How does a game get you to identify with your character in a game? When you see Laura Croft, or Mario, you know that that''s not you. But when you play an RPG or some strategy games, you can sometimes get the feeling that you''re playing a character; if the game is done well enough, you might even refer to that character as yourself: "The dragon chased ME." "I drank poison." "He killed ME." What do games do that causes this? -------------------- Just waiting for the mothership...

Perhaps it''s the fact that your choices are asked of you by the other characters in an RPG. And you give a verbal response. Most other games just present choices as paths. There''s little or no character interaction in those types of games, as opposed to RPGs {and sometimes Adventures} where characters are an integral part of not only the story, but also the mechanics.

Hmmm, dubious title aside.

I was going to post a thread on discussing "Avatars" ie character that represent the player, vs. Direct Interaction with the game.

Avatar = Fallout, Ultima etc.

Direct Interaction = Black & White, where the interface with the world is a hand, which is supposed to act as an extention of your own. Also, some early action games along the lines of Spellbound, and stuff like that which pit YOU and your STRATEGY / REFLEXES directly against the game world and situation

Thus you know that YOU failed because you weren''t quick enough.

quote: Original post by Wavinator

How does a game get you to identify with your character in a game? When you see Laura Croft, or Mario, you know that that's not you. But when you play an RPG or some strategy games, you can sometimes get the feeling that you're playing a character; if the game is done well enough, you might even refer to that character as yourself: "The dragon chased ME." "I drank poison." "He killed ME."

Uhm..I don't know about you but me and my friends always do this whether we "identify" with the character or not. Nobody says "so then Lara fell off a cliff" you say "I fell off a cliff". It's just natural. When you control a character in any type of game no matter how poorly designed (perhaps even more so) you think of it as an extension of yourslf.
I think you got it backwards..in a really GOOD RPG you may find yourself calling the character by its real name, but I've never seen that happen.

Edited by - Mumboi on June 2, 2001 11:25:35 AM

I agree with mumboy. RPGs I''m really fond of I always refer to the characters by their names but the entire party as "me."

For instance:

(character) Celes'' weapon is sweet. She can kill those damn Generals in one swipe.

(party) I already beat Kefka''s generals.

Was it really "me" that beat them? There is no specific character that that killed every single one, I just was remarking on how much I like Celes. The party completed the job under my control. So it wasn''t "me" so much as the "party controled by me."

Very strange, but Battlezone 2 also manages to make me identify with my character...

But that is mostly because you are in the unusual position of third-in-command Your superiors are talking to you all the time (and often saving your ass when you get yourself in trouble ), and they talk liek they appreciate what you are doing

And it is unlike a normal RTS. Instead of building a base, and attack the enemy, you are ordered around like you are one of the units on the map "Defend this!" "Go there!" "Follow me!" :p

Zuriel, you seem to be talking about console RPGs, which are exactly the same as Mario or Tomb Raider in the sense that your characters are completely predefined, and you don''t make choices as to were the storyline is going or have meaningful interactions with NPCs. In strategy games (Black and White, Civilization), CRPGs and MMORPGs (Fallout or Everquest for example) and some FPS games (Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament) are more avatar\direct interaction type games in that, you aren''t playing a character, you''re playing "yourself." I can''t say which is better, and a lot of games actually have hybrid approaches (Deus Ex?, Ultima?).

You could almost argue you are never playing yourself. But that is quite pointless. The whole point of playing videogames is so you get to do things you normally wouldn''t do.

But Impossible I was talking about RPGs that actually have some sort of character development or obvious character personality ontop of the main character. In Baldur''s Gate I do the same exact thing as I would in a Final Fantasy game. I call the entire team "me" and the members in the team who they are. For expample if I go on little stealing escapades with Imoen but I tend to say to my friends when I talk about it:

"I had Imoen go yadda yadda yadda."

But if I just killed an group of orcs "I" did it. Even in turn based strategy games I still just call the individual characters by their own names and the entire team as myself. Maybe I am just weird or something. :D

The only game that I''ve even considered a character myself is in The Sims and my quite strange family. In Dragon Warrior Monsters I''ve tried to think of the PC as myself but they keep refering to him as a "good boy" so it throws me off. There is though this strange multiplayer session I am only doing with myself in BGII that I have a character that is "me" and two other pre generated characters. When I talk about this game I do think of Ayame as myself.

What I would care about when i design a game is to make the player feel he interacts with the environment of the game''s world. And not if he feels or not he is the character. That will all depend on his psychology.

Dark Era: Concealed Evil.
The next generation of online gaming.

Two games where I felt 100% in my characters skin : Duke Nukem and Thief. The funny thing is even when my characters started to talk, it still felt like me. Strange. When that Garret screamed, I felt like screaming (once did :O ), when Duke said "Let God sort them out !", I felt like saying it.

Leaning over a corner in Thief and in the same time, leaning in my computer chair, thats identification.