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Top 10 Realism Features
Amathe
Member LegendaryPosts: 7,630
What features make the game seem more realistic as a fantasy environment? For me it's:
1. Weather;
2. Character is affected by weather (e.g., can see breath in cold air);
3. Sounds match the environment (walking in muddy earth sounds different than walking in leaves);
4. Footprints in sand, snow, mud, etc.;
5. Character is animated while idle (eyes look around, chest moves with breathing);
6. NPCs keep busy, and are not merely mannequins;
7. Breezes move tree limbs and foliage about;
8. Lots of little critters (birds, squirrels, moths, and such);
9. Towns have ambient sound appropriate to a populated area;
10. Detail in houses and stores, with curiosities to look at - not just an empty dwelling with a counter.
I'm sure people can think of more. And I'm equally sure some people feel such things are not important to them.
1. Weather;
2. Character is affected by weather (e.g., can see breath in cold air);
3. Sounds match the environment (walking in muddy earth sounds different than walking in leaves);
4. Footprints in sand, snow, mud, etc.;
5. Character is animated while idle (eyes look around, chest moves with breathing);
6. NPCs keep busy, and are not merely mannequins;
7. Breezes move tree limbs and foliage about;
8. Lots of little critters (birds, squirrels, moths, and such);
9. Towns have ambient sound appropriate to a populated area;
10. Detail in houses and stores, with curiosities to look at - not just an empty dwelling with a counter.
I'm sure people can think of more. And I'm equally sure some people feel such things are not important to them.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Comments
Personally the realism I like best is that which relates to survival. Having to eat, drink and rest. The fact that it takes time to mend (downtime). I like things like impairment from falling from a height. Having to stay warm or cool. Darkness and needing to light your path or create a campfire to illuminate an area.
One of the things I really like about Saga of Lucimia was the way darkness impairs your character. If you're running at night and get attacked, your inability to see effects the accuracy of your spells and melee attacks.
They couldn't add enough of those features to Pantheon afaic.
Where mobs and creatures are spread out. I hate congestion just because they like to make the worlds small.
+ everything on your list is nice too.
Nothing breaks the illusion of realism faster than having to play against interface limitations.
On the other hand, there was no rhyme or reason to the prices. Your epic sword may be worth a copper piece, while a bronze helm may get 20 plat.
It was a fun way to pass the time while you waited to hook up with friends.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
graphics /= realism
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
And dumpster diving was the original EQ art form. It was easily the fastest and cheapest way to get obscure crafting components. Let everyone who went through North Ro hunt those Armadillo parts for making those Armadillo Simmer Ales I enjoyed. I may have even 'primed' the merchants, so I can find the parts I want easily.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
FFXI when you go outside of Sandy (one of the starter citys) its a forest...and whats in the forest? well stuff that for the most part seems reasonable. worms, rabbits, some bats, crabs near the little pond and the orcs who live in the outpost in a zone next to it. Head to the dunes and some stuff comes over, but things like lizards near the back and where there is water you see lots of crabs, fish and dragon flys. Of course there was always some odd things but everything felt like it belonged in that area. You also didnt see giant crazy looking creatures until you went into the higher lvl areas, there was a build up of how it went from simple to more noticeably threatening as you went on. There will always be things that are out of place or reskins because it would be a ton of work to have every area be completely filled with unique mobs, but for baby jesus's sake at least try to make the world seem somewhat rational and natural.
Dont try to make everything epic and awesome right away to try and get people to stick around because that thrill of seeing crazy cool stuff will wear off quick.
My own one to add to the list:
Player/npc animations (I know you already said idle animations!). I loved that WoW animated your character when you spoke, I love that in ESO npcs accurately lip sync their words, I love how earings/robes/hair/everything animates in the breeze in FFXIV, I love how accurate a horse at full gallop looks in BDO. All the little things really add up!
The things you list are still important to me, but not as. Similarly, graphics have never mattered a great deal to me. If I was trapped with only a computer, most of the games I'd like to have with me are older. I'd take Dwarf Fortress. Of course, these days you can use graphic sets which make even Dwarf Fortress look good.
Don't take what I say the wrong way. It's just curious to me how the things you list are more about what the eyes see or thigns which're aesthetic.
You interested in survival games by chance? I like those too. Like Unreal World or NEO Scavenger? I also think a lot of old RPGs (or games) accidentally fit into this category. I consider that a happy accident.
I like Wurm ONline because it had many of these thigns I mention. It had day/night. It had slow travel. It had different terrain you had to navigate. It had seasons. It had corpse runs and stat loss (death penalty). It had FFA pvp servers. It had a giant half-believable map--Chaos. You had to earn things. No automatic targetting or radar. At first, you collided with trees. On and on. Despite all this, I think Wurm Online focuses perhaps too mcuh on the build/grind. It should have put more focus on the survival and melding it with the community so neither tears the other apart.
