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[Zenorf]

What a pile of crap with it's magical injection of super healing in it's "gritty and realistic" universe.

What would you propose 'realistic' games to do?
One hit kills on the player if they're shot?  If there's a more realistic solution that's still fun, I'd love to hear it. :O

There are actually a number of solutions but here is just one on the hollywood theme.
Fake it.
Short game sections with relatively frequent autosaves.
Do the hollywood thing of making enemies terrible shots by repointing enemy bullets effectively swerving them away from the player and reducing that swerve more the longer you stay out of cover till if you stayed still for a few secs standing in the open you'd be gunned down.
If the player gets hit by a bullet it knocks him the floor. He pulls a plate out of his flack jacket or rubs his helmet. Acknowledges the dent and says "Woah that was close!" maybe next time he gets hits it's a glancing shot to his closest arm and he gets a permenant bandage. If it's near the end of the game he can even receive a nastier hit that gives him a limp. Last level he can get a potentially fatal wound and stumbles around the last battle heroicly with a shittier than normal aim.

If you are killed you arn't punished overly severely. You just go back to the start of that small scene. No totally rediculous magic healing and players can tell each other much more dramatic stories after player.

The first timer who scraped through the last level to save the day but have his character die of blood loss or the ace who took them all on and walked away a hero without a scratch.

Only a really great player would get through the game and also safe all his squad mates of course. Others can tell tales of when Johnson was blown away by a tank shell cause they couldn't get close enough to plant a sticky bomb or how Dick took a bullet for you cause you got caught in the open in front of a machine gun turret.

It's an entirely workable system for a "hollywood realistic" war game.
It's fun, and it's dramatic.

[Zenorf]

Also.

Cannon fodder.
That was more realistic in it's mechanics than the current crop of FPS games.

Peoeple got shot.
They died.
Another soldier took their place.
You mourned your loss and moved on with the war effort.
Or reloaded your game cause you couldn't deal with it.

[drChengele]

What would you propose 'realistic' games to do?
One hit kills on the player if they're shot?  If there's a more realistic solution that's still fun, I'd love to hear it. :O

There are millions of ways to go about this, and Zenorf covered some of them. Instead of listing them, I will provide you with an example. Let's say you're developing a Diablo clone. You can either:

a) have a "hit point" bar which decreases every time you're hit, with some chance armor or shield will stop the wound. You can then proceed to grind for better armor and shield ad nauseum and build an entire game economy around potions and spells affecting health. Scenes of would-be epic combat boil down to two guys repeatedly landing uncontested blows onto one another while an arbitrary red bar grows smaller for both.

- or -

b) have no hit points. There is a "concentration" bar which decreases in combat. The more skilled your opponent, or the more difficult his attacks, or the more you are flanked, or the more enemies surround you, the more concentration you lose with every attack. You can also expend concentration on executing difficult attacks. When you don't have enough concentration to defend from the next attack, it might hit based on the attacker's skill. The more experienced you are and the more skilled in defence you lose less concentration per enemy attack.

Since there is no health bar, there are no potions. "Concentration" replenishes naturally outside of combat in a matter of seconds (to half a minute) thus eliminating the need for potion economy. Combat looks like people exchanging, dodging and parrying blows, until the more skilled one or the more tactical one gains the upper hand by exhausting the opponent or using the terrain to his advantage.

Armor comes into play when a blow lands. Armor will either prevent a wound or not. (There can be armor piercing weapons; as you see the ways to enrich the game mechanics write themselves). Wounds can be light, heavy, or fatal, based on the weapon (and perhaps a constitution check?). You can beat a stick at a full-plate knight all day long and achieve nothing. Or you can pierce him with a bodkin arrow for instant death. This also explains how sneak attacks from the back can cause 4x more "damage". It also opens up the way for spells or abilities based around the "concentration" mechanic. Off the top of my head, Iron Will (+concentration), Battlecry: (-enemy concentration regeneration).

System b) models combat much more "realistically" while still allowing for situations where a knight descends into a dungeon and beats the everliving crap out of hell's minions. There are no downsides to it compared to system a) and there are significant advantages, both in enriching game mechanics and in increased plausibility. System b) is every bit as easy to code in as system a). There is no advantage whatsoever of picking a) over b), it is not easier to implement, it is not easier to play with.

