Crytek Dev On Fun vs. Realism In Game Guns 324
An anonymous reader tips a post from Pascal Eggert, a gun enthusiast and Crytek developer, who sheds some light on how weaponry in modern shooters is designed. Quoting:
"Guns in games are like guns in movies: it is all about looks, sounds and clichés. Just like in the movies, games have established a certain perception of weapons in the mind of the public and just like in movies games get almost everything wrong. ... The fact is that we are not trying to simulate reality but are creating products to provide entertainment. ... if you want to replicate the looks of something you need to at least see it, but using it is even better. You should hold a gun in your hands, fire it and reload it to understand what does what — and at that point you will realize, there is nothing on it that does not have a function — because guns are tools for professionals. Lot of weapon designers in the game industry get that wrong. They think of guns like products for consumers or magic devices that kill people at a distance when really it's just a simple and elegant mechanism that propels little pieces of metal. Unfortunately 3D artists often only get access to the photos that Google Image Search comes up with if you enter 'future assault rifle' or, even worse, pictures from other games and movies that also got it wrong. This may explain a lot of common visual mistakes in games, especially since guns are mostly photographed from the side and egoshooters show weapons from the first person view."
This article is drawn from his personal experience in the game industry. The images shown are Pascal's personal work and are not related to his work at Crytek.
Maybe... (Score:3, Insightful)
Crytek can look at making their games fun first...
Re:Maybe... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd say both.....there's no point in playing a "fast tech demo"......if I wanted to do that...I'd actually play Doom 3.
More of this kind of complaint please. (Score:5, Insightful)
On top of that the recoil was vastly understated and I can guarantee you that after putting two 7.62mm NATO rounds through someone they will not still be firing or running at you. I'll give you a laugh, the game that always impressed me in terms of rifle sound effects was Army Men on the first Playstation. I had to read a horrible review of the game from a UK magazine stating that the sound effects and shooting mechanics were unrealistic. I read that after returing from a weekend at a firing range and the only game I had ever seen capture a 7.62 or
Next time a game promises more realism I expect more than just graphics and crazy Dirty Harrry style sound effects. Operation Flashpoint 2 got it right for the most part, firing a sniper rifle mid-air while running and jumping in CounterStrike is nonsense.
Realism is usefull only to a point (Score:5, Insightful)
Games are, in the end, games. Inmersion is important, but inmersion withouth fun will be... well.. not fun. So in the end videogames are mostly like complicated boardgames with the rules written in programming code.
In a game where having pistols works as very short distance weapons is not fun or usefull, the pistol will work mostly like another rifle.
( Ex: Games modeled after Rock, Paper, Scissors will force rockets as antivehicle weapons, that will not kill a soldier in a direct hit. )
And who cares? some people care... people that know real weapons, like (maybe) soldiers, and people that love weapons and love to read all details. And this affect games, because these people play videogames and is a very vocal group, and can get his point right.
There are lots of games, so generalization is poor here. There are games that aims for high levels of realism, or different levels of realism / gameplay. In one side of the spectrum there are games like Unreal and Modern Warfare 2, subreal products. On the other side there are "combat simulations" like ArmA. In the middle you have games like Battlefield.
Games are not getting wrong anything, games are remodeling weapons for his own purposes. We all know Kings are not forced to move in only 8 different directions, but is usefull for chess to model kings that way (and this don't make chess 'wrong').
Obligatory XKCD (Score:3, Insightful)
http://xkcd.com/359/
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't "get" the hate for Crysis. I've played the original Crysis through three times and Warhead twice, and have always found it highly enjoyable. Many of the levels are quite open, allowing for a number of different approaches (so different playthroughs can feel radically different). The nanosuit system is slick and allows for a lot of variation in how you fight (though I suspect a lot of people never get past just using armour-mode and playing in a very traditional fps style) and the AI is reasonable enough. Ok, it's not flawless; the plot is pretty stupid (though that goes for almost all fpses), the "float around in the alien ship" section goes on for too long and the Warhead expansion is maybe a touch on the short side (though while it lasts, it does tend to emphasise the better aspects of the first game), but despite being several years old, I'd say it holds up well against more recent fpses - while still looking better than them.
