[MUD-Dev] Neverwinter Nights

[John Buehler]

Adam Martin writes:
> From: "Eli Stevens" <listsub at wickedgrey.com>

>> So, I like 3rd person.  It doesn't try and represent something it
>> cannot (full vision), and instead just gives me a picture of what
>> is going on...

> And in games where you might get snuck up on, it lets you see
> behind you :) (...recalls memories of "creative use" of 3rd person
> perspective to get an advantage over 1st-person opponents during
> Quake games).

> Personally, though, from a design point of view, I think it gives
> you one key sensory input that 1P doesn't: it lets you see what
> your character is doing. You can do impressive magic effects, or
> an impressive flurry of moves with your lightsaber, and actually
> SEE the effect yourself, rather than get blinded by lots of
> coloured lights going off just in front of your vision, or just
> watch the background blur as your character spins in a circle.

And as for seeing things that you shouldn't be able to see, that's
just a matter of applying some rendering code.  Figure out what the
character perceptions should be delivering to the character - and
thus, to the player - and render as appropriate.  Draw the area
beyond the character's peripheral vision in grey and put in grey
lumps to indicate sound-generating objects.  In the peripheral
vision, use lower level of detail objects and/or leave out color
information.

You can go whipping around with the pannable 3rd person view all you
want, but there's no more information available than in 1st person.
Imagine a graphics chip that supported this.  Instead of rendering
into the 2D space of the screen, render the visible polygon
fragments to their 3D locations and then project that whole model
into the 2D space of the screen using a different projection.  You
literally cannot see anything that the 1st person display wouldn't
let you see.  Of course, you'd get a pretty good sense of exact
distances to everything.

> For a demo, fire up Unreal Tournament, download one of the OTT
> patches (which have ridiculously overpowered weapons), make your
> character model the War Cow, and then switch to the "spinning
> chainsaw samurai sword" attack, and see what difference it makes
> in 1P and 3P!!!

> (or try any of the more unusual character models, like the massive
> alien, and notice that in 1P you forget what you look like after
> 30 seconds, whereas in 3P you're constantly reminded of your own
> huge presence on screen)

I used to be a 1st person purist devotee, then realized that one
thing that is is most interesting to the player is seeing his own
character - as you're stating.  I believe that there is tremendous
entertainment potential in showing the player character all the
time, and making that character extremely detailed.  Games then can
make even more money off of character customization.

The ability to cram other perceptions into the visual realm as I
describe above is another big win for 3rd person displays.

JB

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