The Ultimate RPG

[Chefodeath]

Indulge me in a thought experiment my friends. So, we're taking a nice ride to that ever distant ideal, the future, where everything has advanced to awesomeness. This includes video games. You can now plug yourself into the game, experiencing the world first hand with no medium of controller or TV screen to deal with. You are literally aiming the gun, swinging the sword, feeling the pain when an enemy hits you. But here's the ultimate question.


We have developed a technology that will temporarily suppress your memories and allow you to experience a game as if it were not just virtual reality. You believe that you really are the hero on your own adventure. Its the ultimate immersive experience, you actually feel you lived the story.

So would you do it? Is a game fun anymore when its not a game, but 'real'? What if you came out of the gaming experience and found yourself identifying more to that other persona than to the actual one?

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

I don't think I'd like that... I want to be able to plug myself into a game and experience it as if it were real, but with the knowledge that it isn't and I can stop at any time.

 

[Chefodeath]

I don't think I'd like that... I want to be able to plug myself into a game and experience it as if it were real, but with the knowledge that it isn't and I can stop at any time.

Ah, but that knowledge in and of itself breaks that perfect immersion some doesn't it?


Would be interesting if the character that would be you had a reset button, and they knew it would "destroy the world" if they pressed it, but was told that they would have to eventually press it at the end of their quest.

 

[Jim Grim]

BACK TO REALITY!
Ahem. Depends how long the game was really. I wouldn't mind taking, say a week long break, but I wouldn't give up years of my life.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

Ah, but that knowledge in and of itself breaks that perfect immersion some doesn't it?


Would be interesting if the character that would be you had a reset button, and they knew it would "destroy the world" if they pressed it, but was told that they would have to eventually press it at the end of their quest.

It does I suppose, but if I truly believed that this RPG world was real and I was expected to embark on an epic quest where I would be finding all kind of mean beasties... I think I'd end up barricading myself in a cave, rocking backwards and forwards waiting for it all to go away.

Though if I wasn't generally a coward then it could be awesome.

 

[JoshGod]

Depends on the game, if it was say kotor then yes.

 

[Sonicron]

I don't think I'd like that... I want to be able to plug myself into a game and experience it as if it were real, but with the knowledge that it isn't and I can stop at any time.

I agree. The moment the game actually becomes real (your brain defines what is real) is the moment it ceases being a game and hence stops being fun. Being aware that I'm playing a Space Marine and ripping apart an ork horde with my chainsword would be awesome, but removing my anchor to reality would make the experience... frightening. To say the least.

 

[Chefodeath]

Depends on the game, if it was say kotor then yes.

You're not really a average solider/jedi, you're DARTH REVAN

GASP

DUH DUH DUH, EPIC TWIST

But wait, you're not really Darth Revan, you're some COMPUTER NERD

GASP

DUH DUH DUH, kind of a let-down actually...

 

[Jark212]

I wouldn't do it, theres always the chance that my experience will go Total Recall on me...

And if I'm playing a game I sure as hell don't want to feel any pain, and your average person may come out of their FPS of choice with some minor PTSD...

 

[BonsaiK]

Indulge me in a thought experiment my friends. So, we're taking a nice ride to that ever distant ideal, the future, where everything has advanced to awesomeness. This includes video games. You can now plug yourself into the game, experiencing the world first hand with no medium of controller or TV screen to deal with. You are literally aiming the gun, swinging the sword, feeling the pain when an enemy hits you. But here's the ultimate question.


We have developed a technology that will temporarily suppress your memories and allow you to experience a game as if it were not just virtual reality. You believe that you really are the hero on your own adventure. Its the ultimate immersive experience, you actually feel you lived the story.

So would you do it? Is a game fun anymore when its not a game, but 'real'? What if you came out of the gaming experience and found yourself identifying more to that other persona than to the actual one?

It'd be horrible. Imagine how shattered you'd be when you woke up.


And if technology existed like that, fuck using it to make traditional "saving the world yet again zzz" type computer games where you're placed in a lot of danger. The reason why danger and the threat of imminent death seems so exciting in games is precisely because it does not seem real. If you could really feel pain in the game, that destroys the main selling point of games in the first place - you might as well just join the army. I predict the total absence of war and FPS games in such a format, and the next Playboy mansion game would instead be the #1 seller. The thing wouldn't replace gaming, it'd replace prostitution. Very rich people would probably pay to go into the game permanently while their real bodies permanently atrophy. It's be just like The Matrix, but instead of an AI doing it to us, we'd be doing it to ourselves, willingly.

 

[RamirezDoEverything]

That might be bad, seeing different personalities when you wake up/snap out of it?

I see a manchurian candidate incoming

 

[Chefodeath]

Indulge me in a thought experiment my friends. So, we're taking a nice ride to that ever distant ideal, the future, where everything has advanced to awesomeness. This includes video games. You can now plug yourself into the game, experiencing the world first hand with no medium of controller or TV screen to deal with. You are literally aiming the gun, swinging the sword, feeling the pain when an enemy hits you. But here's the ultimate question.


We have developed a technology that will temporarily suppress your memories and allow you to experience a game as if it were not just virtual reality. You believe that you really are the hero on your own adventure. Its the ultimate immersive experience, you actually feel you lived the story.

So would you do it? Is a game fun anymore when its not a game, but 'real'? What if you came out of the gaming experience and found yourself identifying more to that other persona than to the actual one?

It'd be horrible. Imagine how shattered you'd be when you woke up.


