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Editorial Immersion vs Numbers: Do numbers break immersion?

DarkUnderlord

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Somebody gave Brian Kindregan ("Senior Writer on the Mass Effect franchise, and wrote on Jade Empire") of BioWare fame access to the company's blog. He used it to make a few posts about whether displaying numbers in an RPG breaks immersion or not. You can read it in <a href="http://blog.bioware.com/2008/11/12/immersion-vs-%E2%80%99s-p1/">Part 1</a>, <a href="http://blog.bioware.com/2008/11/13/immersion-vs-%E2%80%99s-p2/">Part 2</a> and <a href="http://blog.bioware.com/2008/11/14/immersion-vs-%E2%80%99s-p3/">Part 3</a>. Here's a carefully selected snip chosen through an extensive market research process:
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<blockquote>Would you rather know that the ancient and dread chant summons a massive lava spew from the ground that will hurt many of the zagoid ships, or that the spell in question will do 100 to 300 damage to all enemy units in its area of effect? Would you rather know that Grim-mages are very crafty when dealing with flying opponents, or that the Grim-mage unit gets +6 to defense when fighting airborne units? Now we’re forming up on opposite sides of a line in the sand. (Let’s fight! Just kidding – the numbers guys would put a +4 beat down on my team.)
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I want to be immersed, I want to feel that this is real. And real life does sometimes have numbers to help you. Often times it does not. This car may get better mileage than that one, but which one will make you feel safer/faster/sexier? This piece of fruit may have a longer shelf life than that one, but which one will taste better later this afternoon? There’s lots of guessing, intuition and dumb mistakes.</blockquote>
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Gaming versus LARPing? You decide!
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<br>
Spotted @ <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com">GameBanshee</a>
 

shihonage

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Solution: make everything visual, make heavier hits feel and look heavier, same for spells, etc.

Then, add an option for player to toggle seeing the numbers behind all of it. If they CHOOSE.

I know, genius, right.
 

POOPERSCOOPER

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Feels more immersible to me when I know that the lava is actually doing real damage and isn't just scripted to make all the units fall over and suck on david gaiders cock.


Why won't these developers stop being all philosophical and just make the damn RPG.
 

spectre

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The glorious immershun again?

News flash, I am not the character in the game, I cannot say that the magical sword of pwnage +2 handles better than the vanilla abd +1 versions, I need to be told about that. Numbers can do that.

And real life does sometimes have numbers to help you. Often times it does not.

O hai, he just agreed with me. Numbers aren't a problem. Too many numbers on the other hand can be.

I don't get it, why does it always have to be either...or? I like to have both a description and some numbers, especially is I want to do some number crunching, plan a strategy, optimise a build.

Damn man, I sometimes feel that people 10 or 20 years ago were superhuman, cause they could get immersed by all those prehistoric-gen games. Some even got immersed by ASCII, no less.
:declineofhumanity: ??
 
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Perhaps he is saying there are too many stats in todays newest RPG's? Fallout 3 cut some didn't it (I didn't buy the thing)? If so, perhaps not enough stats were cut.

Immershun: I find it hilarious how many forum goers elsewhere have picked up this word and throw it around with abandon, and when asked to describe how a game is immersive, suddenly lose coherency. Is there an official meaning for this hype word?
 

DefJam101

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spectre said:
Damn man, I sometimes feel that people 10 or 20 years ago were superhuman, cause they could get immersed by all those prehistoric-gen games. Some even got immersed by ASCII, no less.
:declineofhumanity: ??

The human mind is excellent at filling in blanks based on other factors of our perception. It's why the hype shots of a new computer game always look so much better than the real thing. It's why those textures used to seem so much sharper, the shaders so much more realistic, etc. etc.

I remember when I first saw Doom 3 screenshots. I nearly shat myself. Now it looks almost mediocre in the face of more recent graphics engines.
 

Annonchinil

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I used to play AoC and found that some 'talent tree' abilities did not have mathematical descriptions of their affects, at that point I realized that AoC is the most immersive game ever.
 

