PlanetSide Universe - View Single Post - PlanetSide 2 bases need toilets (immersion).
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Old 2012-07-09, 06:08 PM   [Ignore Me] #59
Figment
Lieutenant General
 
Re: PlanetSide 2 bases need toilets (immersion).


Originally Posted by Cordless View Post
I was a little sad when I realized this wasn't a joke thread
Were you? Expected mostly poo jokes and got it. Because that's the level of response you can expect here. The moment you're in a game that's somewhat serious and you look around and go "this is all fun and all, but... don't these people eat?". Then the next thing you realise is "meh it's a game".

Designing a game is the whole package. It's not just "here's some guns, here's some tanks, go!" The best games have the best environments. Good environments make you forget you're in a game. Good environments make you feel at home. Can you honestly imagine any architect anywhere in the world making a building people live in without very basic things like doors? And yes, toilets. And yes, washrooms and yes offices.


Imagine for a second there's nothing but blank walls. In fact, no detailing whatsoever. No monitors, no crates, no cannisters, no terminals, no piping, no textures, no tech kibble, no cactii, no plantlife, no insects, no rubble, no debris, no wreckage after a tank blows up.

Nothing but blank geometric corridors and halls. Nothing but the SAME geometric corridors and halls.


Could you still fight to the fullest? Do you enjoy walking the empty buildings in the caves in PS1 for the scenery once there's nobody there to shoot and distract you from it? Doubtful. What's fun about fighting through empty rooms with nothing in them? Rooms that lack any sense of meaning and function?


Imagine urban combat and houses not having a kitchen, living room, bathroom and bed room at the very least (hall and stairs would be expected) and you'd expect them to be full of random personal items and furniture. If it doesn't have that or a suggestion that it once was there, the houses would feel completely fake and uninhabited. Doesn't mean you can't shoot people there, but it doesn't really feel like you're there shooting people either. It feels like you're in a game with devs that didn't have time or interest in developing things completely and just put in what they had.




Just ask yourself, why is CoD level design littered with random, non-combat related objects?

Why is it, that the airport map has a number of different stores and that when you pass through the security metal detector gates a beeping noise goes off?



Because games have advanced since Wolvenstein 3D and the environment is more interactive and more realistic than people guarding completely empty halls.


I know I started this thread with a light joke because I expected the reaction here from people who think that spending time on a toilet design "probably takes away from something completely unrelated", rather than takes away from someone designing random computer monitor #349 (speaking of which, too many monitors showing the same thing is another one of those immersion breakers, so best not to have too many in view at the same time and going through the same cyclical .gif).

Level design needs to be taken serious, I'm sure the devs do. Give them some feedback and ideas to work with.
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