And if technology existed like that, fuck using it to make traditional "saving the world yet again zzz" type computer games where you're placed in a lot of danger. The reason why danger and the threat of imminent death seems so exciting in games is precisely because it does not seem real. If you could really feel pain in the game, that destroys the main selling point of games in the first place - you might as well just join the army. I predict the total absence of war and FPS games in such a format, and the next Playboy mansion game would instead be the #1 seller. The thing wouldn't replace gaming, it'd replace prostitution. Very rich people would probably pay to go into the game permanently while their real bodies permanently atrophy. It's be just like The Matrix, but instead of an AI doing it to us, we'd be doing it to ourselves, willingly.

The army involves months of getting barked at by a drill sergeant, going to Iraq to get a bullet in the ass, and then being sent home. That's not the same as the action in an FPS. I think there would be a crowd that would play with pain on just for the thrill. I doubt people would want to play an FPS without memories simply because the real threat of death would probably shoot their nerves and give them a real life heart attack, but still.

As for people retreating into a virtual reality playboy mansion, i think you'd be suprised. Humans have a certain obsession with reality, just ask Rene Descartes. I don't think that that many people would choose to live their entire lives in a video game.

 

[BonsaiK]

Indulge me in a thought experiment my friends. So, we're taking a nice ride to that ever distant ideal, the future, where everything has advanced to awesomeness. This includes video games. You can now plug yourself into the game, experiencing the world first hand with no medium of controller or TV screen to deal with. You are literally aiming the gun, swinging the sword, feeling the pain when an enemy hits you. But here's the ultimate question.


We have developed a technology that will temporarily suppress your memories and allow you to experience a game as if it were not just virtual reality. You believe that you really are the hero on your own adventure. Its the ultimate immersive experience, you actually feel you lived the story.

So would you do it? Is a game fun anymore when its not a game, but 'real'? What if you came out of the gaming experience and found yourself identifying more to that other persona than to the actual one?

It'd be horrible. Imagine how shattered you'd be when you woke up.


And if technology existed like that, fuck using it to make traditional "saving the world yet again zzz" type computer games where you're placed in a lot of danger. The reason why danger and the threat of imminent death seems so exciting in games is precisely because it does not seem real. If you could really feel pain in the game, that destroys the main selling point of games in the first place - you might as well just join the army. I predict the total absence of war and FPS games in such a format, and the next Playboy mansion game would instead be the #1 seller. The thing wouldn't replace gaming, it'd replace prostitution. Very rich people would probably pay to go into the game permanently while their real bodies permanently atrophy. It's be just like The Matrix, but instead of an AI doing it to us, we'd be doing it to ourselves, willingly.

The army involves months of getting barked at by a drill sergeant, going to Iraq to get a bullet in the ass, and then being sent home. That's not the same as the action in an FPS. I think there would be a crowd that would play with pain on just for the thrill. I doubt people would want to play an FPS without memories simply because the real threat of death would probably shoot their nerves and give them a real life heart attack, but still.

As for people retreating into a virtual reality playboy mansion, i think you'd be suprised. Humans have a certain obsession with reality, just ask Rene Descartes. I don't think that that many people would choose to live their entire lives in a video game.

But if you're talking about suppressing memory, that would include suppressing the memory of beginning the game in the first place. So while you were in the game, you wouldn't actually know that you were in the game. Which is the whole premise of your question, right? Therefore, if the game was giving you positive experiences, why would you end it? The only way you could end such a game is to forcibly boot someone out. We're getting into Lacanian territory here - people accept reality as it's handed to them. If you suppress an old reality and hand someone a new reality, they will perceive that new reality as "the real" reality - because why wouldn't they? It seems real enough, and without any outside information accessible telling them that it isn't, then as far as they're concerned it IS reality (remember that things like flaws in the graphics delivered in a new reality where your brain can't access the old reality, would still seem real - you would need access to memory of past experience with graphics systems vs real life to identify such things as flaws). Even if you had a prompt somehow to the player that said "this is not real", the player probably wouldn't believe it - just like when we are walking through the city and see a hobo with a sign saying "this is not real" we think he's gone insane and we keep walking. But who knows, the hobo might be right, maybe he's actually a "game prompt" and when we die we may all wake up in a room together with VR headsets and gloves on. Just for the record, if you're reading, game-makers, I want a discount due to my goggles, I think they're a bit broken, I've never been able to see red properly.

If on the other hand you don't suppress memory, then people will happily exit the game, even if just to generate more income so they can afford to plug themselves back in again.

 

[The Salty Vulcan]

I think people are focusing too much on the prospect of disappointment after they stop playing, but what if you could no longer tell the difference between fantasy and reality?

What if you ended up like Arhnuld in Total Recall?

 

[WanderingFool]

Indulge me in a thought experiment my friends. So, we're taking a nice ride to that ever distant ideal, the future, where everything has advanced to awesomeness. This includes video games. You can now plug yourself into the game, experiencing the world first hand with no medium of controller or TV screen to deal with. You are literally aiming the gun, swinging the sword, feeling the pain when an enemy hits you. But here's the ultimate question.


We have developed a technology that will temporarily suppress your memories and allow you to experience a game as if it were not just virtual reality. You believe that you really are the hero on your own adventure. Its the ultimate immersive experience, you actually feel you lived the story.

So would you do it? Is a game fun anymore when its not a game, but 'real'? What if you came out of the gaming experience and found yourself identifying more to that other persona than to the actual one?

The bolded part worries me, the red part freaks me out (see Matrix).