Just some random thoughts on how expectations factor into immersion, and how games can also provide us with expectations of the real world, in a cultural context. MUD-inventory Richard Bartle recently started an interesting debate, spurred by a particular quest in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. His disapproval of this quest seems to go beyond the moral issue of torture, and reaches into game design. Bartle says that when signing up for WoW, he was expecting killing (as fireballs are in the game), and was expecting theft (as rogues are in the game), but being forced to torture a character is not something that he expected to be confronted with. Sometimes dissonance is a desirable attribute, and Shakespeare even included asides to the audience through the “fourth wall” in many of his plays. However, Bartle argues that this dissonance isn’t prefaced with an artistic context, which allows the audience expect the dissonance. Instead, it is shocking in and entirely unartistic way.
Managing player expectations is definitely an important part of creating immersion. In a paper about Black and White’s AI that our class read, the non-human form of the AI creatures was highlighted. The significance of having a baby cow, as opposed to a human, comes from player expectations. When we see a human, we expect certain behaviour from them. However, a baby cow will not draw out the same expectations from players. If a baby cow acts in a “stupid” way, the player can accept it because, let’s face it, baby cows aren’t all that smart.
I submit that if, as a designer, you manage players’ expectations, they will afford you the suspension of disbelief you need to immerse them in your world.
Recently a Japanese friend of mine, Tomoyo, asked me if Japan met my expectations, or if there were things that surprised me once I saw it with my own eyes. I responded by recounting my experience with the game Shenmue. My all-time favourite game, I bought a Dreamcast just so I could play it—and play it I did!—on every Christmas since its release. The game is set in a small Japanese town in the late 1980s, so I explained to Tomoyo that my expectations of Japan came from a video-game simulation of rural Japan in the 1980s. This was a defining period of Japanese history, as it finished the era which was started with the Meiji Restoration. When Japan opened its harbours to foreign trade in 1868, it began its sprint toward becoming a “modern country”. During the economic boom of the 1980s Japan reached this target, and then began surpassing it. The Japan we see today is where other developed countries might be in a couple of decades.
Getting back to expectations: I was not disappointed. Shenmue did an incredible job of capturing the essence of daily Japanese life. People wandered the streets and could be interacted with, vending machines on the street really worked, small corner shops stocked cassettes, snacks, and those toy machines which spit out a random capsule for a coin. You could interact with your family and friends and witness the widening generation gap, as older characters lived according to tradition, and younger characters preferred to listen to western music and wear western clothes. The main character wears blue jeans and a t-shirt throughout the game, but his father and housekeeper are only ever seen wearing traditional Japanese clothing. The game even went as far as to add a weather system, which added rainy days, snowy days, etc.
Needless to say, after so much time with this game, all these features started giving me many expectations about what Japan is really like. And when I went to Japan, I wasn’t disappointed. The architecture, the people, the sounds… everything was as I imagined it.
When I started writing this post, I spoke about how expectations from reality must be met by a game to succeed. And now I’ve just talked about how expectations from a game have been met for me in real life. This is something that Colin touched on briefly in a comment. “Cultural realism/accuracy in games” was a topic mentioned. Shenmue exhibits such a high level of cultural realism that it gave me certain expectations about the culture which was, previously, totally alien to me, and gave me expectations which were met entirely by the reality.
Firstly, cool snow
Player expectations are an interesting area (from what I have read in you post). The Black and White AI point is a good one. I also remember Malachy mentioned a similar issue in the expected behaviours (and Abilities) of a robot that has humanoid form. People expect “human” behaviours for the robot, but if you have it in the form of a puppy they think that it’s great if it just sits up.
It’s like you said with the “the suspension of disbelief” that the players will allow to you. By making the creatures of a form that is “similar” but not exactly the same as something real you can get more its always quite cool the first time you meet one of them in a game. You find yourself trying to weigh up what they might be capable of. It can prove a shock when you get it wrong, especially in the Horror types FPS (like Dead space). I still remember in BioShock when I first got nailed by one of the splicers that was pretending to be dead on the ground, that made me jump, unexpected (the first time) but great idea to include.
For some reason “affordance” from HCI has popped into my head when writing this…
I was trolling the wow-europe forums a few days ago about the torture quest.
I play on a roleplaying realm and my character (a Dwarf Priest!) has his own personality and principles, alot in common with me. For instance he is racist against the horde races (just like I am racist against white and black people), self-righteous, idealistic and full of fighting spirit against stuff he hates. Again all similar to me.
The quest itself involves the Kirin Tor, a group of mages at war with the Blue Dragonflight (the blue dragonflight claims the world is being destroyed by reckless use of magic while the Kirin Tor refuse to stop using magic.) By default all player characters get quests from the Kirin Tor and are considered on their side.
The guy who gives the quest tells you that torture is illegal under the Kirin Tor rules, so he needs an outsider to torture the Blue Dragonflight sympathiser mage for him. There is no choice to refuse and take a different quest line. I just didn’t do the quest and abandoned the quest line, as it completely didn’t fit with my character’s personality.
Blizzard has recieved some criticism that the quest is an endorsion of torture, and given the recent issues in America where its army has been torturing susspected enemies, it is almost impossible not to draw parallels between the two. In America, for the most part the American army is considered the good guys (our troops and all that bullshit – our rapists more like) just like the Kirin Tor is in WoW.
However other people have commented that the inclusion of the torture quest is perhaps a criticism of the use of torture in the name of a “good” cause. Alot of effort has been put into emphasising that the players are following in the footsteps of Arthas (who became the Lich King). Arthas was an extremely riteous defender against the undead, but he became increasingly zealous in his methods of battling the undead. He eagerly slaughtered a whole city of people to stop them being used as undead, lied and betrayed his own troops and mercenaries who fought for him and nearly killed his own friend Muradin when he took up Frostmourne. Eventually Arthas became the very monster he was struggling against. In their own zealousness, the Kirin Tor and indeed the players who participate in the torture quest are becoming the very evil they are so furiously fighting against. This is a powerful narrative and immersive tool, and indeed perhaps even a political statement in regards to the real life issues current prevalent.
The failure of blizzard was not introducing the issue, but the failure to provide players with a choice. I would love to be able to turn against the guy who asked me to do the torturing, or even against the entire Kirin Tor. Equally if I was playing a morally bankrupt charactor I would like the choice to perform the torture. It would make some awesome role playing and immersive content.
This is a role playing game. Complex moral issues add to the richness of the immersion – but players need to be given a choice or the immersion breaks.
I think you hit the nail on the head there. Without the choice, it breaks the immersion. If they want to take away the choice and force you to do it, to make sure you follow in Arthas’s footsteps, then they didn’t do right, because you do feel that dissonance.
Thanks a lot for the input. Well thought out and expressed articulately… mind if I quote you in my essay?
Sure np.
Not relevant – but I like the snow.