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Crytek Dev On Fun vs. Realism In Game Guns
An anonymous reader tips a post from Pascal Eggert, a gun enthusiast and Crytek developer, who sheds some light on how weaponry in modern shooters is designed. Quoting:
"Guns in games are like guns in movies: it is all about looks, sounds and clichés. Just like in the movies, games have established a certain perception of weapons in the mind of the public and just like in movies games get almost everything wrong. ... The fact is that we are not trying to simulate reality but are creating products to provide entertainment. ... if you want to replicate the looks of something you need to at least see it, but using it is even better. You should hold a gun in your hands, fire it and reload it to understand what does what — and at that point you will realize, there is nothing on it that does not have a function — because guns are tools for professionals. Lot of weapon designers in the game industry get that wrong. They think of guns like products for consumers or magic devices that kill people at a distance when really it's just a simple and elegant mechanism that propels little pieces of metal. Unfortunately 3D artists often only get access to the photos that Google Image Search comes up with if you enter 'future assault rifle' or, even worse, pictures from other games and movies that also got it wrong. This may explain a lot of common visual mistakes in games, especially since guns are mostly photographed from the side and egoshooters show weapons from the first person view."
This article is drawn from his personal experience in the game industry. The images shown are Pascal's personal work and are not related to his work at Crytek.
Crytek can look at making their games fun first...
Is anyone really surprised by this?
And further more, who asked for an explanation?
It's quite obvious the rocket launcher from UT isn't real. I never once thought a "rocket launcher" was that easy to handle.
I never expect weaponry in games to be life-like, depending on the game.
Certain games require certain realism, but I also know, too much realism would kill the fun.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
I like that this is being talked about. I was playing Modern Warfare 2 recently and ended up with an FN-FAL. This was great news as far as I was concerned as this is the rifle I first trained on during my own brief military stint. Of course come the last round being fired the character slowly changed magazine and recocked the rifle. Now this isn't some cheap British SLR, this is supposed to be an FN-FAL. Even cursory investigation would tell you that changing mags before empty requires no recocking and changing on an empty mag only requires a flick of the bolt-locking device to allow the breach to move forward; only a first load would require recocking.
.303 sound to that point was Army Men. And they were just plastic soldiers! Here's some geek in an office who'd only ever played Doom and Duke3D telling a guy straight off the range what was realistic.
On top of that the recoil was vastly understated and I can guarantee you that after putting two 7.62mm NATO rounds through someone they will not still be firing or running at you. I'll give you a laugh, the game that always impressed me in terms of rifle sound effects was Army Men on the first Playstation. I had to read a horrible review of the game from a UK magazine stating that the sound effects and shooting mechanics were unrealistic. I read that after returing from a weekend at a firing range and the only game I had ever seen capture a 7.62 or
Next time a game promises more realism I expect more than just graphics and crazy Dirty Harrry style sound effects. Operation Flashpoint 2 got it right for the most part, firing a sniper rifle mid-air while running and jumping in CounterStrike is nonsense.
I never get used to these constant resurrections
Being too lazy to model a gun so they only make half of it and then mirror.
Orwell was an optimist.
Games are, in the end, games. Inmersion is important, but inmersion withouth fun will be... well.. not fun. So in the end videogames are mostly like complicated boardgames with the rules written in programming code.
In a game where having pistols works as very short distance weapons is not fun or usefull, the pistol will work mostly like another rifle.
( Ex: Games modeled after Rock, Paper, Scissors will force rockets as antivehicle weapons, that will not kill a soldier in a direct hit. )
And who cares? some people care... people that know real weapons, like (maybe) soldiers, and people that love weapons and love to read all details. And this affect games, because these people play videogames and is a very vocal group, and can get his point right.
There are lots of games, so generalization is poor here. There are games that aims for high levels of realism, or different levels of realism / gameplay. In one side of the spectrum there are games like Unreal and Modern Warfare 2, subreal products. On the other side there are "combat simulations" like ArmA. In the middle you have games like Battlefield.
Games are not getting wrong anything, games are remodeling weapons for his own purposes. We all know Kings are not forced to move in only 8 different directions, but is usefull for chess to model kings that way (and this don't make chess 'wrong').
-Woof woof woof!
Well take a sound team and film unit to a part of the world with real arms dealers, a wide selection of special forces, Soviet, US, South African bush wars, UK, NATO, and current weapons...
Then set up as needed and test, test, test.
Perhaps build a rig to measure push back and chart the different guns?
That will give you the laws of physics, you will have sound and visuals from every aspect.
This is not the old days of a quick sketch, a low res gui and a royalty-free gun audio license on a cd.
Why is the young digital generation of artists so sheltered should be the only question.
If they are unable to travel and work with real life, time to rethink the staff?
If your an aspiring 'artist' turn of the anime, xbox, sony time wasters and learn to draw in the real world.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
You mean to tell me that my BFG 9000 was simply made up, it does not match a real world device?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
http://xkcd.com/359/
Why? Crysis isn't about story and dialogue, is it?
Actually, as someone who's had at least the basic infantry training (our main role was to shoot down aircraft) it seems to me like it is indeed very very easy to handle. Ever since some guy tied a bow to a plank, weapons have been point and click basically.
And I imagine we'll probably find some parchments where the old guard argues that command line weapons were better, and how you should give lusers an IQ test before letting them anywhere near a weapon. ;) Actually, that is only half joke. A pope actually treated the crossbow as some kind of WMD and prohibited its use against fellow Christians. But I digress.
Anyway, a non-guided anti-tank rocket launcher like the one in most games is the epitome of easy to use. You don't even have to compensate for distance as much as with an assault rifle. The only thing that's unlike the game is basically that you should be sure there's nothing behind you, and shooting most rocket launchers in a room is an awfully bad idea. When the rocket comes out the front end, a jet of flame comes out the back end, see? You don't even have much recoil to deal with, since the hot gas just goes out the back end instead of pushing against something. Truly point and click, really.
