Imagination in CRPGs

[Vault Dweller]

I found myself talking to every zombie servant I found, just to read its description.

I did the same. What a great (and really fucking simple) motivation for player to explore everything and talk to different people. Brilliant!

I'm also pleasantly surprised with the dialogue. I was expect "big chunks of text,"

With all the bitching about reading, I'm sure one would expect to find a copy of War and fucking Peace inside.

But to make mention of the fact that your alter ego has never seen anything quite like this stirs the imagination beyond measure.

Yep, I agree. That was a very nice touch.

A more adept caster might be able to recognise enchantments beyond traditional visual means - "This character moves with an ungainly strength. It's clear to your trained eye that some kind of strength enhancing sorcery flows through their body; each muscle movement seems to possess an almost clumsy, exagerrated potency. Still, ungainly or not, you'd rather not find out how much harder he hits."

That was beautiful. If I saw an animation of a similar character "moving with ungainly strength", I wouldn't think much being accustomed to all kinda visuals, but reading that description was powerful.

When we encounter an animated creature, we feel nothing: no fear, no curiosity (other than what it will drop), no excitement - it's just another creature to be slaughtered and traded for a handful of experience points. But words, words could easily put the atmosphere of exploring, danger, and excitement back in games.

Anyone else think that adding an IF script layer to a FP game is a good idea, or just too much crack on my behalf?

I'd say it's a good idea, but why limit it to FP games only?

 

[Twinfalls]

You'll recall that Arena had this type of thing to some extent, with moody little descriptions about your surroundings which would also give you useful info. Daggerfall had it to a lesser extent, iirc only when entering the areas around dungeons, and it was only for atmospherics. It was still a nice touch.

Morrowind? Nothing. That's progress.

I'd subscribe to that newsletter too - love your work, S8.

 

[Jasede]

What Vault Dweller and S8 have mentioned is exactly what I meant with the importance of one's imagination. Although I haven't played PS: T in ages I can still visualize every location I have visited and can still remember each and every character I have met very well. Talk about memorable!
Of course, PS: T is a game of unique goodliness. No game I have ever played had writing in it that could compare to it. No game had a comparable athmosphere. No game had a similar feel to it. In PS: T, the developers really made an effort to ensnare you into a magical world, and they did that successfully. Well, it is true: They simply don't make games like that anymore. But a new question arises: Why don't they do it? I mean, who wouldn't want an enriched gaming experience? Who wouldn't rejoice about well-written text? Look, quite many people nowadays are able to read, so... Where is the problem?
Scientists say that the human race is getting more and more intelligent as time progresses. Shouldn't games too?

 

[SlavemasterT]

Text-based descriptions not only are able to convey subtle meanings and effects better than images and animation, but in my experience can be taken to the utmost extreme and used to create a totally believable and incredibly immersive world. The best crpg I ever played was basically an advanced MUD, called Dragon Realms. It was wholely text-based, well-written, in addition to having pretty good game mechanics and, in its early days, a good community that really breathed life into the gameworld.

Well-written, atmospheric text is able to trump visual art because it coaxes each mind into creating a world of its own, rather than merely detecting and accepting some artist's often-imperfect depiction. Which isn't to say that graphics are bad or that all RPGs would be better off without them - they just certainly aren't necessary to having an immersive experience.

 

[SlavemasterT]

-double post-

 

[MINIGUNWIELDER]

What Vault Dweller and S8 have mentioned is exactly what I meant with the importance of ones imagination. Although I haven't played PS: T in ages I can still visualize every location I have visited and can still remember each and every character I have met very well. Talk about memorable!
Of course, PS: T is a game of unique goodliness. No game I have ever played had writing in it that could compare to it. No game had a comparable athmosphere. No game had a similar feel to it. In PS: T, the developers really made an effort to ensnare you into a magical world, and they did that successfully. Well, it is true: They simply don't make games like that anymore. But a new question arises: Why don't they do it? I mean, who wouldn't want an enriched gaming experience? Who wouldn't rejoice about well-written text? Look, quite many people nowadays are able to read, so... Where is the problem?
Scientists say that the human race is getting more and more intelligent as time progresses. Shouldn't games too?

to bad that it isnt any exponential increase but just a slow iq/brain potential

(and that is not going to help any yuppies or other assorted people who chose to remain ignorant(not talking about conservatives im talking about the people who would rather work at an oil field than be a scientist, painter, or anything that requires intellect or gets the U.S. any good reputation))

jump in selected members of the population

 

[Section8]

I'd say it's a good idea, but why limit it to FP games only?

The way I see it, FP games are perceived as being contrary to written descriptions. Since everything can get up close and personal, and the expectation is that the player is naturally translating their movement and action into a direct visual representation, then the common approach is "make it look better." In fact, I'd say the common perception is that written descriptions are a dispensable substitute, when a better graphical representation is available.

So I singled out FP games, because they're the games that "don't need" non-visual representations. But even a game like Bloodlines, which had fantastic facial animations and dialogue, certainly wouldn't be hurt by a bit more descriptive flavour text.

That to me is the stand out feature of Torment so far, is the fact that social interactions have so much more than just spoken words. I'm enjoying conversing with Dabus', and to do that effectively with pure visuals would require a great deal of content. Fuck, it's even interesting to talk to the thugs and drunks, just to see a bit of characterisation beyond mindlessly aggressive drone fodder.

You'll recall that Arena had this type of thing to some extent, with moody little descriptions about your surroundings which would also give you useful info. Daggerfall had it to a lesser extent, iirc only when entering the areas around dungeons, and it was only for atmospherics. It was still a nice touch.

Definitely. If I recall, they were basically just a one liner, a bit like the feeling a character gets entering a level in Angband. It would have been great if Morrowind, with all it's explicitly scripted dungeons and zones, to get something like that. "You enter the cave, and wrinkle your nose at the dank scent of the underground. On occasion, another aroma drifts past, one of course smoke. The cave can count something halfway civilised among its inhabitants..."

Well, it is true: They simply don't make games like that anymore. But a new question arises: Why don't they do it? I mean, who wouldn't want an enriched gaming experience? Who wouldn't rejoice about well-written text? Look, quite many people nowadays are able to read, so... Where is the problem?

