A workable definition for "immersion"

[Nonek]

One always wonders, when this topic arises, whether a world that totally immersed the player and subjugated his consciousness in an illusory world would be a good thing. What are the chances of addiction for such an enthralling experience? In a virtual world that simulated a reality like the matrix, but flavoured to the players choice, would that escapist power fantasy bankrupt the enjoyment of real life pleasures? Would people willingly give up reality to pursue such dreams, perhaps even face illness or infirmity with a little escapism to bouy them up?

 

Would we welcome the illusion?

[mcmanusaur]

Rumination: I can sometimes find myself lost while scrubbing the bathtub. Where you start out intending to just give it a quick 10 minute once over and an hour later I'm scrubbing grout with bleach and a toothbrush and woe to anyone who tries to get me to stop before I'm ready to stop. It's not that I super enjoy scrubbing the bathtub (I never start the day going "Man I can't wait to clean that tub, it's gonna be hours of fun!"), nor do I find the over-board action significant (outside of a vague sensation of completion-ism), and it certainly doesn't involve my imagination or creativity ... unless I start mixing chemicals to try to make a new soap scum cleaner perhaps.

 

Is that immersion? It's certainly tunnel vision. And I find that same sense of rather inexplicable and seemingly mindless obsession can apply to/add to gaming, to some degree. It's why I can spend four hours chopping wood in Skyrim to no real purpose. There needs to be more than that to the game to have a long-term impact, of course, but it's certainly part of it. I don't think I really understand it even in myself, I only know that games that don't have it, at all, tend to bore me.

 

I think that's closer to what some game designers would call a "flow state" (which seems a somewhat vacuous term to me). I have thought a lot about how to distinguish these two notoriously vague concepts and I've arrived at the conclusion that immersion maximizes our enjoyment of intrinsically motivated activities, and flow optimizes our efficiency in extrinsically motivated tasks. The distinction between "intrinsic" and "extrinsic" motivations is obviously somewhat artificial, but oh well.

Edited September 29, 2013 by mcmanusaur

[mcmanusaur]

I apologise if I'm mauling anyone's words, but I believe I can summarise the points so far:

 

Immersion is that quality of an experience which determines the extent to which the individual feels the experience is significant. This significance is felt initially in a conscious way, but will ideally become pre-conscious in due course.

 

Immersion is ultimately about the processing of the experience. It needs to resonate with the thought processes of the individual. This is aided by verisimilitude in sensory input, but is not completed by verisimilitude. The thought process of the individual is governed by the presentation of problems and its congruence with the individual's problem solving strategies. It is also governed by the emotional congruence of those problems to the individual. The latter function of emotional reaction is improved more by sensory verisimilitude.

 

I suggest that sensory accuracy is not enough for the simple reason that experiences in real life are not always immersive.

 

In other words, to be immersed my consciousness must be presented with

 

I've been trying to do the equation for this, but realised that the forum simply won't show it properly. However, here are the variables I identify:

 

Immersion  = i

Verisimilitude ranges 0,1. Where 1 is perfect recreation. = v

Presentation of problems is measured as ease of the subject understanding and tackling the issue = p

Emotional relevance ranges 0,1. Where 1 is perfect emotional relevance to the subject = e

Competition is the sum total of all other potentially immersive experiences occurring at the same time = c

 

I would add that the quality of immersion is contingent upon subjective expectations, but that one can make a more or less objective case about what expectations are most relevant for a particular game.

 

Can you elaborate on your formula?

[mcmanusaur]

One always wonders, when this topic arises, whether a world that totally immersed the player and subjugated his consciousness in an illusory world would be a good thing. What are the chances of addiction for such an enthralling experience? In a virtual world that simulated a reality like the matrix, but flavoured to the players choice, would that escapist power fantasy bankrupt the enjoyment of real life pleasures? Would people willingly give up reality to pursue such dreams, perhaps even face illness or infirmity with a little escapism to bouy them up?

 

Would we welcome the illusion?

 

Oh, the good old "experience machine" thought experiment!

