Realism in games

[beni]

I recently had a discussion with a friend of mine about computer games. As we all know the world inside the games look and feel more and more like the real world and the example my friend and me were talking about was the GTA series.

GTA 1 and 2 had a bird view. The city was quite crazy but the world was certainly predictable. There were a lot of hidden places throughout the cities and you could find a lot of fancy unrealistic stuff.
Examples:

• Frenzies where you had to kill or destroy a certain amount of persons/cars within a certain time using a certain weapon.
• Running over a couple of Elvis impersonators gave a bonus.

GTA 3 was then a large step towards realism because of the 3D graphics. Also the city was more alive and people behaved more realistic. I remember that GTA 3 received an award from GameStar because of realism. The sequels (Vice City and San Andreas) were pretty much the same, while the latter included a customizable character with properties like strength, endurance etc. which you usually only find in RPGs.
Those games were still crazy and the freedom was amazing.

GTA 4 was another large step regarding the graphics. The comic look as scrapped and it looked more realistic than Mafia (a far less famous game, but comparable to GTA. Check it out, if you have the chance).
Coming to the point of the discussion: In GTA 4 you have Internet, dates and a cellphone. You have to maintain relationships with a lot of people. You have to go bowling, eating etc. and already in GTA 3 you had to consider night and day time.
My friends point was, that this feels less like a game and too much like reality. He already needs to do boring stuff all day like the things mentioned above and he wants to be brought to the action immediately.
Now I really like realistic worlds and I like a great AI (something missing in GTA3 and it immediate sequels). When I interact with NPCs I don't want to notice that they are just simple minded persons with only two answers and very limited range of actions.

But I want to know what you think. Is it important that a game is realistic? And if yes, can you overdo it? Is there a certain limit to needed realism until it becomes boring and unenjoyable? What aspects of a game need to have realism and where is it not so important?

[x3n]

At least your character doesn't get hungry after some time anymore in GTA4 (which was the case in GTA San Andreas).

Personally I think realism in games is not important at all. You can't seriously build a realistic science fiction universe, because realism and fiction are simply opposed. The way more important point is credibility. Does it make sense what I see? Is there a comprehensible reaction on my actions? Is the universe somehow "reliable" or does it act randomly?

The GTA universe became both more credible and more realistic over time, but it's still not "real", it's more like a comic, the whole town is full with crazy people and the AI tends to create chaotic situations. But in my optionion this doesn't harm the experience - it's just GTA and I expect people to run over the street just in front of my car or other cars to change direction apruptly.

[beni]

I like the distinction between realism and credibility. I think I want to have a credible AI (going back to my example from before) and not necessarily a realistic one. I want it to be diverse and I want to have a wide variety of options how to interact with it. To my action the AI and frankly the whole environment should react credible.

But also with credibility, you can ask what parts are more important. It makes NPCs more credible when they want to spend time with you in the world of the game, but it's a pain in the ass to foster virtual relationships. They are also more credible if they don't always have time for you, but as the player you don't want to wait.

I think the player wants to be the center of the game universe. So if too much is happening outside of his control and there are actually things, that he has to do, that he does not want to do, the point is reached where realism or credibility should suffer. After all playing a game is supposed to be fun.

So I guess "waiting" and "annoying tasks" are on the list of things to avoid, even if they would benefit the credibility of the universe.

[x3n]

That's right and I also think the AI should mainly be credible with respect to the NPC itself and not necessarily in it's interaction with the player. I'm happy if the NPC only talks in hardcoded cutscenes to me, I don't need a arbitrary long and dynamic conversation. But it really annoys me if the NPC runs straight into the next wall or throws grenades against a closed door.

Btw, I wouldn't classify 'relationships' or 'eating' as "boring stuff" in general. There are pretty successful games like "The Sims" which contain only tasks like those. On the other hand, most shooters also force you to kill some people or master dangerous situations, while some players would rather investigate the environment or whatever
So in some way you're arguing against genre-mixes. But since I don't think that was your point, we should rather criticize the mobile phone in GTA4 which keeps ringing in the worst situations (which again is a question of how much realism belongs into a game).

[beni]

Maybe I try to generalize too much. "The Sims" is very good, no question.

I also don't think that genre mix is bad, but I think there are a lot of people who do not like mixes. And it's true that genre mixes are harder to realize and sell in the game industry.

I am of course talking about the cellphone. Instead of helping you it just reminds you of stupid mini games that do not benefit you in anyway. Overall improving your relationships with the characters in the game does not benefit and is just a waste of time. There is no useful bonus, when you do those things. I guess this is something that strongly speaks against including those things. I guess in GTA there are so many things that make you waste your time playing the game without having some sort of a feeling of accomplishment.

I guess both of us know what it is, but I have a hard time defining what is annoying and should be left out. And I think this is useless stuff, that is fun to investigate, but then does not bring you any benefit. I think that investigating the environment should be rewarding. Just putting stuff in the world so there is something to investigate, is not good enough.

[x3n]

Well, there is indeed a benefit. I think ~4 of the characters do you some favors (roman sends you a taxi, brucie a helicopter, the black gangster sends you a few guys for backup and there's more, but I can't remember them all and I didn't yet played through the whole game).
But actually this doesn't contradict your theory, because the player (like you ) doesn't know there's a benefit in some cases (while some other characters are useless). Also there's no sign of your progress. I liked the way this was done in GTA San Andreas - there were four possible girlfriends and each of them was helpful in some way (free car repair and such). But you had to unlock those favors with a certain amount of progress (maybe 50% and 100% or something like that). Also all the girlfriends had different desires and they even changed over time (and became more challenging). And after you unlocked all features (and something else ) you could simply leave them alone and move to the next gf and there were no annoying calls over the mobile phone. This leaves me with the question which of those two games is closer to reality

[beni]

You're right. I remember the benefits from some of the characters, which makes the mini games worth while. I also have to admit, that I'm rather the "wasting time player". I can drive around in the city for hours just to search all 100 packets that are hidden all over the place.

But before we get even further into details of the GTA series, I think that a progress bar is important. It was important for me to know, that I have just lost points, because I have not gone to enough dates with the girl. It does not hurt me or something, so that is good (no punishment), but my progress to reach a benefit in the game has declined. I think that is useful information for the player, to show him that he is not wasting time or why it takes him so long to get the benefit.

I also remember a game that was fairly interesting in terms of realism. The game is at least 10 years old and it was a render game (like Myst). It was about a scientist who wakes up in a big science lab that has created several big halls with ecosystems. The player needs to flee from the lab (something terrible has happend), but of course this is not so easy. Interesting twist: The player gets hungry, sleepy, thirsty, hot, cold etc. So if you don't have enough to drink with you, you cannot survive in the desert ecosystem for too long. There are several locations in the game and walking between those location takes the player 20 to 30 minutes sometimes. During this time, the player gets thirsty and so on. Finding a place to sleep is also not easy as there are animals in the ecosystems that could attack you in the night. There is also a monster (some alien creature) that attacks you in the jungle. Drugs help you heal wounds or stay awake for some hours. If you take too long to solve your problems, there is even a special forces team that will enter the science lab and try to kill you. If you're good enough, you can trap them in the system of tubes that is connecting the ecosystem (or you can trap them in a ecosystem and destroy its life support systems etc.) to get rid of them.

So as this is a very interesting and challenging game, it would suck to have to check all stats all the time during an action game. In fact you always have to see that your not too tired, don't lose consciousness and so on. In fact nearly all action games nowadays have gotten rid of the health bar and the characters are healing by themselves if you don't get hit too often.