quote: Original post by Dauntless
The thing that amazes me is that improving a skill can be fun...it just takes some getting used to. I think that''s what scares people used to "junk food" gaming. And I think the analogy is a really good one....junk food doesn''t really do anything for you, it''s immediate gratification. But with more skill based games you are training yourself on many levels, not just to be better at the game, but things like discipline, attention to detail, and a deeper level of thinking.

Just because a game is unrealistic, doesn''t mean it doesn''t require skill.

I agree with bishop_pass entirely, the argument is irrelevent. Realism has little to do with how much fun a game is. However, mindlessly adhering to realism just for the sake of it is a bad way to design games, in my opinion. Some things are fun or exciting in real life, and these things will probably be fun or exciting in a game. Other things are as boring as hell in real life, and if you include something like this in your game you are going make a boring game.

I am to young to get a job, but with all of my free time (which is more than I think I should have), I program. I am currently working on a cross between pong and tetris

As soon as I started reading this thread, I was immediately reminded of Gran Turismo 3 for the ps2. Realistic? Hell yes. Fun? Hell yes. A perfect example of how realism and fun can peacefully coexist in a well-designed game.

I''m not entirely sure who, but I remember a game designer saying something akin to "Realism is simply a tool that we use to help people understand our game". I''d have to agree with this. Overall, a game has to be fun. Often however, you can make it more fun, and easier to use, but making it somewhat realistic.

Driving simulations are a good example. Cars that drove in some erratic pattern would be annoying to get used to and that wold certainly decrease the amount of fun being had. However, if the cars move the same way they do in real life, the users have an intuitive understanding of how the basic physics model works and they can concentrate on much fine points of driving than trying to go the right direction, for example.

However, even though the physics of car collision in Midtown Madness 2 are laughable, it is still a very fun game. At that point, the designers decided to leave realism in place of fun. Crashing into one lamp post and dying is not very much fun. It is more fun if the lamp post falls over and you merely gain a bit of damage and lose a bit of speed. Thus, they decided to exit from reality here.

Thus, I think that realism is a good tool. It can make games easier to understand and easier to play: by extension, more fun. However, there are points when realism detracts from the fun, in which cases I think it should be avoided.

Oh, by the way, I program both as a job and in my spare time. I find it very enjoyable and constantly challenging

quote: Original post by Enigma1625
As soon as I started reading this thread, I was immediately reminded of Gran Turismo 3 for the ps2. Realistic? Hell yes. Fun? Hell yes. A perfect example of how realism and fun can peacefully coexist in a well-designed game.

Dunno about the sequels, but I remember reading that the developers fudged the physics of the first Gran Turismo to make it more enjoyable.



[edited by - Sandman on May 27, 2002 7:51:51 PM]

A have programmed as an amatuer for about 18 years. Never anything serious.

I agree that the argument of Realism vs Fun is a waste. One of the most successful games of all time is nothing but going through mind numbing tedium over and over. Sims. That game, by itself, destroys the entire debate.

Wether a game is realistic or not has NO impact on gameplay. The big thing is if the game stays consistent with the reality it creates. Nothing bugs me more than a game that sets a rule system and gets you used to it, then suddenly changes it on you. Or even worse - has a certain rule set for the player and an entirely different one for the AI.



Landsknecht

I''d like to somewhat disagree with the assessment that you can cut out tedium and still be realistic. In the real world the tedium often is what gets you in a good position for the ''exciting'' part. Snipers, tanks, fighters, anything that has a typical engagement of one shot - one kill and the first shot has a good chance of hitting is a bad candidate for realism. In these the person who sees the other first usually wins. The loser never even sees it coming. But its not fun to play a game where you have to stay on guard for hours at a time before a ten second engagement. Now stalking a prey can be fun for an extended period.

To sum it up, jumping to the exciting part is inherently unrealistic because the player knows something is about to happen.

Jack

Sandman-
That's pretty much my point, there is no correlation between realism and fun, but I think there is a widespread notion that they are inversly related. In other words, the more realistic something is, the less fun it will be. While this may be true at extremes, I don't think this is necessarily so. That was the reason for my poll, I wanted to see who here pretty much thought that way and if they did whether they programmed or not.

All in all I think most people here miscontrued what I was trying to say. Realism and fun are not related in anyway actually, but I think there is a belief that there is. I merely wanted to point that out to people. That I believe is the true relevance, getting designers not to feel shy about making games which are complex or realistic for fear of them not being entertaining or fun.

The reason for the poll is that I wanted to see if the non-programmers felt that complexity or diffuculty was a bad thing in game design. My hunch was that since they were not familiar with something that could be frustrating and complex as programming...and yet fun it's own way, they would be less inclined to make more realistic and complicated games.

I'd also like to further define "realistic". A computer game will never realistically simulate many things. What is important is modeling things to a degree that they reflect the importance or necessity of an objects behavior or data. I made an example about resource modeling earlier, but this time I'll take a different approach. Look at first person shooters and taking aim. In real life, there is gun sway, ballistics, recoil, gun inertia and neuromuscular control (to name but a small few), but in FPS games all you do is aim the cursor at your target and you hit. Very few if any games take into account these factors....so I would say that the modeling of "shooting" is very unrealistic. IS it fun? Sure, but does that mean it WON'T be fun if all of a sudden I add in recoil or gun sway? As one of the other posters mentioned, the trick is in balance...knowing which things are tedious and not necessary for gameplay, and those which are a crucial aspect of what you are trying to model.

Take another example, sniping. Here, you have a character who's sole purpose is to shoot a weapon from an extreme distance with excellent accuracy. Modeling things like ballistics, neuromuscular control and even mental control are crucial to portraying the ESSENCE of being a sniper. Therefore while these elements may or may not be overkill for a run and gun shooter, they are vital elements to being a sniper. It'd be like making a race car game where you only had two gears, high and low.

That's the essence of realism...not painstakingly making something as true to life as possible, but extracting the essence of what you are trying to portray.

[edited by - Dauntless on May 27, 2002 10:02:38 PM]

i''m a coder, been coding for 2 years and am currently coding my own game (WWIII: Hell on Earth(please do not rip me off!)), and i have a philosophy i''d like to share with you all.

just like a good surreal artist portrays impossible situations realistically and logically, realism in gaming depends on several elements:

1) can i do that?

as in, if it''s remotely possible in real life, it''s definitely possible in a game.

2) looks good to me...

as in, you must trick the "mind''s eye" into believing that what they''re seeing is real. so little nuances liek lighting, shadowing, etc on a surreal painting go a long way towards providing a lasting impression. same goes for coding. if you code it so that a player splashes water when running through puddles, good. if you code it so that their clothes look wet after running through water (briefly changes skins), even better.

3)hey... cool...

games are all about fun, and if real life was any fun, people wouldnt turn to video games. so, make it fun, and make it possible for people to do things they can''t do in real life, like shoot people or something.

...this is a recording.

I don''t program.

Thinking about games is like the reverse of psychoanalysis for me, dream spaces/directions not dream objects/relations (though I''ve recently discovered that the interest is founded on a fundamental dissociation between myself and others).

The trend towards moddable games and gamer friendly GUIs is definately making it more possible to redesign (if not design) games without programming knowledge. That''s a good thing, as far as that goes.