| Mafioso said: Sorry to say but all there is left is how a game can look and what perspective you play it on. Gaming will be samey for ever. |
I think you underestimate what is possible. Take Dragon Age Inquisition for example, instead of walking through bushes and watching my character get silently impaled by twigs the bush and the player character could interact with each other. Procedual Animation, reacting seemlessly to every possible situation and position, this would add a huge amount to a game. It doesn't have to be just for visuals either, a more accurate interaction with the game world means you have to be more observant, objects in the world could alter your speed or direction in combat. Also not just animation, but the sounds you make with the environment. Open World games are again a prime example of this, though it's certainly not exclusive to them. If you shoot in the air, you're going to alert nearby enemies. But if you say... walk into a rock, and the rock rolls down a hill hits a car and makes a loud noise... well actions involving environmental noise caused by the player rarely have any affect on nearby AI, unless it is a specifically scripted event.
Next is Player Influence, take a game like GTA. You can cause mass carnage, yet mere hours later you could return and everything is as it was, your actions have little impact on the world, and as the people living in said world are basically blank states that despawn as soon as you look away, your actions have no impact on them either. Now a world where your slightest action can have an affect or consequence, that's the future. For that we need advancements in AI and thus processing power. A world where the people living in them have actual homes, actual families and relationships, and ambitions and hobbies. A game world where everyone living in it isn't just window dressing randomly thrown in whenever you get close, a world that reacts and changes to your actions.
Fully Destructible enviroments, sure there are some games that feature destruction, some pretty impressive examples in fact. But there's no game where every object is physically simulated. You can't go around breaking down doors and going into any house you wish in GTA, you can't drive a car through any wall you wish, destructable enviroments is for the most part still in it's infancy, and worlds where the majority of buildings are just exteriors with no interior is also a factor. How can you destroy a house that doesn't have an interior?
Weather Systems... Weather is also still just window dressing in games, the furthest we've got is simply changing how your car steers. Again I'll use GTA as an example. It can be Sunny, it can be Cloudy. There can be Rain and sometimes Lightning... but does this have much impact on the world? No. I don't think wind even exists, you don't see Tree's blowing around, you don't see bins being blown across the street in heavy winds, it doesn't affect the car. Hell the weather usually doesn't even affect how many people are out and about. The world can't experience floods, or snow that actually settles, or damage caused by high winds, nor does the weather even affect the AI's visibility.
There's a lot more that could be said, but basically games are still incredibly shallow, and in no way accurately emulate a real living world, and that has a huge impact on gameplay, how you play and the decisions that you make.
