Development:Realism vs Believability - Revision history

Augie.ben.doggie: [vega-bot] [replace] 3 instances of 'http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forums' for 'http://forums.vega-strike.org'

2013-01-08T21:27:52Z

[vega-bot] [replace] 3 instances of 'http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forums' for 'http://forums.vega-strike.org'

Greenfreedom10: /* Believability */ grammar

2010-10-02T23:22:04Z

‎Believability: grammar

Pirx: parent link

2005-05-08T17:51:39Z

parent link

Ctv: various edits.

2005-05-06T19:54:05Z

various edits.

Pirx: added basic content

2005-05-06T16:21:39Z

added basic content

New page

Since there have been alot of discussions in the [http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forums forum] about '''Realism''' in Vegastrike and how it should be done this paghe has been added to summarise all related topics and clear up some terms.

Most of the initial content has been copied from a [http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=31090#31090 post] by [[User:Pincushionman|pincushionman]] (''thanks to him'') with some small additions and reformatting.

There are more topics in the forum about realism which i didn't search for. If you stumble over them please add them in the "See also" section for reference.

==General==
Most people have confused the concepts of '''realism''' with that of '''believability''' (or credibility). They are '''not the same thing'''. And I think those people who keep saying "''I don't want realism because it isn't fun.''" may not necessarily know it, but they have a more accurate idea what term means what.

==Realism==
Realism is bringing real-world concepts and processes into the world being created (in this case the game world, but it could also refer to a movie environment or a book). There is one big reason why realism is difficult to pull off, especially in games. We are immersed in reality all the time, and we know what is realistic, because we see it every day. You can tell a bad magician or a poorly-photoshopped image immediately because it just doesn't look right. In games it's even more difficult because we're still short on computing power needed to properly simulate a realistic environment.

==Believability==
Believability much more ''forgiving'', and most of the time it's a hell of a lot more fun to be a part of. Concepts of realism can be incorporated into a believable environment, and often are, but only to the extent that they add to the immersion. Anything beyond that is superfluous and is thrown away, and new rules are written. This makes believability much easier to achieve, and at the same time, much more difficult to pull off properly.

===Examples===
If a person is shot in an action movie, the realistic result is he drops to the floor. But that's not fun to watch, so instead the bullet knocks them off into the water. To enhance the believability, that happens every time someone gets shot (except for the main character, of course, he just bleeds).

In our world, we need to get to a planet far away. Realism would say we need 200,000 years and a fuel tank the size of the moon, but that's not any fun. So we make up a magic super-fast travel system, and use it all the time. And we make up fictional documentation to back up our absurd creation.

===Summary===
We still know it's not realistic, but we believe it anyway. Why? Because we want to, and we can believe it "exactly the same" every time. The real secret to making a believeable environment is to take advantage of just enough of what reality does give us to help our immersion, then make up stuff to keep people interested, and use that made-up stuff in a way that is consistent throughout the entire game experience, offer "believable" (again NOT realistic) explanations in case people DO question it, and use this made-up material in such a way that the people playing WANT TO BELEIVE IT.

It's called '''willing suspension of disbelief''', people. That's the secret. NOT realism.

==End note==
There's another big strike against realism and games -- real life is boring! people play games to get away from reality, not to become more immersed in it. If I want to have fun with reality, I'll go call my friends and we'll go outside and play football.

==See also==
* [http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=31090#31090 forum post] by [[User:Pincushionman|pincushionman]].

[[Category:Development|Realism vs Believability]]

@@ Line 2: / Line 2: @@
 ----
-There have been a number of discussions in the [http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forums forum] about the place of '''Realism''' in Vega Strike. This page has been added to summarize related topics and clear up some terms.
+There have been a number of discussions in the [http://forums.vega-strike.org forum] about the place of '''Realism''' in Vega Strike. This page has been added to summarize related topics and clear up some terms.
-Much of the content of this article was inspired by a [http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=31090#31090 post] by [[User:Pincushionman|pincushionman]] (''thanks go to him'').
+Much of the content of this article was inspired by a [http://forums.vega-strike.org/viewtopic.php?p=31090#31090 post] by [[User:Pincushionman|pincushionman]] (''thanks go to him'').
 There are more topics in the forum about realism which have likely not been searched for. If you stumble over them please add them in the "See also" section for reference.
@@ Line 35: / Line 35: @@
 ==See also==
-* [http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=31090#31090 forum post] by [[User:Pincushionman|pincushionman]].
+* [http://forums.vega-strike.org/viewtopic.php?p=31090#31090 forum post] by [[User:Pincushionman|pincushionman]].
 [[Category:Development|Realism vs Believability]]

