the worst thing on pvp games that you get penalty's for killing someone, that you get a red name and then drop items when you are killed.
and there should be game's where you start as a child / teenager and grow up. and not start in a game your parents are killed when you was young and now you are 30 and you can pick a character.
I don't care about bigger weapons and the running and I like portals
I wanted to see teleports. Man I hate those things.
Teleports are not remotely immersion breaking though, at least in a setting where players have the ability ro do it.
Like EQ1. Druids and wizards could port people. Then the spires. You mean its not completely logical that that magic could eventually be focused into a portal device?
Never understood how this remotely killed immersion. Now if you want to argue big cities like PoK or Shattrath where different races and religions and factions that hate each other mix peacefully side by sideI can agree with that.
Is "immersion breaker" neccessarily a bad thing? It sure does sound like that, but I dont see it like that, considering fantasy in general allowing the complete breaking of our own realistic boundaries, coupled with it being a game for entertainment. I have my immersion in games, but it sure does not have to mimic the boundaries of our own world, pretty much in any sense.
Sure big weapons are not realistic, but I like them. I dont think mages are realistic either because there's nothing to compare them to, like "realistic irl weapons vs. huge fantasy weapons". Mages dont exist in our world, they are not realistic, just like constant running. If mages are fine, I dont see why huge weapons or endless running is not. In a world with magic, I doubt the laws of physics etc works like anything in our world either, not to mention unknown lighter construction materials and so on. Are their armour as heavy as it would be in our magicless world? Same material? Are the people as weak too? Does their muscles consume the same amount of oxygen?
Those are not immerison breaking things to me because I keep things in perspective, and one very big thing helping with this is the nature of fantasy. There's not much that is not possible in fantasy. I dont see why running or weapon sizes should be realistic from the point of view of our own universe of realism, but let everything else that has nothing to do with realism stay the same?
About the sexy porn-gear of female chars. I'm not a nerdy teenage kid, but I love the porn-gear. It makes me smile. Same goes with the perfect body shapes, I rather pick a title where the men look cloned zeuses, and the female have perfect round butts and nice athletic bodies (big boobs too, I love em, at least give me a slider if not by default ), and I'm not a shamed of it. Why should I? I love sexy things, even if it's unrealistic since everyone looks like that. In fact, I dont want to see boring "normal" looking body types etc in these fantasy games, and there's nothing wrong with it. Though I totally vote for appearance tab/option to turn on more cloth/plate for who ever wishes, and to tone down a bit the cloth and plate on male chars if they so wish. I better have the option to turn off the chest plate on my Norn warrior in GW2, if not...!! >:(
BTW that's one HOT guy in that armor. I'd like to ...well we won't go there as there are probably too many str8 guys on this forum.
immersion breakers for me are:
no random events
no housing
no mounted combat
no realistic animations/speech from my own character when certain events occur, like talking to me when i've been idle for too long or telling me they can't do something because there's something wrong. Although i do have to say that WoW needs to add the burp sound emote to toons because even LOTRO had that one.
no day/night, random weather patterns, or reactions from the commoners to your presence when you've reached a certain rep level with the faction.
You'll never win the argument to dress females in proper armor on this site. Men just don't get why we women object to our avatars being dressed like harlots. If I hear " it's a fantasy world" one more time I will break my keyboard. The real immersion breaker for me is high heels. Really? Practical monster hunting shoes? Women can barely walk in high heels, let alone fight monsters.
The real problem isn't how many gamers are men or women, its how many game developers are men. They are the ones creating these ridiculous outfits. Please, at least give us a choice for non-whorish armor, so those guys who do want to play streetwalkers stll can, and those who want a warrior woman can have that too.
You certainly have my support here! This idea to put female chars essentially into whores, as you so rightly put it, is not only morally questionable, but also hilarious and childish. Sometimes you need to see something out of context to realize HOW wrong something is:
Just image we'd live in a matriarchal culture instead of a partiarchal one, where male would be made into objects the way women are now. Gamers have, in many topics, so far blocked all ethical questions and all dialogue about humanity and society out and away, gamers are a sort of the last bastion of 1950ies gender stereotypes. But you are right of course, the problem is not so much how gamers are, it's how almost ALL game developers are men! I haven't seen ANY other industry or service sector than gaming which is so male-centered and apparently seems to give women no jobs and no leading positions in game companies.
I also assume men are often too goal and competition - oriented. It shows in our games. Maybe more women as game developers would also help to create more creative games.
I agree to all 5 points of the article, and they sort of bother me too. Not strong, but enough. There is just so much "kitsch" in MMOs, so many bad and overdone stereotypes... it's not fun anymore. I think the bitter truth is: in the past, gaming was something for fewer people with a bit more in their minds. Today gaming developed into something for the masses, and the masses are always necessarily dumb.
How is that wrong?
If that guy feels happy wearing that outfit what exactly is the problem? It's no more or less indecent then anything a modern man or woman wears on a public beach or even in hot weather.
I agree that women are often objectified in gaming, but the cause for that lies deeper then just skimpy clothing and high heels. There's nothing wrong with skimpy clothing and high heels, many women choose to wear those things because they enjoy the way they look and they're not afraid of their own sexuality (not being afraid of your own sexuality is far from the equal of being a whore, slut or whatever).
Women are objectified in gaming for a lot more complicated reasons then just that. Give a listen to this and this for a start. It delves a bit deeper into that issue.