[Walsingham]

 

I apologise if I'm mauling anyone's words, but I believe I can summarise the points so far:

 

Immersion is that quality of an experience which determines the extent to which the individual feels the experience is significant. This significance is felt initially in a conscious way, but will ideally become pre-conscious in due course.

 

Immersion is ultimately about the processing of the experience. It needs to resonate with the thought processes of the individual. This is aided by verisimilitude in sensory input, but is not completed by verisimilitude. The thought process of the individual is governed by the presentation of problems and its congruence with the individual's problem solving strategies. It is also governed by the emotional congruence of those problems to the individual. The latter function of emotional reaction is improved more by sensory verisimilitude.

 

I suggest that sensory accuracy is not enough for the simple reason that experiences in real life are not always immersive.

 

In other words, to be immersed my consciousness must be presented with

 

I've been trying to do the equation for this, but realised that the forum simply won't show it properly. However, here are the variables I identify:

 

Immersion  = i

Verisimilitude ranges 0,1. Where 1 is perfect recreation. = v

Presentation of problems is measured as ease of the subject understanding and tackling the issue = p

Emotional relevance ranges 0,1. Where 1 is perfect emotional relevance to the subject = e

Competition is the sum total of all other potentially immersive experiences occurring at the same time = c

 

I would add that the quality of immersion is contingent upon subjective expectations, but that one can make a more or less objective case about what expectations are most relevant for a particular game.

 

Can you elaborate on your formula?

 

 

I honestly can't, because the boards can't show that weird 'e' whatchamacallit. Epsilon? The sum of all Xi subordinate clauses.

 

But mainly I'm just interested to see what you chaps can make of those variables.

[teknoman2]

i like philosophical debates like this, but im too lazy to give a long opinion so

 

immersion is when you forget that you are playing a game and feel as if  you are really there. imo, the most important thing to achieve that, is to make the game in a way that the player does not feel like a spectator, and have characters that the player will care about

[JFSOCC]

 

I would like Obsidian to listen to my concerns, though, that's for sure. I think a meaningful discussion of "immersion" could help with that. It could also help my own creative efforts.

Then why don't you do it instead of attacking me for having different opinion?

 

Right, see I have a problem with this. First off, He is doing having that meaningful discussion, YOU, however, are not.

Second of all, there is a difference between opinion and argument. They are not the same, and they are not of equal value. Argue your opinions.

 

 

 

One of the rules about movies, tv shows and books is "Give them what they NEED, not what they WANT".

 

Do you think G.G. Martins "Game of Thrones" would be successful if he would listen to what his fans wants? All Starks would be alive and Geoffrey dead by the end of chapter 1.

"Listening to what the fans want" is not the same as "giving them what they say they want." You have to take it one step further, and infer from what they say what really pushes their buttons. I'm quite sure he -- like Stephen King, or Obsidian -- does just that. Giving them what they say they want is fanservice. BioWare does that. It is, indeed, a road to nowhere.

 

And I consider topics like this to be a cry for fanservice.

 

Really, tell me, where in this topic did we ask for creative control over Project Eternity?

Or is discussing what makes a game immersive somehow demanding specific content or features?

 

Well, the internet is still free and on this forum I'm entitled to state my opinion. And if I'm not mistaken my point of view is not votum separatum.

You're free to state it, but not without consequence or challenge. Let me call you out, your opinion is poorly argued and irrelevant. It's like telling guys who are arguing what to order for food "Eating is stupid" and then thinking no-one will call you out for it.

---

 

So why do you even talk about this? Why do you insist on participating this "immersion" discussion if you don't want it or don't need it?

Right back at you.

 

"Listening to what the fans want" is not the same as "giving them what they say they want." You have to take it one step further, and infer from what they say what really pushes their buttons. I'm quite sure he -- like Stephen King, or Obsidian -- does just that. Giving them what they say they want is fanservice. BioWare does that. It is, indeed, a road to nowhere.

Pretty much this.

