Immersion breakers

[DeepComet5581]

Wow. That really does make my balls ache.

Anyway. I said that mute protagonism ruins immersion. I never said that it wasn't, as you put it, "Vital". Have you ever seen the series "Freeman's Mind" by Ross Scott on YouTube? It really puts into perspective that the player can give the protagonist a personality (Even if it is Neurotic and Delusional).

 

[SonicWaffle]

There you can read in extensive detail why I say mute-protagonists are so vital in video games.

I don't really have anything against a mute protagonist except in cases like Fallout 3 or Dragon Age. I'm clearly talking - I'm even choosing the things I want to say to people - but I'm only hearing their side of the conversation. I realise it would take a lot of time and money to record all the possible dialogue options, especially in the variety of voices that a game like Dragon Age would need for its many and varied protagonists, but still. It annoys me.

 

[KorLeonis]

QTE's and glitches are bad but the worst immersion breaker for me?

Achievement unlocked
Achievement unlocked
Achievement unlocked
(or trophies for the PS3 players)

If I'm finished the story and just trying to pick up a few more gamerscore fine, no prob. But if I'm playing thru for the storyline, trying to get myself into the character, then please let me hide the achievement notice.

 

[Treblaine]

two can play at that game

No, Half-Life is single-player.

Try Counter-Strike.

Obviously never heard of Sven Coop.

Maybe I count semi-obscure modifications for years-old games as relevant to their advertised and intended fuctions, and maybe I don't.

But one thing I don't do is take quasi-antagonizing forum posts into anything resembling serious consideration, which is critical intelligence if you planned to be at this a while.

Otherwise, I'll see you when I get home from work. Have a great day! Play nice!

OK, this needs to stop. Stop it with trying to turn this around and making it personal.

You deliberately misquoted me in a bitchy move and I pointed out how it was not a good idea by doing the same to you, but you seem to just want to escalate this further with a pointless aside about how Half Life is only single player.

Bottom line: don't do that, quote people to change what they say, it's trolling as it only pisses people off and doesn't add anything to the forum. I left gametrailers.com and came here to avoid crap like that i.e. no one can say anything without someone making it personal.

Now you can quote people in full or in part and explain how what said person is wrong about, but don't even START to put words in other people's mouths merely to undermine their person.

Now if you have some GENUINE criticisms of Half Life and suggestions for improvements then I'd be glad to hear them and will relish a spirited debate. But don't do this cheap bullshit tactic of merely implying bias to counter a well argued point of view.

"Otherwise, I'll see you when I get home from work."

What the hell is that supposed to mean? No THAT is more antagonising than anything I said to you. Stop escalating.

 

[SonicWaffle]

two can play at that game

No, Half-Life is single-player.

Try Counter-Strike.

Obviously never heard of Sven Coop.

Maybe I count semi-obscure modifications for years-old games as relevant to their advertised and intended fuctions, and maybe I don't.

But one thing I don't do is take quasi-antagonizing forum posts into anything resembling serious consideration, which is critical intelligence if you planned to be at this a while.

Otherwise, I'll see you when I get home from work. Have a great day! Play nice!

OK, this needs to stop. Stop it with trying to turn this around and making it personal.

You deliberately misquoted me in a bitchy move and I pointed out how it was not a good idea by doing the same to you, but you seem to just want to escalate this further with a pointless aside about how Half Life is only single player.

Bottom line: don't do that, quote people to change what they say, it's trolling as it only pisses people off and doesn't add anything to the forum. I left gametrailers.com and came here to avoid crap like that i.e. no one can say anything without someone making it personal.

Now you can quote people in full or in part and explain how what said person is wrong about, but don't even START to put words in other people's mouths merely to undermine their person.

Now if you have some GENUINE criticisms of Half Life and suggestions for improvements then I'd be glad to hear them and will relish a spirited debate. But don't do this cheap bullshit tactic of merely implying bias to counter a well argued point of view.

"Otherwise, I'll see you when I get home from work."

What the hell is that supposed to mean? No THAT is more antagonising than anything I said to you. Stop escalating.

I assumed "I'll see you when I get home from work" meant that the poster is now at work, and unable to reply until they get home.

Or they're implying they'll sex you up a good'un, I don't know...

 

[Treblaine]

There you can read in extensive detail why I say mute-protagonists are so vital in video games.

I don't really have anything against a mute protagonist except in cases like Fallout 3 or Dragon Age. I'm clearly talking - I'm even choosing the things I want to say to people - but I'm only hearing their side of the conversation. I realise it would take a lot of time and money to record all the possible dialogue options, especially in the variety of voices that a game like Dragon Age would need for its many and varied protagonists, but still. It annoys me.

I've played both but there are good reasons beyond coding for not hearing your avatar speak.

