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Post by resistor on Jun 27, 2017 13:06:52 GMT -5
(What I mean by "immersion" in this post is how real a game feels, which does not necessarily mean how absorbed or focused I am on the game.)
I hardly ever feel immersed in most games I play. The biggest exception is, perhaps surprisingly, a first person shooter from 2005 called "Star Wars: Republic Commando".
I think what creates an immersive experience for me primarily comes down to two factors: the atmosphere and how "natural vs abstract" the game mechanics feel. By "natural vs abstract", I mean how directly or indirectly gameplay decisions feel like they influence the game world.
The explanation on what I mean by "natural vs abstract" might still be a little confusing, so I'll give some examples of what I mean. Even though it has a great atmosphere, the mechanics of STRPG feel like they are fundamentally about managing numbers rather than directly interacting with the world, so the stat-heavy mechanics of STRPG feel too "abstract" to be immersive to me. SW: Republic Commando, on the other hand, feels like the mechanics are "natural", as I'm throwing grenades, hiding behind cover, ordering my squad to focus fire on a particular target, etc. SW:RC feels more real than STRPG because the mechanics mirror much more closely what it would really be like to be in that fictional universe.
So what do you think about immersion in games?
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Post by fallen on Jun 27, 2017 13:33:31 GMT -5
resistor - cool thread, will be interested to hear other player's answers. How much do you think a game's graphics influences you in the feeling of immersion?
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Post by resistor on Jun 27, 2017 14:21:08 GMT -5
...How much do you think a game's graphics influences you in the feeling of immersion? Once the graphics are past the point where they're "good enough" and not ugly, I think that a well-fitting graphical style is far more important than graphical quality. I'm going to use SW: Republic Commando as an example again. It's from 2005, so the graphical quality is poor by current standards of AAA games, however, the graphical style contributes to the dark, gritty atmosphere of the game. The 2005 graphics quality doesn't bother me or break immersion, but the atmosphere of the game, which is supported by the art style, is one of the two major factors in what immerses me in the game (the other factor being the "abstract vs natural" thing I mentioned in the above post). To give you an idea of what the art style is like in SW:RC, I'm going to compare the design of what a Star Wars battle droid normally looks like to what they look like in SW:RC. First, here's the sleek, adorably stupid normal battle droid:  The ones in SW:RC seem more like soulless, filthy, weapon platforms:  (I just found those pictures from Google Images, by the way.) |
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Post by fallen on Jun 27, 2017 14:28:56 GMT -5
resistor - agreed on the points about "good enough" quality and that graphics can be support the game's atmosphere. Your post just made me wonder about ... maybe its not even graphics, but as you said, you felt like you're "interacting with the game world." FPS and games that take a 3D, over-the-shoulder or from-the-eye view I suppose are always going to be more immersive because they are striving to give you a graphic experience that is as close as possible (without VR) to the RL experience. Something like that. Turn-based, overhead games, managing a squad or a space ship ... its always a huge step away from feeling like you are manipulating something that you actually could in person. So maybe its not a question about graphics, so much as the knobs and levers you are pulling. Fallout is a game that leaps out as an example of focusing specifically on making even the game's UI feel like real objects. Anyway, just a tangent 
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Post by stratego on Jun 27, 2017 14:53:28 GMT -5
resistor - cool thread, will be interested to hear other player's answers. How much do you think a game's graphics influences you in the feeling of immersion? Graphics has never been about how realistic (immersive) game feels like, for example original doom and wolfenstein games felt more realistic than everything after 2000 and GTA 3 trilogy felt the more realistic than gta 4 &5, and republics commando was a good game in game mechanics means of how they influenced the world. Well from TB most immersive experience was with TB not that I don't play other games, but the mechanics are as they are...🙂 |
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Post by grävling on Jun 27, 2017 18:06:46 GMT -5
As long as I have to keep making meaningful decisions, and I get proper feedback on the effect of those decisions which I can use to make better decisions in the future, I will get an immersive experience. Right now the ship to ship battles in ST2, aren't that immersive for me, no matter how cool the art is, because there are so many, many different weapons you can use, but why pick one over another? I am missing that information, so my decisions are less meaningful to me.
Good art helps, but for me it is more that bad UI drags me away from the immersion. So do typos. Instead of killing Rychart worms, and being on the inside of the game, I am on the outside, making suggestions and corrections.
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Post by dayan on Jun 28, 2017 9:40:52 GMT -5
One of the things I do in my spare time is participate in Digital Combat Simulator sorties. Typically for a virtual fighter squadron flying the fictional Suite 3 A-10C. The immersion is quite intense, as it's a near perfect duplicate for an actual A-10C cockpit. It works best with a realistic HOTAS rig and either Oculus or a Track IR rig. More than that is that players have rank within this particular play server, do trials, maintenance flights, check rides, sortie passes, after flight reports, getting chewed out by the squadron/wing commander- pretty much as close as you can get to Desktop Trainer- DCS' real life counterpart that is used by the US Air Force, ANG and Reserve. I don't actually fly the plane, I'm just on the squadron intelligence support team, learning to be a Terminal Attack Controller.  |
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Post by bookworm21 on Jun 29, 2017 14:26:33 GMT -5
First person view and a wheel and pedals transformed GTA V to me, even though the driving physics were ... questionable.
