298: Who Needs Friends?

[Manji187]

Who Needs Friends?

Protagonists in videogames regularly save the world, the universe, and the princess. So why don't they ever have any friends?

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Good question. It made me think. This is what I came up with:

"Because it would be fake"

If you (as the player) weren't there when the friendship was formed...and you didn't spend time with the characters that are supposedly your friends (no shared experiences)...then those "friend" characters can talk all they want about "that time when..."...it's all the same to you.

I believe friendship works best in an "ab ovo" story...you meet the characters as the protagonist meets them for the first time. Then you all share experiences and establish a bond.

Basically, friendship has to grow.

IMHO, it is wrong for developers to simply assume that the player automatically cares about characters...even the ones that present themselves as life-long friends. It's the developers' task to make the player care....and it is a very difficult one.

Example: you are fighting a war with one of your friends in the same team...he "saves your life" by tackling you into cover just as you would have been hit by enemy fire. Your character mutters "Thanks bro...I owe you big time." Then some time later your friend gets mortally wounded and you get to experience the classic "last words" tearjerker scene.

Two things: both the rescue and the death scene are scripted (which destroys a lot of the emotional impact: it was apparently "meant to be"...you had no hand in it)...and you will not be able to return the favor unless it's scripted that you will. It's fundamentally a matter of choice (exercise of free will)...you don't have it and neither does your AI friend, not within the world of the game because a game is fundamentally totalitarian: whatever the game doesn't allow for...is prohibited.

A developer can make a character very likeable (through writing/ voice-acting)...a developer can make you share experiences with the character...but that character's choices will not be genuine choices (how can they be lol...). They will be predetermined by the developer (or whatever algorithm he constructs to calculate odds).

Such is the limited nature of videogaming...until we start incorporating powerful AI's that have passed the Turing test. By that time we'll probably be playing in a Holodeck/ Matrix like program environment.

 

[AyreonMaiden]

Extremely good read.

I'm reminded of the people who ***** about Yosuke Hanamura in Persona 4. Too chatty. Served as your mouthpiece. Too whiney, all sorts of reason. I personally LOVED his presence. He felt like my friend in spite of all his flaws, like a kindred spirit out in the boondocks. I kept him on the front lines all the time because I really felt like he'd have my back in anything. He was always like "Hey, let's meet at Junes" and was always leading the investigation discussion. He truly worked with me as a co-leader and as my, well, bro. We kicked the shit out of each other and finally acknowledged each other as equals. It was an awesome example of a "friend" in gaming.

But so many people bitched! The execution is debatable but the intent is definitely clear when it comes to Yosuke. It was a different dynamic than the constant tension of the main cast in Persona 3. People don't WANT to play as characters with friends. A lot of people playing Persona games just wanna bone every girl, get the strongest Personas, grind to 99, etc. They don't want a "friend," they just wanna be "badasses" and "pimps."

Most of all the reviews I've read for Bioware and Fallout games? The reviewers play as complete assholes! The Destructoid review of DA2 had a guy who went completely out of his way to make his character as reprehensible as possible to the point where three party members left him. Most people I talk to about Fallout 3 mention how much fun it was to blow the hell out of Megaton. People will always take the chance to be a dick when there are no repercussions. Sure, sometimes it may be role-playing, but I see it so often that the generalizing ass in me cries out: "Were you truly THAT badly bullied throughout high school that you need to blow up every game world you see?"

Developers see this, and act accordingly. Hence your loners. Hence your one-dimensional badasses.

 

[JMeganSnow]

An interesting article, except for the point that when Bioware gave you an Origin in Dragon Age: Origins, and an actual family cum background in Dragon Age 2, numerous people were COMPLAINING VICIOUSLY on the forums that Bioware was assigning traits you may not want to your protagonist.

Some people actually *like* the disconnected protagonist, albeit many of the most vocal for reasons I think are stupid--they want to be able to make up their own story about their protagonist and not ever have that conflict with anything they encounter in the game.

