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As per the thread title, this is a question that my son Matthew asked me today after playing a game of Rome: Total War. He said that he likes to pause a battle just before it ends and zoom across the battlefield, looking at the bodies of his enemies scattered over the land.

It occurred to me that I occasionally do this too, and that the disappearance of bodies has always been something that really bugged me about the C&C games. Does anybody else do this? Or am I just carrying a psychopath gene?

It's more "real" and less of a "game" if the conscequences of your bloody struggle are visible. It helps with SoD essentially and if your battle is more "real", so is your accomplishment.

For me, it doesn't have to be a victory. I get the same thing from a hard fought defeat.

Nah, I love doing it in WoW. Ah, the stupid monkeies/Yeti/Demonlord/human who dared to challenge me.

It's the feeling of "I kicked your ass, bitch!"

Darth Wong wrote:As per the thread title, this is a question that my son Matthew asked me today after playing a game of Rome: Total War. He said that he likes to pause a battle just before it ends and zoom across the battlefield, looking at the bodies of his enemies scattered over the land.

It occurred to me that I occasionally do this too, and that the disappearance of bodies has always been something that really bugged me about the C&C games. Does anybody else do this? Or am I just carrying a psychopath gene?

1337 AzN p5ycH0p47h g3n3!!! w00T!!!

seriously now, it's more around the lines of what Ghost Rider said. It's a nice little feeling of "well done melord, you have crushed those insolent fools who dared to oppose you!"

Also, your son is named Matthew? Man, I feel so generic, so many other Matthews around...

It's nice to remember and see the spot where a cavalry unit tries to hook right and go behind me but fails as I surround them with three of my own cavalry units.

The stench of dead enemies is always good.

For me, it's that sense of epic-ness. Continuing the example of R:TW, I do occasionally zoom in on the aftermath of an Urban cohort's swath of destruction. I like to see how totally and how completely my foes were decimated, and strange as it may sound, to also honor those who fell in the name of my glorious empire.

In FPSs it's a different story. A friend and I, for example, have a long-running joke (tactic?) of using each others' corpses as cover in multiplayer games. For this reason we're particularly enthusiastic about games with accurate physics engines.

I think it's because you know it's not real.

A street full of dead bodies in GTA3 gives me a sense of gruesome, evil accomplishment, but on the other hand...some of the tsunami pics I saw...

Darth Wong wrote:As per the thread title, this is a question that my son Matthew asked me today after playing a game of Rome: Total War. He said that he likes to pause a battle just before it ends and zoom across the battlefield, looking at the bodies of his enemies scattered over the land.

It occurred to me that I occasionally do this too, and that the disappearance of bodies has always been something that really bugged me about the C&C games. Does anybody else do this? Or am I just carrying a psychopath gene?

Why, it goes hand in hand with the best thing in life. To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.

But in all seriousness, it makes you feel you actually did something, and especially if its really gory, then you're like: yeah, all that carnage was my doing!

For me, in WoW, the point behind looking at dead corpses, is getting achance to see what a guy has when thier not running around... I can look at a corpse of a fallen hero and go:

"Oh he has one OF those swords! I always wanted one of those, and WOW! look at the plate he has! and OH! that must be really enchanted!"

I get satisfaction out of it. It's evidence of what I just managed to do, especially when all the bodies belong to my enemies.

I remember years ago playing Kingpin, one of the first games to have body-part specific damage modelling- me and my friend spent a good few minutes whacking a dead body with a crowbar to see what would happen when we hit all the different spots. My mum walked in on us and denounced us in a hysterical voice that we were "sick".

Well, I understand the neccesity of body removal for most games, where keeping track of all the bodies and rendering them would hurt the performance a bit, especialy if you're bringing fresh troops in to fill the ranks all the time.

But yeah, it does bug me when a game won't let me see the results of my handiwork.

I especially take satisfaction from facing the various barbarian armies that come at you with huge masses, such as the Brits and the Gauls. Catching them trying to bust out of a seige and gunning them down like dogs... ahhhh...

Hmm? WHAT?

