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游戏世界应体现系统一致性和守恒定律

发布时间:2012-08-16 16:39:09 Tags:,,,,

作者:Brent Gulanowski

我第一次玩电脑游戏差不多是30年以前了,玩的是《科莫多宠物》(这也是我第一次接触到电脑程序)。我深深地着迷了。我对游戏这种媒体的热情像一团熊熊燃烧的火焰,30年不灭。我很喜欢许多好游戏。但很大程度上,我仍然对它的潜能更感兴趣。

但在大约最近十年以来,我感到失望,因为游戏行业有那么多它已经做出来的、正在做的和以后要做的劣质游戏。如果劣质游戏只是少数或者多数,那也不算太糟。但是,当近乎所有游戏都很差劲时,我只能感到失望,甚至绝望。

好吧,说几乎所有游戏都“劣质”,大约会惹怒许多人。但我最好还是坦白一点。我认为游戏作为一种媒体,没有突破它的潜能,这是很可悲的;即使这种潜能随着电脑性能、网络技术、开发者以及玩家的智商的日益提高而提升。

但更糟的是,游戏不但辜负了我对它的期待,还有它的创造者对世界的看法、理解和解释也让我感到失望。

他们不但没有正确地表达现实,他们做出来的大部分游戏甚至不能展示他们辛苦幻想出来的世界。

现在的大多数游戏都很愚蠢。它们不但荒谬——这一点往往能原谅或在极少数情况下是值得称颂的,甚至根本不能表达清楚它到底是什么。它们无法表达与我们所生活的世界甚至只有一点点关系的东西,也无法解释任何理念。它们所说的东西完全是不一致的、自相矛盾的。不只是现实相背离,甚至游戏本身的不同部分也自相矛盾。

但是,我对大部分艺术媒体都抱有这种不满。太多艺术从业者似乎都是科学盲,令人悲哀。人类社会对世界运作方式有着深刻的理解,而他们却没有意识到这一点。

我深深地意识到科学自大主义的危险。我也非常了解单一文明的危险:以“科学至上”的观点看待世界。但有绝对充分的证据表明,科学是人类有史以来创造的最强大最有弹性的世界观。科学给了我们最可靠最实用的知识,让我们能从事实或实用的角度认识世界,使我们能够享受生命中所有的好东西(除了那些长在我们身上、与生具来的东西,这些与世界观无关)。科学只是许多理解世界的可能的、等价的方式中的一种——任何持有这种信念的人都生活在幻觉之中。科学胜利了,它是唯一一种可以合理地解释为什么的世界观。

然而,大多数游戏都遗失了科学的本质,令人惊讶。游戏,就像许多文化产品,具有一种或另一种技术含量。当然,制作(程序)游戏的人肯定知道至少一点点儿那种技术所依据的科学。但世界和科学不是单纯的二元论。并不是说大多数游戏的内容都特别精确地描绘了计算机的性质和运用。如果游戏不能恰当地展示计算机技术,它们又怎么能够正确地体现物理定律、热力学、经济学、心理学、生物学等所有科学领域?绝对不可能。

我不是说游戏的角色就是教玩家科学知识(更别说教他们成为科学家)。我说的是,如果游戏与我们所认识的、基于科学的世界相矛盾的话,那就太糟了。

我还要提的是,以幻想世界为背景的游戏太差了。魔法本质上并不糟。糟的是大部分游戏都没有留心,哪怕是最低程度地留心到宇宙间所有其他定律都遵循的基本定律:守恒定律。

the law of conservation(from flickr.com)

the law of conservation(from flickr.com)

这条定律是热力学、力学(牛顿定律和相对论)、经济学、信息理论、图灵机定律(游戏邦注:图灵机是一种不受储存容量限制的假想计算机)、化学和所有其他真正的科学的基础。

如果你还不理解为什么守恒定律会主宰所有科学,我告诉你,原因与所有科学之王——数学有密不可分的关系。数学之所以行得通就是因为守恒定律。为什么人类有可能科学地理解宇宙、为什么数学能应用于所有真科学领域,原因都是一样的:守恒。物质宇宙在数量上是守恒的。

