Poll: What Increases Immersion For You The Most?

[RagTagBand]

Well gameplay is the least immersive thing as "Immersion" can occur in media with zero gameplay whatsoever. Hell even OP, who lists gameplay at the top points out how immersed he was in a game with HORRIBLE GAMEPLAY *facepalm*

Frankly I think people have mistaken this for another pretentious "Graphics vs gameplay" thread where you have to click gameplay or you're not allowed in the clubhouse.

Skyrim has terrible controls, but is immersive.

Mario has near perfect controls and is not immersive.

For me, the most immersive thing is the one thing that's going to actually put me in the world - What I *see*.

What I hear is important too but with Humans, sight takes priority (Demonstrably, by the way, i'm not just pulling that out my ass).

For immersion to happen you must immerse your senses, not appease your analytical "What makes good gameplay" parts of your brain.

 

[sethisjimmy]

Most people chose gameplay? Really? Gameplay to me is the core fun of the game, immersion is created through use of the other elements, most particularly setting and atmosphere.

 

[Jolly Co-operator]

The ability to define my character, and any sort of realism that DOESN'T detract from gameplay. All I can think of at the moment, I've never really given this subject much thought.

 

[Poopster]

The Atmosphere..
I believe STALKER got it right

 

[malestrithe]

Well made characters. If I can't give two shits about some character, preferably the one I'm playing, I can't play the game to its end. This is why I can't get into Western RPGs. They do not provide me a reason to keep playing.

Most western rpgs have you create your own character, so the choices you make in the story are YOUR choices. Do you oppose all games were you create your own character? Sometimes I like playing myself instead of remote controlling some poorly dressed 1 dimensional protagonist (like most jrpgs). It works both ways.

I like how people assume I mean only JRPGs when I make this argument. I mean any game of any genre. Give me a character that I can feel something for, good or bad, and I can keep playing. I hate Nathan Drake with a purple passion, but I finished Uncharted 1, 2, and 3. Max Payne is not my favorite person in the world, but I played all three. I like Cole McGrath, so I played his games to conclusion. I felt nothing for Alex Mercer, Nico Bellic, Altair, Ezio, War in Darkstalkers, and the protagonist in Wet, so I stopped playing their games.

Now to take both criticisms:

1. When you take that approach to creating characters, your character does not belong in that universe. You are talked about in general terms or by a title. You are Dragonborn, Vault Dweller, Courier 6, etc. You are never Elijah21786, NrG23, or Mr Buttons because you can't be. Everything has to be written in a general manner and no matter what you do, you are not really involved in the world you are in. Exceptions exist. They always do. Pointing them out will not change my general criticism of Western RPGs.

2. Even a one dimensional character still belongs in the world they are living in. They can only annoy you if something is there to begin with. Sure its their actions controlling thing, but at least their impact is acknowledged by the NPCs. A wooden mannequin, like you play n Western RPGs, still does not belong in its universe.

No, it does not work both ways. I simply don't like choose your own adventure. If that's your thing, fine. It's not mine.

 

[Woodsey]

I think it's best described by examining what does break my immersion:

- PRESS F TO LOOK BECAUSE WE CAN'T DO LEVEL DESIGN PROPERLY, LOOK LOOK LOOK! F F F! LOOK LOOK LOOK!

- "Pff, mice are exactly like analogue sticks, no one'll care if they have to wrestle with the damn thing just to look around"

- MY NAME IS BOLO-SAN-TOES-EEE (otherwise known as bad voice-acting)

- "Yeah, we'll script all of this because it's easier than giving the player any agency"

- Motion controls

Probably more. Basically any mainstream game these days manages to makes about 50 mistakes because they're lazy and/or don't trust their players to play a game, so they make them watch shit instead.

 

[The_Lost_King]

Gameplay: So I have been playing a lot of KotOR recently and I love the gameplay. At a certain level you get the perfect mash of abilities that lets you destroy you enemies and at this point I feel perfect immersion because I am an all powerful jedi and I can command the ultimate power in the universe so my enemies should die easily. Any game that makes it so that I can get this perfect mash up of abilities is a great game in my book.

 

[Nexxis]

I like it when the NPCs address you, the player. Not necessarily 4th wall breaking stuff. I play a lot of games where I can make my own character, so I like it when my character is addressed or when a major event happens and my character is thanked in a cut scene (not just a letter or something that you get later). It makes me feel like I'm part of the story and that my hard work actually means something in the game.

 

[Patathatapon]

Well gameplay is the least immersive thing as "Immersion" can occur in media with zero gameplay whatsoever. Hell even OP, who lists gameplay at the top points out how immersed he was in a game with HORRIBLE GAMEPLAY *facepalm*

Well the gameplay doesnt NEED to be smooth to be immersive. Heavy Rain didn't have great controls, but it still got me into it. In a game like Amy for me, it was fitting for the controls to suck dicks. Also I have mentioned that Amy is the only survival horror game I've ever played.

