The great big "Realism vs. Fun" Debate Revisited

[Buck Birdseed]

Now that Civ3 has finally shown itself to be on the correct side of the Realism vs. Fun barrier (ie. The Fun One), a lot of voices are being raised for making it more bland, more boring, more like real life.

I simply do not understand this position. People are complaining that the few, personality-infused civs are a bad thing, not because it detracts from gameplay but because they think Civ isn't supposed to be "fun"! What kind of attitude is that, I ask? Surely the greatest thing a game can achieve is fun, addictive gameplay?

I expect these people sit at home during their meager lives playing stone-dead-boring tabletop wargames with hand-painted little scale models. Get a life.

[Warm Beer]

Well, although I agree with you that the Civ3 looks like fun, I have to disagree with your premise that Realism=Unfun. As a matter of fact, I would be willting to bet that, if implemented correctly, realism adds depth and complexity, which would in turn add to fun.

I understand the the Civ series was never intended to be a 100% realistic empire building simulator (heck, even the most realistic simulatons aren't 100%), therefore, Civ3 (or even 4) would not be the best place to impliment a slew of realism enhancements. I say this because it would detract from the spirt and intent of civ, not because realism would kill all the fun.

So agree and dissagree with you.

...and no, i don't play tabletop wargames with hand painted miniatures.

Originally posted by Snapcase
stone-dead-boring with hand-painted little scale models. Get a life.

I have/did/and once in a while still build models. They are fun. I'm consider to be a craftman by the Golden Gate chapter of the IPMS.

[Trifna]

Realism isn't an opposit of fun... I like playing Rogue Spear because you easily die and it makes the game alot different. I like it because you wont get your shot necessarily right simply because you aimed right.

In Civ III, I want realism, but I don't think it would make the game less fun... And I find great the possibility of beeing able to put out/in some rules so that both realism wanters and fun wanters may get what they want. I like specifically Civ III because of its realism towards History, the way it works, and the way I can make a great civ evoluate.

I also like Starcraft, but seriously not for realism, but for its balance and its very good features. I LOVE a realist game that simulates History, even if not for the same reasons as I also loved and played alot Mario Kart. So stop saying that realism is necessarily opposit of fun. At least, I think it's seriously false.

[Adagio]

more realism is in some cased the same as more fun, at least for me, that is one of the reasons I prefer the game Duke Nukem 3d (and in near future Duke Nukem 4ever), while I dislike the game Quake 3...Sure how realistic is it that 1 guy saves the world from Aliens But it is in more eathlike surroundings

Wouldn't it make Civlization boring when (for example) the cities doubles it's inhapitans every year or wouldn't it be boring when building a temple boost the science in the whole civilization?

[Brent]

Fun is indeed more important than realism. Yet realism can be a good way to provide fun. I don't know if you count them as wargames, but I count Risk and Axis And Allies as fun. I imagine some wargames are no fun, but let us decide what's fun for ourselves. If you're talking about graphics, I think gameplay is way more fun than graphics. A game like civ only focused on realism would be fun, but I suppose that would be a different game. By saying I want realism I'm not saying I want my game to match the real historical turn of events. That would not be fun. So I guess I don't want absolute 100% realism. I don't understand why one form of entertainment means no life while another doesn't.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Trifna
Realism isn't an opposit of fun...

It can be - also in 3D-shooters. For example: in most 3D-games you pick up new ammo & weapons simply by walking over them, or standing near and using some generic action-command. The actual physical/visible pick-up move is an understatement - replaced by a confirmation-sound instead.

In a 3D-action game called "Trespasser" (about dinousaur-hunt - may it rest in peace) the player was forced to physically navigate an arm sticking out from a first-person perspective - and, with help of commands, grabbing, lifting, reloading & aiming guns/rifles physically against any enemy-dino.

This "added realism" actually worked directly contra-productive. Instead of the player getting absorbed by the game-action, he was constantly reminded that it WAS a game - a game with huge gameplay-problems. Needless to say, the game got bad review-scores and very bad sellings.

In Civ III, I want realism

Civilization isnt "Europa Universalis". A recognized swedish professional historian commented on EU in a newspaper game-review, that compared with Civilization, EU was historically more accurate by a factor of 10 to 1. Civ is comparibly much more a cheerful "what if?" style of strategy-game, with historical clothes attached to it. Thats about it - and its great according to me.

The closest you can come historical accuracy in Civ-3 is by asking for more powerful and easy-to-use control & edit-possibilities in the SCENARIO-TOOLS instead.

[Brent]

good points Ralf.

[Trifna]

In a 3D-action game called "Trespasser" (about dinousaur-hunt - may it rest in peace) the player was forced to physically navigate an arm sticking out from a first-person perspective - and, with help of commands, grabbing, lifting, reloading & aiming guns/rifles physically against any enemy-dino.

This isn't a realism problem. It's a gameplay problem. Only one command should have done it, or it should have been done automatically by your character. In such type of case, it needs to be globalized in a more general system, permitting to the player to not having to to worry about it, even if it will be there.

For Europa Universalis, I sadly am restrained to comment since I never played that game nor saw someone play it. Maybe that it's the same case than what I just mentioned? Or maybe that Europa is more precise, thus easier to make something realist because of its precision. But I don't know Europa really to know what it's all about...

[Urban Ranger]

Some of you have missed Snapcase's point.

While realism isn't always the opposite of fun, often it is, because it's distracting. When realism clashes with fun in Civ 3, it errs on the side of fun, since that's the way of the great Sid.

