The term [i]immersion[/i] gets thrown around a lot in these forums. Immersion generally represents a player's willing suspension of disbelief based on the perceived consistency and sensibility of the game. This includes consistency between a player's creative input into the game and the game's existing lore and implementation.
The idea of what "breaks" immersion and what is tolerable is very subjective. Any individual feature may either break or enhance immersion based on a player's opinion of what immersion means to them.
So, for the sake of discussion, let's assume that the game always tries to promote immersion. Thus the question in the title: [b]what breaks immersion?[/b] Consider some of the following things from CoX for example.
[list]
[*]Single-Origin Enhancements often had names like Dragon Strike or Cybernetic Heart which represented modifications to your character. Did these names break immersion?
[*]Did loading screens break immersion?
[*]Did the mission architect break immersion?
[*]Did other players' behaviors break immersion?
[*]Did a conflict between your character concept and the game's lore break immersion?
[/list]
I could personally overlook just about anything, and I let my imagination fill in the gaps. I was comfortable with my characters no matter how they were treated in the game. I still loved the game's lore, though. I didn't care for the mission architect because it was all a simulation, but I didn't shun it. I guess I was pretty liberal in my "interpretation" of the game.
What about you? Are you more absolute-minded in that every detail counts, or are you more open-minded in that you can overlook a lot of oddities for the sake of the game? Share your opinions below!
Immersion is one of the things that really drives me nuts when it comes to people and games. Like you said, it's so subjective it's not even funny. To me, it gets used mostly when an argument is in favor, or not in favor, of an idea somebody has for the game.
"Oh, I don't like that idea. It would break my immersion into the game."
"This is a great idea. It goes great with my immersion into the game."
Sometimes I feel it's used too frequently for that purpose. To me, it's just a game. If I really want to be immersed into a game, I'd rather play a PnP game instead. Don't get me wrong, I love playing a game and reading all the flavor the developers have put into the game. I just don't try to put myself into the game so much that I find annoyance with other people for doing things like having a Drizzt Do'Urden in a Super Hero MMO. It's going to be a touchy subject no doubt, but I just really don't care about immersion.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
I could personally overlook just about anything too, and I will, but I'd rather not unless I have to. What I mean is, if it really benefits the game or most players--so be it, I'll deal. But some things really smacked me out of "immersion" and I had to shake it off and "re-immerse".
Things I can think of for me personally:
1) Enhancement Stores/Auction Houses. I'd say make it a window and a part of the "game", not a part of the world lore
2) Mission Architect. Same thing--but I don't have a better suggestion and I do love player-made content. Integrate it with the world better somehow.
3) Enhancement names like, as you said, "Dragon Strike" and Cybernetic Heart". Such a waste of time and effort to come up with lots of names that work against rather than for immersion. My characters had neither but had the enhancements.
4) TRAMS! Yes, I know they explained that and the Rikti were cool, but...
Really it was just things in general that didn't fit the genera but were needed in an MMORPG, but that could have been handled "behind the scenes" as part of the game rather than out in the world as part of the lore.
Static said it's just a game and on another thread that it's a City of Heroes so there should be Superhero stores and stuff. Fair enough. I'm not sure I agree but I'll still play :).
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
For me immersion is about what makes sense within the setting being presented. For CoH to have enhancement stores and enhancements by name that were tied to origin didn't bother me in the least because it was all tied to the setting through presentation. AE buildings and the missions created therein by apparently the characters within the game didn't bother me if it was taken for how it was being presented, the characters creating simulations through which they and others can participate - within the context of the game's world this was apparently how supers had fun.
Also taking into consideration that the setting was itself a video game, there were things that if the literal interpretation of immersion were used would certainly break it, but if the immersion of playing a video game were part of one's mindset then it shouldn't. So the black doors to enter a mission, could be immersion breaking, but knowing I'm playing a video game and there are limitations behind the decision to include them, it didn't take me "out of the game". If I were to be literal about being immersed I could be bothered by all sort of things like, why doesn't my fireball hurt my team mates? Or why didn't my sword just cut so-and-so but hit the guy right behind him? But in the context that this is a game and not a true to combat simulation, such things didn't take me out of the game.
Loading screens didn't take me out of the game for the same reason, it is a game after all. What I appreciated about some of the loading screens is they might look like a comic panel or a splash page and that made sense for a video game based on comic books.
The closest things that broke immersion for me were the zones beyond the war walls that looked nothing like the zone that was there that you could travel to and some of the lore presented out of the game used as a reason for why something was happening in the game but was never actually presented properly within the lore of the game world itself.
Now in my first example one could let it slide as part of the limitations of a game thing, and this is true and I thus I did reason it myself. However what irked me was that really it wasn't needed. What would've been more immersive was such a simple solution, place an actual wall behind the war wall and texture it with an art piece representative of the actual zone players could travel to and even though it wasn't a "live zone" it would appear to be the place that was actually there.
