I hope you find this subject interesting. It's one of the questions that keep me busy the previous days.
(http://www.acorn-gaming.org.uk/Emulation/pac.gif)
We all know that in the past 20 years the development of computergames been really fast and from funny arcade games, the industry growed to simulated realism.
I've been thinking alot on this subject, and I must say that it kinda scared me, when I was imaginating about the future.
For 10 years ago, there were good games like pacman and commander keen, sensible soccer, or early adventure point and click games.
(http://www.pcgameplay.co.uk/Specials/Big%2050/Sensible%20Soccer.jpg)
(http://www.acornemus.freeserve.co.uk/sarien/shots/kq3.gif)
Nowadays the industry got more close to realism and when you look at some of the screenshots of games from EA, games like maxpayne or Myst, or fps games, it's almost like we are in a REAL world. Though still we can find some bugs, and things aren't so real when you get used to them.
(http://www.apple.com/games/articles/2001/07/macsoft/images/maxpayne.jpg)
(http://guidesmedia.ign.com/guides/482009/images/nba1.jpg)
What do you think that computergames will be like in 10 years? Will it be possible to smell things, or can you maybe get transferred with your body into the game, and walk around in a virtual world. Will computergames get too scared, for people that we can't see the difference between fake, and realism? I'd like to hear some voices about these things, because I think it's an interesting subject, to know where we lay our boundries, and how far will we go with our development??
I think the game graphics and AI will be very realistic 10 years later, but it will be early to feel the games like that they are real.
My brother and I have talked about this at length.
He loves the games like Max Payne and Counter Strike. He likes it that they are getting more and more realistic.
I don't.
I think it'll reach a point where we can litterally be playing something you can't tell isn't actually real. But I don't want that. I like knowing I'm playing a video game. I like silly graphics and styles of art.
I would be nice to have the future of games go into sensory involvement rather than just pretty visuals.
Smelling the environment.
Feeling the wind.
Tasting??
Stuff like that would be cool I think but I don't want all games to get to a point where it's nothing but realism. I'll go see a movie if I want that!
But when I play a video game I want it to look like a video game.
Maybe I'm just old-school :)
])]V[
i think it's curious that Darth views a movie as ultimate realism and completely skips over going outside and going for a swim with friends.
i conclude that darth is an AI program and doesn't know what it is to live or love...
also:
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20030409/rubin_01.shtml
check that out, it was posted here before by Bionic Bill I believe
it's pretty awesome
Games will certainly continue to get more and more realistic, but I think one other thing that will also be possible as game technology advances will be the ability to make more unique styles that actually look good. One thing I really miss about the 2d adventure days is the bizarre environments and stylized art that simply looks more authentic in 2d than in 3d. However, I think that we'll reach a point when these things will eventually be feasable in 3d as well. To me, Zelda: The Windwaker is the first good example of cell-shading in games (I don't particularly like XIII), and that's a great illustration of what I mean. For all I know Psychonauts could be another example of great looking stylized 3d art. And who knows? Perhaps one day 2d will again be a viable choice in mainstream gaming when we can reproduce feature-film quality animation in real-time.
Quote from: MrColossal on Mon 19/01/2004 19:28:30i think it's curious that Darth views a movie as ultimate realism and completely skips over going outside and going for a swim with friends.
i conclude that darth is an AI program and doesn't know what it is to live or love...
That's not what I meant!
Video Games and Movies are entertainment. Movies look 'real'. You can tell those are actual people on screen.
What I meant was that I don't want video games to reach that point.
And I can't go outside with friends ... 'cause I don't have any.
I ...
er ...
** beep ** error: AI program exceeded parameters of subroutines **
i have to admit that i like fps games like quake and sports games like fifa or tony hawks pro skater..
but some months ago i've seen a nice idea in a shooter, maybe you know it.
the game is called xiii and is based on the unreal engine (which IMO is capable of rather realistic graphics). but the point is that the developers reduced the realism of their game by using a comic shader, it looks like an interactive comic strip (with a load of blood, but that doesn't really matter, does it? ::)).
er, what i wanted to say: "good games don't need to be super realistic, it's more fun to me to play an unrealistic game, because you know it's not real and it never will be. otherwise it would scare the hell out of me. ;)
OT: i really was impressed by the graphics, so atm i try to create an adventure game in that kind of style. graphics like in mi3, but a more scary story.. but that doesn't belong here.
greetings, hX
Okay.
