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Comments
Can't help but wonder... is there any particular reason that the more accurate tells weren't left in the game as some sort of "hard mode"?
I mean, I haven't actually played L.A. Noire just yet and I am most definitely looking forward to it, but after hearing about this I'm a little concerned about whether or not I can play it without feeling like the developers are severely undermining my intelligence.
Oh. Well fair enough then.
I do agree with most of the things you've said. However, I'm not sure I agree with this.
Take the example I've brought up here; Skyrim. It has somewhat photorealistic graphics, but it serves the game by deepening immersion in the world. Similarly, the graphics don't necessarily inform the graphics; mages shooting fireballs out of their hands and people summoning up fire elementals doesn't feel out of place, despite the realism of the world around them, because the graphics of the mechanics are designed to look as natural as magic can possibly look.
The mechanics do have many issues; they're just not particularly related to the graphics here.
Apart from that, I acknowledge that game designers as an industry need to stop overly focusing on photorealism. It services some games, such as Skyrim and Shadow of the Colossus, but other games (Fire Emblem, for example) are much better suited to a more stylistic art style that strives to get across to you that "this is a tree and this is a dude with a sword" without wasting any more of the artist's time and the system's processing power than normal.
Just...
That's really not how Glenn made it sound.
Well I felt the message was "photorealism is inadvisable, except possibly in limited circumstances, where you want a simulation game. And it's definitely not advisable if you're trying to make the game look like a movie, because a game shouldn't be a movie."
I've already pointed out that there's more situations where photorealism is more advisable than stylistic graphics than just simulators.
Actually, Nova, I find Skyrim to be a good example of the point, if only narrowly. The hugely inaccurate weapons use in Skyrim is at odds with its presentation. I did say this was a narrow example, but I think it still proves the point. I'm aware of a kind of realism that most of you (for a variety of legitimate reasons) overloook -- the realism of close weapons combat. The more abstract a game, the more acceptable it is that the weapons use is unrealistic to me, and I'm sure most of you have felt exactly the same way about other aspects of gameplay. Jumping is a good example, since we accept that Mario jumps many times his own height but would be surprised if that happened in Call of Duty.
The more a general audience can be expected to be unaware of the real use or implementation of something, the more abstract it can be in a game. When you get an audience member who has more general awareness of that thing, however, that abstraction in that photorealistic context jumps out at them. So of course we all accept the magic in Skyrim, of course we accept the way dragons fly and of course most of an audience will accept the use of weapons -- these are so far out of their frame of reference than conflicts with reality are either impossible, inherent or of limited applicability.
In short, I'm saying that Skyrim (inherently, as a semi-photorealistic fantasy game) "cheats" with combining photorealism and magic and stuff. Since there's no frame of reference for magic to be compared against and is inherently supposed to be somewhat "post-reality", it has cultural and psychological immunity to conflicts with photorealism.
I feel that's a separate point. It has more to do with the terrible engine than the graphics; the graphics themselves don't present the weapons as something particularly useful. They do imply the use of them, but there's nothing in there that implies realistic use.
I think I was saying something there, but it got lost in the noise, I think. Basically, I don't think the game tries to convey 'these weapons will be used particularly skillfully' within its graphics engine. It does imply that they will be used- and they are- but it does not, for example, give different people differing attacks with them, or different poses, or anything.
That said, I think it would be cool if there were several different poses and attack styles, with like, Imperial soldiers having more advanced attack styles, while Stormcloaks have a more frenzied 'chop at them until they die' style like you have in the main game itself. It's just that the game makes no pretense of offering that.
(open question) Is the graphical detail of Skyrim used in the game to provide gameplay-relevant detail?
It's used to differentiate between alchemical reagents and normal flora.
It's used to disguise tunnels and other dungeon diving-related things in dungeons.
Stuff like that.
Nothing major- it's more used for immersion than anything gameplay-related, but it is somewhat used for the latter, too.
Except bees. Which you have no way of knowing that you can pick them up unless you happen to move the cursor over them. Which is unlikely, since they're tiny.