但是,你可能会争辩道,游戏不必建立在真实的宇宙或与之接近的概念上。你也许是对的。但守恒定律不只适用于我们这个宇宙。它适用于所有可能存在的宇宙。它当然也适用于所有游戏的空间,如果你稍微注意一下游戏能帮助玩家学习的说法的话。

好吧,就算你不相信这个说法,也没关系。我不是说游戏必须成为学习的工具。但显然,游戏的历史就是一种学习的历史。经典游戏的属性就是,提取现实系统中存在的定律,然后用这些定律作为模拟,以教会我们有关现实系统的事。即使游戏已经超越了这些简单的意图,它们难道已经完全抛弃了最原始的属性?它们的属性已经彻底转变成其他的了?逃避主义?空想?自我放纵和自我陶醉的乐趣?当代的游戏难道仅令是另一种大众麻醉剂?

就算不是大部分,许多现代游戏都有一种最重要的使命:创造和展示幻想世界。高幻想、低幻想、技术幻想、战争幻想:大部分游戏都以想象世界为特征,而想象世界与现实世界之间形成各式各样的对比。再说一次,我对幻想世界没有偏见。百分之百坦白地说,我从幻想世界中收获极大的乐趣。如果我只关心现实,那么我也不会花这么多时间体验和思考游戏以及其他艺术。

不同的幻想世界与现实形成的对比也是不同的。更大更激进的对比激发了我们的想象力,唤醒了我们的好奇心。在现实世界中长久地过着柴米油盐的生活,我们很容易就遗失了自己的想象力和好奇心(其他作者已经有力地论证了幻想世界的价值,所以我就不再多说了)。幻想本身是个好东西。

但对我而言,有些幻想世界比其他的好。幻想世界的品质很大程度上取决于它的创意。但也取决于作为作者的我,有多轻易地搁置自己的怀疑。要架空我的判断力很容易,要让我接纳陌生而奇异的世界也不难。事实上,我渴望幻想。我可以接受几乎任何假设,几乎所有背离现实的概念,除了:缺少内部一致性,这归根结底还是一条基本定律:守恒。

遵守或不遵守这条定律将幻想世界归为一类。

好吧,为什么针对游戏呢?任何创意媒体都与幻想有关。为什么只有游戏受到批判?

部分是因为我把自己当作游戏设计师,即使我多年来一直在做其他的事,并且也没有发布过一款游戏。更重要的是我是一名游戏玩家。我想玩到好游戏。如果我不喜欢一款游戏,我绝不可能认为它是好游戏。即使我们可以看到这款游戏中的其他优点,或有其他人喜欢这款游戏,这并不意味着它对我而言就是好游戏。我不是唯我论者,但我有以自己的标准和设想判断艺术作品的自由。如果我不认为还有其他人会和我持有至少部分相同的观点,我就不会写这篇这么难写的文章了。

我的问题是,对于绝大部分现有的游戏,我太聪明了。我是个聪明人。我有一点儿自大,但我有充分的理由说自己是聪明人。我读得多,学得多,知道得多。我对世界有复杂的理解。我可以承认我的知识中有很多是世俗的、不专业的,便即使是这样,绝大多数的电脑游戏都比我蠢太多了。玩这么蠢的游戏,基本上毫无乐趣可言。

游戏愚蠢的原因有很多:编写差劲、角色很傻、用户界面呆板、操作笨拙、机制蹩脚。游戏不好做。尽管这样,许多不合格的人还是在做游戏。结果就产生了大量劣质的游戏。许多电影、书籍、漫画和其他艺术作品之所以不怎么好,也是相同的原因。

但制作一款好游戏所需的知识和技能远远超过任何其他创造性工作。

现在,我可以作另一个假设:游戏开发者并不傻,只是他们太好高骛远了。制作好游戏的难度实在太大了。问题不在于开发者不聪明,或没有到达足够程度的聪明,而是,他们试图达到自相矛盾的目标,这是很明显的。一方面,他们想把游戏主题做得精致、成熟而复杂,但另一方面,他们能想到的内容只有射刺打、溜跑跳、捡买卖装备。

