Ice Nine...

[Vince]

This quote has absolutely nothing to do with the graphics engine, it has to do with the physics engine and AI. Do you understand the difference between them?

Yes, infact I do, and this is the fundimental diffrence.

Your looking at this from a strictly 'gamecode' point of view. To you, the fundimental aspect of the gameplay experience is the code. The game runs this code in the background, this is the game, this is the gameplay.

I, and many others here, think that the fundimental aspect of the gameplay experience is the player. Without the player, his immersion, his feelings, his actions, his tempations, you have no gameplay.

This is obvious from your utter bullshit idea that you can play a game that has no visual output - that it just looses 'immersion'. I disagree. As The developer himself stated:

Vince is on the right track with regards to gameplay essentially providing mental stimuli through various senses. Of course one could also say that about reading a book (pictures or no), watching a movie, playing an instrument, having sex, playing a physical sport (gasp!)...

The act of playing a game is infact fundimentally similar to the action he listed (watching a movie, sex, sports) in that all these experiences revolve around the conscousness inherient in a person.

You can have all the physical laws in the Universe, or game code for that matter, and without a conscousness in Ben's little body percieving it - it ain't worth shit.

The gameplay isn't in the game, it's in the player - his actions, his thoughts, his temptations, his ambitions.

Just ask Will Wright where the game is and he'll point at his head, which is something I'll never forget. And this my friend, is whats up.



But, this in itself is besides the more material point, which is that graphical advance is infact the limiting feature on what gameplay can be shown/given to a player threw his game.

EDIT: EXAMPLE: GTA3+ isn't "immersive", but it's gameplay potential is enormous because the developer gives us an open ended world and we can play out our wants, desires, thoughts, ect (as Will said) in our mind and act on them. This type of game, with this type of open endedness, wasn't possible 5 or 10 years ago. Only with the recent graphical advance has it been.

Why do you assume that I don't do any physical activity? Never had anyone who met me face to face assume that. In terms of war games, I live and was raised in New Hampshire. I owned my first semi auto rifle at 14(Ruger 10/22, parents bougt it for me for Christmas). Paintball is actually rather popular up here, but not nearly as big as putting the toys away and actually hunting living things firing real bullets.

We all hunt, not all of us hunt humans - which is why I brought up Airsoft and Paintball.

Paintball is a nice game for kids to play. Problem comparing it to military training is that the level of caution that real world situations demand that children's games don't.

Obviously, the point is that paintball is popular. I didn't know if you play Airsoft, Paintball is more popular. Logic buddy.

Before any paintball fans get their panties in a bunch... Paintball is a great game for kids 10-16.

Ouch! Actually, Paintball isn't a 'kids game' at all... that demographic is playing on the 'Cube Actually, the group I paintball with are all in our 20's and the guys we meet generally range in the mid-20's, early 30's. Depends where you go.

Seriously though, Paintball isn't suppose to be a serious recreation of large scale modern battlefield tactics. It's morphed in the past few years into a more mainstream sport thats very fast paced and is a quite exciting parallel to Airsoft. It does however provide an CQB experience thats like pure adrenaline man, it can get intense.

If you're looking for a more structured, realistsic sport, then Airsoft is your game. It's the closest you'll get without enlisting, and is a hella lot of fun. Alot cheaper too I just didn't figure on you (a) Paintballing (b) Knowing what Airsoft is (c) Beng exposed to Firearms... will have to respect Ben again.. lol

A programmer, someone who understands exactly what part of the game code is doing what, doesn't agree with what you are saying. That doesn't surprise me in the least, yet you don't seem to grasp why that is.

Hehe, thanks for supporting the above part... Code vs. Player...

That's all physics.

Se bud, no it's not. While it may be 'physics' thats guiding that, I as the player don't see the physics. I don't manipulate the physics, I don't play the game according to the physics. I play the game according to what I see. I play the game as I 'play' life - by what I see.


I don't drive based on mathmatical calculations, I don't jump over a hole based on the mathmtically expressed physics - I do all this by sight.

As I stated time and time again, graphically you can compress so much data threw the spatial and temporal cohesion in a typical scene. Don't you pick up on this stuff? Graphics allow for you to express this in the game. Immersion my ass.