Do remember, Civ is an epic game, that means it skips the minor details

[Apocalypse]

Civilization just spans during such a long period of time that you can't add many "realistic" things. I love realism wherever possible, but I don't want the extreme amount of micromanagement that would be required to be close to the realism of Europa Universalis. EU spans only a fraction of the time Civ3 does and it still has to leave out some realistic aspects in order to make the game fun.

[Lou Wigman]

I have a slightly different slant on this.

Civ/2/3 certainly isn't realistic, but that is not the issue. The point is that there are enough connections to reality to allow the player to IMMERSE themselves in the game. In other words it makes the player feel as though they are ACTUALLY leading a civilization through history. It is this illusion that helps make the game fun. (There are many other things, of course, that are needed to make a 'good' game.)

EU is more historically accurate than civ but no more realistic. However it is 'fun' for the same reasons. There is enough 'reality' to draw the player right into the game setting.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Lou Wigman
I have a slightly different slant on this.

Civ/2/3 certainly isn't realistic, but that is not the issue. The point is that there are enough connections to reality to allow the player to IMMERSE themselves in the game. In other words it makes the player feel as though they are ACTUALLY leading a civilization through history. It is this illusion that helps make the game fun. (There are many other things, of course, that are needed to make a 'good' game.)

EU is more historically accurate than civ but no more realistic. However it is 'fun' for the same reasons. There is enough 'reality' to draw the player right into the game setting.

You hit the hammer on the nail, Lou. Very well put.

[Buck Birdseed]

Exactly, Lou. Because recognision is fun. Taking the best bits from real history and using them to enhance an already fun game is great fun. Truth is often greater than fiction, and can create a huge sense of immersement in a project. As can a whole load of other factors too- leaders with personality is certainly one of them.

What I'm rebelling against is people like LOTM who just want historical accuracy and nothing else whatsoever. Some people in the "No Spanish Civ?" thread have made comments like "I don't want my leader to be a clown" and "There should be no differences between the civs at all because it's unrealistic". I just feel that's a deplorable attitude.

[SITS]

One of the problems I had with SMAC, and it took me a long time to get past it, is that I couldn't identify with the gameworld. I had no idea how to relate to Polymorphic Software. After awhile I learnt to relate to the game and gameplay which allowed me to see the depth and the flexibility of what I had bought.

So I agree with Lou. It isn't about realism per se it is about the ability to relate to that gameworld. I know what a horse is, what a F-15 is so on that level it is easier for me to connect to the game. But if that horse starts flying and the F-15 starts drinking water then I will find it much harder to relate to and it will distance me from the gameworld. I would like to have more tribes so it gives me greater options and adds to the depth but in SMAC there are only seven different factions but each of them have amazing depth. So I can cope with 16 if each has its own depth and by me choosing that tribe it actually makes a SENSIBLE difference to the game.

So for the word 'realism' I would define it as 'Something consistent, that makes sense, allows me to identify with it.' For game realism I would add that it needs to be playable and fun.

I remember reading a story about Picasso. I guy was talking to him in a club and was giving him a hard time about his paintings saying that they don't look real, that they don't look like the real-world etc. A bit later on the guy gets talking about his girlfriend and Picasso asks to see a picture of her. So the guy shows him a passport sized photo and Picasso says 'Wow, is she really that small?'

My reality isn't your reality but it doesn't make it any less real. A computer game is reality in itself but not the only reality. All I want to be able to do is to relate to it. And by relating to that reality then it becomes real.

[Trifna]

I would first want to define realism a little more on a point: doing more micromanagement isn't more realistic. As same as doing every single detail. As long as they are englobed in a more general structure, we can say they are there realistically without ever bother about them.

Lou, you effectively got a strong point. Immersion is making a great part of the fun factor. There is also annother factor which is a reality for games that are somewhat based on the way reality works: its link to reality. Why? Because we like beeing able to connect things to reality in some cases. And it makes it even more immersive, beeing able to think that we ARE in reality. What is more immersive than the reality itself?

About Picasso with his way of thinking now. It is right that a picture can represent no less a woman than a painting from Picasso. But it thosen't intend to the same goal then. The difference is the degree of metaphor. Picasso's paintings were alot metaphoric, implicit, away from a clone of reality. But Picasso wasn't adding things to reality, he was amplifying some things, decreasing some other, making links with other things. And if he wasn't representing less reality, his world was lesser close to reality.

A world need some coherence to have the possibility of an existence, even in imagination. You can create a world where lines aren't lines, but you need for this to establish a rule that says it is the case, and preferably in many cases a reason for it. For Frank Herbert's Dune (science fiction), all the parts of his world are pretty adapted between themselves to make a good global world. No disemblance, no disfunctionality, the pieces are going perfectly within each other, within the coherent rules of his world. Like Myst-Riven where the world is also pretty coherent, all piece going with no contradiction on the ideas we have about the rules ruling this world. Why can they be fantastic worlds, a long way from reality? Because their building isn't based on the same reality. They instaured a new "rule" that is "We are in the future and it changed to this" or "We are in a world unknown from our world". In the case of Civ III, it kinda says "We are a civilisation on Earth, as all the civs that we heard about in history". We then have a new factor, which is that it is connected to our reality, which already has some basic rules. So, if we want to stay coherent within this model, we should say "All starting civs already have differences that changes from each other, whattever what should arrive in History". Up to you to see if it is or not coherent with the model.

Thus, if you put unrealistic things, it's that you're puting you out of your model. Like thinking in your head "I am in a game, playing with playors". Like in lots of other games that aren't based on immersion in annother world as much. Like some based where the fun may be competition against cpu or players.

I guess Sid's team got the great idea of puting customizable rules. Now, it's easier for everyone to get what he exactly wants