Also satisfying is checking out the annoying missile chariots after they've died. Those things are such a pain in the ass. I'd love to save an animation sequence of them running into a barrage from a half dozen archer auxilia units, just so I could watch them get wiped out in a single salvo over and over again.

It always satisfied me greatly to see vast fields of wreckage strewn about in the wake of a massive battle in Total Annihilation; furthermore, something I really liked about that game was the fact that you could go back and reclaim the wreckage for resources.

It's also pretty cool to see a bunch of bodies in the aftermath of a particularly grisly round of CounterStrike.

One of the best games involving non-dissapearing bodies was Deus Ex. Such as in the first level- it's reccomended that you not use lethal force, and after your mission is done, you have to walk through the level again, seeing all the people you killed.

In Rome, the corpse-strewn battlemap tells a story - you can point at a clump of bodies and say 'that's where their cavalry hit us in the flank' etc, just by the amount and colour of the bodies.

DPDarkPrimus wrote:One of the best games involving non-dissapearing bodies was Deus Ex. Such as in the first level- it's reccomended that you not use lethal force, and after your mission is done, you have to walk through the level again, seeing all the people you killed.

Yeah, and in Deus Ex 2 you get to see your enemies in ridiculous contortions after they're beaten . I once took a screenshot of a Lower Seattle scab with his head turned 180 degrees backwards. When the ragdoll physics doesn't create something comical, though, it does look more as though a real person died there, and helps to discourage you from treating the game like another blood-fest, as mentioned above.

Of course, the dead bodies in the Deus Ex (and Thief) games serve a legitimate gameplay purpose as well, since enemies will tend to notice things like their friend's corpses lying around and get a bit suspicious.

If I recall correctly, one of the first RTS games (since that's the focus of the OP) to feature persistent corpses and limbs was Myth, the One True RTS Game (in my opinion). The narration often spoke of heroes piling enemies knee-deep beneath their feet, and you will face so many Thrall at many points that this will literally become true. It's true to the epic fantasy feel of the game, and it gives you a chance to look upon your heroic deeds. Some units can also pick up severed limbs and use them as weapons, also.

Well, first of all those bodies are artfully dead. They give a sense of accomplishment without looking to real and spoiling the glamour. Real death and mutilation is rarely done and less appreciated in a game setting.

Seeing the concussion of an RPG shot making a bot go spat is one thing I never tire of in Doom I, and one criticism about that ancient classic is that you can't send off the intact bodies. Quake II is a little off, because the overkiled just become little pieces of meat, with little dramatic splash of that neat spletching sound. Bits that hang in the air spinning are interesting once or twice only.

You're not psycho, you're, um, admiring and critiquing the union of a physics engine and its art.

One of the weaknesses of Doom III is that their zombies look a little to real-world ugly and not at all cool enough. I've not played the game yet, mind you. Just watched the screenshots, movie, and read the reviews, which seem to be lukewarm. I just don't look forward to spattering their bits and bytes all over the screen, somehow.

No, not psycho at all. Just apperciative of good art.

It's the same as anything

The satisifaction that you caused this, and you intended to set out to do it.


i.e when I play Star wars Galactic Battlegrounds, or Age of Mythology or something, I like watching the battles, and watching my enemies forces get crushed, and there units get trampled, etc.

it's also fun to watch there towns get razed, but hey, we all knew that.

It's the satisifaction, nothing more.

As for the psychopathic gene, well, you DID start this board.....

Darth Wong wrote:As per the thread title, this is a question that my son Matthew asked me today after playing a game of Rome: Total War. He said that he likes to pause a battle just before it ends and zoom across the battlefield, looking at the bodies of his enemies scattered over the land.

As a twisted person myself, I'd like to attribute this behaviour to three things:


(1) It's true that good graphics can enhance gaming experience. Rome: TW has quite excellent 3D graphics, making the dead bodies looks more "believable" compared to say, Warcraft III. Back to 1994, when I played Strike Commander for the first time, I often found myself just flying around to admire the scene (well the graphics was awesome during that time). If RTW graphics is as crappy as, say, the original C&C, would you and Matthew spending the time to admire the corpses? Nah, I don't think so.