The more things your avatar does that you don't directly control, the less "immersion" and "sameness" you feel with the character. There are SO many parts of saying a line which you can control; the pacing, the inflection, whether you are threatening, pleading or comforting.

When your avatar just starts talking, it may be beautifully written prose and with an emotive voice actor but it won't be you. The illusion that you ARE that avatar is broken, and it seems more like you are just remote-controlling them to do certain things. It creates another degree of separation between you can the game world and all the characters in it.

Just having the words as text means it is easier for you to possess the avatar.

So I can see why Bioware kept the silent protagonist in Dragon Age as the more 'hardcore' RPG, while with the more more mainstream Mass Effect where they gave the main character Shepard a voice. Though this made Shepard a harder character to "inhabit" it did make him more like a cinema or tv-drama protagonist that is easier to lead and epic intergalactic plot.

This effect is almost instantly achieved in first-person-shooters, though it can be achieved where the camera spends most of the time at a third-person perspective.

Take with link, you don't ever say much, except maybe a simple 'yes' or 'no' though the few
sounds he does make are automatic vocalisations like yelps or screams in the middle of an attack. I don't think these break immersion because they can be seen as part of an automatic response set (gotta give a war cry when you attack) or involuntary response like yelling when you burn yourself.

I may have explained this horribly, but I hope you get the gist of what I'm trying to say.

 

[Veldt Falsetto]

Quick time events. I hate them, hate them, hate them.

I'm normally VERY forgiving of immersion breakers as long as they're in the run of gameplay, but when a gameplay mechanic makes itself obvious and says "HEY! Guess what? You're playing a video game!", that's where the line is crossed.

Exactly. I've been playing Dante's Inferno, and oh my god it pisses me off sometimes with the I AM A GIANT QUICK TIME EVENT. PRESS ME TO NOT DIE.

Hate. Hate hate hate.

Oblivion, for all it's flaws, I can forgive the immersion-breaking aspects because there are NO QUICK TIME EVENTS and so many things that DO immerse you - like the fact that you can sit in an actual library and read for hours if you want to, if you're a dork like me and find that stuff interesting.

Aw wow I do that, my current character is a scholar lol, I plan on not fighting much and running away, doing alchemy quests and travelling, earning money so I can buy a house and just fill it with books Oblivions so cool

 

[Iwata]

I know it's been said before, but QTE's.

I would love to see the cool stuff happening on the game, if I wasn't keeping an eye out for which button to press.

 

[Firia]

This may sound odd, but DEATH makes for a jarring immersion breaker. Say what you will about 2008's Prince of Persia (I loved it), but when Elika saved the Prince from death all those times, game play and flow went unhindered. I remained entranced in the game, thanks to that mechanic. When people complain you can't die, and I just mention that point of fact.

 

[Grayjack]

The biggest immersion killer to me is when first person games don't let you see your damn feet.

I don't care how immersive your story is, how amazing and atmospheric it is, its all fucking pointless if I can just look down and realise I'm just a floating camera with .

Nothing rips me out of immersion more...

I completely agree. Is it really that hard to add some legs and arms?

 

[meredithe]

Lack of visible limbs just drives me straight from the experience.
Like how in Half-Life 2, Gordon Freeman happens to possess the only car known to man that is capable of driving itself around - steering and all.

How funny, I never even noticed that he doesn't have his hands on the wheel of the cars (probably because they drive like crap and I'm busy being frustrated). The thing that always bothered me about Gordon's limbs (apart from not being able to line up jumps by seeing my feet) is that there's no animation for say petting Dog or patting Alyx on the shoulder. Why not? He's got hands to hold guns. That limit on the interaction in an otherwise excellent game is a bit immersion breaking for me.

Also, loading a shot gun whilst climbing a ladder in any FPS is hilariously video game-y.

The in-game tutorials where other characters explain stuff about how to jump and move around by referencing the controller buttons take me right out of a game. Especially if I'm playing a character that lives in this world and presumably has been getting himself around for a lifetime already. Super Paper Mario was terrible about this.

 

[Deef]

Loading screens bother the fuck out of me. I only like them when they're some kind of short cutscene, otherwise they just take any immersion I was feeling and throttle it to death.

 

[Mr.Black]

My biggest immersion killer is repeated sounds when a continued action is going on...

For instance, in Just Cause 2 (One of my favourite games of the decade by the way), I have found very few immersion breakers, but when I am on a road trip on a motorbike, when I reach top speed, the top speed noises repeat over and over and over again, and it's really noticable...

God I love that game. Another immersion breaker I found in Just Cause 2 is when you're on a building that's maybe 10metres tall, and you jump off and you start skydiving and you essentially fly the fuck away from where you were trying to go. It's not a big deal since you can grapple back, but it's just hilariously unrealistic.