I think what I like most about Crysis is that it's a PC game that actually feels like it's making use of the hardware. Don't get me wrong, I like my PS3 and 360, but it does frustrate me that almost anything I play on the PC has been limited for cross-platform compatibility with console hardware that's more than 4 years old. I remember in the latter days of old console cycles, such as the SNES/Genesis cycle, the PC was putting out the kind of gaming experiences and the kind of visuals that made console gamers' jaws drop in astonishment. Crysis is the only PC game I've seen that has come close to replicating that for the current generation.
Re:Captain obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought it was a mildly interesting read.. it seems the author has two main complaints...
1. the design of guns being unrealistic
He argues that 'future gun'-designs should be evolutions based on current gun designs, aiming to address problems with those current designs and integrating that into the 'future gun' design.
On one hand, that makes sense. On the other, look at the P90 - that doesn't look anywhere near the typical AK-47 or or M16. If you've never seen one before, you might think it -is- a 'future gun'. So obviously as long as the designers design a gun that could theoretically work, all bets are off as to what it actually looks like.
Not to mention that this only really applies to guns shooting bullets anyway - and even there you've got things like the MetalStorm that operate radically different from conventional guns.
2. the use of the guns being unrealistic
Recoil would tend to ruin the 'fun' of most games. A sniper rifle that gets you near-zero accuracy (floating barrel) when on the run / flying through the air would force those people to camp - and although that's exactly what snipers do, camping tends to be frowned upon in gaming
However, as another commenter posted below, it couldn't hurt to have reload mechanisms work as they do in real life -if- you're using a real life gun design in the first place. They also argued about the sound effects, though.. I've shot a few guns - I'll take the game/'Hollywood' sound effects anytime as far as entertainment goes.
Re:Effort (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, you're quite right. People play games because they are games. People play with guns because ... ok, we don't play with guns. Anyone who's been to a shooting range knows that it's a very serious place. If it's not, that's an excellent time to leave quickly because someone's going to get hurt.
There was a show on not too long ago, where they took a kid out to an outdoor shooting range. The only people there were the kid, his mother, the instructor, and the video crew (off camera, of course).
He was a brave hero in the video games, blasting away at all the enemies. At the shooting range, he was terrified of the guns. They left his full reaction out of the initial cut, but put it in later in the show. He wasn't just terrified. He was crying his eyes out.
I took a 13 year old to the shooting range. He'd been playing FPS games for quite a while. He was sure he wanted to join the military when he turned 18. He wanted his parents to buy him real guns, so he could go to the range with them. I spent about 3 hours with him, tearing down my weapons, cleaning them, and reassembling them. I explained every part of them, so he knew the names and functions, and how they worked together. Then we were off to the shooting range.
The range we went to had two sections, a pistol, and a rifle range. We agreed that I would demonstrate proper firing techniques, and then instruct him while he fired. We went to the rifle area first. The only other person in the rifle range was firing a Kel-Tec PLR-16 [kel-tec-cnc.com] (.223 pistol). We were using my Springfield 03A3 [wikipedia.org]. For those who haven't used one, it's a cannon. :) Without shoulder padding, I'm limited to about 30 shots per arm (I shoot ambidextrously). It has no padding on the stock, and a vicious recoil. I had him stand a few feet behind me, and observe what I was doing. I fired the first shot, and brought the target back to show him what I did. While the target was coming back to me, I turned around, and he had gone from standing behind me, to hiding in the corner.
Mind you, this kid wasn't timid. It was the sudden reality of "the things that go pop in the games are really dangerous" came flooding into his world. I spent a while trying to get him to take even a single shot with it. That didn't happen.
We moved over to the pistol range. I had brought my Ruger P97DC [google.com]. It's a nice weapon. .45 ACP, fairly light, easy recoil. I fired a single shot. This time, he didn't go running all the way to the corner, but he did back up several feet. I demonstrated proper use of it for him, put a fresh magazine in. To show it was ready, I fired 3 shots from the new magazine, and then made it safe and put it down. I then began instructing him. I got him to pick it up, and he even got his finger onto the trigger, but never pulled the trigger. He was terrified.