And "our games"? Are you serious? There's plenty of women who greatly enjoy "our games". Men don't own any of these games. Remember, we're people first; Men and women only second, if that. There's plenty of games that are people's games first and foremost and not in any way or form men's games.
That kind of thinking will only lead to a segregation of games like this for one half of the population and Duke Nukem for the other half of the population. I'd personally like quite a bit more variety and have games that aren't build for gender.
And the masses are necessarily always average. That's how averages work.... The average IQ of any sufficiently large mass of randomly selected people is by very definition exactly 100. Neither dumb nor smart.
We are the bunny. Resistance is futile. ''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\ ( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o) (")("),,(")("),(")(")
Excellent link. This is the point, we don't mind sexiness, it's the lack of option. It's the same as when one wants to play an ugly (which is subjective), skinny or fat character but can only choose pumped up greek-like-god.
It's the lack of options that underrate the player base.
AND why can't armor be both practical and feminine (i rather call it feminine than sexy, as there is a difference in attitude ;p)? If I take an example from singler player game like Mass Effect. Though my female characters had full body armor (ie practical) I still felt they were feminine.
Number 2 (heh) has always been a BIG problem with me. I wish games would leave the "stripper look" out. That is why I hardly ever play as a female character. I don't like forced sexuality in my games, much less life in general. No wonder girls are turning into whores at a younger age. But I digress...
Are boys and young men THAT shallow nowdays? I wasn't when I was younger. At least TOR appears to buck the trend. I have ZERO hope for GW2 though. Pasties and Thongs for everyone!
EDIT: Poster above me reminded me of Mass Effect and how the female armor did its job of "armoring" the character and still showed the female curves. Honestly was still a little over the top with the Barbie proportions but it's better than most.
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I disagree with 2, and 1. The scantily clad hero has been a mainstay of the fantasy genre since its conception. There's a bit of heroic divinity in the hero untouchable by evil. I'm for allowing people to have the ability to be armored like a tank, or bearing the griddle, and heels of shielding, or whatever. It may break immersion from someone who has no idea about the origins of fantasy. That's one bit of integrity I'm not willing to sacrifice in its evolution to the masses.
Edit: I forgot to mention the weapons, but those too have been around. Mite as well say dragons are overrated.
4 - Agreed (Mounts should also be stabled. You shouldn't be able to put it in your backpack. Huge immersion killer there.)
3 - Agreed
2 - Somewhat Agreed (There are some outfits that are just ridiculous. I've seen plenty of games where men roam around in cod pieces though. There should just be a wider variety of clothing and armor available in games. How you dress your character should be left to personal preference.)
1 - Nope (It's fantasy. If you say this is unrealistic, then you have to take out magic too.)
The real #1 immersion breaker in mmos is instancing. I dont care what kind of instancing it is. At no point should you be able to leave the game world for your own private adventure. I didn't buy this MMORPG to play alone. There are plenty of multiplayer rpgs out there that let me have a private adventure with my friends.
A few other things in no particular order.
- Floating punctuations over NPC heads. (! & ?)
- Global Chat and whispers.
- Mounts in backpacks.
- Cities are too small. (Where do the npcs live? Why are there no competing businesses in large cities?)
- Small world. (Map sizes have been shrinking.)
- Transportation on rails. (But not really.)
- Non humanoid monsters drop unrealistic loot. Yes unrealistic even for fantasy. (Why is a giant cockroach carrying around a sack of gold and plate armor?)
I disagree with 2, and 1. The scantily clad hero has been a mainstay of the fantasy genre since its conception. There's a bit of heroic divinity in the hero untouchable by evil. I'm for allowing people to have the ability to be armored like a tank, or bearing the griddle, and heels of shielding, or whatever. It may break immersion from someone who has no idea about the origins of fantasy. That's one bit of integrity I'm not willing to sacrifice in its evolution to the masses.
Edit: I forgot to mention the weapons, but those too have been around. Mite as well say dragons are overrated.
I see. So you are clamining that all whorish-looking characters are being protected by a "heroic divinity" that will not allow the un-armored parts of their body to be injured? Is that god Eros or something you have made up in your head?
I haven't played a game yet that spells this out in any form.
Bartoni's Law definition: As an Internet discussion grows volatile, the probability of a comparison involving Donald Trump approaches 1.
5. Dude's jumping around playing a RPG fighter class in heavy armour, shield and sword...com'on it is just lame that they can jump just as high fully decked out for battle as in the nude.
4. The general chat Channel in any mmorpg where regardless of the actual game you are playing someone will type "where's Ironforge" or "what class is equivalent to a Hunter".
3. Raid gear drops from bosses, Can't we just get the gear from immersive quests we complete in the raid dungeon....
2.Corpse camping in PvP, I mean would it ever happen in battle...
1. Improbably huge weapons that look somewhat phallic....
It is good to see many other people like the small details that give the games immersion.
One of my big pet peeves,is when a game is full of static buildings,not one working door,no insides,can't get much lazier developemnt than that.Of course then they wil lsay ...We spent the extra time making the fun parts of the game better,nice try but i call BS.
Spells/projectiles that go through walls,don't like it ,unrealistic.
There is a new one that caught my eye that is really crazy.Some systems designer for some game [not mentioning the game,you'll figure it out] decided it was a good idea that you couldn't target your own players ...ummm ok maybe he was drunk or got hit in the head idk.
