Reality vs. Myth, Fantasy & Legend.

[Journeyman 0]

You didnt notice that total war: medieval 2 is about to come out in a month?

Yes I did and I am interested! But this is a strategy game as is Rome Total War and this thread is about RPG/FPS games, or games that will give the first person immersion perspective rather than top down and swing the camera round, build your own empire stuff.

These games are interesting in their own way but IMO do not give that all important immersion of an RPG/FPS and this is what my concern is that just about all games of this genre with any kind of historical content are just pure myth and magic!    

[Pathy 0]

Probably because a true depiction of medieval life would be boring.

"Backbreaking Labour Simulator: The Medieval Age" anyone?

Even the simplest of searches will bring up an exhaustive list…..

I thought wanted a true to life medieval simulator? Medieval life was mostly shite, it wasnt exactly all knights riding around on horseback rescuing fair maidens. I think you're thinking too much of romanticized and cliched ideas of medieval life.

That was the point i was making. I do agree however, it might be cool to have a game that simulates the life of a knight - so that'd be 15 odd years worth of playing training missions....

I guess i'm skeptical about what you could actually do in this RPG/FPS if it really was true to life as you advocate, i just don't see it being interesting. So explain to me what would you do in it, and could you actually do this without falling into cliche and loosing the realism that you're after? If you took abit of artistic license in the same way CoD did with ww2, i can see it being interesting, but then you've lost the historical accuracy that you're after in the first place.

Edit: Though i guess you thought COD an immersive historical experience, so...

[Journeyman 0]

I thought wanted a true to life medieval simulator? Medieval life was mostly shite, it wasnt exactly all knights riding around on horseback rescuing fair maidens. I think you're thinking too much of romanticized and cliched ideas of medieval life.

I find it amusing how so many people think of the Middle Ages and most of our early history as simple, boring and uneventful. This is why more than ever I feel it would be good for a few dedicated developers to concentrate some serious time on producing some seriously realistic historically accurate (as possible) fun RPG/FPS games.

If medieval history does not interest you at all then fair enough, I can understand your disinterest in such a proposal! However, there are many who would find such reality history games as fascinating, fun and educational.

As for COD2 it may not have been a totally realistic WW2 simulator but it went a long way to showing the gruesomeness and rawness of the period and was very atmospherically produced, but most of all it contained no phucking zombies!!!  

I am not asking for 100% factual reality just reality full stop and where ever possible some useful history telling or at least a real feel for the period  .. Any period including Victorian and Elizabethan.

So you don’t like history! I can see that, but there are plenty who find our history very fascinating. For most people yourself included medieval history is probably just a boring uneventful fog, but believe me there is more than plenty to tell and it is your ancestors as much as mine we are talking about!  

If you don’t think that having realistic historical RPG/FPS games is worth having, then fair enough …. go play with your wizards and elves! I’m not stopping you and I really have no objection either!  Either that or have some imagination!

Did you ever do history at school? I bet you found it boring, and that is partly to do with the way in which it is taught. Listening to lectures or reading books doesn’t work for most kids, but a video game would grab some serious attention!  

I play Thief 3 and Oblivion and enjoy them, but if I had the choice I would sooner play something where I could be immersed into a factual historically accurate period and feel that I was gaining just a little bit more understanding of my ancestors lives at the same time. When I bought Thief 3 I had no previous knowledge of the game. It was a budget buy and sounded interesting from the box so I installed it. I was expecting nothing more than an interesting straight RPG game of thieving missions set in what appeared (in the first few missions anyway) as medieval England. .... As with Far Cry I was looking forward to this straight and realistic theme to continue and would have truly enjoyed every mission. But no there has to be monsters and magic in every game! …. That is my gripe!  

[Pathy 0]

Actually i loved history at school, studied it up to A level, but dropped it for uni as my essay writing skills arent really good enough to take it to that level.

Don't get me wrong, I was merely asking how a Medieval sim could be interesting, true to life and yet not take artistic license, thus ruining the "immersion" as you put it.

Guess it depends how you define realism, you are talking on very loose terms about realism (ie, everything is fairly familiar and looks about right, even if it takes 3 shots in the head to kill someone), whereas i tend to take realism to mean....well, realism. Absolute realism. And in my limited experience, reality tends to be fairly boring for the majority of the time you're in it (Hence why we use fantasy as a means of escape). Of course we do do some non boring stuff, but by and large, most of our time is taken up with stuff that isnt particually fun. So what i was saying was if you're not allowed a single element of fantasy - and fantasy does not mean elves and goblin - what are you going to actually have?

Of course you have since clarified that your definition of a true to life game isnt quite as strict as mine, so the above is moot.

Edit:

Just a point, nowhere did i say i found medieval life not interesting, i think its a facinating period of our history, and an important part of our heritage. You misinterpreted me saying "Medieval life was generally shite" (ie, very hard for the people in it) as me saying "Medieval life doesnt interest me in the slightest". But just because something interests me, does not mean it would translate into a good computer game. I've yet to see a mountain climbing sim, for example.