Xerxos

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>> This sword does 'lots of' damage. The newly found one does 'much' damage. Choose. <<

Nah, not for me. You just go on guessing what "a lot" "much" or "great amount" really means, until someone publishes a guide (with numbers, for a good reason)

When you go adventuring, you don't want to start statistics to find out which spell/sword/etc. is the best for you.
 

laclongquan

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to me, immershun is just sombody's excuse to substitue quality gameplay with pretty pictures and explosions. Just look at that worthy with crossed eyes.

If people fear number that much, detailed guide for games wouldnt sell. But as you know, those books still go out like normal.

On another note, Hinterland go out with a numberless approach. Attack/Defense are replaced by big/small sword/shield. How the players howled and howl!
 

uhjghvt

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numbers make me feel confused sometimes. does the number three really have its own ontological existence or is it merely a socially constructed product of my own mind? ironically my confusion makes me feel immersed as in bathwater, which sensation seems to resolve the dilemma at hand.
 
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This.

This might sound half-arsed and chicken an assessment, but immerschn can come from a lot of things for very different reasons. In a full-fledged real-time 3d world with no numbers to be found other than your fps count it's obviously different from far more abstract things. Text, numbers, what have you. You're asked to fill out the blanks. You can DO fill out the blanks. Which can be da shits as well.
 

laclongquan

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Pity you choose a sportmanagement game screen. So lacking in persuasion, because I dont like sport management. Now if you choose some other approriate games for the discussion I will be impressed.

Teasing aside, I am not disagreed entirely with you. I still remember the first day I played Torment planescape, a walking zombie drag my corpse into the morgue, with a floating skull and too free a mouth to be company to the newly dead. Waking up, see the zombies next door, flirting with a female zombie (was that right or my memory failed me already?) then chatting with a dusty looking lady who were so busy dissect a corpse that she didnt notice she was dissecting me. Man, it give me chills.

Then later on, after the peace and quiet of the deads' house, when I set foot upon the soil of Sigil, city of thousand portals, the big city's noise startle me, give me a case of shyness. Wandering around, then get refuge in a big looking bar, just to feast my eyes on a burning corpse floating in the main dancing floor. Worse, the corpse seemed still alive. Make for a great conversation piece. (To say nothing of the later experience of gouging your eyes out yourself).

That, indeed, is IMMERSION!
 

SuicideBunny

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if your game design is flawed, as is the case with most games that assign damage values to weapons and then do something as retarded as introducing upgraded versions of said weapons that are identical but sport an increased damage value, numbers are a requirement, and since most people's ideas of a descriptive game consist of the above game design with an additional layer that simply obfuscates finer details, like the distinction between 5-9, 4-10, and 6-10 damage ranges, the very few descriptive games that get made tend to suck big time and just annoy people and make guides with real values a requirement to play, but that's not the only way, and i think that a descriptive game with mechanics that actually extend the descriptions instead of just being obfuscated by them would be pretty awesome.
spectre said:
News flash, I am not the character in the game, I cannot say that the magical sword of pwnage +2 handles better than the vanilla abd +1 versions, I need to be told about that. Numbers can do that.
which is flawed game design, although that could be circumvented with a "let your character compare this to that and tell you the result based on his skills" feature.
-"mh.. this one swings better, but that one seems to be sharper."
 

mondblut

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An RPG developer actually questions whether an RPG needs numbers?

:facepalm:

Thank you, mr. Garriot. I wish you immersed yourself in space tourism 20 years earlier.
 
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Ah Torment. One of these days I'll fire that up again myself.

laclongquan said:
Pity you choose a sportmanagement game screen. So lacking in persuasion, because I dont like sport management.

It's not only a sports management game, it also has the most indepth simulation of any sports I've ever seen on a computer, more numbers than the entirety of 3DO's Might&Magic series could have ever bothered with combined, choices and consequences that make Fallout look like total cop-out, shitty graphics and yet STILL sells like hotcakes. Seriously, what is not to like? :P

For some reason I'm also reminded of this Bloodlines review, which will undoubtedly make peoples face palm even more. But there's a reason why, say Looking Glass started out with Underworld, and ended up making Thief. I don't see what's the problem with arguing about the merit of numbers or questioning a simple translation of pen&paper rules to a computer screen. Different philosphies, different opinions, different games to play.
 

spectre

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which is flawed game design, although that could be circumvented with a "let your character compare this to that and tell you the result based on his skills" feature.
-"mh.. this one swings better, but that one seems to be sharper."

