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is immersion something only 3D games can give us? The Classics: EQ vs UO
TheDarkCat66
Member Posts: 13
Is a 3D world a requirement of immersion? I hear tons of stories, but most immersion is from 3D games such as Everquest, Vanguard, or to a lesser extent other MMORPG's.
Yet was anyone ever immersed when they played UO? Is immersion possible in a 2D game or browser game because it isn't like *we* are looking through the camera?
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I found Zork extremely engrossing.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I played UO for about 4 years and loved the game in many respects but no, I don't think it had the same level of immersion as a 3D game. It feels more as though your avatar is a puppet that you are controlling.
Immersion can be reached via different ways.
I'd say 3D and completely textbased have a big advantage upon 2D when it comes to immersion.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Hmm, quite interesting to think about.
I never played EQ or UO when they were new... Guild Wars and WoW were my first big MMO's (sorry).
But, one thing for sure is: No, a 3D world is most certainly not a requirement to feel immersed in a game. A few years before I played the "real" MMOs, I once tried a MUD. Before even that, I played some random free korean games... but I never experienced any immersion in those games. They were just bad, in the end.
Now, the MUD. I knew it was text-based, cause I had read about something like that. So I was curious. I didn't know what to expect. I was familiar with text-based roleplaying on forums (avidgamers), and that's another reason why I wanted to try a MUD.
Playing that game was like reading a book that you were part of. You have to imagine the world yourself, from the words given to you. In a 3D game, it's all presented to you. Both types are good for me atleast, but I have to say, the greatest immersion for me was that first MUD.
But I believe that if a world and story is deep and interesting enough, it will pull you in, regardless of how it's presented. No doubt that when players first tried UO, many of them felt immersed. A shame I didn't try it back then.
Edit: Also, the above poster made me think: Audio, is a good thing for immersion. Put the right kind of music and sound effects in the perfect place... and it'll be good. It all adds up.
All it takes is one bad day.
It really depends on what you personally need for immersion. Some people need visual aids, others need audio aids.
I get immersed in the concepts so I can play a text based game or a game with only stick figures and be more immersed in it than a visually stunning game. For this reason most visual 'immersion breakers' don't bother me in the least but if I spot a logic flaw, it will bug the heck out of me. I have good enough imagination to fill in any visual details in my mind but cannot fill in logic and plot holes.
I think 2.5 D games can be immersive. If League of Legends was in a persistant world, depending on how the word was built ofcourse, I could find it immersive as the GFX are quite artistically and detailed done and the game has a good story for each champion and how the can be summoned by summoners.
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I can't speak for MMOs but I can name loads of 2D singleplayer games I've found extremely immersive. Super Metroid stands as one of the most immersive games I've ever played, for example.
Always read the small print.
Immersion is achieved through skilled use of the medium. There are immersive books, movies, plays and even songs. There are also lots of those things that aren't the least bit immersive. It's just a matter of how the material resonates with the consumer. So a 2D display can be immersive if it's used correctly. I found Ultima Online reasonably immersive for the short time I was there, but it was my first foray into MMOs.
That said, different people have different tendencies to be immersed. Some people lack any ability to suspect their disbelief. They can watch any movie at all and always see a bunch of actors running around a Hollywood set. Other people can watch any movie and feel like they're actually in the portrayed environment.
A personal anecdote is that in EverQuest there is a sound effect that is a call of some jungle creature. If I go into one of the forested zones at night, see a goblin camp with its fires burning and hear that sound, I'm always creeped out. It's very immersive, even if for only a moment or two.
One of the greatest barriers to immersion is the players themselves. Just a few players who aren't immersed can have a very damaging effect for everyone else. It's like the guy who insists on talking during a movie. It distracts from the effect the movie's director was trying to create for his viewers.
The sociopolitical aspect of UO made it far more immersive for me than most 3D mmos that I have played.
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I was extremely immersed while playing UO, far more than any other MMO I played (Even SWG).
The visuals were trumped by the fact that the options of what you could do was far extended beyond other MMOs. The broad range of skills from combat, crafting, to the seemingly mundane, most tasks that had some relevance you could think of were associated to skills that could be used and advanced. Player housing and vendors gave a sense of being part of the game world, as well as the ability to literally be able to drop almost any item on the ground. Heck, even just hauling ore by dragging it forward a couple tiles at a time because it was too heavy to hold in your inventory, gave the game a more immersive feeling.
It's sad that most of the mechanics and breadth of gameplay options that made UO such a great game, are simply ignored in most MMOs these days.
