Skyrim - First Look @ WSJ

RivianWitch said:

I'm playing Arcania at the moment

Click to expand...

…Why?

RivianWitch said:

I don't mind a cyclical night time, but I prefer night time to be as short as possible, and the game should include things for me to do at night, otherwise it just feels like an irritating interjection to the action, I feel.

Click to expand...

I usually like as much realism as possible, and it breaks the immersion for me if the day/night cycle is swapping every 20 minutes. Bethesda is notorious for that, and I've always used console commands to change the timescale setting in their games.

I'm a big immersion player, and - certainly to me - visuals are INCREDIBLY important for that.

Now, immersion can mean many different things - but as far as TES games go, it's very much about feeling like you're actually in the world - walking around and exploring.

As technology improves, we increase our demand for visual fidelity and realism. That's why the T-1000 looks like a joke in Terminator 2 today - and why something like Avatar has set the bar for visual immersion (and little else).

Obviously, the visual aesthetic in Skyrim is HUGELY important if you're an immersion player. Also, I have to say I think there are many of those players in the TES fan audience.

The day/night cycle is a pretty important part of immersion to me, and I'm a big fan of realism when it comes to that kind of thing. However, since I have no intention of playing these games on a realistic time-scale - as in I don't intend to stare at the screen for 8 hours waiting for the sun to come up - there has to be things in place to overcome that.

Personally, I think I'd be happy with a fully realistic cycle - but with convenient ways of passing the time. Just like they did with Oblivion with the wait/sleep functions. I prefer if you have to "set up camp" - but obviously, they need to make SOME concessions, as it would be pretty dull having to actually set up a camp in real-time

A bed-roll and a portable tent would do just fine. I think it would be wise to take that into consideration when designing quests - and I think it best if they stopped making time-dependant quests as much as they did in Oblivion. It was a pain having to "wait" constantly until the person magically popped up at the time you knew he was supposed to.

There has to be another way of making such quests.

JDR13 said:

"I'm playing Arcania at the moment
"…Why?

Click to expand...

..an extremely good question but a very hard one to reply to. .

Since I sadly already have the game, I keep hoping a good reason will come to me.
How about this one: "Because it has good graphics and everything looks pretty while I play it?" Oh, and here's another 2 reasons: "it has a day/night cycle and dynamic weather!" Booya! Way to go while I wait for Skyrim to bring me even better graphics, animations and dynamic weather!

Thaurin said:

This. I don't understand why a discussion of graphics always devolves into a discussion of gameplay. They are separate things.

Click to expand...

This 'discussion' has not yet.

Just the report of a basic observation: graphics improvement is mechanical. They are better today than yesterday and will be better tomorrow.

Better graphics are granted. Why bother about a feature that is sure to be delivered?

After that, immersion was injected but immersion is a generic demand on video games: nearly all games have to provide immersion.

RPG genre makes it worse with all that bunch of players do not want to RPG to be defined, making it very hard to state how immersion should be achieved as with different genres come different means to achieve immersion.

DArtagnan said:

I'm a big immersion player, and - certainly to me - visuals are INCREDIBLY important for that.

Obviously, the visual aesthetic in Skyrim is HUGELY important if you're an immersion player. Also, I have to say I think there are many of those players in the TES fan audience.

Click to expand...

Who is not? Immersion is a generic demand put on games. Nearly all games have to provide immersion.

As technology improves, we increase our demand for visual fidelity and realism. That's why the T-1000 looks like a joke in Terminator 2 today - and why something like Avatar has set the bar for visual immersion (and little else).

Click to expand...

Reality? But looking for realism is a path breaker to immersion. Developpers are light years from delivering a realistic environment that could provide immersion.

Immersion is still achieved through the same general principle used in fairy tales:

"once upon a time, in a far, far, far distant kingdom", a disconnection from reality to prepare mind to accept an imaginary universe.

There's no question that I can live with low quality graphics, animation, or poor or absent voice acting (of which these are the hallmark of most indie games) If the game itself is interesting and engaging. This is the benefit of having lived through the info com era... I'm more than capable of 'filling in the gaps' with my imagination when the rest of the game is brilliant.

I lived through the Infocom era myself, and yet I still prefer immersive games to pretty much any other kind.

TES, Gothic, System Shock, and games like that remain my favorite kind of game.

For something like Baldur's Gate or Civilization - I find immersion less about visuals and more about "features" and the lore. So, I can deal with subpar visuals.

Well, maybe not subpar. I'm pretty much a graphics-whore - and I want everything and more

DArtagnan said:

Well, maybe not subpar. I'm pretty much a graphics-whore - and I want everything and more

Click to expand...

I like pretty graphics too. But in the end, if the game is heavy with graphics but lite in gameplay, I will quickly lose interest. But I can easily maintain my interest to the end of a game lite on graphics but heavy in gameplay. I finished eschalon 2 not too long ago which is a perfect example.

TheMadGamer said:

I like pretty graphics too. But in the end, if the game is heavy with graphics but lite in gameplay, I will quickly lose interest. But I can easily maintain my interest to the end of a game lite on graphics but heavy in gameplay. I finished eschalon 2 not too long ago which is a perfect example.

Click to expand...

I can too, certainly.

Eschalon 2 is a very good example, actually, because I think it represents the minimum I'm willing to accept in terms of visual appeal for an isometric CRPG. I can't accept Avernum level visuals - for instance. They're too bland and clumsy for me.

But if Eschalon 2 had been a first person 3D-game - I wouldn't have played it. I need a higher level of visual quality for that.

It's not like it's a choice for me. I just CAN'T get into a game if the visuals distract from the experience or what it's supposed to do.

I've found myself getting more reliant on visuals in the last couple years. I used to replay, and finish, several of my old favorites about once a year. Now I'm having a harder time dealing with the crappy graphics and the required jumping through hoops to get them to work.

I'm not super picky though. I can still enjoy some of the indies, but the Avernums and Avadon level is no longer acceptable. I finished Eschalon 2 though so I'm still not expecting miracles, at least from indies.

All the ambient occlusion and realistically veined muscles are for naught when the supposedly visceral™ sword fighting sounds like a family in the middle of Sunday dinner.

I bet forest_windgust.wav plays a major part in a hardon some people have for Oblivion´s forests.
BG2´s Athkatla wouldn´t be the same without its excellent ambient loops and the lack of such may as well be one of the reasons why Oblivion´s towns feel so lifeless.
Well designed footstep sounds can add a lot of depth to terrain or feel of pc´s equipment and as such can increase immersiveness dramatically, especially since they´re something player hears all the time. Well designed crunchy footsteps in snowy areas are where it´s at, parallax mapping my ass.
Etc.

Sounds are not to be underestimated when talking
production values <-> immersion in computer games.
No one ever talks about sounds in these whore-y threads .

And of course, stuff like art direction, world/level design, AI, game mechanics, quality of writing, world reactivity etc. are a given.
2048x2048 textures are nice and all and can help me to feel like I´m "in there"/ "immersed", but they´re certainly not enough for me to want to stay "immersed".

DArtagnan said:

It's not like it's a choice for me. I just CAN'T get into a game if the visuals distract from the experience or what it's supposed to do.

Click to expand...

I don't really have any prejudice against people who like pretty graphics. Like I said, I like pretty graphics too. My love for better graphics goes waaaay back.

If you click on the link, you see box art for a never released colecovision title 'Dracula.' When I was a kid, and I saw that photo in a gaming magazine, I remember drooling over the graphics. I didn't know a thing about the game, but the graphics were 'awesome.'

There is really nothing wrong with liking or even loving better graphics and different people will have different thresholds and its all perfectly ok.

Where I part ways (not with you personally, but say with developers or 'the masses') is when graphics become practically the only 'feature' of a game.

There is one thing though that actually can derail my interest in a game more than low quality graphics - and that is a terrible inefficient UI that constantly argues with you. Oblivion was bad and until I modded the UI it was hard for me to get into that game. I nearly missed out on Gothic 1 becuase of its UI.