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  1. #81
    Immortal Luko's Avatar
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    I've always been into MMOs, ever since I laid my hands on Ultima Online. I always wanted to improve, discover my potential, learn as fast as possible. I've always been that kind of guy, in game and in life.

    All of that has absolutely nothing to do with how lost I can get in a virtual world like WoW. Not so much in recent years, but earlier on, it was so easy to become blissfully overwhelmed by the absolute size of the game. I really felt as though I were in a living, breathing world. I wasn't logging in to raise stats or improve my gear, I was logging in to another world. To me, that's immersion. I was immersed in the world, not just a game. The same happens when I watch a good movie/series or read a good book.

    The way I used to explain it to my friends was that I had 2 types of friends who played the game: One that played the game to play a game and the other type who played the game to escape reality for a few hours.

    It's the latter that you generally find using the word "Immersion."
    Mountains rise in the distance stalwart as the stars, fading forever.
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  2. #82
    Immersion comes and goes in the game, and we lend ourselves to be more susceptible to perceiving the world that our characters are in when we suspend our belief of reality. A good film at the cinema in this regard accomplishes immersion when we forget that we're sitting in a dark room and we're only watching a 2d image, but we feel as if we're right there in the thick of things. I think there's probably varying degrees of immersion, and either if you're watching a film or playing a video game you can only do so much as the creator trying to make your audience suspend their belief of reality.

    If WoW was your first MMORPG game, like it was for me, imagine the awe and wonder of logging into a video game where the world seemed seamless with vast and changing landscapes, creatures, towns, textures, and most importantly, it's social qualities. My mind was blown when my character approached another person in the game and we could interact in various ways. At the time, this was high tech stuff. Now, fast forward to present day and we have built in expectations for how the game world should behave, and we're well aware of its limitations. It's illusion of reality has faded and we're likely to know the optimum expectations to perform well and efficient within the game. It's become more goal and task oriented. It's fine and all to start off in the game and feel immersed in many things that we're unaware of because of our low expectations; we don't know what it takes to win. We're figuring things out, so to speak. Once we do know, however, we turn our minds to efficiency and task oriented projects. Addons, raid strategies, talent trees, etc., turn our minds outside of the game environment to seek this information. Immersion slowly dwindles.

    Is this a bad thing? Yes and no, I believe. Once the story telling aspect of the game is over, I can focus on my needs and my goals which tend to be raiding. But in all there's still elements in the game that allow me to escape my everyday reality, and I want to keep coming back.

  3. #83
    Moderator Aucald's Avatar
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    Immersion comes in different flavors, and tends to be a uniquely subjective experience - so it's hard to explain and quantify in concrete terms just what it means. I tend to think of it like this: immersion in WoW is when the actual game systems take a back seat in your mind and the actual experience of whatever you're involved in occupies the forefront of your awareness. Instead of hitting arrow keys on the keyboard or clicking the mouse you're actually *using* your abilities and/or dancing away from void zones or out of effects, the abstract wall between you and the game (e.g. the actual game systems like movement, GCD's, etc. etc.) fades away and you're left with the raw game experience instead.

    That being said, the term "immersion" gets bandied about a lot to justify arguments both bad and good. Some people think the removal of flying is key to returning immersion to the game, and other people think that flying itself lends to immersion. The truth is that both viewpoints are essentially correct - because how you experience this immersion factor is highly personal and subjective; for one camp flying through environment could be a key component of it, and for another flying might be a cumbersome or kludgy system that detracts from their immersion. That's why I don't think you can really make arguments that depend on "immersion" as a key point of evidence, because it won't be held the same for everyone else.
    "We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see." ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

  4. #84
    Immersion is the ability to put yourself into the fictional world. The more involved the story is, the more choices your character can make to influence the story, the more immersive it will be. Realism also comes into play to some degree, and having a more alive world, but it mostly has to do with story.

  5. #85
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    Quote Originally Posted by Itisamuh View Post
    Immersion is the ability to put yourself into the fictional world. The more involved the story is, the more choices your character can make to influence the story, the more immersive it will be. Realism also comes into play to some degree, and having a more alive world, but it mostly has to do with story.
    In regards to story, though, sometimes feeling too involved can also take away from the sense of immersion for some people. Many people don't like the fact that the player character is the "hero" and that the choices you make have such a large and profound affect on the story. WotLK is a good example - while the Lich King's downfall was a collective group effort, many of the quests have you doing things that would seem nearly impossible for any one person to accomplish, even a major lore character, yet you always come out triumphant. To some people, this takes away from the sense of immersion. Some people feel that the player character should not be that powerful and should be equivalent of a regular soldier in the Horde/Alliance or perhaps a high-ranking Lieutenant, but certainly not a character with power of epic proportions. They want to feel that they contributed to the effort alongside many others, not that they single-handedly took out an army.