那样也不错,不过所有这些东西都在上个世纪就消耗完了。如果所有游戏都是那样,那么游戏行业不妨承认自己的失败,打算用新技术再制作老游戏。一旦技术的进步部分也被消耗完毕(因为玩家看不出有什么差别),那么就再没有什么新的东西可加了,游戏行业就真的完蛋了。或者改朝赌博方向发展。

我本人不会在自己的游戏开发中采取那样的策略,即使这意味着我的游戏市场会很狭小,可能只有品味和智商多少跟我本人接近的人才会买我的帐。如果没有其他人想为我们这类人制作游戏,那么我只能自我提高了。但是我认为甚至是在开发者当中,我也不是孤独的。

唯恐我被排挤成假内行,我得向你保证我不是你想的那样。我是假内行,但我不是完全的假内行。我喜欢的愚蠢的娱乐方式也很不少。我喜欢爆炸。我喜欢超人。我喜欢跑跳射打。我甚至可以忽略内部的自相矛盾和愚蠢的游戏世界,如果里面有一点儿创新的美术设计、有趣的角色、吸引人的故事、幽默的对话、好玩的小道具和巧妙的关卡设计。有时候,我喜欢像只进城的乡下耗子,被城里的形形色色惊得下巴都脱臼了。我喜欢年轻和单纯的感觉。

但愚蠢的游戏不会有太长的寿命。技术会消灭它,精通会抹杀它,经验会抛弃它,成熟会排斥它。它是一种装饰,会变得过时陈旧。它好,它有价值,但它不是肉,不是血液和内脏。当它保证给玩家提供体验的核心却做不到时,它就会令玩家失望和愤怒。

所以,让我返回去说说游戏的历史典范(看,我不是游戏历史学家,我不是权威,我只是根据必定有限的个人经验来概括)。

游戏是现实生活的某些方面的简化,这是一个普遍看法。游戏提取现实的某些部分,然后将其理想化。在这种理想的形式下,玩家可以排除其他的因素的干扰而学习和实践。我们损失了少量的保真度,得到大量的清晰度。

以上说法的核心是,系统遵循一致、守恒的定律。通过提取和操作定律,探究由定律产生的不同结果,我们可以对原来的系统形成深层的,甚至直观的理解。这个定律创造了一种抽象概念,但它是连贯一致的。构建的系统的结果会与真实系统的结果贴合,或至少保证内部组分的一致。

为什么人们做游戏时不关注内部的一致性,我的推测是,创造不一致的世界比创造一致的世界更容易。但为什么人们要玩缺少内部一致性的游戏呢?我认为是因为他们玩游戏不是为了学习真实的系统。恰恰相反地,他们玩游戏只是为了避免对这个世界产生更多的认识。

我们的世界是复杂的,甚至可以说有一点儿令人惊恐。学习世界的运作方式也很困难:它强迫你为自己的行为承担某种责任。当你知道你的行为会产生结果——特别是当结果是可以预测的,你就不得不为这些结果承担责任。不一定是道德上的责任地——你可能是一个虚无主义者,但尽管如此,你也必须接受这个现实:你要为你自己的行为产生的结果承担相应的责任。

承认守恒定律并且愿意为自己的行为负责的人可能是少数,并且可能一直是少数。我希望能找到持相同看法的人,然后给这些人做游戏,跟这些人合作游戏。我不想为不负责任的人制作愚蠢的游戏,因为他们根本不关心世界到底是怎么运作的,对主宰宇宙的基本定律也不感兴趣。

不要浪费时间跟我争论市面上的“写实”战争游戏,无论是射击游戏还是战略游戏。是的,这些游戏,大多是多人竞争游戏,依赖平衡性良好和连贯一致的定律。但在我们这个世界,战争游戏已经饱和了,而且我对玩这些游戏也没有兴趣。我想玩的游戏应该是给愿意思考问题的聪明人玩的,最好还搭配有趣的、第一人称视角的、角色型的玩法。我想要的游戏世界不应该只是模仿弹道物理学和武器装载。