The other was stuff like the doctor who suddenly made it possible for power proliferation. Someone who was not mentioned in game, or was there any mention within the game for reasons why certain heroes had certain powers and why other had them and others didn't. They were literally providing a solution for a problem that didn't exist.
Then there was the issue of scale. So many characters in the game were designed to be tall. But then all the vehicles that drive around in the city were not made to the same scale which meant the 4 door sedans and truck cabs had to be really cramped...! I may be really tired but it just occurred to me - I know where all the kids were - they were the ones driving the cars!
Think about it, the adults were too big, the drivers were clearly crazy never bothering to move out of the way of heroes, clearly driving into a live fire fight (sometimes with literal fire). It all makes sense. Ok I think bed time is a calling...
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Shameless plug for [url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/immersion]a thread I created[/url] about improving immersion in regards to player-created content. You were in that thread! ;)
I have to echo this point in particular. It's something else I glossed over like many things, but I would have loved to be able to sit in chairs (ideally like I could in WoW) and feel like I actually fit into the world. This probably deserves its own thread assuming one doesn't already exist. I'll just say here that I hope that the average player character is made to proper scale in CoT.
There is a lot of unreality in any MMO and immersion will always require some effort on the part of the player.
After all It's not a holodeck so I don't get immersed by the room, I have to immerse myself.
That said there are 3 main types of failures I can usually overlook without a problem:
1) Limits to the technology
I accept these because I assume there just isn't a better way.
loading screens fall into this category. I just accept them and they only bother me when they take too long
even then, I'm likely to blame my computer or ISP not the game unless I hear that other people have similar problems
I feel the same way about lag (Most of the time)
2) Nitpicky details
Black doorways fell into this category for me. Yes they could fix it with better graphics but seriously why bother?
That's like watching Ben Her an spotting the one scene where someone was wearing tennis shoes.
Are you going to be a whiny little jerk and say it ruined the whole movie?
Or are you going to brag to you friends about the easter egg you found?
or better yet just ignore it? It's a little thing.
If the game designers don't have my casual attitude about it, that's fine. Maybe there will be fewer little things, for that reason. and that's better for everyone so I applaud your nitpicking, oh wise and wonderful game designers. But when players nitpick, they do sound like whiny little jerks.
3)Parts of the Genre
Unrealism is in some cases part of why I'm playing,
and sometimes a particular kind of unrealism is why I'm playing this game as opposed to some other.
4) Things that make it a game
I read an article on Cracked.com saying that seeing numbers for damage instead of seeing injuries on his opponents broke the author's immersion.
Screw that guy!
So what kind of unrealism would break my immersion?
1) Anything not justified by one of the things I've mentioned above,
especially if I can see an easy way that it could be better.
2) Arbitrary limits that prevent me from making the character I want
like blasters not getting Trick Arrows, That was a real sore spot for me
or like when teleport required you to recall friend before you could actually teleport even though most teleporters in the comics get it the other way around and a lot never get recal friend
3) Arbitrary limits that prevent me from playing the way I want,
(levels do this a lot)
3) Flaws in AI that made the NPCs act stupidly or rewarded players for doing things no one would do in real life, or in the kind of fantasy world we're supposed to be playing
Levels also had this effect because they made us ignore cries for help in grey, or purple areas
and don't get me started on "Pulling" or on AE
4) Repetitive content
Of course that was often the player's fault not the game's but then the game strongly encouraged me to team up with the people who wanted to farm, by making a lot of rewards unobtainable otherwise.
5) Extreme durability of minions
It not only killed immersion but turned the fights into long long long chores.
Once again this was just as much the players fault. (In missions anyway)
They were the ones who insisted on cranking up the difficulty so it came out that way.
But once again the game strongly encouraged them to do so by making rewards unobtainable otherwise
and out on the street it wasn't the player's fault.
Once you got to like 45th level you couldn't find any opponents on the street that were green-red.
You either stayed in Peregrine island or the rikti war zone where everything was purple or you went anywhere else and they were all grey.
And grey people were no fun to fight because they were no challenge.
6) things that made the setting feel too confined or unreal.
Like only having one way in or out of a mission
not being able to pick things up even though I have super strength and that should be one of my most often used tricks
never seeing children on the street.
7) places where reality has been deliberately avoided and/or replaced with something else.
Like having advertisements for products and companies that don't exist (those were fine as long as they were funny but they got old when you never changed them)
It was worse that there were no churches
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
This topic had me thinking. I agree with a lot of the points made already. It is a game, and the term gets thrown around a lot anyway. But I do recall experiencing that feeling of "oh, that's not right", when playing City of Heroes. I've been trying remember what those moments were.
The only example I can think of at the moment is how the civilian NPCs could push my character, sometimes for quite a distance. Nothing like stomping Carnies and Malta and then some little lady irresistibly pushes me from in front of the mission door.
I don't generally have any problems with suspension of disbelief. If I did, I probably wouldn't be a fan of superheroes in the first place.
