Which is more immersive? (i.e. better) Quick answer: regular. Try to figure out why. Again, it's a tough question, and I won't be answering it for a long while, but here's something for you to think about until then.
Note that by "sandbox" I mean Sim City, Minecraft and the like. GTAIII is not sandbox.
Theory
Sandbox vs. Regular game design
Moderator: JC Denton
Sandbox vs. Regular game design
by icycalm » 14 Feb 2011 23:54
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by SquarePeg » 15 Feb 2011 01:14
Is the answer basically the same as the one you gave in the thread about Spelunky on regular level design versus randomly generated levels? Sandbox games have a lot of procedurally generated content that is unlikely to be as good as designed content. For example, sometimes when you spawn in Minecraft you will be surrounded by coal and trees so the initial rush of excitement to survive the first night is gone. The ideal starting conditions for excitement are probably pretty limited, and it would be better had a developer thought about where he was putting each block and created a library of regularly designed maps.
You gave Sim City as an example of a sandbox game, so a good game to compare the merits of regular and sandbox games would be a game like Pharaoh. They're both games where you build a city, but in Pharaoh there's a campaign you can play through where you have specific objectives. I can vaguely remember one level of Pharaoh where to get the resources I needed to build a monument to complete the level, I needed to make some soldiers to clear out a group of hippos or crocodiles but to raise an army I needed bronze and there was no copper on my map so I had to trade with another city on the Nile who wanted me to produce paper (?) which meant I had to grow papyrus and build a specific kind of workshop. All of that forced me to explore at least a few aspects of the game and while this is something that could happen in procedurally generated level of Sim City it is unlikely.
[Added after JoshF's post:]
The lack of specifically designed interactions between objectives and restrictions means that the interactions are probably going to be less complicated.
You gave Sim City as an example of a sandbox game, so a good game to compare the merits of regular and sandbox games would be a game like Pharaoh. They're both games where you build a city, but in Pharaoh there's a campaign you can play through where you have specific objectives. I can vaguely remember one level of Pharaoh where to get the resources I needed to build a monument to complete the level, I needed to make some soldiers to clear out a group of hippos or crocodiles but to raise an army I needed bronze and there was no copper on my map so I had to trade with another city on the Nile who wanted me to produce paper (?) which meant I had to grow papyrus and build a specific kind of workshop. All of that forced me to explore at least a few aspects of the game and while this is something that could happen in procedurally generated level of Sim City it is unlikely.
[Added after JoshF's post:]
The lack of specifically designed interactions between objectives and restrictions means that the interactions are probably going to be less complicated.
Last edited by SquarePeg on 15 Feb 2011 02:02, edited 3 times in total.
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by JoshF » 15 Feb 2011 01:46
Immersion means to be enveloped. In the context of games it means to be enveloped in scenarios which make up a world. With "regular" games all the scenarios are already designed and ready for you to step in (i.e. to immerse yourself.) With sandbox games you have to be a creator of the scenarios on some level, during which time you're more of a god floating above a world than an inhabitant (i.e. not immersed.)
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by Worm » 15 Feb 2011 02:26
By their nature, sandbox games have barely any pacing or reward structure. Most of the tools and abilities are handed to you at the start, and you can often freely select any of the pre-made scenarios or simply generate a new one outright. So, right away you've lost some major incentives that would otherwise keep the player focused on the game, doing all he can to make progress and see new, exciting things.
This aspect of sandbox games--the goalless "make your own fun" mode--strikes me as a sort of inverse counterpart to grinding. Instead of leveling up his characters to overcome a challenge, the player is expected to build up the challenge itself until he concocts something appropriately engaging for his current skill level. In both cases, the game is "balanced" for everyone.
A game like that is definitely going to be less immersive than one that offers a tough, well-designed challenge. I mean, how could a game that puts a high demand on your intelligence, creativity, or reflexes not be more immersive--more engaging--than one where you're just messing around with whatever project strikes your fancy at the moment? The former demands your attention; you practically have no choice but to be immersed if you want to make any progress.
JoshF wrote:With sandbox games you have to be a creator of the scenarios on some level
This aspect of sandbox games--the goalless "make your own fun" mode--strikes me as a sort of inverse counterpart to grinding. Instead of leveling up his characters to overcome a challenge, the player is expected to build up the challenge itself until he concocts something appropriately engaging for his current skill level. In both cases, the game is "balanced" for everyone.