The essential point is that photorealism already contains an implicit pretense of mechanical realism. You, I and the rest of IJBM know this isn't necessarily the case, but when looking from the perspective of a general audience, it's definitely the implication that's going on. Among many circles -- including some groups of game devs, publishers and whatnot -- realism is considered inherently good, so realistic graphics carrying the pretense of realistic mechanics is a natural implication such people want to make.
My above post was partially about how the implications of photorealism are usually at least partially subjective. For instance, when games with realistic graphics have unrealistic medieval weapons use, that strikes me as odd. It shouldn't, based on experience, but it's just natural for me to feel thrown "outside" a bit. But you can relate that experience I have to a hypothetical scenario where a CoD protagonist jumps like Mario.
The difference between myself and the general audience is that everyone has a frame of reference for jumping. We know we can't jump like Mario, so when we see a game character do that in non-abstract context, it's strange and bizarre. It's the same with me and the use of historical weaponry, so Skyrim still contains an (admittedly subjective) example of its realism in presentation conflicting with its lack of realism in mechanics.
In short, it's not just about the content and presentation of a game in relation to reality, but also the frame of reference of the audience.
I guess. I just think that's silly, and that not all or even most designers think that.
Well... not really. I'm used to it in games such as The Old Republic, which throws in somewhat for photorealism but has crazy jumping heights and such. I guess it has an excuse for that though.
The disparity between designer and audience conceptualisation isn't particularly relevant in this context because of how heavily audience conceptualisation is a dominant force. Essentially, if an audience considers photorealism to imply realistic mechanics, then game designers, developers and producers will follow that line of thought and attach more abstract mechanics to more abstract presentations.
Like I said, though, if we look at Mario jumps in context of a game that isn't meant to include superpowers -- such as most modern military shooters -- they damage immersion because that breaks the implicit contract between presentation and mechanics. I'd also argue that The Old Republic is very, very far removed from photorealism by any standard and, being Star Wars, can also get away with a lot of unrealistic things by nature.
Furthermore, RPGs -- and MMORPGs almost by necessity -- are heavily, heavily abstract. If we consider abstraction to be measured on a basis of how far something diverts from reality, then RPGs take the abstraction cake in most cases.
I think it's relevant because game designers don't only take audience conceptualism into account when designing the graphics.
I think the discussion we had about Skyrim's realism and how audiences reacted to that can adequately show what I mean here.
I acknowledged the second part.
As for the first- um, I kind of got distracted by this article and I forgot what I was going to say. (that isnt a TOR screenshot dammit)
Photorealism is a tool like anything else. Games like L.A. Noire used it as part of a critical gameplay mechanic that demanded that kind of fidelity by necessity in a way that pretty much no other game has before or since. Games like Skyrim focused on creating a living setting above all else.
Not every game particularly needs to do this. Most games would actually be diminished by diverting development resources to it to the detriment of other components of the game. Hell, a lot of games would be diminished by it being there at all, because it just wouldn't feel right compared to the general mood of the game.
Well actually if it's used for immersion I'd argue that alone is...well, game-experience relevant, since that's not technically gameplay. But that relevance has to do with the game world being one that's supposed to be immersive for the player to dive into and do stuff in. So it has purpose.
On the other hand, I could argue that games with jarring transitions between FMVs and normal gameplay--such as sudden jumps and subsequent falls in resolution surrounding FMVs--should just have rendered them using in-game graphics.
Since I'm curious now: How much in the way of cutscenes does Skyrim have? I'd guess it probably has rather few since it's supposed to involve a lot of narrative freedom, at least as far as I've heard.
Very, very few. At the very start of the game is the only instance I can think of offhand.
The rest of them are rendered such as you can still move around and do stuff while they're happening.
> Very, very few [cutscenes].
Good. I like it that way.
Eh. They work for some games.
Yeah, Elder Scrolls is typically pretty good about constraining that sort of thing to "stuff happens around you during play". And the opening cutscene has a rather good reason for you not being able to move freely.