Yeah, I don't really get it. It's essentially a peripheral element that can be easily compartmentalised away from the game. Once the game has programmatic support, it's only essentially "unskilled" labour required to write descriptions. At most, the writers would need some basic scripting skills, and of course the creative flair of a writer. It could be done cheaply, off-site at a far more productive rate than visual 3D content. I'd say that's worth it for the presumed minority of gamers that want that kind of depth, and for those that are happy with purely visual input, it doesn't intrude.

 

[Zomg]

That to me is the stand out feature of Torment so far, is the fact that social interactions have so much more than just spoken words. I'm enjoying conversing with Dabus', and to do that effectively with pure visuals would require a great deal of content. Fuck, it's even interesting to talk to the thugs and drunks, just to see a bit of characterisation beyond mindlessly aggressive drone fodder.

Gah, I envy you. I originally played PS:T as a callow teenager (on the north end of teenager, but still), and while I was able to catch the aroma of just how good it was and generally enjoyed it, it hasn't stuck with me. When I try to replay it now I'm terribly distracted by both my foreknowledge of the game and by some of the poor parts of the Planescape setting (namely the uncritical importation of the D&D alignment model) and I generally run out of steam somewhere between the Mortuary and the first quartile or so of the game.

 

[Twinfalls]

So I singled out FP games, because they're the games that "don't need" non-visual representations. But even a game like Bloodlines, which had fantastic facial animations and dialogue, certainly wouldn't be hurt by a bit more descriptive flavour text.

I'd go further and say that FP games actively need prose of that type, because they are the ones which have the modern, high-polygon, texture-mapped graphics. This type of graphics still tends towards the 'realistic' at all costs, hence the lack of style and imagination-stimulus of 'lesser' graphics. So while text is not needed to inform the player of what's around, it arguably is needed to induce the player-created mind-content which was a hallmark of RPGs before FP3D, polygons and voiced dialogue.

It would have been great if Morrowind, with all it's explicitly scripted dungeons and zones, to get something like that. "You enter the cave, and wrinkle your nose at the dank scent of the underground....

And how hard would it be for Bethesda to do this again? Not at all. They've got loading screens for all interiors for chrissakes, what a perfect spot for them.

Well, it is true: They simply don't make games like that anymore. But a new question arises: Why don't they do it? I

Yeah, I don't really get it..... I'd say that's worth it for the presumed minority of gamers that want that kind of depth, and for those that are happy with purely visual input, it doesn't intrude.

Why don't they do it? In the case of Bethesda, we know why. It's being made under the control of people with very different mindsets to the original designers. Ted Peterson (Arena, DF) was first and foremost a writer. Todd Howard gave us mushroom jumping puzzles in Redguard, likes yelling 'boobies' when he sees breasts, and regards DF as 'procedurally generated garbage'.

More troubling is the bigger picture. Why is text considered not worthwhile, or 'uncool' and a sales impediment? The same reason movies are now the same old shit regurgitated endlessly, ditto with popular music.

It's corporatisation.

Anything different or interesting represents risk. Piling all your dollars into the visually seductive but empty is risk minimisation. Depth is anathema, depth is risky, depth is fundamentally not needed for sales. What's become of gaming doesn't exist in a vacuum, I see the same thing in every type of entertainment that's making any profit.

 

[Imbecile]

Guess I’m going to be the sole voice of opposition here.

I can see the benefits of text-augmented RPGs, but generally speaking a picture does speak a thousand words. If the art teams and animators are doing their job right then you will be feel the liberated when you emerge from the vault, you will see the monster slouch across the room. Can imagination only be stimulated by words?

Sure, words give you the freedom to interpret your own vision of what is happening – and that can be great, but using images instead is no less worthy.

Would a poem written about the Mona Lisa be any better than the painting itself? Nah – it’d just be different. That’s not to say that there isn’t a place for text in games, and it would certainly offer a different kind of experience, but lets not kid ourselves that its any more highbrow.

 

[Twinfalls]

Guess I’m going to be the sole voice of opposition here.

Ah, but you're not. You see, you start by saying:

I can see the benefits of text-augmented RPGs

- but then argue against text-only RPGs, as if that's what we are asking for. We're not.

generally speaking a picture does speak a thousand words. If the art teams and animators are doing their job right then you will be feel the liberated when you emerge from the vault, you will see the monster slouch across the room. Can imagination only be stimulated by words?

No, but we're saying they can really help. Especially when we've been saturated with the same type of visuals, triggering the same 'oh, it's a monster' [cue fight or flight reflex]

Sure, words give you the freedom to interpret your own vision of what is happening – and that can be great, but using images instead is no less worthy.

Remember - as you said, text augmented RPGs.

Would a poem written about the Mona Lisa be any better than the painting itself? Nah – it’d just be different.

A spurious example. The Mona Lisa is by definition a visual work. It's a painting. Its sole purpose is to invoke feelings through visual content.

A CRPG on the other hand, strives to give a player a gaming experience. There is no inherent 'it shall be visual only' condition. There is such a restriction with a painting.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a place for text in games, and it would certainly offer a different kind of experience, but lets not kid ourselves that its any more highbrow.

And who's saying text is more 'highbrow', but you? This is a straw man, my friend.

 

[Imbecile]

No, but we're saying they can really help. Especially when we've been saturated with the same type of visuals, triggering the same 'oh, it's a monster' [cue fight or flight reflex]

That’s not to say that there isn’t a place for text in games, and it would certainly offer a different kind of experience, but lets not kid ourselves that its any more highbrow.

And who's saying text is more 'highbrow', but you? This is a straw man, my friend.

Well, you did seem to be saying that having text in the game would add more depth. You also say that people with "different" mindsets have created a game without text, and then characterise that mindset as pretty dumb.

But anyhow... the main issue.

Text in games is generally descriptive. Is serves the same function as graphics,iperating in a slightly different way, sure, but the end result is the same - it serves to give you a picture of an object, or an event. Having text alongside an image, is largely unnecessary - as generally speaking the image can convey more than the description.

Plenty of books have pictures to aid description, but no films have descriptions flashing up of events as you watch them. (and no, subtitles dont count )

Words can give a different perspective, but they're mainly going to be useful in telling us what our character is supposed to be thinking - kind of like an internal monolgue (rather like that Fallout example). If its just a description, you might as well just use the graphics, and if you start trying to give the characters perspective, then you are going to limit the scope of the characters you can create.

