Re: [Algorithms] Passing on: PhD student looking for interviews ongamephysics

[Robert D. <bli...@go...>]

> Realistic physics is sucky. Things pinging off to infinity, 

That's not realistic !  That's a BUG, usually caused by people who have only
the slightest idea what they are doing with physics.

> bug databases full of unreproducible problems, 

Neither is that - that's just poor implementation :)

> framerate aliasing all over the place,

And that too.

> frustrated players. 

Ah, now you are talking sense ... There is nothing worse than not being able
to do what you want to do, even if there is a perfectly sound physical
reason for it.
Well, that is, apart from not being able to do it for no good reason at all.
Which is of course where lots of games are - you know the ones, where you
can climb a 60 ft sheer wall, but can't climb a bookcase, or you can't jump
over a 6 inch ledge, but you can climb stairs that are just as tall.  

> Not to mention the fact that you're interacting with the
> world with a 10-foot barge pole - if you're lucky you get to 
> stick a magnet on the end. Whereas in the real world we have
> hands and opposable thumbs and awesome motor-feedback systems.
> Realistic physics gets you Trespasser :-(

Heheh, low blow. 

> What you want is *plausible* physics. Every game I know that 
> has physics that are considered good by game players started
> with a realistic physics system and them mercilessly hacked
> it until it felt fun. 
> That's not to say the physics is *simple* - it is in fact far
> more complex than the real world because it has all these
> special cases in it making the game fun.

Ahhh right.
Now I half agree with this - plausible physics is important.
But the question was about philosophical issues - which to be honest is
beyond my comprehension.
I mean unless we are discussing whether realistic physics makes killing
humans in a game worse than non-realistic physics or something, how on earth
do we get on to philosphy at all ?
Even the breast physics in DOA just doesn't really cut it philosophically !