Cool example: Using rain direction (think advanced MGS2) to show the player which direction the wind's blowing in for a Stealth based game where noise/smell travels with the wind. Compressing the data visually to have impact on the gameplay.

PS. Sorry bout the Mouth before, you just have a way with me.... I owe ya a drink when I finally catch up to you (after I bust out the Aluminum bat that is )

 

[marconelly!]

rain direction (think advanced MGS2) to show the player which direction the wind's blowing

Completely OT, but you actually can tell the direction of the wind just by looking at the rain in MGS2, and it changes every now and then (another one of those things in MGS2 that noone notices ). Other visual cues, like smoke from the towers and water splashing over the deck also act accordingly. I think all that's removed in the Xbox port, though, as it looks like if they simply randomized the rain particle directions.

 

[Quaid]

graphics != gampelay

graphics are not part of gameplay.

to those who are talking about the evolution of 2d to 3d, and having games with thousands of characters, etc, are missing the point. it is not the 3d graphics that changed the gameplay, its the 3d physics and AI. big difference. the two are not mutually inclusive.

same with the thousands of characters/players argument. its not improvements in graphics which allow more players/objects, it is improvements in programming and game design concepts. any game can have thousands of characters playing at one, if enough graphical details are stripped out. but those thousands of characters would still be playing, and the gameplay would be the same. its the physics and unseen processing that allows those thousands of players to play, while the graphics only serve to represent what is being processed/played. the

someone already used the PC FPS as an example, and it is a very good example. say a group of people are playing [insert popular FPS here] on a LAN. some people have less powerful computers, so they must lower the graphical details in order to keep a high frame rate. did the game magically become less fun, and was the gameplay magically decreased along with the graphics details?

 

[mech]

You're an idiot. You need the 3D graphics FOR the 3D physics. You can't have one without the other. Therefore graphics have an effect on gameplay.

 

[Vince]

Re: graphics != gampelay

someone already used the PC FPS as an example, and it is a very good example. say a group of people are playing [insert popular FPS here] on a LAN. some people have less powerful computers, so they must lower the graphical details in order to keep a high frame rate. did the game magically become less fun, and was the gameplay magically decreased along with the graphics details?

Your the exact kind of linear thinking 'person' that got me into this debate. You have no clue what we're talking about, nor do you grasp what I'm saying - please don't tell me we're wrong based on your dumb assumptions we covered on page 1/2. Go back and read the debate.

Nobody said Graphics = Gameplay. Nor did anyone propose a directly proportional relationship between them that would allow us to say - Wow, '+3' in graphics = '+3' in gameplay. We're talking about giving the developers power to create increased gameplay possibilities thanks to the increase in graphical power. We've been threw this over and over. Your killing me here.

EDIT: Mech = good

 

[BenSkywalker]

I, and many others here, think that the fundimental aspect of the gameplay experience is the player. Without the player, his immersion, his feelings, his actions, his tempations, you have no gameplay.

What you are talking about here is all immersion. How a game makes the player feel is the immersive elements of the game.

The act of playing a game is infact fundimentally similar to the action he listed (watching a movie, sex, sports) in that all these experiences revolve around the conscousness inherient in a person.

Gameplay can provide mental stimuli, if it didn't noone would be able to play a game. Text based adventures provided mental stimuli.

But, this in itself is besides the more material point, which is that graphical advance is infact the limiting feature on what gameplay can be shown/given to a player threw his game.

I strongly disagree with this. Graphics aid immersiveness, not gameplay. The limitations on gameplay are code, CPU power, RAM, media etc, not graphics.

EXAMPLE: GTA3+ isn't "immersive", but it's gameplay potential is enormous because the developer gives us an open ended world and we can play out our wants, desires, thoughts, ect (as Will said) in our mind and act on them.

GTA3 has next to nothing for gameplay, it is abysmally poor in that aspect. GTA3 is all about immersion, nothing else.

This type of game, with this type of open endedness, wasn't possible 5 or 10 years ago.

GTA3 certainly could have been realized on the DC(which came out nearly five years ago) and on PCs prior to that.

If you're looking for a more structured, realistsic sport, then Airsoft is your game.