Now guided ones that can take down a low flying helicopter may need a tad more training, but the basic principle is the same.
As for the other point, while I'll concede the general point that too much realism kills the fun, there is a difference between lack of realism because you understand exactly why it would be less fun, and lack of realism because you have no clue how a weapon works. The latter can be unrealistic without gaining any fun, or even being less fun.
Heck, probably the most baffling weapon-related example comes from the post-NGE SWG, where one quest gives you a sniper scope for a sword. No, literally. I can't even imagine what they were thinking, what were they smoking, and what's the phone number of their dealer so I can get some of that good shit too ;) And I can't even start to imagine why that would be more fun than a more believable (i.e., realistic) attachment like a mastercrafted grip or pommel.
Or take the meme that assault rifles kick so hard that you spray bullets in a 30 degree cone, or make that 45 degrees if it's an AK-47 or SAW. Such a weapon would be fracking useless. I once calculated that if a real SAW had the spread from counter-strike it would be useless even for suppression at its rated effective range, because you'd need to fire many many full belts and more ammo than a squad carries, to even put one bullet in the same square metre as the guy you're shooting at. Sorry, that won't make me keep my head down. I'll take that kind of chances.
And anyway trained soldier (most games pretend you're one) wouldn't spray lead like that. Except maybe if he's shooting from the hip while dancing the Macarena ;)
And the AK-47 is actually a very manageable weapon, although the larger calibre tells the average clueless gamer nerd who never shot one "OMG, higher calibre must kick like a mule." The key there is that it really was designed as a mid-range weapon, in the same line of thinking as the German MP-43/STG-44 (the first assault rifle) it was trying to imitate. It has a shorter cartridge case and shoots a larger but slower bullet, which means you're not really putting more impulse in the bullet. It's also why its effectiveness takes a nose dive beyond 300 metres: the slow bullet needs a too curved trajectory to hit the target and increases the chance to estimate wrong and shoot over or too short. But even then (A) it's 300m, not the distances on the average game map, and (B) it's the ballistic problem described before, not some kind of spraying lead in all directions.
At any rate, exactly what fun does that inaccuracy bring? Games have been balanced just fine and had interesting weapons even in the "stone age" when guns were hitscan weapons. And games like WoW still are such a bad offshoot of hitscan that you can even see the projectile curving and even zig-zaging to its target, and sold more copies than a lot of the "but it's realistic!!" (if you don't know how guns work, that is) idiocies. _Someone_ must like that.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"The fact is that we are not trying to simulate reality but are creating products to provide entertainment." So what exactly is the problem? I always was under the impression videogames are products to provide entertainment. If you honestly think weapons have some sort of artistic value you can visit the shooting range.. or join the army.
A gun is a tool, not a toy. Games are a toy.
Yet games focus a lot more on guns than on all other tools put together.
I'm a bit of a war.tech.geek. My favourite subjectmatter is ww2 weapons; and so I get a thrill out of detailed games that portray such creations. I love to see and interact with a detailed pletora of weapons that i recognize. I do, however, get more picky when the weapon systems get "up close and personal". When the game portrays the notion that you control an existing weapon directly, I do expect some of it's characteristics to be reflected in the game.
:/. Most ww2 hollywood tank portrayals pre-"saving private ryan" are horrendous.
Immersion & "draft damage": Having been a conscript for 8 months, I've had my perception of small arms altered. I know now that regular infantry man usually engages the enemy with single fire, and that the precision and stopping power afforded by a modern assault rifle is something thats too often is only portrayed by sniper rifles in games. I tire of the inability to take proper aim, and alter the firing mode in many games. Crouching and going prone is also something that's often being shunned by the industry.
We're are, as the article puts it, often left with a hollywood version of weapons. I'm not suggesting that each virtual m16 should come with a virtual cleaning kit, but I would like to see more "portrayed" realism in the handling: that the (deadly) tool can be operated with some of the freedom and functionality that it provides in real life. I realize that this approach is not for all types of games.
I realize that games are abstractions and aspects of realism can be costly and complex to implement in carefully balanced game mechanics; especially if they're intended to provide a competitive space for players.
For gun nuts: I was trained with a Diemaco C7 with an elcan optical sight
P.s: We we're missing a proper ww2 tank movie
- Mad, ingenous - they've both left you puzzled -
You know, you're quite right. People play games because they are games. People play with guns because ... ok, we don't play with guns. Anyone who's been to a shooting range knows that it's a very serious place. If it's not, that's an excellent time to leave quickly because someone's going to get hurt.
There was a show on not too long ago, where they took a kid out to an outdoor shooting range. The only people there were the kid, his mother, the instructor, and the video crew (off camera, of course).
He was a brave hero in the video games, blasting away at all the enemies. At the shooting range, he was terrified of the guns. They left his full reaction out of the initial cut, but put it in later in the show. He wasn't just terrified. He was crying his eyes out.
I took a 13 year old to the shooting range. He'd been playing FPS games for quite a while. He was sure he wanted to join the military when he turned 18. He wanted his parents to buy him real guns, so he could go to the range with them. I spent about 3 hours with him, tearing down my weapons, cleaning them, and reassembling them. I explained every part of them, so he knew the names and functions, and how they worked together. Then we were off to the shooting range.
The range we went to had two sections, a pistol, and a rifle range. We agreed that I would demonstrate proper firing techniques, and then instruct him while he fired. We went to the rifle area first. The only other person in the rifle range was firing a Kel-Tec PLR-16 (.223 pistol). We were using my Springfield 03A3. For those who haven't used one, it's a cannon. :) Without shoulder padding, I'm limited to about 30 shots per arm (I shoot ambidextrously). It has no padding on the stock, and a vicious recoil. I had him stand a few feet behind me, and observe what I was doing. I fired the first shot, and brought the target back to show him what I did. While the target was coming back to me, I turned around, and he had gone from standing behind me, to hiding in the corner.
