Poll: The Immersion Factor

[Tupolev]

I would describe Chess as immersive. You can get completely lost in the rules and possible moves in the game.

You're getting lost in rules, not atmosphere, storytelling, and other narrative mechanics... that's not immersion (at least, how the term is generally used).

You're using a simplistic definition of "immersion"; you've broken down a game into parts which in reality are extremely interconnected, and completely arbitrarily decided which of them can apply to immersion.

If you want to define how the concept of immersion is "generally" used, then limiting the idea of immersion to storytelling seems to be, according to my intuition anyway, overly limiting in scope. Immersion generally seems to refer to being in the flow of an activity, and that can apply to anything.



OT: It really depends on the game. One of the biggest reasons I prefer Halo CE over its successors is the incredibly small number of fake barriers; I find it much less destracting to wind up outside of a level than the run into a million bouncy barriers at the stupidest moments, though that's also a terrain design issue; I do admit that Halo CE had the ability to circumvent movement with stylized terrain, though given how well Outskirts works in Halo 2, I don't feel that inclined to give Bungie the benefit of the doubt.

 

[velcrokidneyz]

the reason i say the inventory, which is what sparked this topic for me, is that someone on another forum was saying how mass effect 1 had you checking inventory for the latest guns or armor adn that broke their immersion.

Oh. Huh. I can see that item management would be a distraction from game play, but I don't really see it as breaking immersion. Well, other than, in real life, there aren't item stats.

Having not played Mass Effect 1, I can't comment on how much of a distraction the item system is. The inventory system in Dragon Age never bothered me though.

I still don't see the break in immersion. I find it more of a break in immersion to not be able to look in my character's pockets. Are people using "break in immersion" as a fancy way of saying "boring"? Cause I can see people thinking that inventory management is boring (not me, but others), but I just don't see "unrealistic". Well, unless you're concerned with how many suits of armor you have stuffed in your backpack, but again, I'd rather have more room for stuff in my inventory than less.

Im not equating it with boring, and not necessarily my point of view, just saying what sparked the concept to me.

 

[velcrokidneyz]

well this argument i flawed because you can get immersed in several ways, gameplay, story, character, rules, cinematics, all of which are immersion and subjective to each person, which people in the comments can't seem to get.

I was just curious to see what other people thought and how immersed they tend to get into games. Ive heard of people even going as far as "dressing up" as their avatar and becoming them, but that isnt how most people do it, just wanted to see how immersed other gamers got. wasnt really looking to create an infallible argument.

 

[Warachia]

well this argument i flawed because you can get immersed in several ways, gameplay, story, character, rules, cinematics, all of which are immersion and subjective to each person, which people in the comments can't seem to get.

I was just curious to see what other people thought and how immersed they tend to get into games. Ive heard of people even going as far as "dressing up" as their avatar and becoming them, but that isnt how most people do it, just wanted to see how immersed other gamers got. wasnt really looking to create an infallible argument.

I'm not trying to argue either, it just seems a lot of people have very different ideas of what it means.

As for me, I usually get sucked in enough to make 2 hours feel like 5 minutes. The only exceptions are games with unusually stupid plots.