It is difficult to have a conversation about something that is considered by most to be subjective. In the interests of communication, I'm curious... what is your definition of immersion?
For me, immersion is where you are focused entirely on the game. Where you can relax into the fantasy of it to some degree. If you get scared of something in the game, it actually feels like real fear in your body and mind. You might even, for an instant, go into fight or flight and have a second's panic of, "omg omg which way is the zone?!?!"
Immersion is not, in my personal view, where you genuinely believe on every level of your being that you ARE an elf, and that you ARE on Terminus and you ARE going to die if your character dies. I don't believe this is possible, anyway.
For me, I want to be engrossed. I want to be so focused on the game that the TV is an unwanted distraction that could cost me. I want to be more interested in listening to what's in my "game environment" than answering that phone call (although if my daugher isn't with me, I'd at least check it since she has diabetes and it could be an emergency--that's my caveat). I want to be so totally drawn into the world that I genuinely feel curiosity about what's around the next corner.
I like to RP and will play on an RP server given any opportunity to do so. I will even, if given the social opportunity, get "in character". However, I do NOT see that as "a good level of immersion". RP is "icing on the cake," not necessity for me to be immersed. However, certain things can jar me out of immersion in the game, such as irritating banter or music going on around me (or in voice chat). As can "how 'bout them patriots??" conversations even in text. Yes, I can, and do, ignore it, but it is a bit jarring to me.
So. What's YOUR definition of immersion?
Pretty much spot on. Immersion for me is the feeling that I am "in" the game myself. Not that I am the character, but that the environment is so engaging that I am "there". Many game systems play into this, the biggest being the environment itself, the art, the level of detail, the scale. UI plays another large part of it, and I don't just mean the buttons and windows. I also mean the way names of NPCs are presented, any icons or notifications, floating combat text. ANY icons or floaty text scrolling across my screen completely kills immersion. Messages floating by telling me my target is about to do some big move breaks me out of the world.
The foremost memory for me of immersion was when I played Dark Age of Camelot. The combat system made use of a lot of visual queues and positioning. When you tried to use an ability and you missed, instead of doing the animation associated with that ability you instead saw the normal combat swing animation. Reactional abilities that require a parry or some such to be usable existed. There was an animation that was associated with a parry, which was easily recognizable. These visual queues allow the player to keep all eyes on the combat and not have to ever look at the hotbar or UI. This type of system allows for better immersion because it feels more realistic as you are performing these actions based on the same thing that you would if you were actually fighting in real life, visual queues. This draws you into the action on the screen. So not only did it make for fun and engaging combat, but it helped up the level of immersion.
The sounds within the environments were superb. Crawling through a dungeon the sounds fit nicely with the environment. Being in some underground ruined passages, you might here slight blowing of the wind as a draft blows through or some distant moaning of the stone overhead, but there isn't much else. The silence itself combined with these subtle environmental sounds again draws you into the environment. The scene becomes more real. We can't actually feel the wind, but hearing it you can almost feel it.
Spawn placement can lend to immersion. Having a bunch of static spawns that do not move around isn't very "real". Having a bunch of spawn points where these npcs walk around an area as if they were wandering around on some daily business feels more real. DAoC did a really good job with this. Some zones had Line of Sight agro. Walking past a room full of npcs because you are outside of their agro range doesn't make sense. If they can "see" you, they could attack you. This again feels more real and brings you into the game further because you have to then play the character as you would if you were ACTUALLY there.
I guess the main point here is that, for me at least, systems that LESSEN the level of the suspension of disbelief or draw my attenion more to the screen rather than the UI increase the level of immersion.
I'm not really sure what allows immersion. It may be related to youth and ignorance.
When I was young I watched movies, read books, and played games a lot. During those times it was like I was gone and I wasn't conscious of reality.
I haven't really felt that in any modern games. I attribute it to me knowing more about the gaming industry, me being older, and my tastes not being in alignment with popular ideas of modern society. Part of this is to do with the vast amount of entertainment out there. When I grew up people watched Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Hobbit, Disney shows/cartoons. They also read a similar fantasy/sci books as there wasn't a lot available at the time. Due to the small amount fantasy entertainment most people who played agreed on what it should be and it was easy for them to get immersed. That is completely different today as we see a much broader background of people playing fantasy games and who want to see things from the large array of more modern stories they grew up with, but there is never a consensus where everyone agrees on what's immersive. There is just too large a representation of people and ideas to cover.