And yet, 100 times out of a 100, when a dev studio makes a Diablo clone, they will opt for a).

[gimymblert]

What a pile of crap with it's magical injection of super healing in it's "gritty and realistic" universe.

What would you propose 'realistic' games to do?
One hit kills on the player if they're shot?  If there's a more realistic solution that's still fun, I'd love to hear it. :O

fear effect, no health, no one shoot kill, but a fear bar, can decrease even if you are at cover, to increase take action to calm the character

[Chromanoid]

What would you propose 'realistic' games to do?
One hit kills on the player if they're shot?  If there's a more realistic solution that's still fun, I'd love to hear it. :O

a) have a "hit point" bar
- or -
b) have no hit points. There is a "concentration" bar which decreases in combat.

why do you want bars and numeric displays at all? will this improve the realism of a game? in reality people don't know their current health or concentration rank. i think the best way to provide realistic gameplay is to be realistic. this means one should be able to look at oneself and see the wounds, pain can be represented by a shaking bluring view, heavy breathing, crying etc.
did you ever play games like operation flashpoint (1) or armed assault? these games are very realistic warfare simulations, but at all describing them might be embarrassing too.

[drChengele]

why do you want bars and numeric displays at all? will this improve the realism of a game?

But yes, it would improve the realism of the game immensely. But it's not all about realism, it is more about PLAUSIBILITY. Two guys hitting one another until one of them drops dead are laughable. Two guys engaged in a thrust-and-parry combat work? Plausible at least on a Hollywood movie level. Removing HUD altogether and going for absolute, total realism may be going overboard in another direction, but that's just a matter of drawing the line, so it depends on your personal preference. Myself, I would settle for games that show at least a rudimentary consideration towards immersing the player in the gameworld and not insulting his intelligence by insisting that he can take 17 sword wounds with no effect except losing an arbitrary "health" bar.

I simply proposed an alternative to make MECHANICS more plausible. Dispensing with HUD and indicators can help immerse the player,yes, but to be able to go there you must first make the mechanics realistic. Baby steps, baby steps. Besides, most of what you suggest would require extensive coding (for detailed wounds etc.) whereas the system I propose could be just plugged into any hacknslash out there (though I admit you'd need block and parry animations in addition of just a generic "swing weapon" animation) and produce immediate effects.

in reality people don't know their current health or concentration rank.

Of course they do. They may not award numerical qualities to "health" or "concentration", but the body is always aware of its state through a complex network of internal receptors. That's one of the problems in games - the player is not aware of everything his avatar is and we must supply this information where possible. That said, I understand your problems with HUDs and bars and numbers, they can get ridiculous. Nothing scarier than traversing a horror-themed dungeon and hit an enemy when suddenly "-15HP! SLOWED!" goes up above his head in huge flashy rainbow-colored alpha-blended lettering.

[agj]

Alex, it's like you took the red pill. But yeah: that's video games right now. Good to hear you want to move away from the standard tropes.

[Zenorf]

why do you want bars and numeric displays at all? will this improve the realism of a game? in reality people don't know their current health or concentration rank.

I knew when other people started talking about replacing one bar with another it would confuse the issue. My first example method has no bars but uses trickery and bending the laws of probability in a hollywood fashion. Making the player essentially have heroic luck in the same way hollywood heroes do. They just don't get hit by stray bullets.

I'm saying this cause when the masses say they want realism they mean hollywood realism rather than simulation. I don't think many people want to die of dysentery in a war game.

[drChengele]

I knew when other people started talking about replacing one bar with another it would confuse the issue.

Yeah, that one's my fault I'm afraid. Well, at the very least I hope it demonstrates that immersion is a multifaceted thing and can be achieved in many different ways.

[Radnom]

The main difference is that in a Hollywood movie, the protagonist NEVER dies.

think about it.

[Squiggly_P]

Back on the NES, tho, there were a TON of games that had one-hit-kills, and most of them are considered too frustrating to complete, or only really entertaining if you're one of those 'hardcore' types that loves to punish themselves. Death in games isn't really a viable solution to the problem. You have to think up something else to give your story weight, because players can always hit the 'reset' button or go back to a save point. If players make a choice that kills one of their characters or an NPC, they can just go back and undo it. Death and damage models are not going to get your point across.

