Imagination in CRPGs

[Twinfalls]

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').

Indeed - excellent point.

 

[Atrokkus]

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

Proof is a loose concept, so let's say you're just nitpicking.

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

First off, Arena is not graphically intense.

I agree that it's easier to implement the sense of smell via text than graphics (it could be done with graphics as well, come to think of it), although it is still virtually impossible to implement it fully.

BUT I just find it hard to balance the text and graphics in a game where EVERYTHING is graphical and almost photoreal. Bloodlines. for instance: you couldn't add textual descriptions in dialogs because that may contradict the mimics you see on NPC's face, and that would look dumb, as if the devlelopers have no idea what and how they are doing in the game, what would work and what woudln't. Same with little prose descriptions upon entering an area: you could add smells, but that's about it: everyrthing else is right there on the screen. It's redundant.
It would only make the player wander: what the fuck you made this graphic engine for, if you can't show me every emotion, every expression?
And as engines become better and better, this question will grow ever keener.

Personally, I am not quite sure which approach I prefer more. I even think that all three I find appealing, and I enjoy games of all those types. However, when it comes to pure RPGs, I would still prefer a MUD or something like TOrment, which had so much more details, so much more atmosphere, especially when it comes to sentient interaction.

 

[Twinfalls]

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

First off, Arena is not graphically intense.

Arena was first-person 3D. It perfectly illustrates the issue. No increase in polygons/texture mapping would change the effectiveness of its texty bits.

Same with little prose descriptions upon entering an area: you could add smells, but that's about it: everyrthing else is right there on the screen. It's redundant.

Have you just not read all the examples given in this thread showing how text can add so much more?

I can't find examples of the real-time text in Arena, but these will do even if only for nostalgia's sakes....

 

[bryce777]

trying to convince peopel who have never read a book how much text adds is an exercise in futility, and that is tha average console market.

 

[Trash]

Writing is a very powerfull tool, when used correctly. Remember the text you got in fallout as the vault dweller first saw daylight? The text based encounters in Darklands? Baldurs Gate's between chapter texts about what was going on?

They worked, because they didn't intrude too much on gameplay. It didn't slow the game down, it just provided more immersion and entertainment.

I really miss stuff like this. It's always been a staple of the rpg genre to hear a dm say "you enter a dusty hall, you an hear rats scurrying". If toee had a short in game description of every room you entered, the game would have been a whole lot more immersive.

Though you can always argue that text won't work in certain games or genre's, that's not true. The medium is good, it only depends on how it is implemented in a game.


Still, there are many other ways to increase the immersion than just chucking in text. Good music that fits the mood, good level design, overhearing ai characters speak (like in nolf), giving ai characters some good backgrounds and motivations, providing a solid story in the game, etc , etc. Games like thief, nolf, fallout, darklands, betrayal at krondor and the suburb mafia were utterly immersive for me. They didn't share one single thing that made it so, but relied on a combination of factors.

 

[Atrokkus]

Have you just not read all the examples given in this thread showing how text can add so much more?

Don't get me wrong: I'm not biased against textual descriptions. Hah, I LOVE such things, I really enjoy this sembiosis of text and graphics demonstrated by Torment, and I love pure-text games (though there are no RPGs, except for the MUDs).
It's just that I don't see the relevancy of additional text descriptions in a game that is designed in a straightforward graphic-intensive course. It's almost the same as describing an object to someone who is already admiring it with his own eyes. It's like duplicating the obvious information. And I repeat: this is only the case in 3D-FP games, where you can actually look closely into each and every object. A game like Realms of Arkania wouldn't count as such game, despite it being FP, though.

However, I also see that as of yet, there has not been a 3D-FP game with enough detalization to actually capture as many details as can capture a carefully written prose. But rest assured: such game will soon emerge.

trying to convince peopel who have never read a book how much text adds is an exercise in futility, and that is tha average console market.

I agree. However, as I said, the graphic engines soon will be able to substitute the text descriptions just fine. However, that wouldn't substitute a good story and verbal interaction.

I for one love all approaches, both graphical and textual. I play MUDs, I enjoy reading and I enjoy imagining. However, there is nothing wrong with observing someone else's mind images.

 

[Imbecile]

trying to convince peopel who have never read a book how much text adds is an exercise in futility, and that is tha average console market.

I agree. However, as I said, the graphic engines soon will be able to substitute the text descriptions just fine. However, that wouldn't substitute a good story and verbal interaction.

I for one love all approaches, both graphical and textual. I play MUDs, I enjoy reading and I enjoy imagining. However, there is nothing wrong with observe someone else's mind images.