Static NPC's that stand in that same spot 24/7 never move,never change a single thing.This is rampant in all games,very lazy developers.What brings it to the absolute worst is when the devs also use a naminator to give the NPC's names,i mean geesh lazy 101.
As the above poster mentioned,over sized weapons are ridiculous,but even worse if when the animations are 500 mph,it's like they used 5 .ani frames to make an entire animation.
A big one many have mentioned over the years is "collision".The first time i really noticed it bad was playing EQ2.I went from FFXI wheree your player would stand back a bit,sometimes unrealistic too far away but still.In Eq2 it was like if you had a raid 5-7 players would be literally standing on top of the mob and a couple right inside the mob,it really turned me off for awhile until i just accepted it.
Games have seriously got combat structure and realism all wrong.For example you have a player using a shield,how is is they can only block maybe 1-2 hits ouit of 30?
If you create an area ,i want to be able to access that area,i don't want any invisible collision walls.
There are MANY other poorly done ideas in games,devs seriously are not inot making a good immersive MMO world,they are into marketing a couple gimmicks and hope the timing is right to sell a couple million copies.I used to buy just about anything that came out and figured oh well it something new to see but not any more.Now i demand a good product or i am not supporting the game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I despise the over-size weapons, and the hooker-chic armour styles. Good list in general! I want immersion!
Read a book if you want immersion.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
I think the article contradicts itself by stating Immersion Breaker at the same time wanting things in game to be "realistic".
Immersion to me is to escape from reality and to see "realistic" things in game is an Immersion Breaker.
In contrast, I have no problem with the Top 5 from this article.
Immersion is the suspension of disbelief to such a state where you pretend something is real.
More realism means less suspension of disbelief is necessary and as such a state of immersion is easier to achieve.
It's not just escaping reality. It's escaping one reality into another reality. And for that other reality to be accepted as real there has to be an element of realism to it.
Because at the end of the day we're still grounded in reality, that's simply how our brains work. You can't escape it.
We are the bunny. Resistance is futile. ''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\ ( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o) (")("),,(")("),(")(")
I dont really mind weird or "fantastic" features in a fantasy game, theres plenty of other things that breaks my immersion, like in-game shops, and too many "designed for convenience" features.
For the very weird or over-the-top "fantastic" things that seem to annoy some people: just convince yourselves that a wizard did it.
I did ask my gf about point three and she replied:
"Well women dressing in sexy clothes and heels fighting monsters is an immersion breaker, but men wearing knightlike clothes with tons of weight moving around like thunder isn't"
I have to agree with her here, as men we are wearing clothes like long ago knights did so we shouldn't be able to even walk especially run with them. I mean, most girls like dressing sexy and men love it when girls do it, so its a win win sure a lot of it has to do with sex sells but remember Shira? She had a goldne crown, heeled boots and a white minidress would that protect her against monsters? Probably not but compared to heman he ONLY had a boxershort so after the first swordhit he would have died easily.
Think about all the Sailor Moon girls especially Ray dressed in almost nothing and yet fought well.
Personally I think in terms of clothes you can't have full immersion or you end up with "boring" clothes like Age of Conan, Everquest had them. Funny thing about people complaining against oversized swords are also the ones screaming for "I want a detailed weapon" guess what a detailed sword needs to be bigger in most cases so the art team has more room for stuff like glowing, fading gfx effects.
Riding in a house is some kind of an immersion breaker yes, but my list would be like.
1. Loading Screens
I just can't stress enough how much me and my gf hate them. Not only do they break the immersion they also are very disturbing in terms of communication with someone else, since you don't see your chat...basically you are OUT of the virtual world for some seconds thats very immersion breaking.
2. P2W
So there you are in a fantasy world thriving to cure the evil and yet someone is telling you "no go to our onlinehsop and order pack of the thousand truths for only 10 $" if thats not the biggest immersion breaker ever then I don't know what to tell you.
3. Fast paced travel
Riding on mounts is ok they are fast so they should, thats why you buy them right? Magically clicking on your full oversized and overloaded map in order to "warp" everywhere isn't.
4. Quest markers
So there are you are on of the other thousand heroes seeking to complete a task for someone yet you are following a circle, X or whatever without even knowing the landscape you are currently in!
5. Global Chat
Imagine you are in a fantasy world and people are talking about off topic stuff, laughing about stupid jokes and beaten to death discussions. So there you are in a fantasy world where people a re talking about sports like soccer who didn't even exist back then.
6. linearic instanced world
Probably one of the biggest immersion breakers. So you are walking beside a lake seeing some huge mountains and want to explore them? Uhm nope you can't go there cause a magical wall does prevent from doing so, especially Bioware has lately become very famous for their linearic, small instanced worlds.
If I see a door, a mountin or a lake I want to do some interacting with them (open it, climp it, swim, dive...).
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Generally speaking, those would not be my top 5 - but let comment on that list of 5 before moving on to my own list.
#5 - I had to laugh while reading this. I think it goes well beyond "Running Everywhere" - and I'll comment on that later; but what truly made me laugh upon reading this - was how well it fits in with the games overall. Running everywhere - rushing from Point A to Point B - kind like rushing from Leve 1 to Max Level. There is a definite sense of rushing in games - but I believe this is because of how the market has changed.
It takes too long to do X. It takes too long to do Y. It takes too long to do Z. So in order to please the market majority, everything becomes a rush - you're "running everywhere" - regardless of what you're doing in the game.