A game like that is definitely going to be less immersive than one that offers a tough, well-designed challenge. I mean, how could a game that puts a high demand on your intelligence, creativity, or reflexes not be more immersive--more engaging--than one where you're just messing around with whatever project strikes your fancy at the moment? The former demands your attention; you practically have no choice but to be immersed if you want to make any progress.
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by icycalm » 15 Feb 2011 05:55
Great answers. The issue has many facets and it will take me several pages to explore all of them once I get around to writing the relevant essay, but you have certainly touched on some of them in your posts.
And now here's a further question to add that final touch of chaos to the issue. If I am correct in my assertion that regular-style games are more immersive than sandbox-type ones, how can we then explain that the greatest game ever, the universe, is nevertheless a sandbox-type game?
Anyone who can answer this -- who can get anywhere NEAR the answer -- is a master thinker, certified. Not a genius like me, because I not only answered the question, but ALSO CAME UP WITH IT, but a master thinker all the same.
And now here's a further question to add that final touch of chaos to the issue. If I am correct in my assertion that regular-style games are more immersive than sandbox-type ones, how can we then explain that the greatest game ever, the universe, is nevertheless a sandbox-type game?
Anyone who can answer this -- who can get anywhere NEAR the answer -- is a master thinker, certified. Not a genius like me, because I not only answered the question, but ALSO CAME UP WITH IT, but a master thinker all the same.
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icycalm - Hyperborean
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by duckman » 15 Feb 2011 06:40
The universe is the most immersive game ever because everything that exists is in the universe. It's simply impossible to not be immersed in the universe because the universe contains everything, so anything that exists is by default immersed in the universe.
[Banned for not even bothering to read the question. --icy]
[Banned for not even bothering to read the question. --icy]
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by Masahiro9891 » 15 Feb 2011 07:09
I think we need to take this a step farther. Regular game design is far more immersive as others have shown already, but these regular game designs are a subset of sandbox games. What I mean is in a sandbox game you, the player, create the challenges with all the tools given, but the immersion from this interaction of the rules creates scenarios for the player to overcome. This includes everything from the challenges, the look of areas, and the music which simulates feelings. The key here is that with any Joe nobody making the scenarios will on average be shitty, and will not create a great sense of immersion for someone else playing it. What's needed is a master designer to piece the scenario together using his understanding of the genre. This is also one of the reasons that combining genres without the superior knowledge of what makes both these genre great will lead to a shitty game, since some rules may end of canceling each other out and limiting the complexity that a single genre was able to increase. If the player would want to make scenarios that would immerse other players, he would have to have at his disposal everything, not just the small or large amount of option that the sandbox game can give. He would have to create the game like every designer that has ever made games before him has done, through the use of programming. This is the ultimate sandbox video game.
So a master designer is needed to create the scenarios in order to immerse the player. Then for the world to be the most complex game, with all other games being subsets, the world itself must have an ultimate designer; that designer is itself, i.e. the culmination of the interaction of all the subsequent parts that make up the world. Since there is nothing outside the world, or else it would interact with the world and be in the world, the world must design itself. The way it does this is shown by Nietzsche, quantum mechanics, and in great detail in William Plank’s book, The Quantum Nietzsche where Plank uses the example of the glass bead games to show how chance shapes the flux. Every particle (substance, whatever you want to call it) acts to its will to power. It is these interactions and everything vying for domination that gives rise to complex individuals, whether they are molecules, humans, animals, galaxies, etc. This interaction is what creates the scenarios. These entities in trying to overtake everything else through evolution will over time, through probability, allow the greatest level of complexity to occur by shaping everything into scenarios for other entities to try and overtake. So, as an entity gains power the rest of the world is affected immediately and counter-attacks trying to overcome this threat. All of this is happening at one time with everything else in the world playing this game of domination. The reason that differentiation occurs is to dominate others and prevent them from being dominated in return. Everything else in the world is a subset and, therefore, mini-game of the world. Since we can only define things in terms of the world, all video games, which seek to simulate the world, are analyzed by their ability to simulate the world as closely as possible. The immersion of a game is determined by how well it simulates the events in the world. This includes things that we may not even be able to create yet, like giant walking mechs. The immersion then is determined by how well we believe the video game comes to simulating the mechanics of using a mech, if the mech could be built. What I mean by this is the designer must take reality into account and estimate how these machines would behave if they existed, they must then model the mech using our understanding of science and from these extrapolations create the video game.