 

----

 

I don't think immersion is solely a matter of opinion, there are real design choices that lie behind making a game immersive. I think it includes polish, attention to detail, internal consistency, external consistency. (IE everything in the game design contributes to the style, even the menus, the tooltip dialogue, the manual, etc etc)

It may include verisimilitude, although I don't think it's a requirement for every game, because it suffers from the technical limitations of the medium.

 

I don't think it includes grind, tasks that feel like busywork for the sole purpose that it provides a gamist benefit.

I think hyperfocus, what I believe ladycrimson is describing, is a consequence of, rather than cause of, immersion.

Edited September 30, 2013 by Pidesco
Edited out some harsher language.

[JFSOCC]

Your first post contained no argument, just unsupported statements. I don't think you quite understand what it argument means.

 

Here, try this, maybe it'll help you: http://www.kongregate.com/games/chiefwakamakamu/socrates-jones-pro-philosopher

[PrimeJunta]

Sharp_one, I re-read what you've said and I can really only extract one meaningful opinion from all of it. Correct me if I'm wrong about it:

 

You believe discussions like this amount to demands for fanservice, and you believe that fanservice makes for poor games. Conversely, you believe that Obsidian is more likely to produce a good game by pursuing their ideas of what it is, after which each of us will play it and either like it, or not, depending on our personal preferences and whatever mood or state of mind we happen to be in.

 

I agree with the second part of that sentiment – i.e., that fanservice makes for poor games. What strikes me as beyond nonsensical, though, is the other part – that merely discussing topics like "what makes a game immersive?" or "what features of Stephen King's writing turn us on or off to it?" amounts to demands for fanservice. That... just doesn't make any sense to me. I mean, if we can't discuss stuff like that, what can we discuss? Why are we even here?

 

Serious question, by the way. I'm not trying to pick a fight here. I was a bit irritated at you earlier, but that passed.

[PrimeJunta]

@Sharp_one, call it a difference between influence and control. I don't want control over PE. I would like a measure of influence. As in, I would like them to listen to our concerns, consider if there's something there that might have a point and might fit the ideas they have about the game they're making, and if so, maybe work it in somehow. This is in fact pretty much how they've been proceeding. They've been throwing ideas at the wall, listening to feedback, and adjusting. I'm a software designer myself and that's more or less how I work.

 

Giving the users control over the design is a bad idea and usually leads to disasters, in games as much as any other type of design. Giving them a measure of influence over it while retaining control can lead to good things. 

 

Another thing is that IMO the function of these forums isn't only to talk to Obsidian. We're also talking with each other, about any number of things related to PE. These discussions can be entertaining, educational, edifying, or whatever.

 

I would still like to hear your answer to my question, by the way. If making a topic here is tantamount to asking Obsidian to address whatever is being discussed in the topic, and we shouldn't be asking Obsidian to address our concerns because fanservice, then what purpose do these forums serve? What's left for us to do that you would approve of?

Edited September 30, 2013 by PrimeJunta

[PrimeJunta]

 

I would still like to hear your answer to my question, by the way. If making a topic here is tantamount to asking Obsidian to address whatever is being discussed in the topic, and we shouldn't be asking Obsidian to address our concerns because fanservice, then what purpose do these forums serve? What's left for us to do that you would approve of?

 

Not fully true.

i believe forum should be:

a) to give feedback about released content

b) giving feedback and ideas about elements that would be beneficial and meaningful for the game. 

 

You probably could argue that this immersion discussion could be at b) but I don't find it neither helpful nor meaningful.

 

 

Thank you.

 

Followup questions: 

1. Why do you think specifically immersion is a non-meaningful, non-helpful topic?
2. Can you give examples of topics that would be helpful or meaningful?
3. How do you determine whether a topic is helpful or meaningful?
4. Do you think it's helpful to make a call to shut down a discussion that doesn't meet your criteria of helpful and meaningful (rather than, say, just not participating in such discussions?)
   • If yes, in what way?
   • If not, am I misconstruing your intent, because I do read many of your posts as precisely such attempts? 

Thanks in advance for replying.

[JFSOCC]

Yes, it helps to stop meaningless topics and shows which topics are meaningless.

That's like, just your opinion dude. I do not find it a meaningless topic, nor does PrimeJunta.

