I can't into modern 3D

[bddevil]

Being an old adventure game fan, never had this issue. Never really minded pixel-hunting aside from some egregious instances. On the contrary, I did not like when a 2D game had active objects stand out from the background. The game would tell me which objects were interactable, when I wanted to find this out by myself.

I actually like the super-detailed environments. I don't like active object highlighting, so I usually turn it off and prefer to find shit by myself. I would lose a lot of time in DE:HR just hanging around in super-detailed offices of the first hub.

I think this may qualify as masochism or autism in some countries or something, but I stand by this.

 

[Zombra]

When it comes to having non-essential/interactable objects filling the environment I'd say the vast majority of games are guilty of this - even ones that aren't known for clutter - to the point where it has become an acceptable standard, sadly. It was really only Ultima/Lord British that actually heeded the design principle that everything must be interactable

Eh, it's a question of scale. Plenty of games have a coffee cup on the desk that you can't pick up, which is fine, even preferable. And if you try to pick up a coffee cup once and nothing happens, you'll know not to bother with the identical cups you'll be seeing on every desk for the rest of the game. But nowadays you get a simulation of real life cluttered rooms with 10000 uniquely drawn items lying around, generally indistinguishable from meaningful objects without a giant quest marker. Plus spaces are more realistically modeled now - you're much more likely to have to look through 10 empty rooms before you find the one with your critical item in it. And of course in a game you can't just ask the guy, hey, I don't see your toolbox, where is it again?

Honestly, real life is very little like a video game. "Exploration" is not a thing for most consumers. When I go to work, I don't have to go on a quest to spot the one pen, I just ask the support services assistant and she shows me where they are in the supply room. I'm not walking down the street trying to figure out which walls can be blown down by a grenade and which can't. The ability to parse what the significant items or locations are isn't important, because generally nothing is important when walking around IRL except whether you're about to get hit by a car. You already know the way to your destination. There are no gold coins to collect or goblins to kill on the way. So there's a big disconnect between a super realistic environment and the unrealistic game objectives you have to perform within it.

 

[bddevil]

When it comes to having non-essential/interactable objects filling the environment I'd say the vast majority of games are guilty of this - even ones that aren't known for clutter - to the point where it has become an acceptable standard, sadly. It was really only Ultima/Lord British that actually heeded the design principle that everything must be interactable

Eh, it's a question of scale. Plenty of games have a coffee cup on the desk that you can't pick up, which is fine, even preferable. And if you try to pick up a coffee cup once and nothing happens, you'll know not to bother with the identical cups you'll be seeing on every desk for the rest of the game. But nowadays you get a simulation of real life cluttered rooms with 10000 uniquely drawn items lying around, generally indistinguishable from meaningful objects without a giant quest marker. Plus spaces are more realistically modeled now - you're much more likely to have to look through 10 empty rooms before you find the one with your critical item in it. And of course in a game you can't just ask the guy, hey, I don't see your toolbox, where is it again?

Honestly, real life is very little like a video game. "Exploration" is not a thing for most consumers. When I go to work, I don't have to go on a quest to spot the one pen, I just ask the support services assistant and she shows me where they are in the supply room. I'm not walking down the street trying to figure out which walls can be blown down by a grenade and which can't. The ability to parse what the significant items or locations are isn't important, because generally nothing is important when walking around IRL except whether you're about to get hit by a car. You already know the way to your destination. There are no gold coins to collect or goblins to kill on the way. So there's a big disconnect between a super realistic environment and the unrealistic game objectives you have to perform within it.

It's up to the game to make you look in the right places for the right object/item/whatever. Some games are very bad at this, and some are good at it. Same with conditioning you on what is generally interactive and what generally isn't.

What I personally find disappointing is that when you have these hundreds of unique items, and all of them are just part of the backround. That's so fucking boring. Again, might be an adventure fan in me, but have some hotspots for some silly/random/funny/cool interactions.

 

[Zombra]

It's up to the game to make you look in the right places for the right object/item/whatever. Some games are very bad at this, and some are good at it. Same with conditioning you on what is generally interactive and what generally isn't.
What I personally find disappointing is that when you have these hundreds of unique items, and all of them are just part of the backround. That's so fucking boring. Again, might be an adventure fan in me, but have some hotspots for some silly/random/funny/cool interactions.