  6. #86
    Immersion is a layman's term for spatial presence. Look up studies on it and how important it is for an enjoyable experience.
    Last edited by Hardkorr; 2014-07-19 at 03:21 AM.
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  7. #87


    What's going on in this thread?
    Immersion in WoW? Fat chance, most MMOs don't really have immersion for some reason I cannot recall at the moment.
    Quote Originally Posted by Boomzy
    People just want to be bullies without facing any sort of consequences or social fallout for being a bully. If you declare X as a racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. person you can say or do whatever you want to them, ignoring the fact that they are a human.

  8. #88
    Quote Originally Posted by ScourgeSlayer View Post


    What's going on in this thread?
    Immersion in WoW? Fat chance, most MMOs don't really have immersion for some reason I cannot recall at the moment.
    Actually, ESO has plenty of immersion. Actions with consequences, realistic lighting, first person pov, interactive environment, and many other features.
    Quote Originally Posted by Suffer the Consequences View Post
    Gender is irrelevant. Everyone has a penis in video games, and it is measured purely on skill. Mionelol's cock is massive.

  9. #89
    Deleted
    Isnt that the boss from Siege of Orgrimmar?

  10. #90
    Immersion is feeling as though you're actually part of the world instead of just playing a character in the world.

    AKA the thing they do their best to kill with every expansion and disguise it as "making the game easier/quality of life."

    - - - Updated - - -

    Some things that helped immersion that they removed:

    (1) Feeding pets
    (2) Getting Ammo
    (3) Using reagents (all types)
    (4) Having to go and purchase your spells/learn new ones from trainer
    (5) etc.

  11. #91
    He's the first boss in Siege of Orgrimmar, isn't he?

    Ha ha ha.

  12. #92
    Quote Originally Posted by Spastic_Dreamer View Post
    AKA the thing they do their best to kill with every expansion and disguise it as "making the game easier/quality of life."
    AKA shit you made up to justify dumb comment on quality of life changes.

    Quote Originally Posted by Spastic_Dreamer View Post
    Some things that helped immersion that they removed:

    (1) Feeding pets
    (2) Getting Ammo
    (3) Using reagents (all types)
    (4) Having to go and purchase your spells/learn new ones from trainer
    (5) etc.
    1 Yes, that is indeed somewhat immersion breaking, but on the other hand feeding pets is bit questionable since you don't have to feed yourself either. Modeling all parts of digestive system has never been big in computer games so you really shouldn't except anything more from WoW either. Besides wou were giving treats to pets before to make them happier, and that's purely optional in real life too.

    3 Depends on what kind of magic does the world of Azeroth have. If the magic is "mind over matter" then theres no need for reagents at all, it's purely user's will that does things, while the idea of reagents comes from the alchemy traditions. Changing the type of magic in the middle is weird, but neither is less immersive when we're talking about magic.

    4 Again depends on the nature of magic. If you're self-thaught (getting enlightened in some kind of meditation) you don't need a teacher, on the other hand if it's some teacher who tells you to memorize a rote that does the magic then you'd need a teacher. Both are again valid ways of doing magic in fictional worlds, it's just the change in the middle which is silly.

    Ammo was necessarily cut down at the point where inventory management became too hard in expansions as the amount of "toys" exploded. WoW's inventory system was just designed wrong from the beginning, and they've tried to fix it over time with various little things like removing ammo, reagents, soul shards, keys and other similar shit that shouldn't take inventory space to begin with. Adding bigger bags only work to a certain point before it becomes silly.
    Last edited by fixx; 2014-07-19 at 11:41 AM.

  13. #93
    Quote Originally Posted by Spastic_Dreamer View Post

    AKA the thing they do their best to kill with every expansion and disguise it as "making the game easier/quality of life."

    - - - Updated - - -

    Some things that helped immersion that they removed:

    (1) Feeding pets
    (2) Getting Ammo
    (3) Using reagents (all types)
    (4) Having to go and purchase your spells/learn new ones from trainer
    (5) etc.
    Someone got the term really, really, I mean REALLY really wrong.

    I actually find it hilarious how much the term is being thrown around here and on other WoW boards, considering the fact that MMOs are really not the genre of games that is typically best suited for creating or experiencing "immersion".