After all you wouldnt expect every character to think the same thing when they see an object or event - and it seems unlikely that they will be able to provide text for every possible character mindset. Coward, psycho, scientist, fighter, hunter, Mage, looter and Liontamer should all think different things when they see the timorous beastie of Antwerp. An image is flexible as to what your character might think - but text is concrete.

Edit: All of the above is intended applicable to the idea of a text augmented RPG (if it wasnt clear already)

 

[Zomg]

Section8's thought was not about some comparison of the absolute value of visual and text representations, but instead a more realist bang for the buck type of thing. There's a million, million guys that could crank out short, punchy descriptive text at a mile a minute for nothing and cause almost no additional CPU or graphical load. It's a "50% of the product for 1% of the cost" argument.

Some scripting and stat checks, in RPGs, would prevent them from being perceptive railroading (You see spiderwebbed cracks on the vase vs. You see that this is a Qin-era ceramic using the northeastern style of decorative cracked glaze). In fact that would be a good way to add a character vs. player perceptive layer.

 

[kingcomrade]

Hmm, I didn't get very far in Planescape, just explored the city and fought a bunch of thieves. I didn't like it. Maybe just the D&D system or the engine, but I didn't like playing it and I don't remember anything capturing my interest.

 

[Jasede]

Very well, we seem to have concluded that well-written descriptions are a great way improve a game; and a very cost-efficent one at that.
There also was the question why companies don't seem care about the needs of the true CRPG connoisseur. Twinfalls contributed the most likely answer: Firms are more interested in making money than telling a good story set in a believable world.
Honestly, if I was a CEO and if such ignorant dorks such as those Morrowind fanboys would be the majority of the potential buyers, I too would refrain from allowing my company's games to have too much text, a too 'complex' storyline and too many options. It's true, I actually would assign most of the budget to the graphics department, hoping that those shiny graphics would paralyze said customer's brains, or rather, what is left of them. And if the graphics don't get them, the soothing voice of Captain Picard surely will.

Now allow me to adress some of the posts, in no special order.

Hmm, I didn't get very far in Planescape, just explored the city and fought a bunch of thieves. I didn't like it. Maybe just the D&D system or the engine, but I didn't like playing it and I don't remember anything capturing my interest.

I firmly believe that you should try it again. Look, I would have loved the game even if it wouldn't have any roleplaying system at all. The joy of PS: T is mainly reading the great text and watching the amazing story unfold. Oh, and interacting with the colourful characters of which there are plenty. And getting absorbed into its great, morbid, dark athmosphere. And....- well, you get the point. Its has many great moments, and much deeper emotions than any 'JRPG' will ever have. (Don't get me wrong - I actually like some Final Fantasies for what they are. They still have their good points. The Torment manual even states that the FFs have been a source of inspiration.)

Some scripting and stat checks, in RPGs, would prevent them from being perceptive railroading (You see spiderwebbed cracks on the vase vs. You see that this is a Qin-era ceramic using the northeastern style of decorative cracked glaze). In fact that would be a good way to add a character vs. player perceptive layer.

A great idea, that. It would surely enrich the experience. And it would increase the replay value, I guess. And it wouldn't be difficult to implement. Just a little bit tedious.

I'd go further and say that FP games actively need prose of that type, because they are the ones which have the modern, high-polygon, texture-mapped graphics. This type of graphics still tends towards the 'realistic' at all costs, hence the lack of style and imagination-stimulus of 'lesser' graphics. So while text is not needed to inform the player of what's around, it arguably is needed to induce the player-created mind-content which was a hallmark of RPGs before FP3D, polygons and voiced dialogue.

No comment this time, I just thought that it was worth repeating.

Well, keep the posts coming if you still have something to contribute. Maybe the developers can learn something from this thread.

 

[Section8]

It's good to have someone on the other side of the fence, Imbecile. I usually prefer that someone to be a young lady that sunbathes nude in line of sight with a knothole, but barring that, you'll do.

Text in games is generally descriptive. Is serves the same function as graphics,iperating in a slightly different way, sure, but the end result is the same - it serves to give you a picture of an object, or an event. Having text alongside an image, is largely unnecessary - as generally speaking the image can convey more than the description.

Certainly true. I actually believe the "thousand words" rule works both ways.

However, I think that while an image in the form of an artwork is intended to stir discussion and interpretation, and hence words are counterproductive, there are many aspects to games where this is not true.

To harken back to my example of a character moving with an unaccustomed strength (think of a whole body moving like an arm lifting an empty suitcase the owner thinks is full,) the game doesn't really gain anything from being interpretive:

1up: Er...what's wrong with that guy?
2up: Man, the animations in this game are shithouse!
3up: Hah! That looks retarded! It's like the guys in Deus Ex!

Really, for the majority of game content, you want it to convey your message as closely as possible. That's why things such as icons for actions or spell effects are generally somewhat intuitive. And if giving an intuitive visual representation is difficult, the text can fill the gaps, cheaply and efficiently. Mouseovers were an essential part of Morrowind UI.

Plenty of books have pictures to aid description, but no films have descriptions flashing up of events as you watch them. (and no, subtitles dont count )

But, that's a limitation of film, that either results in quirky exposition of non-visual elements, or a lack of detail. I can't think of a single film adaptation of a novel that rates as superior to the original work. [edit] Actually, American Psycho might qualify, simply because it doesn't have the detailed imagery of the book.

And I'm going to bring up subtitles anyway since it's pretty analogious to what we've been talking about. Without subtitles, you're essentially limiting your film to audiences who speak/understand the language of the spoken dialogue. By hiring a single translator, you can broaden that audience, without the original audience needing to know or care. If you were to redub the film, you then need a translator, voice actors, and a team to actually record and edit the redubbed audio.

The example of text supplemented graphics is slightly less tangible in terms of the audience it would reach, but the principle is the same. You have the portion of the audience who laud draw distance as a great feature, and they can happily gaze at the horizon without having to know there is depth and textual descriptions that satisfy another portion of the audience.

Words can give a different perspective, but they're mainly going to be useful in telling us what our character is supposed to be thinking - kind of like an internal monolgue (rather like that Fallout example). If its just a description, you might as well just use the graphics, and if you start trying to give the characters perspective, then you are going to limit the scope of the characters you can create.

