Green Monster Games (Curt Schilling)

[Jait]

You obviously missed out on EQ1. Not only can someone easily learn to tell how far away things are, it is a must when it came to pulling and aggro proximity.

Still is, now that I think about it....

[Plorkyeran]

I'd say the real problem is the binary range limits. IRL I can't look at an object and tell you that it's exactly 32.174 yards away, but it doesn't matter because my "Throw Rock" ability doesn't have a magical range limit of 30 yards. Instead, there's a fairly smooth reduction in my ability to hit the object with a rock as it gets further away. In WoW, you need the range indicators because it combines much worse depth perception with a much higher need for precision. If you tried to do C'Thun positioning IRL, I can pretty much guaruntee you'd fail horribly (while Gruul would probably be doable).

[Littles]

You would just need a IRL cthun warner, a giant red light that beeps loudly telling you that you are too close to another and are about to fuck over 39 people.

[Wash]

Originally Posted by karuden

Because if you had a clue about 3D you would realize that we DON'T play 3D games. They are actually 2D as far as depth perception is concerned.

Binocular vision which I mentioned is what gives depth perception. When both eyes see the same thing at the exact same distance on a flat plane, there is no actual depth perception of anything within that picture that can give a visual clue as to distance from the viewer since everything within the field of view is actually the same distance away from you.

If that totally confuses you then I suggest you do a bit of reading on the subject and get some education. Just because you can "run off into the distance" in a game DOES NOT MAKE IT 3D!! as far as your brain is concerned when trying to judge distance.

Tell you what, drive around in your car all day with one eye covered and see what happens (hope your insurance is paid up) better yet try it on a motorcycle or bicycle. That is the same effect as looking at a monitor and trying to judge distance.

I have noticed that my computer screen is flat, and that the little men running around are not actually inside it, yes.

I don't know what to tell you; maybe your brain looks at a game and can't tell the difference. Me, I look at a 3D game (like EQ), and I know exactly how far away something is. Am I alone here? None of the people I played EQ with for years ever had a problem.

Lines converge towards the horizon; things get larger when you get close, tiny when you get far away. Just like in the real world. It tricks the eye and it's so natural that I've never even thought about it, in all my years of gaming, until I read this thread.

[Soygen]

It's 3D in the sense that the size of objects increase as you get closer, thus allowing you to gauge their distance. I never once thought I needed to have a UI display tell me the distance of a mob in EQ. You found out something's aggro range and could eyeball it after that.

[Cybsled]

Ya Soy, but we were puller monks. It was second nature to us. All the "afk until stuff comes to camp" players never learned that critical skill, and thus would typically get everyone killed when they aggro'd something that should not have been aggro'd.

[Vatoreus]

I drove all the way home with one eye closed. Some how I'm a super human who can maintain depth perception with just one eye. Bizarre.

[James]

Having two eyes is only part of your depth perception. A good majority of your depth perception while driving comes from a little sumthin sumthin called motion parallax, which is a monocular cue.

[Vatoreus]

I was being facetious.

For this guy.

Originally Posted by karuden

Tell you what, drive around in your car all day with one eye covered and see what happens (hope your insurance is paid up) better yet try it on a motorcycle or bicycle. That is the same effect as looking at a monitor and trying to judge distance.

[Necrolyte]

Originally Posted by karuden

Because if you had a clue about 3D you would realize that we DON'T play 3D games. They are actually 2D as far as depth perception is concerned.

Binocular vision which I mentioned is what gives depth perception. When both eyes see the same thing at the exact same distance on a flat plane, there is no actual depth perception of anything within that picture that can give a visual clue as to distance from the viewer since everything within the field of view is actually the same distance away from you.

If that totally confuses you then I suggest you do a bit of reading on the subject and get some education. Just because you can "run off into the distance" in a game DOES NOT MAKE IT 3D!! as far as your brain is concerned when trying to judge distance.

Tell you what, drive around in your car all day with one eye covered and see what happens (hope your insurance is paid up) better yet try it on a motorcycle or bicycle. That is the same effect as looking at a monitor and trying to judge distance.

If you actually studied vision, you'd realize how silly this sounds. Even with one eye closed, you still have some depth perception. To determine depth, your brain uses both monocular (one eye) and binocular (two eyes) cues. Some cues not mentioned that are very common for example are overlapping cues (you can tell if a car is in front of a tree or behind a tree just by how they overlap), and shadow cues (how large a shadow is helps the brain determine the distance away from you it is, relative to other shadows in a scene).

You can judge distance/depth in 2D very well, and if you studied illusions, you can see how powerful the brain is in determining depth. You can never determine the exact distance away something is, but you can't do that in real life either with a real 3D scene.