And even then, you can still move your head around during a part of it to look around you. Both in the cart and when you're lined up with the Stormcloaks.
Also, if I might be pedantic about a point made previously in this thread:
It wouldn't make sense for the Stormcloak fighting style to be more frantic and less controlled than the Imperial one. Jus' saiyan.
Sure it would. They lack proper military teachers for the most part.
Like bandits.
They have some teachers, but for the most part, have to rely on people with minimal training themselves. While the Imperials have an entire army at their disposal, including military teachers.
re: cutscenes; Cutscenes are nice, Half-Life bullshit is bullshit. I don't think Oblivion had much of either, but Skyrim has some of the latter I think.
Also,
Sprite-based Final Fantasy games looked sort of horrible because they never managed any sort of consistency between the different types of graphics (Giant static portrait monsters vs. animated chibi players, for one). Final Fantasy VII also had this problem though but it got fixed by Final Fantasy VIII.
As for photorealism, gamedev is too expensive as is so devoting less resources toward making art assets would probably be good. I am not going to watch that video though.
> Giant static portrait monsters vs. animated chibi players, for one
That's actually one of the reasons I say that Chrono Trigger is superior to Final Fantasy VI.
It's not quite that simple, though. For instance, it's probably the case that the Germanic tribes north of Rome were more skilled in close combat than Roman soldiers. The degree to which Germanic tribesman were considered to be superior in single or skirmish combat can't be explained by their height or mass advantages alone, and their more advanced weaponsmithing implies that they had more advanced technical applications of their weapons as well.
Given that the situation in Skyrim is an expy match between Vikings and the Roman Empire of Classical Antiquity, and that Germanic folk arranged in tribes were probably more advanced single combatants than Romans, there's no non-setting reason to believe that the Imperials would have a more refined system of combat at their disposal. After all, the advanced weapons instructors of the past were not necessarily "military leaders" in the strictest sense; they were private individuals who may have had military experience but progressed in their art individually as well, and ended up teaching their skills for non-military application in many cases.
So it's not unlikely that the Stormcloaks would have some very skilled swordsmen at their disposal, and it only takes one good one to teach others. I mean, we have to remember that we're dealing with Viking equivalents here. Combat was built into their culture on a very fine level in a way it wasn't for most other cultures. You would not have to go far to find a Viking who knows a thing or two about using a spear, axe, sword or dagger. For a Roman (or Imperial), it's a different story.
I never denied they had some skilled swordsmen at their disposal. Although the amount is likely several times lower than you're thinking, due to a variety of reasons (mostly due to them not particularly having an organized military outside of each hold's Guards, meaning that there's no way to get teaching in the art outside of seeking out swordmasters and begging for instruction or leaving for another country).
However, the actual number of those who have the capacity to pass on their skills (requiring more than just skill; you need patience and temperament to be able to effectively pass on your skills) and the number of people who have any true capacity to learn from the limited number of skilled swordsmen is much lower than you'd think.
The Imperials have an entire system behind them- garrisons where legions are taught, military contractors who make weapons and armour, teachers to pass on their knowledge, and so on. The Stormcloaks lack that organisation.
As such, skill levels would vary wildly, and for the most part, Stormcloaks would likely lack more than a couple months instruction as one of the fifty soldiers being taught by someone who was taught by the Stormcloak's actual weapon masters.
So I guess what I am saying is that
As an army, the Romans/Imperials are better off due to the inbuilt reliance on teamwork and instruction, while the Stormcloaks are probably innately better but suck under a military structure.
The typical image of a Viking- and, in-game, the Nords- are berserkers who rely more upon aggression and brute strength than an advanced level of skill, after all.
You could probably compare Ulfric Stormcloak and whatsisname, the dude with the giant ace, with General Tullius and Legate Rikke to understand what I'm saying here. Ulfrick is roughly on the same level as General Tullius, with an ace up his sleeve, but whatsisname is a very aggressive person who mostly relies on just beating the stuffing out of people, and is very good at plainly beating the stuffing out of people rather than any true measure of skill.