After all you wouldnt expect every character to think the same thing when they see an object or event - and it seems unlikely that they will be able to provide text for every possible character mindset. Coward, psycho, scientist, fighter, hunter, Mage, looter and Liontamer should all think different things when they see the timorous beastie of Antwerp. An image is flexible as to what your character might think - but text is concrete.

Well, I'm not necessarily advocating "telling us what our character is supposed to be thinking" and the Fallout example illustrates a perfectly universal, yet stirring internal monologue. The character's background of being a vault dweller who has never seen the surface is immutable. The statement is also simple, and factual, without any emotional leanings.

My character is awestruck at the first sight of the sky, but another might simply think "God, how ugly! No wonder mankind invented the roof!" In fact...[5 minutes passes]...I've even played a character who is agoraphobic. At the sight of the outside world, he ran to a corner and rocked back and forth until the rats ate him.

I used that example specifically because it leads the imagination, without substituting for it. And that's the beauty of the written word. The simpler a description, the more tangible it is. I can describe a woman as stunning, gorgeous, beautiful, etc. and the mind of the reader fills in the blanks. I could show a picture of a woman *I* think is beautiful to those same people, and they might disagree.

One other thing to consider, is that not all sensation is visual and/or auditory, and those are the only two senses that a game can convey without an alternate representation, and text is the simplest way to achieve that.

Hmm, I didn't get very far in Planescape, just explored the city and fought a bunch of thieves. I didn't like it. Maybe just the D&D system or the engine, but I didn't like playing it and I don't remember anything capturing my interest.

Give it a go. Admittedly, the combat is ass, the engine clunky and limited, but it's almost like interactive fiction, with character stats serving to govern choices here and there. But, that may not be your thing, and if so, fair enough.

There also was the question why companies don't seem care about the needs of the true CRPG connoisseur. Twinfalls contributed the most likely answer: Firms are more interested in making money than telling a good story set in a believable world.

All that's needed is a few words to convince the suits that a bit of low-cost, added depth will broaden the demographic even further, and Bob's your uncle.

--

Honestly, if I was a CEO and if such ignorant dorks such as those Morrowind fanboys would be the majority of the potential buyers, I too would refrain from allowing my company's games to have too much text, a too 'complex' storyline and too many options. It's true, I actually would assign most of the budget to the graphics department, hoping that those shiny graphics would paralyze said customer's brains, or rather, what is left of them. And if the graphics don't get them, the soothing voice of Captain Picard surely will.

Ironically, I thought Morrowind had too much text and a too "complex" storyline. But, that was a symptom of the wiki system. I have no emotional involvement or vested interest in the main narrative or history of Morrowind's plotline, and so I don't read any of it. I just scan read to get the important bits like directions.

Now, some would say the solution to my problem is to simplify all of that shit, but really, it's the presentation that needs to be rectified. From what little I've seen, it seems clear that Torment probably has just as much, if not more in the way of text and plot complexity, but the fact that it's all presented in a natural and conversation manner, and more importantly, an interactive manner makes it that much more effective. In fact...

Sellus Gravius (?): Your orders are to report to Caius Cosades. He's an agent for the Blades and can be found in Balmora.

• [1] Balmora?
  [2] And how might I reach him from here?
  [3] Uh...

Sellus Gravius: Since you're new to the island, I'd recommend taking the Silt Strider, it's just on the other side of town. Giant insect, can't miss it.

• [1] Can't I just walk?
  [2] Is there any other way to get there?
  [3] Uh...

Sellus Gravius: Trust me, just take the strider. I'd hate to think you might get lost on the way to your first assignment. <chuckles> Now, once you get to Balmora, take a right at the bottom of the steps, so you're heading east.

• [1] Take a right. Understood.
  [2] East...that's the opposite of west, right?
  [3] Uh...

Sellus Gravius: That's right, keep going along that way and cross the first bridge you come to. Once you're across the canal, you should be facing an archway, head through it.

• [1] I think I can manage that.
  [2] Through the arch? That's under it?
  [3] Uh...

Sellus Gravius: Now through that arch you should see a big wooden sign swaying in the breeze. That's a sign for the South Wall Corner-Club. You wont actually find Caius in there, but ask around. They'll be able to direct you further.

• [1] Great, I'll inquire about him there. Farewell.
  [2] Okay, ask about Caius at the South Wall. Be seeing you.
  [3] Uh...Buhbye

 

[RGE]

Plenty of books have pictures to aid description, but no films have descriptions flashing up of events as you watch them. (and no, subtitles dont count )

I've read that Man on fire features words popping up on screen to describe stuff, but I guess that's a bit iffy. But some films use narration to describe, or rather explain, events as they are being shown, because sometimes visuals can be too open for interpretation, and the point might be lost unless it is explained to the audience. I'd say that such narration serves the exact same purpose as text descriptions do in CRPGs.

Perhaps one problem with text descriptions is that players might feel as if they might miss crucial information by not reading the descriptions, especially if the desriptions get more detailed with better skill. Or should the game come with a disclaimer explaining that none of the descriptions are crucial or even important? "If you don't like to read, just ignore them"?

Another problem with hiring 'unskilled' writers to do all those tedious descriptions is that they might not mesh very well with the mood of the game, or with each other. They might take too many liberties with existing lore, and would thus have to be read by whoever is in charge of the lore, and who might in turn feel as if they have more important things to do that read through tons of tedious descriptions. Well, what do I know?

 

[Proweler]

Another problem with hiring 'unskilled' writers to do all those tedious descriptions is that they might not mesh very well with the mood of the game, or with each other.

Agreed, that is so fucking annoying!

If they spend that time on actually making those last levels a bit more inspired then your generic mininghole with lizards, gollums, zombies and all other crap that is totally out of location combinded with a puzle that is so fucking far fetched you give up all hope that ending is going to be anygood.

 

[TheGreatGodPan]

people who chose to remain ignorant

If you think you can keep your ideology intact, you might want to read up on rational ignorance, courtesy of public choice theory.

Rational ignorance.

Theory. Information is a good like any other. The primary benefit of information is that it reduces the probability of acting on false beliefs; the primary cost is that acquiring information requires time. Basic microeconomics predicts that (ignoring risk-aversion) individuals acquire information up to the point where the expected marginal benefits equal the expected marginal costs. (Stigler 1961) Beyond that point, acquiring information becomes selfishly counter-productive; while you will avoid more mistakes, it is on balance cheaper to commit them.

