Question about Immersion... Options

[McBadgere]

I'm not entirely sure where to put this topic, but it's something that I've been wondering for a while...

This word, immersion...I get it...I really do...I've lost hours playing Oblivion...Looked up and two hours have gone...

But then I've switched it off and gone and done the washing up...

I keep seeing this complaint about loading times...It's usually no more than 10 seconds on my PS3...And from what I've seen, the PC version is waaay faster than that...So why is it a problem?...

You're not in Cyrodil...In the rain...Facing a smelly Ogre on the road to Bruma...Shooting lightning out of your fingers...Wearing skimpy furs...You're at home (or someone's home)...In front of a screen...Maybe with headphones...And you've probably had to press something on a Mod somewhere...It's warm, maybe the fire/radiators/insert-heating-type-here's on...You may have had some tea/coffee/7up etc...This may cause you to go to the loo?...

That's a question for you "Total Immersion" people actuall...Do you make your character spend time...Going to the loo?...Not a piss-take question...Well it is...Technically...Not a...Mockery question...It's a genuine ask...

Indeed you may even be called away to cook tea for the family...

See what I mean?...

How does a few seconds of loading...Or a suddenly appearing tree/dodgy mountain or lack of limbs flying off, really matter in the context of a game?...

And before anyone accuses me of not being able to immerse myself...I am trying to write something with the characters I've created and the backstories I've come up with as I've played them...Just before I've had to deal with an airlock in the plumbing...

See what I mean?...

This post has been edited by McBadgere: Oct 30 2011, 01:26 PM

[Thomas Kaira]

Load screens, minor pop-ins, wonky ragdolls, etc. I have come to accept as limitations all games are hindered by, so they don't affect immersion much for me.

Things that do affect immersion are bad writing (NPC Conversations), quests bugging out (Ahdarji's Heirloom, Unexpected Voyage, etc.), over-aggressive wildlife (boars are actually more live-and-let-live creatures, for instance), total equipment scaling (bandits in glass armor), and of course the ever popular crash-to-desktop.

So far, everything except the last I am certain has been addressed in Skyrim. CTDs are unique to everyone, so I will need to figure that out when Skyrim actually comes out.