I guess this is more or less my approach. I'm an avid reader, but still believe that where the purpose of the text is to objectively describe the sight, and sounds - it can be replaced well by "really shiny" graphics. However, the point about describing the other senses was a damned good one, and obviously the more detail in the dialogue the better.

I appreciate that it would be relatively straightforward and easy to have descriptive text appear as you mouse over objects, and certainly it would add something. How much will vary from person to person.

Its a little easy to write it off as corporatisation, and the increase in really thick peopel who is unable to read and stuff. Adding optional text is hardly a risky venture, especially if it is as cheap and easy as you say it is. As an option, its hardly going to put off prospective customers. Its simply that too few customers would care. As graphics have improved they are able to take the place of the majority of descriptions - and Im sure that if you went back to the gameplayers of the 80's the majority would have opted for a graphical representation. (pure speculation - of course )

 

[Proweler]

trying to convince peopel who have never read a book how much text adds is an exercise in futility, and that is tha average console market.

Just like a good movie or a good book, just prety graphics or just fancy words don't make a good experiance. You need somebody who actually knows what to do with them.
A good director can make an image say more then a thousand words and a good actor can turn a written character into a reality.

But explaining that with words might just be neigh impossible.

 

[Imbecile]

But explaining that with words might just be neigh impossible.

You're ..uh sounding a little hoarse

 

[Section8]

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?

I probably could have explained my "unskilled" jibe a little better. Basically, "unskilled" as in "not an artist, programmer or level designer," but of course if you were going to outsource it to freelancers you need careful supervision and review of lore. I was thinking more in terms of somebody with some writing chops who knows the developer's games inside and out.

But with any alley of game development you need to carefully channel and control the creative energies of the individual. Games where The Vision is not adequately preserved and conveyed are starkly obvious. All Fallouts since the first, for instance.

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.

Sagelike. ToEE looks pretty darn gorgeous graphics wise, it's certainly more than passable in todays market. I think it's missed opportunity. Obviously The Sims was a great deal more popular than ToEE, but the model it uses, of almost episodic content could surely work elsewhere, especially with RPGs.

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.

From my grand total of 20 minutes playing Metroid Prime, I do remember that, and it's an excellent functional example of the goings on in this thread's rambling train of suggestion. It adds so much to the sense of exploring and paying attention to the virtual world around you. If I remember, it even had many practical uses, like evaluating weaknesses of enemies, and hidden goodies in the environment.

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.

It's not a matter of current 3D games being inherently inferior, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest a downward trend in actual gameplay, or at the very least, a big gameplay plateau, with visual upgrades to the same old. As for implementing design concepts, it is true that advancing technology does permit more complex implementations, but it's rarely taken advantage of, and when it is, it's little more than a visual upgrade.

You've also got to consider the state of the industry in this whole discussion. Sure, in theory you can push the technology to the point of photorealistic simulation, but along with that, you have massive increases of labour requirements. A single game can be a multi-million dollar enterprise in development costs alone.

So why continue to push the industry in the direction of burgeoning costs and marginal profits? I agree that in theory, you could push games far enough that textual descriptions become somewhat redundant, but where's the gain? Sooner or later, game development economics are going to hit a wall. In fact, a fairly convincing argument could be made that it's already past it.

Now the suggestions in this thread are necessarily saying, "take a step back" although personally, I could quite easily live without ever playing a game with anything more than diffuse maps. It's more a "stem the flow." Why push to make text obsolete, when really, high-end graphics themselves are redundant in the face of effectively integrated textual description? In fact...

It would only make the player wander: what the fuck you made this graphic engine for, if you can't show me every emotion, every expression?

That's exactly what the developers/publishers should be asking.

/me shrugs, with a condescending grin as if I've got it all figured out.

Now, consider exactly what is involved in creating a photorealistic representation of myself, animating it, rendering it, and then presenting the final product. Is it really worth the gain? Is the viewer going to understand what it's about, or are they going to simply look and say "what's that ugly bastard smiling about?"

I honestly don't see the point, beyond pandering to a fickle market that's going to push demand beyond the reasonable means. Why not work toward pleasing a demographic that doesn't have an expectation of an incremental increase in visual wizardry?

I mean, fuck, if I were a publisher, funding a multi-million dollar project, and I stumbled upon something like Mount & Blade, I'd really have to wonder why it is that many people can derive a great deal of pleasure from something with an infinitesimal cost sheet, comparatively speaking, and I'd be trying to figure out how to get into the hearts and wallets of these strange people who don't seem to give a fuck if those "all important" graphics are bleeding edge or not.

[edit]In fact, arguably the biggest advantage to come from burgeoning commercial game content is that it takes longer to pirate a 4gb DVD image than it does to pirate a few meg of indie developer's blood, sweat and tears.