I'm generally fine as long as things are internally consistent. Things that I find "immersion breaking" are like Tannim's example of the view over the translucent portion of the war wall having no correlation with what was actually on the other side. One of my frequent gripes in a number of threads about the random way radio missions compiled the missions and assigned a mission door meant you occasionally entered a cave and ended up in a bank or entered an office and found yourself in the sewer. I'm not a programmer, but it always struck me as a bit lazy that there wasn't a check in place to make sure the door fit the mission.
The fact that interior maps had no possible match to the exterior building never did bother me, though. Maybe because I realized how boring it might actually be (though some of the Dev comments on trying to match things up better in CoT are cool).
I think it would be awesome, as one more homage to CoH, to have at least one building in CoT which is crazy weird on the inside and from the outside is just a simple building which, from a distance, vaguely resembles the TARDIS.
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
I can overlook a LOT in a computer game, mainly because I realize there are certain limitations to the medium. Like you I just let my imagination plaster over the cracks and fill the holes. In addition, the superhero genre is incredibly broad and diverse; you want to team up with an Old West Sharpshooter, a Medieval Knight, a Alien from Andromeda, and a guy wearing brightly-coloured tights who can shoot fire from his hands? Go for it!
The COH devs did a pretty good job tying these limitations into the game lore; the hospital teleporters, the war walls, the lack of capes at 1st level, AE, the auction house/black market, etc. The names on the enhancements didn't bother me - even if they didn't quite match up with my character's concept - mainly because you really only dealt with them when you had stuff to buy and slot. Plus they were more flavourful than "Single Origin Endurance Reduction Enhancement rank x" - although I can see the simplicity and utility of that style as well.
One of the things that DID bug me, however, was that even after they managed to get capes in the game, you still had to wait till level 20 to do the mish to get access. it was kind of "gamey" and arbitrary to me - even WITH the Hero1 backstory. Now - there WERE some ways around it, but still. That said, even the cape thing didn't ruin the game experience for me - I just accepted it as a part of the game lore and moved on.
So yeah - as long as things are consistent in the game world, I guess I'm pretty laid back when it comes to the "immersion" thing.
One of the few times I ever found combat mechanics sufficiently jarring to call it "immersion breaking" was specifically with eye blasts like the radiation set and the peacebringer/warshade's had. When that power would miss, the animation showed the beam going off in some random direction.
In the case of eye beams, If I can see you, I should be able to hit you.
I'd have been fine if the RNG decided I didn't do any damage, but having my gaze forced off of the target just felt wrong.
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
Overall my thoughts echo Tannim222's. For me, the most important factor is internal consistency. This holds trues for books, movies, etc., as well. Nothing makes me squint and think, "Dude, what?" like an inconsistency.
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Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
LOL. This was another one for me.
I remember my first experience making a toon. I thought, ok, default is probably the average height, so I want to be just a little taller than average, so I'll edge the slider up just a bit, and, viola!
But I was only up to the shoulder of everyone walking around on the street. WTH? Which lead to the average hero in the game being, in scale to the world rather than the NPC people, at least 7 feet tall.
I think this is the perfect definition for "immersion breaking", the "oh, that's not right" moments. And of course it will be different for everyone, and so it'll never be perfect for everyone.
I agree that internal consistency is the main key, but how much does the word "internal" extend to the parent genre of Superhero comic books and movies? I personally find that when things are internally consistent within the game but extremely inconsistent with most of what I've seen in the greater genre, it also gives me the "Dude, what?" moment.
But probably that's more true for me than for most who will play since I only got into gaming at all because I was just a comic book fan until my friends who were playing WoW (I wasn't) told me about CoH. I still can barely get myself to play a game that isn't Superhero genre. And all of those pale in comparison after CoH.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
I heard this exact same complaint a few days ago on Cracked.com and I'll say the same thing here I did there:
You've seen enough comics to know that characters like Cyclops and Superman (Heat Vision) miss just as often as other characters. Just because you aim with your eyes doesn't mean your focus has pinpoint accuracy or that your timing is perfect when trying to hit a moving target.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
Holy crap, I agree with Paladin :P--mostly. Early in the game you would miss and shoot your eye beams in nutty directions like looking straight up at the ceiling. Later they seemed to fix that and you would just barely miss, which I thought was a great fix.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
While the Lazers are coming out of your eyes, its like staring at the sun. You dont notice the target moved.. so you stand still thinking the full exposure of the blast will eradicate the foe.... so you dont move. and it Misses if they did. ;)
That's the rub and the largest stumbling block I ran up against when trying to determine examples to use in my post. With the variety of artists and writers who work on even a single character, over the years, internal consistency is right out. The genre also demands that characters sometimes make decisions that, to us, appear completely boneheaded. Sometimes a story works better (at least within the confines it must follow) if at that particular point the writer focuses on expediency rather than what might make the most sense (this is why we get (TVtrope alert) [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RubberForeheadAliens]rubber forehead aliens[/url] and [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SingleBiomePlanet]single biome planets[/url]).