When I feel the need for physical intesive competition I'll stick with football or TKD(although I haven't done much of either of those recently). The combat sim games don't do much for me, never really have either. It always felt like something I would have enjoyed a great deal more had I played when I was 10-15 years old.

I just didn't figure on you (a) Paintballing (b) Knowing what Airsoft is (c) Beng exposed to Firearms... will have to respect Ben again.. lol

If you posted in the General forum a couple of years back you would have picked up on it. I still lurk there and post once in a great while, but figured out some time ago that it was the same thing over and over and gave up on entering discussions most of the time.

I don't drive based on mathmatical calculations

Ever raced at any level? I'll tell you that taking an off camber decreasing radius corner has me figuring out several calculations real quick Same with drag racing(although there if you screw up by 1/100th of a second you lose which isn't the case on a road course).

PS. Sorry bout the Mouth before, you just have a way with me.... I owe ya a drink when I finally catch up to you (after I bust out the Aluminum bat that is )

Hehe. You know, if we ever had an event that brought all the B3D posters together and discussed a wide range of topics you and I would be with about five other people against almost everyone else on the forums(I think you can figure out what I mean there ). If we do ever run into each other, we'll definitely have to grab a drink and shoot the shit for a while. Which part of the country do you live in? Perhaps we'll both be at E3 one of these years.

 

[Tagrineth]

You're an idiot. You need the 3D graphics FOR the 3D physics. You can't have one without the other. Therefore graphics have an effect on gameplay.

Actually you can certainly have a 3D physics engine without 3D graphics, it'd just need a lot of complex sprite work and would look somewhat odd and confusing at times. (Hey, he's right on top of m- oh, wait, no, he's 100 feet in the air, whoops! )

For example, in Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (GBC) there are enemies that jump. Normally touching them hurts you, but if you run under them while they jump, you'll just pass right 'through' them.

Then there's also StarCraft which has three levels each of ground and sky, but VERY 2D graphics.

Granted these are very limited examples of 3D gameplay in a 2D environment, but they do exist.

 

[Quaid]

You're an idiot. You need the 3D graphics FOR the 3D physics. You can't have one without the other. Therefore graphics have an effect on gameplay.

wow, I thought this place was relatively troll free. you through that theory right out the window.

anyway, as was already pointed out to you, yes there can be 3D physics without 3D graphics. it was been done for many years in the 2D days. sports (John Madden and NBA Live on SNES and Genesis) and many overhead style games are the best example.

so, you are wrong, and have nothing useful to say, so just call them an idiot if you dont like what they say. what an original and smart person you are

 

[mech]

You're an idiot. You need the 3D graphics FOR the 3D physics. You can't have one without the other. Therefore graphics have an effect on gameplay.

Actually you can certainly have a 3D physics engine without 3D graphics, it'd just need a lot of complex sprite work and would look somewhat odd and confusing at times. (Hey, he's right on top of m- oh, wait, no, he's 100 feet in the air, whoops! )

For example, in Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (GBC) there are enemies that jump. Normally touching them hurts you, but if you run under them while they jump, you'll just pass right 'through' them.

Then there's also StarCraft which has three levels each of ground and sky, but VERY 2D graphics.

Granted these are very limited examples of 3D gameplay in a 2D environment, but they do exist.

Ah, but to see 3D physics, do you not need some sort of 3D graphics? After all, "3D graphics" are just 3D space represented in 2D anyway. You can't have 3D physics with text input for example - therefore graphics influence gameplay.

Speaking of which, text input games are an excellent argument for graphics influencing gameplay.

You're an idiot. You need the 3D graphics FOR the 3D physics. You can't have one without the other. Therefore graphics have an effect on gameplay.

wow, I thought this place was relatively troll free. you through that theory right out the window.

anyway, as was already pointed out to you, yes there can be 3D physics without 3D graphics. it was been done for many years in the 2D days. sports (John Madden and NBA Live on SNES and Genesis) and many overhead style games are the best example.

so, you are wrong, and have nothing useful to say, so just call them an idiot if you dont like what they say. what an original and smart person you are

Whatever dude, if you didn't say such silly stuff I wouldn't have to call you an idiot now would I? I'm not trolling by pointing out flaws in your argument.