@@ Line 19: / Line 19: @@
 ==Believability==
-Believability is much more ''forgiving'', and thus often allows for the construction of universes which are more fun to inhabit or visit. Concepts of realism can be incorporated into a believable environment, and often need to be, but only to the extent that they add to the immersion (most of us aren't up to spending too many hours in a shifting surrealist landscape - we're not biologically wired for it). Whenever reality intrudes on goals, plot, mechanism, or fancy, the particular stumbling blocks are ejected from the universe and new rules are written. This tends to makes simulating a believable environment a much easier task, but at the expense of making the design of such an environment much more difficult to pull off properly - people tending to notice the places where new rules and reality have been stitched together, the gaps in the creator's reasoning, and other artifacts of the construction of the universe which have been insufficiently hidden or smoothed so as to not jar the observer.
+Believability is much more ''forgiving'', and thus often allows for the construction of universes which are more fun to inhabit or visit. Concepts of realism can be incorporated into a believable environment, and often need to be, but only to the extent that they add to the immersion (most of us aren't up to spending too many hours in a shifting surrealist landscape - we're not biologically wired for it). Whenever reality intrudes on goals, plot, mechanism, or fancy, the particular stumbling blocks are ejected from the universe and new rules are written. This tends to make simulating a believable environment a much easier task, but at the expense of making the design of such an environment much more difficult to pull off properly - people tending to notice the places where new rules and reality have been stitched together, the gaps in the creator's reasoning, and other artifacts of the construction of the universe which have been insufficiently hidden or smoothed so as to not jar the observer.
 ===Examples===

