of Fallout 4?

I'm in my early twenties and I grew up playing the fundamentals:
Pac-Man, Mario, Galaga, Tetris and a few other platformers.
I was 8 when I first started with RPGs: Diablo, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana and by the time I was twelve I was fortunate
enough to have received a PS1 for christmas where I played the hits there and was introduced to several other genres: FF VII, VIII, IX, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Tenchu, Racing games...
In High School I moved to PC gaming: Kotor, Diablo 2, Indiana Jones...

Now "immersion" as a word loosely translates to how much you as an individual are mentally invested in something.
With arguably the greatest games ever made in the library of games I've played, things that break [my] immersion, how much I'm invested and focused on playing the game, have less to do with realism of the games' but dwell more on the [ambiance (background+music+sounds)] [technical aspects( the actual interface, controls)] and [mechanics] implemented.

Examples:

*Floaty jumping mechanics in Ninja Gaiden 2 and 3
*Having to press 'up' + 'b' in Castlevania to be able to use second weapon
*The VATS system in general
*The Resident Evil inventory system with Keys and Gemstones taking as much space as a grenade launcher
*Music stopping when I access my invetory in various RPGs
*Environmental design glitches

Is there a rule that because modern systems are capable of running exponentially larger amounts of data at a time that games HAVE to feel real as well?
I have read the most ridiculous reasons for stating the Fallouts are immersion breaking:
- having the option to fast travel
- not having a fully open world looting system
- being able to accurately fire a handgun from X distance
- weapons degrading too quickly
- weapons degrading too slowly
- someone randomly taking to you
- not having the outcome you wanted out of a quest
- the implementation of new, faster fps mechanics
- science in Fallout 3. There is acually a whole article written about this topic.

Because if realism were what you were going for we can just state:
- Deathclaws are Mammals but are born as eggs ~ immersion breaking
- My character can climb an 89 degree rocky slope while wearing a 'prosttute Chain Outfit' which clearly does not include Merrell hiking shoes. ~ immersion breaking
- My character's weight + Power Armor crossing a hanging bridge without any of the 1000 year old, burnt, heavily radiated wood breaking or splintering ~ immersion breaking
- My character doesn't accelerate downward while falling. Gravity in this game is innaccurate. ~ not real ~ immersion breaking.
- A 44. caliber bullet in the game is using proportion is measured to be only 38 mm. ~ immersion breaking.
and be done with Fallout as a whole. It isn't exactly the most realistic game ever made. Never has been.
We could go on forever and find more examples but are these really good enough reasons for you to not want to play the game anymore?

If realism is the only thing that's making you invested in games then maybe "Slender" and "Amnesia" are the only games worth playing.
Then again you could argue "Ghosts and mythical creatures do not exist. ~ not real ~ immersion breaking"
Heck let's take it a step further.
- The Knight is represented as a Horse in Chess. A Knight does not look like that ~ immersion breaking
- Stephen King wrote about a monster disguised as a clown. Monsters do not exist in the real world. ~ immersion breaking

Many of you here are in your 30s and have enjoyed the classic games as well along with the original Fallouts.
How were able to play them without this "immersion" thing being an issue?
The original Fallouts certainly didn't have the most technically comfortable engine nor realism.
Does this "immersion" argument only apply to Open World, First/Third-Person games for you? If no, then how were you able to enjoy other games?

I don't find realism to be immersive, particularly because most attempts at "realism" are just annoyance checkers that break flow.

I find richly designed environments, quality ambience, good scores, interesting plots and characters immersive. Making me stop every few hours so I can watch an animation of my character going to the bathroom isn't immersive. It's tedious. Pitch black nights that make it so I can't see a damn thing and yet my enemies can see just fine is an annoyance. It's not immersive. Nor is the apparent "game doesn't pause when you open the menu" thing. It prevents me from reading memos or listening to audio logs, things that are designed to immerse me in the world.

Deathclaws are reptiles aren't they?

And as for mammals born from eggs, the platypus and echidna say hello.

To me, immersion is definitely more about connecting with the game-world than it is about the game's often poor attempts at realism. Any in-game interface is going to be far more clumsy than a real human. You say that climbing rocky slopes is unrealistic, but those slopes are rather easy to climb if you're a human person who actually uses his arms instead of swinging them like he's jogging on level ground. Some say that container menus break immersion, and that you should have to manually sift through the items, but real people can grab exactly what they choose to without moving everything else out of the way first. It's usually a matter of the lesser of two evils. Also, Deathclaws are genetically engineered weapons (sort of like what Weyland-Yutani was going for with the xenomorphs) descended from the Jackson's Chameleon, which is of the class Reptilia.

