Quote:Original post by hymerman
the way i see it, is that in a FIRST PERSON game, everything should be done in the first person-
Yep, we can agree to that. Problem is it isn't possible.
Quote:i've thought this for a long time, and have always wondered why games like Morrowind still try to tell you how good at doing things you are, when you're directly controlling the character.
Simple. Because you're not directly controlling the character. You're pushing buttons on a keyboard. You have no idea how much effort it takes your character to swing that giant broadsword, because to you, it's just a click on a mouse button. You can't feel whether or not he's strong enough to do it easily. You can't feel when you get hit, or how serious the hit was, so that information has to be provided through numbers.
You can't judge your maximum run speed, because you can't actually feel your legs, only the W and S keys that you use to run forwards and backwards with. And they don't give you much feedback if you try to sprint too far.
Yes, the camera might be placed conveniently at roughly the eyes position, but that doesn't mean you're directly controlling the character. Creating an illusion that you are is fine, but actually relying on it as a game designer is a horrible idea.
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if the actual person playing the game is perceptive, they'll notice things more. if they're unobservant, then tough luck. you don't need to implement some hidden statistic that determines how bright things are depending on their observational skills, that's something you'd do in a third person game.
Except that then suddenly everything relies on player skill, not character skill. Thats why some people dislike FPS games. They don't have the reflexes to rely on player skills, but prefer instead a game where they can tell their character what to do, and he'll do it according to *his* skills. Thats how Morrowind works.
And furthermore, this would make your starting character just as powerful as an endgame one. Where's the sense of progression then? How do you create a storyline around a person who doesn't evolve?
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that way it actually represents the players skills in first person. no arbitrary statistic to tell the player how good they are at something.
Yeah, but is that always a good thing? Is realism always good? How far should you take it? Should we just accept that older people can never become good at your games, because they don't have the reflexes? Should we just accept that children can never play a mage character, because they might not have the required wisdom in real life?
People tend to play RPG's because they want a game that's all about a character with a set of character skills, rather than your real life strength, reflexes, patience or anything else.
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and may i just point out, 'percentage bars' are no better than numbers- i don't think you're looking deep enough into the issue if you think you can solve it using bars instead of numbers :)
True. But neither are you. ;)
If you look deep enough into the issue, you'll see that it can't be solved just by removing the information from the game either, or simply by removing character skills. It's a complex issue, and it depends 100% on what you're trying to achieve with your game. Sure, if you want it to be all about the player's skills, then go ahead and remove all stats from the game. But then you also kill replayability, because all your characters will have identical skills (since they just rely on your own skills. An example would be Half-Life. You can't make a "different character" there, and try to solve the game in another way. Compare this to Fallout, which I've finished countless times with radically different characters, and had great fun with every time). Balancing goes out the window too, because you have no way to tailor the game to the players skills, because when you make the game, you don't *know* the players skills. So a crappy player will get slaughtered by the first monster you throw at him, while an experienced player will mow through the entire game, and will get bored to tears with the early part which offers no challenge whatsoever.