In a Viking-style warrior culture, you don't exactly require a particular swordmaster instructor because of how warriors are organised. Since warriordom-ish-ness is considered a necessary measure of survival on a variety of levels (from practical to social and so on), you don't necessarily pay an instructor to teach you. Instead, training is given freely to and between warriors. Especially when cultural sovereignty is on the line, as is the case in Skyrim.
This would go a long way to explaining why the Germanic tribesman of Classical Antiquity would be more skilled than a Roman warrior, as well. Since combat techniques would be disclosed freely as a matter of collective survival rather than tiered by individual and rank, you could expect a higher level of average skill. This is how most if not all small-scale or grassroots military operations work -- you ensure that everyone has complete access to all technique-oriented resources at play and them arm them with the best stuff you can give them.
So the Imperial system would be more likely to impose limitations on individual skill because of the wealth element at play. The Stormcloaks, more loosely organised and hailing from a culture where combat skills coincide on a very practical level with the safety of one's family, would have more immediate, free and diverse access to skillful individual combat techniques.
In short, due to cultural factors, the Imperials would be in a worse economic place than the Stormcloaks when it comes to training soldiers for single or skirmish combat.
This image was accepted in media in the first place on the basis that it was accurate, though. We know it's not now, and we know that we do many historical cultures a great disservice by trivialising their ways of life, schools of thought and applications of technology. I find these typical images analogous to a sort of discrimination. Western-Central, Christian European culture is usually given the best overall rap, but we freely accept historical stereotypes of non-Christian, non-white cultures in media. I mean, obviously it's not as important to be honest and accurate (within practical limitations) to historical people as to currently existing people, but I find the brazenness with which people generally accept fictitious, trivialised versions of historical people distasteful to say the least.
Be they Vikings, Mongols, Saracens or whatever, the base cultures from which we draw quasi-medieval fantasy (and all kinds of fantasy inspired by some historical element) existed, and their people didn't exist for our entertainment. I mean, look at how the racism angle is set up with the Stormcloaks. Apparently they had a massive war with the Dunmer ages ago and now they hate them forever. Unless there are long spans of consistent wars, this is not how racial tensions actually work. Before I was told some of that TES history, I presumed the Stormcloaks' racism was a byproduct of the Imperials closing in on them and politics doing its thing by finding a scapegoat. This is the process by which most domestic racism is established and makes a lot of sense. I was pleasantly surprised with this depiction of racism, because it expresses how even racists are the victims of their own perspective and so racial discrimination benefits no-one.
... but nope. There was a big damn war some time in the past and now the two peoples hate one-another. That's some significant cultural reductionism coming from a game that's supposed to be discussing racism. It isn't how societies work, it's not how cultural and ethnic tensions work and casting the Nords as the racists just seems distasteful in its own right given 20th century history. Like, "okay, quick, we need some racists so we can make a point", "uh, how 'bout those Germanic folk?".
The whole thing was thought out very poorly, but is essentially based on the idea that a historical person is worth less than a modern one, so a modern person has no responsibility when it comes to the depiction of historical cultures. I'm not arguing for complete accuracy here, mind you, I'm just asking for a requisite level of humanist consideration for the lives that came before. As much as Skyrim is a fantasy game, it very clearly bases its cultures on real-world historical ones (insofar as humans are concerned, at least), so I don't think saying "it's fantasy" is any excuse for the trivialisation at play here. Skyrim is far from the only game guilty of this, of course, but it's an excellent example since so many people know it.
That said, I'm aware that many (probably most, if not all) of you will disagree with me on this notion. But my time spent with my nose in history has coloured and animated historical people to my mind, and I have a difficult time thinking of them with the distance I used to apply. That they're dead makes no difference to me; they existed, thrived, suffered, and some cultures tragically faded away. I just hate to see them reduced to stereotypes for our amusement.
... Are you talking about the Night of Tears?
I'm aware there's a lot more to respond to, but I'd like this clarified first.