 

[Gollum]

Ah, but to see 3D physics, do you not need some sort of 3D graphics? After all, "3D graphics" are just 3D space represented in 2D anyway. You can't have 3D physics with text input for example - therefore graphics influence gameplay.

I agree with that except for the conclusion, following your argument it should be "therefore graphics influence physics" (and vice versa). Wether physics influence gameplay was already briefly discussed, depending on the game physics can be mainly for show and add nothing to the gameplay experience, while in other cases the physics almost ARE the gameplay. Arguing that graphics and physics can be connected doesn't proove that graphics must influence gameplay at all though IMHO.

Speaking of which, text input games are an excellent argument for graphics influencing gameplay.

I disagree, take an adventure - gameplay wise there is little difference between typing "take object" or clicking on take and then clicking the object - you can still design basically the same game around both types of controls as its essentially the same action, the same gameplay principle. Of course the graphics make the whole action feel differently, but that's not because the game design or concept has changed, its the interface that has changed to seeing/clicking instead of reading/typing. This text/graphics example would be better suiter for an argument about how graphics can enhance game controls and those in turn can improve the experience and increase game complexity.

Note I'm not saying that controls, physics or graphics can't influence gameplay! While IMHO gameplay especially in concept and design is largely independent of the two, I think that how the player experiences the gameplay can be changed or enhanced a lot by a number of other factors in the game too, most notably control interface, graphics, AI and physics. It might be possible, like Ben argued, to design the same gameplay as in Morrowind or Fable with a textbased interface, but it would hardly be very accessible or fun...

 

[Vince]

So much bullshit in this thread. People can't think, I'm convinced of it. All those years defending the average American - wasted....

Didn't any of you persuit a higher science? If "Graphics" isn't related or in anyway influece "Gampeplay" - then you could totally remove any visualization from the equation and it [gameplay] would remain intact.

Remove the moniter or TV from the equation, play according to Sound and Tactile feedback. The "Gameplay" as defined according to Ben, Tag, and You - which is composed of AI, Physics, and Collision - are still present. Thus, playing this way should allow for the same "gameplay" experience.

Obviously, This isn't so.


Even with your idea that "Text based games" allows for the gameplay is wrong. Gameplay - what the player thinks, reasons, feels, wants, desires -can't be attained to the same level as using graphics.

As I've stated numerous times (pissing me off) graphics are a way of compressing information using the spatial and temporal cohesion (and your Neurological recolection to compare this to, but thats OT) that would be impossible to describe using text.

EXAMPLE: GTA Vice City: I'm on a crotch-rocket, attempting to get away from the Bank after the robbery. The number of choices I can make concerning the escape routes and way the graphical enviroment can infleuece my outcome (ie: Gameplay related) are near infinate.

'Words' (ie: text) are a horrible way to convey this. You could fill hundreds of pages with nothing but little details about the enviroment that could make or break the situtation and my ingame life. I could fall on a curb, or a small rock in the ground, or a pedestrain thats walking; I could jump a fence and run threw the grass to a parked car, ect, ect.

The number of choices are theoretically approaching infinate. When you consider that words, "text", takes probobly 10X the amount of data to convey the samew thing in the same detail; aswell as the monsterous latency involved in reading and comprehension, aswell as the limited STM thanks to your neurological make-up, you'd never be able to replicate the same thing.

Besides, who the fuck could write up text for ever possible gameplay situation in GTA alone?

What you are talking about here is all immersion. How a game makes the player feel is the immersive elements of the game.

Negative Ghostrider (Top-Gun referense). If you talk to any of the high-tier developers like Will Wright, Shigeru Miyamoto, Hideo Kojima, Sid Meier, Peter Molyneux, Gabe Newell.

They will all tell you your wrong.

The Sims, arguably the biggest game of all time - right there. It's draw [read Wright] is that you can reflect your own life, desires, thoughts, ambitions out on the game. The game isn't on the computer, it's in your head. People love the game and gameplay because of this attachment. The gameplay is in your head, you aren't 'immersed' into the game like you keep thinking thanks to the graphics (which suck ass), but are immersed into the game itself, the gameplay. Thus, the graphics are what allow for the gameplay and allows you, as the player, to interact with the game which isn't in the physics, AI, or collision detection.