Mind you, this kid wasn't timid. It was the sudden reality of "the things that go pop in the games are really dangerous" came flooding into his world. I spent a while trying to get him to take even a single shot with it. That didn't happen.
We moved over to the pistol range. I had brought my Ruger P97DC. It's a nice weapon. .45 ACP, fairly light, easy recoil. I fired a single shot. This time, he didn't go running all the way to the corner, but he did back up several feet. I demonstrated proper use of it for him, put a fresh magazine in. To show it was ready, I fired 3 shots from the new magazine, and then made it safe and put it down. I then began instructing him. I got him to pick it up, and he even got his finger onto the trigger, but never pulled the trigger. He was terrified.
Now, what kind of lunatic would give a 13 year old with no shooting experience a loaded weapon? Not me. I didn't tell him, but the last "loaded" magazine I put in only had 3 rounds in it. After my last shot, I hit the slide release (the slide stays back when the magazine is empty). I just told him it was ready. I'd been telling him for years "Every weapon is a loaded weapon." I'm sure anyone who's been around firearms has heard that one. I told him again, and then demonstrated that it was empty by dry firing it. I told him, even though I knew it wouldn't fire, it was still to be treated as a loaded weapon. Since he wouldn't fire what he believed to be a loaded weapon, he wasn't ready to actually do it.
It's not an age thing though. My father had me shooting when I was about 8 years old. The
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
"there is nothing on it that does not have a function -- because guns are tools for professionals"
Spoken like a man that has never been inside a gun shop.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I don't *expect* a BFG 9000 to be realistic. If it were, it would kill half the fun.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
So why do people go to shooting ranges? They seem to enjoy it. I've fired a shotgun a few times. And yes, safety was very important and something I tok very seriously. I still thought it was fun.
Other peopel have fun driving, parachuting, climbing - all of these activities are potentially dangerous, so safety is extremely important but that doesn't need to make it less fun.
The fact is that we are not trying to simulate reality but are creating products to provide entertainment.
Thank you Captain Obvious. Hollywood, with its disintegrating fruit stands, good looking and extremely slutty women and exploding cars, has known for a long time that reality is pretty boring. In fact, most people LIKE it that way.
because guns are tools for professionals.
Save that BS for your next NRA meeting. There's nothing professional about most of the people who own/use guns. They are tools for killing. It is their sole purpose. They may be used by professionals (SOME soldiers, SOME law enforcement, SOME private gun owners), but gun ownership does not confer professional status. "Ganstas" and drug traffickers have a lot of guns and use them regularly, and there's nothing professional about that. Nor is there anything professional about the husband who shoots his wife, or the guy who shoots his neighbor. I say this as a responsible gun owner, and I hope I never ever have to be in a situation where I have to think about using it.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
So, you're telling me that game designers are sacrificing realism to produce entertaining weapons?
Shocking!
Next thing you'll tell me is that there is no secret Black Mesa research facility.
Sure, for some games some degree of realism adds to the enjoyment. STALKER, for example, benefits from having vaguely realistic settings and weapons. But even if you're playing something that's genuinely set in the real world - like one of the Call of Duty games - you're still playing a game. You still have to simplify things down to the point where information can be conveyed quickly and easily with nothing more than a screen and some speakers. You have to be able to interact with the world with a keyboard and mouse. The world needs to be altered and constrained and limited enough to run on a modern computer. And it all has to ultimately be fun to play.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Hey guys, first of all, this headline is misleading. I didn't wrote this article as a Crytek Dev, I just happen to work at Crytek and this is my personal opinion. The article was written for gun-nuts to explain to them why guns are often portrayed wrongly in games, not for gamers. Also, since I just joined Crytek I'm not responsible for anything you've seen in our released games. So, remember: This has nothing to do with Crytek. Also, I want to make it very clear that my article was about games that are set in "realistic" environments, like MW, Crysis, CS, BC and so forth. I absolutely agree, that realism is not at all needed in games like UT, Serious Sam etc. The job of the gun-designer in these sort of games is completely different: he has to create an "Icon" or a recognizable shape so the player knows what he is holding without even directly looking at it. Something like the rocket launcher in Q3 or the flak in UT99. This weapon does not need to be designed around internals, but have to have a certain feel for the power and limitations of the weapon. A good "funweapon" is designed around a unique shape, something a kid could doodle on a desk at school. I personally don't like the UT3 Weapons because they are overly detailed and not as recognizable as the original guns. Thanx, iPeg
Don't you have a .22 you could start the guy out on, or was it more fun to intimidate him with the high-recoil stuff?
Kelly's Heroes. 'Nuff said.
In the real world, the US has better weapons. No surprise, they spend a shitload on them. [...] Nobody would want to play on the weaker side
I think you answered your own implicit question. Make the weaker side free to play.
I dont care what you all day, my KF-7 Soviet is a real gun, I have seen them on TV.
That's because the Goldeneye 007 guns are mostly renamed versions of real guns. What you're seeing on TV is an AK-47.
That show was Penn and Tellers "Bullshit" and I was extremely dissapointed with that demonstration. Thier "Hero" marine appeared to give the child no instruction in the proper technique for the use of the firearm. And he specifically failed to correct the child who was holding the weapon in an inproper firing position. As a result it appears that he was struck in the face or glasses by the charging handle, or triangular projection on the left side of the weapon (sorry I havent used that (or any model) since my army days so I dont remember the proper name of that part.
It's not an age thing though. My father had me shooting when I was about 8 years old. The first weapon I ever used was a Colt 1911. By the time I was 13, I had fired a decent collection of weapons, and had free reign to use a .22 for target practice pretty much any time I wanted. The larger weapons were for special occasions, since the ammunition is more expensive.