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	There have been a number of discussions in the [http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forums forum] about the place of '''Realism''' in Vega Strike. This page has been added to summarize related topics and clear up some terms.		There have been a number of discussions in the [http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forums forum] about the place of '''Realism''' in Vega Strike. This page has been added to summarize related topics and clear up some terms.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-Since there have been alot of discussions in the [http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forums forum] about '''Realism''' in Vegastrike and how it should be done this paghe has been added to summarise all related topics and clear up some terms.
+There have been a number of discussions in the [http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forums forum] about the place of '''Realism''' in Vega Strike. This page has been added to summarize related topics and clear up some terms.
-Most of the initial content has been copied from a [http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=31090#31090 post] by [[User:Pincushionman|pincushionman]] (''thanks to him'') with some small additions and reformatting.
+Much of the content of this article was inspired by a [http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=31090#31090 post] by [[User:Pincushionman|pincushionman]] (''thanks go to him'').
-There are more topics in the forum about realism which i didn't search for. If you stumble over them please add them in the "See also" section for reference.
+There are more topics in the forum about realism which have likely not been searched for. If you stumble over them please add them in the "See also" section for reference.
 ==General==
-Most people have confused the concepts of '''realism''' with that of '''believability''' (or credibility). They are '''not the same thing'''. And I think those people who keep saying "''I don't want realism because it isn't fun.''" may not necessarily know it, but they have a more accurate idea what term means what.
+Many people have confused the concept of '''realism''' with that of '''believability''' (or credibility). They are '''not the same thing'''. Those people who keep saying "''I don't want realism because it isn't fun.''", while making a striking generalization of dubious accuracy, do, oddly enough, actually have an accurate idea which term means what.
 ==Realism==
-Realism is bringing real-world concepts and processes into the world being created (in this case the game world, but it could also refer to a movie environment or a book). There is one big reason why realism is difficult to pull off, especially in games. We are immersed in reality all the time, and we know what is realistic, because we see it every day. You can tell a bad magician or a poorly-photoshopped image immediately because it just doesn't look right. In games it's even more difficult because we're still short on computing power needed to properly simulate a realistic environment.
+Realism is bringing real-world concepts and processes into the world being created (in this case the game world, but it could also refer to a movie environment or a book). There is one big reason why realism is difficult to pull off, especially in games. We are immersed in reality all the time, and we know what is realistic, because we see it every day. You can tell a bad magician or a poorly-photoshopped image immediately because it just doesn't look right. In games it's even more difficult because we're still short on computing power needed to properly simulate a realistic environment. However, there is, of course,  one enormous upsides to a realism based approach, if done well - the universe is guaranteed to be self-consistent.
 ==Believability==
-Believability much more ''forgiving'', and most of the time it's a hell of a lot more fun to be a part of. Concepts of realism can be incorporated into a believable environment, and often are, but only to the extent that they add to the immersion. Anything beyond that is superfluous and is thrown away, and new rules are written. This makes believability much easier to achieve, and at the same time, much more difficult to pull off properly.
+Believability is much more ''forgiving'', and thus often allows for the construction of universes which are more fun to inhabit or visit. Concepts of realism can be incorporated into a believable environment, and often need to be, but only to the extent that they add to the immersion (most of us aren't up to spending too many hours in a shifting surrealist landscape - we're not biologically wired for it). Whenever reality intrudes on goals, plot, mechanism, or fancy, the particular stumbling blocks are ejected from the universe and new rules are written. This tends to makes simulating a believable environment a much easier task, but at the expense of making the design of such an environment much more difficult to pull off properly - people tending to notice the places where new rules and reality have been stitched together, the gaps in the creator's reasoning, and other artifacts of the construction of the universe which have been insufficiently hidden or smoothed so as to not jar the observer.
 ===Examples===
-If a person is shot in an action movie, the realistic result is he drops to the floor. But that's not fun to watch, so instead the bullet knocks them off into the water. To enhance the believability, that happens every time someone gets shot (except for the main character, of course, he just bleeds).
+If a person is shot in an action movie, the realistic result is he drops to the floor. But that's not fun to watch, so instead the bullet knocks them off into the water. To enhance the believability, that happens every time someone gets shot (consistency).
-In our world, we need to get to a planet far away. Realism would say we need 200,000 years and a fuel tank the size of the moon, but that's not any fun. So we make up a magic super-fast travel system, and use it all the time. And we make up fictional documentation to back up our absurd creation.
+In space sims, we often need to get to a planet far away. Realism would say we need anywhere from decades to millenia, a fuel tank anywhere up to the size of the moon, and the cost could well bankrupt much of human civilization, but that's not any fun. So we make up a magic super-fast-and-efficient travel system, and use it all the time. And we make up fictional documentation to back up our absurd creation.
 ===Summary===
-We still know it's not realistic, but we believe it anyway. Why? Because we want to, and we can believe it "exactly the same" every time. The real secret to making a believeable environment is to take advantage of just enough of what reality does give us to help our immersion, then make up stuff to keep people interested, and use that made-up stuff in a way that is consistent throughout the entire game experience, offer "believable" (again NOT realistic) explanations in case people DO question it, and use this made-up material in such a way that the people playing WANT TO BELEIVE IT.
+We still know it's not realistic, but we believe it anyway. Why? Because we want to, and, if the universe is well constructed, not only can we can believe it "exactly the same" every time (consistency) but the other causal consequences of this aberration will be ''plausible in context'' (coherence) - if one keeps having to add additional *magic* to explain a given necessary magical exception to reality, one might wish to reconsider the mechanics of the initial necessary magic. The real secret to making a believeable environment is to take advantage of just enough of what reality does give us to help our immersion, then make up stuff to keep people interested, and use that made-up stuff in a way that is consistent throughout the entire game experience, offer "believable" (again NOT realistic) explanations in case people DO question it, and use this made-up material in such a way that the people playing WANT TO BELEIVE IT.
-It's called '''willing suspension of disbelief''', people. That's the secret. NOT realism.
+It's called '''willing suspension of disbelief''', people. That's the secret. NOT realism (at least per se).
 ==End note==
-There's another big strike against realism and games -- real life is boring! people play games to get away from reality, not to become more immersed in it. If I want to have fun with reality, I'll go call my friends and we'll go outside and play football.
+There's another big strike against excessive realism and games -- real life is (most of the time) boring!  People play games to get away from the dull regions of reality, not to become more immersed in them. Games must therefore have a "higher density" of non-dull than reality.
 ==See also==