So a master designer is needed to create the scenarios in order to immerse the player. Then for the world to be the most complex game, with all other games being subsets, the world itself must have an ultimate designer; that designer is itself, i.e. the culmination of the interaction of all the subsequent parts that make up the world. Since there is nothing outside the world, or else it would interact with the world and be in the world, the world must design itself. The way it does this is shown by Nietzsche, quantum mechanics, and in great detail in William Plank’s book, The Quantum Nietzsche where Plank uses the example of the glass bead games to show how chance shapes the flux. Every particle (substance, whatever you want to call it) acts to its will to power. It is these interactions and everything vying for domination that gives rise to complex individuals, whether they are molecules, humans, animals, galaxies, etc. This interaction is what creates the scenarios. These entities in trying to overtake everything else through evolution will over time, through probability, allow the greatest level of complexity to occur by shaping everything into scenarios for other entities to try and overtake. So, as an entity gains power the rest of the world is affected immediately and counter-attacks trying to overcome this threat. All of this is happening at one time with everything else in the world playing this game of domination. The reason that differentiation occurs is to dominate others and prevent them from being dominated in return. Everything else in the world is a subset and, therefore, mini-game of the world. Since we can only define things in terms of the world, all video games, which seek to simulate the world, are analyzed by their ability to simulate the world as closely as possible. The immersion of a game is determined by how well it simulates the events in the world. This includes things that we may not even be able to create yet, like giant walking mechs. The immersion then is determined by how well we believe the video game comes to simulating the mechanics of using a mech, if the mech could be built. What I mean by this is the designer must take reality into account and estimate how these machines would behave if they existed, they must then model the mech using our understanding of science and from these extrapolations create the video game.
Last edited by Masahiro9891 on 15 Mar 2011 23:21, edited 2 times in total.
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by icycalm » 15 Feb 2011 21:23
An appalling mish-mash of random things you have seen me say and random things you have read in the books I have recommended, written in a droning monologue that jumps from point to point without the slightest attempt to make a coherent connection between them. And all throughout this mind-bewildering display no regard at all for the question I asked you. A pitiful sight.
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icycalm - Hyperborean
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by icycalm » 15 Feb 2011 21:29
For example:
Everything "simulates feelings" -- even the colors, even the text. Why insert that random comment there? Because you are not thinking -- you are copy-pasting comments I have made around the forum that have caught your attention. The correct phrasing then would be:
Then that paragraph ends with this ridiculous statement:
Whereas the game you have been describing, YOU MORON, is a regular-type game!
Anyway, I am not going to comment any further. I am just going to ask you to fix asap the couple of serious grammatical errors in your post if you want to avoid being banned.
Masahiro9891 wrote:This includes everything from the challenges, the look of areas, and the music which simulates feelings.
Everything "simulates feelings" -- even the colors, even the text. Why insert that random comment there? Because you are not thinking -- you are copy-pasting comments I have made around the forum that have caught your attention. The correct phrasing then would be:
This includes everything from the challenges, to the look of areas, to the music.
Then that paragraph ends with this ridiculous statement:
Masahiro9891 wrote:This is the ultimate sandbox video game.
Whereas the game you have been describing, YOU MORON, is a regular-type game!
Anyway, I am not going to comment any further. I am just going to ask you to fix asap the couple of serious grammatical errors in your post if you want to avoid being banned.
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by Eammy » 15 Feb 2011 22:11
Using JoshF's definition of immersion, we can assume that if the universe was a regular game, we would only be experiencing PREDETERMINED scenarios as if our lives were controlled by some god. Ultimately, this would severely limit our choices, which is why immersion here would backfire.
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by icycalm » 15 Feb 2011 22:18
Right. Awesome.
In other words, the universe is ALREADY as immersive as it gets. Any addition of goals, objectives and the like would make it LESS immersive. We see here once more how everything comes full circle. Sandbox and objective-game design are the opposite poles of a spectrum, but these poles bend over and meet each other (as they must, in order to remain within the universe) at the point of inversion.
See, moreover, how Josh's succinct definition helped Eammy go one step further? I am not saying that Worm's or SquarePeg's comments were wrong: they were perfectly correct, and in a detailed analysis all their points would have to be brought up and examined in detail. But the writer must at the same time be capable of condensing each major insight, each answer to a question, in as brief a proposition and using as few concepts as possible -- in order to then be able to employ this proposition to solve yet more complicated problems.