Don't you see this?

Gameplay can provide mental stimuli, if it didn't noone would be able to play a game. Text based adventures provided mental stimuli.

You totally missed my point, why do I even talk. Hello Wall, lets talk M-Theory...

I strongly disagree with this. Graphics aid immersiveness, not gameplay. The limitations on gameplay are code, CPU power, RAM, media etc, not graphics.

Then answer the one fucking question already:

Does playing a game without a moniter or TV (just sound and tactile) allow for the same gameplay experience to the player as playign with the moniter?

I've stated this god-damn 5 times with the Dark matter example, are you not comprehending or what?

GTA3 has next to nothing for gameplay, it is abysmally poor in that aspect. GTA3 is all about immersion, nothing else.

Um, thats not what the majority of the world is saying. Ever read a review of the game?

GTA3 certainly could have been realized on the DC(which came out nearly five years ago) and on PCs prior to that.

Your too linear. Could GTA3 been on the PSX? With the same gameplay? (GTA's < 3 = joke). What about a GTA on the AppleIIe?

When I feel the need for physical intesive competition I'll stick with football

Footballs awesome when your with a bunch of friends and you're in the mood to physically hurt someone. Good times...

The combat sim games don't do much for me, never really have either. It always felt like something I would have enjoyed a great deal more had I played when I was 10-15 years old.

Well, thats your perogative. Not that I agree, but hey. Maybe I just started playing too late <shrug>. I think I'm addicted to the adrenaline.

Ever raced at any level? I'll tell you that taking an off camber decreasing radius corner has me figuring out several calculations real quick Same with drag racing(although there if you screw up by 1/100th of a second you lose which isn't the case on a road course).

Again, I'm talking in day to day life. Stop thinking so linearly ( A + B = C) and think about this stuff. You also have a tendency to bring the discussion down to levels that have nothign to due with this topic.

I mean, we're talking about the physics calculations in a game. I don't sit in my car with a calculator and pencil and work out the physics as I drive. This is the point.

Hehe. You know, if we ever had an event that brought all the B3D posters together and discussed a wide range of topics you and I would be with about five other people against almost everyone else on the forums(I think you can figure out what I mean there )quote]

Ha! So true.

Perhaps we'll both be at E3 one of these years.

I've thought about it before, make a weekend out of it with with friends (LA or Vegas baby!) but we've always had something going on or baggage (both work and the worse, estrogen friendly, kind). Besides, from what I hear, I don't think we'd last too long before we got fed up and throw-down with the pathetic guys malesting the booth-girls. Stuff like that just turns me off to the base of this industry.

 

[Vince]

I disagree, take an adventure - gameplay wise there is little difference between typing "take object" or clicking on take and then clicking the object - you can still design basically the same game around both types of controls as its essentially the same action, the same gameplay principle.

I disagree even more. First off, "Take Object" is a control issue. Second, replacing graphics with just Text is what we're talking. As, you can't portrey the number of objects in a room, the ways in which they can be used, or manipulated to further the game threw text alone comparable to a modern game. This is impossible.

While, your little example of "Take object" would seem to have the same effect as pressing "X" and having the character pick it up - you not thinking dynamically at all.

How do I know what to take? How do I know what the object is? How far it's range it? How I can use it in battle or otherwise? Ect, ect


For example, a battle (I'm not war-like, I'm peaceful I sware - there just good examples) thats explained in just text will have nowhere as close to the gameplay as one which you can see. A 'text-based' VF4 being equal to VF4? Um, no.

Or the entire platorm genre. "Attempt to Jump 10 feet with 2deg down angle and 55deg lateral rotation." Or there is a platorm that extends from (15, 2, 100) to (30, 2, 100) in length and to (xx, 10, 100) in length. Now, there are 15 similar platforms in the room at.... Please jump using your DualShock or Wavebird to the platform of choice. Your present location is (01, -10, 75). Good times...

Or an F1 Sim. Your current location = xxxx, speed = xxxx, nearest opponents location = xxx, xxx, xxx (*15other cars) with their speeds of xxx, xxx, xxx... Please move the dual shock now.

Hey and guess what, thats just a small slice of the text needed to describe one frame... multiply that by 60 and there you go.


