RESEARCH, MOFO, DO YOU DO IT?

I do this A LOT. Real, real lot.

For Marvel Brothel... geez. For the brothel part, I actually went to a brothel, which was out-of-business at the time, but I got to talk to the owner, which was awesome. I've been to brothels before too. But those times weren't for actual research. I did lots of research for the Marvel part too. I'm a fan of a lot of Marvel things, but I read lots of sites, read extra information on every character I added to the game. Lots of Wikipedia, Marvel.com and some other awesome Marvel comics site which's name I forgot.
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For Beautiful Escape I mostly researched about torture methods. It wasn't a very extensive research, but I got to read a few sites and texts about it. I also watched the Hostel movies looking for inspiration (I wouldn't have watched them otherwise). Saw movies suck too much even as research.

For my current game Polymorphous Perversity... most research I did for a game ever. The content of the game is 80% based on research. I read a lot of things, like fetish and paraphilia descriptions, sexual fantasies and short stories, personal testimonials on sexual issues, and some scientific stuff. I added a comment posting gadget on the game's blog so people could post sex-related things they like, and it got me a lot of cool material and insights.
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My other projects used a little bit of research too. When I made DIE2DANCE, a researched for most popular disco songs. On my Portuguese game Alvorada do Mal, there were many parts which required some sort of research, but in this case, mostly graphical/aesthetical (the design of fast food restaurants, hospitals, etc.).

So... yeah, good topic. People who play games sometimes have no idea about the grueling process behind it.

When doing fan games, I definitely do research constantly to make sure that I never contradict the original game, and to try to make the settings and dialogue as accurate as possible to the original game. The Unofficial Squaresoft MUD has ultra-accurately rebuilt almost every area in the entire worlds of FF6, FF7, Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana in text adventure format. We make sure that when people make areas, they have screenshots or videos of the original game. The missions in the game also largely mirror the events of the original games so we have a set of complete scripts for all those games and often lift dialogue. Enemies and bosses even have the same levels, the same elemental and status immunities, and the same special attacks (though players have FF Tactics jobs so it ends up playing really differently from the original games). Sometimes we intentionally modify or add to the original games, for the sake of creating something unique or because the accurate version wouldn't work as well, but we do our best to never do so accidentally.

As far as original stuff goes, I have a friend who tries to name all his monsters after actual mythological creatures. I, uh, don't. I just name them things like "Fire-Breathing Lamia" and "Killer Turtle". And I'm used to only the first, weakest items in the game being non-magical. It isn't that I don't like research - it's more that I don't think equipment is an appropriate place (in my games) for any sort of realism to show up. I want to make a bracelet that prevents poison and has high magic defense; I'm pretty sure no real material has those properties, so I just call it the Cobra Bracelet.

High fantasy, which is a term for any setting on an alternate world where there is magic, is basically designed to do away with the need for research; only internal consistency is really important. In a non-fantasy setting, or in a fantasy story set on Earth, I can totally see wanting to make sure I was using the right kind of architecture, that I was using the right words for different stuff, etc.

I've been doing the medieval weapons/armor thing in my unreleased, deleted RM2k3 games for a long time. I use metallurgy concepts too, but mostly involving fictional metals. My world's magic system also follows a few principles that can be explained with fictional science (that world's science), but the time eras I mak gam in still brand them "magic".
I also do a shit ton of research on politics/finance/business/ideology/movements and their interconnectedness all the time, which then become underlying themes or background settings. Usually when I talk about it with others, I get branded Conspiracy Theorist!! Oh noez.

I do a lot to the point I can't share ideas with some people because they weren't interested/think it's too serious of a topic for a game 8'D;;;

Psychology studies and clinical works are great for character development and relationships, and aside from the storyline/world design matters, knowledge on physics and chemistry can help think of new battle mechanics or quests.

Research is definitely a must before you are inspired to create a game. That goes for real life too. I mean, where do you get your ideas from then? You can't possibly get your ideas by living under a rock, right?

The purpose of research, be it other games or real life, is to get ideas. That's why good game designers are those who always go out often, exposed to the world, understand the surroundings and all. Going out to expose yourself may not seem like much, but unknowingly or knowingly, you'll get more ideas coming in that way.

author=eplipswich
The purpose of research, be it other games or real life, is to get ideas.

Not really. You get the ideas first; then you do the research to make you you don't misrepresent the ideas. The purpose of research is to keep from saying, doing or showing things that are patently wrong, because doing so will usually make you look like an idiot.

For example, if you have computer hacking in your game, if you don't know anything about computer hacking you're likely to use the wrong terminology and not know what's easy and what's impossible. If you have a game that involves a World War 2 dogfight, you should research WW2 planes and find out how dogfights actually work. You might not be aware of what they actually look like, of how much damage it takes to shoot down a plane, of how hard it is to shoot a plane with a bullet. If you are animating a character who fights with a sword, you should research sword fighting stances and techniques to try to depict what sword fighting actually looks like.

Generally, how important it is to do research on these kinds of things is directly proportionate to both A) how big a deal they are to the game's plot, B) how many times they show up in the game, and C) how much the player is likely to know about the subject. RPG players are really likely to know about my examples of computer hacking and obsolete fighting methods, while somewhatless likely to know about Max's examples of blacksmithing and metallurgy, and substantially less likely to know about calunio's examples of brothels and torture. But when the entire game is about brothels or torture, and you're not in a high fantast setting, you still want to get it right. In contrast, computer hacking in an action game or RPG might just be used as a minor plot device in a single cut scene, allowing you to find out information by accessing an enemy computer terminal. In that case it's probably fine to just skim over it, and if you make a mistake people are likely to quickly forget it.

author=eplipswich
Research is definitely a must before you are inspired to create a game. That goes for real life too. I mean, where do you get your ideas from then? You can't possibly get your ideas by living under a rock, right?

Well, you're referring to research as a synonym of "living" and "doing stuff", and I don't think that's exactly what we're talking about. If you love soccer, you watch soccer games and you play soccer, and then you decide to make a soccer rm game, what you did before is not research. Research is more like an academic type of behavior... reading, taking notes, etc.

And I definitely DON'T think research is essential to a game. It's only important if you want to add flavor to stuff in your game, or if you're dealing with a knowledge area that's too specific.