Too much of this realism crap is why GTA isn't much fun anymore...

I am not sure what it is that gets me immersed in a game, but I do know that when I play Fallout 3 I get goosebumps and chills. I actually have to go get a blanket and draqe it over myself when I play. I lose all sense of time. I tell myself I will only play about an hour and find that 4 or more have passed. The only thing that breaks immersion for me when I play the game is a bug. On a recent play I went to the Super Duper Mart and a raider outside the door was half in and half out of the parking lot surface. I couldn't shoot him, he couldn't shoot me. When I went inside, several walls were invisible, but I could not walk through them. This happened in several places inside the mart. This was immersion breaking to me. I just accept the rest of the game and the world for what it is, and it works for me. FO:NV does not do this as well for me, although I do enjoy playing it.

I may have to play through 3 one more time before 4 comes out...

I mean, I agree with you that realism like weapon/armor maintenance and stuff like that isn't fun, but GTA being realistic? What?

A good number of people have pointed this out but it's what they did to balance the game; to make you actually use your bottlecaps.
This is a case where immersion succeeds through realism.
We're actually invested enough to want to make those caps or find that same weapon type to repair ours.

I wasn't saying realism isn't fun. I was pointing out Immersion =/= Realism because some people seem to mix the two up.

I dont really care too much for realism in fallout. Its nice to have some of course, but its not super important. Immersion is a bigger factor for me.

Nice Arnold Schwarzenegger pic brah brah(the one in your av and sig), my idol right there. Dont get why you have that face over his tho, hahaha.

People have their own opinions. We can disagree with other people's opinions without calling them "ridiculous."

I'm of the opinion there should be a toggle and rank list of features.

Do you want to get thirsty and suffer effects? check, or uncheck

Do you want to get hungry and suffer effects? check or uncheck

How realistic do you want encumbrance to work? List of weighted items in game and toggles for weight or weightless, like food, ammo, junk, medicine, etc., and if they're light weight, realistic weight, or somewhere in between.

How deadly or mortal are wounds? One shot in the real world can kill a person. NPCs vs. Player Character so enemies can be harder to kill, but Player Character needs to be extra careful.

Do wounds heal over time and how does wounding effect the character? Can wounds get infected?

In other words, everything should be customizable in a menu somewhere.

The game that immersed me in the most is Baldur's Gate 2, it captures you in, with it's fascinating characters, it's amazing writing, the beautifully designed world, I've never been immersed in a game like Baldur's Gate.

What a top quality writing, every character seems to have a life of its own, a branching background that extends so much, they have a real life and they don't feel like they're there just to entertain, talk or give the PC some quest, their one and foremost goal is to help themselves, not you, the PC like some games do (cough...Skyrim..cough).

Also, you being Baahlspawn (the son/daughter of the murder god) doesn't change the way people react to you or give you special treatment, hell they may even want to use you for their own good and help themselves using your powers.

And the art, the way the cities look and how they're designed, they look amazing, it looks like a masterpiece, every city has it own style and art, the rich cities look breathtaking, and the poor cities look warm, inviting and cozy, I have never seen a game that captures the essence of social life in art as this.

It's so sad that Bethesda can't even come close to making an amazingly written, designed and well-made game like Baldur's Gate, the closest was probably Morrowind, and it doesn't even come close to the masterpiece that is BG2, it's almost... shameful.

I'm really hoping we get a spin-off game by Obsidian using Fallout 4's new engine, like New Vegas, Obsidian is just better than bethesda, in everything, from writing quests and characters, to designing and fixing the mistakes (like making a better skill check system in dialogues, adding more skills, and adding more weapons, and a better lore friendly story) Bethesda made, sorry but it's the truth, compare Fallout New Vegas to Fallout 3, and you'll find out that Obsidian is the better company, and New Vegas is the better game.

Immersion Breaking for me isnt when the laws of real world physics are being broken, i dont care that my Protag can jump from 10 meters high and not break a leg in some game i play, aslong as it is suported by lore and fiction in game. What for me breaks immersion is when a game goes threw all the trouble to astablish something in lore as fact (for example Elder scrolls beast races being discriminated.) only to be contradicted later on ingame (Protag who is also beast race being treated no different then anny other character).

When a game thus set certain lore as fact, and contradicts (breaks) that lore later on with no explanation, that is for me immersion breaking.

I coudnt care less if it all is scientificly sound or valid, or realistic.

I still wonder if people who want immersion play in third-person.

I could use more immersion in my BGS games, but I know I'll never be fully satisfied. Video games are about making a design that doesn't break pacing intrusively.

