind of like those books which have a few different endings, every now and again you come to a page which lets you, the reader, decide where the story should go by giving you a few choices like: "turn to page 52 if you want to do this", "turn to page 65 if you want to do that", etc...
Just imagine, you've just started playing some stealth-FPS type game, your initial mission is to infiltrate an enemy compound and bring a hostage to saftey. So you make your way in, find the hostage and start to make your way out, and the guards don't even know you're there (at least not the ones that are still alive). Now you make a wrong move and get caught, the hostage gets taken back to his/her cell, and you get taken to the an interrogation room. Here the interrogator gives you a choice, you can either be killed or join the enemy forces, since we don't want the game to end here, we decide to join with the enemy, at this point, the enemy gives you some new objectives to complete. On the other hand, if you didn't make a wrong move and you managed to bring the hostage out of the compound without being detected, then you would be given some new objectives by the people you start off working for. The game would the continue in this way until the player reaches one of the endings to the story. If when given the choice of joining with the enemy or being killed, you choose to be killed, it would also be possible to continue the game as a different character, from a similar position (maybe the start of the last failed mission), but with more information (presumably, you would have sent some kind of status reports, photos of compund layouts and other information back to HQ while playing as the first character).
If the basic objective of the game was to stop some terrorist cell from unleasing a deadly virus over a city, there could be at least three endings: the character completes all objectives and stops the terrorists, the character joins with the terrorist cell and the virus gets released or the character joins with the terrorist cell and still stops the virus (effectively acting as a double-agent). As well as this there could also be NPC's that don't appear unless a certain story path is followed, and even if they do appear, their actions will differ depending on the choices made by the player after the NPC has been introuduced into the storyline.
For this to really work a game would need more well defined characters (as opposed to just the hero, three different types of cannon fodder, and their seemingly endless clones), with each character playing a specific part in the game. As you can probably see having a game with a dynamic storyline gives the user a choice at various points throughout the game that decide the final ending. This would also increase the replay value of a game, since most gamers would probably want to know just how many endings there are (thats assuming marketing didn't use that number to sell the game).
Although I've applied this concept to an FPS type game, I see no reason why it couldn't be applied to other genres. Of course it wouldn't be possible for this concept to be applied to all genres (i can't see how this could be applied to racing games for example, but they usually don't have storylines afaik).
Original post by davar As I've been reading this thread, I started thinking about what could be done to make games more realistic while still keeping the fun, and other important elements of a game.
First of all, I appreciate your well written article. Please don't interprete my response as a flame, but just as constructive criticism. :)
I think one of the major points in this thread has been this:
Unless one is trying to design a simulator or training tool, why should one try to make games "more realistic"? Most gamers couldn't care less about how "realistic" a game is: Fun is King. I think game designers today should focus on making games "more fun/enjoyable", not "more realistic".
Secondly, I don't see how adding your suggestion to games would make them "more realistic" either. More fun, maybe (in certain cases) - but certainly not more "realistic".
Thirdly, I think your idea is neat! Dynamically changing storylines can certainly add more enjoyment to a game playing experience if utilized effectively. I like your suggestion a lot.
I'm thinking one of the of the reasons that there is so much division between those who want realism and those who don't is related to the preference in genres, this is just me theorizing so I could be wrong but...
In the Fantasy(Tolken) realm, realism truly is not as importiant as imagination. To create proper fantasy, you are trying to come up with something that is as fantastic as possible with the explanation being less importiant. It doesn't matter why magic exists, all that matters to the role-players is more of how it was discovered. History of the fantasy world is the key more than the reality of this world.
History... as I was writing that I think I came up with an additional argument what I think the other side of the coin is. The other side is games based on this world. This can be racing games, WWII shooters or futuristic games. While in fantasy it is the job of the creater to produce the history of their world, games based on our reality use some variant of our own history.
I believe in these games based on our own world, reality is more importiant because the game is not based on some fantasy world but on what we know about our own world. So for immersion in the games that claim to be based in our world, fantasy can be a hinderance because it causes the player to say, wait, that doesn't happen.
To sum up my thoughts here... I feel as another poster mentioned somewhere, consistancy is the most importiant. If you base the world from a fantasy idea, remain consistant to that world. If you base the world on our world, stay consistant to our world. This, of course, is only importiant if you are interested in immersion into a game world.
The human experience depends on perception, the cognitive process by which individuals form abstract models of what is called "reality". Realism is a necessary component of human experience for that which is perceived as real or realistic is simply a likeness, or perhaps simply an extreme derivative, of that which is actual. Without realism, the human experience (e.g., the emotional experience of fun, the experience of thought) is impossible. Such things as fantasy are grounded in aspects of reality. If the perceiver cannot relate to an abstract model of what is called "reality", then the perceiver cannot perceive.