我想玩和制作的游戏应该体现以下真理:人生受到因果的控制,选择会产生真正的结果。不止如此,我希望游戏能在这些真理中体现自己真正的力量。我希望通过尊重和遵循这些真理使玩家感到自己有力量。我希望游戏世界承认守恒定律,通过学习定律,我们变得更聪明,更理解我们的宇宙和世界,带着事在人为的观点生活下去,不受无形的束缚所累。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Systemic Consistency and the Law of Conservation

by Brent Gulanowski

My first experience with a computer game was nearly thirty years ago, with a Commodore Pet. (It was also my first exposure to computer programming.) I was enthralled. My enthusiasm for games, as a medium, has not diminished over the last thirty years. As a medium, I am fond of many of its superlative examples. But I am mostly still enthusiastic about its potential.

But in the last decade or more, what has changed is my frustration with the industry of games, and the many bad games that are made, and are being made, and will be made. It wouldn’t be so bad if bad games were a minority, or even a basic majority. But when nearly all games are bad, it’s a cause for dismay, even despair.

OK, so calling almost all games “bad” is probably not going to win me any friends around here, but I might as well be honest. I think games, as a medium, have failed miserably to realize their potential, even as that potential continues to grow with the power of computers, the Internet, and the sophistication of developers and gamers.

But it’s even worse than that. Not only are games not living up to my expectations as games, they are failing to live up to my expectations as creative expressions of how their creators see, understand and interpret the world.

And not just how they fail to present reality. Most games today don’t even succeed in presenting the fantasy worlds that they work so hard to envision.

Most games today are stupid. Not only are they nonsensical—which is frequently forgivable, and even, in rare cases, honourable—but they simply fail to make it clear what they are about. They fail to say anything even remotely coherent about either the world we live in, or about any ideas of any kind. What they do say is inevitably inconsistent and contradictory. Not just with reality, but with the different parts of the games themselves.

Granted, I have this complaint about a lot of artistic media. Too many artists seem to have a woeful ignorance of science: a lack of awareness that we, as a society, have a deep, vast understanding of how much of the universe works.

I am well aware of the danger of scientific hubris. I’m also familiar with the supposed dangers of monoculture, which a science-only point of view seems to be (it isn’t). But the evidence is overwhelming that science is the most powerful and resilient worldview ever invented by human beings. It has given us the most reliable and useful body of knowledge of the world, both factual and practical, and enabled virtually all of the good things that we enjoy in our lives (beyond those built into our bodies, which we enjoy regardless of any worldview). Anyone who believes that science is just one of many possible, equivalent ways of understanding the world is living in a delusion. Science has won, and it is the only worldview that can reasonably explain why (evolution, duh).

The essence of science, however, is astoundingly missing from most games. Games, like many cultural artifacts, are filled with technology of one kind or another. And certainly, the people who make (program) games inevitably know at least a little of the science that underlies the technology. But there is a lot more to the world, and to science, than binary logic. Not that the content of most games depicts the nature or use of computers especially accurately. And if games can’t represent computers properly, how badly are they representing the laws of physics, thermodynamics, economics, psychology, biology and all of the other scientific realms? Abysmally.

I’m not trying to argue that it’s the role of games to teach players science (let alone to teach them to be scientists). I’m arguing that it’s bad for games to be contradicting what we know about the world based on science.

I’m also not arguing that games set in fantasy worlds are bad. Magic is not intrinsically bad. What’s bad is the refusal of most games to pay even the slightest heed to the fundamental law which underlies all other laws in all parts of the universe: the law of conservation.

This law is a fundamental to the laws of thermodynamics, mechanics (both Newtonian and relativistic), the distribution of capital in economics, information theory, Turing’s Law, chemistry and all other true sciences.

If you haven’t already guess, the reason for this is tied intimately with the queen of all the sciences: mathematics. The reason that mathematics works is because of the law of conservation. The reason that the scientific understanding of the universe is possible, and why mathematics is used in all real science, is the same thing: conservation. The material universe is quantitatively conservative. (Please don’t see this as a political statement. Most political viewpoints, “conservative” or otherwise, are completely non-conservative in all ways except in the miserly way they use their intellects.)

