KevinKeene
Banned
First of all, I did some google-ing,but couldn't find anything like what I'm.about to write about. If anyone knows about existing development of such, please link it, it'd be a great contribution 
That said: Let's talk about Real Body Complexity - RBC (i made this term up because it's fancy!)
When we're critcizing open-world games these days, it's often about the large, empty spaces with little to nothing to do in them. Breath of the Wild shook that up a bit by adding an unusual amount of environmental interactivity, but that's still baby steps - you can burn some grass, cut down trees and throw rocks. Cool. Now what about everything else?
What is a crucial difference between (open-world) games and a real visit of mother nature outdoor? Besides other obvious things, it's that in the real world, I can sit down pretty much wherever I want, look around me and find something to play with. I can pick up little rocks, I can pluck individual blades of grass and use them to whistle, to make something out of it, or simply throw it in the air and watch it fall down. I can watch ants or bugs crawl nearby and even on myself. I can grab them, I can smash them. I can dig a hole in the soil around me, digging up worms. I can pick up little branches and draw signs into the soil. And so on. Infinite possibilities - just from sitting in one place in the vast world.
In a current video game, you'd be sitting on a green texture with more or less details, but that'd be the extent of it. Sitting on an empty piece of texture.
This is where the idea of Real Body Complexity comes into play.
In this next step of gaming, textures would become an obsolete thing, a tool of the past. Instead of a grass texture in an open world-game, the ground would be made of virtual soil. Virtual grass would be growing on that soil. If you slash your sword into the ground, you'd leave a visible cut to the ground where grass has been destroyed, showing the dark soil that's beneath.
Why does that matter? Do we need to pluck grass and dig holes in every game? First of all: yes
But secondly, that's not where it ends. Imagine playing a medieval rpg. Instead of looking at stats and numbers to apply the best armor to your character, you'd simply look at choosing appropriate looking clothes. You wear a leather west, which protects most of your upper body from wolf bites and weak arrows, but leaves your arms vulnerable. So you put a long-sleeved thick clothing on top of it. Bites will still hurt, but the material the long-sleeves are made from is thick enough to neutralize most of the wolf's teeth's power. Of course, wearing more clothing gives more protection, as there are more layers between your character's skin and incoming attacks, but it's also more weight to carry and might limit your agility.
https://image.ibb.co/dF1U5x/Dfyhykjmujkgfjk.jpg (warning: shows scene of a soldier having been hit by a bullet in the face)
Imagine shooting an enemy in CoD WW2. But instead of simply falling to the ground when hit or always same-looking headshots, enemies will react to how you hit them, where you hit them, and what with. Remember Hacksaw Ridge or the beginning of Saving Private Ryan? It'd be like that. That would 1) make the atmosphere of these games much more authentic, and 2) portray the real horror of war that isn't as clean as a video game frag makes it look like.
Those are just two examples of what RBC could do for gaming:
- Getting rid of stat numbers in rpgs - the virtual material dictates how much some clothing defends your character, just like the material and sharpness of your sword dictate how well, if at all, it cuts into other materials.
- Adding unprecedented realism to games
- and consequently demonstrating that violence isn't always as fun as games might make one believe
- Turning the entire world into a sandbox with (almost) no limitations
- even beyond the 'more realism' point, it'd bring a whole new feeling to gaming. When you can feel and interact with everything in meaningful ways, it might just grant a whole new level of immersion that's not negatively inflicted by tedious tasks
Games that slightly lean into that direction (and I mean 'lean', because they're still far far ftom it) would be Metal Gear Rising and Wii Sports Resort (you cut a water melon and you can see the innards of the fruit in exactly the way it would look like. Also Minecraft, which in principle is probably closest to RBC, but is way to low-res in terms of its materials' composition.
There you have it. I had this thread in mind for the past couple weeks, so I'm gkad to be able to finally make it. Maybe there's nothing to talk about, maybe it's a crazy idea. But maybe some of you have some thoughts to share with, maybe even know about something that's in development that's similar to what I described. Maybe some knowledgeable tech guys can talk about how feasible this hypothetical post-texture era of gaming is.