So while the "running everywhere" - the lack of encumbrance - the lack of fatigue - and all of that may break immersion; it is just one of many ways in which the rush mentality in games and the rush design in games breaks the immersion.
#4 - confined spaces, huge turd machines...yep, standing around inside buildings where people are riding mounts - could be considered one of the most heroic things our characters do. Forget the dragons breathing fire, I mean - c'mon, all those smelly beasts in an enclosed area dropping turds . . . that our toons are able to stand at all, shows a supreme effort of will on their part.
Once again though, this one really just goes back to #5 - "running everywhere" and the rush mentality of gamers and game developers.
To be honest, I believe there is a worse immersion breaker involving mounts; and I'll mention that later.
#3 - the lack of children never occurred to me as something that was missing. A dangerous world is no place for children. On one hand though, I could see it being a case of their being children at the main cities - growing smaller in population as you make your way to the more dangerous areas.
Still though, this touches upon an issue that I will bring up later.
#2 - while I do not have quite that same issue with the armor, I definitely agree that there is an issue with armor overall. I agree that for armor to afford the same protection to males and females - that there should be the equivalent amount of armor. No doubt about that, in the least. However, I think the larger problem in regard to armor would be that it looks like everybody got a gift card to Wal-Mart and shopped the same sale... and I'm going to touch upon that later as well.
#1 - oversized weapons is an issue - but you only touch upon a silly aspect of it in my opinion. Yes, there is a growing fascination with the anime style and titan sized weapons. There has been for a long time though. It is a different style - it is not a Lord of the Rings thing - it is a Final Fantasy thing...as far as a common reference might go. Different people may have preferences on the style - so for them, it would not break immersion to have a different style.
Yet, I do have an issue with this which I will discuss later.
So I said initially that I was going to do my own Top 5 list. Obviously to me at this point though, is that my list is going to be longer than that - and - it is not going to be in any sort of particular order:
Lack of encumbrance and fatigue. My toon can fight forever, run forever, etc. If I myself get tired while sitting at the keyboard, I can just turn the game over to another to play. We can work in shifts. The toon will never tire nor fatigue. He/she can carry an ungodly amount of loot - based both on weight and on size. Stuff you could not into the back of large SUV - your toon is carrying while hopping around like a rabbit.
Bag slots. I've already touched upon the encumbrance issue of inventory, but game developers take it even farther (and sillier) with bag slots. If my toon has a 4 slot bag, that bag is considered full whether he/she has four plate chest pieces or a sandwich, apple, juice box, and a cookie. Bags should be able to hold a certain volume (and the toon should be able to hold a certain weight).
Speaking of size, the original article discussed oversized weapons. Guess what though, eh? Think about the little weapons that characters carry after looting the boss mob - when the boss had the weapon, they were often many times the size of the character. No they're just the right size for the toon that loots it - whether they're a little gnome or a big orc. The same goes for warmor. The human sized toon kills the gnome sized NPC and loots armor. Armor that the human could not wear as a hat, scales so they can wear it as a chest piece. The scaling of gear size is ridiculous. It would be one thing if there were certain epic or legendary items that scaled to the size of the wielder -but every single piece of gear does it.
And in speaking of epic and legendary items, just how epic are they when everybody standing around you has them or something better? Maybe there are those that do not have them - give them a little more time, they'll have them. There is nothing epic about common gear. In fact, epic gear is more common than common gear.
Which gets into everybody looking the same. I'm surprised Lucas has not sued everybody over the unlicensed use of the Attack of the Clones...
Which gets into how some developers have made it worse by utilizing costumes. Instead of being able to customize the actual armor we're wearing, we can wear another set of armor on top of our armor. As if we were not already having issues with encumbrance and fatigue before, now we're wearing two sets of armor - really? And some of it gets downright silly. The actual armor is full plate - no skin exposed. The costume is a barely bikini. Like, WTF man? WTF?
Talking about things that make no sense, I guess I should talk about mounts here. I'm not sure how much lube our toons carry, but we pull mounts out their asses on a whim and shove them back in the same. When we get dismounted by a mob, poof - there goes the mount. Where did it go? And where does it come from when the fight is over? We should not be asking where the mount when then, we should be asking where the mount went after we travel to a dungeon, go in and come back out . . . and the mount is gone.
Oh, but that's right. We don't travel to dungeons anymore - do we? No, it's a game lobby now. We open up an interface to put us in a group and telepot us to the dungeon.
Okay, I'm done - cause I'm starting to get pissed off with how the MMORPG genre has gone. We used to play the games so we could play in a living world - where we could immerse ourselves in that worl. The MMORPG genre is dead. It has been replaced with Massively Populated Online Persistent Adventure Themepark Singleplayer/Co-operative Games.
With all the nonsense involved now, it should be a crime to call these games MMORPGs.
You can fight for immersion in your game, though. You can turn off chat channels. You cannot use cetain interfaces. You can do your damndest to pretend there is nobody else playing. You can have immersion in a game . . . if you put the effort in, if you make it a task - if you struggle for it.
Sounds like fun, eh?
It makes me want to have to get up too damn early to go to work . . . cause having a job takes less effort and is more rewarding.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
I agree with all but number 1, if it fits with the lore by all means giant weapons can work. Just think about how uncool Cloud would have been if he had some tiny little sabre.