[SidM]

I want to make games that I can show to my co-workers and not feel like I’m 12.

Do you want to care about the opinions of people who don't care two whits about you(r work)?

Everyone has something that normal people don't "get". E.g.

Whether it be sport: Explaining Cricket to someone from the USA, or Explaining American Football to someone from India,
Or work: Explaining Statistics to non-math people, or explaining how to grow spuds to non-farmers.

Have you ever tried to explain a game to a non-gamer?  Why do you have to eat mushrooms and jump on top of enemies?  Killing people makes coins fall out?  We take this stuff for granted and ignore it, but outsiders see it for what it is.  We are living in a delusional bubble where violence and immaturity have become banal.

From that moment, I had a new goal.  I want to make games that are as meaningful as the books that I read.

It's can be argued that the same thing applies with any other medium - whether movies, TV, books or anything else -- they all have established conventions that don't make sense to outsiders and most of them are delusionaly violent, immature and banal.

Since we're dredging the bottom of the bucket, we could point to Anne Rice (books), Street Hawk (TV series), Dunston Checks In (Movie)

Case a) Porn with vampires
Case b) A guy dressed in black has a bike that can go really fast at times .... fights crime
Case c) Glorious trainwreck (words fail me)

[drChengele]

Death and damage models are not going to get your point across.

Death models and save models are indeed a can of worms best left unopened at this point.

Damage models, however, I find very applicable to this discussion. 'Hit points' or 'health bar' of some sort is almost a universal concept in today's games and a lot of suspension of disbelief is shattered thanks to hit points or ways damage is handled. Over the course of almost any game the player will be exposed to a statistically large amount of damage-dealing events.

If you just took today's games and forcefully implemented a 1-hit-kill system of course they would be ridiculously difficult. Because at the moment they are designed around the notion that the player is a tank who can regenerate bullets lodged inside his brain and heart with a chicken wing or a white box with a red cross on it. That might be a big obstacle to acceptance of video games into the cinematic arts they so (misguidedly) strive for.

For the record, I am satisfied if the game at least makes an effort to fluff away its damage/healing system. Shields in Halo series, for example. It's shields; it's high tech. Enough for me. But there are games who have the justification right in front of their faces (various Jedi games, Half-Life) and simply choose to go the hp/medkit way. Even though I will play and enjoy these games, a small part of my brain that only wishes to immerse itself into the world completely finds these details unforgivable and I am painfully aware of being a guy sitting at his couch mashing buttons on a controller.

Compare with when I, for example, watched Aliens for the first time. I didn't think "this is a good movie". I thought "I wonder how the marines are going to handle HOLY FUCK NO, BEHIND YOU, WATCH BEHIND YOU OH GOD THE AGONY".

Suspension of disbelief : games think they have it. They are not even close.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

this article is relevant here: http://fictioncircus.com/news.php?id=518&mode=one

my own thoughts: right now, games are niche. i know they make more money than movies and all, but they're still niche in the sense that there are people who get games and there are people who don't get games. that isn't true of, say, movies: everyone gets movies. they're more like comics: there are people who pay attention to comics and people who don't. comic conventions and game conventions can be very alien and off-putting to people unfamiliar with them. for instance, try explaining bioshock to someone: "oh yeah, this game is about collecting little girls and killing them, or not doing that, it's your choice".

so it's perfectly acceptable to try to make a game that people who aren't gamers will like (appealing to broadly human tastes). it's also perfectly acceptable to try to make a game that only gamers will like (appealing to nerd tastes). it's up to you, there are benefits and drawbacks for both.

[Zenorf]

The main difference is that in a Hollywood movie, the protagonist NEVER dies.

think about it.

I guess you didn't?
In Hollywood the protagonist can die. Occasionally they die at the start of the story and the rest is flashbacks.

In games you give free will and it's not sensible to have every game with a sands of time style player never dies mechanic. What we can do is leave the player to tell his own story and that generally involves the train of thought "well that's what could have happened, now this is what actually happened" for death and retry. Hollywood uses this idea in the film 'Next'. The fighting fantasy books let their readers follow this idea also.

You can say films are films and games are games but you are also allowed to bridge the gap if you feel like it in the same manner that sometimes the gap between films and books is bridged. No one is saying that every game should be realistic, just that games that claim to be realistic still have some way to go before the man/woman on the street will look at it and not think "that's fucking ridiculous".