Me, I'm well aware that I can't ever play exactly the character I might like in an RPG--I'm limited by the writer's foresight and imagination. This is cool with me. A CRPG is not the same as a PnP RPG. I don't play them for the same reasons. I expect different things. So having a family/friends/whatever in a game is not a problem for me.

Just don't assume that one way is the be-all, end-all of gaming.

 

[beefpelican]

Holy shit this was an amazing read.

Agreed 100%. More 'friendly' interactions=more emotional input. If a character dies, so what? If a character dies that you previously had interaction with, much more different.

The Darkness has one amazing example that I always pull out of my ass. It concerns your girlfriend Jenny...and it's an incredibly simple yet emotional scene where you spend the night with her. You can choose to leave early, choose to tell her what you really do, or choose to sit down with her and watch an entire movie. It's epic, and it's what makes the game so powerful.

That was a beautiful scene.

OT: The excuse I see for this most often is that the player is supposed to be more able to project onto a blank slate than a well developed character. I think it's kinda BS though. I totally project more onto well developed characters in books and movies, why should it be any different in games?

 

[beefpelican]

I have to say, I disagree about Desmond Miles being an example of a disconnected character being a bad thing... because he is. He was kidnapped. Considering that in the first game all he could do was walk from room to room, and in II and Brotherhood they were trying to stay hidden, it isn't that far fetched that he wouldn't come across any childhood friends.

Furthermore, he does actually grow into familiarity with the other assassins he's hiding with. I think my favorite dialog in the game was:
Desmond: Whats-a-matter-you Altair?
Rebecca: Thats Racist!
Desmond: You're Racist!

It was nonsensical, but exactly the kind of silly nonsense that makes characters seem real.

On the other hand, Desmond doesn't really seem to miss, or mention, his former life, aside from a few references to "the compound". I think it would have been nice if that had come up at least occasionally.

 

[Ravek]

I don't get this article. The situations described in the first half happen all the time in videogames. Has this writer actually played any?

 

[loc978]

Honestly, I don't see the same problem in most games. There's usually a reason the character doesn't have any friends to start, a reason they have to forge relationships in the course of gameplay (and you do know the Courier in Fallout: New Vegas is from California, right?)... it's the same as the old DM trick of starting your players off on the road, all from the same faraway land, exploring a new and foreign place.
That makes it a hell of a lot easier to invest in a character than starting you off next to an NPC or three that you're supposed to care about for no immediately apparent reason. So... this is my wife and kids... and their names are..?

 

[FuzzyRaccoon]

Ugggggh! I completely identify with this commentary! This is actually only an issue for me in games that are so good that I don't have other issues bogging down my immersion... but that's why I feel like it's crucial!

It honestly would upset me in Dead Space being treated like an errand boy.

In Oblivion I felt so lonely, thinking that I had to buy my own house, that essentially there was no one there that wanted nothing from me.

Like a child in Fable 2, I chose to save my dog, because we had been through so much, and I felt like everyone was being selfish to ask anything else of me.

In Mass Effect 2 I really wanted there to be more dialogue options, to create things that felt like the close friendship my Shepard seemed to have with Wrex in the first game, or even Garrus.

In AC:Brotherhood I delighted in training my fledgling assassins. Zita (if you got her) became my favorite, was the one I worked on the most. I picked different colors for each of them, had them come in for training... I REALLY felt like I was Ezio, sort of like a grandfather. They made me feel /pride/ when they were higher up in levels, able to protect themselves, jump in and out without breaking a sweat.

I want more games to illicit a feel of togetherness... of a specialness and community. I'm not saying that it won't be hard... but it feels so wonderful to have it realized.

 

[dicai]

The one game that could really tackle the bonds of friendship in a warzone, IMO was Call Of Duty 2: Big Red One for the PS2. I really became close to those guys, and felt sad every time when one of my squadmates got killed. Hell, even in the ending you can notice how happy their are and realise the long way you had gone to that exact point. And not only I cared for my squad, but always got the feeling that they felt the same way about me.

And that's what friendship is.

 

[Yokai]

It's an excellent point, and something that I hope is rectified in the next few years.

Oddly enough, the game character I've felt the most friendly connection with was Baurus in Oblivion. He accompanies you for only three missions and spends the rest of his time standing around in Cloud Ruler Temple, but there was a certain sincerity about him that made it actually seem like he liked the player and saw them as a friend and companion. The fact that his voice acting was excellent, and very natural-sounding, definitely helped.

 

[caladors]

Yes.
But what to do?

Hope that people take note?
Wile the video game industry does take note more than say Hollywood.
How can you make the industry change?
The reason I ask is it seemed alot like a statement of common sense.
I know they say common sense isn't that common but none the less.

So what to do?

 

[Vibhor]

Has the writer played GTA 4?
There IS a reason why video game characters do not have friends, and I believe that it is perfectly explained in GTA 4.
Never I would have thought that friends could be interpreted in that way. After playing that game, I was enlightened why many games don't do the friends shit.
(This of course is a half joke, but the gta 4 shit is to be given a thought)

 

[FullMetalZ]

Great article. I know Mass Effect 2 has already been mentioned a few times in the comments, but I just have to reiterate what an amazing feeling it was to meet back up with old comrades from the first game.

However, I think this is also a shining example of how it means more if you go through the trouble of creating a bond of friendship yourself. Writers can put unseen connections between characters in a game, but the past really becomes ancillary to the present if you have no basis other than a few sentences and forced laughing.

 

[Fanghawk]

Excellent article!

Perhaps one reason games do not give their protagonists friends is that the players may not identify with their friends in a way that the character would. After all, who's to say that the players would be interested in hanging out with the same people their character does? The developers are then forced to choose between creating a protagonist with personality, backstory, and social interactions (and risk the player feeling disconnected) or creating a blank-slate character (and risk the player being unable to identify with the game world).

An interesting compromise between the two extremes can be seen in The Witcher. Your character, Geralt, is a recognizable figure in the world with many friends and rivals. There are several scenes in which Geralt comes across an NPC he clearly has a personal connection to. In most games, I would just be expected to follow along with whatever social expectation the game has for Geralt's friend, whether I want to or not. But Geralt also has amnesia, so he is at much of a loss for how to feel about this person that I am. The disconnect I felt when an elf approached me saying I changed her life is the exact same disconnect Geralt is feeling at that moment. The player then takes an active role in re-establishing the relationship (or neglecting it, or betraying the former friend in some cases) giving a much deeper connection to what's happening in-game.

 

[Zookz]

Is a good read, though I still think the nature of games makes fluent stories with protagonists that have relations tough.

The big issue with video games (or gameplay specifically) is that most people just have the notion of winning, beating, completing, or just achieving things within them.

Where as story telling has nothing to do with winning or achieving anything. It's merely a form of expression. As soon as a story tries to achieve something with the audience, rather then tell the story, the story tends to feel like it's, to use Extra Credits terming, "beating you with the "point".

Video games are a mix of both gameplay and story-telling, which are simply at odds with each other. This is much like the Comic's dilemma in that comic books are a form of both expression through artwork and expression through words (that are, again, at odds with each other).

In light of this, adding connections and relations to a character in a game is pushing away the "gameplay" crowd; and taking away those connections and relations is pushing away the "story" crowd. In the end, we get a situation where either way, we're losing something.

I actually got to thinking about this a lot because of the recent movie Sucker Punch and Duke's upcoming return. After seeing Sucker Punch it reminded me a bit of the cinematic/gameplay/cinematic/gameplay/etc. kind of situation that games are in and how that negatively impacts peoples feelings about games in the way the movie did with reviews (with pacing and such); and the duke's controversy got me thinking about how upset people get about games that don't value story-telling in favor for (stupidly ridiculous, in this case) gameplay. Both of these also make me wonder why so many people are against movies/games that exist as a form of escapism (like Sucker Punch and Duke) rather then needing every one of these to have some empathetic meaning or bond with your life.