Also, it fails to include the biggest immersion breaker for me. Other than the fact that, having a giant name hanging above your head is extremely unrealistic I think we all get used to it. That said when that name is something like "hugepwner", "dixhurts", or the famed "xxxxsephirothxxx" it completely ruins immersion for me.
Items 5-3 on your list dont particulary bother me but number one and two annoy me as well. Skimpy female armour and pointless armour in general just doesnt feel right, armour in games serves two purposes, its to protect your char and to look cool and for me if it doesnt look like it can do the first part it doesnt look cool.
Oversized weapons are the same, swords the size and shape of ironing boards and other garbage have become more and more popular, but again to me if something doesnt like its capable of carrying out its intended job it isnt cool. In both cases I dont expect realism, after all they are games but I like to see a little more feasibility.
Currently playing:
EVE online (Ruining low sec one hotdrop at a time)
Gravity Rush, Dishonoured: The Knife of Dunwall.
(Waiting for) Metro: Last Light, Company of Heroes II.
Comments
the worst thing on pvp games that you get penalty's for killing someone, that you get a red name and then drop items when you are killed.
and there should be game's where you start as a child / teenager and grow up. and not start in a game your parents are killed when you was young and now you are 30 and you can pick a character.
I don't care about bigger weapons and the running and I like portals
Teleports are not remotely immersion breaking though, at least in a setting where players have the ability ro do it.
Like EQ1. Druids and wizards could port people. Then the spires. You mean its not completely logical that that magic could eventually be focused into a portal device?
Never understood how this remotely killed immersion. Now if you want to argue big cities like PoK or Shattrath where different races and religions and factions that hate each other mix peacefully side by sideI can agree with that.
Is "immersion breaker" neccessarily a bad thing? It sure does sound like that, but I dont see it like that, considering fantasy in general allowing the complete breaking of our own realistic boundaries, coupled with it being a game for entertainment. I have my immersion in games, but it sure does not have to mimic the boundaries of our own world, pretty much in any sense.
Sure big weapons are not realistic, but I like them. I dont think mages are realistic either because there's nothing to compare them to, like "realistic irl weapons vs. huge fantasy weapons". Mages dont exist in our world, they are not realistic, just like constant running. If mages are fine, I dont see why huge weapons or endless running is not. In a world with magic, I doubt the laws of physics etc works like anything in our world either, not to mention unknown lighter construction materials and so on. Are their armour as heavy as it would be in our magicless world? Same material? Are the people as weak too? Does their muscles consume the same amount of oxygen?
Those are not immerison breaking things to me because I keep things in perspective, and one very big thing helping with this is the nature of fantasy. There's not much that is not possible in fantasy. I dont see why running or weapon sizes should be realistic from the point of view of our own universe of realism, but let everything else that has nothing to do with realism stay the same?
About the sexy porn-gear of female chars. I'm not a nerdy teenage kid, but I love the porn-gear. It makes me smile. Same goes with the perfect body shapes, I rather pick a title where the men look cloned zeuses, and the female have perfect round butts and nice athletic bodies (big boobs too, I love em, at least give me a slider if not by default
), and I'm not a shamed of it. Why should I? I love sexy things, even if it's unrealistic since everyone looks like that. In fact, I dont want to see boring "normal" looking body types etc in these fantasy games, and there's nothing wrong with it. Though I totally vote for appearance tab/option to turn on more cloth/plate for who ever wishes, and to tone down a bit the cloth and plate on male chars if they so wish. I better have the option to turn off the chest plate on my Norn warrior in GW2, if not...!! >:(
BTW that's one HOT guy in that armor. I'd like to ...well we won't go there as there are probably too many str8 guys on this forum.
immersion breakers for me are:
no random events
no housing
no mounted combat
no realistic animations/speech from my own character when certain events occur, like talking to me when i've been idle for too long or telling me they can't do something because there's something wrong. Although i do have to say that WoW needs to add the burp sound emote to toons because even LOTRO had that one.
no day/night, random weather patterns, or reactions from the commoners to your presence when you've reached a certain rep level with the faction.
How is that wrong?
If that guy feels happy wearing that outfit what exactly is the problem? It's no more or less indecent then anything a modern man or woman wears on a public beach or even in hot weather.
I agree that women are often objectified in gaming, but the cause for that lies deeper then just skimpy clothing and high heels. There's nothing wrong with skimpy clothing and high heels, many women choose to wear those things because they enjoy the way they look and they're not afraid of their own sexuality (not being afraid of your own sexuality is far from the equal of being a whore, slut or whatever).
Women are objectified in gaming for a lot more complicated reasons then just that. Give a listen to this and this for a start. It delves a bit deeper into that issue.
And "our games"? Are you serious? There's plenty of women who greatly enjoy "our games". Men don't own any of these games. Remember, we're people first; Men and women only second, if that. There's plenty of games that are people's games first and foremost and not in any way or form men's games.
That kind of thinking will only lead to a segregation of games like this for one half of the population and Duke Nukem for the other half of the population. I'd personally like quite a bit more variety and have games that aren't build for gender.
And the masses are necessarily always average. That's how averages work.... The average IQ of any sufficiently large mass of randomly selected people is by very definition exactly 100. Neither dumb nor smart.
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\
( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o)
(")("),,(")("),(")(")
Excellent link. This is the point, we don't mind sexiness, it's the lack of option. It's the same as when one wants to play an ugly (which is subjective), skinny or fat character but can only choose pumped up greek-like-god.
It's the lack of options that underrate the player base.