Once again, I'm going to quote something Tim Schafer said. Except I can't remember his exact wording, so I'm not going to quote it at all.
If I remember correctly, he once said something about games being produced in episodes or suchlike. For instance, smaller games that are released more frequently. I would imagine this to be somewhat like shareware, except more advanced. We've already seen this happening to a degree in Movies, with LOTR and The Matrix and... wasn't there another trilogy being released together?... and after debating this with Ade we both agreed that producing smaller games more frequently would actually be beneficial to companies.
My choice of wording is so crap.
Imagine if you're a small developer, starting up with your debut game. You're going to have a hard time finding cash to support you for the next four years, while you try to recruit staff to work in meagre conditions in your new place. In the meantime, any number of things could go wrong such as your staff leaving for better jobs or worse still, your publisher cutting off funding to you. It would definitely make more sense to release this debut game as say, three separate episodes. It allows a more frequent income for companies, and delivers games faster and hopefully with less bugs.
On the other hand, would this work for players? Hmm.
Rather than just Gameplay and Graphics, I hope that games are realized differently in the future as a valid source of entertainment instead of a geek hobby. Games are a completely valid art form, just like Movies can be. I mean, okay, Commander Keen or Doom... they're hardly art forms. But on the other hand, 10 Things I Hate About You or Shallow Hal were hardly artistic either. Yet think of Grim Fandango and Moulin Rouge, and they both prove that Games and Movies can be just as artistic as each other.
Hm, what am I trying to say?
What I am trying to say, I guess, is that I am pretty tired of my Guidance Counseller giving me dodgy looks every time I say, "Yes, I want to work in the Video Game Industry" as though it's some sort of Idiot Job.
Damn, did I make any sense?
I'm dabbling in making a 3d game at present, and honestly realism isn't impossible right now, the hardware to run it isn't practical yet though. In the future, I think VR is a definate possibility, as that sort of thing is being experimented with increasingly. The sort of thing where you put a helmet on and some sort of suit and the computer recieves your actions. That's how they made gollum move in LOTR.
The problem is that as games become more and more "real" the time spent on them increases, the cost increases, and the hardware requirements become a huge factor in how cool you can make your game look.
I don't really care how advanced graphics get, just so long as they don't take the place of a great story.
Good graphics complement the game itself and help the player immerse in the story and world. Just like good music is important to set the mood.
The stories do suffer A LOT because everything else takes so much more effort. Take a few recent Final Fantasy games, for instance..
This is what I think the future of computer games will be- REAL direct control. Keyboards, mice (mouses?) and joysticks are a thing of the past!
... if you're a monkey.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1871803.stm
At one point there was an adventure being released using similar technology, where the player is hooked up to the computer using EKG type things. But I can't for the life of me find the link.
are you thinking of the "game" where the more relaxed you are the more evolved the character on screen appears to be until it evolves into some being of light or something?
Quote from: Darth Mandarb on Mon 19/01/2004 19:33:17
Video Games and Movies are entertainment. Movies look 'real'. You can tell those are actual people on screen.
Eh? What about animated movies? What about live-action movies with really twisted visuals (Edward Scissorhands, anyone)? There's plenty of visual creativity in movies. They don't have to look real.
Quote from: Darth Mandarb on Mon 19/01/2004 19:33:17
What I meant was that I don't want video games to reach that point.
Why not? Sure, it would get a bit boring if every game looked exactly like reality, but sometimes the style of the game requires realism. Would Max Payne be as believable if all the characters looked like Chibis or those creepy Furrie things? I like surreal styles of art in games, but it only works if the game's setting and plot are detatched from reality.
I don't think reality is ever going to be the only graphical style in games. The imagination just has too much potential..
I (me) don't prefer ultra-realism in video games. I prefer games that look different than reality.
With movies I love all styles, animated, 3d, real, experimental, whatever!
But with games, I prefer games that don't look real.
That's all I was meaning.
Sorry for the confusion (or if I have continued the confusion).
])]V[
We should go back to FMV's! Ultimate Realism! They're real people in a video game! REAL I TELL YOU!
Personally, I am more interested with the gimmicks the industry will come up with. Something like the gamepad, or the steering wheel. Virtual Reality is currently a hot topic, and this is what I think games will lean towards in the near future. I believe I have heard about some sort of gloves which enable you to "feel" and "sense" the game.