A corollary is that if the marginal benefits of information are always zero, the rational economic decision is to be ignorant. If the market pays nothing for knowledge of ancient Egypt, there is no reason to spend time learning about it. In general terms, then, "rational ignorance" refers to any situation where individuals know little or nothing because the expected benefits of knowledge are negligible.

However, it has long been recognized that rational ignorance has far more empirical relevance in public choice than in other branches of economics. Why? Suppose that spending one more hour learning about politicians' voting records allows you to shift your vote to a candidate whose policies, if adopted, would be $100 better for you. The expected marginal benefit of an hour of study is emphatically not $100, but $100 multiplied by the probability that you cast the decisive vote, tipping an otherwise deadlocked outcome. In virtually any real-world election, that probability will be essentially zero, implying an expected marginal benefit of zero as well. (Olson 1965; Downs 1957)

The upshot is that imperfect information matters far more in politics than in markets. Consumers are not omniscient, but they have clear incentives to roughly figure out whether a piece of merchandise is worth the asking price. They are ignorant of details of the marketplace, not its basics. In contrast, voters' have no more incentive to study the basics of politics than they have to study the minutiae! Even if a person voted in a completely random manner, he could still enjoy personal comfort and security. A person who consumed in a completely random manner could not.

Evidence. At any rate, this is what the economics of information tells us. But do these predictions hold up empirically? Obviously they are not literally true. Everyone knows something about politics. Nevertheless, the empirical evidence on political knowledge reveals that citizens are ignorant to a shocking degree. Consider the following table showing the percentage of adult Americans aware of various elementary political facts.
Item %
Know President's term is 4 years 94
Can name governor of home state 89
Can name vice president 78
Know which party has U.S. House majority 69
Know there are two U.S. senators per state 52
Can name their Congress member 46
Aware Bill of Rights is first ten amendments to U.S. Constitution 41
Can name both of their U.S. senators 39
Can name current U.S. secretary of state 34
Know term of U.S. House members is 2 years 30
Can name one of their state senators 28
Source: Dye and Zeigler, The Irony of Democracy (1996, p.132)

More comprehensive works (e.g. Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996) are quite consistent with this outline; in fact, they show that knowledge of foreign affairs is even more limited. It is particularly striking that such a small percentage knows unchanging characteristics of the U.S. Constitutional structure like the number of senators each state has or the length of House members' terms. Without this knowledge, it is hard to see how voters could hold the politicians who represent them accountable for anything. Politicians' low level of name recognition is less surprising, but similarly disheartening: if voters are unable even to name their representatives, it is wishful thinking to imagine that they keep track of their voting records and reward or punish them accordingly in the next election. Politicians' party affiliations obviously simplifies this problem to some degree, but voter knowledge of the party to which second-tier politicians belong is also quite limited.

Consequences. One of the main themes of public choice is that democracy is paradoxically run for the benefit of "rent-seeking" special interests rather than the general public. Rational ignorance is at the root of most efforts to model this outcome. If voters have no idea what politicians are doing, then politicians can safely cater to the special interests who make it their business to closely follow whatever aspects of policy they depend on. This pattern often goes by the name of "concentrated benefits, diffuse costs." Each piece of special interest legislation takes only a few cents from the average voter, but provides millions for the special interests who back it. No voter, therefore, will bother to even learn of the existence of the legislation, but its beneficiaries may well employ a full-time staff of lobbyists to protect their livelihood. (Olson 1965; Weingast et al 1981; Rowley et al 1988; Magee et al 1989)

A more complex account of the connection between rational ignorance and the predominance of special interests focuses on campaign contributions. Special interests can use their money to buy politicians' support. These politicians then use donations to pay for misleading political advertising. Precisely because voters are so uninformed, this misleading advertising is generally an effective way to get votes. In equilibrium, of course, politicians have to strike a balance between special interests and voter interests, but the less informed the voters are, the less their interests count. (Grossman and Helpman 1994)

Responses
The empirical evidence on voter ignorance is widely, though not universally, accepted. A minority of scholars maintain that "political IQ" tests understate the true competence of the individual voter. (Popkin 1991; Lupia and McCubbins 1998) The most effective critiques of the standard analysis, however, concede voters' severe ignorance, but maintain that even so, democracy works remarkably well.

The leading version of this argument is sometimes called "the miracle of aggregation." (Page and Shapiro 1992; Wittman 1995; Hoffman 1998) Suppose that only 10% of voters are well-informed; they vote for the candidate who puts more weight on voter welfare. The remaining 90% are completely uninformed and vote by flipping a coin. Common sense says that this situation is hopeless. Basic statistics, however, implies that as the size of the electorate increases, the randomness of individual voters matters less and less. In percentage terms, errors tend to cancel each other out. In fact, for a reasonably large electorate, we can practically guarantee that in a two-party race, each candidate gets half of the uninformed vote. No matter what a candidate does, he gets at least 45% of the vote. To win, though, a candidate needs more; and the only way to get more is to court the informed voters. What fraction of the well-informed does a politician need to win? 51%. In other words, whichever candidate the majority of well-informed voters prefers wins the election, even though by assumption the well-informed are out-numbered 9:1.

A parallel argument holds for ignorance about policy. Suppose that most voters are ignorant about international economics. As long as this ignorance leads equal fractions of voters to over- or under-estimate the benefits of free trade, the equilibrium policy remains the same. Voter ignorance by itself therefore does not imply that protectionism prevails. As long as errors are random rather than systematic, and the electorate is large, an ignorant electorate acts "as if" it were fully informed.

This sort of reasoning is especially persuasive to economists because it is an obvious extension of the familiar rational expectations assumption. Most formal economic models routinely represent imperfect information as measurement error; they assume that individuals observe the "true value plus noise." In Akerlof's (1970) famous article on asymmetric information, for example, ignorant car buyers know the average value of used cars, but nothing about any particular car. From a rational expectations standpoint, systematic errors are by definition "irrational," a condition that most economists are unwilling to invoke.