1) Free "rein". Like a horse.
2) Yeah, my dad had me shooting long before I was 13, too. I still own the first gun I ever fired, A .22LR Winchester semi-auto. Very nice little gun. I shot that sucker until my shoulder got tired the very first time.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That's what I was thinking as I read that. I mean, yeah, a .22 isn't as intimidating, but it's also a lot more comfortable to fire, especially for someone who's never fired a gun, and especially for a kid. That, and the ammo is cheap.
My first shot from a rifle was a .303 at age 5. This kid was 13! Don't be a pussy.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
Next thing you'll tell me is that there is no secret Black Mesa research facility.
I see my cover-up is effective! Mwahahahaha!
G-Man
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
You might not want to tell that to the people shooting the different pistol competitions. We sure consider it a lot of fun.
IDPA, USPSA, IPSC, and Cowboy Action shooting are all very much like video games with real guns. And they are a helluva lot of fun.
You still have to be careful, because a gun is still a dangerous tool. But it's safer than car or dirt bike racing, which both use tools to have a ton of fun.
Sure if you take a little kid, hand him a gun that's too powerful for him to control, and don't tell him how to shoot it right he's not going to enjoy himself. He'll cut his hand on the slide, have the barrel hit him in the face because of recoil, and not be able to hit anything. Similarly, if you just hand a kid a bicycle without teaching him how to ride it he's going to think it's the dumbest thing in the world.
But if you start him out in a caliber he can control and teach him to shoot it properly, he'll enjoy it as much as the 18 million americans who went target shooting for fun last year (http://blog.nssf.org/target-shooting/).
Slashdot prides itself on the accuracy of its headlines. I don't believe we've had a misleading one since the 2003 incident.
Any other other old Mac gamers out there that remember this title? This was Bungie's original FPS (afaik), before the whole Marathon series. What I really like about it was that you really had to account for every damn bullet. You had to manually consolidate partial clips. you could fill clips with alternating AP and HE rounds. Hell, you even held onto empty magazines to refill with bullets you found on corpses. In addition, reload time was painfully (realistically) slow. While I may not have played nearly as many FPS titles as some of you young whippersnappers, I would have to say that this was the most realistic weapon handling of anything I've played.
And not just him. System Shock 2 typically has you using a bloodied wrench much of the time. Not only is ammo scarce, guns degrade and jam with alarming frequency....
Tastes vary. I find that the fun is directly proportional to how much noise and recoil a round makes. I dislike killing things, and have seldom needed to use a gun as a part of my job. (A shovel would have worked better on that poor Rattler my boss once had me kill.) OTOH I have never been able to tolerate FPS play, or any video game that isn't Pod racer. A car is a tool for transportation, but a lot of NHRA and NASCAR people find fun in it. A .50 BMG rifle is my dream toy, but it would suck to use one at work.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
I'm from a demi-northern bit of Canada, so my grandfather and uncle brought me out to learn how to sight a rifle and squeeze off rounds carefully at a young age. Of course, they were kinder and started me on a .22 lol.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I agree, a 22 would have been better. First time I shot a 30.06 was when I was 17, and weighed 130 lbs. And it still felt like it had ripped off my shoulder- not to mention the scope left a permanent scar above my eyebrow. 13 year holds should not be shooting higher caliber weapons than they can physically handle, even if it's to prove a point.
Sigs are for losers
I'm fairly certain that the context of gun in this article isn't your daddies shotgun, it's military grade firearms meant to kill people.
The most fun guns are the most impossible/ridiculous ones. Gravity gun? Riiiiight...but sure is fun!
hunting rabbits with my .20 guage shotgun
I'm not sure what a guage is, but a .20 gauge shotgun, if such a thing existed, would probably tear your shoulder off with recoil. A 20 gauge shotgun is quite controllable and suitable for rabbit-hunting.
and squirrels with my .22 caliber rifle
On the other hand, a .22 caliber rifle (again, if such a thing existed) would pose little threat to even the smallest squirrel -- the critter might feel a bit of a sting when you hit it, but that's about all. A 22 caliber rifle, of course, will do for a squirrel quite nicely.
Maybe if Crytek hired people with three digit IQs they could make some fun games; this guy's obviously one of the 50% of humanity with a two digit quotient.
Beam. Eye. Pot. Kettle.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Honestly, no. All I had there was my Glock model 38 (.45 GAP), Ruger P97DC (.45 ACP) and Springfield 03A3. Other than the Springfield, the rest stayed at home when I left when I was a kid. After my dad died, my mom sold most of them off. It wasn't that she was clearing the house of weapons, she just didn't need a whole arsenal. :) Some were given away to family and friends who needed (or thought they needed) one. That's where my Kel-Tek .380 ended up. I warned them though, they probably only get one shot. After that, you may as well throw it at the attacker. :)
He was more than strong enough to use the Ruger. It actually has a rather light kick to it. His mother, who is now about a foot shorter than him, and 40 pounds (or more) lighter, has shown excellent proficiency with both the Ruger and Glock. The first time she was ever to a range, her grouping was better than many people who have practiced for years. She's looking at getting a Sig sometime soon. :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I'd guess that the difference you see in the (lack of) effectiveness and (un)realism of guns in video games has a great deal to do with video quality and fairness.
Sounds strange, but true.
The most amazingly realistic simulation of small arms (and large, but that's not relevant here) in combat is WW2OL aka Battleground Europe. (http://www.battlegroundeurope.com/) The problem is (from a gaming perspective) is that it's nowhere near 'fair' according to most peoples' terms.
The problem is that modern combat engagement ranges are in the 300-500m range, often significantly more. Combat rifles are intended to be fully lethal at these ranges, obviously.