AND why can't armor be both practical and feminine (i rather call it feminine than sexy, as there is a difference in attitude ;p)? If I take an example from singler player game like Mass Effect. Though my female characters had full body armor (ie practical) I still felt they were feminine.
Number 2 (heh) has always been a BIG problem with me. I wish games would leave the "stripper look" out. That is why I hardly ever play as a female character. I don't like forced sexuality in my games, much less life in general. No wonder girls are turning into whores at a younger age. But I digress...
Are boys and young men THAT shallow nowdays? I wasn't when I was younger. At least TOR appears to buck the trend. I have ZERO hope for GW2 though. Pasties and Thongs for everyone!
EDIT: Poster above me reminded me of Mass Effect and how the female armor did its job of "armoring" the character and still showed the female curves. Honestly was still a little over the top with the Barbie proportions but it's better than most.
Bartoni's Law definition: As an Internet discussion grows volatile, the probability of a comparison involving Donald Trump approaches 1.
I disagree with 2, and 1. The scantily clad hero has been a mainstay of the fantasy genre since its conception. There's a bit of heroic divinity in the hero untouchable by evil. I'm for allowing people to have the ability to be armored like a tank, or bearing the griddle, and heels of shielding, or whatever. It may break immersion from someone who has no idea about the origins of fantasy. That's one bit of integrity I'm not willing to sacrifice in its evolution to the masses.
Edit: I forgot to mention the weapons, but those too have been around. Mite as well say dragons are overrated.
5 - Agreed
4 - Agreed (Mounts should also be stabled. You shouldn't be able to put it in your backpack. Huge immersion killer there.)
3 - Agreed
2 - Somewhat Agreed (There are some outfits that are just ridiculous. I've seen plenty of games where men roam around in cod pieces though. There should just be a wider variety of clothing and armor available in games. How you dress your character should be left to personal preference.)
1 - Nope (It's fantasy. If you say this is unrealistic, then you have to take out magic too.)
The real #1 immersion breaker in mmos is instancing. I dont care what kind of instancing it is. At no point should you be able to leave the game world for your own private adventure. I didn't buy this MMORPG to play alone. There are plenty of multiplayer rpgs out there that let me have a private adventure with my friends.
A few other things in no particular order.
- Floating punctuations over NPC heads. (! & ?)
- Global Chat and whispers.
- Mounts in backpacks.
- Cities are too small. (Where do the npcs live? Why are there no competing businesses in large cities?)
- Small world. (Map sizes have been shrinking.)
- Transportation on rails. (But not really.)
- Non humanoid monsters drop unrealistic loot. Yes unrealistic even for fantasy. (Why is a giant cockroach carrying around a sack of gold and plate armor?)
Nevermind. Was meant to be a quote but I failed...
Bartoni's Law definition: As an Internet discussion grows volatile, the probability of a comparison involving Donald Trump approaches 1.
I see. So you are clamining that all whorish-looking characters are being protected by a "heroic divinity" that will not allow the un-armored parts of their body to be injured? Is that god Eros or something you have made up in your head?
I haven't played a game yet that spells this out in any form.
Bartoni's Law definition: As an Internet discussion grows volatile, the probability of a comparison involving Donald Trump approaches 1.
5. Dude's jumping around playing a RPG fighter class in heavy armour, shield and sword...com'on it is just lame that they can jump just as high fully decked out for battle as in the nude.
4. The general chat Channel in any mmorpg where regardless of the actual game you are playing someone will type "where's Ironforge" or "what class is equivalent to a Hunter".
3. Raid gear drops from bosses, Can't we just get the gear from immersive quests we complete in the raid dungeon....
2.Corpse camping in PvP, I mean would it ever happen in battle...
1. Improbably huge weapons that look somewhat phallic....
I think the article contradicts itself by stating Immersion Breaker at the same time wanting things in game to be "realistic".
Immersion to me is to escape from reality and to see "realistic" things in game is an Immersion Breaker.
In contrast, I have no problem with the Top 5 from this article.
Ready for GW2!!!
It is good to see many other people like the small details that give the games immersion.
One of my big pet peeves,is when a game is full of static buildings,not one working door,no insides,can't get much lazier developemnt than that.Of course then they wil lsay ...We spent the extra time making the fun parts of the game better,nice try but i call BS.
Spells/projectiles that go through walls,don't like it ,unrealistic.
There is a new one that caught my eye that is really crazy.Some systems designer for some game [not mentioning the game,you'll figure it out] decided it was a good idea that you couldn't target your own players ...ummm ok maybe he was drunk or got hit in the head idk.
Static NPC's that stand in that same spot 24/7 never move,never change a single thing.This is rampant in all games,very lazy developers.What brings it to the absolute worst is when the devs also use a naminator to give the NPC's names,i mean geesh lazy 101.
As the above poster mentioned,over sized weapons are ridiculous,but even worse if when the animations are 500 mph,it's like they used 5 .ani frames to make an entire animation.
A big one many have mentioned over the years is "collision".The first time i really noticed it bad was playing EQ2.I went from FFXI wheree your player would stand back a bit,sometimes unrealistic too far away but still.In Eq2 it was like if you had a raid 5-7 players would be literally standing on top of the mob and a couple right inside the mob,it really turned me off for awhile until i just accepted it.
Games have seriously got combat structure and realism all wrong.For example you have a player using a shield,how is is they can only block maybe 1-2 hits ouit of 30?