Aside from the miracle of aggregation, another source of optimism in the face of voter ignorance emerges from the economics of crime. (Becker 1968) This literature suggests that politicians can be kept in check even if voter ignorance occasionally rises up to 100%. All that is necessary is that politicians have a strictly positive probability of being caught if they abuse the public trust. If so, voters have a simple way to deter abuses: over-punish whoever they catch. If a politician has a 1% chance of being caught taking a $1 bribe, bribery has to be punished with far more than a $1 fine. Voters could penalize wayward politicians for even minor infractions by throwing them out of office, demonizing them, or putting them in jail. This is not idle theorizing, either; a number of politicians have ruined their careers with by saying the wrong word at the wrong time, or by misusing a trivial amount of official resources.

The "concentrated benefits, diffuse costs" story has also been specifically challenged. Perhaps if there were only a single program in the federal budget that fit this description, that program would survive indefinitely. But most economists concerned about programs with concentrated benefits and diffuse costs believe that they number in the thousands. If so, there is a simple way to get rid of them: set up some sort of omnibus repeal bill. (Wittman 1995) Bundle thousands of tiny affronts against the average tax-payer into one bill that pulls the plug on all of them. In this way, politicians could overcome the dilemma that no one program is big enough to attract voters' attention. Interestingly, after economists raised this theoretical possibility, U.S. politics provided a clear empirical illustration with the post-Cold War base closings bill.

Finally, even if one believes that voter ignorance remains a serious problem for democracy, it is important to carefully work through the direction of the effect. Rational ignorance has generally been thought to make government inefficiently large. But standard asymmetric information models actually predict the opposite. (Breton and Wintrobe 1982) In the Akerlof lemons model, to take the canonical example, informed sellers and uninformed buyers leads the used car market to shrink. The reason is that buyers realize that they are unable to judge product quality, and therefore become more reluctant to buy. In a parallel manner, if political insiders know more about program quality than voters, voters' rational response is, in effect, to say "When in doubt, vote no." In equilibrium, then, asymmetric political information tends to make government smaller, not bigger.

If you willingly sat through that, you might find the oxymoronical sounding concept of "rational irrationality" interesting as well.

Rational irrationality.

Puzzles for rational ignorance. Economists have long been aware of voters' rational ignorance. But the beliefs of many voters seem anomalous even taking their severe ignorance into account. Voters frequently have systematic biases rather than random errors. They underestimate the economic benefits of free trade, overestimate the percentage of the budget spent on welfare, and misinterpret low economic growth as absolute economic decline. (Caplan 2002; National Survey of Public Knowledge of Welfare Reform and the Federal Budget 1995; Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy 1996) From a rational expectations standpoint, such systematic errors are by definition a sign of "irrationality" rather than ignorance. Even on less restrictive cognitive assumptions, the further beliefs diverge from the truth, the harder it becomes to interpret them as honest mistakes.

Another puzzle is that people are often emotionally committed to their political beliefs. (Hoffer 1951) They look at new evidence and empirical tests more as a threat than an opportunity to learn. The modern history of socialism provides a standard example: as evidence of its failures mounted, a large fraction of socialists refused to acknowledge not only its inadequacies, but true disasters such as the collectivization famines under Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and others. Similar mindsets are easy to find across the political spectrum. A new study finding that the Laffer curve peaks at a marginal rate of 90% would probably antagonize or even enrage conservative proponents of tax cuts, but is unlikely to make many conservatives rethink their views.

A related oddity about voters' beliefs is the extreme certainty with which many voters hold them. The basic economics of information predicts that the poorly informed will be open-minded. The less you know, the more you must recognize how many possible ways you could have gone wrong. In politics, though, extreme ignorance often co-exists with dogmatism. Passionate protectionists are rarely able to correctly explain the principle of comparative advantage, few fierce opponents of government spending are aware of the composition of the budget, and so on. As the saying goes, "Don't confuse me with the facts."

A simple model of rational irrationality. These are some of the reasons that led Caplan (2000; 2001c) to introduce the concept of rational irrationality as a rival to the better-known concept of rational ignorance. The standard analysis of rational ignorance indicates that when there are weak incentives to reach correct answers, individuals realize this fact and accordingly choose to gather little information. Caplan proposes that agents optimize along a second margin as well: their degree of rationality itself. (Akerlof and Dickens 1982) When there are weak incentives to reach correct answers, an otherwise intelligent person may opt to turn off his critical faculties and believe whatever makes him feel best.

If comforting beliefs are false, there is a obviously trade-off between your beliefs' psychological benefits and your material well-being. The key assumption of rational irrationality is that agents on some level have rational expectations about this trade-off. Suppose for convenience that the trade-off is linear. Then like any other product, we can draw a demand curve showing the "quantity" of irrationality a consumer selects at any given "price." (Diagram 1)

For example, a doctor may want to believe that he can perform surgery while drunk without additional risk, but this belief would have high expected material costs from law suits and loss of business. The same doctor could however vote on the basis of lame economic sophisms without fear of negative consequences. Since his vote is almost certain to have no effect on the outcome anyway, he could safely indulge irrational political beliefs at the ballot box even though he refrains from such cognitive excesses on the operating table.

In terms of Diagram 1, the standard neoclassical assumption is that demand for irrationality is vertical at q=0; that is, that individuals are fully rational regardless of the practical relevance of the question. Voters are as rational as consumers. But if we relax this polar assumption, there is a strong reason to expect people to become markedly less rational when they turn to political questions. If a consumer acts on the basis of irrational beliefs, he bears the full costs of the errors. If a citizen votes on the basis of irrational beliefs, in contrast, he bears only an infinitesimal fraction of the costs. In markets, rational expectations is a private good; in politics, it is a public good.

Like rational ignorance, rational irrationality is relevant to matters other than public choice. Caplan (2001c) suggests, in particular, that religious beliefs often fit the same basic pattern. Most religious adherents are highly certain of their religious beliefs, in spite of their unfamiliarity with rival doctrines. But in most cases, religions focus on questions with little practical relevance. Unless one wishes to be a professional biologist, for example, how you would hurt your career prospects by embracing creationism over evolution? Here again, then, people might retain irrational beliefs indefinitely because the material costs of error are minimal. In a sense, rational irrationality provides an economic account of the parallels between political ideology and religious faith emphasized so eloquently by Eric Hoffer in The True Believer (1951).

Rethinking political failure. Caplan (2001c) emphasizes that rational irrationality allows for a great many political failures that rational ignorance cannot sustain. (Wittman 1995) Rational irrationality can take many public choice intuitions about political failure and put them on a stable theoretical foundation.

