Bioshock Writer Fed Up With Industry
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I don't know, i love Devil May Cry for the stylish action, the gameplay demanding i demolish my enemies with unrivaled aggression and speed, making me feel like a badass, then watching Dante be a badass in cutscenes so i can sit back and smile, he doesn't need justification, he's a dude with a giant sword and dual pistols and i love him for it.
Modern stories in most mediums are so obsessed these days with bad events, every time your character creates good in the story 2 bad things happen to bring them down again and this repeats so often it becomes almost a parody of itself... it's a real drag after the double digit hours a video game can span.
Look at the new X-Men Wolverine movie, they have to make him mortal so that he can fall and be vulnerable, and coincidently less awesome than Wolverine has been in the past.
Modern stories in most mediums are so obsessed these days with bad events, every time your character creates good in the story 2 bad things happen to bring them down again and this repeats so often it becomes almost a parody of itself... it's a real drag after the double digit hours a video game can span.
Look at the new X-Men Wolverine movie, they have to make him mortal so that he can fall and be vulnerable, and coincidently less awesome than Wolverine has been in the past.
Not that it matters, since you've been missing the point so bloody hard I'm pretty sure we're not even on the same subject, and since you've resorted to the oh so helpful debating practice of sarcasm, to not make a point, again, it's raining, so I have to go wash my car, then straighten out the stereo wires.Machine Man 1992 said:
IF you actually manage to get on the same page as me feel free to reply, other wise, I've no more time for some one whom can not listen.
I hope she gets to work for tell tale games, or places that will indulge her writing wants. I sincerely do.
It sounds like she gets stuck writing for the action genre more than anything which doesn't exactly cater to plots too well.
That said, I gotta wonder what her real vision for Tomb Raider was? How different would it have been if it wasn't so full of unrestricted action gunplay? I mean reviewers have noticed the disconnect between her aversion to fighting/killing while she guns down men by the dozens, and stabs them violently with her climbing axe and arrows. I have, too, but it's not terrible. It seems her combat quotes get more bold as she gets along, but she's always fearless in combat because we are. Her confidence is really ours.
I'd not mind at all more well written protagonsits, and well written stories they're in. I'm not alone in it. People often complain about the meathead violence junkie male protagonist.
It sounds like she gets stuck writing for the action genre more than anything which doesn't exactly cater to plots too well.
That said, I gotta wonder what her real vision for Tomb Raider was? How different would it have been if it wasn't so full of unrestricted action gunplay? I mean reviewers have noticed the disconnect between her aversion to fighting/killing while she guns down men by the dozens, and stabs them violently with her climbing axe and arrows. I have, too, but it's not terrible. It seems her combat quotes get more bold as she gets along, but she's always fearless in combat because we are. Her confidence is really ours.
I'd not mind at all more well written protagonsits, and well written stories they're in. I'm not alone in it. People often complain about the meathead violence junkie male protagonist.
What else is there to say? You could have just said you don't find the games very fun, but noooo- you had to get dismissive and make it seem like enjoying CoD or Gears was somehow wrong. At least that's what I got from it, or do you not think about how others might interpret your writing?Lunar Templar said:
As long as we have people saying that story doesn't matter, or that "If you want a story, go read a book!" we'll never have good writing and story. The problem is that most devs don't care about story, or it's such an afterthought that it's drivel. Heck, her game, Far Cry 2 is a good example of a game with a horrid story. Games get made with a premise, to only get a half assed story shoved in with a set of rules, not the other way around.
Games over the past decade have become more involved in story telling, but we still have a long way to go. When you have the stories of Deus Ex or Half-Life as the pinnacle, well.... that's not good.
Gameplay is important, but it's not always the most important thing when it comes to game. TWD is a basic point and click, but I'd best almost every person played it for the story rather than loving the PAC genre.
Games over the past decade have become more involved in story telling, but we still have a long way to go. When you have the stories of Deus Ex or Half-Life as the pinnacle, well.... that's not good.
Gameplay is important, but it's not always the most important thing when it comes to game. TWD is a basic point and click, but I'd best almost every person played it for the story rather than loving the PAC genre.
You think writers have a lot more control over a games development than they actually do don't you. Writers having a meaningful impact on a game is a rarity and are usually an afterthought put in at the last minute to give the game a purpose to have the player bother, like how porn needs to have a "story" to justify the sex many games just have an "story" put in to justify and give some shallow meaning to the fighting. While there is a lot more effort being put into it games and stories are still too separate in the product itself. Having the cut scenes happen like a movie only the fighting be taken over by the player and since there needs to be more game play than cut-scenes there is a LOT of fighting.Corven said:
We already have an example of an amazing story in video-games... MGS. That game series gets so overlooked just because it has tons of cut scenes, but you know what, it has much more gameplay than other examples of great stories in videos games such as TWD, To the Moon.