I also still wonder if people who say "i play video games, keep realism for the real world" would be okay with N64 graphics, cuz you're a liar.

I'm a big proponent of "realistic" game mechanics (though "logical and believable within the constraints of the setting" is probably a more accurate term), but I have to agree with you on that point. The vast majority I've seen are unreasonably tedious, micromanagey, overly complex, or some horrid amalgam of those three. Worse yet, a lot of them are completely ineffectual at alluding to reality, as well, so you get all the fun of a checkbook-balancing simulator with all of the belivability of a Michael Bay movie.

Chesko did a great job with his Skyrim realism mods. They make the game more believable without making it less playable. When "realism" is done like that, I enjoy it greatly.

realism can trigger immersion, it's not an either or question. The real question is how to get both

It's a complicated, subjective topic I think. Realism (as long as it's not annoying) is important to me because it brings me immersion, but my mind also understands that, in a game, certain sacrifices need to be made. Which is why concepts like VATS don't break my immersion because I'm using my imagination, while other things, such as the immortality of companions, will break my immersion.

Oh, I dunno..... it's not Fallout, but the dude on the beta Wasteland 2 forums who complained that the devs adding a post-processing-tone graphics option (so that people could pick a washed-out postapocalypse, or a colorful one, or in between) would "ruin his immersion".... that was pretty ridiculous. (Oh, and it would disrespect the dev's "vision"...)

Not based on all the Skyrim threads I saw that went on about "OMG, the game makes me ride horse/sit in chairs, in third person! Immersion ruined!"

(On the other hand, I see plenty of threads talking about immersion in third-person MMOs, so it seems like each game style has it's own specific expectations.... I mean, I'm always surprised at people claiming immersion in MMOs, considering how often the Bethesda immersion folks have claimed that things like 3rd person or having a visible UI/HUD totally ruined it. It's very confusing.)

I just want the gameplay to feel intuitive and natural, and the setting to stick to the rules they establish for it.

Also, maybe I'm just a bitter hipster, but the Skyrim modding community made me hate the word "immersive". It's an empty buzzword now, especially since everyone has their own interpretation of what the word means to them.

Of course. Immersion that relies on graphical fluff is likely using that as a crutch. Games don't need the slightest realism to be 'immersive'.

Not so; not at all.

If the mechanics are good, then the rest is garnish. These two images [below] both mean and depict precisely the same event, and that's all that matters to me; unless the mechanics are lacking.

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/Kills-Dragon_zpsfpjwfkeh.jpg

Realism is stupid, in most video games. If video games were realistic, they wouldnt be fun. You want real? Play a simulator. I want to play a game that makes me feel like I am in another world.

Different strokes for different folks, I just don't see how seeing an outside character move unnaturally is more immersive than viewing it from your own eyes being that character, regardless of how people prefer to play.

Well, I still think it's an outrage to the majority of gamers if games didn't push graphics or look good, especially these days and with a franchise that is mostly about realism, set in a real world, and in 3D. Graphics aren't the most important thing, but I know there's people out there who complain that video games shouldn't be realistic while crying out for the best graphics. There's been a huge debate on FO4's graphics from the trailer. I think a lot of people's worries has cleared since Beth's conference, though.

...I think that most of the people saying that, are talking about "realistic" game mechanics (i.e, eat/sleep/drink mode, very restrictive inventory, brutally obnoxious injury mechanics, super-dark darkness, etc) rather than realistic graphics.

On graphics.
There was this game. Minecraft? I think that's it. Sold quite well from what I hear.

For immersion, far more important to me than graphics, or resolution really- for me as a player- is the use of a 3D playspace.

I don't need or want fallout to be too realistic, graphically or physics wise. We're dealing with unrealistic subject matter. So, semi realism is fine.
Realism in mechanics? Sure, to an extent, but is this an RPG, or a simulator?

Well, for starters, I would never play an RPG to see through my own eyes; and I certainly never play RPGs to replace the character with myself ~that defeats the whole point of roleplaying.

RPGs (and games in general) can be immersive for understanding the situation, and the effects of the rules; not merely just seeing it play out in first person.


Graphics can look good regardless of realism; or without simulation~ism. I would love to have seen FO3 build upon Fallout 1 & 2 instead of Oblivion, and have used that detail to refine the Fallout 2 interface; to exploit the fact that with only a single head in the conversation interface, they would have had the poly-budget for heads like these [below]...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIGWAYS5uRw

Instead of the ones seen in FO3 and FO4:

Huh? What? Explain...? Who's a liar? The OP? Why?

This string of words is so confusing!