Games as a simulation of reality

    The article talks about a certain, we can say a new genre of games. I was thinking about this in an interview with Nikolai Dybovsky from the company Ice-Pick Lodge , an Internet article by the user under the nickname Orgota , my experience in playing games in the Sandbox genre and the relatively little experience in creating the Cyber ​​Development game.

    Desires described by other people


    I will give part of the interview with Nikolai Dybovsky ( full version ):

    - What is a game?

    - First of all, the game is a model of the world. I consider the game as a work of art, put it on a par with a book, with a film, with a play. Speaking in a more professional, accurate language, this is an artistically organized sign system. It has an ideological component and there are - as in any other form of art - techniques that allow the consumer (the reader, the viewer, and here the player) to crack this nucleolus. The game is a work of art, it is a principled position; all other questions are secondary to me. Here, for example, they say that the game is entertainment, which at the same time should set the player tasks. “Collect fifty apples, and you will be happy!” But all this matters only as an artistic device. Reception may be appropriate and work, or it may not.

    - Do you already see how the artistic language of games crystallizes?

    The game needs to be built so that the player, through his actions, brings to completion the unfinished work, situation or proposed problem. So that he finally creates this work, so that he follows this unfinished design, and it collapses behind it. Then it turns out that the player is going through a certain life - from the start point to the finish point - and then looks at the path traveled. He himself creates the universe; he himself asserts values ​​in it.

    And if this is so, then all the elections that we put before him must be ethically filled. You can’t just say: collect fifty apples! - and then gratefully pat on the shoulder when the player actually collects them. In the conditional design of the game, such a choice is valuable and justified, but when you later turn off the computer and get up because of it, nothing remains in the soul. In the game you are an elf of the 80th level, but in real life, I'm sorry, a stunted nerd. But we strive to make the game solve problems that are relevant to humans, so that the growth of the game avatar is closely intertwined with the personality of the player. Then game progress is reflected in real life.

    - How do you feel about David Cage, who made Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls and focuses on the narration in the spirit of cinema?

    - In my opinion, this is secondary. The game should act precisely by game means. Heavy Rain had a very high level of graphics, but it did not work out of the "sinister valley" effect. Plastic mannequins who are trying very hard to pretend to be living people - and they have almost real tears running down their faces, but why? In the same Journey, the degree of conditionality is very high and the heroes do not pretend to be people, but there is much more humanity in them than in these photorealistic figures.

    - Then consider another example - Minecraft, where the level of conditionality is quite high. Can you take such game mechanics as art?

    - I repeat: the sign makes the game art. The nature of the game implies certain rules for achieving victory and defeat. If the creator of the game fills these rules with meaning - for example, he tells you: the general ethical system of our game is such that the game is about freedom of choice, and now you have been forced to make some decision, so you are estranged from victory - then this is already a work of art. In Minecraft, I did not notice this. But I don’t pretend to be a high theoretician at all, much less say that art games are good, and games that are not art are bad. Minecraft is an awesome game, and a person who is passionate about Minecraft can find a lot of meanings in it. But art does not do it. Because you can look at the battery in the same way and brighten up, but the battery from this will not become a work of art.

    - How important is dialectics for you within the “victory-defeat” relationship? Defeat - even for the sake of art - is difficult to survive stoically, but without losing it, the game loses its glow. How to find a balance between defeat and victory? Is it always possible to win in a game?

    Fill defeat with meaning, make the loser aware of him as a sign in this system, and everything will be fine. Speaking more mundane, I do not think that the player should be protected from defeat. This is a very popular concept - they say, you need to feel sorry for the player, don’t have to break him off, he will be upset, upset if you kill him too often, he will spit and quit playing ... This is wrong. Defeat is a very bright paint in your arsenal. Just use this paint wisely.

    ... I found that there is gameplay, but instead of the player plunging into the situation, feeling it and taking action there, he simply solves the conditional tasks that we set for him. Why are multiplayer online games harmful? Because they offer a fake, false, artificial way of personal development. Being a weak, cowardly, stupid person, you work within the framework of a system where green capsules increase your intelligence, and blue capsules increase your physical strength. A person gets the 80th level, the game praises him for this, he spends months and years of his life on it, and in this game some kind of meaningless entity progresses. These conditional rules replace real progress. The gameplay here is great, but it's fake! This approach prevents the game as an instrument, which should provoke real spiritual growth. I do not want to replace real progress with a conditional system of progress. I strive precisely for the fourth wall to fall; so that the player is not identified with the avatar, but realizes the commonality of problems that are relevant on both sides of the monitor. If this succeeds, the game succeeds.

