2D vs 3D
Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2003 4:28 am
I’ve been working on my DM clone for about 14 months now. I am writing it in C++ using DirectX 9.0. Last week I discovered Game Studio and was able to produce the same level of functionality in 3 days. So, I thought, “should I switch to Game Studio and throw my engine away?” 14 months vs. 3 days seems like a no-brainer. It’s not so clear cut though. As far as I can tell there are several pros and cons for each approach. If y’all don’t mind I’d like to do some ‘thinking out loud’ here and see if I can get some feedback. If you do mind then go read something else.
The issue comes down to fake 3D vs. real 3D. DM is fake 3D, Morrowind is real 3D. What are the pros and cons?
DM style:
Pro:
Simplified movement – can move with keys and control chars. with mouse.
Easier level design – my editor is basically a paint program. You just paint the squares onto the map.
Abstraction – more on this below…
Con:
Simpler levels – basically, it’s only really feasible to do dungeons.
Simpler story – very hard to present any kind of story. It’s just a dungeon hack.
Simpler graphics – if it’s step based, monsters must move that way too. It looks silly if they move smoothly but you jump. If it’s not step based (quickly scroll from square to square with each keypress) I feel sick in no time. I once nearly threw up when I ran down a twisty corridor whilst testing this mode.
Morrowind style:
Pro:
More interesting levels - can be as complex/simple as I can make them.
Better storytelling – much easier to present a story.
Better graphics – only limited by artists’ capabilities.
Con:
Level design – it takes _much_ longer to make a level.
Movement – you cannot have analog turning with a digital input device. It’s terrible. So, you have to have ‘mouse-look’. This means you can’t use the mouse to control the party unless you have two mouse modes. This is much more awkward and would get really annoying in a large combat.
Lack of abstraction – again, more on this below.
Conclusion:
I think all the cons of the 3D-style can be overcome (I’m sure I’ll come up with a solution to the control problem). All except one, that is. I think it comes down to the problem of abstraction. That’s why I wanted to talk about this some more.
I think the problem of abstraction is what brings most of us to this site. It’s at the heart of the nostalgia we feel for games like DM. In the old days, computers were very limited so games had to be abstracted. Without hundreds of megs of ram and flashy 3D cards developers were forced to focus on the only thing that was limitless – gameplay. They had to really whittle their ideas down to the simple question: what is the most fun? Morrowind is the archetypical example of this. It’s flashy, huge, detailed, and excruciatingly boring. The trend towards realism in games is leading us away from playability. I think what it comes down to is that if you want reality, go outside. It’s no good in a game. The amount of time I spent walking from place to place in Morrowind really browned me off. Another problem with the trend towards reality in games is the effect it has on the mindset of the game designers. As the levels get more real, they start to think about all the things that need to be added to a scene to add to the realism. So you get inhabitants of towns wandering around, like you would in a real town. The only trouble with this is that the player doesn’t know which inhabitants are story elements and which are ‘reality fillers’. So, you have to wander around clicking on each person and 99% of the time you just get the ‘peasant #1’ dialog back. It’s very annoying and incredibly boring. Then they add shops, but they’re not just in one place, they’re all over, like in a real town. So when you make a town run to sell your loot, you have to walk all over town to get to each shop. Again, boring. There are many more examples along these lines. Another, more insidious, effect is that no matter how much processing power you have, it is still a simulation. What this means is that you can be walking around in an almost photo-realistic environment and you will come across an engine limitation that can be quite jarring/annoying (people acting like automatons, simplified physics, etc.). This isn’t a problem in a DM game because you expect a certain paradigm. I found _this_ more immersive than the pseudo-realistic world of Morrowind because it was _internally consistant_. You never hit that ‘reality buffer’ where you realized the limitations of the engine. That’s why I nearly crapped my pants the first time I saw the dragon in DM, bet never got anything like that in any 3D game role-playing.
Anyway, I think I’ve waffled enough on this for y’all to understand what I’m talking about. It comes down to the question, “is it possible to have true 3D but keep it abstract?”
Any thoughts?
The issue comes down to fake 3D vs. real 3D. DM is fake 3D, Morrowind is real 3D. What are the pros and cons?
DM style:
Pro:
Simplified movement – can move with keys and control chars. with mouse.
Easier level design – my editor is basically a paint program. You just paint the squares onto the map.
Abstraction – more on this below…
Con:
Simpler levels – basically, it’s only really feasible to do dungeons.
Simpler story – very hard to present any kind of story. It’s just a dungeon hack.
Simpler graphics – if it’s step based, monsters must move that way too. It looks silly if they move smoothly but you jump. If it’s not step based (quickly scroll from square to square with each keypress) I feel sick in no time. I once nearly threw up when I ran down a twisty corridor whilst testing this mode.
Morrowind style:
Pro:
More interesting levels - can be as complex/simple as I can make them.
Better storytelling – much easier to present a story.
Better graphics – only limited by artists’ capabilities.
Con:
Level design – it takes _much_ longer to make a level.
Movement – you cannot have analog turning with a digital input device. It’s terrible. So, you have to have ‘mouse-look’. This means you can’t use the mouse to control the party unless you have two mouse modes. This is much more awkward and would get really annoying in a large combat.
Lack of abstraction – again, more on this below.
Conclusion:
I think all the cons of the 3D-style can be overcome (I’m sure I’ll come up with a solution to the control problem). All except one, that is. I think it comes down to the problem of abstraction. That’s why I wanted to talk about this some more.
I think the problem of abstraction is what brings most of us to this site. It’s at the heart of the nostalgia we feel for games like DM. In the old days, computers were very limited so games had to be abstracted. Without hundreds of megs of ram and flashy 3D cards developers were forced to focus on the only thing that was limitless – gameplay. They had to really whittle their ideas down to the simple question: what is the most fun? Morrowind is the archetypical example of this. It’s flashy, huge, detailed, and excruciatingly boring. The trend towards realism in games is leading us away from playability. I think what it comes down to is that if you want reality, go outside. It’s no good in a game. The amount of time I spent walking from place to place in Morrowind really browned me off. Another problem with the trend towards reality in games is the effect it has on the mindset of the game designers. As the levels get more real, they start to think about all the things that need to be added to a scene to add to the realism. So you get inhabitants of towns wandering around, like you would in a real town. The only trouble with this is that the player doesn’t know which inhabitants are story elements and which are ‘reality fillers’. So, you have to wander around clicking on each person and 99% of the time you just get the ‘peasant #1’ dialog back. It’s very annoying and incredibly boring. Then they add shops, but they’re not just in one place, they’re all over, like in a real town. So when you make a town run to sell your loot, you have to walk all over town to get to each shop. Again, boring. There are many more examples along these lines. Another, more insidious, effect is that no matter how much processing power you have, it is still a simulation. What this means is that you can be walking around in an almost photo-realistic environment and you will come across an engine limitation that can be quite jarring/annoying (people acting like automatons, simplified physics, etc.). This isn’t a problem in a DM game because you expect a certain paradigm. I found _this_ more immersive than the pseudo-realistic world of Morrowind because it was _internally consistant_. You never hit that ‘reality buffer’ where you realized the limitations of the engine. That’s why I nearly crapped my pants the first time I saw the dragon in DM, bet never got anything like that in any 3D game role-playing.
Anyway, I think I’ve waffled enough on this for y’all to understand what I’m talking about. It comes down to the question, “is it possible to have true 3D but keep it abstract?”
Any thoughts?