If, on the other hand, you have the mind-bewildering "answer" of Masahiro in your head, it is only natural that you won't be able to use it to solve anything else, or even understand it for that matter. And this is one of the reasons that Baudrillard did not manage to go further than he did. (The other reason was that he was not strong enough to do so.)
In other words, the universe is ALREADY as immersive as it gets. Any addition of goals, objectives and the like would make it LESS immersive. We see here once more how everything comes full circle. Sandbox and objective-game design are the opposite poles of a spectrum, but these poles bend over and meet each other (as they must, in order to remain within the universe) at the point of inversion.
See, moreover, how Josh's succinct definition helped Eammy go one step further? I am not saying that Worm's or SquarePeg's comments were wrong: they were perfectly correct, and in a detailed analysis all their points would have to be brought up and examined in detail. But the writer must at the same time be capable of condensing each major insight, each answer to a question, in as brief a proposition and using as few concepts as possible -- in order to then be able to employ this proposition to solve yet more complicated problems.
René Descartes wrote:Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems.
If, on the other hand, you have the mind-bewildering "answer" of Masahiro in your head, it is only natural that you won't be able to use it to solve anything else, or even understand it for that matter. And this is one of the reasons that Baudrillard did not manage to go further than he did. (The other reason was that he was not strong enough to do so.)
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by icycalm » 15 Feb 2011 23:04
Notice moreover how everyone in this thread ended up referring back to Josh's answer. SquarePeg even edited his post in order to include it. This is the same thing that has happened with Nietzsche, or with Heraclitus, or even with my essays (to a much smaller extent, of course, but it's still early days yet), and why people still keep linking to them and discussing them half a decade after they were written. Once an answer has been provided, and phrased appropriately enough so that IT CAN BE UNDERSTOOD, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to go much further without referring back to this answer (and hence to the person who provided it). This is the origin of genuine and deserved fame, the fame that Schopenhauer talks about in that long passage I quoted in my Genealogy. This is in contrast to the fame created by the journalists, which is entirely manufactured and therefore never manages to go very far.
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icycalm - Hyperborean
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by icycalm » 15 Feb 2011 23:07
By the way, this subject is far from over. There's so much more to say it's not even funny. If the above blew you away you seriously have no idea what's coming. You are therefore free to keep discussing it if you wish.
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icycalm - Hyperborean
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by icycalm » 16 Feb 2011 00:56
Consider also what would have happened if this thread had been started in any forum other than this one (or perhaps also Postback's...) In fact I urge people to try this experiment. Go to other forums far and wide, and start a thread asking people to attempt to figure out which style of game-design is superior: the sandbox or the objective-based ones. Then let them go on for a while, and then come here and share the link with us so that we can see if my predictions turn out correct.
The result will everywhere be the same. Most people will claim that both styles have their merits, and that it is impossible to point to either one as superior; in other words: "different strokes for different folks"; in other words: no conclusion at all. A few people, the more honest and more passionate about games perhaps, will venture to assert that THEY PERSONALLY prefer one style over the other (and in fact the more passionate and experienced ones will be found to prefer the objective-style, though of course most of them will be utterly incapable of articulating why) -- though at the same time, being fearful of the response of the rest of the participants, will also offer some conciliatory comments about the opposite style, and usually also end their comments by throwing in some variation of the "different strokes" comment.
And finally, if at any point in the discussion anyone links or quotes this thread (or, later on, the essay I will write on the subject), some subhuman will immediately pop up to say something to the effect that "but I enjoy Sim City more than Superman 64 -- therefore the dude's theory is wrong". The mistake is always the same: not only has the subhuman made an inappropriate comparison (some shitty or mediocre objective-based game is compared to a masterpiece sandbox game, instead of comparing two masterpieces or two mediocre or two shitty games), but moreover the idea would never cross his mind (and he most certainly would not accept it if someone else brought it up) that Sim City itself would have been a much better, much more engrossing game if it had had a more traditional objective-based structure, as for example Railroad Tycoon, Civilization and the like.
The result will everywhere be the same. Most people will claim that both styles have their merits, and that it is impossible to point to either one as superior; in other words: "different strokes for different folks"; in other words: no conclusion at all. A few people, the more honest and more passionate about games perhaps, will venture to assert that THEY PERSONALLY prefer one style over the other (and in fact the more passionate and experienced ones will be found to prefer the objective-style, though of course most of them will be utterly incapable of articulating why) -- though at the same time, being fearful of the response of the rest of the participants, will also offer some conciliatory comments about the opposite style, and usually also end their comments by throwing in some variation of the "different strokes" comment.
