Coral Check this out, its about the sims2
Q: Start out by telling us what's different in "The Sims 2."
A: Basically, the set of possibilities in the game is much larger. There's a 3D engine, which lets you zoom in closer and get a much deeper immersion in the Sims' lives. You pretty much feel like you're in the room with them.
Their personalities are far more fleshed-out; they're really three-dimensional characters now. They have aspirations, memories, a much more detailed social landscape and knowledge of their social relationships with other Sims. They have tactical goals; depending on the aspiration you set for them, they have intermediate things they want you to attain for them.
Primarily, the game allows much more interesting stories for the player. It is really about the player telling the story, not the computer. In "Sims 2," the computer has more recognition of significant events. The Sims grow and age, from a toddler to an elder. They have very different approaches to life at different stages; different kinds of success and failure. Basically, we made it so that the Sims feel in your mind to be much more like real people. You really establish a much deeper emotional connection with them.
So the consequences of your actions are more cumulative?
We end up with a smorgasbord of various bits and pieces of psychology theory that help clarify parts of the game. Yeah, the consequences are much deeper. The causality in the game is much more believable. The Sims have much more awareness of things going on around them, of social relationships, of where they are relative to their aspirations. In some sense, they have self-esteem now. Primarily, this is all so that the player can be much more creative--in developing a character, a story, elaborate social situations.
You've talked before about what you call the "Calvin factor"--players building things just to destroy them. What's the Calvin factor here?
We did find with "SimCity"--and later with "The Sims"--that players really enjoy exploring the failure side. They want to experiment with all the different ways they screw up the Sims' lives, from having a bladder failure and soiling the carpet to losing a job or being spurned in a romantic advance. The failure states in "Sims 2" are quite a bit more elaborate than in "Sims 1." And you've got a deeper emotional connection, so when the Sims fail, you really feel guilty. You feel as if you're dealing with a pet instead of a robot.
So if I really mistreat my Sim, does he end up in a clock tower with a sniper rifle?
Not quite, but they definitely will go loony. We try to make the failure side more humorous. But at some point, they'll start to see imaginary people; just go totally bonkers. If you give them a screwed-up childhood, they can go in that direction, or they just might develop very particular phobias. They have memories, both good and bad, and they can develop positive or negative associations in connection with those memories that carry through into adulthood.
It seems as if there's a lot of psychology behind this. How much of an education do you have in that?
Enough. We found that it's a lot easier for us to research a topic than it is to take experts and teach them about game development. When it comes to psychology, we looked at hundreds of different theories, and the thing is that none of them are right. They all capture some little element of the truth. So what we end up with is a smorgasbord of various bits and pieces of theory that help clarify parts of the game. The basic needs are coming from Maslow, the personality side is roughly Myers-Briggs, the childhood-to-adult transitions are more Freudian.
There are so many different psychological theories, each one of them trying to explain a particular aspect of human psychology, but none of them is formal. None of them lets you come in and assign numbers to people to predict their behavior.
At some level, we have to turn this into a very formal science, because we have to describe it to a computer, which is actually crunching through numbers to decide what the person is going to do next. So we mash together all these theories, but 50 percent of what holds it together is our internal duct tape.
A: Basically, the set of possibilities in the game is much larger. There's a 3D engine, which lets you zoom in closer and get a much deeper immersion in the Sims' lives. You pretty much feel like you're in the room with them.
Their personalities are far more fleshed-out; they're really three-dimensional characters now. They have aspirations, memories, a much more detailed social landscape and knowledge of their social relationships with other Sims. They have tactical goals; depending on the aspiration you set for them, they have intermediate things they want you to attain for them.
Primarily, the game allows much more interesting stories for the player. It is really about the player telling the story, not the computer. In "Sims 2," the computer has more recognition of significant events. The Sims grow and age, from a toddler to an elder. They have very different approaches to life at different stages; different kinds of success and failure. Basically, we made it so that the Sims feel in your mind to be much more like real people. You really establish a much deeper emotional connection with them.
So the consequences of your actions are more cumulative?
We end up with a smorgasbord of various bits and pieces of psychology theory that help clarify parts of the game. Yeah, the consequences are much deeper. The causality in the game is much more believable. The Sims have much more awareness of things going on around them, of social relationships, of where they are relative to their aspirations. In some sense, they have self-esteem now. Primarily, this is all so that the player can be much more creative--in developing a character, a story, elaborate social situations.
You've talked before about what you call the "Calvin factor"--players building things just to destroy them. What's the Calvin factor here?
We did find with "SimCity"--and later with "The Sims"--that players really enjoy exploring the failure side. They want to experiment with all the different ways they screw up the Sims' lives, from having a bladder failure and soiling the carpet to losing a job or being spurned in a romantic advance. The failure states in "Sims 2" are quite a bit more elaborate than in "Sims 1." And you've got a deeper emotional connection, so when the Sims fail, you really feel guilty. You feel as if you're dealing with a pet instead of a robot.
So if I really mistreat my Sim, does he end up in a clock tower with a sniper rifle?
Not quite, but they definitely will go loony. We try to make the failure side more humorous. But at some point, they'll start to see imaginary people; just go totally bonkers. If you give them a screwed-up childhood, they can go in that direction, or they just might develop very particular phobias. They have memories, both good and bad, and they can develop positive or negative associations in connection with those memories that carry through into adulthood.
It seems as if there's a lot of psychology behind this. How much of an education do you have in that?
Enough. We found that it's a lot easier for us to research a topic than it is to take experts and teach them about game development. When it comes to psychology, we looked at hundreds of different theories, and the thing is that none of them are right. They all capture some little element of the truth. So what we end up with is a smorgasbord of various bits and pieces of theory that help clarify parts of the game. The basic needs are coming from Maslow, the personality side is roughly Myers-Briggs, the childhood-to-adult transitions are more Freudian.
There are so many different psychological theories, each one of them trying to explain a particular aspect of human psychology, but none of them is formal. None of them lets you come in and assign numbers to people to predict their behavior.
At some level, we have to turn this into a very formal science, because we have to describe it to a computer, which is actually crunching through numbers to decide what the person is going to do next. So we mash together all these theories, but 50 percent of what holds it together is our internal duct tape.