If my math is right, on a monitor 0.5m from your face, a 2m-high man standing @ 500m is 2mm. If he's lying prone - extremely common in combat - he's 30cm real life or 0.3mm on the monitor. That's nearly approaching the minimum dot pitch of most monitors. So for a 'typical' combat game, realistically representing lethal rifle fire at realistic ranges, you're shooting at a SINGLE pixel, which is extremely ungratifying, not to mention impossible to distinguish a 'man-pixel' from a 'bush pixel' at that range.
Monitors simply cannot support the resolution needed to allow people to fight at realistic engagement ranges.
Further as regards 'fairness' and Battleground Europe: this hypothesis was illustrated clearly to me when I was running the game on a marginal-spec machine. Running at 800x600, I was having trouble fighting effectively and dying a lot. Once I spent significant $$ to upgrade my system, and run it at 1600x1200, it became MUCH easier it identify targets and hit them at useful ranges. Part of the explanation about why BE remains a niche-game to this day is that difficulty, of course. But I can't see any mass-market designer building a game where the amount of money you put into the hardware so DIRECTLY affects the success of the player - not when the simple (simplistic?) solution is to cut the engagement ranges down by a factor of 3x or 4x, and correspondingly lower the lethality of weapons. For most purposes, that would seem an ideal compromise.
-Styopa
Which got tired first, your fingers from reloading, or your shoulder from firing? :)
All I remember from plinking with the .22LR's was that that my fingers would get sore from reloading, my targets would be too eaten up from shooting at them (they were old milk bottles or soda cans), or I'd get bored after a couple hours. :)
I haven't really considered buying anything small for years. The Springfield is still here because it's an antique, and it was my dads. Otherwise, I only consider weapons that I can use in self defense, and are going to put lots of mass downrange accurately and consistently. Well, I have been wanting a FN PS-90. Not as much mass nor velocity, but it's suppose to be very accurate. That, and it looks real cool. :) I've been saving my pennies. $2.68 cents saved, only $1797.32 to go. This may take a while.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Ya, the Colt 1911 was a bit rough when I was a kid. That metal frame wasn't exactly nice for dealing with kick. That's why I fell in love with my Ruger. It goes together exactly the same way. It feels the same in my hand, but overall it's a bit lighter. And, there's a lot less kick.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I am not a gun fan... but I do know something about them. The giant economy size superguns in some games are ludicrous - all the bad guys have to do is wait five minutes, and then they can walk over an bash your brains out, while you're lying on the ground, utterly exhausted, from carrying that much metal that way.
The same is true for the fantasy swords, many of which - esp. in games, but including the ones I see in dealers' rooms - way more than a great weapon (which requires two hands), and folks expect to use them standing out front being brave (and not having people in front with shields and one-handed weapons protecting you.
Go look at *real* weapons in a museum.
mark, who remembers learning to fight heavy in the SCA, and discovering, while
in *good* shape, how exhausted you are after 5 min of trying to beat
someone with a baseball bat equivalent
I'll have to rewatch it sometime. I thought he was given enough instruction, but it's possible that I simply don't remember correctly.
The name of the two parts are the charging handle, and the forward assist plunger. I had to cheat a little for the name of the forward assist plunger. I couldn't remember it either. :)
AR-15 parts diagram
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I found this blog post to be a fascinating read. I've grown up with more realistic shooters, so I always laugh a bit when I play COD or similar games. Now I understand more of the reasoning behind MP40 9mm rounds doing more damage than 9mm fired from a p38.
One of my favorite games is the Forgotten Hope mod for Battlefield 2, which is one of the few WWII games that has the balls to make their weapons accurate and lethal. It shines in online play, where 64 player servers, beautifully created, large maps, and a huge variety of tanks, vehicles, planes, and weapons create an experience like no other. Bolt action rifles (the standard weapon of almost all armies in game) will drop a player in one shot to the chest, and a shot to the arm or leg will leave you barely alive and bleeding. SMGs are not just cone of fire spray and pray weapons that are useless at distance. Firing from the hip will do this, but aiming down the sights gives the gun accuracy it deserves, and with proper control of the recoil, you can be a master of medium ranges as well. heck if you account for bullet drop you can hit long range targets no problem. These guns shoot where the sights are pointing, and will kill with 2-3 solid hits. As such, Machine guns are ungodly. They fire rifle rounds full auto. This is reflected.
Because it is made on the Battlefield engine, the game counts ammo strictly by magazine/stripper clip rather than a pool of bullets. Reload animations are excellent, and are timed to be realistic. Getting caught reloading a No.4 in an engagement, and running for cover while you slide the two clips into the magazine and lock the bolt forward is an exhilarating experience.
Anyways, check it out if you want a great game made by fans of WWII history and weaponry.
So many guns in games are modeled backwards. These guns are designed to be fired by right-handed shooters. In that case, you don't want the empty cases to be ejected on the left side of the gun. No one wants hot brass (or steel, if you shoot Russian surplus garbage ammo) coming at their face while they're trying to shoot. But you can't see the ejection unless they reverse it for the game. I've had a hot casing land in my collar. It's not pleasant. I find it annoying and thing it's stupid that they do this for in-game guns.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I give you 50 / 50 depending if you have no brain to lose or making a joke;)
on a sidenote, probably doesnt realy matter where the .50 hits you, you will be a meat fountain ^_^
Message from god, Please logoff, rebooting the Universe
I know my dad got me started real early, because he wanted me to know what these big metal things in the house did, and why I shouldn't play with them. I've talked to my mom recently about it, and she didn't agree with the age (about 8), but it obviously worked out fine. Neither me nor my sister ever accidentally fired a weapon. I still own weapons. She hasn't had one around since she moved out of the house years ago. Neither one of us is afraid of them, but know their purpose. They put large holes in things very violently. They are a last resort to protect your own life. Because I've gone through quite a bit of training over the years, I still help introduce novices to safe handling of firearms. If they're going to use one, I'd prefer they not accidentally get killed with one.