Consider, for instance, the common argument that voter ignorance of international economics leads to protectionist policies. This story has been shot down on the grounds that purely random errors resulting from lack of information should cancel out. If voters are ignorant about international trade, leading some to overestimate the benefits of protectionism and others to underestimate them, there is no reason to expect the equilibrium platform to be biased in a protectionist direction. In contrast, if voters are rationally irrational, they could systematically tend to overestimate the benefits of protectionism, driven perhaps by xenophobia. Their systematic overestimate would in turn push the political system to adopt the protectionist policies that voters believe to be beneficial.

Indeed, such policies could in principle win unanimous support. (Caplan forthcoming) Suppose, following Becker (1958), that all voters have identical preferences and endowments. If protectionist policies prevail, each voter is $1000 worse off than under free trade. But each voter gets $10 of surplus from believing in the economic benefits of protectionism. Then a voter is better off holding this irrational view as long as
-$1000*p+$10>0,
where p is the probability of voter decisiveness. (Brennan and Lomasky 1993) As long as p<1%, each and every voter will put his faith in protection and vote accordingly, leading to a per capita loss of $990.



Critics of rational ignorance arguments point out, in addition, that voters have a variety of simple strategies for coping with their own ignorance. The most obvious is "When in doubt, vote no." When voters learn that a politician advocates programs of unknown quality, they could automatically count such advocacy against them. Admittedly, this argument sounds strange and forced. But why? A natural explanation is that voters' problem is irrationality rather than ignorance. In a sense, they want to be fooled. If they were buying a used car, they would apply extra caution to compensate for their own ignorance. When they vote, however, they rarely bother. They want to believe that new programs will make the world a better place. Questioning that assumption would disturb their worldview without significantly raising the probability that better programs prevail.

In many brands of public choice, special interests are presumed to be the driving force behind inefficient policy. What makes this approach problematic is that inefficient policies are frequently popular. (Caplan 2002; 2001a) The public pays little attention to the details of trade policy; but when they do hear about protectionist measures, they are usually supportive. The same goes for many of the policies economists question, from price controls to drug regulation. Rational irrationality provides a simple alternative account of political failure: The main cause is not special interests, but voters themselves. This hardly implies, however, that counter-productive policies are somehow efficient. Democracy creates a pervasive voter-on-voter externality. The fact that most individuals choose to pollute does not imply that laissez-faire delivers the socially optimal level of pollution. Similarly, the fact that most individuals vote in favor of a policy does not mean that democracy delivers socially optimal policy.

 

[Roqua]

I agree with the points (even thou I read comics).

The principle is showing less and creating atmosphere is better then showing more and having it turn out bad.

Movie directors figured this out and made classics, maybe early game designers weren't aware they were using it but now games (and movies) are in a fancy FX rut.

Look at Jaws for a great example. The producers wanted to show the shark at the start but the director was smart to hide it and show it in limited ways. If they showed the whole shark for a long time people would see it was so fake and it would lose its impact. And now movies with CGI sharks would look stupid.

Redoing the shower scene from Psycho with CGI stabbing effects would have less impact. Powering people's imaginations does more then shutting down that side of their brain, because then their mind starts increasingly questioning the suspension of disbelief.

The more they see the less mystery, the less mystery the less they are drawn in.

This is what is happening. Players are now seeing the puppet strings in 3D models and saying, "is that all?", instead of low key images that gets the mind to paint in better details. Game designers have forgotten how to paint atmosphere.

You have to keep it believable. The higher res textures you get the more chance flaws can bring people out. Movies that rely on selling fancy FX has to set up a consistent world around it.

Consistent graphic design is better then a straight increase in polygons when they aren't used right. Look at GTA series, its cartoony graphics paints a consistent world.

The cookie cutter looking world of Morrowind with its blocky animations and boring caves is a problem.

I agree with what you say and disagree also. I think trying to break games down into an art is what is ruining it. Art isn't fun. Bring back the days of 3 dorks in their cellar trying to make something fun. Fuck graphics, graphics aren't fun. I don't dislike graphics because they are nice, I thought the fancy graphics was one of MW's only good points. Blink Video videos are always imnpressive (like wow's or ToEE's). Even the elevator graphics in bloodlines were great.

But what fancy graphiucs does, in my opinion, is suck the resources out of gameplay. Look at Realms of Arkania 3. Better graphics, less gameplay/gameplay options. Same with DF/MW/OB. Same with Dues Ex, Dues Ex 2. Etc. Gameplay suffers for graphics, and the people controlling the game markets seem like they would be just as happy with the graphic demos nvidia and ati come out with.

I don't get why game companies don't try and use economy of scale. Why didn't Atari make another contract for ToEE 2 or another greyhawk module that could of used the same resources. The engine was there, all the graphics were there, all the rules. Troika said they could only make TopEE in 18 months because they used the Arcanum engine. How fast could they have churned out sequals if the fancy smancy graphic whores left well enough alone. If they got another 18 months for a sequal, they could of just focused on game story/plot. We could of had a game thats twice as long and had more content. And if they just used old modules they have a huge source to free up the creative team for just all the fluff, side shit.

I would be set for life game-wise. I could just go through lvl 1-10 of more modules over and over.

But I like what VD and the OP said about Imagination in games. I had dialogue choices. Why not just have the intimidation symbol, bluff symbol, etc, (good response, mean response) and let me type in my own shit to say. I imagined the character up, why are they making me say shit the person i imagined would never say? He would never say, "You better tell me or things could get ugly here...and quickly!!!! He would say, "Tell me or I'll cut your balls off and shove them in your eye-sockets...bitches." They could keep the same responses, since what is said is not important, just what the result is (preferably tied to a dice roll and/or ability/skill). Thats roleplaying. Not making my gruff warrior say stupid gay shit.

 

[Twinfalls]

And who's saying text is more 'highbrow', but you? This is a straw man, my friend.

Well, you did seem to be saying that having text in the game would add more depth. You also say that people with "different" mindsets have created a game without text, and then characterise that mindset as pretty dumb.

What, so depth = 'highbrow'?!? That's your word. I prefer 'interesting'.

Having text alongside an image, is largely unnecessary - as generally speaking the image can convey more than the description.

