[MUD-Dev] Re: Neverwinter Nights

[Sean Kelly]

From: "Lee Sheldon" <linearno at gte.net>

> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On
> Behalf Of Trent Oster

>> Greater tactical perception of the combat, facilitates more
>> strategic play More party oriented view, you lose the other party
>> members a lot less than a first person view.

> I never found this to be a problem in EQ even during 40+ player
> battles.  Not knowing where everybody was tending to heighten the
> emtions for me: fear during the battle, sadness when I saw who had
> fallen at its end.  But if you want players to be more immersed in
> the tactics than human beings, then it's a perfectly reasonable
> choice.

I disagree (which shouldn't be surprising as POV is completely a
matter of preference).  Being both long time roleplayer and FPS
gamer, I much prefer a third-person view in role-playing games.
Unfortunately, interfaces are the biggest obstruction we have right
now to person-person interaction via computers.  The FPS model is
weak and even with the FOV dialed out to 110 degrees (any further
and things start to warp) it is still much like looking through a
cardboard tube.  In RL I can see a full 180 degree spherical section
when looking straight ahead and even more importantly can pick up on
a multitude of other clues (sound, air movement, etc) to discern
things about my environment.  In games where I have to do more than
sight along the length of a gun (with an exception made for certain
games like Thief), I find the FP perspective far too limiting.  In
roleplaying games, I often feel like I'm "taking a ride" in someone
else's head.  Improving sound propogation (as in Thief) and working
on other clues would make the FP perspective far more viable, but
currently IMO nothing can replace a close third-person view for
games where much interaction with or perception of the world is
required.

Still, if there are no technical reasons not to, why not offer both
perspectives?  Let the player choose.

>> The player is "playing" a character, the player is not the
>> character, as such the player will want to see the character
>> whenever possible, as such a "god" type view supports this "feel"
>> of play better.

> Having participated in my share of these conversations, and having
> sweated through similar philosophical tap dances, I understand
> where this comes from.  But meaning no disrespect, you really
> can't know that a "player will want to see the character whenever
> possible..."  And propping up that conclusion with "The player is
> playing a character, the player is not the character..." is just
> semantics.  Empathy and suspension-of-disbelief can be present in
> either case.  What is not semantics or theory, but demonstrable
> human pyschology, is that god views limit empathy as surely as
> face-to-face views increase it.

This may be true in RL but until display technology improves from
where it is now, so far as computer-based interaction is cocnerned,
I have to disagree.  If the first-person perspective is sufficiently
limiting, my frustration level at being unable to adequately
percieve what my character would percieve reverses such a statement.

Try holding a conversation with a group of people in a FP game.
Being unable to keep more than one or two of them in your view, you
have to look back and forth constantly and this takes a hand away
from the keyboard.  It makes something that is completely natural in
RL awkward and unnatural in the game.

> I gave an example of how the angles are chosen in films.  Another
> example is lighting.  What we call "key" lighting is there to
> reflect in the eyes of a character.  Most human acting occurs
> there, most human emotion reaches there first.  Most character
> animation is centered there, as Difficult as they are to render
> naturalistically.  The farther you get from the eyes with your
> camera and lighting, the farther you are from the personality of
> the NPC, or the human being behind them.  Compare EQ's expressive
> faces to AC's blank slates.  Both are static, but EQ's faces have
> character.  As humans we run with the personality we see there,
> "mapping" on far more than is really modeled.  The EQ faces make
> you feel at home in the world, and feeling at home is a step
> toward community.

I agree.  And given the depiction of Black Sun in Neil Stephenson's
"Snow Crash" he does too.  However facial expressions are
sufficiently plastic in all current games that I personally derive a
lot more indication of personality from what people say (emotes
help) than whether they hit the "make avatar smile" button.  Maybe
it's just the result of being a long time MUDder, but no graphics
can come close to replacing what text conjures in the imagination.

Still, you're right.  IMO the area that needs the most work in
computers is modeling human interaction.  And that comes back to the
problem of interfaces.

Sean

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