"Hello kids, I'm captain Picard and I can see instantly are you are the protagonist. This means I must die and pass on my special amulet because YOU are the ONLY ONE who can STOP THEM! Now, go speak to a random monk who will tell you that I have a really convenient bastard son who just happens to be a priest and who just happens to also be an expert on Daedric magic but who noone bothered to keep a very close eye on so you might have to go through some exposition to rescue him. Don't worry, none of this will ever be explained or achieve any emotional relevance and the bastard will die/go away at the end to ensure that we don't leave any unresolved plot threads or open questions, but I imagine you already guessed that. Now go and wander around several square miles of countryside killing dogs until you get bored and decide you might as well continue with this inane tripe."
I'm not sure if I should correct this or just wait for you to figure it out on your own...
evilthecat said:
Now Planescape is a brilliant game, but let's be honest, the ending probably didn't make you feel good. It's a great ending, but like you said it's bittersweet. It's an old, old man coming to terms with his own ego in the face of death, essentially. This is also back in the days when RPGs didn't have multiple endings, so it's the only one you're offered and the only one which makes sense.
That would leave a lot of people disappointed nowadays.. games, more so than any other medium, are built on the pleasure principle, and people expect a psychic reward from working to complete a game. Planescape Torment, even at the time, was extremely exceptional and a signification proportion of people didn't like it (the internet hadn't really taken off to the extent that they had forums to rant about it on, but you get the idea).
It's frustrating, but I'm not sure I see an answer.
No, I hear you, and I don't think I necessarily speak for the majority when I hunger for anti-heroes and subverted tropes. It would be nice, though, to have the option more than once every 10-15 years or so, especially from a developer as ballyhooed for storytelling aptitude as Bioware. We have a Space Cowboy series, a Fantasy Cowboy Series, and a Jedi Cowboy series from them. Can we not have ONE that's a little more...grown up?
Simply untrue. Obsidian is head and shoulders above Bioware in terms of quality of narrative. They just can't put together a working, polished game to save their lives.
"Hello kids, I'm captain Picard and I can see instantly are you are the protagonist. This means I must die and pass on my special amulet because YOU are the ONLY ONE who can STOP THEM! Now, go speak to a random monk who will tell you that I have a really convenient bastard son who just happens to be a priest and who just happens to also be an expert on Daedric magic but who noone bothered to keep a very close eye on so you might have to go through some exposition to rescue him. Don't worry, none of this will ever be explained or achieve any emotional relevance and the bastard will die/go away at the end to ensure that we don't leave any unresolved plot threads or open questions, but I imagine you already guessed that. Now go and wander around several square miles of countryside killing dogs until you get bored and decide you might as well continue with this inane tripe."
Now we have KOTOR, Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins. Morality is black and white (most achingly in KOTOR, where the "evil" options are the most absurd Snidely Whiplash nonsense imaginable), the heroes are all preposterous Mary Sues, and the storylines are all hackneyed "Boy's Own Adventure" rubbish. An evil Sith is threatening the universe! You must gather a band of plucky companions to stop him. An evil monster is threatening the kingdom! You must gather a band of plucky companions to stop him. Evil robots are threatening the galaxy! You must gather a band of plucky companions to stop them.
They are RPGs, you are not going to get away from the "plucky companions" thing. Every RPG I have played, even non-BioWare ones, has you gather up companions along the journey. It is the core RPG formula.
Plus there is going to be a main story of stopping the end of the, home, town, country, world, galaxy, or universe.
What is the point of gathering up powerful friends to help out if there isn't some big tough bad at the end to fight.
I certainly wouldn't want to play a game where I have to gather up friends to go help me file my taxes.
RPGs are about having the cliche main story, with strong character stories.
Please see Planescape: Torment, Mask of the Betrayer, or even Ultima IV or VI. There is absolutely no hard and fast rule that you need a big evil to fight or a world threatening calamity in order to craft a compelling RPG, or to have a reason to gather companions. It's just pure intellectual laziness on the part of the writers that it's almost universally the only story we ever see.
Considering the fact that the guys there hate JRPGs and some good stories are starting to come from that area I can see where the lack of originality stuff comes from.
You know what I've done (damn co-development in New Vegas)..