Sometimes even internal consistency must bow to the realities with which writers / developers are faced.
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Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Maybe.
I suppose it may also depend on whatever mechanism you propose is the source of the blast. Aslo whether they are pulses or a steady beam.
While I can't claim to be an expert, I have done target-tracking experiments involving vision in a neurosciences class, and in otherwise-healthy people, it doesn't get much more precise.
To me, graphically and conceptually it seems like a steady beam coming out of eyes ought not miss - or at least it ought to be able to easily reaquire the target. The creators of the relevant films and comics have never, in any example I can think of, indicated that the blaster was temporarily blinded by the blast itself.
I had the same feeling of WTF? at the end of Man of Steel when he had Zod in a head lock. Granted it would have been awful, but it seemed Zod could have easily just shifted his gaze to the right.
But, I'm willing to concede that this is an example of the highly subjective nature of the broader topic of "what is immersion-breaking?"
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
There can be a fine line between taking some license in order to tell a story or even just move a story forward and just not even trying to remain consistent - for example the Drama Circuits installed in Federation transporters which can yank a character out of a spacecraft performing evasive maneuvers at relativistic velocities in only a couple of seconds but which requires another character to remain motionless on a planet surface for an eternity lest they lose the lock.
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
Put me down for Immersion = Internal Consistency too ... with the added nuance of "at least TRY to play by your own rules!"
Most of the Immersion Breaking that I encountered in City of Heroes were things that didn't "align" properly are were thus difficult to ignore (or excuse). There was a manhole in Imperial City that when you opened it to jump down into a mission instance didn't have a "black hole" under it, just more sidewalk. Your character would dutifully hop up and fall through the ground (like normal) that was obviously solid and simply disappear/fade out on their way "down" the hole (that wasn't there).
Another bit of Immersion Breaking for me was the entire Paragon Protector Story Arc, culminating in a clone of my PC. Except it wasn't a clone. I was a MA/SR [b]"NO GET HITSU!!" Scrapper (more of a Pocket Tank, really). My "clone" was a ... Energy/Energy Blaster! Three guesses as to how pathetic that fight was as the climax of a story arc (and the first two guesses don't count). Achoo! SPANK! Done. What was the problem again? Indeed, it took a while before there ever was anything like a doppleganger system successfully implemented in City of Heroes, and even then, my dopplegangers never had the (set) Enhancements that made my builds so devastating, meaning that they were but pale copies of my PCs.
For the longest time, out in the Shadow Shard (aka The Zones That Got Forgot) there was the Mole Point you could go to in The Cascades ... which was just an empty cave. There were supposed to be objects and NPCs and glowies and STUFF in there and the cave just had ... nothing. You'd be walking on geometry you couldn't see, bumping around on yet more geometry you couldn't see. Took City of Heroes almost a dozen issues to finally sort that one out. And the worst part was, you were given a mission to go and see all this stuff that wasn't there so as to unlock the Mole Point and get a shortcut into the zone beyond Fire Base Zulu. Totally a case of "you guys forgot something here."
But yeah, the most objectionable thing is not following the established "rules" of the game within the game. Things like plot holes in the writing or game balance issues in the mechanics can wind up being big problems.
Any time you have to tell yourself "Pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain!" the game's immersion has been broken.
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For me it's primarily two things:
1) Any game mechanic that feels more like work than fun. (I can't think of any in CoX, but I have run into plenty in other MMOs. Corpse runs and gear repair spring to mind.)
2) Other players who don't even try to make an effort: either they spend time griefing instead of playing, or they just copy names or concepts from other games or media.
Spurn all ye kindle.
+1. Totally gives the "Dude, what?" reaction, ON TOP of not being fun.
I found clipping in DCUO to be the same. Instead of getting to see the nice powerful looking and feeling animations, you got better performance if you clipped the animations.
I rarely did it because I wanted the full Superpower feel, but it significantly increased your performance if you did. Sometimes I had to start clipping to stay alive or to hold up my end on a team.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
TERA and Elder Scrolls Online "suffer" from the same advantages of animation canceling, to the point where if you don't use the exploit(s) you're gimping yourself.
Filed under the heading of "thanks a lot, Devs!" {/quit}
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Hmmm...the things that ruined my immersion in CoH was when people used what was basically game mechanics as IC things. Seriously, are enhancements just patched all over you and we don't see them? That's how many seem to talk about them
IC comments about have to get an enhancement to increase my mutant powers!
...
I tended to overlook the names of them, because they felt more like a game mechanic. The same for the auction house. They should've remained a game mechanic and not some crappily written in piece of lore the CoH devs thought was good. :p
We're playing superheroes...auction house that sells body parts and nuclear weapons...yup...sounds like something I'd expect in superhero comics *eye roll*
To be fair, City of Heroes really did "phone it in" on that part of things. :(
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Interestingly in Wildstar, I was wondering why I was doing so badly in performance compared to other similar built characters.
Turned out that I was clipping some of my attacks early, so wasn't getting the full benefit of stuff....