     

    Это разговор о высоком, но тут можно выделить несколько тезисов: (1) игра — это модель мира, выраженная интерактивным языком (2) приемы в игре должны нести определенную смысловую задачу, (3) у игрока должна быть широкая степень выбора в поведении в рамках проявления своего «Я», (4) наличие/отсутствие хорошей графики не влияет на построение этической модели в игре, наличие которой приближает игру к искусству.

    А вот как описывает отличие жанров и стремление к реальности Orgota:
    Парки развлечений и песочницы — игры из разных жанров! Хотя на форумах их зачем то помещают в один раздел, играют в эти игры абсолютно разные люди! Те, кто в ММО «отдыхают», will never play either hardcore or sandbox. And none of the most licked and advanced graphics of them in such a MMORPG will not delay. A man came after work, he has an hour before bedtime, so that he can “unwind” a little. He knows in advance that he’s going to raid with friends now or will be engaged in quests that he didn’t manage to finish yesterday. Forced run from the cemetery to the place of rep mobs? He will perceive this as severe mockery! He did not plan this, he does not have time for such nonsense. "Where are the developers looking ?!" Moreover, the "vacationer" does not have time to craft. After all, for crafting you need to get resources somewhere, find a machine, and then also try to sell the crafted goods. “Buyers are not announced immediately, do not wait for them when the money for the coveted cannon is needed here and now!” It is boring to farm such a person, there is no time to trade. In order to revolve in the gaming economy, it takes time, but it just does not exist. But he wants to have fun in the game!

    What is hardcore? This is a risk. Loss of property, skills, housing - any risk. And players who choose the path of peaceful life in MMOs, but at the same time risk everything, as they simply “live” in a hardcore sandbox. In my opinion, it is always more pleasant to create something, to craft not for show, but because those around you really need your craft. And it is more interesting to trade in a lively economy that has not been ruined by goods falling from the sky. It also makes sense to get resources only if the game does not have the opportunity to buy these same resources for three pennies from a premium merchant. Maybe all this provide a classic amusement park? By and large - no, because there is a conditional, toy economy, cut down to such a state that its presence does not interfere with the "vacationers" to have fun. Therefore, merchants, crafters, PVEshers with pleasure will settle in a hardcore sandbox! But this requires a game balance between them and the PVPs. So that the risk for peaceful players is not excessive.

    ... Today, at the peak of popularity, the theory of our respected psychoanalysts that leaving online games is an escape of weak, unstable people from the harsh reality. In a fictional ideal world, without worries and dangers. Therefore, MMO games are created in accordance with the concept of escapism. With fabulous, "gingerbread" graphics a la WWII, comic battles, brawls, painless death of game characters. So as not to disturb the vulnerable psyche of the player. And there are already a lot of such games. Most did not live up to the expectations of their developers. Not so many people “hide” in them as expected in theory.

    Players are clearly waiting for something else. Players want to escape into reality!They need risk, a sense of danger, a sense of loss. What is just missing in everyday life. Determining the quality of real life for a player in IMO is actually quite simple. It is well known that he has a computer, access to the Internet, free time. And this means that he, at least, does not starve to death, is not in extreme danger, and all his basic needs are satisfied. So maybe he just lacks a sense of risk, and that's why he came into the game!

    And in more detail about player values:
    Every player has his own values ​​in MMORPGs. This, not only virtual money and property, but also the level of the character, his skills, as well as any achievements received during the game. The human psyche acts in such a way that we cannot "stagnate", we always need to strive for any accomplishments. To get something from life, to achieve something. However, we do not want to lose what has been achieved. So we are arranged.

    But game developers have only positive motivation in their arsenal of funds. They cannot make us suffer losses and suffer, because we have the opportunity at any time to leave their universe and go to another. But as a result, MMORPGs, almost from the very beginning of the development of the online games industry, faced the problem of inflation of game values. As an example. You are a crater, new to the game and sew pants from the skin of a troll. To whom will you sell them when the MMORPG is full of things? After all, players have no compulsory opportunity to lose their values. At the same time, the game is more like a pumping scheme than the game itself.