I was in the military for a very short time. They kicked me out, because my vision was not correctable without surgery. The recruiting sergeant promised they'd fix anything. I was young and dumb, and believed everything he said. I didn't sign up as a gungho "lets shoot stuff" person. I believed it to be a civic responsibility. Now that I'm older, I really understand the risks that were involved.
He doesn't talk about joining the military as the glamorous future. "I'll join the military, they'll make me an officer. People will respect me, I'll get lots of money and get to play with cool toys." No verbal explanation worked. One day at the shooting range, where he didn't even fire a weapon did. The other good side effect is, he stopped bugging me to take him to the shooting range. :) Now I can just go when I want to get some practice in. I really prefer solitary practice time, rather than instructing a novice shooter.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
My view was that it was his intention to intimate. The kid freak out about guns and wanted to join the army based on a gaming experience. It was important to show him the other side.
He will grow and pretty much understand what happened that day. By this time, he will be able to form a more realistic opinion by it self
-- dnl
NO actually, its better to show him the very serious side first. It taught him that guns are serious business. A .22 feels/looks/sounds more like a toy then a killing weapon. Better for him to experience the gravity of guns and gun handling. Guns are very serious things and far to often people treat them more like hammer than an instrument designed solely to kill.
Good-bye
Except we're not talking "a gun that's hard to not respect." It was a gun that the guy said he, himself, as a trained marksman and fully grown adult, would only be able to fire 30 rounds from. And you're expecting a 13 year old to be able to shoot this thing as his FIRST gun, and not have some damage done? Kid was smarter than he sounded. He probably would have ended up with fractures if he'd tried to fire it.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
.22 is in inches, he got that part right at least.
What's funny is with specifically the two weapons he mentioned, he couldn't at least agree that there is nothing non-functional on them.
You know, I think my dad WAS going to do that, with me, but when we went out, I really didn't show much interest. Of course, it was the guise of shooting some gophers on a friend's farm, so at least the trip wasn't a complete wash, and he popped some vermin.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
Really?
I know I started shooting the Springfield well before I was 17. The Springfield 03A3 and the 30.06 use the same ammunition, and should have very similar handling characteristics. I had to bug my dad about it for quite a while before he let me shoot it the first time. I guess the respect for weapons did stick. I wouldn't take it out to fire without his permission, and I still believe every weapon is loaded, regardless if I "know" it's not. When he finally did let me, I wasn't all that strong, and definitely not big. I grew up to 5'8" and 150 pounds sometime in high school, and remained that size for quite a while.
A lot of the ability is to have proper instruction. Have a good stance. Wrap the strap around your left arm. Pull the weapon firmly into your shoulder. Squeeze the trigger, and don't panic. :)
Because my weapon has a steel butt plate on it, if I'm not wearing a padded jacket (I don't have one), it leaves abrasions on my shoulder. I can fire about 20 to 30 rounds per shoulder before it hurts too much to continue. A friend of mine in high school didn't listen carefully to the instructions, and didn't have the rifle pulled tight into his shoulder. It left him with a bruise that went about 6" across his chest, and about a foot down his right arm. After that healed, he wanted to try again, and followed the instruction precisely, and came out uninjured after 5 rounds.
Another friend didn't keep the sling tight and/or didn't have a good grip on it, and it did kick up and rubbed the side of his face. Mine doesn't have a scope on it, nor will it ever. It's an antique, and I refuse to modify it. I could imagine if it did have a scope, it would have likely hit him pretty hard where you describe.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
...but even in the (according to the rest of the world) "Gun Happy" USA, most children today are brought up in a world where everyone from the media to politicians to schools all universally say "Guns are bad, m'kay?" (European designers are probably doubly crippled along this line...)
They grow up to be game designers that not only have never fired a real gun, but have never even SEEN one firsthand.
The media likes to, for example, portray Columbine as an example of guns run amok. Schools expel kids for drawing a PICTURE of a gun.
Is it surprising then that these individuals then are hard-put to try to simulate a gun in code?
Heaven forbid we go back to the days when I was in high school, we actually had shooting classes, and we could even bring in our own shotguns if we wanted. And you know, nobody in the history of our school was ever shot. AMAZING.
It's almost like guns were treated as serious, potentially-dangerous tools that nevertheless had a valid purpose and the best way to deal with kids and guns was to teach them how to use them properly and with respect, in order to prevent injuries from inappropriate use. Crazy stuff, I know.
FWIW though, I know friends that have come back from Iraq who claim they owe their lives to moronic young Iraqi men that thought they could fire a handgun sideways like in the movies, probably not a few cops would say the same.
-Styopa
Whiny article. All complaints, no solutions. I reached the end of the article expecting another page which would discuss how real world weapons should behave in games. No such luck.
For a better analysis, see Gatling Good on TVTropes. Also More Dakka.
America's Army has realistic weapon mechanics, of course. (It's sponsored by the U.S. Army). Players have complained about that.
Which got tired first, your fingers from reloading, or your shoulder from firing? :)
Shoulder, this is one of the ones that you load through the side of the stock and then shove in the tube.
I haven't really considered buying anything small for years. The Springfield is still here because it's an antique, and it was my dads. Otherwise, I only consider weapons that I can use in self defense, and are going to put lots of mass downrange accurately and consistently.
He also gave me one of those Belgian/Peruvian .30-06 Fn Mauser model 98s...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
According to the back of this envelope, a .20 gauge shotgun would have a bore of 3.7 inches in order to fire its 5 pounds of lead. Definitely shoulder damage!