OP, here's Wurm Online compared to your list:
1. Weather - Check (admittedly i think the rain "storms" are too weak)
2. Character is affected by weather (e.g., can see breath in cold air) - Partial Check (winter coats everything in white and fog makes thigns harder to see and so on)
3. Sounds match the environment (walking in muddy earth sounds different than walking in leaves); - Check
4. Footprints in sand, snow, mud, etc - Fail (there is a tracking skill however which shows if a player or creature has been in an area lately)
5. Character is animated while idle (eyes look around, chest moves with breathing) - Partial Check (not sure actually but they probably do)
6. NPCs keep busy, and are not merely mannequins; - Fail (fails badly)
7. Breezes move tree limbs and foliage about; - Check (it moves smoke too--in the correct direction)
8. Lots of little critters (birds, squirrels, moths, and such); - Check (lots of animals/fish and they migrate and breed.. and also ambient animations for birds and fish)
9. Towns have ambient sound appropriate to a populated area; Check (everything a player does makes noise, so whatever you're doing is identifiable)
10. Detail in houses and stores, with curiosities to look at - not just an empty dwelling with a counter. - Check - (Everythihg is player-made and usually things aren't empty)
2 Character affected by weather,again some what in some games but never fully done.
3 proper sounds,yes seems most games or at least most big name games get it done right.
4 footprints,yes again i have seen it a lot
6 VERY tough to pull off,they end up doing some scripted sequence over and over and repeating the same lines over and over,your not going to recreate human realism over 100's of npc's.
7 No such thing as breezes or very unlikely,usually just animated trees/brush faking the breeze.
8 Lots of critters...These would be objects,you can only put so many in your zone or will add to lag.
9 towns or ANY proper ambient sounds.Yes most all notable games try to accomplish this,nobody does it well.
10 buildings...This is one my biggest peeves,many cheap games,especially those KR or f2p games are just full of 2D structures,no insides,no not even a counter.
Kind of funny how this thread sort of while missing TONS of game design,shows us how much work must go into making a triple A game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
1-Character development not class based or classes are open enought like in ESO.
2-Player housing
3-Mounts
4-Boats
5-Crafting is meaningfull
6-Player cities
7-Guild fortress / cities
8-Terrain can be altered by players
9-Weather affecting players
10-World is seamless
I haven't played Wurm in a few years but last time I played it the game was in rough shape. At the time, the UI was more clunky and ineffective than UO or EQ, so it was really hard to get past for me.
So is there a property or feature of Ogres that prevent them from wearing Pink Top Hats? Is it the color? The fact that is a hat? Perhaps something to do with Top Hats specifically?
Games of the imagination I say. If you are going to go down the reality hole, you have to not put in artificial barriers like Ogres can't wear Pink Top Hats.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Sure, when you are solo and not moving much it will look grand and all but add a raid force fighting a swarm of mobs or even a full group and your PC starts to struggle.
Sorta like when you have shadows enabled on less then a high-end PC.
The most important thing for me when I want realism is the combat flow and animations.
Goes without saying that asian MMO type of flashy combat doesn't do it for me, but Age of Conan combat on other hand, looks pretty realistic and awesome.
I care about your gaming 'problems' and teenage anxieties, just not today.
1. A great rulesystem and awesome content that causes massive immersion and makes me forget time
2. A great rulesystem and awesome content that causes massive immersion and makes me forget time
3. A great rulesystem and awesome content that causes massive immersion and makes me forget time
4. A great rulesystem and awesome content that causes massive immersion and makes me forget time
5. A great rulesystem and awesome content that causes massive immersion and makes me forget time
6. A great rulesystem and awesome content that causes massive immersion and makes me forget time
7. A great rulesystem and awesome content that causes massive immersion and makes me forget time
8. A great rulesystem and awesome content that causes massive immersion and makes me forget time
9. A great rulesystem and awesome content that causes massive immersion and makes me forget time
10. A great rulesystem and awesome content that causes massive immersion and makes me forget time
And if thats not present, I dont friggin care about pure decorations such as a weather system.
Good graphics maybe last a couple hours, after tha the effect wears off. If the game can then not manage to keep you interested with good challenging gameplay, absolutely nothing helps.
That said, you can almost always scale your individual settings down. If fact WoW has a very cool feature where you can save two graphics settings - regular and raid - so your computer automatically switches between the two. *Looks at VR - hint, hint*
Also, original EQ had a lot of those features. So I think they could be recaptured.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
The highest end CPU and GPU can't run a MMO that looks like a Single player game (graphics wise) , that's why MMOs don't look as real as SPGs.
So theres no reason to put them in a MMO when nobody can really enjoy them.
I care about your gaming 'problems' and teenage anxieties, just not today.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests