Senses and spatial awareness, Why radar may not be so evil after all Options

[glibdud]

I've never been a big fan of the on-screen radar in MMOs. In SWG it sort of fit with the theme, but in a fantasy game, it (a) shows more information than your character should know, and (b) draws too much attention to the interface and away from the environment.

So as a general rule, I've been anti-radar in philosophy. But then I realized that restricting the character's sensory perception to a single forward viewport and a flat (maybe stereo) sound field is perhaps a bit too much erring in the other direction. I mean, come on... we know a lot more about our surroundings than what we see directly in front of us.

Supposing a radar screen was implemented, but with only basic terrain features (for scale as much as anything else), and not with the usual dynamic entities. It could instead be used for other senses, such as:

Sound: Perhaps based on racial abilities and some sort of "Listening" skill, small or stealthy creatures/characters behind the character may be detected by sound. Doing so by actual game sound isn't really sufficient, since there's a definite limit to the amount of info that can be gleaned from stereo sound. Instead, when a character detects a sound, a pulse radiates from a point on the radar in the general vicinity of the source. The better the player is at listening and the louder the sound was, the smaller the potential offset of the sound, and the tighter the pulse radius.

Smell: Why not? To my knowledge, MMOs have to this point ignored the sense of smell. Why not open the door to characters with sensitive noses? It could work in a manner similar to (but less precise than) sound, but it's also affected by wind.

Radar is the obvious way things like this could be implemented, but I'm sure there are other possibilities. The less you draw the player's eyes to particular elements of the UI, the more immersive the game will be.

This post has been edited by glibdud: May 7 2007, 01:31 PM

[ghedipunk]

When I think of echolocation being used, I imagine the world being a bit more varied than simply monochrome.

When you strike wood, it makes a different sound than if you strike flesh, or strike metal.

Echoes are also effected by this as well... After all, an echo is simply a wave of air striking on object, then that object creating a new sound in response.

So, wood would have a brown color. Dirt and stones would be grayscale. Flesh would be a pale orange. Metal would be a sharp red... Other objects would dampen the sound, such as hair on flesh, or leaves and grass, creating a "darker" patch where less sound is reflected back.

Also, primary sounds are much louder than an echo. When a person takes a step, their feet could, perhaps, be ringed in a bright white halo, and any creature using active sonar (like bats) would show up blindingly bright as well.

The sky would, of course, be black, because nothing is reflecting sound back at the person using the echolocation.