I guess we should start by defining what we mean by "immersion." The last time I felt fully immersed in a game world was when I was playing Chronicles of Riddick. Fully immersed, I mean. It's happened in spurts in other, more recent games -- Paper Mario 2 and Otogi 2, for example -- but there was just something about Riddick's environment that felt superbly cohesive, and seamless. I felt that way when I first played Fallout as well, and I find that a little weird; RPGs, and MMOs, by extension, are generally too overtly rules-heavy to really draw me in. This is a testament to the richness of Fallout's world. Here's what I'm thinking helps to constitute an immersive experience, for me personally: transparent abstract elements (i.e., a minimal interface, a relative lack of iconic health pickups, and the like); convincing dialog; and a unified graphical look. That's what comes to mind immediately, and while I'm sure I'm overlooking some vital element, I think I'm generally on the right track.
Live action role-playing: the key to true immersion?
In my mind, very few MMOs stack up in this regard, especially when it comes to abstract game elements. Since these games are built around abstractions more overtly than any other types of games -- stuff like overbearing, complicated interfaces, and ultra-powerful-yet-harmless-looking critters -- I'm starting to feel that they're fundamentally incapable of providing a truly immersive experience. In most cases, their graphical presentations are more utilitarian than anything else, which doesn't help.
The ways in which these games attempt to create immersion is, in my opinion, a little misguided. The worlds are huge, yet often under-populated, the NPCs that do inhabit them spit forth the same lines of dialog over and over, and the players that supposedly will create these rich, engrossing communities are more interested in surmounting the games' challenges than creating rich experiences within the context of their worlds. Meanwhile, those that are interested in role-playing accomplish this by typing funny, and engaging in what, to me, resembles some sort of weird virtual mating ritual. It's not really their fault, though; these worlds are designed more specifically for the power gamers, and in the best cases, the RPers get their own servers wherein everyone is forced to type funny. Kind of like an asylum, if will. No offense intended; that's just how it the devs appear to treat you all -- a sort of moderately-enforced isolation.
