How far to take realism in games

[FleshToDust]

Realism is usually a good thing but how much is too much?

When most people think about realism I think they think of an elder scrolls game but in skyrim for example, the main city whiterun only have around 30 people in it and it only takes about a minute to go from the town entrance to the opposite end of town(castle).

Also while walking in the wild feels tedious it's usually only for 10 minutes at the most. Imagine if it was realistic...

You have walk to video game walmart which takes 30 minutes and then you have to walk another 45 minutes to sharpen your sword at the pokemart, then you have to walk 2 hours along the highway to get to your quest location.

That would be pretty boring...

So what do you guys think? How far is too far when making your game realistic?

I would rather have a realistic game that condenses the boring and tedious parts of real life.

 

[Gallia]

That depend what kind of game it is, usually a RPG Maker game or an fantasy game should not have realism in it.
Games that work with a semi-realistic setting is indeed something like Skyrim, Fallout, some zombie games etc,
A pure realistic game would be boring, like sport games, you can go out and play football if you want.

This is my personal opinion about it: "Games should be unrealistic and fun, if the game is like real life then its time to stop playing".

 

[FleshToDust]

That depend what kind of game it is, usually a RPG Maker game or an fantasy game should not have realism in it.
Games that work with a semi-realistic setting is indeed something like Skyrim, Fallout, some zombie games etc,
A pure realistic game would be boring, like sport games, you can go out and play football if you want.

This is my personal opinion about it: "Games should be unrealistic and fun, if the game is like real life then its time to stop playing".

You have to get tired of dragons and fantasy rpg's after a while. That's pretty much why the fallout series began. Also there's gran turismo that is seen in much higher regard than unrealistic games like need for speed. Also while gta doesn't have realistic driving, the experience is pretty realistic (minus the bad ai). Realism in gaming has a very big audience but if you dislike realism than that's fine too.

 

[bgillisp]

Depends on the game. I never could get into the Gran Turismo games, but loved the early Need for Speeds, before they started this rubber banding and cheating AI garbage that is common in EVERY racing game these days.

*steps off soapbox* As for RPG's, I think the best thing is to remember it is supposed to fun. If the realism gets in the way of fun, you went too far. There's a reason very few RPG's have you manage hunger and thrist anymore, as it was attempted in RPG's of the 90's and it went over horribly. Now, the trend seems to be realistic night, which is often translated as letting the player only be able to see 3 feet in front of them in an open countryside with no foliage. Look, I grew up in the open countryside, and we could see MUCH farther than that, and much better than the game wants to let us see.

 

[Gallia]

You have to get tired of dragons and fantasy rpg's after a while. That's pretty much why the fallout series began. Also there's gran turismo that is seen in much higher regard than unrealistic games like need for speed. Also while gta doesn't have realistic driving, the experience is pretty realistic (minus the bad ai). Realism in gaming has a very big audience but if you dislike realism than that's fine too.

The big audience is there because some people just like to murder people in games, it is a playground where you can do whatever you like to do.
Tired of dragons, well in a way, but there are much more things from games that are even more tiresome than dragons.

 

[Niten Ichi Ryu]

Thing is realistic is a rather broad umbrella.

Visual realism is mostly a believable environment with hillsides, mountains and stuff built as nature would. Mostly an option for open world.

Gameplay realism would be dying from one well placed sword blow, it would then depends on physics usage in the engine.

Tbh, I never considered Skyrim as realistic per se. It's pure fantasy.

For example of realism look for games like life is feudal or upcoming kingdom come Deliverance

 

[FleshToDust]

@bgillisp Yeah I hate the hunger system roguelikes have. I also think walking around a wasteland for an hour trying to find where you're suppose to go is bad(fallout new vegas). I was trying to make realistic stuff and then it dawned on me that even the elder scrolls games which are supposed to be designed in a realistic manner aren't realistic and that traveling 20 minutes to get to another shop would be really boring not to mention that's a lot of extra wasted space and how many npc's you'd have to make for that.

I had the most fun with need for speed on the ps one. after that I wasn't as into it, not sure why. Rubber banding is annoying though.
I long for a racing game without it!

@Niten Ichi Ryu man perma death is the worst thing to happen to rpg's. Imagine getting to level 30 and then dying and having to start from level one again on a new character. that sucks.

when I say the elder scrolls is realistic i mean the environment and peoples day to day behaviours. it's definitely fantasy with the dragons and trolls etcetera.

 

[Niten Ichi Ryu]

Have you played Witcher 3? Probably the most realistic environment on an open world RPG so far. Towns don't pop up out of the blue, instead landscape gradually makes way for small settlements, leading to suburbian area then leading to town itself.