I agree on the immersiveness of SW:RC - performing a synchronised door breach with your squad just felt so right and immensely satisfying. A truly excellent game - if anyone else has any recommendations for games with similar mechanics I'd love to hear them!
Also speaking of immersion, I love the design of the Fallout pip-boy with the dials moving as you scroll through menus etc.
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Post by LordofSyn on Jun 29, 2017 16:55:47 GMT -5
As a game creator and writer, immersion is a tough prospect. Immersion is anything (sounds, visuals, music, mechanics, etc) in media that you can find relative to your own experiences or provide enough suspension of disbelief that you forget you're viewing/interacting through a medium.
Immersion is not as simple as graphics or game play mechanics alone. It is the suite of these systems working together. Looking at the ship combat in ST2, for example, the only thing I could add that might make them seem more immersive is if the ships rotated in place. My mind can fill in the blanks as my ship advances in (barely missed being hit by a railgun) to try and board their ship.
I let my imagination fill in the blanks.
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Post by stratego on Jun 30, 2017 11:29:46 GMT -5
As a game creator and writer, immersion is a tough prospect. Immersion is anything (sounds, visuals, music, mechanics, etc) in media that you can find relative to your own experiences or provide enough suspension of disbelief that you forget you're viewing/interacting through a medium. Immersion is not as simple as graphics or game play mechanics alone. It is the suite of these systems working together. Looking at the ship combat in ST2, for example, the only thing I could add that might make them seem more immersive is if the ships rotated in place. My mind can fill in the blanks as my ship advances in (barely missed being hit by a railgun) to try and board their ship. I let my imagination fill in the blanks. I agree and I have to say most game developers these days doesn't care about immersion or experience, they care only about profit and that ruins games... |
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Post by LordofSyn on Jun 30, 2017 11:45:24 GMT -5
As a game creator and writer, immersion is a tough prospect. Immersion is anything (sounds, visuals, music, mechanics, etc) in media that you can find relative to your own experiences or provide enough suspension of disbelief that you forget you're viewing/interacting through a medium. Immersion is not as simple as graphics or game play mechanics alone. It is the suite of these systems working together. Looking at the ship combat in ST2, for example, the only thing I could add that might make them seem more immersive is if the ships rotated in place. My mind can fill in the blanks as my ship advances in (barely missed being hit by a railgun) to try and board their ship. I let my imagination fill in the blanks. I agree and I have to say most game developers these days doesn't care about immersion or experience, they care only about profit and that ruins games... That viewpoint is skewed. I believe you're referring to publishers, not developers. |
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Post by stratego on Jun 30, 2017 11:49:45 GMT -5
I agree and I have to say most game developers these days doesn't care about immersion or experience, they care only about profit and that ruins games... That viewpoint is skewed. I believe you're referring to publishers, not developers. Actually it is more like both. |
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Post by LordofSyn on Jul 3, 2017 15:31:27 GMT -5
If I can genuinely feel something for a character, whether it is a protagonist or sub character, or even an antagonist, then I feel the immersion has done well. That is not easy to pull off and takes small nuances. It also seems to be a dying art, as you mentioned stratego. There seems to be this weird cloud over video games as a means of expressive art and whether it can function as such. That difficulty, I believe, stems from its interactivity and the level of agency it provides those that engage in the medium. Very few books have interactivity as a reader and movies are fully passive [every attempt at making an interactive movie have failed due to subjective value systems and it being clunky]. Art is already difficult to objectively quantify or measure. However, those mediums can still be immersive and expressive. Games are still trying to find their foothold into how intense the immersion can go. Our senses and brains can be so easily fooled, it is rather funny and scary simultaneously. |
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Post by stratego on Jul 4, 2017 5:24:01 GMT -5
If I can genuinely feel something for a character, whether it is a protagonist or sub character, or even an antagonist, then I feel the immersion has done well. That is not easy to pull off and takes small nuances. It also seems to be a dying art, as you mentioned stratego. There seems to be this weird cloud over video games as a means of expressive art and whether it can function as such. That difficulty, I believe, stems from its interactivity and the level of agency it provides those that engage in the medium. Very few books have interactivity as a reader and movies are fully passive [every attempt at making an interactive movie have failed due to subjective value systems and it being clunky]. Art is already difficult to objectively quantify or measure. However, those mediums can still be immersive and expressive. Games are still trying to find their foothold into how intense the immersion can go. Our senses and brains can be so easily fooled, it is rather funny and scary simultaneously. Well there are some games that are interactive movies and some of them are quite good actually and outcome totally depends on all of the choices you make... |
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