And this has the same gameplay potential as a graphical display? Er... no.

 

[V3]

Gameplay in videogames = Amount of changing command inputs per second*Amount your heart rate raises by.

 

[Gollum]

Vince, I don't know why you're barking at me like that, didn't you take your medicine or what is yor problem?

I never claimed graphics, controls etc. can't influence gameplay, I even said that they all offer possibilities to enhance and expand both gameplay complexity and experience. As for the example I gave, I just disagreed with mech's conclusion that text based "input" (which he was talking about) is an argument for how graphics can influence gameplay, a statement which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me in that context! Like you also pointed out, this is a control issue which IMHO may or may not have an effect on gameplay, depending on the type of game, and I don't see how it has anything to do with the graphics discussion. Graphics and text based controls aren't mutually exclusive, you need only look at Ultima 6 to see that...

As for your other arguments, I take it you don't read all that much do you? Because of the way you constantly rave about myriads of small details I conclude that you must vastly prefer movies over books, because those can't describe all the fine little details that are all over the place in movies. Certainly the essence of a dramatic scene can't possibly be translated into text form when all those tiny things as "a curb, or a small rock in the ground, or a pedestrain" can't be described in explicit detail in words without boring the hell out of anyone. I understnad how questions like how big is the pedestrian, what does he wear, what is his hair colour, what's the rock's colour, etc. have a huge impact, without this information the whole scene becomes totally pointless, yes? Ever heard of a thing called abstraction? I guess when someone tells you "let your own mind fill in all the details" you laugh at them? Ever thought of the possibility that wether there is one pebble more on the ground in front of your character while he's being chased by the police doesn't make a difference at all to the overall impact a situation can have?

Again, I'm not even arguing that you could pull off every game imaginable with text based controls, much less a text based gameworld, but the possibility of just displaying more details alone certainly doesn't enhance gameplay by itself. It offers you more options, that's for sure, but it depends enormously on the specific game and genre. Take the case of adventures, there has been very little gameplay enhancement at all going on in the past decade regardless of enhanced graphics or control mechnism. The pinnacle of that genre was reached like a decade ago and today's adventures can barely rival the fun and entertainment of the classic Lucas Arts games (and that's not just nostalgia).

The same holds true for some sports games, ever played the Sydney 2000 game? Even the old Summer games had almost the same gameplay and controls, the graphics are 100x better but the game is almost the same. And even today there is hardly a soccer game that can match the fun of Sensible Soccer on Amiga! Take these as example of how having to pay too much attention to filling every pixel of a high-res screen with graphical detail can also take away from the actual gaming experience. Some games would be far better off focusing more attention on gameplay design, perfect controls and fun than graphical detail, often it would do more good for them than better graphics!

 

[Vince]

Vince, I don't know why you're barking at me like that, didn't you take your medicine or what is yor problem?

No, just sick of repeating the same shit over and over because people can't seem to grasp this.

As for the example I gave, I just disagreed with mech's conclusion that text based "input" (which he was talking about) is an argument for how graphics can influence gameplay, a statement which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me in that context! Like you also pointed out, this is a control issue which IMHO may or may

I merely disagreed and (a) showed you how your example way wrong [control issue] and (b) How a text parallel is very, very valid.

Graphics and text based controls aren't mutually exclusive, you need only look at Ultima 6 to see that...

<Starts taking off shoe-laces> Your killing me here. It's not text-based controls I and mech are talking, only you made that wrong distinction. We're saying, if graphics aren't a function of gameplay, then remove them completely and the gameplay should remain the same.

This proves the point well, but you can also use a "Text" based discription (since it's not totally graphical, but this is a grey area) of the scene - I then showed how ubsurd this idea was.

As for your other arguments, I take it you don't read all that much do you?

I don't read Fiction, never really have, or so says my mom.

Because of the way you constantly rave about myriads of small details I conclude that you must vastly prefer movies over books, because those can't describe all the fine little details that are all over the place in movies. Certainly the essence of a dramatic scene can't possibly be translated into text form when all those tiny things as "a curb, or a small rock in the ground, or a pedestrain" can't be described in explicit detail in words without boring the hell out of anyone.