And finally, if at any point in the discussion anyone links or quotes this thread (or, later on, the essay I will write on the subject), some subhuman will immediately pop up to say something to the effect that "but I enjoy Sim City more than Superman 64 -- therefore the dude's theory is wrong". The mistake is always the same: not only has the subhuman made an inappropriate comparison (some shitty or mediocre objective-based game is compared to a masterpiece sandbox game, instead of comparing two masterpieces or two mediocre or two shitty games), but moreover the idea would never cross his mind (and he most certainly would not accept it if someone else brought it up) that Sim City itself would have been a much better, much more engrossing game if it had had a more traditional objective-based structure, as for example Railroad Tycoon, Civilization and the like.
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icycalm - Hyperborean
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by icycalm » 17 Feb 2011 12:02
lol, amazing. That guy with the hilarious blog gets it:
http://godhatesicy.blogspot.com/2011/02 ... rsion.html
RE: Immersion
The universe is only a sandbox-type game when you are an "active ubermensch".
"Reactive subhumans" will never perceive the universe as a sandbox, rather as a constant struggle to keep up with their own and the worlds demands on them.
http://godhatesicy.blogspot.com/2011/02 ... rsion.html
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icycalm - Hyperborean
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by icycalm » 28 Feb 2011 12:17
lol, his first answer was "I can't see anything beating the Internet." Then, after reading my reply, he EDITED his answer to add the "for now".
I'll be sad to see you go raphael, because you have contributed much to this forum, but you leave me no other choice. I simply do not have the time to play these retarded little games anymore. Goodbye, then.
I'll be sad to see you go raphael, because you have contributed much to this forum, but you leave me no other choice. I simply do not have the time to play these retarded little games anymore. Goodbye, then.
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icycalm - Hyperborean
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by Bucky » 04 Mar 2011 16:16
icycalm wrote:Close. The correct answer is: machine language.
0111100000111010100101010110101, etc.
This seems just slightly incorrect, because this is more than one machine language. Most machine languages are approximately equivalent in what can be done with them. However, a few details like addressable memory size make it likely that the greatest machine language (from the point of view of videogames) does not exist yet.
Or one could claim that the answer is a logical meta-language used to describe machine languages. I am not sure whether this fits your definition of a videogame because it's not possible to play all of it on any machine that will ever exist.
Way of the Forum Ninja: Stalk an opinion carefully, then post a precise counter-argument.
- Bucky
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by icycalm » 04 Mar 2011 18:16
Obviously the machinge language that works best with the currenly most powerful computer on the planet will be the best sandbox videogame. So there is progression, but the core of the idea remains the same.
Also, you are banned for dump-quoting.
Edit: Also, your second paragraph is extremely stupid. Reason enough to ban you a second time if I hadn't already done it.
You are not sure if a "logical language" is a videogame? What's next? Perhaps English is a videogame too?
I'll leave these two posts up for a while and then probably delete them, because I can't stand the idea of having them in my forum.
Also, you are banned for dump-quoting.
Edit: Also, your second paragraph is extremely stupid. Reason enough to ban you a second time if I hadn't already done it.
Bucky wrote:Or one could claim that the answer is a logical meta-language used to describe machine languages. I am not sure whether this fits your definition of a videogame
You are not sure if a "logical language" is a videogame? What's next? Perhaps English is a videogame too?
I'll leave these two posts up for a while and then probably delete them, because I can't stand the idea of having them in my forum.
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by SriK » 06 Nov 2011 04:17
I think there might be one possible future scenario where the best sandbox-style videogame would be more immersive than the best regular-style one: a virtual world which not only accounts for all the senses (sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste) but also the player's memories. If I had a sandbox videogame with just full sensory immersion I'm sure it'd be appealing at first, but no matter how advanced it is it'd eventually get boring; without any specific preset goals to keep me occupied and spur me on, the "fakeness" of the world would just become all the more apparent. However, if the player's memories are temporarily wiped or replaced and he's put in the virtual sandbox, he wouldn't know the world is fake, and he'd be engaged to almost the same degree as in reality. Preset objectives would only make a game with memory replacement less immersive as well; like Eammy said, it'd feel like you were being controlled by a god.
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SriK - Joined: 05 Nov 2011 15:12
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