I know they did. :p
Though I think many CoH fans didn't really care. Those who were there just for the game and friends made (or just making a superhero) didn't tend to care about the lore, while those who RPed would just tend to pick and choose what they RPed so maybe the devs just didn't care?
Champions was way worse than this. At least "A mechanical heart" that boosted hp for science origin kind of made sense, IC.
In Champions, you would find a gun, or armor, or god knows what, and it would go in the offence, def, or util slot...and not actually be a gun.
Yet you could find guns that were guns, unlocking a gun skin and/or going in a devices slot where you could actually use it.
I can't remember exact details, but the outrage was the equivalent of "You found angel wings which let you fly", and equipping it, it boosed mana 1% and neither let you fly nor gave you angel wings.
Just out of control there. CoH was minimal in comparison!
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
I always saw CO's gear as just an OOC stat boost. Same with CoH Enhancements. Both however failed, in that they liked to have NPCs treat it like IC items.
Tailor's just standing around...auction house...even known hero locations that aren't constantly being bombed by villains...just breaks the comicbook superhero world to me.
+1
Some things are necessary for an MMORPG, but just a little thought, effort, and creativity could get around all of them having to be ingame in a silly way. In some cases, just don't make them IC/ingame/lore things. Put them behind the scenes in a window or something.
I don't know about *constantly* being bombed, but the Baxter Building and the Avengers' Mansion did get attacked many times.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Making such things a UI window that pops up, was actually my suggestion since the beginning, but many posters seemed to prefer the idea of CoH's crappy lore system. :/
Constantly from a story stand point is a bit off for sure, but I was thinking more from a player in a game stand point. I know the first place my CoV character would attack in Paragon, would've been an Icon :p
Sneak right in, in a costume, place some explosives or whatever else they had to destroy a building! :) Public settings like that are just a perfect target for villains who don't care if they kill or not.
in a system such as we're looking at here we're going to have a serious problem with immersion for villains,
either they're going to have unrealistic limitations that break immersion for them,
or they're going to spread such terrible havoc that the game will be unplayable for anyone else.
The only way to stop a villain from blowing up every major landmark in the city is to just say they can't
This breaks immersion but because there isn't really anything there to stop them.
If the city has the kind of security that would be needed just to maintain order, then it doesn't need superheroes.
So having landmarks like icon or a superhero base is something we have to accept because they give the feeling that this is a functioning city
and not the giant pvp hazard zone that the entire world would realistically be reduced to.
I mean seriously, if it wasn't Icon, supervillains could just ambush us somewhere else even if they ended up striking at restaurants
or just setting of bombs in random places and ambushing heroes when they show up.
No one wants a realistic game trust me.
we want a playable game where we can immerse ourselves in a fantasy.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
The same can be said for Villain side too. The Black Market was ALWAYS located in the same spots. The Facemakers were ALWAYS located in the same spot. Yet those were more acceptable to immersion than Icon and Wentworth's. Heroes just as easily could have mass bombarded those places to arrest villains. The problem with those theories is the fact that there were multiple heroes and multiple villains all located in those areas. Villains are not typically the most courageous of types. Most of the time they tend to try to single out a hero and trap him that way. Heroes are too busy reacting to problems than being proactive towards the problems. Also that would not make for very exciting story telling. As I said in a previous thread, "City of Heroes was a city full of HEROES." There were thousands of heroes running around constantly, why would a villain try to attack a blatantly open and consistently populated area of centrally located heroes? As soon as they stepped within a mile of the place heroes would be on them like white on rice. Not to mention that they also had the Police Drones protecting those areas much like the Transportation locations, City Hall, and all the entrances to new zones.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Yes. they were in the same locations, but villain side one could easily see them as what they were..street docs in secret building...goods be sold off the back of a truck.
But your analogy fails, as we were a city of heroes and we faced villains ALL THE TIME. We were a city of heroes and had to stop a building from burning. Gangs on the streets.
The police drones only protected a small area, and was another bad story idea for a way to take out enemies from following you, give you a safe place to stand.
My idea of making some of the things UI window only, does nothing to the game and doesn't ruin it in anyway.
But a landmark makes sense, a very public place where heroes sell nuclear waste, genetic waste, WMDs, plagues ect is not.
I'm sure some hero fashion would be made in a a very hero populated world, I just doubt heroes would wear it. "Oh yes, dahling, look at this outfit I showed off in the 2014 Prague show." "You mean the outfit worn by 50 other heroes" "Moving on dahling."
And obviously something have to be overlooked. Like people running the same dungeon over and over again. However, there are just some things that can easily be made better by just making them a UI window option, like out version of gear/drops being totally OOC and not some wierd thing we're our hero holds of some round item and go "All right! I was looking for this boost! Let me just attach it to myself, even though it makes no sense to do so!"