But, you might argue, games are not required to be set in the actual material universe, or some close approximation of it. And you would be right. But the law of conservation does not apply only in our universe. It applies in all possible universes. It certainly applies in all game universes, if you pay even the slightest heed to the idea that games exist to help players learn.

OK, lets say you don’t believe that. I’m not saying that games must be tools for learning. But certainly, the history of games is one of learning. The nature of classic games is that of the distilled rules of systems found in reality, and using those rules in simulations that are designed to teach us something about those systems. Even if games have expanded far beyond those simple beginnings, have they dispensed with their original nature completely? Have they overwhelmingly abandoned it in favour of something else? Escapism? Delusion? Indulgent and narcissistic fun? Are contemporary games little more than yet another opiate of the masses?

Many, if not most, modern games have an overriding concern: the invention and presentation of fantasy worlds. High fantasy, low fantasy, techno-fantasy, war fantasy: most games feature imaginary worlds that offer up many and varied contrasts with the real world. Once again, I do not have a problem with fantasy worlds. In all honesty, I get great enjoyment from them. If I cared only for reality, I wouldn’t spend so much time experiencing and thinking about games and other art.

Different fantasy worlds contrast with reality in a variety of ways. Greater and more radical contrasts excite our imaginations and engage our sense of wonder, which is so easily lost after too much time spent in the everyday world. (Other authors have successfully argued the value of fantasy worlds, so I don’t need to.) Fantasy is itself a good thing.

But to me, some fantasy worlds are better than others. The quality of a fantasy world depends in a large part on its originality. But it also depends upon how easily I, as the audience, can suspend my disbelief. It’s not that difficult to suspend my judgement, to open my mind to the strange and alien. In fact, I live for it. I can accept almost any premise, almost any deviation from reality, except for one: a lack of internal consistency, which in turn comes down to one fundamental law: conservation.

The adherence—or not—to the law of conservation sets one class of fantasy world apart form another.

OK, so why pick on games in particular? Every creative medium indulges in fantasy. What’s it about games that they deserve special criticism?

Partly it’s that I consider myself a game developer, even after years of doing other things and never having released a single game. Partly, and more importantly, it’s that I’m a gamer. I want to play good games. I can hardly consider a game good if I don’t like it. Even if I can recognize other good qualities in a game, or that other people like it, it doesn’t mean it’s good to me. I’m not a solipsist, but I am free to judge any artwork by my own standards and preferences. I wouldn’t be writing this difficult essay, however, if I didn’t think that some other people might agree with at least some of what I’m saying.

The problem, for me, is that I’m too smart for almost all the games out there. I’m a smart guy. I’m a bit egotistical, but I have sound reasons to think so. I read a lot. I learn a lot. I know a lot. I have a sophisticated understanding of the world. I can admit that much of my knowledge is that of a lay-person, a non-specialist, but even so, the vast majority of computer games are dramatically dumber than I am. And playing dumb games is, generally, not enjoyable.

Games are dumb for lots of reasons. Dumb writing, dumb characters, dumb user interfaces, dumb controls, dumb mechanics: it goes on and on. Games are hard to make. Nevertheless, a lot of unqualified people try to make them. So a lot of games are, consequently, not very good. Just like a lot of movies, books, comics and other art are not very good for the same reason.

But the knowledge and skill required to make good games may very well exceed that of any other creative work.

At this point, I can present an alternative hypothesis: game developers aren’t dumb, so much as they are overreaching. The challenge to make smart games simply exceeds what is reasonable. And the problem is not that developers aren’t smart, or even smart in enough ways, but that, at the end of the day, they are simply trying to achieve contradictory goals, and it’s obvious. Games want to be about sophisticated, mature and complicated subjects, but they also just want to be about shoot stab punch, sneak run jump, loot buy sell equip.