Regarding .22 ( ie 5.56mm )rifles, I thought they were standard for many countries? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.56x45mm_NATO
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
By the convention I'm familiar with, "x caliber" = "x/100 inches"; thus a 22 caliber rifle fires a buller .22 inches in diameter, while a .22 caliber rifle would fire a bullet .0022 inches in diameter, i.e. a speck of dust. Looking around the web, though, I see that this may be incorrect; "22 caliber" (or 38 caliber, 45 caliber, etc.) is an informal usage and the complete caliber description includes the decimal point. My bad. Firearms and ammunition manufacturers seem to use the two interchangeably, based on a look around the web.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Dan I'm a little confused.
You're picking on someone for mis-spelling gauge as guage. Okay, I got that one no problem. You progress to sarcastically point out that a .20 gauge shotgun would "tear your shoulder off with recoil". I'd ask you where you're getting this idea? The smaller the gauge of a shotgun the LESS powerful it is. Commonly available progression in order of most to least powerful is 10, 12, 18, and 20. You're already wickedly confused so I'm going to leave out the .410.
Once you're done displaying your ignorance in the scatter-gun category you move on to displaying it in the rifle category. The correct expression is .22, not 22 as you state. A 22 Caliber rifle very possibly COULD "tear your arm off" with recoil.
It's incredibly obvious that you don't understand the first thing about how to calculate a Gauge OR how to calculate a Caliber. In fact I'm calling into question whether you know anything about firearms at all.
Here is your own comment turned back on you - "Beam. Eye. Pot. Kettle."
The next time you're going to pick on someone for their ignorance perhaps you should check to make sure that your own knowledge is up to par.
Gauge - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauge_(bore_diameter)
Caliber - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliber
Mods - Mr. Dvorkin's post is not informative, it's WRONG.
Being an old git, fifty caliber, 303 caliber and 22 caliber make sense to me and I just imply the decimal point. :-)
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
a .20 gauge shotgun, if such a thing existed, would probably tear your shoulder off with recoil. A 20 gauge shotgun is quite controllable and suitable for rabbit-hunting.
See my sig.
On the other hand, a .22 caliber rifle (again, if such a thing existed) would pose little threat to even the smallest squirrel
I repeat, a .22 caliber rifle.
How does your crow taste?
Free Martian Whores!
The caliber bit, I'll cop to -- as I said in reply to another post in the thread, by the convention I'm familiar with, "x caliber" = "x/100 inches," but that's apparently an informal usage and what it comes down to is that "22 caliber" and ".22 caliber" are both correct and mean the same thing.
But as for gauge, you have it exactly backwards. "The smaller the gauge of a shotgun the LESS powerful it is" is absolutely not true. Since you oh-so-helpfully linked to the Wiki article, you might want to actually go back and read it. Or try firing a 20-gauge shotgun, then a 12-gauge, and see for yourself.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Nooooo, I have it exactly right.
The very first sentence of the wiki article is crystal clear "The gauge of a firearm is a unit of measurement used to express the diameter of the barrel.".
The smaller the Gauge, BORE DIAMETER, the less powerful the shotgun. Gauge *is* bore diameter, so how could a shotgun with a smaller bore diameter be more powerful? A 12 gauge shotgun has a larger bore diameter than a 20 gauge shotgun does.
What you're tripping over is that I'm using the language in a technically accurate way and you're applying your incorrect understanding of the terms as you read it.
This really isn't uncommon and based on the post that I originally replied to your confusion does not surprise me.
No, I'm not a gun nut but when discussing firearms it's incredibly important to be accurate because so many people who aren't familiar with them will read your words and take them as fact.
Well, that, and firearms are very interesting pieces of mechanical engineering that you can hold in your hands and it's good to recognize all the difficulty that went into creating them.
Oh, and yes, a 12G is more powerful than a 20G. :)
The background image on my home computer is my daughter, 13 years old at the time, firing my Ruger Super Blackhawk (.44 magnum). She started with .22 and worked her way up to .380, .38, 9mm, and finally the .44. She prefers my wife's Lady Smith (.38) but will fire the hand cannon at the range to impress boyfriends.
I join the others questioning why you didn't start the kid out with a .22. I would never think of handing a kid the .44 Magnum or the Enfield in .303 (a real bruiser) without first a lot of practice with the Single Six or 10/22, and then only if they really wanted to. Seriously, were you deliberately trying to scare the kid? Sounds like you succeeded.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The smaller the gauge, the larger the bore diameter, and (generally speaking) the more powerful the shotgun. Period.
You screwed up. I did too, when talking about caliber, but I'm man enough to admit it. You're not. Instead you claim to be "technically accurate" while making multiple contradictory claims in the same post. Whatever. I'm done arguing with you, troll.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Yes and no. While trying to capture and ransom enemy nobles _was_ a staple of warfare, they also _did_ think they're more special than the plebs.
The medieval notions of "honour" are anywhere between non-intuitive to baffling, by modern standards. E.g., although it makes no sense if you only think in terms of ransom, it was actually fairly OK to execute even prisoners if it looked like too much a pain in the butt to keep them for ransom, and the English did just that. Killing wounded knights with a dagger thrust to the heart was even a virtuous thing to do. Although you'd think washing and bandaging them might be worth a try, just in case one actually recovers and can be ransomed. Killing unarmed children (even of nobles) who were with the baggage train when you ambush it, that was perfectly honourable, and the French did just that. Killing everyone because they rejected your first offer to surrender, that was chivalry gold. But send some lowly mercenaries or conscripted peasants to do any of those, and it would become something unthinkably villainous. (And it was the beginning of England's reputation of completely honourless bastards.)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Former armor officer here. After M1A1's, anything else has no noise or recoil at all, but shooting's still fun. It's not about the noise and kick for me, it's that sense of flow when your skills are all working together. I understand why there's a whole school of Zen devoted to archery. I don't hunt either. The deer know I'm a soft touch. I've had black bear encounters before, and as far as I know, all those bears are still alive. I will refrain from shooting a rattlesnake or copperhead unless it really insists (most snakes will back off if it's a territory thing, and you stay calm and work with them a little, but I have seen a few rattlesnakes that seemed to be out to commit suicide by me. The only one I ever actually killed by firearm took it from a blank M-16 training round, with his mouth actually closed on the end of the barrel). Aside from target shooting, here's why I keep current:
1. If a skunk comes into your yard in broad daylight, it is rabid. For a fox, those odds are only about 50%, and my town is such a big eco-green bird and animal sanctuary we actually have perfectly sane local raccoons who get used to moving around by daylight and mooching food*, but in my state, every single skunk that was tested after a mid-day encounter for the past five years was rabid.