 

[FleshToDust]

@Niten Ichi Ryu I saw a few videos of a lets play of it. I wasn't really fazed by it either way. It's a gory game though. I didn't watch enough to see how the towns were formed but that's an interesting way of doing it.

 

[Niten Ichi Ryu]

Goriness adds to realism. When you cut someones arm, blood will flow in streams and he might die just from the schock.

What Witcher did well and Skyrim failed is it didn't try to have too much cities. Only one large city and one town in a area bigger than Skyrim. Like actual medieval area. Skyrim pushed a little with all these holds which as you pointed had very small cities.

 

[FleshToDust]

Goriness adds to realism. When you cut someones arm, blood will flow in streams and he might die just from the schock.

@Niten Ichi Ryu I don't know I feel like they did it just to gross people out.

 

[Niten Ichi Ryu]

No. Witcher series had always been gritty dark fantasy. It's part of the ambiance.

 

[Robin Hoot]

The only thing I think is mandatory to be realistic in a game (or any other media, for that matter), is human interaction.

 

[trouble time]

Also while gta doesn't have realistic driving, the experience is pretty realistic (minus the bad ai).

GTA is like 4% realistic, it's a fantasy of being a criminal,nd I can't really comment on Gran Turismo, but Skyrim is REALLY far from being realistic. What about these games even come off as realistic to you?

 

[FleshToDust]

@trouble time it bothers me when people nitpick my words. When I say realistic I'm referring to gta having a city than can mirror a real city. there are people, businesses, traffic lights, all the things that a real city has. you play as a criminal and do criminal things. What about this is not realistic? Could you not be a criminal in real life? Is it impossible to run a red light in real life and have cops chasing you?

When I say skyrim is realistic I'm referring to the the landscapes and the people. You go to a big city and people are doing whatever it is they do. You go outside and you can walk the mountain paths. exclude the setting and you have a realistic continent with realistic cities and landscapes and can get immersed in it.

I get the feeling people do this on purpose and say "ha! you think that's realistic? they have dragons. DRAGONS!!!"
People completely miss the point and I think it's on purpose.

 

[bgillisp]

I've honestly never understood the appeal of realism in a fantasy game. It's a FANTASY. Their world could have developed in a completely different way than ours. Maybe physics work differently due to where gravity is centered. Maybe the inclusion of magic throws off some of the rules of science that we have in our world. But instead we get centered on making it exactly like our world, instead of allowing ourselves to use our imagination and do something totally different. Maybe we could make all dragons so large they have their own gravity field. Imagine what that would do to physics if that were the case. And that is just for starters.

 

[OnslaughtSupply]

Personally I think you only need the amount of realism that makes your story / setting / plot believable. If its too far fetched with out anything grounding it to make it believable, you just can't get into it and become invested. Conversely, too much realism, ie hunger mechanics, can ruin the fun and make a game tedious. Games are often used as an escape from reality, so too real = no fun but not real enough = poor immersion.

 

[FleshToDust]

@bgillisp for me it's believability(is that a word?). When I play a game and see something "odd" it could take me out of the experience but im not arguing over realism vs fantasy. My side of things is "for those who want realism in their games, how far should you take it before it ruins the experience?". In rpg's everything is always fantasy and having only one setting in every rpg does grow tedious after a while. I think fallout is the only non fantasy rpg to date and rpg's have been around for probably 40 years. Don't you think that's a bit odd? Options are always good.

there is a different audience for both and I think there needs to be options for those who may not be into the fantasy scene. If there's a willing audience I think somebody aught to make a game for them. Just like in racing games you can have a simulator like gran turismo (a distinct audience) and an arcade racer that has shortcuts and you can fly through the air and have a blast (need for speed, burnout, motorstorm).

It's all about options. Who wants a monopoly on what a game can or cannot be? I'm sure people that weren't normally into rpg's got into them because of fallout. It just provides something different and refreshing.

 

[bgillisp]

Good points. My point is though we can make our own world which follows their own rules if we wish. For example, in my world, the rich live in houses that look small on the outside, because they can afford an Air Mage to create a time-space distortion which makes the inside bigger than the outside. However, the poor cannot, so they have to have houses that are similar in size both outside and inside. I also use this to explain why you can shove 99 swords in a backpack and not run out of space.

BTW, fallout came out in 1997, if you were curious, and it is based on Wasteland, which came out in the 80's (don't know exact year, but I want to say 1988 or 1989 for some reason).

 

[FleshToDust]

@bgillisp that's a really cool idea and I haven't seen that before in a game. It would make for some really interesting mysteries in the world.

Oh a book from the 80's? nice. I'll have to read that. Sounds pretty cool.