Seriously though, the point stands..
KotoR 2: Not really better than KotoR in the story department (although I'll admit I liked it more). Also, setting appropriateness is off. KotoR felt like a star Wars game in the way it's sequel never did.
Neverwinter Nights 2: Okay, it's cruel to judge D&D games on their story because they are hamstrung into this batshit stupid setting. But still, Planescape managed it..
Alpha Protocol: Take Deus Ex - mix in wallpaper paste and some bad national stereotypes. Ta da!
New Vegas: See everything I wrote about Oblivion and make it slightly better but still riddled with inexplicable coincidence and an absolute and total lack of tonal consistency.
Dungeon Siege III: I've never played it, but given the Dungeon Siege games I have played they would have had to tear up the floorboards to make anything worth playing for its story.
It's just...I keep coming back to Planescape. Or even Mask of the Betrayer. Why can THEY do it? Why is Planescape oozing with imagination and mature, thoughtful, thematic depth, and a decade later I'm fighting "The Darkspawn" who are trying to take over the world. Why? Because they're evil, that's why!
Honestly? I'd say because BioWare only had to lean on TSR's licensed material in order to produce Planescape's narrative. Odds are they really dug the universe and tried to do what they could with it - but they didn't have to build it from the ground up.
Torment wasn't developed by Bioware. It was developed by Black Isle and written by Chris Avellone.
And actually, the ammount of original material in it is amazing for a licensed game. If I remember correctly, the basic idea was making a fantasy RPG that didn't use any of the usual cliches.
Bethesda and obsidian are alot better to immerse the player using a good story.
Bioware is just faaar too cliche. Sure its great if you're 10-12 years old and just stopped watching Bambi on a daily basis.
But I think the bioware dialogue is horrid and unimmersive.
The fallout universe was created by obsidian, hence why I mentioned them, so read my post again.
Morrowind's story is EPIC, ask anyone who played it seriously and read all the dialouge.
Although oblivions story wasnt original, the way it is presented is what immerses the player, and thats what they're doing alot better than bioware, and in my opinion is best at.
The elder scrolls are open world games, so they also use the story to tour the player thoughout the world aswell. Something they did better in morrowind than oblivion, but both were good.
As I said, the problem with bioware is the horrid dialogues that are so damn cliche. And with bad dialogue comes bad storytelling, because the dialogue tells the story.
And if you complain about oblivions plot, take a look at mass effect, its not like its more original than any elder scrolls game. Just pointing that out for you.
I quite liked DA2's plot- up until Act 3, that felt really rushed. If they'd taken the time to do that last act properly and put some actual effort into level design, DA2 would have been truly great.
Simply untrue. Obsidian is head and shoulders above Bioware in terms of quality of narrative. They just can't put together a working, polished game to save their lives.
If he says yes, he should be shot. Its PMC Plot Line #333 (albeit one with a wildly inconsistent tone) - the game's only redeeming feature was how malleable the story was, but that's rather redundant when it makes you want to shoot yourself.
You keep saying dis word, redundant. I do not theenk it means what you think it means.
Also black and white morality in any Dragon Age game? REALLY!?!
The fact that one would equate 'Friendly', 'Cocky', 'Aggressive' equals a good, neutral, evil mix to the OP is more telling of the OP's understanding of morality than Dragon Age 2's.
And there was a good evil choice anywhere in Dragon Age? All the choices seemed to me to be about choosing between two equally valid but opposing camps... Like the choice between Bhelen and Harromont. Good vs Evil? One involved choosing the 'good' of freeing a rigid and unfair caste system with 'evil' do-whatever-to-maintain-power rule, vs. the 'good' always rule by the high road and faily but 'evil' society that ostracizes members to live as less than animals because of accident of birth.
It's like people play completely different games than I do with the exact same titles....
I can sort of see what you're getting at, but for these kinds of games where your character is determined by your 'choices,' he/she's always going to be a blank slate as a personality and it's for that reason that you will never see that much character development. Yes, that includes the side characters, too, because your reactions to their problems may vary. I can't even see it being easy to do a truly moving storyline for such a character because most stories that aren't about you fighting evil with your plucky adventurers usually require the main character to be his/her own person, and not one we mold in that aspect. It's surprising just how much influence a simple game mechanic like that can have, huh?