I you find it meaningless, don't join the discussion, and let us at it. You've effectively killed my thread because no-one is going to read a back and forth except those who participate in it.

 

You don't get to decide which topics don't get discussed and which topics do. If you didn't like this discussion, you should have stayed out of it.

[PrimeJunta]

As i stated before, its:

a) dependable on player not designer therefore asking Obsidian to make "immersion" their goal or for Obsidian to constantly double guessing every element "will this break immersion for some schmuck" is a waste of time.

What if a discussion allowed us to reach some kind of meaningful conclusions about more concrete things that create immersion or break immersion? Would that be helpful?

 

b) it's a by product of good design

Would "What constitutes good design?" be a valid topic for discussion? If so, why would this discussion not end up as a demand for fanservice, whereas the related discussion "what contributes to immersion?" would?

 

Ad.2

Discussions about gameplay mechanics, companion interactions, mood of the game etc.

Why would such opinions not be "dependent on player not designer" in some way that, say, "immersion" is?

 

Ad.3

The same way I determine which food i like, I point a finger and say this is good/meaningful or this is not.

Good. That's what I do too.

 

Ad.4

Yes, it helps to stop meaningless topics and shows which topics are meaningless.

In my opinion, attempts to shut down discussion are, generally speaking, both meaningless and unhelpful if not downright harmful. Now that I've stated this opinion, are you more or less likely to cease such attempts? Put another way, was this attempt to shut down such shutdown attempts helpful?

[AGX-17]

It's fundamentally relative to the individual. You can make a UI that consists of a no on screen interface first person view of the player character's hands reaching for a bag and then using the controls to maneuver the hands individually to dig around in the bag for the item you're looking for, but that's not going to be immersive for everyone. I'm sure the vast majority of us are going to find immersion in the form of our own interpretations of the experience, letting our imaginations do most of the work to fill in the inevitable gaps. Immersion is really a function of imagination if it's not some kind of neural-network simulation like the Matrix.

Edited September 30, 2013 by AGX-17

[mcmanusaur]

I believe that the real obstacle to defining immersion objectively is our personal histories of which games we have played and enjoyed, which inform our varying expectations for future games. Graphics have progressed a long way over the last few decades, and I think you can say with some level of objectivity that our capability to create immersive experiences has also grown in parallel (even if many current games don't wisely utilize that capability). However, since each of us has had our own individual introduction to games (and also to RPG's in particular) along different stages of technological progression, our standards and expectations for what we consider "immersive" vary heavily. It is very difficult to let go of nostalgia (especially in the context of this awesome project), but I think this is the true obstacle to a consensus about immersion, even if we are objectively moving closer to maximal immersion every year. So while our subjective notions of immersion (informed by our expectations, which are in turn informed by our gaming history) are in some way valid, I think you can make a case that the ability to create immersion is something objective and growing over time. Of course, you might be disagreeing with this because you're one of those people who consider realism and immersion opposites, but I think that technological advancement improves the potential for both.

Edited September 30, 2013 by mcmanusaur

[Walsingham]

I know a wee bit about both hard and 'soft' sciences, and I have to say - perhaps harshly - that I find the notion we shouldn't study, define, or refine 'immersion' is pretty contemptible.

 

Complex emergent properties, such as 'immersion', 'humour', or 'fun', of media are the standards by which they succeed or fail. Not FPS or Ghz.

 

Given that these are success/fail issues, surely there can't be a BETTER sort of topic to discuss. Either from the perspective of the developers, or from the perspective of an intellectual challenge.

[Amentep]

Immersion to me is the ability of a consumer of a work to forget that they're a consumer of a work and engage directly with the work without any attention being paid to the medium of the work or the disconnect between the environment of the consumer and the environment presented by the work; in short the total of the consumers imagination and the imagination presented by the work itself via its creative design equal.

 

Because the immersion threshold will be different for each player and triggered differently, I don't think its possible to create a game where you maximize immersion for all players, rather you must focus on creating a game where you minimize immersion-breaking. 