Furthermore, in games like Warcraft or C&C, we were getting used to disappearing corpses. So when a game like RTW offers lasting corpses, we take it as a "new thing" and being impressed by that feature.

PS: I never played RTW myself since like AcePace said, I have "racism" against new games, especially FPS and RTS. But I was under the impression that the corpses stay there in RTW.

PPS: Actually, everlasting corpses is not really a new thing. Myth had such thing way back in 1997. Of course, the game was by no means a hit since everyone was crazy about C&C: Red Alert at that time.

Darth Wong wrote:It occurred to me that I occasionally do this too, and that the disappearance of bodies has always been something that really bugged me about the C&C games.

See? That's my point. Sometimes a new feature in a game can be so amazing that we find ourselves obsessed by it. In the case of RTW (if my assumption is correct), it is the lasting corpses.

I still remember playing Doom on the first time. It is actually the first FPS featuring *chainsaw*, and I found myself obsessively playing in god mode over and over again just for the sake of using chainsaw as my sole weapon.

Darth Wong wrote:Does anybody else do this?

What if WarCraft did come with an additional feature to change the mouse icon into a whip (or a spiked club), and while in that mode, we could whip our own Peons to make them writhing, groaning, or even screaming in pain? Probably I would whip them over and over again just for the sake of it. "Work harder, you dirty peon!" *clicks* "MUAHAHAHA!!" *clicks* "Oh, you think that HURTS?" *clicks clicks clicks*



(2) Games can also enable us to vent up our base, primitive desire, because they make it possible to do things we can (or would) never do in real life. Do you still remember the early days of Quake? Staying on the lab until morning to play deatmatch with your campus mates?

Yes, it is strangely satisfying to see the opponent's head being lopped off and rolls over to the floor. And it feels even better when you're the one who swings the axe yourself.



(3) But of course....

Darth Wong wrote:Or am I just carrying a psychopath gene?

...if this continues, then maybe it's time to see the psychiatrist.

The hallways on Ivory Tower are often littered with corpses before they're despawned. There's times after I've been involved in very gruelling fights that when I reach here, that I stop and stare at them. Often it's because I know I'm standing over my hard earned trophies, which attest to my belief. That skill can and will over come any unsurmountable group of cheap camping bastards. Hail to the King, baby!

I think it's just wanting to admire your handiwork after victory. I do the exact same thing whenever I complete an especially hard proof in a math class or finish a program. I'll just look at the code or steps for a while, feeling proud.

There was a 'bodies stay' mod floating around for Dawn of War, and I pondered getting it because that game has such grotesque casualty rates, but two things stopped me.

First, it fucks the population cap for the orks. Now, normally I could give a shit about screwing over the Mighty Mushroom Warriors, but it ultimately renders them impotent as opponents.

And I love killing orks. Fething xenos greenskins.

The other problem was sort of cool- destroyed vehicles stayed, and also remained as obstacles for movement. Now, while that adds a great level of realism to the game, it can also be a bitch for a lot of maps that are designed with a few chokepoints to fight over. Eventually it'd be whole wars fought with jump and teleport troops, and that'd suck.

(And the Eldar with their jump capable vehicles would fucking pwn in that situation.)

Also, in some of our more brutal battles even larger battlefields can get totally clogged by the number of vehicles that get thrown into play. We're more of a macro than micro group, so we tend to have lots of four to six Predator groups, Vipers and Fire Prisms darting to and fro, and eventually there'd be these... whole fields... clogged with burning tanks...

That actually sounds pretty damned cool, now that I think about it.

DPDarkPrimus wrote:One of the best games involving non-dissapearing bodies was Deus Ex. Such as in the first level- it's reccomended that you not use lethal force, and after your mission is done, you have to walk through the level again, seeing all the people you killed.

Not quite.

Y'see, all the enemies die automatically at the end of the level.

Deus Ex is great for giving the impression that your actions matter, but some of the scripting is very simplistic.

DPDarkPrimus wrote:One of the best games involving non-dissapearing bodies was Deus Ex. Such as in the first level- it's reccomended that you not use lethal force, and after your mission is done, you have to walk through the level again, seeing all the people you killed.

Yeah, then that cockbite Paul Denton chews you out...