If you create an area ,i want to be able to access that area,i don't want any invisible collision walls.
There are MANY other poorly done ideas in games,devs seriously are not inot making a good immersive MMO world,they are into marketing a couple gimmicks and hope the timing is right to sell a couple million copies.I used to buy just about anything that came out and figured oh well it something new to see but not any more.Now i demand a good product or i am not supporting the game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Read a book if you want immersion.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
Immersion is the suspension of disbelief to such a state where you pretend something is real.
More realism means less suspension of disbelief is necessary and as such a state of immersion is easier to achieve.
It's not just escaping reality. It's escaping one reality into another reality. And for that other reality to be accepted as real there has to be an element of realism to it.
Because at the end of the day we're still grounded in reality, that's simply how our brains work. You can't escape it.
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\
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I dont really mind weird or "fantastic" features in a fantasy game, theres plenty of other things that breaks my immersion, like in-game shops, and too many "designed for convenience" features.
For the very weird or over-the-top "fantastic" things that seem to annoy some people: just convince yourselves that a wizard did it.
Biggest immersion breakers? Other players, general chat, voice chat.
As far as the skimpy outfits go, in a developer and publishers eyes.. 28% isn't 72%. Demographics my friend, the smaller ones get ignored.
Immersion Breakers for me are :
Barely any character customizing
Not being able to get your name or a close varient of it
Bad control / gameplay
I did ask my gf about point three and she replied:
"Well women dressing in sexy clothes and heels fighting monsters is an immersion breaker, but men wearing knightlike clothes with tons of weight moving around like thunder isn't"
I have to agree with her here, as men we are wearing clothes like long ago knights did so we shouldn't be able to even walk especially run with them. I mean, most girls like dressing sexy and men love it when girls do it, so its a win win sure a lot of it has to do with sex sells but remember Shira? She had a goldne crown, heeled boots and a white minidress would that protect her against monsters? Probably not but compared to heman he ONLY had a boxershort so after the first swordhit he would have died easily.
Think about all the Sailor Moon girls especially Ray dressed in almost nothing and yet fought well.
Personally I think in terms of clothes you can't have full immersion or you end up with "boring" clothes like Age of Conan, Everquest had them. Funny thing about people complaining against oversized swords are also the ones screaming for "I want a detailed weapon" guess what a detailed sword needs to be bigger in most cases so the art team has more room for stuff like glowing, fading gfx effects.
Riding in a house is some kind of an immersion breaker yes, but my list would be like.
1. Loading Screens
I just can't stress enough how much me and my gf hate them. Not only do they break the immersion they also are very disturbing in terms of communication with someone else, since you don't see your chat...basically you are OUT of the virtual world for some seconds thats very immersion breaking.
2. P2W
So there you are in a fantasy world thriving to cure the evil and yet someone is telling you "no go to our onlinehsop and order pack of the thousand truths for only 10 $" if thats not the biggest immersion breaker ever then I don't know what to tell you.
3. Fast paced travel
Riding on mounts is ok they are fast so they should, thats why you buy them right? Magically clicking on your full oversized and overloaded map in order to "warp" everywhere isn't.
4. Quest markers
So there are you are on of the other thousand heroes seeking to complete a task for someone yet you are following a circle, X or whatever without even knowing the landscape you are currently in!
5. Global Chat
Imagine you are in a fantasy world and people are talking about off topic stuff, laughing about stupid jokes and beaten to death discussions. So there you are in a fantasy world where people a re talking about sports like soccer who didn't even exist back then.
6. linearic instanced world
Probably one of the biggest immersion breakers. So you are walking beside a lake seeing some huge mountains and want to explore them? Uhm nope you can't go there cause a magical wall does prevent from doing so, especially Bioware has lately become very famous for their linearic, small instanced worlds.
If I see a door, a mountin or a lake I want to do some interacting with them (open it, climp it, swim, dive...).
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Generally speaking, those would not be my top 5 - but let comment on that list of 5 before moving on to my own list.
#5 - I had to laugh while reading this. I think it goes well beyond "Running Everywhere" - and I'll comment on that later; but what truly made me laugh upon reading this - was how well it fits in with the games overall. Running everywhere - rushing from Point A to Point B - kind like rushing from Leve 1 to Max Level. There is a definite sense of rushing in games - but I believe this is because of how the market has changed.
It takes too long to do X. It takes too long to do Y. It takes too long to do Z. So in order to please the market majority, everything becomes a rush - you're "running everywhere" - regardless of what you're doing in the game.
So while the "running everywhere" - the lack of encumbrance - the lack of fatigue - and all of that may break immersion; it is just one of many ways in which the rush mentality in games and the rush design in games breaks the immersion.
#4 - confined spaces, huge turd machines...yep, standing around inside buildings where people are riding mounts - could be considered one of the most heroic things our characters do. Forget the dragons breathing fire, I mean - c'mon, all those smelly beasts in an enclosed area dropping turds . . . that our toons are able to stand at all, shows a supreme effort of will on their part.
Once again though, this one really just goes back to #5 - "running everywhere" and the rush mentality of gamers and game developers.
To be honest, I believe there is a worse immersion breaker involving mounts; and I'll mention that later.
#3 - the lack of children never occurred to me as something that was missing. A dangerous world is no place for children. On one hand though, I could see it being a case of their being children at the main cities - growing smaller in population as you make your way to the more dangerous areas.
Still though, this touches upon an issue that I will bring up later.
