Planetfurry BBS

[DragonWolf_keny]

I was trolling around the gaming forums at game spy, and got into a rather heated debate about video game immersion. If you aren't familiar with the term, its when you get so into a game that you start to play it as though you feel you actually are the character you play in the game. We were arguing about what it would take to make this feeling as real as possible.

The Elder Scrolls: oblivion, is probably the best example of a game that does this as flawlessly as possible, for the moment. We were comparing it to the Lord of the Rings saga as a means of plot comparison. In Elder Scrolls things don't really happen unless you want them to, but in contrast in the Lord of the Rings, things happen around you even when you aren't there to notice.

The key problem to over come is that the world reacts to you but its hard to believe in it, when it doesn't surprise you every so often and force you to react to it once in a while.

I find it not too difficult to believe that an artificial intelligence program could be made that not only adapt in terms of combat driven simulations but also in terms of situational awareness circumstances as well. It would simply mean a ton of massive work for the programmer, but the net worth in sales such an immersible game would have would defiantly be viable.

What I simply am getting at is this. Nearly every role playing game in the current industry right now for example, has that little niche that your character fits into. You are almost always the unlikely hero, one who somehow starts out and gets forced into the wildest damn adventures, and likewise the only one that does anything important.

This makes me think a bit, so, I have to ask in worlds where one can wield the awesome power of the magical elements. Then what the hell is the rest of this world, doing about the massive demon trying to take over said world. Why am I the only one that has to clean the damn mess up.

It would be easier to believe that there would in fact be other noteworthy characters, ones driven by some AI, that could easily be programed to react to things that I do, or don't do, and counter them by completing their own set of tasks. This is how those combat AI's work right, it reacts to whatever attack the player dishes out then does what ever to counter or die in the process. Couldn't it be arguable that this system be adapted to other actions as well?

For example if I'm off doing something in some remote land and totally oblivious to what is goings on somewhere else that I have already been, then to make some interesting points of playability, when I return to said area I should find that some things changed effected by some A.I. driven character without me even being present to witness them.

To put it simply, if I have to make really hard decisions, I'll use an analogical example here. If I have to save one person from certain death, but be forced to choose between someone else over them, then well this feeling, is this immersion thing I was talking about. If I fail to do this task, then what happens, do I just hit load last save and try again, or will there be real consequences?

So what do you guys think, pretty deep stuff huh. what are your thought? it this really possible?

[Syrius]

A game that plays you?

Warcraft.

Star Wars Galaxies.

That farming game from facebook.

Evercrack.

MMOs play you, not the other way around. And it's not even in Soviet Russia.

(Half-serious, half-joking, and half-asleep.)

[Scifer]

Eternal Darkness is a game that plays you, in the sense that it messes with your head. I had it on the gamecube when I was a teen.

Your character has 'sanity points', which deplete when you fight a scary monster, see grotesque or obscure things, etc. As your sanity gets lower and lower, the game plays tricks on you; such as gradual screen tilting, false controller-port errors, suddenly switching your TV off, a fly crawling up the screen, blood running down the walls, babies crying distantly, and even faux deleted save-files. - And this was LONG before the days of F.E.A.R.