 

[Imbecile]

You've also got to consider the state of the industry in this whole discussion. Sure, in theory you can push the technology to the point of photorealistic simulation, but along with that, you have massive increases of labour requirements. A single game can be a multi-million dollar enterprise in development costs alone.

Another decent post. It seems to me that increasingly its taking longer and longer to hit that bleeding graphical edge and make notable improvements. Take the next generation of consoles for example: Nintendo appear to have said, fuck this for a game of soldiers, doubling the price of the hardware for a minor improvement in graphics just isnt worth it.

I'm hoping that this kind of thinking is going to start to spill over into games. As it becomes less and less worthwhile to expend resources upping the graphical quality more attention will be paid to size, plot, atmosphere, characters and AI. Hopefully good games engines will be reusable, and middleware will make design and production cheaper and quicker (and maybe blander).

Just out of curiosity, I would have thought that it would have been very easy to add a text mod to Morrowind. Was one ever made?

 

[bryce777]

trying to convince peopel who have never read a book how much text adds is an exercise in futility, and that is tha average console market.

I agree. However, as I said, the graphic engines soon will be able to substitute the text descriptions just fine. However, that wouldn't substitute a good story and verbal interaction.

I for one love all approaches, both graphical and textual. I play MUDs, I enjoy reading and I enjoy imagining. However, there is nothing wrong with observing someone else's mind images.

The problem with this idea is that you then have to have excessive production values for every aspect of the game. Every rat has to be not only rendered realistically, but has to fit in with a coherent art style for the game. Every stupid peasant needs to have professional voice acting. ANd, it all has to be top notch or it willf all flat (like so many games) and look stupid. That means tons and tons of money, for parts of the game that need not have that kind of money spent.

Let's face it - the reality of all the 'awesome graphics' is that even the close to photorealistic graphics are no better in artistic quality than a lot of crap that was around almost ten years ago and in 5 years once the wow of the latest technology wears off everyone will realize how shitty they are and wonder how people survived with such shitty graphics.

 

[war3rd]

If you have that much of an imagination, I don't understand why you can't apply it to Morrowind or any newer game as well. Your argument just doesn't make sense.

 

[bryce777]

If you have that much of an imagination, I don't understand why you can't apply it to Morrowind or any newer game as well. Your argument just doesn't make sense.

the problem is there is nothing to apply imagination to. Everything is right out there, what's out there just sucks, though.

You can imagine details, but you can't imagine the game you are playing has a story worth a shit, meaningful dialog and choices, or any challenge or point to playing aside from dressing up your character.

 

[war3rd]

If you have that much of an imagination, I don't understand why you can't apply it to Morrowind or any newer game as well. Your argument just doesn't make sense.

the problem is there is nothing to apply imagination to. Everything is right out there, what's out there just sucks, though.

You can imagine details, but you can't imagine the game you are playing has a story worth a shit, meaningful dialog and choices, or any challenge or point to playing aside from dressing up your character.

But the original POR didn't have 'meaningful dialogue choices' and really no better a story and, in fact, *is* basically just dressing up your characters (in better equipment). It's no less of a hack 'n slash as MW. I still don't buy the arguement.

 

[bryce777]

There is nothing wrong with a hack and slash game. First off, the original POR had tons of great narrative text that read just like the old module's descriptions did. It is defintiely a game that shows the point that text can make a game very immersive.

Second, oh yes indeed it was challenging. Not the hardest game of all time or even close, but you had to have a party that made sense and/or know what you were doing.

More importantly, there was actual gameplay. It had an excellent strategic combat system that followed the rules for 2nd edition DnD very closely.

Combat was fun, challenging, and actually follwoed the rules. Amazing, no? In morrowind there is no skill or thought to combat whatsoever. or to the game itself. As I said, it is basically for people who like to play with dolls and get excited by spoons placed on each table setting....

 

[war3rd]

There is nothing wrong with a hack and slash game. First off, the original POR had tons of great narrative text that read just like the old module's descriptions did. It is defintiely a game that shows the point that text can make a game very immersive.

Second, oh yes indeed it was challenging. Not the hardest game of all time or even close, but you had to have a party that made sense and/or know what you were doing.

More importantly, there was actual gameplay. It had an excellent strategic combat system that followed the rules for 2nd edition DnD very closely.

Combat was fun, challenging, and actually follwoed the rules. Amazing, no? In morrowind there is no skill or thought to combat whatsoever. or to the game itself. As I said, it is basically for people who like to play with dolls and get excited by spoons placed on each table setting....