***Although, the original poster might have a visual disorder, so it's perfectly possible he's unable to determine depth at all in 2D scenes.

[Gaereth]

The points a bit moot actually.

All of these games give out of range messages.....should they not do that either??

In the RL world, due to repetition, practice, etc, our mind works with our eyes and tells our arm how much ummmph to put behind the baseball to get to our target no matter where the target is.

In the games...our arm has a fixed distance that cannot be changed to toss something at a critter. There is no compensation for distance, perceived distance or anything else. The throw happens the same from min distance to max distance, you cannot change it. Also, the size of the creature could be different from one zone to another so you can't rely on that unless you are talking about settings you have repeatedly engaged.

In many cases in the games a harmful effect is going out a certain radius and you have maybe a yard or 2 to stand outside of that effect and still be able to cast/shoot/throw whatever you are doing at the creature.

Its not very analogous to compare the 2 because in one we can adjust for distance, etc, etc while in the other we have a fixed range we have to work within. Having something that tells you that you are in range simply compensates for the fact that you can't in fact compensate yourself for any range differences.....its a binary solution unlike RL.

[Necrolyte]

Originally Posted by Gaereth

The points a bit moot actually.

All of these games give out of range messages.....should they not do that either??

In the RL world, due to repetition, practice, etc, our mind works with our eyes and tells our arm how much ummmph to put behind the baseball to get to our target no matter where the target is.

In the games...our arm has a fixed distance that cannot be changed to toss something at a critter. There is no compensation for distance, perceived distance or anything else. The throw happens the same from min distance to max distance, you cannot change it. Also, the size of the creature could be different from one zone to another so you can't rely on that unless you are talking about settings you have repeatedly engaged.

In many cases in the games a harmful effect is going out a certain radius and you have maybe a yard or 2 to stand outside of that effect and still be able to cast/shoot/throw whatever you are doing at the creature.

Its not very analogous to compare the 2 because in one we can adjust for distance, etc, etc while in the other we have a fixed range we have to work within. Having something that tells you that you are in range simply compensates for the fact that you can't in fact compensate yourself for any range differences.....its a binary solution unlike RL.

In real life, you still have a fixed range to work with--it's called your maximum distance. You can't throw an infinite distance, and each person has a different maximum distance to work with. If a target is too far, you still have to adjust your position so that your maximum range fits within the target distance.

It's perfectly analogous to compare the two. In game, everyone has the same maximum distance. That's the only difference between the two. If you are well within the maximum range and throw a spell at a critter, isn't your "in-game" arm compensating? Or are you saying the in-game character throws his fixed range still?

[Cadrid]

Today there was an article on the front page of the Boston Globe's Business section about 38 Studios' upcoming project. We've heard pretty much all of it before, except for this little tidbit:

Originally Posted by Boston Globe

A stroll through the company's offices revealed hundreds of sketches of creatures who seem to have come from central casting in Middle Earth. The designers are currently planning for 12 species or "races" in the game, and while they may not be called elves or orcs or dragons, there's certainly a family resemblance.

So, Curt, is this accurate information, was there a mistake in the translation (I doubt most reporters are game-savvy to really understand what you showed them), or did they make that part up?

[Gaereth]

The game doesn't care if you are max or min distance as long as you are within range. Thats it...its binary. A spell won't hit you harder if you are closer, or be weaker if the caster is far away...its the same. It is simply in range or out of range.

If I throw a baseball at you from 5 feet away would it be different from one thrown 100 feet away??

But...that is besides the point.

The point is simply that if I take 5 people out to a park and have them go to a spot that they think is the max range that they can throw the ball to me and they do so and will probably be in very different spots but they will all be able to throw the ball to or towards me.

In game...if I ask 5 different people to do the same thing, with no range markers, it is possible that they all get in range and get the cast or item to me because the only thing that matters is being in range. But its also highly probable someone might be standing right outside of it and be unable to throw at all. The difference between the game and RL is in the fact that at a certain spot in game you cannot throw/cast/shoot, etc, etc yet if you move slightly you can.

Its not a hit miss thing, its an on/off thing. In the scenario where a skill can get turned off due to a difference of inches then range notifications of some kind are a good idea.

[Lonin]

Originally Posted by Cadrid

Today there was an article on the front page of the Boston Globe's Business section about 38 Studios' upcoming project. We've heard pretty much all of it before, except for this little tidbit:



So, Curt, is this accurate information, was there a mistake in the translation (I doubt most reporters are game-savvy to really understand what you showed them), or did they make that part up?

Nice find, some clarification would be great. I also find it interesting that the reporter was specific enough to say that just plain "elves or orcs..." aren't part of the races.