Let's go on!
That said: Let's talk about Real Body Complexity - RBC (i made this term up because it's fancy!)
When we're critcizing open-world games these days, it's often about the large, empty spaces with little to nothing to do in them. Breath of the Wild shook that up a bit by adding an unusual amount of environmental interactivity, but that's still baby steps - you can burn some grass, cut down trees and throw rocks. Cool. Now what about everything else?
What is a crucial difference between (open-world) games and a real visit of mother nature outdoor? Besides other obvious things, it's that in the real world, I can sit down pretty much wherever I want, look around me and find something to play with. I can pick up little rocks, I can pluck individual blades of grass and use them to whistle, to make something out of it, or simply throw it in the air and watch it fall down. I can watch ants or bugs crawl nearby and even on myself. I can grab them, I can smash them. I can dig a hole in the soil around me, digging up worms. I can pick up little branches and draw signs into the soil. And so on. Infinite possibilities - just from sitting in one place in the vast world.
In a current video game, you'd be sitting on a green texture with more or less details, but that'd be the extent of it. Sitting on an empty piece of texture.
This is where the idea of Real Body Complexity comes into play.
In this next step of gaming, textures would become an obsolete thing, a tool of the past. Instead of a grass texture in an open world-game, the ground would be made of virtual soil. Virtual grass would be growing on that soil. If you slash your sword into the ground, you'd leave a visible cut to the ground where grass has been destroyed, showing the dark soil that's beneath.
Why does that matter? Do we need to pluck grass and dig holes in every game? First of all: yes
But secondly, that's not where it ends. Imagine playing a medieval rpg. Instead of looking at stats and numbers to apply the best armor to your character, you'd simply look at choosing appropriate looking clothes. You wear a leather west, which protects most of your upper body from wolf bites and weak arrows, but leaves your arms vulnerable. So you put a long-sleeved thick clothing on top of it. Bites will still hurt, but the material the long-sleeves are made from is thick enough to neutralize most of the wolf's teeth's power. Of course, wearing more clothing gives more protection, as there are more layers between your character's skin and incoming attacks, but it's also more weight to carry and might limit your agility.
https://image.ibb.co/dF1U5x/Dfyhykjmujkgfjk.jpg (warning: shows scene of a soldier having been hit by a bullet in the face)
Imagine shooting an enemy in CoD WW2. But instead of simply falling to the ground when hit or always same-looking headshots, enemies will react to how you hit them, where you hit them, and what with. Remember Hacksaw Ridge or the beginning of Saving Private Ryan? It'd be like that. That would 1) make the atmosphere of these games much more authentic, and 2) portray the real horror of war that isn't as clean as a video game frag makes it look like.
Those are just two examples of what RBC could do for gaming:
- Getting rid of stat numbers in rpgs - the virtual material dictates how much some clothing defends your character, just like the material and sharpness of your sword dictate how well, if at all, it cuts into other materials.
- Adding unprecedented realism to games
- and consequently demonstrating that violence isn't always as fun as games might make one believe
- Turning the entire world into a sandbox with (almost) no limitations
- even beyond the 'more realism' point, it'd bring a whole new feeling to gaming. When you can feel and interact with everything in meaningful ways, it might just grant a whole new level of immersion that's not negatively inflicted by tedious tasks
Games that slightly lean into that direction (and I mean 'lean', because they're still far far ftom it) would be Metal Gear Rising and Wii Sports Resort (you cut a water melon and you can see the innards of the fruit in exactly the way it would look like. Also Minecraft, which in principle is probably closest to RBC, but is way to low-res in terms of its materials' composition.
There you have it. I had this thread in mind for the past couple weeks, so I'm gkad to be able to finally make it. Maybe there's nothing to talk about, maybe it's a crazy idea. But maybe some of you have some thoughts to share with, maybe even know about something that's in development that's similar to what I described. Maybe some knowledgeable tech guys can talk about how feasible this hypothetical post-texture era of gaming is.
Let's go on!