You know what I've done (damn co-development in New Vegas)..
Seriously though, the point stands..
KotoR 2: Not really better than KotoR in the story department (although I'll admit I liked it more). Also, setting appropriateness is off. KotoR felt like a star Wars game in the way it's sequel never did.
Neverwinter Nights 2: Okay, it's cruel to judge D&D games on their story because they are hamstrung into this batshit stupid setting. But still, Planescape managed it..
Alpha Protocol: Take Deus Ex - mix in wallpaper paste and some bad national stereotypes. Ta da!
New Vegas: See everything I wrote about Oblivion and make it slightly better but still riddled with inexplicable coincidence and an absolute and total lack of tonal consistency.
Dungeon Siege III: I've never played it, but given the Dungeon Siege games I have played they would have had to tear up the floorboards to make anything worth playing for its story.
Aright maybe I should narrow my Obsidian praise down to Mask of the Betrayer. Some of Obsidian's team are carryovers from Black Isle, so it's hard not to give them some residual credit for Planescape and for developing the Fallout IP. I've not played Dungeon Siege 3, so if it's garbage, I can't defend it.
The fallout universe was created by obsidian, hence why I mentioned them, so read my post again.
Morrowind's story is EPIC, ask anyone who played it seriously and read all the dialouge.
Although oblivions story wasnt original, the way it is presented is what immerses the player, and thats what they're doing alot better than bioware, and in my opinion is best at.
The elder scrolls are open world games, so they also use the story to tour the player thoughout the world aswell. Something they did better in morrowind than oblivion, but both were good.
As I said, the problem with bioware is the horrid dialogues that are so damn cliche. And with bad dialogue comes bad storytelling, because the dialogue tells the story.
And if you complain about oblivions plot, take a look at mass effect, its not like its more original than any elder scrolls game. Just pointing that out for you.
Morrowind's plot really isn't that great. Yeah, it's "epic" which is exactly what is cited as a problem with Bioware's plots by the OP.
Oblivion's isn't immersive, you just happen to be the prisoner in the cell where the emperor was escaping from. The dialogue was very meh in both it's writing and voice acting.
Fallout was created by people who are a part of Obsidian a long time ago. What have they done since? Made broken games with good stories. Great. Next time in the opening of New Vegas the doctor's head starts spinning around and I can't speak to him, I'll think about how immersive a game it is.
They're fine games, but you can't seriously praise Bethesda for story writing/dialogue while in the same breath badmouthing Bioware. It's foolish.
In a high fantasy setting, sometimes morality is black and white. Plenty of really good fantasy books do it. Not everything has to be shades of grey and so on. Sure it tends to be more realistic and 'gritty' but we are playing a game.
Just play the Witcher 2 if you want no clear moral choices.
Alternatively titled "Why Dragon Age 2 was a step in the right direction, if they hadn't dropped the ball".
My girlfriend, bless her little heart, recently decided she'd heard quite enough about these old classic RPGs I'm always rambling on about, and wanted to try them for herself. So we downloaded Planescape Torment for her from GOG, and she finished up her play through the other night. Now, I've always held Planescape in high regard, and I've always felt that Bioware...which is sort of our go-to developer for high end story based RPGs these days...kept falling short of what Black Isle was doing with narrative over a decade ago.
Forget all the themes about belief, loss, guilt, grief and redemption woven throughout the story, the canonical ending has you merging with your own severed mortality...in effect ending your immortality and facing the punishment that awaits you for your extraordinary crimes. It's thoughtful, bittersweet, non-violent, and above all else, deeply original.
Now we have KOTOR, Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins. Morality is black and white (most achingly in KOTOR, where the "evil" options are the most absurd Snidely Whiplash nonsense imaginable), the heroes are all preposterous Mary Sues, and the storylines are all hackneyed "Boy's Own Adventure" rubbish. An evil Sith is threatening the universe! You must gather a band of plucky companions to stop him. An evil monster is threatening the kingdom! You must gather a band of plucky companions to stop him. Evil robots are threatening the galaxy! You must gather a band of plucky companions to stop them.
