I've been taking a break from the game lately. In coming back some things have occurred to me I feel are good to share.
Space games my suffer from a certain psychological fortitude requisite from their players. In this I mean the ability to tolerate an absence of abundant colors and organic complexity. NASA has event talked about this a real life problem when trying to determine how to build a ship to take astronauts out into the solar system. For me, this occurred as I saw a side by side of a friend playing Dragon Age and a separate playing Elite. I immediately thought, "On planet," and "Off planet." Later the one playing Dragon Age switched to Black Desert. At this moment I thought, "Oh my gosh, I get it! Progress. This is like gauge of novelty. This is the distance between 1680 and 3302."
The saddening thing to me, to realize, was that no matter what game I've played, movie I've watched, or book I've read the more we get into Space the more we loose color. The original Star Trek movies probably had the best space ships; so colorful and well thought out. Everything after those was progressively more Hollywood. But Elite is kind of beyond Star Trek in a way. Star Trek ships couldn't cross the galaxy in our months or even years. It's just one pilot. Not crews of specialized people.
All of this leads to a kind of interesting situation for psychology. Jack McDevitt maybe addresses the problem best in his Priscilla Hutchins stories. The ships of the story work much like the Elite ships. There's even a voice computer that talks to you analyzing your moods so you don't drift into 'crazy' over long journeys. Priscilla is a freight hauler and academic science pilot. However, what isn't really discussed is "the view out of the cockpit". Like Star Trek: Next Generation, a lot of ships have hologram projectors so the person flying can go off on some beach adventure or jungle setting during long flights. This seems to be entirely to address the human need for an environment. This may be real life problem as following the film Avatar people who watched it sometimes went into extreme depression. The problem or source of the depression was linked to many of such people having lived without the presence of such organic richness as the film portrayed. When suddenly confronted with the realization of a formerly unrealized absence (but sensed) absence in their lives they cracked.
After taking a flight out to the rim of the core area of the galaxy, Orion, and several other places the starkness of space somewhat begins to have impact. I mean, in other games the richness of a forest's leaves (like Emerald Graves in Dragon Age) is so overwhelming that the content may not be appreciated. Whereas, in Elite the same simplicity and yet technological presence of mind by the Developers is likely often unappreciated just as much. Especially by me if you've ever read any of my other posts. But, it just goes to show the contrast.
I believe the whole rambly point of this post is "space lacks color" and "this lack of color is hard on people over time" with finally "they may not realize is consciously." ... All something to think about though not sure what to do with it.
Space games my suffer from a certain psychological fortitude requisite from their players. In this I mean the ability to tolerate an absence of abundant colors and organic complexity. NASA has event talked about this a real life problem when trying to determine how to build a ship to take astronauts out into the solar system. For me, this occurred as I saw a side by side of a friend playing Dragon Age and a separate playing Elite. I immediately thought, "On planet," and "Off planet." Later the one playing Dragon Age switched to Black Desert. At this moment I thought, "Oh my gosh, I get it! Progress. This is like gauge of novelty. This is the distance between 1680 and 3302."
The saddening thing to me, to realize, was that no matter what game I've played, movie I've watched, or book I've read the more we get into Space the more we loose color. The original Star Trek movies probably had the best space ships; so colorful and well thought out. Everything after those was progressively more Hollywood. But Elite is kind of beyond Star Trek in a way. Star Trek ships couldn't cross the galaxy in our months or even years. It's just one pilot. Not crews of specialized people.
All of this leads to a kind of interesting situation for psychology. Jack McDevitt maybe addresses the problem best in his Priscilla Hutchins stories. The ships of the story work much like the Elite ships. There's even a voice computer that talks to you analyzing your moods so you don't drift into 'crazy' over long journeys. Priscilla is a freight hauler and academic science pilot. However, what isn't really discussed is "the view out of the cockpit". Like Star Trek: Next Generation, a lot of ships have hologram projectors so the person flying can go off on some beach adventure or jungle setting during long flights. This seems to be entirely to address the human need for an environment. This may be real life problem as following the film Avatar people who watched it sometimes went into extreme depression. The problem or source of the depression was linked to many of such people having lived without the presence of such organic richness as the film portrayed. When suddenly confronted with the realization of a formerly unrealized absence (but sensed) absence in their lives they cracked.
After taking a flight out to the rim of the core area of the galaxy, Orion, and several other places the starkness of space somewhat begins to have impact. I mean, in other games the richness of a forest's leaves (like Emerald Graves in Dragon Age) is so overwhelming that the content may not be appreciated. Whereas, in Elite the same simplicity and yet technological presence of mind by the Developers is likely often unappreciated just as much. Especially by me if you've ever read any of my other posts. But, it just goes to show the contrast.
I believe the whole rambly point of this post is "space lacks color" and "this lack of color is hard on people over time" with finally "they may not realize is consciously." ... All something to think about though not sure what to do with it.