  14. #94
    Quote Originally Posted by idunnowatdo View Post
    Id like some kind of clarification on this term and how it applies to wow. The term seems to get thrown around a bunch and it seems like there is varying opinions. My self I started playing back in BC pretty much been a end game raider through out every tier. Ive seen features come and go but when something comes along people throw the work "immersion" and lack of it or abundance of it. Ive never honestly felt immersed the game, dosent mean i didnt enjoy the game, I enjoy the game very much. I just dont understand this immersion deal with wow. Can I get a few thoughts on it?
    there are games where you are supposed to totally forget who ´you´ are within a few minutes of playing. UO used to have that immersion for me.

    WOW has no immersion because the math and the meta-game are thrown in your face because the devs need to balance the game. Anything like ´valor point caps´ and stuff like that just kills immersion because it is such an abstract concept for your character. Your character would never think ´ok, I need to earn 1000 valor points´ this week, but then I am ´capped´. Likewise, raiding breaks immersion because of the whole idea that you can only kill each boss one time and then the idea of ´loot tables´.... would your character ever really say ´ok, I need to kill Nagrim because he drops ´my boots´. WOW is still a great game, but the devs are the first to admit that gameplay(balance) trumps lore and immersion.

    There is just no way to be immersed in WOW because so much of your thinking is about things your character would never think of. In other games like skyrim or old UO, your thoughts as a person more closely mimic the thoughts your character would really have.

  15. #95
    Mechagnome
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pull My Finger View Post
    I actually find it hilarious how much the term is being thrown around here and on other WoW boards, considering the fact that MMOs are really not the genre of games that is typically best suited for creating or experiencing "immersion".
    The thing is, WoW isn't just an MMO, it's officially classified as an MMORPG. Immersion is something you expect from an RPG. It should go without saying. All the little nuisances you had a go at (the arrows and regents and the crap like that), while annoying and frustrating, add to the experience.
    Last edited by Apology; 2014-07-19 at 11:55 AM.

  16. #96
    Quote Originally Posted by Azrile View Post
    There is just no way to be immersed in WOW because so much of your thinking is about things your character would never think of. In other games like skyrim or old UO, your thoughts as a person more closely mimic the thoughts your character would really have.
    Yes. That's why I find the whole "immersion" banter completely ridiculous.

    It's hard to find that elusive "immersion" factor in modern online games. There's all this stuff. Like you described - valor points, caps, loot tables, raid lockouts, and then it extends to the whole multiplayer thing. Ventrillo, loot regulation, this and that, all the bullshit and drama that comes from other people. And then all the usual invasive stuff where you're off doing something and some other person suddendly drops into it by whispering something, ganking you, mining away your node, or just destroys the whole thing by simply being there.

    Immersion isn't the strong point of MMOs and it shouldn't really be. If you wanna sink in an imaginary world and lose yourself, go play a good offline RPG, an adventure game or whatever. If you expect to feel "immersed" in an MMO, a coop-shooter or Street Fighter, you don't really know what you want/are doing.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sir Happy View Post
    The thing is, WoW isn't just an MMO, it's officially classified as an MMORPG. Immersion is something you expect from an RPG. It should go without saying. All the little nuisances you had a go at (the arrows and regents and the crap like that), while annoying and frustrating, add to the experience.
    No, that's just something you're trying to force in to bring your point across. MMOs have a lot of RPG elements. Like the assuming of roles, the number crunching, the gearing, and lots of other stuff. Immersion can't be one of them, completely naturally because it's not in the nature of multiplayer online gaming.

    As for the nuisances and their adding to the experience: that's a completely subjective thing. Might be so for you, but it's absolutely not the case for others.
    Last edited by Pull My Finger; 2014-07-19 at 12:01 PM.

  17. #97
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pull My Finger View Post
    No, that's just something you're trying to force in to bring your point across.

    As for the nuisances and their adding to the experience: that's a completely subjective thing. Might be so for you, but it's absolutely not the case for others.
    I'm not trying to force anything WoW is, by definition, an RPG. An MMO may not be the best platform to do that, for all the reasons you and Azrile have pointed out, but it's still an RPG. Therefore, it should be trying to do create a realistic, believable world that your character interacts with. Isn't that exactly what immersion is? Fully sinking into that realistic, believable world?

    The nuisances aren't subjective. You might not like them (and I'm not saying I do either, I hated having to constantly top up my supply of those little cross things for paladin's Blessings back in Wrath), but they're not subjective. They force you to acknowledge the limitations of your character's strength. Therefore, they're immersive. They make the world more realistic and believable. It's really the same argument as flying - do you want convenience or immersion?