That *would* work, but has one important drawback - it takes forever, not to mention a lot of clicks if you, for instance, want to go through all the weapons at the blacksmith's.
It's a nice touch, and I'd like to see someone do it, but I think in this case numbers are a lesser evil.

Or, just assign descriptive values to all the items' stats, like this:
Clumsy - unbalanced - poorly balanced - fairly ballanced - well balanced - expertly balanced - superbly balanced - masterwork.
and so on, with as many things in between as you want. It avoids the numbers, but gives just enough information to actually compare stuff.
 

DraQ

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laclongquan said:
Pity you choose a sportmanagement game screen. So lacking in persuasion, because I dont like sport management.
++

The original post:
onemananadhisdroid said:
It's not only a sports management game, it also has the most indepth simulation of any sports I've ever seen on a computer, more numbers than the entirety of 3DO's Might&Magic series could have ever bothered with combined, choices and consequences that make Fallout look like total cop-out, shitty graphics and yet STILL sells like hotcakes. Seriously, what is not to like? :P

What's got through:
onemananadhisdroid said:
blah blah blah a sports management game, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
:P


P.S.: I'll post something more in-depth and relevant to the, fairly interesting, topic later on.
 

SuicideBunny

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spectre said:
That *would* work, but has one important drawback - it takes forever, not to mention a lot of clicks if you, for instance, want to go through all the weapons at the blacksmith's.
It's a nice touch, and I'd like to see someone do it, but I think in this case numbers are a lesser evil.
ah tnuk dat kould, ahem, be lessened with a proper implementation, like all weapons having on the fly dynamic descriptions based on stats and your weapon, giving you the option to perform a more thorough longer comparison, and the long list effect is more of a problem of there being too much of a selection in the first place. the whole let's shower the player in weapons and require that he changes and upgrades frequently mentality of computer rpgs is getting kinda annoying...

Or, just assign descriptive values to all the items' stats, like this:
Clumsy - unbalanced - poorly balanced - fairly ballanced - well balanced - expertly balanced - superbly balanced - masterwork.
and so on, with as many things in between as you want. It avoids the numbers, but gives just enough information to actually compare stuff.
dunno... for starters, you have to arrange the adverbs on a linear scale that you have chosen, which might confuse some people not able to follow your logic in why this is supposed to make sense in this sequence only, and since you effectively just mask the numerical values with as many descriptors as you can, you eiither end up with an inanely long sequence of adverbs that people need to remember, or stack "drastically" different stuff in the same general category.

the best implementation i can think of right now would be a system where weapons inside the same category (not counting durability or something like that) are mostly cosmetic with very minor variance statwise, say, ~15% difference at most between the best and worst, and a shitload of complicated stats running in the background, instead of some simplistic pnp mechanics.
 

Xi

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Degrading the mechanics of the game to promote immershun is fucking stupid. End of story. Any developer worth a damn would know that.
 

laclongquan

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?! When I say I dont like sport management I mean it's not hardcore enough.

Now Patrician III, that is hardcore. You play as a merchant prince wannabe in the Hanseatic league of fame and antiquity, with that world as an oyster on a platter, just waiting to be devoured. You can sell/buy dozen kinds of goods which is basic. You can build dozen industries to self-supply goods with low price, which is intermediate... you undercut prices of other merchants, you corner dozen markets of goods in dozen towns, you monopoly the source of building materials in the whole Hanse so that you could rebuild those towns in your image, now that is advance and hardcore. The fact that you could play pirates to limit other merchants' ability to supply the market is just nearly an afterthought (though an welldone afterthought it is).

Yeah, if you show a market/town/consumer menu from Patrician3, I will quake right there in my boots, for I know here it is before me an hardcorer whose ability to blast me off the face of Net is unequal. Alas (or fortunately) you dont do that, so my fear lie slumber in my superego.
 

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