I would like to thank the makers of Echalon. I have had interest in this game for a while and I was inspired to post a message when I saw a screen shot of a guy in a dungeon of some kind and the description talked about the small spiders creeping on the walls (The screen shot doesnt seem to be up anymore so I cant get the exact wording.)

It hit me that this is the type of game I would like to play. I have found that the current games focus so much on providing the experience of the game to players in the form of great graphics and sound, but fail to spark the imagination of the player. I believe that Echalon has found a balance between showing (graphically) the player the story/game but also sparking the senses by describing the small details that make you take the picture you see with the eyes and make it your own.

Best of luck with the development of the game...and oh, HURRY UP!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you, Obsidian! Welcome to the Pub.

You're so right Obsidian. Games these days strive for the best graphics, the most realistic appearances and all that, but really, I don't find that stuff really engages the imagination. Sure it looks pretty, but the mind of the player isn't engaged, isn't asked to do any work, it's spoonfed everything and asks nothing of the player but to buy the game.
"Next-gen" graphics make nice screenshots and sadly sell games, but they don't give an imaginative, captivating experience, allowing the mind to fill in details in a more realistic way than any graphics engine can render.

Along the same lines as what you are saying Galifrey, I have often seen parallels in modern 3D artsy games and movies. Movies allow someone to sit down and watch a story unfold for them, with all aspects (sight, sound) done for them, no need for imagination. That is why most people claim that a book about a story is better than the movie about the same story. The book allows the reader to picture the story in his/her own mind.

The "extreme" case for games allowing total user immersion is MUDs. A MUD is like an open ended story unfolding with the choices you make...I suppose Interactive Fiction is like that too although I know little about it sadly.

There is a barrier nowadays for getting into MUDs since so many people are used to some form of immersion handed to them. With TV, movies and realistic 3D games, an all text game is hard to swallow for new players.

Well, I willingly admit an appreciation of appealing game graphics, and do like the gameworld visually represented around me. That said, I do not necessarily find "cutting edge" graphics to be the best. If the style is something I like, it doesn't matter if the game is new or 10 years old. For example, I still love the Fallout graphics, and I just don't get it when people complain about them. That said, I find the graphics of a game like, say, Oblivion to be lacking. Well done, sure, but they don't necessarily appeal to me. For perhaps a more appropriate comparison, I love the look of Escahlon, but games that are perhaps in the same "league" like the Spiderweb games (Geneforge et al), I think look dreadful.

As for MUD's, I played lots of them way back when, and I don't really feel the compulsion to play them now. And books vs movies, I enjoy both, particularly if the movie is well done (eg the Lord Of The Rings movies). A book will always be the "definitive" telling of a story, while a movie is an interpretation, sometimes the two meet nicely, sometimes they don't.
I am a visual person, always have been, so I appreciate imagery, but I have nothing against a lot of reading as well.
When looking at a compute screen, I tend to favour visuals, as reading text-only on a screen makes my eyes go buggy