    I feel the rest of your post is spot on, though. An MMO isn't the best place for an immersive experience and I can't argue that. That doesn't change the fact they could still do a better job of working towards one, outside of things they can't control like bosses coming back to life the week after they die, to live up to RPG side of the game

  18. #98
    Quote Originally Posted by Denkou View Post
    In regards to story, though, sometimes feeling too involved can also take away from the sense of immersion for some people. Many people don't like the fact that the player character is the "hero" and that the choices you make have such a large and profound affect on the story. WotLK is a good example - while the Lich King's downfall was a collective group effort, many of the quests have you doing things that would seem nearly impossible for any one person to accomplish, even a major lore character, yet you always come out triumphant. To some people, this takes away from the sense of immersion. Some people feel that the player character should not be that powerful and should be equivalent of a regular soldier in the Horde/Alliance or perhaps a high-ranking Lieutenant, but certainly not a character with power of epic proportions. They want to feel that they contributed to the effort alongside many others, not that they single-handedly took out an army.
    You are talking about personal preference, which I'm sure can be immersion breaking for that individual. It doesn't make the fault with whatever is they dislike. It's just them and their quirks. Which is fine. If something is logically consistent with the rules set up in that game world, it isn't immersion breaking.

    So to use a popular example: Some hate mounted flight and it may break their personal immersion. But its not Flight itself that is immersion breaking, its their distaste for it.
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  19. #99
    Herald of the Titans Racthoh's Avatar
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    a sense of scope of the "world" in the game. like, if you're in stranglethorn vale and you want to get to tanaris, it is kind of an adventure.

  20. #100
    Quote Originally Posted by fixx View Post
    AKA shit you made up to justify dumb comment on quality of life changes.
    Huh?

    Not really. My definition was pretty spot on. The rest of the post was my opinion, though.


    1 Yes, that is indeed somewhat immersion breaking, but on the other hand feeding pets is bit questionable since you don't have to feed yourself either. Modeling all parts of digestive system has never been big in computer games so you really shouldn't except anything more from WoW either. Besides wou were giving treats to pets before to make them happier, and that's purely optional in real life too.
    You do feed yourself - in fact, there are over a thousand different types of food items in the game. You feed yourself via food items to recover health. Yes, there isn't a hungry meter or anything, but it's pretty logical. Hence why there's a cooking profession. And feeding wild animals (aka pets) causes them to trust you and that's pretty much like real life. Treats, too. So I'm not sure what your point is.

    3 Depends on what kind of magic does the world of Azeroth have. If the magic is "mind over matter" then theres no need for reagents at all, it's purely user's will that does things, while the idea of reagents comes from the alchemy traditions. Changing the type of magic in the middle is weird, but neither is less immersive when we're talking about magic.
    The idea of reagents comes from D&D which is what WoW and most MMORPGs are based off of. That being said, it's been proven (due to the fact that reagents were once a thing) that not all magic in Azeroth is "mind over matter." Yes, some spells you can just cast...but some spells required reagents. This was realistic - based off of D&D, which again, WoW was inspired by.

    And if you want to get really technical, "magic" in real life (I.E. practice by pagans, wiccas, shamanistic folk, santerians, etc) all require objects/reagents, too. So it's immersive.

    4 Again depends on the nature of magic. If you're self-thaught (getting enlightened in some kind of meditation) you don't need a teacher, on the other hand if it's some teacher who tells you to memorize a rote that does the magic then you'd need a teacher. Both are again valid ways of doing magic in fictional worlds, it's just the change in the middle which is silly.
    Again, this isn't the case based on the past of WoW and the lore. In the lore, lesser spellcasters need to learn greater spells from tomes and/or greater spellcasters. The change in the middle was very silly, and helped hurt immersion. =)

    Ammo was necessarily cut down at the point where inventory management became too hard in expansions as the amount of "toys" exploded. WoW's inventory system was just designed wrong from the beginning, and they've tried to fix it over time with various little things like removing ammo, reagents, soul shards, keys and other similar shit that shouldn't take inventory space to begin with. Adding bigger bags only work to a certain point before it becomes silly.
    I'm not sure whether you're agreeing with me or not here. I'll just say that removing stuff like that is part of the problem why the game feels less special.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Pull My Finger View Post
    Someone got the term really, really, I mean REALLY really wrong.

    I actually find it hilarious how much the term is being thrown around here and on other WoW boards, considering the fact that MMOs are really not the genre of games that is typically best suited for creating or experiencing "immersion".
    Everquest was immersive. Diablo 2 was immersive. Skyrim games are immersive (Elder Scrolls, from what I've played)

    Most games are immersive. WoW was at one point. It still is, just very reduced.

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