One thing I can breaks immersion is having cash shops. I find that it brings the real world into the game. You have to consider spending real money for various pixel art instead of getting lost in the game.
Another thing that breaks immersion is having a safe world where everything goes according to plan and everything is laid out for you to easily progress.
Having thousands of quests also ruins immersion for me. It starts to feel like a laundry list of tasks to perform instead going on an exciting adventure. This is one of the reasons I really dislike modern user interfaces, quest logs, GPS, and maps. They remove that feeling of being in another world where there aren't any modern tools to assist you and the world is a dangerous place to be. It was great to have a large world and feel helpless in terms of not knowing where to go or what to do. You had to wander around trying to figure it out for yourself. Perhaps the tavern keep has some rumors to share or one of the locals who just came back from the woods. You won't know until you talk to them. This is probably the most important thing to me and where modern games and MMOs fail a lot of the time in terms of immersion for me.
LOL, yeah, maps. I remember getting lost on the way to Freeport from Halas... "OMG, what IS that thing?!" when I saw an evil eye for the first time. Then, to make matters that much more cheery, the bugger charmed my buddy and made him chop me into bits.
Adversity... you will never forget it. :p
(Immersion is the ability to focus on the desired information while blocking unwanted information, be that noise, obscene character names, ect…)
I think the problem of immersion and the varying degrees of what breaks it, stems from peoples inability to block out distractions. Having begun my gaming hobby in a household of 6 kids and having spent time in the military, learning to tune out background noise/distractions became second nature.
Nothing breaks my immersion, if the game is fun.
When talking about RPGs (pen and paper or video) I use the word "immersion" as a place holder for "verisimilitude", which is the ability to believe the fiction. Verisimilitude sounds condescending which is why I avoid using it. Real immersion is not an issue for me I can be immersed in a text message, ipad game, or my own mind, it is a byproduct of my activates and just indicates that something is entertaining/interesting. But, for me, verisimilitude is crucial for RPGs, it is what separates them from other games and is the point of the fantasy setting.
Everquest is legendary for its ability to bring people into the fiction, with heavy lore, detailed towns, slow travel, having to eat and rest, etc. For a lot of people that is what made EQ and games like it great. Pantheon is promising a throwback to these old games. People are anticipating these immersive features and are passionate about making sure they are included.
Just to add these threads as the topic has been touched on previously.
Amris, thank you for opening this discussion. I was going to pose this same question in the "VoIP: Does it ruin immersion" discussion, but I felt it wasn't really on-topic. (It's fair to have that other conversation because it's a different philosophical discussion.)
I think part of the problem is that immersion can mean different things to different people, but none of those concepts are really wrong. I could see that happening in the other thread, but people weren't recognizing there are different sides to the same coin (or probably cube in this matter). By textbook definintion, I think Hemlock and Quintra have it right -- "immersion" is being so engrossed in something that you don't notice the passage of time. However, other people equate immersion with imagining you're really that character and anything that breaks character breaks immersion. That's a valid point, but it's not the only kind of immersion there is. Others might not go that far. They may feel transported to a different world, but as themselves and not a character.
Just like with different play styles, we've got to allow for people to enjoy their own type of immersion. At the start, it may mean we all live in harmony on the same few servers, and hopefully as time goes on and the game becomes more popular, there will be opportunities to expand servers for different tastes. Until then, we can't demand that one way wins over the other. It would be like uber guilds demanding that there should be no RPing on servers because it ruins their no-nonsense, competitive environment. Or for a casual guild demand that there be no raiding because it isn't fair that they don't have enough people to put together a raid. We've all got to accept that there are different types of players, just as there are different types of play styles.
streeg said: To me it's just about being engrossed. If my wife asks me a question and I don't hear her, the tv is on but I don't notice, or I look at the time thinking I've been playing an hour but it's been 3-4hrs. If these things are happening then I consider my experience immersive.
Finding definitions is not my strong point,can't even find the right words most of the time but this is how I see it too
Sinking into it in such a manner that you lose track of time or the things happening around you
Maybe we often talk about immersion in such a general way we can no longer distinguish which facet of the game we talk about.
When talking about immersion people could talk about many things.
