Hi all. There are many examples of games in the game industry that they play even many years later after the release of the game, and some of them acquire the status of religious. They turn back many times, searched for Easterks, produce patches, create all kinds of mods. Each of these games has its own characteristics and catches in its own way. A series of games, which will be the main object of attention in this text, has its own unique features. And among them you can call the unique atmosphere into which these games immerse, and the power with which they do it. This text contains some interesting techniques with which the high immersion of this game is achieved.
[For those who meet this word for the first time → immersion from English. Immersive – creating the effect of presence, immersion]
So, meet: games of the Gothic series.
(I’ll make a reservation right away that hereinafter it will talk about those parts of the series that are made by Piranha bytes.)
Gothic series games have high immersion, one of the factors in checking the game for viability. During their exit, many players and journalists noted the high atmosphere of the games of the series. What gamemeraduates this atmosphere is achieved.
Pumping system
Giving https://casinosroom.co.uk/ high immersion to the game contributes to a thoughtful system of pumping a character. In Gothic, such a system is available, and it has its characteristic features. The player notices one of its first features at the very beginning of the passage, when he plunges into the process of acquiring a character of new skills. In addition to the availability of the necessary points of characteristics that are given for each next level, you need to find a teacher with which you can pump a particular parameter, and get a necessary amount, which is quite logical: training costs the board. This applies to both the pumping of the skills themselves and the character parameters like life or endurance. A similar approach looks and feels very organically.
However, the game also provides for the possibilities to increase some basic parameters in other ways. So, for example, dexterity can be pumped by hunting: killed a flock of wolves or several trolls, get a few dexterity points. Or another example – power can be increased using mills of millstones: I managed to raise this weight – get an increase in strength. You can pump the character with certain plants, but for this they first still need to be found. The effect of these plants can be increased, but for this you need to learn how to make the necessary potions, and in order to get this skill, he first needs to learn, and thus a whole chain of necessary actions, which at the initial stage, are built on it, have the same significant value. There are many similar chains in Gothic, and their understanding pushes the player to carefully analyze the approach that is more convenient to develop a character.
Dirgo of pumping
The effect of another technique further enhances the effect of immersion, which is effectively combined with the above. This is the use of permanent death of any of the mobs present in the game. This technique allows you to bring a player at once a few thoughts. The lack of rebirth of mobs a few days later excludes the very possibility of grind, which in turn leads to the idea of competent and more balanced planning and resource management. And also leads to the idea of the study of new territories.
The achievement of organicity is also facilitated by the very visual display of the character development process. Visual display of the pumping process, in principle, has a strong immersion effect in the world. When the player sees how the character himself changes as any pumped skills develops, this contributes to his identification with the character himself, and the pumping parameters on the screen acquire a greater meaning than just abstract numbers.
The character development process can be conveyed, for example, through an animation of the character. This technique is used in different games besides Gothic. As an example, Dark Souls or Fable Legends, in which the character’s animation changes depending on the ratio of his physical strength and equipment, which they use, is suitable. So when putting on heavy armor, the character slows down or begins to move faster with lighter armor.
In Gothic, one can also notice how the animation of the character’s movements in battle is changing as new skills acquire. However, in addition to combat animation in the game, there are other situations in which progress in the development of certain skills becomes noticeable. So, for example, in Gothic 3 as the strength grows, animation changes during lifting for blacksmithing stones, and when the acrobatics skill is obtained, the character begins to make rifles.
Even in the game, the sensation of the development of the character is transmitted through the acquired equipment. For Gothic, programmers created a rather minimalist set of possible armor and weapons. But in such a quantity, a certain effect is achieved: each new element in the equipment acquires a meaning, each of the next update has weight and brings a feeling of satisfaction, because the player really feels the whole path that went to obtain this subject.
Elite equipment
And the fact that for the use of certain items you must first pump certain characteristics of the character (like strength or dexterity) and acquire the appropriate skills that will allow these items to use, adds more organicism both the pumping system itself and the development process of the Hero. And the use of this technique with the binding of the equipment system for the character’s game progression can be found in many other RPGs, in addition to Gothic.
Along with a system of pumping the character by another effective technique that increases the immersion of the game, is the creation of a social component for it.
The same permanent death of the NPC, in addition to deepening the pumping system, affects the interaction with them and at the level of quests. After all, most of them, with the exception of especially significant in quest terms, can be beaten without significant consequences for the character and rummaged into the pockets of the unit in the case, but if the death is finished, if this character was significant for any task, then the task is in absentia from the number of those that can be fulfilled. Therefore, finishing immediately becomes the act that will be done only after a balanced decision. This technique is quite complicated, but with proper use, a strong effect of immersion in the atmosphere of the game is achieved. And the very idea of arranging a bloody massacre for the sake of fun receives significant counterarguments in the form of a decrease in the number of quests and the empty world, since with the proper approach and zeal, such an outcome is also possible.
Apotheosis of the war
In the game, in principle, there is an abundance of such situations. The player himself is free to choose how to act, the game will simply make his solutions, and after some time will demonstrate the consequences from these decisions.
Another technique, taking into account the social component of the game, is the unification of certain NPC groups in the fraction. Each faction lives according to its own laws, and in every npc habitat there is any its own common idea and topic. So, for example, in the first part, the old camp maintained relations with the crown and regularly sent ore, the new camp was engaged in rice fields, and the sect in the swamp camp smoked jambs and prayed to his god for imminent liberation. In the second part, the city of Khorinis and the Onara farm represented two sides of one conflict. Moreover, each faction has its own motives for appropriate behavior.