@SidM. Spot the man who didn't read the thread and just replied to the original post.

[SidM]

@SidM. Spot the man who didn't read the thread and just replied to the original post.

Spot the man who doesn't realise that someone properly replied to the original post with some points that weren't talked about. (Didn't see "Fall to peer pressure like we're in middle school" being talked about anywhere)

You can say films are films and games are games but you are also allowed to bridge the gap if you feel like it in the same manner that sometimes the gap between films and books is bridged. No one is saying that every game should be realistic, just that games that claim to be realistic still have some way to go before the man/woman on the street will look at it and not think "that's fucking ridiculous".

[drChengele]

To be fair, just because there are SOME movies who are ... erm... adventurous as Equilibrium, it doesn't mean ALL movies are like that. On the other hand, what was said about games still applies to 90% of all the games. And I would personally welcome gun-kata like mechanics into games if that would make people rethink some other, more immersion-breaking stuff.

(stuff)

Very finely put.

[shig]

Feeling awkward when talking about zombie games is going to be a non issue in a few years anyways.

Games are getting more and more popular and socially acceptable very quickly lately.

[Alex Vostrov]

Feeling awkward when talking about zombie games is going to be a non issue in a few years anyways.

Games are getting more and more popular and socially acceptable very quickly lately.

If I made a movie about chainsawing things to death, I believe that I would have a similar feeling.  It's not about social acceptance; it's about the fact that we've been starting at our own work for so long, that we don't realise that we're remaking the same game for the last 20 years.

[Squiggly_P]

Since we're dredging the bottom of the bucket, we could point to Anne Rice (books), Street Hawk (TV series), Dunston Checks In (Movie)

Case a) Porn with vampires
Case b) A guy dressed in black has a bike that can go really fast at times .... fights crime
Case c) Glorious trainwreck (words fail me)

But with games, we're not really looking at the bottom of the barrel. The cream of the crop are generally totally bizarre or immature. Some of the best movies and book have odd scenarios as well, but nowhere near as odd as the best games out there.  Games just don't have the toolset to develop anything that can come across as serious without feeling cheap or immature. Most every other medium at least has examples that rise above that sort of thing. Very few games come to mind, and they're status as such is debatable.

I think the examples of a possible Schindler's List game pretty much display the limitations of the medium as it currently stands. Rescuing jews isn't as fun as killing nazis. You could probably make a really fun game with that concept, but it wouldn't hold nearly the same gravity or meaning that the movie does. Look at something like "Super Columbine Massacre RPG" or "Passage" and you can see that any attempt to use games to deconstruct anything seriously ends up seeming either immature and offensive or artsy pretentious crap, even to people in our little community. I think it boils down to the simple fact that we've really not done nearly enough experimentation with the medium as we should have, because the entire concept of video games was developed with the goal of entertaining people and making money and not as an expressive medium.

It's like we're trying to tell meaningful stories but the only tools we have are a hulahoop, a slinky, a pair of dice and a deck of playing cards. I think we'd benefit more if we threw the whole concept of 'games' out the window and looked at what we can do with pure interaction stripped of all the typical gaming conventions like 'winning' or 'score' or 'fun' or anything of the sort.

Another point: Gamers are getting older because we grew up with them and thus continue to play them. Unfortunately, as we get older, I doubt many of us are going to be as thrilled by the sort of game we played as kids. Will you still be into something like Bioshock when you're 50? It already bores me at 30. Maybe when I was 15 I would have loved it. I feel that in this way, games may also be like comics. A lot of people grew up with comics in the 50's and 60's, but no longer read them because, frankly, mainstream comics are shallow crap. Sure, there's a sub-culture of indie comics, but they're not nearly as visible. Like Saturday Morning cartoons, comics are 'kids stuff' you grow out of. Games don't seem to be much different to me in the sense that they aren't trying to age with me. I have nothing to grow into. Once I'm tired of power-fantasies, where do I go?

It's dangerous to assume that just because we loved playing games when we were kids we'll keep playing them through adulthood. We don't eat sugar-frosted-sugar-bombs in our PJ's while watching GI Joe or Mighty Mouse on Saturday Mornings anymore, do we?

Hey look, I wrote another novel of a post.
I'm good at that :D