I'm with Brand on this. If it HAS to be ingame or in the lore for some design reason, so be it. Or if it really fits the larger genre for it to be ingame, great! Otherwise, make it a window and keep it a behind the scenes part of the mmorpg game, not part of the ingame world lore. That gives us more freedom to tell our own stories.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Funny thing is, Wentworth's and the Black Market could have been "banished" to SG bases and the only people who would have minded would have been characters without an SG. Expand the SG concept to include individual Player Housing and you've essentially resolved the "problem" that those structures presented.
ICON was a "different problem" as far as I was concerned and one I was a lot more willing to tolerate ... mainly because going into the one in Steel Canyon let you see all kinds of cool costumes on people you'd otherwise never pay any attention to (or see again, most likely).
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Ewwww. Having a Wentworths just accessible from a SG Base? I don't like it. :<
Its like having ICON only accessible from a SG Base only! Awful! :/
I dunno, having it available as an *optional* venue, quite possibly more customised in terms of appearance for you (ie several different types that could be chosen) could give bases/personal housing another reason to exist.
The "outside of base" version, would just be a window that you could bring up whenever you wanted (to have it delivered to a nearby pick up point/location of your choice/something else that just skips my mind right now) style of thing.
Icon is slightly different, but the same could happen there... although at least having *one* location inside the city itself could be useful as well.
I wasn't keen on the CoX change, when they made it possible to change it at ANY trainer in the game world... instead I would have had it possible to change *anywhere* in the game world, but if you did it at icon, there were special outfits/pieces that you could choose/purchase/unlock, or it was cheaper to do it there.
Just a thought there.....
Yep...
But I think the reason why i feel the way that I do about Wentworths is because I might be subconsciously relating it to a type of Stock Exchange environment. And it just doesnt feel the same to me if it was like an OTB. :/
Of course, there are now AmeriTrade and eTrade, and all these others you can access from your laptop, without having to physical travel to. ;)
I like the idea of doing it from your home or base,
you could even have to click on your home computer,
so it's like your character is ordering things online.
Even things you order from other locations could be delivered to your home or HQ.
Just like the mail boxes in some other games.
Like Gangrel said, it gives you a reason to go home.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
I don't have a really strong feeling about the Wentworth's/Icon issue, but it might be worthwhile to keep in mind while we bemoan empty zones on other threads that these facilities promote congregation of players and help keep the zone in which they are located populated regardless of level range.
Spurn all ye kindle.
Well, that is the best argument I've heard for having these things actually in the game world. Still think I'd personally rather have them handled behind the scenes, but this makes sense.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
It is almost an art as to how many of them and where they are placed which helps improve this.
Case in point: Thayd in Wildstar has 2 Auction House locations. One up north, near a guild bank/personal bank/mail box/crafting area/transport area.
The other is down south near a guild bank/personal bank/mail box/housing teleport[1].
The southern one is VERY quiet in comparison. And not everyone is crafting either up at the northern location.
I tend to use the southern one more often than not. It does depend on where I entered the city and what my plans are.
[1] Housing locations can have crafting area's built on them, along with bank, mail and appearance/rune crafting facilities.
Wentworths might have gotten a bunch of players to congregate but it did so by giving them something else to do so they weren't available to join a team. and if they did accept an invite (presumably just so they'd stop getting them) you'd have to wait, god knows how long before the'd join you.
Since we can search Globally for other players, I fail to see any benefit to herding them. If you just want places to Look crowed, fill it with NPCs.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
That depended on the person. I usually never spent any more time than about 30 minutes a day loading up and unloading my sales at WW's. There were people that enjoyed playing the Market as a sub-game to CoH, and then there were those that used it as a tool to buy and sell items that you couldn't find at a vendor real quick either between missions, at the beginning of the day, or at the end of the day just before you logged off. I would sometimes designate a certain day, or certain time period that was solely for buying, crafting, and selling. During those times I was usually hidden so people couldn't try to recruit me for a team. If my friends sent me a tell asking if I wanted to team, I'd graciously tell them I was busy and probably would be for a few more hours at most and THEN I'd be willing to team with them.
Searching globally for team members and filling a zone up with people are two completely different things. Developers want to keep the opening area to a game constantly filled with people to make it look like it's busy and that there are A LOT of people playing the game. This will lead to player retention. If people perceive that there are a lot of people playing the game they will usually stick around and play. If the zone looks empty, then people will feel like there aren't any players playing the game and log off. Same holds true for mid and end levels of the game. This is why Atlas, Talos, and Peregrine Island were usually always busy. It gave people a sense of consistency throughout the entire game.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Which is why I usually went to the Wentworth's in Kings Row. It was less crowded.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Yeah I avoided crowded areas too not so much because I didn't like teaming but because they made lag.
I hear that you've found a cure for lag (I hope it works) but I would never log out because the game wasn't crowded that's just alien to me. I'd be more likely to log out if it's too crowded. I know I have no plans to play the first week because it would be too crowded for me.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
Talos was an interesting one. It was a cross zone to and from several other zones, from next zone in the levelling curve, right to the *end* zone (Peregrine). It was almost the *best* mid level zone.