    This led to a cap, a point in the game when everything that can be acquired is acquired, and, in the absence of the possibility of losses, is depreciated. An attempt to somehow get around this requirement, the desire of the players forced developers to resort to inflation of game values. In order to prevent the game from dying, they take away property, level and skills imperceptibly, through the release of new servings of values.
    As a result, numerous anomalies of game mechanics. “Finiteness” - a cap of the game, loss of entry-level content, pointless pumping - crafting not for the sake of things done, but for raising the level, many hours of genocide of mobs, again for the sake of level, destroying the game’s economy, etc.

    I personally see only one way out of this situation. Players need to accept the possibility of losses in the game.

    What is the novelty of the genre?


    Let's compare the two games in terms of the genre of Haven & Hearth and CyberDevelopment. They are both MMORPG genres. Moreover, they are both RPG sandboxes (English sandbox RPGs) - games in which the game character is placed in the open world, allowing the player to do what he pleases. In such games, instead of the main storyline, the player is offered many independent tasks, places to visit, and the like.

    We will discuss the RPG component. Now many games are called RPGs, but they are too different, and it seems that there are not enough existing terms. All existing types of RPGs, I would call the plot RPGs , with some difference, they have a plot. It would seem that in RPG sandboxes such as Haven & Hearth or the same Civilization, the plot is secondary, because "It is left to the player to do what he pleases."But what characteristics prevent the game from going beyond the plot? It is not strange - this is a map of the world in which the character is placed.

    All story RPGs have a displayed character on a world map. This is perhaps the very difference from the genre in which we are trying to make Cyber ​​Development, let's call it strategic RPG . In a strategic RPG there can be (1) global maps - representing the world schematically, just like a map, without details; (2) tactically maps - cities, battle, etc., but again without detail.

    Let's try to show the difference between the tactical map from the strategic RPG and the map where the character is placed in the story RPG. In the story RPG, for greater realism, we control the character, he moves on the map and searches, interacts with various objects, structures, including fighting with other units, etc. In a strategic RPG, there is no character in the game, or it occasionally appears as a symbol in a tactical screen (the analogy here is such as if the story world degenerates to a chessboard on which chess pieces battle).

    For the strategy, this is too detailed a level of plot maintenance, the presence of a plot card distracts the player from planning, allows you to get carried away with the plot and look at the game as a fairy tale, a film in which he himself participates. But such “films” have an end or “monotony of walkers”, this is what is called the “end of modeling”.

    So in Haven & Hearth there is a story map, with forests, wastelands, mountains, rivers, buildings, somewhere abandoned by players, but somewhere not. The main task of this card is to go and look for something new for which they will give you experience. And when you get experience, you can do something and look again. And here is superimposed even what you yourself are looking for without knowing what.

    All this interferes with planning a development strategy. As a result, those who tried to play share their strategies on the forums. After that, the value of the entire storyline is simply depreciated. It becomes clear how to do this or that, and it remains to have patience to wander around the map and fulfill the development plan (“pump”).

    Therefore, in the strategic RPG, all these “pink snot storylines” are skipped. You immediately know the technological tree of development (more precisely, the graph), the necessary objects are given by one click in the appropriate place. And thus, it encourages the development of a development strategy that is better / worse than others. In addition, special planning screens, allowing you to set a character’s behavior plan, save you from monotonous actions when it becomes clear to the player how to solve one or another sub-problem. He simply creates a clone character and builds a plan for automatic behavior for him, after which the main agent can use the results. And the need for a story map disappears. In addition, the need to perform the same actions by the character disappears. This is being replaced by several tactical screens,

    What is the advantage? Here again we can say the words Orgota:
    In my imagination, the Hardcore Universe is drawn, mysterious and unpredictable. A world in which it is impossible to draw up a “pumping plan” and thoroughly calculate the time to reach the next level with the necessary efforts.

    But how to do that? It seems to you that everything can be calculated, if not in the mind, then on a piece of paper and everything is just different in the complexity of mathematical calculations? I will disappoint you - there are unsolved problems of artificial intelligence, and not just mathematics. There are tasks that cannot be calculated mathematically, programmatically or in general somehow with the necessary optimality. So, if such a problem is put into the game, then no plan of “pumping”, any bot can not play better than a person with his natural intelligence. But alas, I have not seen such games. Therefore, he began to create his own game.

    From here the ethical issues appear, which Nikolay Dybovsky speaks about. The gameplay does not become fake, but makes the player think and intuitively solve the most complex problems of mathematics, only he himself is hardly aware of this fully. The player does not thoughtlessly pump over his characters, but builds a stable economically closed development system.

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