Okay, I'm just rambling and going off-topic now.

TLR

My conclusion about it is that while I do think there is a large lack of games trying to simply tell stories; branding story telling in games as some better or higher kind of video game just feels pretentious to me (though I guess that's sort of what art is), and that games that focus solely on gameplay still have a valuable place in the medium. Losing the CoD/DotA/SC games would be a sad loss in my opinion.

So if there are some protagonists in games who are loners with no connections it shouldn't make the game worse; it's just a different kind of game.

 

[Murmillos]

The one reason why many games don't include friends for you is the reason its hard to make a friend that everybody will like.

Look at the recent RPG's by bioware. For every person that likes character A, two people hate them. You still have one or two that a larger group of the player base my like - but still not liked by everybody.

I suppose the easy route would be to include a bunch of "random" friends who all are your buds but also know that you are a simi-loner. They "know" you'll go to them if you want their help; but also they know you'll ignore them if you don't desire their help - which would a logic break; why are you "friends" with all these people of many of them you could ultimately careless about. Unless they are friends of your family, then I suppose there they could have strong reasons to care about you too, even if you don't respond likewise.

Or perhaps all these friends could be part of your family, brothers/sisters/1st-cousins/etc/etc/. They are your "friends" & reasons why they are in your life, but just as in all family, not all family members are close friends; kind of like your younger/older brother whom you vocally wish would just die and fall of the end of the earth, but you know deep down that you would be ultimately deviated if anything bad actually did happen to them.

 

[Magnesium360]

A game that did this well was Saints Row 2. No joke, I played this with out playing the first one (which I've heard called inferior, or atleast quite different) and already somebody's asking if I remember his brother who I used to roll with, this guy called Johnny Gat acts like we grew up together and people are generally happy (or in some cases unhappy) to see me. Seeing as the first thing you do is break out of prison, I felt it was good for the realism of the game (something it famously lacks) that people already knew you and treated you differently based on existing relationships.

 

[Freechoice]

Well, at least someone acknowledges that games are a storytelling medium on par with the other media.

 

[Nocturnal Gentleman]

I think this article explains to me why Persona 4 came across as so different. That game was based on friendships.

Yeah, I liked how in persona 3&4 you slowly become friends with people when you want, instead of the regular JRPG which sets a specific time for them to dump their backstory on you.

I don't know, I had a problem with the way Persona had you make friends. Like with many JRPGs it just seems so easy how the main character runs into his best friends forever crowd. I have rarely experienced mess like that. Most of the time you walk into somewhere new and you're just that other person from somewhere. People have their own developed relationships and many see no need to reach out and communicate with the new kid. As a result you just sort of haphazardly push yourself into making aquaintences. Hoping all the while that you'll have a true friend come out of it.

In some cases this backfires and the more you get to know the people you've somewhat bonded to the more you realize what assholes they are. Then you end up back at square one. Looking for more potential friends. Bully, though ridiculous in many ways, did capture this much better I think.

 

[Gennadios]

I may be in the minority, but I don't trust video game writers. They may be competent enough to populate and flesh out a story, but for the most part they're hacks when it comes to writing reasonable, believable characters.

I didn't particularly think much of the family in Dragon Age II, and the father in Fallout 3 was nothing more than an objective on my map.

I happen to like my cypers, gives less baggage to work through when exploring a world. There's also the matter of the Fish out of Water story, where the average Joe ends up adrift in a completely foreign place, seen in movies such as The Last Starfighter, Rambo, Even ET. \

The main characters in these movies have maybe a paragraph worth of backstory. Each one is made by their actions, not their past.