It would have been better if it had a University there, but that would have probably made it almost *too* perfect. Wentworths, Arena, University, 41-50 level content just a zone away...
Atlas was popular because it was the first location at the start that you chose to "start in" if you just clicked through. So you would get all the *truely* new players, and those who wanted more of a busy life. IT also had AE/WW and a trainer well located.
However, at least on my server Steel Canyon Wentworths was generally busier with a better level range of players being visible, due to the closeness of the WW and the university.
Peregrine... End game zone which wasn't filled with loads of "emptyness" (Shadow Shards anyone?).
Nope. People will gather in areas regardless. It's just what we do!
In CoH we just didn't need to sit around in IP unless we wanted to shout in IP Zone chat. A lot of team looking would get done in globals.
Also, you'll just have places people pick for the costume contests.
I think what it breaks down to is what is the reason for you to go any place of contact? There is nothing to stop the market from being a window, in fact in CoH we eventually got this and the vault as vet rewards. There is no reason we couldn't have the costume creator and regular vender work the same way. But what would be the consequences of that? does it make inventory management a non issue? Does that diminish the value of inventory upgrades being sold via the star-mart? I mean yeah, no immersion breaking or questionable lore to worry about, but does it hurt the game in other ways?
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
Having map locations for these things is a social feature. They may do nothing to a solo player but being able to go to the costume vendor and see other people working on costume concepts is valuable and helps build a community.
Same for PvP having a location and RP locations.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I'm a soloer but I liked having these locations because it made the city feel like a real place.
I like having a reason to travel around the city and see stuff and do stuff other than just looking for bad guys to beat up.
I don't care if it's realistic because some aspects of realism have no place in a game like this.
personally I'd like to see more places to go and thing to do.
That might spread the players out a bit more but they'd still all be in the same zone. so it would really just make the zones more interesting, and by spreading the people out a little you might answer the people who say villains would target the places where heroes congregate.
By the way I've never been very convinced by the claim that villains would target places where heroes congregate.
Think about it. Just how often do gangs like the crips, the bloods, the hell's angels or even the maffia target police stations?
It almost never happens.
why?
Because professional criminals are interested in making money and AVOIDING involvement with the police.
super criminals would feel the same way about superheroes.
The last thing any of them would want is to start an open war in the streets.
it's bad for their business.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
Death fields around auction houses. This is part of a larger iimmersin buster I'd like to see done away with.
I *want* to see monsters take over parts of a city, including killing or capturing NPCs. I know this irritates some people, but I'm tired of grandma's mmorpg.
So at least have a dedicated server for this so the whinebags can keep to care bear land!!!!!!!!!
Instead of static points, have a random invasion with "guns" shooting streams of monsters at the target area from all over. No magic superguards or neutral npcs, even vital contacts.
God that would be fun to develop.
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
Can you imagine the whining if the Black Market wasn't always in the same place all the time? Instead, the Black Market "moved" from place to place around the city ... like a Black Market ought to?
Something like having only 4 out of 10 possible locations active at any one time, and after 1 hour of being open a specific location would "close up shop" and reopen somewhere else.
While doing this would be annoying to anyone still interacting with the Black Market when it closes at a specific site ... the flipside of the equation is that doing this would promote circulation of PCs around the city and also "organically" create a community culture of Black Market Trackers who would be on the lookout for the Black Market setting up shop in a new location and then communicating that in the Broadcast channel. Net result is a sort of camraderie among Players and a motivation to move around throughout the city.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Well, the point of a tractor trailer illegal shop is so you can move it to keep ahead of the cops, or Longbow in this case.
Still, the development of technology superior to arrest bots, the death field, made the need to move less dire.
Yet I can't imagine how many millions of longshoremen Ghost of Scrapyard lead to their deaths in the Sharkhead black market death field over the years.
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
I don't mind inconsistencies in lore or setting, provided a good effort has been made to avoid it. The more consistent, the better.
I never did care for the way enhancements were named. I would have much preferred to avoid the entire origin association and just had standard enhancements named for what they do. It would have made more sense to me as a player and would have made more sense to my characters as well. It wasn't so much a problem of breaking immersion as it was a problem of unnecessarily complicating a simple game mechanic.
I strongly dislike enemies that drop items completely unrelated to who and what they are. I realize this is not immersion breaking for many players, but for me, this is the main annoyance any game development team can pull. It is completely unnecessary and it is the one place where the game could easily increase the presentation consistency. Enhancements with weird names overly complicate a simple game mechanic, illogical drops overly simplify a complicated game mechanic. Those are the kind of things that "break immersion" for me. Simple mechanics should have simple labels, complicated mechanics should have labels and results that reflect their complexity.
However, the number one problem that destroys immersion for me is something the development team has absolutely no control over: player dialogues.
It is so very annoying to stop in at a trainer or at the Black Market only to have my chat window fill up with:
"Colts really kicked ass last night."