Make up your mind. Do you want clearly "readable" games, with focused visual design that discourages distraction, or irrelevant yet interactive "background" items that encourage you to click on every dirty sock and broken pencil?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Maybe you guys just have autism

 

[Excommunicator]

When it comes to having non-essential/interactable objects filling the environment I'd say the vast majority of games are guilty of this - even ones that aren't known for clutter - to the point where it has become an acceptable standard, sadly. It was really only Ultima/Lord British that actually heeded the design principle that everything must be interactable

Eh, it's a question of scale. Plenty of games have a coffee cup on the desk that you can't pick up, which is fine, even preferable. And if you try to pick up a coffee cup once and nothing happens, you'll know not to bother with the identical cups you'll be seeing on every desk for the rest of the game. But nowadays you get a simulation of real life cluttered rooms with 10000 uniquely drawn items lying around, generally indistinguishable from meaningful objects without a giant quest marker. Plus spaces are more realistically modeled now - you're much more likely to have to look through 10 empty rooms before you find the one with your critical item in it. And of course in a game you can't just ask the guy, hey, I don't see your toolbox, where is it again?

Well I'm going to disagree in that I'm someone who likes little touches in a game. I don't need a coffee cup to behave in every conceivable way like a real coffee cup but if it's there then I'd never complain if it's physics-based or has a little text popup or some other novelty detail. But I don't need 100 coffee cups strewn across 5 rooms, and that's the key point here.

Honestly, real life is very little like a video game. "Exploration" is not a thing for most consumers. When I go to work, I don't have to go on a quest to spot the one pen, I just ask the support services assistant and she shows me where they are in the supply room. I'm not walking down the street trying to figure out which walls can be blown down by a grenade and which can't. The ability to parse what the significant items or locations are isn't important, because generally nothing is important when walking around IRL except whether you're about to get hit by a car. You already know the way to your destination. There are no gold coins to collect or goblins to kill on the way. So there's a big disconnect between a super realistic environment and the unrealistic game objectives you have to perform within it.

I think you got sidetracked here but the point for me is that "less is more" environments look better but they also tend to work better. If you're building levels that aren't cluttered then you're not going to be faced with this mishmash of expectations about how much of the clutter is or isn't interactive. Then when you do go and put some object in the environment you can justify giving it significance like the examples mentioned above. It all works out that way. The other thing is there's a big difference in the types of objects you use in a game environment. Some object types don't create visual clutter AND players won't immediately expect them to be interactive either. A bunch of sacks of grain aren't going to make me immediately think I should be able to use them but again I'm not going to complain if I click the grain and it says "these sacks appear to be invested with weevils" and nothing more. This doesn't apply just to RPGs either.

 

[Excommunicator]

I also don't really accept the realism argument.

Is it realistic to have 100 coffee cups across 5 rooms? Sure, in some instances. It's also realistic to NOT have 100 coffee cups.

 

[Zombra]

Well I'm going to disagree in that I'm someone who likes little touches in a game. I don't need a coffee cup to behave in every conceivable way like a real coffee cup but if it's there then I'd never complain if it's physics-based or has a little text popup or some other novelty detail.

This is a minor point but I wanted to say one more thing. It's fine, some people like little details and that's okay, we can agree that this is somewhat a matter of taste. And it's nice to see some description from time to time that has dramatic interest or relevance. But personally, I get enough "color" in the passive ambience of a well crafted environment - I don't need a text box or, worse, action prompts for background garbage. An occasional toy or joke, like the Human Revolution basketball, is cute. I find it grating for a whole game to have them everywhere. It's distracting to me and it shows a lack of vision and focus on the part of the developers.

I remember vividly my instant annoyance the first time I picked up a worthless dinner plate in Skyrim. The environments were jam packed with all this stuff with no conceivable use except to throw it around or stack it up. Worse, when searching for things that were relevant, the text prompt would appear for every single background object my cursor touched, press use to pick up wooden dinner fork. Far from immersing me further, this invariably pushed me away from a sense of realism.

 

[DraQ]

Sounds like stereopsis conflict
https://mikesflightdeck.com/scenery_display/stereopsis.html
TL;DR
Its probably not a clutter issue but "skim thru" isnt working well in contemporary 3D games on contemporary displays, because of how stuff is wired in humans, and parroting about clutter wont make it go away.

I have seen a modified stereo renderer for UT'99.

Depends on the weather. My eyes started hurting in bright sunlight a few years ago

same since I was a kid

Glorious Morlock master race?

It's up to the game to make you look in the right places for the right object/item/whatever. Some games are very bad at this, and some are good at it. Same with conditioning you on what is generally interactive and what generally isn't.
What I personally find disappointing is that when you have these hundreds of unique items, and all of them are just part of the backround. That's so fucking boring. Again, might be an adventure fan in me, but have some hotspots for some silly/random/funny/cool interactions.