[Osvir]

 

Sharp_one, I re-read what you've said and I can really only extract one meaningful opinion from all of it. Correct me if I'm wrong about it:

 

You believe discussions like this amount to demands for fanservice, and you believe that fanservice makes for poor games. Conversely, you believe that Obsidian is more likely to produce a good game by pursuing their ideas of what it is, after which each of us will play it and either like it, or not, depending on our personal preferences and whatever mood or state of mind we happen to be in.

Yes that is correct.

I agree, Obsidian should pursue their vision and I feel that many agree on that.

 

However, that doesn't stop us from discussing what we feel about different things (such as "Immersion") regardless if Obsidian adheres to it or not. We are simply expressing what we think about it, are we not? And should Obsidian participate in this discussion by listening to it (reading it loosely) then maybe there's a chance that they find something that gives them insight or ideas which in turn improves their own vision.

 

It is not demanding fanservice, it is sharing & discussing fan-ideas between people.

[PrimeJunta]

 

What if a discussion allowed us to reach some kind of meaningful conclusions about more concrete things that create immersion or break immersion?Would that be helpful?

I believe it would not let us reach meaningful conclusion. Just like "why (insert food here) is tasty" discussion would not.

 

Okay, now I think we've reached a level where we can talk concretely. I can give you some examples of things that I think create or break immersion. I'll start with a few common immersion-breakers:

• Lack of artistic coherence. Specific example: armor and weapon designs in Oblivion. They were all over the place and didn't hang together. You ended up wearing Gothic plate and wielding a katana.
• Poor characterization. Specific example: Leliana in Dragon Age: Origins. The romance minigame completely wrecked her as an independent character with a personality. (Same applies to most of the others, with or without a romance, except Dog.)
• Poor or inconsistent user interfaces. Specific example: firearms in VtM: Bloodlines.
• Poor voice-acting. Specific example: the original English VO's in The Witcher. A lot of them sounded painfully like what they were, a bored actor reading from a paper in a studio, half-heartedly attempting to get some emotion in there somewhere. (I actually played the game in Polish, with subtitles, on my second round, even though my understanding of Polish is extremely limited, as the closest language I can make any claim to speaking is Ukrainian.)  

Would discussing any of these fall within your acceptable parameters? 

 

If so, would it be valid to discuss them from the point of view of, say, how they contribute/detract from immersion?

 

It wouldn't. Good design is such a vague term and it means different things to different people that discussing it would be pointless.

 

Yet design is a subject that is taught, studied, written about, and discussed in great depth and volume. There are entire schools devoted to design. Is all of that pointless?

[PrimeJunta]

You know, I may be wrong about this, Sharp_one, but I get the feeling that now you're just being stubborn for its own sake. I mean that insistence on immersion being entirely and totally subjective, with no possibility of identifying features or qualities that promote or detract from it.

 

Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it just makes conversation a little... well, unhelpful and meaningless.

 

Good design, by the way, is more than just simple rules like that. There are known and fairly widely accepted general principles of good design; parsimony for example. I'm pretty sure that we could arrive at similarly high-level yet still meaningful qualities regarding immersiveness, should we try.

 

Anyway, I think I'm about done with this discussion, unless you have something to add? Thanks for your patience in explaining your point of view; I appreciate the trouble you took with it. In the future I'll try not to participate in derailing threads with meta-discussions like this.

 

Since you considered my previous suggestion helpful even though you disagreed with it, I'll dare to make another one: would you, in the future, consider simply stating your disapproval of a topic, and not pursuing that branch of the discussion any further should someone react negatively to it? That would be considerate of people who don't share your views, and wish to discuss the topic at hand.

[SophosTheWise]

This is idiotic. Immersion is a matter of personal preferences, the whole thing is dependent on the receiver not provider. It doesn't matter how hard Obsidian would work on "immersion" there will always be some moron who will claim that the shape and color of the flower in cut-scene had brake his immersion. Player either gets immersed in the game or he doesn't but that depends on the player. 