MGS's story might be a bit convoluted at times, but if you actually pay attention everything makes sense and it made some amazing points about why we play video-games, war and the life of a soldier way before Spec Ops came along and took all the credit for exploring those themes first. Put MGS1 into movie form and you lose all of the funny CODEC conversations, the easter eggs, the tense gameplay and more.
When sneaking into Shadow Moses for the first time, fighting the Boss and walking through the Microwave Corridor I felt so much more emotionally engaged than I would have been if they were movies. Now compare that to To the Moon, did any of you really feel enganged by the gameplay, or the story? It was the story, it was the same for me and it's the same for pretty much everyone else.
MGS's story might be a bit convoluted at times, but if you actually pay attention everything makes sense and it made some amazing points about why we play video-games, war and the life of a soldier way before Spec Ops came along and took all the credit for exploring those themes first. Put MGS1 into movie form and you lose all of the funny CODEC conversations, the easter eggs, the tense gameplay and more.
When sneaking into Shadow Moses for the first time, fighting the Boss and walking through the Microwave Corridor I felt so much more emotionally engaged than I would have been if they were movies. Now compare that to To the Moon, did any of you really feel enganged by the gameplay, or the story? It was the story, it was the same for me and it's the same for pretty much everyone else.
I don't know if I agree with her statement that the games industry is dominated by "technical" people. Beyond the programming staff, every other person who develops the game is in a creative field. Given that programmers represent only a tiny fraction of the manpower on any modern AAA game, to assert that they alone have the power is foolish. Programmers build systems and nothing more. Given the creative staff includes the designer, it seems that blaming the technical side for a disconnect between systems and presentation is foolish. That is, fundamentally, a key role of designer after all.
There's nothing wrong with leaving the industry to pursue opportunities that will let you use your skills in a more satisfying way, that's why so many people go into the game industry in the first place and I can relate to that sentiment. I loved the story of Bioshock, but I only got like half way through the new Tomb Raider because I felt that the way the story was told through the gameplay experience was boring, and after the ninth time I had to go "rescue someone" who ended up dying anyway just to get me to another area of the map, I just lost interest and gave up. It felt like the narrative was shoehorned into this gameplay without much care for the pacing. The excitement of wondering what's going to happen next is my biggest motivator for continuing a game, and if that's not there, then the gameplay itself better be amaaazing.
I'm no game designer, but it's my opinion that games work the best when the story and the gameplay complement each other and have a natural pacing. If the story is written with the gameplay in mind and not in a vacuum, it's going to feel more natural. I'm not saying that you must be a gamer to write for games, but it probably helps and you should at least strive to be aware of this and not fight it. That's why The Walking Dead was so fun, and never once did I feel like the shooting was out of place or contrived in Gears of War.
I'm no game designer, but it's my opinion that games work the best when the story and the gameplay complement each other and have a natural pacing. If the story is written with the gameplay in mind and not in a vacuum, it's going to feel more natural. I'm not saying that you must be a gamer to write for games, but it probably helps and you should at least strive to be aware of this and not fight it. That's why The Walking Dead was so fun, and never once did I feel like the shooting was out of place or contrived in Gears of War.
I think the point she's trying to make is that there are still parts of the story where your hands are tied as a writer. In Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite, she had to come up with villian factions for the protagonists to be shooting at constantly. That wouldn't neccesarily be something she wanted to come up with, and yet had to, because the gameplay mandated it.Kurt Cristal said:
In my personal opinion, part of her troubles are more about being in the blockbuster AAA games sector. Indie games are way better known now for having interesting stories, and the gameplay being wrapped around the story being told, instead of the other way around used by AAA games. Not all indie games of course, but I'd say more indie games are recognized for good story these days than AAA games are, or ever have been.
A plum is as good enough to a hungry man as any other type of fruit could be, but when a man wishes to eat a plum there is no fruit more perfect for the role than a plum. If she what she really want is to find new different and original ways of preparing a plum (Read as: Games) for other people to eat then I've got her back, but if all she wants to do is prepare plums as some other type of fruit (Read as: books, movies or television) then the sooner she is gone the better.
I can see where she's coming from here. As a writer it must be frustrating to do work on a project like Far Cry 2 or Tomb Raider. Every time you build a solid character arc, you have to find room to justify the town's worth of people the gamer will end up murdering over the course of the game. In Jack's case for Bioshock it made perfect sense, but that doesn't always mesh perfectly.
Maybe she could look into working on fewer action games? The genre itself might be part of the problem here.
Maybe she could look into working on fewer action games? The genre itself might be part of the problem here.