"Yeah, but only because Brady was off his game. He's still sore from that car accident."
"Fuck that. Brady can't throw for shit and you know it! Luck was on fire last night, not a single interception!"
Situations like that really get my blood boiling, especially when the players use a variation of 1337-speak or some other internet/texting dialect. I know it's silly of me, but that doesn't change how I feel.
And yes, in line with that, the constant, "LFPL!" "pl plz!" "lf sewer team" "PTF ndz hlr!"
Ugh! Now that's immersion breaking!
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I'm not saying you're wrong here, because we get annoyed by whatever annoys us, but isn't one of the advantages inherent in a game like CoX or CoT the fact that such a conversation is actually possible a modern day, real world setting? Unlike games set in a fantasy or sci-fi world, I could actually see PCs or NPCs discussing things like this in Paragon City or Titan City.
Spurn all ye kindle.
This has been on my mind so I'll share it: reaction of enemy NPCs.
One aspect that has already been raised and debated is of enemies pursuing PCs. Another aspect that often bothers me is their near instantaneous reaction to the PC. When the enemies arrive (teleport in, walk in through a door, etc.) or the PC chances on them, often they respond so quickly that the player scarcely has a chance to do anything before they've been hit by an alpha. It rather forces me to assume that they must constantly be hurting, maiming, and killing their own if they start shooting as soon as someone walks through the door.
It certainly makes sense for some villains or villain groups to be able to act and react more quickly. Groups like the Malta or the Tsoo, with their training, would quite reasonably be less prone to surprise and would generally respond more quickly to an intrusion. Groups like the Skulls, Hellions, or Outcasts would likely take rather longer to get going and may even be prone to initial panic and confusion. However, the near-instantaneous "somethingtherekillitnao" response really ought to be restricted to machines with IFF or the equivalent. It'd certainly be a nice touch if I could go against one group knowing it'll be a brawl and that I need to be more tactical against the other if I want to be able to get in the first shot.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Good point. I'd like to see some variety as you describe also.
LOL, true!
Spurn all ye kindle.
"It's a good thing your tribe never developed guns. They'd have woken with a start one morning and wiped themselves out." - [i]Image of the Fendahl[/i]
I hope the city has streets that are more than 2 lanes.. I know it sounds dumb but living in a major city you know streets are wider than just one lane in each direction.
By using Major streets you can direct players to travel between districts on the major streets and do the actual missions and stuff on the side streets. This way when i'm flying by and it creates a more social expectation of seeing traveling characters on the big streets and fighting characters inside the districts.. Not to mention the social zone of each district having some grouping there too
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I think you could ask this question (and should) to every player and get a different response.
Depending on how you played the game immersion was different things. For some it's the visual aesthetic and audio component. For others its the story or content. For still others (like me) it was the players themselves.
I got into COH and fell in love with it because it was the closest thing to letting me actually build a superhero and I will never forget my first day. I'd played just enough to get out of the quarantine zone. I managed to make my way to Atlas and to the front steps for the first time. I couldn't even jump high enough to get out of the fountain or control my character well yet and I looked up.
I code stuff. I know programs. I knew right away that the arcs in the sky weren't code. It wasn't some graphical thing to imply someone was flying waaay up there so far I could barely make out, and this guy was just zipping about up there doing loops yelling "Wheeeee!" or something.
And I looked down the streets and some guy came zipping by using superspeed. I knew about the powers - obviously - but I wasn't really 'ready' to accept they'd do them all ... real time... with people everywhere ... all at once. I figured it would be more like Freedom Force or something like that.
Games, are seldom, or at least in those days, they were never what they advertised. This was something that was all it advertised and something it didn't. People had total freedom and autonomy of their characters. You wanted to go fly around those buildings - go to it! You want to just run around the city - have at it!
People everywhere - the statue under Atlas in those days was so packed you could barely find a spot to stand. That... was what totally immersed me. I expected storylines. I expected powersets and cool graphics - even some limited ability to do all the stuff in the demo videos (which clearly were not from game play) ... but I didn't expect people to just... be people in the city. People with superpowers.
You might be able to program in powersets or hyper-realistic maps and textures. Or code up elaborate backstory and content so intricate it's a Davinci code of details and webs of plots. But I expect that. I know that's coming.
You cannot program, code, or design people. People hanging out. People flying loops because that's the coolest thing ever and it's always been their dream and now they're doing it and yelling "Wheeeee!".
You don't code that. You experience it.
You want to break immersion? Build a game. You want to create immersion? Build a community.
Players thinking that repeating missions is a thing and then devs going with it. That's a community that doesn't go for immersion.
The broken in vault for instance. One mission, and yet everyone was saying how easy it was to break into the vault. It was annoying.
MMOs of course need lots of enemies for players to fight, but you don't have to say there's hundreds of thousands of those enemies. Makes for less immersion.
Sexy time breaks immersion? ;D
ex: http://youtu.be/s5WkMH7r6P4?t=4m16s
Now I need brain bleach izzy