That would be fine and good, except that all those things were exhausted in the last century. And if that’s all games are really about, then the industry might as well admit that all it’s got left going for it is the strategy of remaking old games with new technology. And once the improvements to the technology are exhausted (because the players can no longer tell the difference), then there won’t be anything new to add, and the industry will just have to give up. Or switch to gambling. Ahem.

I, for one, will not be taking that strategy in my own game development, even if it means that the market for my games is small and exclusively made up of people of more or less similar taste and intelligence as myself. If no one else wants to make games for me and people like me, then I’ll just have to step up. But I’d like to think I’m not alone even amongst developers.

Lest I’m ostracized for being nothing but a snob, let me try to assure you that this isn’t so. I am a snob, but I’m not wholly a snob. I like a good load of dumb entertainment. I like explosions. I like superheroes. I look a good bit of run and jump and shoot and stab. I can even overlook internal contradictions and stupid game worlds if there is a fair bit of creative art direction, interesting characters, engaging storytelling, witty dialogue, fun gear and gadgets, and cool level design. I like to feel like the country mouse come to the city once in a while, just overwhelmed with jaw-dropping amazement. I like to remember what it feels like to be young and naive.

But that stuff doesn’t have a long shelf life. Technology kills it. Familiarity kills it. Experience kills it. Maturity kills it. It’s decoration. It gets old and stale. It’s good. It’s valuable. But it’s not the meat. It’s not the blood and guts. And it’s disappointing and irritating when it makes a promise that the core of the experience fails to deliver on.

So let me go back to the historic ideal of a game. (Look, I’m no game historian. I’m not an authority with credentials. I’m just generalizing based on my necessarily limited personal experience.)

There is a common idea that games are meant to be simplifications of some aspect of real life. A game distills some part of reality into an idealized form. In that form, it can be studied and practised independently of other factors that, from the perspective of the system, amount only to noise. We lose a small amount of fidelity and gain a tremendous amount of clarity.

At the heart of this idea is that systems follow consistent, conservative rules. By extracting the rules and working within them, exploring different outcomes that arise from the rules, we can gain a deep, even intuitive understanding of the original system. The rules create an abstraction, but they are meant to be a consistent abstraction. Outcomes in the constructed system will jive with outcomes in the real system, or, at least, be internally and reliably consistent with one another.

If I were to speculate a bit on why people make games without paying attention to internal consistency, it would be that it’s easier to design inconsistent worlds than consistent ones. But why do people play games lacking internal consistency? Because, I think, they aren’t playing games in order to learn about real systems. Quite the opposite. They’re playing games specifically to avoid learning more about the world.

The world is complex and more than a little intimidating. Learning how the world works is also a burden: it forces you to accept a certain responsibility for your actions. When you learn that your actions have consequences—especially when they are predictable—you have to take responsibility for those consequences. Not necessarily moral responsibility—you may be a nihilist—but nevertheless, you have to accept the fact of your role in the outcomes that arise from your own actions.

Those of us who acknowledge the law of conservation, and accept the consequences of our own actions, may be a minority, and probably always have been. It is my wish to find others who share this point of view, and to make games with and for them. I don’t want to make dumb games for irresponsible people who don’t care about how the world really works, and have no interest in the essential laws which govern the universe.

And don’t waste time arguing with me about all the “realistic” combat games on the market, whether it be shooters or strategy games or whatever. Yes, those games, and most multiplayer competitive games, rely on well-balanced and consistent rules. The world is over-saturated with combat games, and I have absolutely no interest in playing them. I want games for intellectual players who want to consider intellectual problems, ideally coupled with immersive, first-person, character-driven gameplay. I want worlds that simulate more than just ballistic physics and weapon reloading.

I want to play—and make—games that recognize these truths: that life is dominated by cause and effect, and that choices have real consequences. More than that, I want games that find their real power in these truths. I want games that empower players by respecting and adhering to these truths. I want games where the rules make sense, and where, by learning them, we become more enlightened, and better able to understand the universe, and our place in it, and to make our way in it, with self-determinism, not being dragged down corridors on an invisible leash.(source:gamasutra)


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