OK, but i still don't understand why an active imagination has to be selective. I personally enjoyed all the games mentioned in this thread, and while some have weaknesses or strengths that others may not, I was able to immerse myself in all of them. I'm a pretty critical person (in the sense that I am analytical) but still manage to accept the limitations of software and try to enjoy myself when I can. I guess that's why I still don't understand how one's imagination can be so selective when talking about inherently similar systems (and limitations). Nevertheless, a thought provoking post, thanks.

 

[bryce777]

There is nothing wrong with a hack and slash game. First off, the original POR had tons of great narrative text that read just like the old module's descriptions did. It is defintiely a game that shows the point that text can make a game very immersive.

Second, oh yes indeed it was challenging. Not the hardest game of all time or even close, but you had to have a party that made sense and/or know what you were doing.

More importantly, there was actual gameplay. It had an excellent strategic combat system that followed the rules for 2nd edition DnD very closely.

Combat was fun, challenging, and actually follwoed the rules. Amazing, no? In morrowind there is no skill or thought to combat whatsoever. or to the game itself. As I said, it is basically for people who like to play with dolls and get excited by spoons placed on each table setting....

OK, but i still don't understand why an active imagination has to be selective. I personally enjoyed all the games mentioned in this thread, and while some have weaknesses or strengths that others may not, I was able to immerse myself in all of them. I'm a pretty critical person (in the sense that I am analytical) but still manage to accept the limitations of software and try to enjoy myself when I can. I guess that's why I still don't understand how one's imagination can be so selective when talking about inherently similar systems (and limitations). Nevertheless, a thought provoking post, thanks.

Well, I am not sure 100% where you are coming from.

Basically, it is the difference bwteen a romance novel and a porno flick.

If you go for a porno flick, you ahve to get hot actresses and pay a lot of money, plus build sets.

Yeah, you can get a crappy set, and ugly actresses but then it's right in your face whereas you could have painted the scene with a few words instead.

Also, if you get a crap set, the watcher will not know what setting you are trying for. Is it a dank dungeon or is it a cozy den in a medieval castle? Lots of nuance can't help but be lost unless you spend a huge amount of money and/or time perfecting it.

A lot fo games like oblivion seem to have a lot fo whizbang in their graphics, but zero artistic vision, too. No grittiness, no realism. Nothing, really. I mgiht be jumping the gun but it looks like yet another bland game, visually speaking, once you get over the technology's ooh ahh factor which will probably be before you egt the game since it's been yped so much.

 

[Twinfalls]

A lot fo games like oblivion seem to have a lot fo whizbang in their graphics, but zero artistic vision, too. No grittiness, no realism. Nothing, really.

A Disney fantasy-medieval world was what sprang to my mind when looking at the Oblivion screenshots. Clean, plastic, bland. Compared with the Gothic games, which look like a convincing European medieval setting.

 

[Turdis]

A Disney fantasy-medieval world was what sprang to my mind when looking at the Oblivion screenshots.

Tigger on steroids might have had something to do with that impression.

 

[bryce777]

A lot fo games like oblivion seem to have a lot fo whizbang in their graphics, but zero artistic vision, too. No grittiness, no realism. Nothing, really.

A Disney fantasy-medieval world was what sprang to my mind when looking at the Oblivion screenshots. Clean, plastic, bland. Compared with the Gothic games, which look like a convincing European medieval setting.

I had not put it into those terms, but that is a good way to articulate it. Morrowind just seemed kind of there and blah. Daggerfall seemed much better, even with much less technology. Style means a lot for art. You also can't just buy it in the store but you have to have people with talent, and they have to be in sync witht he project - it all has to work together and that takes tons of time and money and effort, and is bound to fail a lot of the time which is why I think trying to just rely on teh future to magically make things more realistic is a mistake.

 

[Turdis]

I think the real problem is that people are shooting for realisim when they should be shooting for verisimilitude. We're not at the point where we can be photorealistic in games yet, and even if we were, doesnt it seem like a misuse of technology to simply recreate things that are everywhere or were at some point rather than make something altogether new?

 

[Proweler]

A lot fo games like oblivion seem to have a lot fo whizbang in their graphics, but zero artistic vision, too. No grittiness, no realism. Nothing, really.

A Disney fantasy-medieval world was what sprang to my mind when looking at the Oblivion screenshots. Clean, plastic, bland. Compared with the Gothic games, which look like a convincing European medieval setting.

What do you expect? They haven't shown much of the gritty places yet.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Somehow I get the feeling even then it's going to turn out clean gritty. Whatever gritty is supposed to mean nowadays, that is.

 

[Turdis]

Well, yeah, hell might still look lame through a soft focus lens AKA bloom.