Now, what kind of lunatic would give a 13 year old with no shooting experience a loaded weapon? Not me. I didn't tell him, but the last "loaded" magazine I put in only had 3 rounds in it. After my last shot, I hit the slide release (the slide stays back when the magazine is empty). I just told him it was ready. I'd been telling him for years "Every weapon is a loaded weapon." I'm sure anyone who's been around firearms has heard that one. I told him again, and then demonstrated that it was empty by dry firing it. I told him, even though I knew it wouldn't fire, it was still to be treated as a loaded weapon. Since he wouldn't fire what he believed to be a loaded weapon, he wasn't ready to actually do it.
It's not an age thing though. My father had me shooting when I was about 8 years old. The
It has to be said (Score:1, Insightful)
The fact is that we are not trying to simulate reality but are creating products to provide entertainment.
Thank you Captain Obvious. Hollywood, with its disintegrating fruit stands, good looking and extremely slutty women and exploding cars, has known for a long time that reality is pretty boring. In fact, most people LIKE it that way.
because guns are tools for professionals.
Save that BS for your next NRA meeting. There's nothing professional about most of the people who own/use guns. They are tools for killing. It is their sole purpose. They may be used by professionals (SOME soldiers, SOME law enforcement, SOME private gun owners), but gun ownership does not confer professional status. "Ganstas" and drug traffickers have a lot of guns and use them regularly, and there's nothing professional about that. Nor is there anything professional about the husband who shoots his wife, or the guy who shoots his neighbor. I say this as a responsible gun owner, and I hope I never ever have to be in a situation where I have to think about using it.
Re:almost everything wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:More of this kind of complaint please. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but pretty much every recent shooter I've played has you drop a magazine, seat a magazine, and then pull the charging handle. Which... is dumb.
If I had a round in the chamber, it is entirely unnecessary to work the charging handle at all. Seat the mag, pull the trigger.
If I did not have a round in the chamber, seat the mag and unseat the charging handle from its held open position.
Now, if the game were to have weapon failures, it would be necessary to pull the charging handle. Clear a jam, or because the bolt failed to lock back on an empty magazine, failure to feed/fire/extract/eject. Whatever. I suspect people wouldn't like that because its less fun. But.. where is the fun in the reloading animation being pointlessly long? In fact, it punishes players with less skill to a greater degree than those with high skill. They're more likely to need to reload under fire because they use more bullets to score a kill.
I guess its an incentive to not suck.. but.. it is neither fun nor realistic.
Re:Captain obvious (Score:3, Insightful)
Camping is a perfectly sensible tactic if you're defending. Anyone who complains about that is just bitter that they might actually have to use tactics to win.
Camping to me is only really a problem when someone on an attacking team is ignoring the main objective and just going for kills. If you just want to score kills, go play a deathmatch game, morons.
Re:It has to be said (Score:1, Insightful)
Save that BS for your Brady Center mailing list. There are millions of firearms owned and billions of rounds fired annually. Only a tiny fraction are ever even fired at a living creature. Most of them hit paper. Intentionally. And thats all that quite a lot of guns ever do, for the entire life of the owner. Bullseye shooters, event shooters, or just I-like-shooting shooters.
Unless "can be lethal" is your only requirement for declaring something has the "sole purpose" of killing. In which case, you're surrounded by such objects.
Re:Effort (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Captain obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
A regular FPS shouldn't adopt this.
correct, mostly because of the large amount of ammo carried in regular FPS games. 700 rounds of 7.62mm, 500x5.56mm, 12 grenades, eight rockets, four medkits, (ad nauseum). I love running at full speed, jumping and strafing whilst carrying 230 lb of ammo, not including weapons, armor and a NAV system.
If I wanted realism, I would have joined the Corps years ago.
Re:Actually... (Score:1, Insightful)
While a crossbow did allow one to use any untrained peasant, a longbow could do the same thing at the time.
Um, no. If you give a longbow to an untrained peasant, he's not likely to actually hit anything except perhaps himself. A crossbow is much easier to use than a bow.
Re:Effort (Score:3, Insightful)
That's what I was thinking as I read that. I mean, yeah, a .22 isn't as intimidating, but it's also a lot more comfortable to fire, especially for someone who's never fired a gun, and especially for a kid. That, and the ammo is cheap.
Re:Actually... (Score:3, Insightful)