 To add this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_the_Author

 

____

 

Your vast range of training and experience has made you more skilled" is less immersion breaking than "You've levelled up" or worse "Level up"

 

 

Is it, really? I could argue, that it is more immersion-breaking, since that is a moronic sentence trying to cover up immersion-breaking sentences. Which is, in itself, immersion-breaking. It works the same with every intent to create "immersion"

[Yonjuro]

 Anyway, the meta-discussion here is interesting and all (where by 'interesting', I mean 'not interesting'), but to the main point of the thread:

 

 

 

Okay, now I think we've reached a level where we can talk concretely. I can give you some examples of things that I think create or break immersion. I'll start with a few common immersion-breakers:

• Lack of artistic coherence. Specific example: armor and weapon designs in Oblivion. They were all over the place and didn't hang together. You ended up wearing Gothic plate and wielding a katana.
• Poor characterization. Specific example: Leliana in Dragon Age: Origins. The romance minigame completely wrecked her as an independent character with a personality. (Same applies to most of the others, with or without a romance, except Dog.)
• Poor or inconsistent user interfaces. Specific example: firearms in VtM: Bloodlines.
• Poor voice-acting. Specific example: the original English VO's in The Witcher. A lot of them sounded painfully like what they were, a bored actor reading from a paper in a studio, half-heartedly attempting to get some emotion in there somewhere. (I actually played the game in Polish, with subtitles, on my second round, even though my understanding of Polish is extremely limited, as the closest language I can make any claim to speaking is Ukrainian.)  

 

 

 Some additional concrete examples from BG2 a game I find immersive except for:

 

Dialog bugs, e.g.: 

1. In a few places, Banter assumes PC is male. This is an immersion breaker for my GF who generally plays a female PC.

2. Slums district, "Couldn't you see he was armed", well, no - solo monk here, not armed, going to kill you thugs anyway.

3. Umar hills, Old man makes fun of party for wearing armor, see number 2. (also the case for Kensai, Mage, etc. playing solo or in a party where nobody has armor).

 

 These are concrete issues with straightforward fixes and they speak to game design (items need enough attributes (e.g. robe vs. armor) to support dialogs; dialogs need to check them etc.) Presumably people who write games know that already by now, but it is a concrete example of game software design influencing immersion. 

 

Voice acting:

 In the Spellhold asylum, one of the inmates, Aphril, is voiced by the same person who does Aerie and it is painfully obvious. Sometimes an actor can voice a part and sometimes not (the same person voices Ellesime and that works for me). Easy suggestion, get a different voice actor for each part. (but, if actors get paid like session musicians, that would make it more expensive)

 

Dialog choices:

 Dialogs put words in your PC's mouth and it can be immersion breaking if they are out of character. E.g., in the first visit to the slums with Jaheira in your party, you get three options for what do we do next (these are not direct quotes): "How the hell should I know", "Let's just go to a tavern, what difference does it make anyway" etc. This doesn't sound like the character I thought I was playing. It is a ham handed attempt at character development that doesn't work - apparently related to the romance story line.

 

Romances:

 While we're on that subject, in game options to prevent the (awkwardly written) romances would have been good for immersion, maybe something during character creation. As it is, one can drop Aerie from the party and pick her back up to end the romance storyline but shadow keeper is required to shut down Jaheira (or  just dropping here entirely or choosing sufficiently rude dialog options, but both seem out of character esp. if you played through BG1 with Jaheira and Khalid in your party). Some people have fond memories of the romance plots (probably those who played the game during their younger years) others do not.

 

The above are more like bug fixes and it would be useful to hear more examples from people of such immersion killers. Also, getting a handle on what makes a game immersive to begin with would also be interesting. In a previous thread, I posited that BG1 and BG2 might benefit from the Infinity Engine look and feel since they leave more to the imagination than later, more realistically rendered, 3D games (which aren't always realistic enough on their own and may not match one's own imagination). Not everyone agreed, but (the constructive part of) the discussion brought out some good points about consistency, book-like vs. film-like experiences etc.