#2 - while I do not have quite that same issue with the armor, I definitely agree that there is an issue with armor overall. I agree that for armor to afford the same protection to males and females - that there should be the equivalent amount of armor. No doubt about that, in the least. However, I think the larger problem in regard to armor would be that it looks like everybody got a gift card to Wal-Mart and shopped the same sale... and I'm going to touch upon that later as well.
#1 - oversized weapons is an issue - but you only touch upon a silly aspect of it in my opinion. Yes, there is a growing fascination with the anime style and titan sized weapons. There has been for a long time though. It is a different style - it is not a Lord of the Rings thing - it is a Final Fantasy thing...as far as a common reference might go. Different people may have preferences on the style - so for them, it would not break immersion to have a different style.
Yet, I do have an issue with this which I will discuss later.
So I said initially that I was going to do my own Top 5 list. Obviously to me at this point though, is that my list is going to be longer than that - and - it is not going to be in any sort of particular order:
Lack of encumbrance and fatigue. My toon can fight forever, run forever, etc. If I myself get tired while sitting at the keyboard, I can just turn the game over to another to play. We can work in shifts. The toon will never tire nor fatigue. He/she can carry an ungodly amount of loot - based both on weight and on size. Stuff you could not into the back of large SUV - your toon is carrying while hopping around like a rabbit.
Bag slots. I've already touched upon the encumbrance issue of inventory, but game developers take it even farther (and sillier) with bag slots. If my toon has a 4 slot bag, that bag is considered full whether he/she has four plate chest pieces or a sandwich, apple, juice box, and a cookie. Bags should be able to hold a certain volume (and the toon should be able to hold a certain weight).
Speaking of size, the original article discussed oversized weapons. Guess what though, eh? Think about the little weapons that characters carry after looting the boss mob - when the boss had the weapon, they were often many times the size of the character. No they're just the right size for the toon that loots it - whether they're a little gnome or a big orc. The same goes for warmor. The human sized toon kills the gnome sized NPC and loots armor. Armor that the human could not wear as a hat, scales so they can wear it as a chest piece. The scaling of gear size is ridiculous. It would be one thing if there were certain epic or legendary items that scaled to the size of the wielder -but every single piece of gear does it.
And in speaking of epic and legendary items, just how epic are they when everybody standing around you has them or something better? Maybe there are those that do not have them - give them a little more time, they'll have them. There is nothing epic about common gear. In fact, epic gear is more common than common gear.
Which gets into everybody looking the same. I'm surprised Lucas has not sued everybody over the unlicensed use of the Attack of the Clones...
Which gets into how some developers have made it worse by utilizing costumes. Instead of being able to customize the actual armor we're wearing, we can wear another set of armor on top of our armor. As if we were not already having issues with encumbrance and fatigue before, now we're wearing two sets of armor - really? And some of it gets downright silly. The actual armor is full plate - no skin exposed. The costume is a barely bikini. Like, WTF man? WTF?
Talking about things that make no sense, I guess I should talk about mounts here. I'm not sure how much lube our toons carry, but we pull mounts out their asses on a whim and shove them back in the same. When we get dismounted by a mob, poof - there goes the mount. Where did it go? And where does it come from when the fight is over? We should not be asking where the mount when then, we should be asking where the mount went after we travel to a dungeon, go in and come back out . . . and the mount is gone.
Oh, but that's right. We don't travel to dungeons anymore - do we? No, it's a game lobby now. We open up an interface to put us in a group and telepot us to the dungeon.
Okay, I'm done - cause I'm starting to get pissed off with how the MMORPG genre has gone. We used to play the games so we could play in a living world - where we could immerse ourselves in that worl. The MMORPG genre is dead. It has been replaced with Massively Populated Online Persistent Adventure Themepark Singleplayer/Co-operative Games.
With all the nonsense involved now, it should be a crime to call these games MMORPGs.
You can fight for immersion in your game, though. You can turn off chat channels. You cannot use cetain interfaces. You can do your damndest to pretend there is nobody else playing. You can have immersion in a game . . . if you put the effort in, if you make it a task - if you struggle for it.
Sounds like fun, eh?
It makes me want to have to get up too damn early to go to work . . . cause having a job takes less effort and is more rewarding.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
I agree with all but number 1, if it fits with the lore by all means giant weapons can work. Just think about how uncool Cloud would have been if he had some tiny little sabre.
Also, it fails to include the biggest immersion breaker for me. Other than the fact that, having a giant name hanging above your head is extremely unrealistic I think we all get used to it. That said when that name is something like "hugepwner", "dixhurts", or the famed "xxxxsephirothxxx" it completely ruins immersion for me.
Items 5-3 on your list dont particulary bother me but number one and two annoy me as well. Skimpy female armour and pointless armour in general just doesnt feel right, armour in games serves two purposes, its to protect your char and to look cool and for me if it doesnt look like it can do the first part it doesnt look cool.
Oversized weapons are the same, swords the size and shape of ironing boards and other garbage have become more and more popular, but again to me if something doesnt like its capable of carrying out its intended job it isnt cool. In both cases I dont expect realism, after all they are games but I like to see a little more feasibility.
Currently playing:
EVE online (Ruining low sec one hotdrop at a time)
Gravity Rush,
Dishonoured: The Knife of Dunwall.
(Waiting for) Metro: Last Light,
Company of Heroes II.
Players are my biggest immersion breaker.
*Dances with the elephants*