Ok heres my take on this issue, (not as if it matters though)

Games can only go so far as to immerse you into a fantasy world and make you a part of things. Movies are great at capturing the attention of audiences, why? Well, the senses are being attacked by a barrage of techniques, visual and auditory techniques that engulf your brain and cause you to feel what the actors are feeling. We need to move PC entertainment into the same direction. Better stories, better techniques to interact the user with the plot, better music. Music is key, it is so important, it can change the entire meaning of a scene just by adding it or subtracting it. Hitchcock used this technique to arouse his audiences more effectively, he didnt have the superb computer special effects we have now so he relied on other methods. Just watch his movies and pay attention to how the music is directing the scene.

Also, AI is something that developers have to worry about, but they also have to think about the graphics engine, sound engine, level design, interfaces, blah blah blah, so there is a trade off between what they can accomplish, how much money they have, the schedule they are on, and other factors.

Games are definitely lacking in immersion. There are a few glimmering moments i feel emotionally attatched to a game, usually during a cut scene with some exceptional.....music.... playing. Especially at the end of a game, where the sense of accomplishent should be huge, and more often than not it is very small. Why? Because, even though you work through the entire game that took 3 months to beat, the ending scenes suck and were the last things to go into the game. This is very anti-climactic (spell?) and pisses me off. Again, trade-offs. Half-Life had a fairly good ending, but could have been better, but it was much better than most. (hey anyone else notice that the agent in Half-Life looks eerily similar to the agent int he movie The Matrix? they even sound alike, hmmmm)

Anyhow, i would like to see the development of unscripted adventure games, games with no clear path to reach the ultimate result. For instance, i would like to create my own adventures based on my own intelligence and how i feel the group i''m leading needs to journey to. I want to be lost in side stories, and sagas, while still being able to advance to an ultimate goal (whatever that may be..finding the holy grail?) Maybe the AI in games will someday advance to the point that it can handle the randomness of human thought. I doubt it to be soon though. AI is still a hugely unchartered territory with much room for advancement. With the development of processors in the Ghz range, i think it''s time we start poking around in that area with a little more umph. I''m dying for immersion(which is partly why i''m making my DiplomacyAPI), like a good novel, we just need someone to get the ball rolling....

-fletch

Funny that you make such a big deal out of all this when MUD players have known it for a decade or so now. There is little more interesting than meeting up with people from all over the world to explore a fantasy land as a group, socialising, helping each other, sharing the excitement, stories, and inevitable glory. This is why some people get so addicted to these simple, text-based games when more advanced single-player graphical ones get played and soon discarded. Group dynamics done with AI are a long way off being as satisfying as actually playing with several friends. A lot of people used to look down on co-operative Doom as being less interesting than deathmatch, but that''s because most people never played it. I never met anyone who, after having played on co-operative, still preferred the deathmatch version. Also witness the popularity of the team-based 3D shooters now available.

A few things to bear in mind:
Make it easy for players to communicate, so they can create their own sense of cameraderie. A slow or awkward communication system is not going to give much of a group atmosphere. Imagine being out with your friends but not being able to talk.

Make players dependent on each other to a degree. Provide abilities that, instead of affecting one player a lot, affect several players a little. This will promote goodwill and co-operation.

Give players distinct roles to play, and not necessarily in the personality sense. For example, a class-based system does this well, as people might have to rely on the medic for one set of skills, the fighter for another, etc. In some senses, this goes against other principles you might have (such as ''class-based systems are unrealistic'') but it often depends on how much realism you are willing to trade in for extra ''fun''. Making players distinct is obviously an extension of the dependency issue above, but also adds to the variety in the game.

I hate it when I miss a few days...

The experience of team comaraderie the last couple of posts cited in MMO games and MUDs is close to what I''m talking about. You still do the repetitive chores of the adventure, but there''s at least the sense of adventure (if not simply the thought that "we''re in this together"). It''s the right direction. The more players support each other in unique roles, the better.

Now if only single player could do this as well. As I said before, I think this can happen if we nail group dynamics as gameplay. (Exploring group in MMOs might help single player nail this, and exploring single player might help MMOs)


On team play & SOD : I agree with MKV, you either have to fake a team or simulate. The best approach I think is both: Simulate the stuff that''s easy to do, and abstract the rest into a system of rules so that it''s easy for the team to succeed based on rule rather than complicated and risky AI.

ahw''s comment about modularization: Scientific approach, yes. It''s the reductionist thinking, rather than holistic. Both are necessary, but the tricky discipline is to know when.

About Baldur''s Gate (& most party RPGs): My experience was that you were still just an individual, alone in questing, except you had a few extra robots along to help. The inter-group action was moving in the right direction, but I don''t think it would have made for the sense of adventure w/o more depth.

quote: Original post by Ravanon

What I want in an RPG (or any other character-based genre) is the same kind of complexity and life in the characters that you get in a good fantasy epic (or science fiction, or normal fiction - what ever you like), except of course without the linearity.

I want to play a game where my character''s companions are interesting and genuinely important, where quests aren''t ''find the great sceptre of Ohmaz''agal''drum and take it to the innkeeper at the Glue-sniffing Dwarf inn'', where battles are actually real events (not ''oh look, another 20 goblins - that''s 200 experience with no risk involved!'').

Same here! And I think the first place to start is to look at how to turn group interactions into interesting gameplay w/o losing sight of the challenge / story / adventure.

So how do we do this?

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Just waiting for the mothership...