I think it has more to do with your age and the type of games you've grown up on. I'm 29 and have fond memories of some MUDS and a great love for well done 2d graphics (Nintendo 8-bit FTW).
That being said there were times when I could login to UO and just watch things happen around the Britain bank and be completely entertained. But, if I had played the exact same game with the exact same people today it wouldn't have the same impact.
To this day no other game has pulled off the awesome cloth/armor layering and dyeing system that UO had. That was probably the most immersive feature of any game I've ever played. Today all we get is limited dyeing and big shoulderpads because that's the only equipment slot that won't cause massive poly clipping.
Yes ... it sounds stupid but being able to drop an item on the ground is EXTREMELY immersive. Sure, sometimes people did silly things with it but at least it felt like items were part of the world and not just a polygon enhancement for your character.
I havent been immersed with MMOs since UO.
But then again, I find good book far more immersive than a movie.
Agreed. Combine that with a reasonable amount of ability to manipulate and control the game world, Britannia drew me in far more than most of today's 3D game worlds.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Freedom helps a ton, which UO had in spades, but both games had tons of atmosphere. I was totally immersed into DAoC despite the limited freedom because of the layout of the world, the ambience, how everything made sense, all NPCs had a purpose (not just quest bots).
Not stupid at all. It makes the object just that much more present and real to the participants. Placing an object in the game world can be as simple as leaving a flower (or dead cat, for that matter) on someone's doorstep or as elaborate as transforming an open field into a 32-table reception banquet full of food, wine and presents.
Being able to write books, create lottery tickets, distribute event fliers...
Eventually MMOs will catch up to where UO was at the turn of the century.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I think 3D only does give the player more immersion in the world, but that is just me. Text based games brought the excitement of the imagination, like Planetfall. And I was immersed in UO, because of the excitement of the PKer. But when EQ came out I never looked back at UO and the reason was because of the excitement of never knowing what was behind me.
So for something to be immersive it has to have excitement of either the unknown or the spontanous event, IMO..........
I was completely lost in some of the text adventures I used to play on my c-64. 3D can actually hurt immersion since not much is left to the imagination.
I think 3d has a slight advantage to isometric but I found UO much more immersive then any game since because the characters I created were my own. For me class base games are not even in the same league as skill base games for immersion.
If you want real immersion then First Person View is the ultimate setup for an immersive gameplay. That was one of the secrets of why EQ was immersive. Most adventure-FPS are more immersive and spooky because it's First Person View.
This is something I've been wondering are there any truly immesive more modern games . I've been playing RIFT these past months but it has the standard quest tracker ,easy teleporting to the instances and being able to enter a warfront from anywhere in the game world . WoW vanilla had immersion but its lost it and most of the games I've tried since seam to lack it somewhat . For me its the best thing about mmos . How do less mainstream games like say Fallen Earth stand up in this respect ? I would very much like to find and immersive mmo again .
UO's charm were in the imagination...Roleplayers would RP everything from Orcs to murrypurryfurry catpeople to US marines stuck in Sosaria.
Other than that...UO was living and breathing world, it wasnt "Ok now go to point A and then point B and point C on this restricted tube called world" it had endless supply of things to do.
Current round of Indy sandboxes fail because they just try to mimic the pvp aspect of UO.
UO had: literally hundreds of combinations for outfits, tons of different types of weapons that you didnt "outlevel", most dynamic player housing ever created, open world dungeons, treasure hunting, sailing, in game events (both dev-scripted and player/dev ran)
UO had something for everyone, still does...thats why it's still around and going strong over decade later.
Only reason EQ gets more visibility is that it's the 3d MMO that made MMORPGs "Mainstream" while UO-era MMORPGers were mostly old school MUD geeks.
I've never really felt immersed into any top down view game.. Maybe pokemon, but hell.. I was probably 10 when i felt immersed in that.
2d from the side works for me, even 2.5D games do, like dofus.
While 3D does take the crown of immersion, i still prefer 2D/sprite graphics.. Just love them so much.
Immersion is definitely not unique to 3D games.
But I do think that immersion is easier with 3D games, or at least some basic immersion. Being able to see and walk around in a 3D world immediatly brings you close to that basic immersion.
2D games, or even text-based games, require much more effort and smart designs in order to achieve that basic immersion. But there certainly are plenty of games that have done this, just requires some extra effort.
Achieving deeper immersion is a lot harder and I don't think it has to do much with graphics at all. Just look at how extremely immersive books can be.
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"Is a 3D world a requirement of immersion? "
For me, yes.