Why do people care about immersion so much?

Really interesting.

So you cant cope with roleplay while roleplaying....

That gives a hint: on YOUR MIND SET.

You need to settle down. Have you tried some crack?

No thanks, and Im doing alright.

It''s a good definition and it definitely applies.

It's hard to argue about the subjective nature of immersion, however. The first time I played Zork was on a VAX/VMS in 1981. Relative to other video game experiences I had at the time (e.g. at the arcade) Zork was actually very immersive to me. It had places you could revisit, it had interesting characters, it even had a somewhat consistent (if not completely believable) set of rules in the world.

But could anyone that grew up in the last 20 years play Zork and come away feeling that it was "immersive"?

Immersive (to me,anyway) shares a similar space with "suspension of disbelief". When I'm watching a movie and the filmmaker is too obvious about "THIS IS A FILM" (hello lens flare!) then I'm jolted out of the moment, and am more aware of the fact that I'm "watching a film" instead of "experiencing a story".

When I rolled my first toon in TOR and saw little groups of flesh raiders waiting patiently to be killed while their brethren got murdered just 40 meters away, that was the most dramatic example of "THIS IS ONLY A GAME". Of course, I eventually got over it, and these days I hardly notice it as a flaw.

But what if (for the sake of the argument), you had NPCs that lived in the world the same way that the players did? That had their own quests, their own missions, were never in the same place, were killed, etc. A world that continued to exist and be in motion even when the players were not around. That would make for a far more immersive experience.

Making a game "more immersive" has the potential of also making a "better game".

You don't seem like it.

I'm not an immersion cop, but did you ever run from Qeynos to Faydark to play with a buddy in Crushbone? Epic.

Look, if you can't understand, you will never understand and guess what? That's perfectly okay. There are tons of things out there that neither you or I will ever understand because we simply can't be in that mindset.

Immersion is part of imagination and fantasy and there are so many 'levels' of it. For instance I have some degree of game immersion in this game but I know others who are utterly into it. I'll never understand them but at the very least I can respect that, so long as it doesn't impair or affect my gaming experience negatively.

So if you can't understand, that's fine. Accept, adapt and move on but whatever you do, don't judge because I'm certain there are things you're into that other people just don't get either.

Someone must have been reading this discussion here : http://gamasutra.com/blogs/TalhaKaya...s_in_Games.php

Because this is an RPG. Role Playing Game. You play the role of someone/something that isn't you. Or, for a lot of people is an alter-ego. Immersion makes people feel like they ARE the character, which is why most people began playing rpg's in the first place.

LoL being a MOBA game, isn't story driven. It's strategic pew pew. RPG's are THE GENRE most people seek out for immersion. That doesn't mean they want to escape some horrible life. It just means they enjoy immersing themselves into a different universe. People have looked for ways to do that since the beginning of time. RPG's are just one of the latest ways people can do that. It's not much different than reading a book and feeling like you are in the middle of the story.

And who cares if some people want to escape the realities of the world? Saying it's sad really just shows your inability to accept that other people deal with things differently.

I don't mean this in a rude way or anything, but it seems as though you should probably be playing a different genre.

I think some people just have a very poor imagination and so their "immersion" is easily broken. Frankly, pretty hard to be "immersed" in an MMO anyway.....you really need a single player game for that. If some guy named DarthNoob can run circles around you on the fleet with no armor, then true immersion is pretty much impossible.