Immersion Breaking Jack O' Lantern Mask

What's with the immersion breaking stuff? Is this Novia or Planet Earth 2015? Because to me, personally, this is just my opinion, but it looks closer to Planet Earth 2015.

Here are a few more generic MMOs that have the immerion-breaking pumpkin head;



Pumpkin Heads are too Earthly for me, I'll pass. As far as the Día de Muertos masks, they are sort of cool, but to me fall too close into the Planet Earth category. Consider me a stickler, consider me an immersion fan, but I remember seeing a Pumpkin Head for the first time in an MMO, it was Guildwars 1, what annoyed me most was the fact that players wore them year round, every day all day, this is what particularly broke the immersion, they were considered normal attire and the world started to feel more like a Dr. Seuss Cartoon than anything else, or maybe Nightmare Before Christmas the MMO.

Will these seasonal masks be wearable year round? Of course they will. Will they break immersion? Yep. I feel like these masks are really evidence that someone isn't taking immersion seriously, and by extension not taking the game seriously. If you want to be a generic MMO, with generic seasonal stuff, that's great.

I remember Garriott in a video once talked about how to make a great game. He said it didn't involve adding a bunch of stuff, that sometimes, the secret, is to not add everything, to take away that which is not needed. Limiting that which is in the game. It's not an exact quote, but what I would take away from that would be adding a bunch random stuff into what is perceived to be a fantasy world, independent of planet Earth, a bunch of stuff that is seen as Earthly, Cartoony, against the grain of Fantasy/Medieval/RPG/Steampunk results in a hodge-podge mess. Just my opinion.

I would be interested in the skull masks, if they were generic skull masks. Like this;



I live in the southwest and see Día de Muertos stuff all the time, all over the place and I'm just not a fan of the style.

As for the Pumpkin head, it breaks immersion to an extreme degree.



The first one, too immersion breaking. The second one is cool, doesn't seem to break immersion at all. Could be a dressed up fire elemental. The third one is cool too. Headless doesn't break immersion at all. As you can see there's a fine line between breaking immersion and not.

For those that disagree w/me feel free to. This is my opinion and I stand by it.

 

The headless one is hilarious. Now we just need to be able to equip a bomb in each hand.

 

...and a corpion that chases you forever because you pirated the game?

 

I don't want to disagree nor i want to agree, i am simply neutral to such things.
And of course, not everyone will like everything. So i indeed do understand where you are coming from.

But, imo, too many people complain about immersion and realism.
If you play with one of these two things in mind, you shouldn't play games at all.

Let's see, what should count as immersion breaking and as non-realistic:
- carrying unlimited amount of houses with you
- carrying billions of ressources, items, weapons with you
- building/placing houses in seconds, magically you summon up your house, woot!
- zoning to players and your homes (Moongates i would understand, because in an fantasy world with magic it could be indeed realistic, as far we can tell)
- getting all your gear and inventory again after death
- carrying unlimited amount of gold with you
- you can fish an unlimited amount of broken shoes etc. (who has thrown all those shoes into the sea/ocean anyway?)
- and a lot more.

My point is, immersion and realism wouldn't always work well for a game.

Now your "immersion" problem is simply based on aesthetic.
But if we keep talking about "immersion" only, then you should, atleast, also complain about the following thing in the Add-On store:
- Aether Vibration Amplifier, if turned on i hear earth like stuff and country music? what the hell?!

 

I disagree.
The world of Shroud of the Avatar and our real world are connected.
And since this is a completly new world and not Ultima, wy isnt it possible that they adept Halloween?
Or maby they call it different but using allsow pumpkins.

I dont have any problems with it.

 

I don't think its fair to call it immersion breaking .. Avatars are humans after all We just need a reason to why avatars choose to bring the ideas with them.

 

I think they are fine, but I do like the skull mask too. I know that some want nothing that is out of the scope of lore or reality but I just don't think that is totally going to happen. There will be places to play in the game for anyone who wants to roleplay, but a online sandbox has to be just that. The only way to not have people running around dressed in all kinds of ways and decorating oddly is to not play a sandbox mmo type of game.

It's too difficult to create for every different type of player the way this game is being developed. If the developers were doing it without us they would have more control over that. So as much as some don't like some of what's coming in, it will still come in. So we have more months of that happening so brace yourselves.

For myself to mention I don't have a problem with it, I want us to all play how we want with lots of free to be type of things. I want to go to Ravicus' town and see the walking dead even if all he gets are this type of masks for scary. Maybe with feedback next Halloween they will be scarier. I actually think they are quite artistic and thank you to the Devs for all the hard work and for getting them in for us.

edited and sorry didnt mean it to seem like a rant. I liked the skull mask idea. oops edited typo again

 

Stating this in the nicest possible way for the devs who work so hard to put in cool content for us all... I'm also not a the biggest fan of the pumpkin heads... nor the santa hats. Both for the same reasons stated by the OP.

I will admit that a Justin Bieber mask would be over the line and cause me to play another game .

 

Immersion breaking is a phrase that annoys the hell out of me. Until technology advances to the point we have implants into our brains full "Matrix" style, there is no immersion. You are sitting at your keyboard, staring at a screen, pressing keys, and using a mouse. Nothing else is more immersion breaking.

If you don't like something in a game don't use it or buy it. Stop trying to control everyone else's actions and fun with a poor excuse.

 

I do agree with the OP. I also fall into the category of those who feel that time spent creating seasonal vanity items for a game that is not only unfinished, but actually very much behind schedule, is time better spent creating actual story and mechanics content for the game itself.

 

I agree with OP, some of this stuff is just getting out of hand.

 

I wonder if masks might be a by-product of something else they're working on, such as custom avatar heads.
And since they're working on it, why not make a few bucks with a little extra effort?

 

How about a Optional Seasonal Item Button.

You turn it on and you do not see them on your side of the computer.


Or even better: Sale a Dispell Seasonal Items Scroll. 20 Dollars.

Then you even make a profit.

 

I have no problems with the masks, I thought they looked cool.

 

Ok this whole turning off every thing that we don't like is getting out of hand.

 

I have found Razimus, that we need to state our opinions no matter what. I think you do fine with stating yours. I am into the lore and can see your point. By presenting your opinion in this way you can find other people that you need to hang out with, and also the people you need to avoid. I certainly want to be able to RP with you, despite the anti immersion/anti rp crowd.

 

There's nothing anti lore about these masks...New Britannia has strong ties to earth...since that's where Avatars come from. Spoiler, Avatars don't forget about earth traditions when they get here.

 

Just make a list of the people you want on your friends list, and the people you want to block/ignore in game and hopefully you wont have to deal with these problems. (not talking about player towns, thats off topic)

 

The pumpkin mask isn't awful in my opinion though it is overdone, but if you're going to make a mask, (Muertos Masks) make it have some substance where it sticks off the face some and actually looks like a cloth mask over your face instead of a painted skin over the top of your avatar's form.

WAY too many games take the easy route and make it a colored skin instead of giving it it's own form separate from the avatar's face.

Players don't like that kind of stuff.

 

Same thing with players turning their lots into flea market junk yards. I'd love to put a stop to that, but to each their own. Just play the game.