 

[Mr.Black]

The worst thing, I think, is having to create my own character.

I know that sounds weird, but nothing drags me kicking and screaming out of immersion more than the Fallout 3 (or DA:O) method of "he has no personality, no character growth, no development, and no really defined motivation" makes it much more difficult to be into the game in the way I want to be.

Instead of being immersed in the game, the story, and seeing the characters as people I can care about, I'm given instead a constant reminder that this character is simply an avatar, a stand-in. And it means I can never really care about the characters.

Yes! This a thousand times. What's worse for me, is that in those types of games, i'm never satisfied with the way my character looks. If I find a picture of someone's character online that looks totally badass and mine looks like ass in comparison, I wont go running back to the game anytime soon because I know what I could have looked like. Sometimes i'll even go as far as restarting the game over, so I look cool.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Mooks in RPGs, especially the "levelled" kind. Seriously, did anybody else get seriously fed up of meeting giant scorpions every two seconds on the higher levels in Fallout 3? Sometimes I just want to explore the countryside without using up all my ammo in a useless repetitive randomized fight that I stand zero chance of losing on account of I'M CARRING A GUN THAT FIRES NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND ENOUGH CAPS TO BUY EVERY NUKE IN THE GAME PLUS A SMALL COUNTRY, goddammit!

And while we're on the subject... how come the scorpions never seem to attack the raiders except offscreen? I know that the NPCs sometimes battle (Yao Guai will attack any humans nearby), but the moment you come on the scene, everybody seems to be baying for your blood.

I think there should be a setting for the number of random battles you have to face when exploring in an RPG. So if you're the kind of person who likes going out and seeing everything there is to see in the game, which I am, you can turn this down low and just enjoy yourself; whereas if you like the fast-paced action stuff, you can switch it up a bit.

 

[loki6358]

Recently on godfather 2 Somthing that was game break worthy was I fell into a box and could not get out and it was very irratating because I had to restart the game after saving and attack the buisness again. I thought it was the most irratating ever because when I play a game I end up forgetting that I'm there. As in i am just playing a game and not controlling said guy (in this case Dominic)

 

[Noone From Nowhere]

Having to push a button in the middle of a cinematic sequence; Heavy Rain and Fahrenheit are prime examples. I either play a game or watch a movie, I don't want to do both.

And also any storyline that involves "anchent mystikal cult" heavily. Thats the reason I chucked Fahrenheit away,

A mystical cult isn't always a bad thing, if done right. Unfortunately, so many writers seem to use them as a modern version of 'a wizard did it' - bad shit happening? Not really sure why? Well, it must have been the ancient mystical cult! Those guys are such dicks, they're always doing things like this...

I find it strange that nobody ever uses an ancient mystical cult as a red herring. The hero encounters an ancient cult and, being the genre savvy fellow he is, immediately sets out to bring down their evil mystical conspiracy! Except it turns out that the ancien mystical cult mostly do charity work these days, and the real Big Bad put you on their trail to distract from his own diabolical schemes. It'd work really well because nobody would see it coming; we're all so used to believing that ancient mystical cult = evil that we don't give it a second thought.

Someone did do that already. It was Dan Brown, of all people, in 'Angels and Demons'. Isn't that a surprising plot twist in and of itself?!

 

[ottenni]

Mega-snip

Little tip for selling things in Oblivion, if the vendor doesn't have enough money, buy all his wares with the excess and sell them back to him or too another shop. It was the only way to work back in Morrowind when daedric items could be worth up to 150,000 gold.

But what really got me in Oblivion was how easy all that shit is to get, ever second rate bandit is wearing full glass Armour. And that i couldn't stand. There was no challenge in getting good gear, none whatsoever.

 

[ottenni]

Mega-snip

Little tip for selling things in Oblivion, if the vendor doesn't have enough money, buy all his wares with the excess and sell them back to him or too another shop. It was the only way to work back in Morrowind when daedric items could be worth up to 150,000 gold.

But what really got me in Oblivion was how easy all that shit is to get, ever second rate bandit is wearing full glass Armour. And that i couldn't stand. There was no challenge in getting good gear, none whatsoever.

Yeah that was kind of sad. I kinda wish the modding community put more effort into it too. A lot of them are great, but it's a bit disappointing to see "ARMOR OF AWESOME" just placed in the capital's square or something. At least hide it away : ( Maybe I'm just expecting too much

Not really, it shouldn't be too hard to make a set of armour appear a percentage of times in certain containers or on certain NPC's. Thats all you have to do.

 

[silverleaf81]

You think that's bad? In Morrowind, I couldn't even sell the most expensive swords, not even for smaller prices.

Bulldongle!

Well, you need to find The Mudcrab! He is the most rich person in Morrowind (He has 10000 gold!)