Make up your mind. Do you want clearly "readable" games, with focused visual design that discourages distraction, or irrelevant yet interactive "background" items that encourage you to click on every dirty sock and broken pencil?

The important question, and an elephant in the room is WHY are you clicking on every dirty sock and broken pencil?

If a game goes with detailed, highly interactive environment, it ought to observe some contracts with the players.
For example, if you can interact with every barrel and box as a container, you don't put even slightly valuable random loot into just some of them, UNLESS there exists method of finding said loot that doesn't involve randomly frobbing boxes and barrels.
The contract in this case is that barrels and boxes are exactly what they seem unless you have a legitimate reason to think that they aren't.

OTOH broad interactivity with random clutter can have interesting systemic implications, especially if placement of said clutter is also automated in some way (it usually is, even if just by the means of clutter warehouses). For example instead of hunting down and hoarding commonplace objects (for crafting purposes or whatever), you fish one out from environment as needed. Need a small spring in a modern setting? Take a pen apart.
Want to make an improvised boom in a mill in fantasy game? Throw a bag of flour at those guys storming it with torches.
This is the shit we've *ought* to have for some time already.
Hell, you are already likely to distract enemies by throwing pretty much anything or weigh down pressure plates with almost anything in many games.
(Remember, clutter means that you don't need to carry large amounts of items for those specific purposes)

I remember vividly my instant annoyance the first time I picked up a worthless dinner plate in Skyrim.

You can throw it to create distraction or trigger a trap. You can pull an Indy swap with it to avoid triggering one. If you have some crafting mods you can burn it to charcoal (wooden plate) and use it to create steel out of iron ore.

 

[Zombra]

The important question, and an elephant in the room is WHY are you clicking on every dirty sock and broken pencil?

Is this not fundamental? Rewards incentivize behaviors. Give a player some fun color text for clicking a worthless object, and you are training them to click on worthless objects. I can't make it any more basic than this.

Yes, the player can choose to eschew these "rewards", or only indulge from time to time. Nevertheless, their ubiquity is a distraction from the actual intended experience of a game.

It's a voice saying "Hey! Do you want to pick up these dirty scraps of shredded fabric? No? How about these dirty scraps of shredded fabric?"

Not only do I want that voice to shut up, I want it to leave me alone to begin with.

Again, some games are sandboxes, where the intended experience is "I don't know man, just kinda walk around, click on stuff, it's cool." Those are fine for what they are but more sandboxy != better.

 

[Bad Sector]

Rewards incentivize behaviors. Give a player some fun color text for clicking a worthless object, and you are training them to click on worthless objects.

But if the reward is fun then why not click on worthless objects? And if it is not fun then why keep clicking them and not ignore them? Unless the game requires from you to click on worthless objects, why are you clicking them if you do not find it fun?

IMO just because you can do it, doesn't mean you have to - similarly to how just because you can kill a game's economy by killing low level respawning monsters / random encounters (depending on the game/subgenre) thousands of times to gain the cheap stuff/low money they drop, doesn't mean you have to. Pretty much nobody does that, it is boring.

 

[Zombra]

Rewards incentivize behaviors. Give a player some fun color text for clicking a worthless object, and you are training them to click on worthless objects.

But if the reward is fun then why not click on worthless objects? And if it is not fun then why keep clicking them and not ignore them? Unless the game requires from you to click on worthless objects, why are you clicking them if you do not find it fun?
IMO just because you can do it, doesn't mean you have to - similarly to how just because you can kill a game's economy by killing low level respawning monsters / random encounters (depending on the game/subgenre) thousands of times to gain the cheap stuff/low money they drop, doesn't mean you have to. Pretty much nobody does that, it is boring.

The question is "should every game be a sandbox game". I propose that not every game should be a sandbox game. Just because the player can work around random extra garbage does not mean that adding random extra garbage to your design is always the right choice.

 

[Bad Sector]

The question is "should every game be a sandbox game". I propose that not every game should be a sandbox game.

Of course not every game should be a sandbox - the sandbox style doesn't even fit most types of games.

Just because the player can work around random extra garbage does not mean that adding random extra garbage to your design is always the right choice.

As i asked in my previous post, if you do not like the activity and the game doesn't require that activity, why do it then? Assuming you do not consider ignoring an activity that the game doesn't require you to perform as working around it, of course.