[PrimeJunta]

If I had to name one quality that makes anything immersive for me, it has to be 'coherence.' If a game, book, movie, or whatever has an internal logic and sticks to it, and if it has something at least a tiny bit interesting to say, I find it pretty easy to become immersed in it. The specifics of that internal logic don't matter much at all.

 

Consider the original, theatrical release of Star Wars trilogy. It had really tight internal logic, in everything from the fundamental laws of its universe, to its history, to the characteristics and motivations of the people in it. All of this was expressed in dialog, in the visuals, in costumes, in special effects. Every little bit supported every other little bit, and the instances that violated this logic were really rare, and often unintentional.

 

George Lucas's "enhancements," however, were for the most part jarring, and many of them broke immersion for me. For example, the furry critter that does the rock'n'roll number in Jabba the Hutt's lair. He's visually completely different from the other critters; his musical style is different; the way he moves is different. When he hops on-screen, it's like someone's poking me in the eye with a finger. I'm suddenly reminded that I'm watching a movie, and my immersion is broken.

 

The same applies to games. If they hang together and respect their own internal logic, and if they have relatively scarce instances that remind me that it's a game, I get easily immersed. To start with of course the game has to communicate its internal logic to you; you're sort of half in the game and half out of it. If you get over that, all it has to do is stick with it.

 

"Do it well, or don't do it at all" would perhaps be a good maxim to follow. I'd rather play a game with fewer but coherent and well-developed systems or content, than one with lots but incoherent and half-arsed content and systems. Shadowrun Returns, for example, is a pretty neat little game because it's coherent. There would've been room for any number of other systems in it, but given a limited amount of resources, I'd much rather play it with the system it has now and the level of polish it has now, than with two or three times the amount of systems and content but with it hanging together that much more poorly.

[Azure79]

For an RPG, my greatest immersion breaker is not being able to pursue actions I think my character has access to.

 

For example at the end of DA2, [spoilerS AHEAD] You care given a choice to support the mages or support the templars. Throughout the entire game, both sides are portrayed as extremist and dangerous, with the more stable, reasonable members being killed by the very people they are trying to protect. Your title is the Champion of Kirkwall. You protect the city and its people, but you are never given that choice at the end. You can't tell both factions to go eff themselves and that you will go and protect the people from the chaos. You can't give an ultimatum you will kill any mage or templar that is harming innocents as you try and restore order in the city. I understand that some players will have motivations to support either group, but for me, it was more about leaving the crazies to their own conflict and protecting the people from their idiocy. When I realized I wouldn't get that choice, I almost stopped playing. [END SPOILERS]

 

I think Obsidian has been pretty good about player choice and agency in most of their games so I'm not too worried. The only thing I can remember that annoyed me was the binary choice between Sand and Qara in NWN2. 

[Lephys]

One of the issues with "immersive" might be that some people think "but wait! Some people weren't immersed! You said that game possessed the constant quality of immersion!".

 

I think when we say "immersive" game, we're talking about factors that support immersion; that make it more easily achieved, when it is sought after.

 

It's like... calling something "malleable." Play-Doh, versus steel. Steel is plenty malleable. You just have to apply a LOT of force, and/or heat. But Play-doh, relative to the capabilities of the average person, is much more easily shaped with minimal effort.

 

Immersiveness is simply a property of something. Like sweetness is to food. Sure, some people don't like sweet things. But that doesn't mean sweet things aren't sweet.

 

If a game is set in a rain forest, and it actually accurately depicts a rain forest, and has accurate animal sounds and a good variety of animals, that game is "more immersive" than a different game (also set in a rain forest) that just has a big desert environment with some trees. It's not because you, as a human being, are supposed to like rain forests. It's because it supports the imagined experience of being in a rain forest.

 

Look at it like this: If you're camping, and you find a fire pit already dug, with stones around it, and a big stack of logs nearby, and a fire already set up, then all it needs from you is a spark. IF you want to start a fire, that's a lot better of a spot to be in than some other site with no pit, lots of foliage, and nothing but 3 soaking wet logs lying around for fuel. If you have no interest in starting a fire... well, then there's not even any evaluation going on, now is there? "This is a TERRIBLE place to not-do-anything!"