Immersion - how real and authentic it feels to make player contact,and how drawn in and inclined we feel to make player contact ,what has been talked about in the user interface restriction topic and the player name reveal topic
and
Immersion -in the game environment itself.How well a game is able to pull us in.
Immersion for me is focus. We've had this conversation already. Some seem to think that immersion is phony or doesn't exist. That depends. I am not the type to rush through everything, I stay focussed or immersed to accomplish my goals. I don't stop til whatever it is I am working on is done. That means a lot of extraneous real time voices distracting me...are not required. That means when I am listening to my raid leader, I don't want someone's loud, clashy music in my ear..distracting and annoying. Immersion is created by the game makers, it is also something we do..."I am immersed in this project and don't wish to be disturbed."
@Amris "Immersion is not, in my personal view, where you genuinely believe on every level of your being that you ARE an elf, and that you ARE on Terminus and you ARE going to die if your character dies. I don't believe this is possible, anyway." - end quote
No that is more like "suspension of disbelief" and to a certain extent ..when we pvp, when we pve, when we explore, craft, raid dungeons..we are all doing that to a certain extent ...roleplaying that we are doing whatever we do ingame ..therefore immersing ourselves in our actions. Immersion is the game world as the Devs created it thereby giving gamers a compelling reason to play..immersion is also how we interact with that game world. :) Using our imaginations, grouping together planning out our adventures. Yes its all "make-believe" but it seems to be pretty popular as millions of gamers around the world do it. My end comment on this..is yes immersion exists...just by the fact that we all participate in the roleplay of being a gamer in an imaginary virtual world.
Immersion is what logically makes sense in the world that is created. For example, maps. It would make sense to have maps because of who we are in game. It usually consists of real life aspects also, but in a fantasy world. For example, physics. If physics exists in the game, it would be immersive to assume that falling some sort of distance could have a negative impact on your character, such as death. This is typically represented through health loss and in some games slow movement and health loss to represent broken appendages.
@Isaya
I know exactly what you mean. I remember one time, so, so many years ago... I was in my car, and I saw a big delivery truck, and its license plate first three letters said, "SOW". I thought to myself, "Who put a SOW on that truck? It's not like he needs it, he's already speeding!"
Fortunately, I was at a stoplight, because I immediately face-palmed myself over that one. :p
It is quite likely that this thread gets closed as soon as Kilsin finds it. There are already two threads on this topic and I would suggest that if you want to have this discussion that you move it over to one of those threads.
Amris said:For me, immersion is where you are focused entirely on the game. Where you can relax into the fantasy of it to some degree. If you get scared of something in the game, it actually feels like real fear in your body and mind. You might even, for an instant, go into fight or flight and have a second's panic of, "omg omg which way is the zone?!?!"
Immersion is not, in my personal view, where you genuinely believe on every level of your being that you ARE an elf, and that you ARE on Terminus and you ARE going to die if your character dies. I don't believe this is possible, anyway.
For me, I want to be engrossed. I want to be so focused on the game that the TV is an unwanted distraction that could cost me. I want to be more interested in listening to what's in my "game environment" than answering that phone call (although if my daugher isn't with me, I'd at least check it since she has diabetes and it could be an emergency--that's my caveat). I want to be so totally drawn into the world that I genuinely feel curiosity about what's around the next corner.
This is pretty much it for me. Part of immersion for me is also acting how I would act if I were transported into Terminus. I would not be talking all old-fashioned, I would be talking how I talk now. If I were out hunting mobs with a group of friends or camping an area, I would be talking about a lot of off-topic ideas in RL and in game. Long trips can either bond people or tear them apart. Being all serious and no fun tends to accomplish the latter. I am serious all day at work, not when I am trying to have fun.
Probably why I do not belong on a RP server.
People hate the idea of mismatched and terribly colored items. Hell, if magic would let me get away with it, I would have that rainbow colored pegasus! So, things like that do not block my immersion.
OakKnower said:Just to add these threads as the topic has been touched on previously.
As OakKnower and Ainadak have kindly pointed out, this topic has already been raised several times, a couple of the threads are still active and therefore this will need to be closed.
Please use the search function prior to creating a new thread as more often than not, you will find that someone has already raised the subject over the 3 years of development.
General Message:
Please also keep in mind that this is completely personal preference and opinion based, everyone will have a different take and answer to this question, so please respect other people's opinion or risk having your post removed/thread closed.