EDIT: The bad controls helped in keeping me afraid.

 

[Patathatapon]

Screwed this up -_-

 

[3asytarg3t]

Games are infantile at telling stories or developing characters, so any game that attempts this is pretty much by definition bad. Silent pictures from the turn of the last century do a better job than any game yet made at telling a story or character development. So far games are so bad at it, they should really just stop trying, if you pulled out from playing games just a bit and compare the art form to literature or cinema, games are just comically underdeveloped, so far.

The solution is to play games for what they bring as strengths, which it just so happens also coincides with immersion: namely agency and emergent game play.

Both pull the player in and prevent wall breaking. When I step into the shoes as the head of a clan in Shogun 2, I'm given the opportunity to battle my way to becoming Shogunate on my own terms. And TF2 is an example of a game that tells no story at all but the one your fellow players lay out each night in the match. The stories you make are in game, so the immersion is built in.

 

[Adam Galli]

For me its the characters. For instance in the Brothers in Arms series you fight with one squad (per game). Each character has a personality and I found myself getting attached to the men. When they laughed, I laughed and when they died I was saddened. CoD MW on the other hand has so many characters coming and going when someone dies its no big deal. I liked the idea of fighting with one squad. Even though WWII was huge I found myself sucked into my little squad in our small part of the war.

 

[bro1667]

i think story is what gets me good and deep in a game. Either a crafted story ala. Mass effect. Or a story i create myself, Shogun 2 as a recent example. It's just really how you go into a game

 

[BernardoOne]

Atmosphere and sound/music.

 

[TheCommanders]

I think it completely depends on the type of game. I can still get immersed in Mass Effect 1, despite clunky gameplay (but I do like the gameplay of the new ones much better). Soundtrack is almost universally important to me, particularly in the horror genre, but a good heroic soundtrack can be inspiring as well. Just emulating background noise to make the environment more realistic can help lot. I will say that for me, but apparently not for the elite beings of higher consciousness who *apparently* inhabit the escapist, games with outdated graphics can really ruin the immersion for me. I still like Dragon Age: Origins, but it kicks me out of the experience every time I see a terrible hairstyle sticking straight out of a person's head like wood. Say what you will about DA2, it sure looked a lot better than Origins (especially with the HD texture pack installed).

 

[Varil]

Drawing me in. No really, it's not any individual feature, but often multiple forces all acting to make me care about what's going on. Doesn't matter what. A good plot helps, an awesome opening cutscene, straight-up awesome gameplay...these sorts of things. Give me a reason to think "What happens next?" and before long I'll be thinking from my character's perspective, fully dragged into the game.

 

[evilneko]

Combination of aesthetic, soundtrack (effects mostly, I almost always turn music off), and other things.

The thing that sticks out in my mind when I think of immersion is the presence of little details like this farm in Fallout 3. [http://www.falloutwiki.com/Hilltop_Farm_ruins] When I first came upon it, I found the terminal there and sat there reading the terminal entries, describing the lives of a group of survivors making a go at it there.

That little snippet of story, and others like it, made the world seem very real to me.

 

[Boggelz]

I put other just because it's hard to nail down what can draw me into a game. Like I can get really sucked in as long as the game world appeals to me. Like *ahem* bastion. The narration, the story, the visual, music. All of it is just candy to the senses. I don't even play the game because i think the gameplay is fun (which in honesty its not amazing, but gets by) but the whole thing coming together just does it.

I bought the humble bundle V and played through limbo, and while it was fun, i just couldn't get wrapped up in the world. But I'm currently playing Sword & Sworcery and it also seems to be just candy to the senses.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

Writing. Good writing with strong inter-character dialog. Doesn't always have to be "my choice" dialog either, sometimes just reading characters (or listening to them) talk amongst themselves reveals who they are and what they are about and for me the people who populate the world make it the most immersive and connected to my ability to find my place in it.

 

[lacktheknack]

A complete lack of fourth wall.

Uplink has no fourth wall (except the time warp function). It's really panicky and gripping because of it.

DEFCON has alarmingly little fourth wall, complete with a weeping woman that you'd expect to have in your underground bunker as you nuke the world, making the game depressing and draining to play.

The Experiment, while very flawed, completely freaked me right the hell out at first, because Lea KNOWS you're there, she KNOWS you're sitting in a chair in front of a computer somewhere, and she doesn't know whether or not to trust you. It's bizarre and surreal to have the player character (kinda) constantly reference the fact that she's trusting you to guide her through the game and she doesn't like it. In fact, this is probably the ONLY reason I really liked it. It didn't have too much else going for it.