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A Valve engineer fixed 3D lighting so hard he had to tell all the graphics card manufacturers their math was wrong, and the reaction was: 'I hate you' (www.pcgamer.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 116 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Now, can we fix flashlights in games such that we don’t get a well defined circle of lit area surrounded by completely a black environment?

Sure, we can do that, but we won't because of the narrative and functional in-game purpose of the flashlight. It's not meant to be realistic, it's meant to make the game feel a specific way.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It's also why a flashlight may be able to run for dozens of hours straight on a single battery but in video games it'll die in minutes if not seconds. Realism is unfair. Also the same reason why nuclear reactors in video games are always dangerous. Because representing them realistically would be boring to the average adrenaline junkie "gamer".

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

We are now in the age of the continuous flashlight (though Subnautica has operational long-running, replaceable batteries). L4D in 2007 had permanent flashlights that worked pretty well and felt right.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Feels unnecessarily hyperbolic to call the average gamer an "adrenaline junkie". Games need gameplay and fixing things that aren't working, be it a dying flashlight or an erupting reactor, is easy and extensible gameplay.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think you read that wrong. It is not that the average gamer is an adrenaline junky. The person takes a subgroup of gamers, the "adrenaline junkys", and from that subgroup the average is meant.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

The discussion was of a common trope in video games, the person I replied to referenced an unspecific element in video game storytelling, and you expect the primary understanding of the subsequent label to be talking to a sub-section of a sub-section of all gamers?

Either you are reading a far too charitable (and unrealistic) interpretation of the previous comment, or the original comment needs signficant revision.

Even if we take your reading as valid, how would the attention span of a minor fraction of all gamers move the needle, in terms of game design, enough to bring about the tropes previously discussed?