However, I am more interested in the game desinging of the future. Will there be new genres? Will games be more artisitc? What will be the most popular kind of games?
Personally, I forsee more and more cross-genres. In recent years, new genres have been "spawned" from severel different ones. Take "action-adventure" for one. Just a few years ago nobody knew what that means, today it's much more than a sub-genre. Another thing I expect is a huge rise in the popularity of massive multiplayer games. The Internet is ever spreading, reaching more and more players. As technology progresses, servers will be able to hold more and more people and support more demanding game types. Imagine a battlefield field filled with thousands of human player, each seeing it all from his own first-person view. Woah.
Thw way I see it, the gaming industry will evolve as such:
Right now we're into pseudo-3D projected onto 2D surfaces. This will progress into more and more realism until full texture, bump, and reflective shading as well as anti-aliasing can be done in realtime as opposed to rendering it all. What we ahve to wait for today to render, will be done instantaneously in, say, the next 10 years or so.
Eventually, let's say 25 years from now, we will come up with holography. Then, we will apply what we've developed in pseudo-3D and make it real 3D, having -- at first -- holographic characters in a pseudo-3D environment. In about another 5-10 years we will take what we know about virtual reality and merge it with holographic technology in order to produce fully interactive real-3D enviornments. Given another 5-10 years we will be able to add touch sensation, maybe scent and even taste. Perhaps given even another few years this can be done through cranial implants.
I forsee current technological advanced in nanotechnology and cybernetics being used somewhere in gaming.
Is this a bad thing? No. Not if it's done right. If anybody has ever watched Star Trek, especially Voyager, you would know what I mean. In the Trek universe, holographic technology is a reality and is used to create holo-novels, which are basically interactive movies in which you are the ultimate First-Person player. I like to think of it as I.L. -- Interactive Life.
We already have Virtual Reality technology, although it's a bit primitive compared to what its potential is. I had the fortune of trying out a VR helmet and it was pretty close to being realistic. If I could somehow be fooled into thinking I wasn't wearing any bulky devices, perhaps it would've been semi-realistic, if not for the the slight jerking and lagging of the video and even sound.
Yeah, I know I went on a bit of a tangent, but think about it; if the transition from King's Quest 3 to Max Payne 2 was made with the help of 3D video cards, high memory to handle the more complex operations, just think what future technology can hold.
As for A.I. in the near future, there is ongoing research being done into genetic algorithms and genetic programming, where -- theoretically -- an NPC could be made to learn, adapt, grow, and evolve.
There's a wild, werid, fascinating world ahead of us when it comes to gaming and other programming. :)
I'm not exactly sure what to expect in the coming decades for gaming.
I do kind of expect some type of new "sensory" gaming to come out of the woodwork, like mentioned above. It'd go right up there with surround sound and virtual reality. I'd actually like to play a resident evil game one day, where I can "feel" the zombie grab for my ankle. I'd like to be able to "smell" the rotting flesh. Where I can "feel" the zombie biting my arm.
Someday, I hope to see advanced virtual reality, where you can shoot at a wall, and leave a bullet hole, and have it stay there, permanently. A virtual reality much like actual reality, where you can't tell it's not real.
AI. I'd like to smart off to a NPC, and actually have it say something back that isn't along the lines of "Same to you." Near human intelligence. A talkie at that!
That would be so kick ass on a LAN multiplayer game. I'd be the first one to whip out my gameshark, too!
As far as other developments... I'm sure in the far-off future gaming will go as far as paying to have a jack installed in the back of your skull, so you can plug your brain into the controller port of your playstation. It does sound sci-fi... but who knows....
I think there will always be the great silly cartoony kind of graphics for games while they continue with the realism of graphics in other games (eg FIFA2004)
You were probably joking, Jekyll, but plugging in controllers to the back of your head will never be a feasible or forseeable future. It's more like you will have cybernetic implants that let you control the actn with your mind. :)
Well, terran, there was actually some reaseach done in the seventies about making jacks for people's heads. However, they only put information in, instead of it being sent both ways. The operation was done on a blind man so that he could bypass his eyes, which were the problem, not his brain. See a news article about it here (http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSScience0001/17_blind.html)
So we could one day have games that existed entirely in our heads. Ooooooo....
DragonRose, I don't know what you're talking about. I already have games in my head. They won't go away. And the voices.. what? Not now I'm busy.