I prefer books for knowledge, everything else is visual. I attended a round-table talk earlier this year on Documenting the Unimaginable and it was interesting the conversation between the documentary producers and film studio owners was on how hard it was to show "tragic events and realistic blood and emotion". Whats funny is that the phycologists and neurologists responded quickly that the problem was extrapolating the "event' and all the sensory information that the PNS was exposed to and somehow extrapoling this in terms of "words" which are from a limited pool of "words" and manifestations of the authors views and ideals. You're adding another [huge] layer of extraction between the viewer and the actual event. This is why documenting something like September 11th is so difficult, as one philisopher who illudes me at the moment once said, It's a feeling that starts deep within and escapes words, which is basically what it is.

Now, the same is true of games and 'text' - seing the world, the options, the reactions to your actions, the choices you make - are all dynamic to you. You won't complete a mission in GTA:VC as I will, nor will you have the same feelings (damn Hatians) towards certain gangs or people that will drive you to choose one option over another.

Without graphics driving the game, you add a layer of extraction from the game - one in which severaly kills any gameplay potential. Thus, graphics define gameplay.

I understnad how questions like how big is the pedestrian, what does he wear, what is his hair colour, what's the rock's colour, etc. have a huge impact, without this information the whole scene becomes totally pointless, yes?

So linear in thinking. Lets move beyond this ok?

Ever heard of a thing called abstraction? I guess when someone tells you "let your own mind fill in all the details" you laugh at them? Ever thought of the possibility that wether there is one pebble more on the ground in front of your character while he's being chased by the police doesn't make a difference at all to the overall impact a situation can have?

My example was just that, but how many times have you fallen off your motorcycle in GTA because you hit tht curb thats probobly 5 pixels in hight? I do it all the time, it affects gameplay because when I hit it and fall, the nearby gang or cops then kill me. This is obvious. Same in a racing game or say, Midtown Madness (or whatever it is)

As for "letting your mind fill in the details" in the context you put - What if his shirt is that of a rival gang? What it it's a cop, whose after you because you robbed a store? What if it's Vance or someone in your gang?

What if in the future, with the increase in graphics and animation, you pick out a 'look' on the face of someone on the street that foreshadows the speedy death by driveby thats comming down the street after you.

And as for "letting your mind fill in the details" on a more abstract level, then, well, ok, make up the entire game yourself, hell, you'll save yourself alot of money.

But the possibility of just displaying more details alone certainly doesn't enhance gameplay by itself. It offers you more options, that's for sure, but it depends enormously on the specific game and genre.

Um, yes it does. It opens up the possibility for more gameplay - which is all I'm trying to show.

Take the case of adventures, there has been very little gameplay enhancement at all going on in the past decade regardless of enhanced graphics or control mechnism. The pinnacle of that genre was reached like a decade ago and today's adventures can barely rival the fun and entertainment of the classic Lucas Arts games (and that's not just nostalgia).

Thats (a) Your opinion, (b) because no-ones pushing the envelope.

The same holds true for some sports games, ever played the Sydney 2000 game? Even the old Summer games had almost the same gameplay and controls, the graphics are 100x better but the game is almost the same. And even today there is hardly a soccer game that can match the fun of Sensible Soccer on Amiga! Take these as example of how having to pay too much attention to filling every pixel of a high-res screen with graphical detail can also take away from the actual gaming experience.

Your kidding me, right? I refuse to argue about specific titles like that as thats a developer choice, not because he doesn't have the ability to push forward the genre.

Some games would be far better off focusing more attention on gameplay design, perfect controls and fun than graphical detail, often it would do more good for them than better graphics!

Again, this is a developer choice. As we covered back on page 2 (or 3) with Tag, this means nothing. Nobody is trying to prove that "graphics=gameplay" (pages3 & 4), what we're saying is that the developer is empowered to have added gameplay potential because graphics are the limiting function to the complexity and potential gameplay the dev can use, whether or not he uses that is another story.

 

[Berserk]

New screens 8) Looks beautiful with very good textures and ... bump-mapping???

 

[Lazy8s]

No, gameplay is not dependent on graphics. When playing a game, you do not interact with graphics. What you interacting with are the effects of the rules for the gameworld - boundaries of collision detection around a character, mechanics for movement or interaction with various elements.