Now, there's nothing wrong with a little tepid story telling if the game and the presentation are strong, and Bioware usually delivers in this area. They write endearing characters, their dialogue sparkles with wit and personality, and they've clearly got a good handle on using music, cinematics and pacing to build atmosphere. All good. But these story lines and characters have the depth of a communion wafer. They can do better than this. They should do better than this.
Dragon Age 2 seemed like a step in the right direction. Instead of a big Foozle terrorizing the nation, we have the Arishok and the Qunari...a cauldron of political tension pushing to the boiling point by his lawful abhorrence of the depravities of Kirkwall's society. And we have the Templar/Mage conflict, where you're forced to choose between the lesser of two evils based on your personal philosophy. These are interesting conflicts, and a step in the right direction. Of course they were sloppily written and underdeveloped because Dragon Age was rushed out the door after two and a half weeks of development time, but they showed promise. And because DA2 fell flat on its ass to a certain degree, I am almost positive when DA3 rolls around Bioware will strive to redeem themselves by giving us another goddam ancient evil to overcome. WITH OUR PLUCKY COMPANIONS.
And really, at that point, I feel like I'm going to come close to being done with Bioware. Oh, don't get me wrong. I'll finish up my Mass Effect story. I care about my Shepard, I do. And I'll still look with interest on what they're up to. But this stuff will become Steam sale day purchases instead of hungrily awaited launch day buys, because there is absolutely no defensible reason why a 12 year old game should be running circles around the newest titles from a prominent RPG developer that prides itself on story. There are a lot of adults playing RPGs now. Give us some adult stories. Give us some thematic depth. Give us some complex, conflicted characters. Give us ethical dilemmas beyond "save the baby" and "shoot the baby in the face, and LAUGH!". No more Archdemons and Reapers and Sith Lords bent on destroying the galaxy because OMGSOEVIL. Enough of that shit. I'm not 12 any more, and neither are you.
Tell us a real story.
PS - Poll added for shits and giggles. I'm sure the Escapist will eat it anyway.
I sympathize with your desire for real story, but unfortunately, that's not going to be happening any more. The game industry didn't used to be populated with wannabe Hollywood producers, writers and directors, but then it got big enough start hiring "pros" and now we get the same arrested-development crap that you see on TV and in the movies. Because the "pros" got to where they are not by taking risks or doing new things, but pandering to the lowest common denominator of the target market. And everyone was 12 years old at one time.
Sorry to say, but I'm out of the new game market because of this trend. Older games have their problems, but they also run like champs on reasonably modern hardware and have much more interesting stories. I am especially offended because the genre they're trashing is sci-fi and we've had tons of highly qualified authors who write real, interesting, moving stories in very realistic sci-fi settings. And "artificially-empowered, licensed to kill Modern Warfare-esque space hero with a hard-on for his/her coworkers" is the best these companies can do?
Just not good enough for me, sorry. They can have my money again when they can write a story that holds my attention.
Simply untrue. Obsidian is head and shoulders above Bioware in terms of quality of narrative. They just can't put together a working, polished game to save their lives.
If he says yes, he should be shot. Its PMC Plot Line #333 (albeit one with a wildly inconsistent tone) - the game's only redeeming feature was how malleable the story was, but that's rather redundant when it makes you want to shoot yourself.
You keep saying dis word, redundant. I do not theenk it means what you think it means.
Also black and white morality in any Dragon Age game? REALLY!?!
The fact that one would equate 'Friendly', 'Cocky', 'Aggressive' equals a good, neutral, evil mix to the OP is more telling of the OP's understanding of morality than Dragon Age 2's.
And there was a good evil choice anywhere in Dragon Age? All the choices seemed to me to be about choosing between two equally valid but opposing camps... Like the choice between Bhelen and Harromont. Good vs Evil? One involved choosing the 'good' of freeing a rigid and unfair caste system with 'evil' do-whatever-to-maintain-power rule, vs. the 'good' always rule by the high road and faily but 'evil' society that ostracizes members to live as less than animals because of accident of birth.
It's like people play completely different games than I do with the exact same titles....
