The "big picture" and the pointless details

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On the previous thread I posted (the radiator thing) and made a few people go angry I will try to explain what I was trying to say.

Firstly, when I said that I want to rip the radiator off the wall and throw it on the enemy like in HL2, I just wanted to say to BI to make a system that will make this kind of details possible (if Valve could do it, why not BI too?). The world would become much more useful to the player. And since BI is making as real as possible simulation, why fight only with weapons? If you're trying to make the virtual world real, you have to copy the ideas from the real world. The player will like the virtual world more if he can interact with it as in real world. That's why I said that about radiator.

I'd like to chop down some trees and block the road to ambush a convoy. It is very frustrating, because I cannot dig in the groud, thus I'm just a sitting duck. If my tank gets hit and immobile in the urban aerea, I'd like to turn the houses around me into rubble to protect the sides of my vehicle from the RPGs. I'd like to make barricades on the street, fortify some houses with sandbags, furniture, etc.

The best details are those which you don't notice. You probably never admired your real shadow, but the shadow in OFP was weird and you noticed. And now (hypothetically) BI will make fantastic shadowing better than in DOOM3  and every will    and    be astonished, wow, it looks so real. But the AI will not be as good and people will get disappointed. And that's why OFP was so good. All the elements of the game were as balanced on the weakest element in the game so they could work together as one. If you could drive only vehicles but not aeroplanes, wouldn't this be disappointing? That's why I said in my previous thread that CQB isn't just a good collision detection (although it is very important), but also AI which can adept to CQB, interactive enviroment, etc. So, there must be levels of detailed world. If you can rip the radiators off the wall, but you can't move the furniture around, the whole thing seems stupid and it would be better to make the radiators also static then.

The big picture consists of details. The more details, the better resolution of the big picture. Or else, look at the better picture from distance so that the missing parts won't spoil the joy (and the truth ). In simulations the big picture means (the way I see it) the feeling of presence of yourself in the real world (which is actually the virtual one). Feeling of presence is information you receive from the world but you are not concentrated on. When you are trying to shoot a soldier 200m away you are concentrated on the aiming and not on the enviroment around you. But it is the enviroment that gives the feeling of presence. Unrealistic graphics, physics, sound and also AI spoil the feeling of presence in the virtual world, because they will disturb your senses which are used to real world. It's like when a BMP gets blown by a satchel charge and flys up 100m high in the air. It is disturbing. If I conclude this, making a realistic game means you must cheat your senses in order to convince them that they are receiving the information from the real world (The Matrix?!   - I'm afraid yes ) That's why details are important.

[ralphwiggum 6]

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....5;st=15

let's continue using the old thread