Can it always? Check the examples given in this thread, especially Section8's.

Plenty of books have pictures to aid description, but no films have descriptions flashing up of events as you watch them.

Once again, spurious example. A film is not a game. Film is a linear, non-interactive medium. Text descriptions are inherently a facet of an interactive medium, especially RPGs as opposed to driving games or FPSs. At any rate, you'll find text in experimental or 'art' films that serve a distinct purpose.

if you start trying to give the characters perspective, then you are going to limit the scope of the characters you can create....Coward, psycho, scientist, fighter, hunter, Mage, looter and Liontamer should all think different things when they see the timorous beastie of Antwerp. An image is flexible as to what your character might think - but text is concrete.

This is just plain untrue. As Zomg said:

Some scripting and stat checks, in RPGs, would prevent them from being perceptive railroading (You see spiderwebbed cracks on the vase vs. You see that this is a Qin-era ceramic using the northeastern style of decorative cracked glaze). In fact that would be a good way to add a character vs. player perceptive layer.

It is text, and only text, which can realistically and efficiently provide character-ability differentiation for sensory input.

I really don't understand what it is you're arguing. You seem to be saying 'well, text doesn't add anything to pictures, so there's no need for it'.

To you maybe.

But clearly, to plenty of other people, it does add something. So why not include it? It's cheap, it's easy, it adds a level of fun and atmosphere and even game mechanics, for a certain section of the audience. As others have said repeatedly - what's the big deal with including it?

 

[Turdis]

Actually, this has been done in a FP game before, a non-rpg curiously enough. It was Metroid Prime on the gamecube and it worked well there. Pretty much worked like this: your character wore a suit with a built in scanner and anything you could target you could scan for information. There were sometimes areas where you'd run into a bunch of corpses, and analyzing them would give the cause of death, or even things like if the death was immediate or the creature lived on for a bit. It seemed a good way to advance the plot and soak in the atmosphere without being intrusive. Heres an ingame example: http://www.geocities.com/ultimate_metro ... a/scan.jpg

 

[Atrokkus]

I agree with Kamaz on that it's very foolish to see in black and white and say that all new 3d games are inferior to old 2d games just because of the graphic aspect. You could make a very stylish and memorable game with the latest GameBryo/Havok engines. Moreover, superior rendering capabilities actually complement the design concepts. (an example would be levitation, which cannot be implmeneted properly in old 2d games).

As I see it, there are three kinds of computer games:

1. Text-based games: it may contain a little graphics, but mostly just for the sake of making the battles more conveniently controlled. All actions and objects of the gameworld are described verbally, enticing player to create a mind's image of the world, just as he does while reading a book. The graphics, if used at all, are simplstic and *always* synchronized with the verbal component, never really substituting or contradicting it. That is, the image is still in the player's mind, not on the screen.
Games: Zork, ADOM, Nethack, various MUDs

2. Graphical games. In such games, the graphics play a leading role. They are just not dispensable and not interchangable with text, These games are mostly FP or 3rd person, and they offer the player a (seemingly) full picture. Here, textual descriptions will do no good, because they might contradict the obvious image which will only alienate the player. Even in dialogs the text descriptions are obsolette, because the player sees the face and expects an *obvious* visual representation of emotions and mimics. Moreover, due to the real-time nature of such games, text descriptions are technically impossible to implement properly (so, the assessment that text description would benefit Bloodlines is false).
Games: VTM:Bloodlines, Oblivion, Gothic...

3. Hybrids. Such games incorporate both graphic and text components, letting them play equal, but separate roles. Developers, understanding the limitation of their graphical engines, try to refrain from using zoom-ins and first-person perspective, in order to let the text descriptions deal with character description, emotions, and other quite graphically-intensive aspects. In contrast, the environments or other assets (e.g. portraits) may be very intricately painted and not requiring further text-elaboration.
Games: Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate, etc.


Of course, it's a somewhat crude generalization. It proves my point, however, that once the threshold (hybrid) is crossed into the full-graphic games, there is no going back, and no compromise between graphics and text.

 

[Twinfalls]

2. Graphical games...Here, textual descriptions will do no good, because they might contradict the obvious image which will only alienate the player. ...Moreover, due to the real-time nature of such games, text descriptions are technically impossible to implement properly

Not true. Did you play Arena? What little prose descriptions were there, worked. They could easily be expanded.

It proves my point, however,

What proves your point? Your own hypotheses? You need evidence to prove a point.

 

[franc kaos]

2. Graphical games. In such games, the graphics play a leading role. They are just not dispensable and not interchangable with text, These games are mostly FP or 3rd person, and they offer the player a (seemingly) full picture. Here, textual descriptions will do no good, because they might contradict the obvious image which will only alienate the player. Even in dialogs the text descriptions are obsolette, because the player sees the face and expects an *obvious* visual representation of emotions and mimics. Moreover, due to the real-time nature of such games, text descriptions are technically impossible to implement properly (so, the assessment that text description would benefit Bloodlines is false).
Games: VTM:Bloodlines, Oblivion, Gothic...

I can see examples where text would easily enhance the most graphically intense scene, all examples for Oblivion:
1: Gaining consciousness in the dungeon - 'You crinkle your nose, the dust of ages hang heavy in here, shadows leap from the torches flickering light.'
2: Camera zooms into king Picard - 'Sensing the guards hostility and unease, the king makes an almost unseen gesture with his fingers, and they fall back. You feel the weight of the years of responsibility emanating from his measured look. The sense he will not give up whilest there is breathe in his lungs.'
3 : Exiting your first dungeon - 'The first taste of fresh air is sweet as champagne, the cool wind caressing your forehead...'

It's not about how good the graphics are, the computer only emulates two of your five senses, sound and vision - there's also smell ('The stink of decay hangs heavy in this room'), touch ('You heft the sword and it feels right in your hand') and taste (and the ephemereal feelings - 'There is a wrongness about this room, you feel your hackles rise').

I don't think most people are saying the graphics need augmenting (altho' from what I've seen of Oblivion and played of Farcry, subtle animations are still a way off), but text is a way of bringing on board all the senses (and that's what immersion means anyway). If you read a message saying that you can smell daffodils, your brain will simply comply from a memory or conjure up what it thinks Daffs should smell like.

Happy new year to all the Codexers by the way...