2. If one of my dogs or cats is ever badly injured or something, and suffering horribly, I can put it down there and then, instead of making it suffer another hour through an obviously futile trip to the vet.
3. I do believe in self defense, and think that with my level of training and skill, the odds are better that a weapon will work for me than against me. I have used a weapon to protect myself in the past, by controlling a young criminal breaking into my car's gas tank until the police responded. That person is probably still alive and well too, AFAIK - if he had run when I ordered him to lay on the ground, I would simply have let him go, rather than shot him over something less than life or death, but as it turned out, he got juvenile detention.
*Hell, I saw three deer run across the parking lot in front of the federal building and into the Home Depot's garden department just last week - maybe this sanctuary business can be carried too far...
Who is John Cabal?
He wasn't ready. Everyone matures at different rates. Just because I was ready at 8, and he wasn't ready at 13 doesn't mean anything. All of his firearms experience has been what he's seen on TV and in video games. Unless you have an unrealistically sized sound system in your house, you'll never approach the sound that a real weapon makes.
I think he was expecting what he learned from video games and TV. There is no such thing as recoil. The boom is comparable to firecrackers. There's nothing to using weapons, other than point, shoot, and watch the bad guy immediately die.
Because I was pretty sure he wasn't really ready, I gave him extra instruction. That, and my Springfield had been stored for quite a few years in someone's house and it was in need of a serious cleaning. That gave us extra time to go over everything several times.
He was ok with dry firing it at home. I explained every step of how we were insuring it was safe, and I made him do every step with me. He asked about the kick, so I had him hold his hand up and pushed with roughly an equivalent force. The only thing I couldn't simulate for him was how loud they really are. If I wasn't confident in his ability to safely handle a weapon in the range, I wouldn't have taken him. As far as the technical details on handling a weapon, he was prepared.
It wasn't until we were at the range, where real weapons were being fired, that he realized the reality of what he had been handling.
I guess I should include, I've known this kid since he was 1 year old. He trusts me and has confided personal things with me. Pretty much if I say it, it's true.
I've taught a lot of people how to shoot. Most do very well. It's when they become fatigued that they start messing up (like poor grouping, not like shooting someone in the next lane). That's always the good time to call it a day, and save the leftover ammo for next time.
My friends and family all know I'm the resident gun nut. They also know I'll keep them safe, and give responsible advice and training.
He was the first person I've ever taken shooting who refused to fire because he was too scared. If I wanted to just scare him, I could have done that at home. :) It was more of the introduction to reality versus the fantasy world of games and tv/movie violence, that threw him. I will take him to the range again someday when I'm sure he's ready. Until then, he knows how dangerous firearms can be and I'd be confident that if a weapon were left laying out he wouldn't touch it.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Geez guys, all the hullabaloo is a matter of interpretation. I would be correct in saying that 12 gauge (AWG) wire is smaller than 4 gauge (AWG) wire, even when the numbers are inverse in their size. Therefore, a 28 gauge shotgun, with it's higher number, is smaller than a 12 gauge shotgun, with it's smaller number.
Therefore, the OP's typo of a .20 gauge shotgun would indeed be quite powerful, and only needed to be pointed out as a typo. Unfortunately, you then tried to correct him on his correct statement of a .22 caliber rifle (aka, "22 long rifle" I bet), and this got your shit jumped by everyone else about your whole post.
Of course, Buelldozer's comment about "The smaller the gauge of a shotgun the LESS powerful it is" sounds backwards, when you take it at face value (12ga < 28ga) When you take it "correctly", it's correct: A (smaller gauge, bigger#) 28ga shotgun is LESS powerful than a (bigger gauge, smaller#) 12ga shotgun.
<sarcasm>
<rant>
Holy FSM, it's annoying when someone on the internet is wrong. Even worse when there's 2 of them.
</rant>
</sarcasm>
aaaand...whee!
Military assault rifles, if we assume that is the context of the article, outside of a few horrible decisions like the OICW are not any more complex in their general controls than civilian weaponry. The only real difference is the safety contains more than one mode of fire, and outside of certain specific situations, single shot is still the one generally used. Especially if one is not dealing with one of the special forces branches. If he is talking about machine guns, they are even simpler in design than select fire weapons. In certain respects, they also take less training to fire than rifles. Although there is the extra training involved in learning to quickly change barrels on certain types.
22 caliber, when written, is informal usage. When spoken, the decimal is always assumed to be there unless specified otherwise.
Did you read the post in question? A point 20 gauge shotgun, the same number used by you and mcgrew, would fire a five pound ball of lead. Now, a 20 gauge shotgun would indeed shoot a smaller abount of shot. That was not the number used however until your second post on the matter.
If you want to sound the least bit credible, for the love of monkey, learn the difference between magazines and clips.
Clips:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Clip_M1-SKS.JPG
Magazines (except for the en bloc on the left):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/M1-M14-M16-magazines.JPG
If you use a clip to load a .
Magazines are what you change to reload the weapon.
In other words, YOU DO NOT CHANGE CLIPS.