In Gothic 3, the creators went even further and for increased in the size of the world created several nationalities (rebels, orcs, assassins, etc.D. ), which, in turn, consist of individual local communities, each of which has a special feature that makes the appropriate settlement and its inhabitants in its unique people within each nation. For example, in Helderne there is the influence of magicians and alchemists, in Silden the surrounding landscape creates an atmosphere of hunting, in a Monteri, the abundance of mercenaries leads to thoughts about undercover intrigues, and the dominance of undead in Goth indicates gloomy events in the past in the past.
The creation of nationalities also allows you to complicate the system of reputation, as this allows you to create quests of various information significance. Those quests that increase the status in the eyes of the inhabitants of any one settlement, in addition to information about the settlement itself, allow the player to know any nationality deeper, while quests that increase the reputation of the nationality determine the ending of the game. Thus, there are great prospects for creating many side tasks in which the ENT Games will be revealed.
Moners mercenaries
Gothic is plentifully filled with such quests. Although many of them are built according to the scheme of glory, however, the feeling of phillers from such tasks due to a large number of nuances is absent. Among these nuances, variability can be called to some extent, since the authors set only the goal before the player, providing the opportunity to decide how to achieve it. For example, in order to get the desired quest item, you can go to the indicated place in your body, but you can first go to the local alchemist, buy a suitable turning potion and already score opponents while a strong monster, or you can go to explore the world and find a way to get the necessary object in a different way. In the second part, in principle, you can get into Khorinis in several ways. And since there are no attempts to make a judgment for the decisions made in the game, the issue of waging the role of the character is decided by himself. The authors simply propose to choose the most suitable way of passing, and then they will give the player to deal with the pile of events that will follow one or another quest performed.
In addition to variability in the method of passing in additional quests, there is the possibility of choosing a NPC, which can be passed. Since there is a war in the Gothic world in the world, this makes it possible to create a conflict of interests of different aspects; Many people are drawn into the gray affairs, and any of the options for passing had far -reaching consequences. This also significantly affects the role of the role of the character. After all, if in the game there is an opportunity to hand over the same quest to the characters who are on different sides of the conflict, this immediately excludes the opportunity to please everyone at once.
Given the fact that the results of the tasks performed make their changes to the behavior of NPC and the processes taking place in the social system, then interest in the events going on in the world of the game, and, as a result, the imestibility of the game itself. And for additional tasks in the spirit of the Brown or Found-Sobury, you can spend the same amount of time as for the execution of quests of the main storyline, engaged in the extermination of undead and the solution of global issues.
I also note that the credibility of the world also affects a certain way to immersion in the atmosphere. The feeling that the world of Gothic is achieved at the expense of various details and strokes. For example, you can take the presence of each NPC of its daily routine – a rather simple set of actions that he performs, after which he goes to bed. Or another example is to throw NPC phrases that are usually torn out of context and carry a minimum of useful information. However, this is what creates that feeling of an accidentally heard conversation. In other interesting RPGs, such as TES, there is no such feeling, since the phrases pronounced NPC, when the player passes by, contain any useful information.
And from such nuances and details, the social component of Gothic is composed, which, along with other gamemeraduer techniques, immerses in the world of the game.
Interaction with the world
Another aspect of the game, which uses techniques increasing immersion, is the implementation of the method of interaction between the protagonist and the world in which he is located.
Such techniques include orientation in the local world. Although there are cards in the game, which for starters still need to be obtained, they are all quite arbitrary. They do not have any obvious quest markers and the exact outlines of the already investigated zones. They serve for the most part in order to give an approximate idea of what and where, as well as signs, placed on separate forces of roads. Of course, in some cases, the player can be given to the desired location, but such situations are single and in most cases the path must be sought by yourself, using the game tool for this. It can include the most remarkable features of the terrain and the description of the route, which is given during the capture of the quest.
Local landscape
However, for orientation, you can rely on other signs of the area. For example, such mobs that remain at the place where the player overtook them, for example, can be classified. They will be peculiar signs for an already investigated location. Living mobs can also be considered signs, but already of a different kind. Unlike the same TES, there is no binding of opponents to the player level in Gothic. And the monsters show the player whether he found the area in terms of level or is worth looking for other ways of passage and area for research. The same technique, only with a greater degree of thoughtfulness and efficiency, are used by the authors from Fromsoftware in their games.
Another manifestation of interaction with the world can be noted a way to realize complexity in the game. The player at any moment of the game, especially at its beginning, may well defeat any mob. The player throughout the passage will feel like one of the participants in the events of the Gothic world, which is in the right place and at the right time. Even after pumping several dowels of levels, the risk of being killed by any inhabitant of the Gothic world is tangible. With his pumping, the player rather increases his knowledge of the inhabitants of the Gothic world and the features of their behavior, learns various tactics, to achieve superiority in battle. Such a technique shifts accents, making abilities and skills only with an addition to the player’s arsenal, and makes these skills to use these skills. Indirectly, this approach pushes the player to a more thoughtful approach when choosing pumped skills and to distribute experience of experience in a tree of skills.
Separately, we can say about the musical accompaniment of the game. More precisely, about the way that it is used. Depending on different factors, such as the scene and / or time of day, the music of the game is adjusted to the current moment. The reception is common, but effective. In the case of Gothic, the authors skillfully use it. And the music itself, written for the first three parts of the series, became their organic part, and this is noted by many who played in them.
As an afterword
What can be added to the already written? Of course, there are ideas in the game, the implementation of which can be improved, and the most controversial can be redone or removed altogether, since their presence affects the atmosphere of immersion, and in some situations it may even dispel it.
But in general, techniques that act on the creation of an immersive atmosphere surpass those that act in the reverse way. And fan activity around these projects is evidence.
Recent Comments