[Commando84 0]

if you play Rpg games you are usually stuck with those kinds of stuff i can't stand pure rpg games so i just try to avoid them or i get to sleep ... i almost started to sleep when my two buddies played world of warcraft next to me

i guess i just know what game i can't stand liturally

[5133p39 16]

Don't get me wrong, I was merely asking how a Medieval sim could be interesting, true to life and yet not take artistic license, thus ruining the "immersion" as you put it.

maybe i am just dumb, but where did Red kite said that he wants a "medieval simulator" ? ...or "medieval labour simulator" as you seems to put it?

He just wants a GAME in the historically acurate settings - which means "no more stupid magic tricks, and no more stupid unrealistic monsters", AND which does not mean "medieval labour simulator 2: the shoemakers adventure".

For example why can't we have a game like Thief3 (not that it is bad, i enjoyed playing Thief3), but placed in a historically realistic world? meaning there wouldn't be any magic lights, zombies, etc.

It would still be fun, immersive, and so on.

The word "realistic" does not mean "boring" and "shoemaker's labour simulator" to me.

[Pathy 0]

As already explained, we obviously both had different expectations of what was meant by realism, leading to a small and inconesquntial misunderstanding.

[earl 0]

I assume you meant accurate historical fact! I am not a developer, so know little about publishing trends, but I can make general observations of market forces. … You say a niche developer would be required to develop such a game thus applying that this would be a niche market. Well I guess you are right, but do we not already have such ‘niche’ games already demonstrating how successful historically realistic content can be?

Hi. No. I meant historical fiction. If it's historical fact, I guess you are watching a documentary and you don't get to make any choices, and so it's then not really a game.

Historical fiction is a genre of writing that takes place in a well-researched and historically accurate environment where the main character may not have actually lived, or whose words and actions may not be based on archival information.

For example, Space by James A Michener, which is an accurate historical account of the space program, but the 7 main characters are fictional, their characters, words and actions only loosely based on 7 real astronauts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_fiction

And, by the way:

http://www.australiansinvietnam.com/

I've never said they wouldn't be successful, in fact, I'm definitely included in the demographic that would enjoy the hell out of such a game. I spend most of my bandwidth grabbing documentaries, sometimes run them in the background while I'm working. Just don't wait on EA. It's nice when someone comes along, takes the time to develop something new that pushes boundaries, and generates a market for a game that nobody really thought of before. Flashpoint comes to mind.

[Journeyman 0]

Hi. No.  I meant historical fiction.  If it's historical fact, I guess you are watching a documentary and you don't get to make any choices, and so it's then not really a game.

Historical fiction is a genre of writing that takes place in a well-researched and historically accurate environment where the main character may not have actually lived, or whose words and actions may not be based on archival information

Yes you are right it would be historical fiction! I guess I'm just getting paranoid about this word as it usually gives developers an open door to throw in all and everything including elves, goblins and zombies!

I'm glad that you see my general desire for more fact based games though, but yes artistic licence is needed to make it a game so that it can be fun as you rightly say and this is what I am hinting at.

Flashpoint of course was such a game absolutely, and I was expecting someone to mention this much earlier .. ironic isn't it? Of course the only difference is that Flashpoint was recent history rather than more distant history! .... And true I won't be waiting on EA for any such initiation in realistic historical games!  

.... I liked the 'Australians In Vietnam trailer' BTW! Is this game available already? I've only heard a little bit about it so far. Looks a lot like Flashpoint in that trailer. What new content is there other than the setting etc.?  

[Pathy 0]

Hehehe, the above was the point i was trying to make, that you still need to allow a little bit of "fantasy" or "fiction" in order to use artistic license, and thus make games interesting.

Guess we're all in agreement after all!

Oh btw, if you liked Thief but were disappointed by its non historic setting, Assassins Creed looks very much like it's Thief inspired, and is set in the Third Crusade (i think it's the 3rd one anyway). The only thing that kinda turns me off is how the main character is some acrobatic, matrix style ninja...

http://assassinscreed.uk.ubi.com/

[Messiah 2]

yeah its for PC as well... well, given that its in my new issue of PC Gamer (I'm such a geek) I'd expect it is

[Journeyman 0]

Oh btw, if you liked Thief but were disappointed by its non historic setting, Assassins Creed looks very much like it's Thief inspired, and is set in the Third Crusade (i think it's the 3rd one anyway). The only thing that kinda turns me off is how the main character is some acrobatic, matrix style ninja...

http://assassinscreed.uk.ubi.com/

Thanks for the link! It looks promising although the lead character appears like a very fit medieval James Bond! If this is the only 'fantasy' element of the game then I suppose it won't be too bad!  

I just hope that it doesn't go the same way as most other games of this genre and just get more and more 'fantastic' as the game progresses! I'll be keeping an eye on it though!