And there was a good evil choice anywhere in Dragon Age? All the choices seemed to me to be about choosing between two equally valid but opposing camps... Like the choice between Bhelen and Harromont. Good vs Evil? One involved choosing the 'good' of freeing a rigid and unfair caste system with 'evil' do-whatever-to-maintain-power rule, vs. the 'good' always rule by the high road and faily but 'evil' society that ostracizes members to live as less than animals because of accident of birth.
Bhelen and Harrowmont was a high point in DA:O, in the same way Mordin and the Genophage was a high point in ME2. They are less than a fraction of the game play, and lie well outside the central narrative thrust. They are, however, evidence that Bioware is more than capable of coloring in shades of grey when they choose to.
And even then, BioWare's stories aren't totally cut-and-paste. You're completely leaving out the issues of plot twists that make BioWare's stories unique.
Honestly, I've never understood people being impressed with Biowares plot twists. Every game of theirs that I have ever played, they have so heavy handedly telegraphed what was coming that it's hard to be surprised, let alone give a crap when the reveal finally happens. What's more, I've never found their plot twists to be very original, or even all that interesting, and I blame a lot of it on the fact that their fairly black and white take on moral issues prevents them from really exploring grey areas that would be far more interesting.
And the fact that they like to ape fairly familiar sci-fi and fantasy tropes for all they're worth doesn't help much either.
Hang on.. Obsidian was founded in 2003, Fallout was released by Interplay in 1997.
Black Isle, whose employees founded Obsidian, made Fallout 2, which I'm going to come out and say had a worse story, much worse setting consistency and some really cringe-worthy bits.
Oh, additionally, DA:O isn't as allover black-and-white as some people seem to think.
1. The dwarven king has died, and you are in a position to help one of two people claim the throne. One is an utter douchebag who kills everyone he doesn't agree with, but ultimately is the only person capable of bringing Orzammar into the modern era and giving its citizens the best life they can have (assuming they don't piss him off). The other is a good guy, but would make a pretty weak ruler who would make no effort to improve the lives of his subjects, in the name of "tradition" and playing it safe. (Oh, looks like someone else mentioned this while I was typing this post up.)
2. A number of other quests in Orzammar involve choosing between progress/education at the expense of potentially great conflict, and doing nothing.
3. The bandits, profiteers, and crime lords you encounter throughout the game are hurting people, yes, but some of them also take care of the people who work for them while others are preventing conflicts that they believe are even worse than what they're doing.
4. The Keeper of the Dalish Elf clan, who is by all accounts an excellent leader to his people, has kept himself alive for hundreds of years through a curse involving turning some people who wronged him a long time ago into werewolves. The werewolves are very violent and often attack his clan, but they are developing intelligence and free will. Do you kill him? The werewolves? The entire elf clan (dick choice)?
5. During the Landsmeet, you have to gain support from a number of nobles. Some of them require you to do some...rather iffy things for them, or else they are just bad people who would nevertheless make great allies. It isn't even an entirely "for the greater good" choice here, because just about all of the outcomes have fairly equal good sides and bad sides. The whole Landsmeet quest is pretty brilliant, actually. All politics.
6. At the end of the game, Morrigan, whom you have come to (mostly) trust by this point, offers you a choice: allow one of the remaining Grey Wardens to die (either yourself, Alistair, or Loghain), or allow her to become pregnant with a demon-spawn abomination for reasons that are currently unknown. There really isn't a "good" or "bad" answer here.
7. Most of the quests in the game involve choosing to help out other people because you're a goodie two-shoes, helping them for the sake of rewards (which could also be used to fund your main quest), not helping them because you have more important things to do and you're short on time, or not helping them because you're a dick.
8. One of the two main villains, Loghain, is just a guy who is very concerned with his country's safety and believes he is the only one who can ensure it. He fought off the Orlesians when they were oppressing his countrymen, and after such a long time of seeing them as the enemies, he can't bring himself to accept their support. This is the main thing that turns him against King Cailan, along with the fact that he believes Cailan is just too young, stupid, and obsessed with glory...mostly because he isn't his father, who was Loghain's best friend. He isn't a mustache-twirling villain, he honestly believes he's doing the only right thing. And he can be brought around to your side to an extent too. The darkspawn/Archdemon story is almost a sidenote to this story, which really feels like the main one.
9. I could go on, but I think that's enough to support my point.
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