Instead of fruitlessly attempting to argue that reality isn't entertaining, discuss the creative application of reality to virtual environments in video games, and how proper implementation immerses players by facilitating the players' ability to relate to the game developer-created virtual representation of an abstract model of a reality.
Original post by GemuhDesayinah First of all, I appreciate your well written article. Please don't interprete my response as a flame, but just as constructive criticism. :)
Thanks for your criticisms. :)
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I think one of the major points in this thread has been this:
Unless one is trying to design a simulator or training tool, why should one try to make games "more realistic"? Most gamers couldn't care less about how "realistic" a game is: Fun is King. I think game designers today should focus on making games "more fun/enjoyable", not "more realistic".
I agree with you, fun is definately king. When I said games should be more realistic, I didn't mean that fun should be thrown out of the window and a game should be all realism. What I meant was that by adding little pieces of realism (destructable walls/scenery everywhere, rather than just in special areas, for example) a game can seem to be more polished and well designed.
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Secondly, I don't see how adding your suggestion to games would make them "more realistic" either. More fun, maybe (in certain cases) - but certainly not more "realistic".
Well, in real life, the way you view your life and the world, can change in a second (for example, you win the lottery, a close friend/relative passes away, etc). In a game with a static storyline, this can't happen, you just have to follow the story as it unfolds. Adding dynamic storylines to a game would make it possible for the way the player views the game world to change, just like in real life.
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Thirdly, I think your idea is neat! Dynamically changing storylines can certainly add more enjoyment to a game playing experience if utilized effectively. I like your suggestion a lot.
Thanks. If I ever manage to design a game complex enough to justify it, I will definately be implementing it. Just to see if it would work as well as I think. I have a lot to learn before I make it that far though :)
Original post by Adraeus The human experience depends on perception, the cognitive process by which individuals form abstract models of what is called "reality". Realism is a necessary component of human experience for that which is perceived as real or realistic is simply a likeness, or perhaps simply an extreme derivative, of that which is actual. Without realism, the human experience (e.g., the emotional experience of fun, the experience of thought) is impossible. Such things as fantasy are grounded in aspects of reality. If the perceiver cannot relate to an abstract model of what is called "reality", then the perceiver cannot perceive.
Instead of fruitlessly attempting to argue that reality isn't entertaining, discuss the creative application of reality to virtual environments in video games, and how proper implementation immerses players by facilitating the players' ability to relate to the game developer-created virtual representation of an abstract model of a reality.
The human mind is hard wired for pattern recognition, its the basies for IQ.
When out rideing my motorcycle, I can sometimes percieve music through the drone of wind noise...there are no cars, houses, sources of music in the area...just the pattern seeking brain tends to decifer musical patterns in the constant onrushing wind noise.
This is how those "magic eye" pictures work, how those inkblot tests work.
Tetris has no gravity, its your pattern seeking brain telling you otherwise. You could rotate Tetris 90 degrees, and without changeing anything else, your pattern seking brain may decifer the pieces are carried down a convayer belt instead of "falling from the sky".
You completely miss what I ment...Chess has six standard pieces (pawn, knight, rook, biship, queen, and king)...I suggested ADDING additional new pieces to the standard 6 pieces already present in chess...would that make it a better game?
My point was that they had to add those pieces to the game before it was fun. They started with one piece, and decided that it would be more fun by ADDING additional pieces.
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There is a famous quote from IIRC Sid Meier that went something like: "Remove everything from the game design until you cannot remove anymore without makeing the game unplayable...then you have designed the game right."
And there is another quote from Shigeru Miyamoto when IIRC asked why Link could not jump in Zelda:OoT that went something like: "If players are not required to use it for at least 30% of the game, then they have no reason to master it. No reason to master it, then there is no reason to give players red hering type features."
Those are good metaphorical ideas, but not based in reality in either of their games. Link gets weapons and items in OoT that he uses WAY less than 30% of the time. There are tons of little features and things in OoT that are in no way integral to the game, and could be removed without hurting the overall gameplay. But all those extras are what make the game fun.
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So they added a bunch of complex rules and unneccessary pieces, but it made the game better, not worse.
Um..NO! More like they mixed a number of different board games together, and threw out what didn't work -like additional pieces, moves, and attacks not found in modern chess...what we know today as Chess evolved over countless years, and sorry but pawns were NOT there from the begining...Chess has an interesting history, filled with facinateing varients, and anyone serious about game design should study it.
Well, I'm no chess historian, but even though it's evolved, I can't believe that it started out as a huge game and that it got smaller. It had to start somewhere, and if throughout it's development people had been blinded with the ideal that "nothing new should be put into it, we can only keep what's proven", then it never would have evolved at all.
