It will also have to drastically downplay the importance of footwork. In a real swordfight, where to put your feet is nearly as important as where to put the sword.
This is also true for a plethora of sports games as well, specifically racquet based games. Swinging the racquet is less than half the battle -- footwork, in most physical types of activities, is much more important.
These things are ridiculous. Researcher: "We need an omnidirectional treadmill, but how?" Engineer: "Oh, that's easy. We'll just make a gigantic TREADMILL OF TREADMILLS."
About 3:50 into the video entitled "The weeds" Mr. Stepehnson says "We're going to start with an off-the-shelf controller that anyone can buy today. This eliminates the risk that we'll blow this by failing on some ambitious custom hardware project. From there we'll iterate based partly on your feedback. "
And intimately related, distance. In Kendo at least you win or lose by knowing where the cutting part (the forward 1/4 - 1/3) of your sword is going to be at the moment you make contact. This means thinking strategically about distance (e.g. I can feint a forearm strike and still have enough space to cut across the abdomen if she raises her sword to block.)
This is why I don't like games talking about how 'realistic' they will be. Firstly, because anything that runs on a standard computer will be far from reality anyway, and secondly because often users don't actually want reality (eg. most FPSs have far from realistic walking speeds - for good reason. Also stylised graphics etc.).
That said, the concept of different styles of swordplay is great - and having more 'realism' in that is something I think is pretty admirable.
Don't get bogged down in the pedantry of realism. When 'realism' is mentioned in gaming, it really means 'realism that assists immersion'. You'll occasionally see articles about balancing realism versus gameplay - if something is real enough to turn you off the game (like boredom from slow movement speed), then it's reducing your immersion.
Surely any game where you can respawn even once is already extremely realistic.
Would anyone want to play a war simulator FPS that starts with a cutscene of the Normandy landings and has a 50% chance of immediately being cut down by a machine gun whereupon the game quits and deletes itself off your hard drive?
It's interesting to note that in GTA IV (not exactly an FPS, though) gameplay appears to be slowed down quite a bit compared to previous games in the series. Probably that's facilitated by more realistic graphics, with many little details to entertain our brain while the character gets out of the car.
> In a real swordfight, where to put your feet is nearly as important as where to put the sword.
Arguably more important. I fenced epee in university, and our coach was a little bit old school -- we went weeks just doing footwork before getting a weapon put in hand.
Well, in epee your opponent can score by stabbing you in the foot. That's naturally going to give where you put your place your feet a little importance to begin with.
This is really true. There are a lot of great stage combat clubs and groups around the country, after a certain point, it seems like it might just be more fun to go spar for real, or go learn some real choreography if you want the added 6 layers of safety (a must if you are using steel, IMO).
That was my thought as well. If I need to buy some fancy hardware and swing it around to play a game... I'll probably just go buy a practice foil and sign up for a class instead!
i almost quit the cod4 single player campaign because it was a bit too ... maybe not realistic, but stressful. i thought to myself: war is hell, so why do i want to play a game that tries to capture a soldiers misery?
"most couldn't play" - but they could learn to play (as long as losing isn't fatal for the player). some games strive to be realistic above all else (some car racing games), because they are tailored for the ultra-enthusiasts.
I took a not-for-credit intramural fencing and kendo classes back in college, and 3/4's of both classes was about learning footwork and movement.
Sword fighting also generally comes down to a few seconds of motion and whoever judged their opponents movements better. Neither of these would be present in a game that wasn't full motion capture.
I had a kendo instructor who said that footwork was 80% of the physical side of it. A fencing instructor said something similar. Boxers and boxing coaches also understand this.
Omnidirectional treadmill? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnidirectional_treadmill