Thread 11846827

I play videogames for the agency. A fixed camera as a stylistic choice only removes part of my agency. If the fixed camera is a core gameplay mechanic it's fine.
Otherwise no. The fixed camera is a relic from a time where technology hadn't proliferated enough for free cameras to dominate, yet. On that note, I'm not a huge fan of low-poly or low-bit graphics as stylistic choices, either.

I don't mind sections of games where the camera becomes fixed temporarily (think Ocarina of Time), as long as it's not arbitrarily deployed

>>11846827 (OP)
Nobody asked

What games are you referencing? Which don't do the technique well? I don't agree that fixed cameras are a relic of outdated technology, I agree that it can be used as a good game play mechanic. Fixed camera can used to create unique gameplay scenarios and there are advantages to fixed camera play over it's replacement of cameras which track the player and can be controlled with a stick which is that it inherently limits the control scheme

>>11846827 (OP)
Skill issue

you're retarded

To be fair it requires an IQ over 100 to understand tank controls.

>>11846827 (OP)
Silent Hill games are my favorite fixed camera games. The fixed camera allows for a lot of cinematic shots.

>>11846827 (OP)
>I play videogames for the agency.
A game is defined by its rules. Rules are, definitionally, limits placed on agency. You don't understand the medium, or even your own motives for engaging with it. Read more.

>>11846859
Not to be pedantic about it, but the Silent Hill games are not fixed camera outside of some specific instances in smaller rooms or to focus on an important item. The vast majority of the time you have control over the camera, even in your video there you can swing the camera around James.

I dunno OP, I liked the fixed camera and pre-rendered backgrounds of RE 1, 2 & 3, I don't see it as a "relic of a time gone by", I see it as a good way to build a creepy videogame. If a game has certain core rules, then you need to abide by them, you don't get to say that you want more "agency", that would be like complaining about SMB because Mario doesn't jump high enough or run fast enough, or because the camera isn't more zoomed out. Or like complaining about how you don't get to pick up the balls with your hands when you're playing soccer.

Also Low-poly can look good (to an extent), It's not that high-poly automatically makes your game look good but it's more about proportions and color palettes. For example default Leon / Claire models in RE 2 on PS1 look great due to having good proportions and nice blue / red color palettes.

>>11846840
My IQ is well above 100 and therefore i realize that videogames are about having fun and enjoying the experience. Tank controls have the opposite effect on me, so i use my >100 IQ to make the decision to not play videogames with tank controls

>>11848395
>Or like complaining about how you don't get to pick up the balls with your hands when you're playing soccer.

Soccer just hadn't figured out how to play with a ball yet, such bad design can only come from a dated sprots. Seriously when are they going to remaster soccer with QoLs and more agency so I can finally play it?

>>11846827 (OP)
zoomy got filtered by fixed cameras lmao

>>11848414
>videogames are about having fun and enjoying the experience
this is why I love tank control games

>>11846864
>You don't understand your own motives for engaging with it
Not him but I'm intrigued, do you have more on this?

>>11846827 (OP)
You're free to remake RE as a third-perso n shooter then.

>>11849180
But I'm not. I don't own the license to it.

>>11849159
To be honest, I was mostly being cunty for the sake of it. But, since you asked...

Games necessarily strip their players of agency. This is most obvious in traditional games (sports, card games, anything 'analog'), where the game only functions because of the continued, voluntary adherence to rules. Every golfer is capable of picking up his ball and dropping it in the hole. Every hockey player is capable of whacking an opponent upside the head with his stick. They typically don't do these things despite their obvious capacity to, because everybody intuitively (but maybe not consciously) understands that games are defined in large part by what you're not allowed to do. Large swathes of rules are nothing more than limitations placed on your agency.

In video games, the restrictions placed on your agency are far more substantial. The rules are programmatically enforced. Outside of hardware and software tampering, you couldn't cheat even if you wanted to. Your means of engagement are limited to a handful of button presses. Your range of possible actions is extraordinarily diminished.

So it doesn't really make sense to say that you "play videogames for the agency", when in actuality they can only take agency away. What they actually grant you is structure and, often, fantasy. A goal, restrictions placed on your means of getting there, and an optional coat of thematic paint.

The part you quoted left me a little confused as to what exactly you were looking to have explained, so I'm sorry if my response is wordier than it needed to be, or if I didn't cover the bit you were actually interested in.

zoomers want a moveable in horror movies so they can look around the corner to see if there's spooky hiding lol

Super Mario 64 is probably more your speed OP, if you want to play a horror game.

>>11846827 (OP)
You disgust me zoomer.

>>11846827 (OP)
I hate how so many people confuse being able to rotate the camera around the player as having unlimited flexibility when in reality it's just a different kind of compromise. You can move the camera in any direction, sure. But you can't get the kind of unique angles and perspectives you'd get from a fixed camera because the player has to be more or less in the middle of the frame since that's what the camera is rotating around. you get a 360 view but it's always from a similar angle. And it's fucking boring.

Yes, it's true that fixed angles don't work great for everything. Sometimes you need to be able to scan your surroundings. But for classic Resident Evil it was perfect. For all the classic RPGs with pre-rendered backgrounds it was perfect. It even worked fine with action-intense shit like God of War. The new ones have the over the shoulder camera everyone wanted. Are they really any better?

MGS3 subsistence proves the point better than anything because you can switch back and forth and you can see how the fixed camera always shows you what you need to see and all the screeching about rotating cameras was just pointless whining. It's nice to have but completely unnecessary. And now every game plays and looks the same. Thanks, I hate it.

>>11849248
That's pretty good,thank you for sharing your thoughts. I agree that the video game medium inherently starts giving a finite set of actions which is limited in comparison to real life. That's something my young mind latched onto with games, the idea of infinity, I played simulation games like Oregon Trail and I thought the game never stopped. I thought that in OoT they had to code every possible position of Link with every amount of every item. I had this grandiose view of games, my imagination of what games had to offer was boundless and the fact that I was pretty bad at progressing made it hard to prove myself wrong. Anyways,...
I think that in terms of giving a player a set of tools and a set of goals, creates a space in between which can be seen as agency. I think a really well designed game, an immersive sim maybe, will have a degree of "blindness" between the tools and the goals they provide. Giving a sense of indifference to the way the player will solve the problems they face. I think when a game's design philosophy approaches this, then the game can be said to providing agency.

A lot of people I know just like to fuck around in games or disregard the goals that the game puts forth, which becomes a pretty hollow experience as you mature. There's a difference between "agency"- acting as an agent and "playfulness"- acting as a child

Just some rambling from me

>>11846827 (OP)
>I play videogames for the agency.
The first line of my dystopian cyberpunk novel

>>11846827 (OP)
which agency? CIA??

>>11846827 (OP)
I like the ones with some limited camera control, that is SH, RE:CV and Eternal Darkness

I hope all games are made in tank controls from now on, just for you. Even sports games.

>>11849248
Zoomers misuse terms like player agency all the time. They act like it means "their ability for whatever button presses they want to bring fun" while its more about, say, player input having direct weight on their interactions within a game. Its not agency unless they can have fun doing whatever they want, you see, and a pesky structural limitation, like being too retarded to understand a different but relative orientation inhibits their fun. Its kinda colloquial usage at this point when you understand what they're actually saying.

>>11846827 (OP)
The fixed camera helped make the graphics look perfect at the time. Pre-rendered backgrounds were only possible with FIXED camera angles.