For example, these days i am playing the Dishonored series (playing the third now). In the first two games you have a heart as an item that you can point at people and listen random comments about their life. I never found that interesting, the games never require you to use it and i just... ignored it. I never had a second thought about it (until now that i was trying to think of a recent example - it isn't exactly easy to come up with examples of stuff you didn't care about :-P).

 

[Zombra]

As i asked in my previous post, if you do not like the activity and the game doesn't require that activity, why do it then? Assuming you do not consider ignoring an activity that the game doesn't require you to perform as working around it, of course.

Sigh. Of course studiously ignoring an activity is working around it. Not only does it require my effort and attention to avoid and ignore irrelevant content, it requires the effort and attention of the devs to put it there in the first place. So many games have crappy kitchen sink design, and so many players defend it by saying well don't look at the kitchen sink then, as if that excuses weak, unfocused games. It's a clear and present form of decline.

For example, these days i am playing the Dishonored series (playing the third now). In the first two games you have a heart as an item that you can point at people and listen random comments about their life. I never found that interesting, the games never require you to use it and i just... ignored it.

The Heart isn't irrelevant to Dishonored, though, as worldbuilding is a key pillar of the series. The fact that you can choose not to use it doesn't distance it from what the games are about.

How is Dishonored 3 by the way? Strangely, I can't find the Codex thread.

 

[V_K]

As i asked in my previous post, if you do not like the activity and the game doesn't require that activity, why do it then? Assuming you do not consider ignoring an activity that the game doesn't require you to perform as working around it, of course.

It's like banner ads on websites. Sure, you don't have to engage with them in any way, but it doesn't make them any less distracting and irritating.

 

[JarlFrank]

The important question, and an elephant in the room is WHY are you clicking on every dirty sock and broken pencil?

Is this not fundamental? Rewards incentivize behaviors. Give a player some fun color text for clicking a worthless object, and you are training them to click on worthless objects. I can't make it any more basic than this.

Yes, the player can choose to eschew these "rewards", or only indulge from time to time. Nevertheless, their ubiquity is a distraction from the actual intended experience of a game.

It's a voice saying "Hey! Do you want to pick up these dirty scraps of shredded fabric? No? How about these dirty scraps of shredded fabric?"

Not only do I want that voice to shut up, I want it to leave me alone to begin with.

Again, some games are sandboxes, where the intended experience is "I don't know man, just kinda walk around, click on stuff, it's cool." Those are fine for what they are but more sandboxy != better.

In real life, you can pick up anything you want and get a reward in the form of your senses telling you something about an item. You can break into a random apartment, look at every single item there, pick it up, do whatever you want. You can pick up a dirty sock from the corner of the room and raise it to your nose and your reward will be the alluring fragrance of a woman's foot sweat. You can pick up the worn flats in front of the bed, run your tongue across the insole and get the intoxicating aroma of female feet spreading across your taste buds. You can pick up the alarm clock and fumble with its dials until it rings. You can pick up the coffee mug and look at it and analyze the artwork of Arnold Schwarzenegger chewing raw coffee beans that is printed on its side. You can run your fingers across the wallpaper and feel every bump and irregularity.

But are you doing this IRL? Are you checking out every random object even though it holds little interest to you? No?

Then why are you doing it in games?

 

[†††]

But are you doing this IRL? Are you checking out every random object even though it holds little interest to you? No?

I don't gain little XP nuggets for exploration in RL tho

 

[JarlFrank]

But are you doing this IRL? Are you checking out every random object even though it holds little interest to you? No?

I don't gain little XP nuggets for exploration in RL tho

You do.

When a stranger approaches you and asks you "Yo, do you know the way to the airport?" you can use your exploration experience to describe the way. If you never explored, your only dialog options will be "Uuuuuuuuuuuh" and "I dunno, you should take a cab".

 

[Edija]

It's not the 3D it's the art style and direction

Spoiler

Prove me wrong

 

[†††]

You do.

So if you play Rance games...

 

[JarlFrank]

Also, show me one game where you get XP for picking up worthless clutter.

I picked up stuff like plates and forks when I played Morrowind as a young teen for the first time. Then I realized it's worthless and never picked it up again.

 

[Wunderbar]

Also, show me one game where you get XP for picking up worthless clutter.

underrail :D

 

[JarlFrank]

Oddities aren't worthless clutter!

 

[Zombra]

In real life

Let me stop you right there.

If "because real life" is your argument, you have to agree that Thief would have been greatly improved by hunger and thirst mechanics. And a shoe tying minigame. Say that out loud and I'll go back and read the rest of your post.

 

[V_K]

shoe tying minigame