Poll: RPGs: Who reads all that text anyways?

[dickseverywhere]

my brother regularly skips all the cutscenes in a game then demands i explain whats going on because he has no idea. was quite proud of him when he sat through all of it in mass effect and took the time to make good use of the dialogue options.

 

[Another]

Depends. I read all of the codex in mass effect.

But I read hardly anything in Neverwinter Nights, maybe 50% of the Dragon Age stuff, about 0% of things in Oblivion. I've never really enjoyed the Elder Scrolls.

 

[Aurora219]

Most. Though it's getting harder and harder as the days go by. Every game's in-house novel is longer than the last; I think Mass Effect 2 alone has the equivalent of 9,000 pages of text in it.

 

[malestrithe]

The first time through, I read every single word in a RPG. I talk to every NPC, I try and hunt down every single cut scene. It does not matter if it is a JRPG or a Western one a friend's given me, I want to know as much as I can about the world I'm going to run through for 75-110 hours straight.

The second time, if I choose to play it again, i'll skip the majority of the text.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

A very, very flawed poll. It does not take into account the context of the game.

OT: I only read the text if it's interesting. You know, something which I perceive as having a modicum of quality.

You're right, I have thought about this before making it, and I feared that putting it into context and might narrow down the poll a bit, whereas i would just like to get as many peoples input as possible. So I thought I'd leave it to the Escapists themselves to put the game into context, be it with examples, types of games, which playthrough, and how much they actually enjoy it

 

[SimuLord]

I read some of the Oblivion stuff (The Real Barenziah was quite an enjoyable read, so was A Game At Dinner), but not obsessively so.

 

[Ashendarei]

in Dragon Age I've taken the time to read almost EVERY codex entry, but I'm getting the sinking feeling that it's going to do be exactly ZERO good in the end ...

that being said it's still cool

 

[Double A]

The only book I liked in any Elder Scrolls was The Real Barenziah. Freaking great.

I read most of the ME codex (I listened to everything too), some of the ME2 (basically anything new), and a majority of the DA codex.

 

[Belbe]

Most, it's a sign of a good game to have a 3D/well rounded world with it's own lore, character histories and things that answer questions about plot etc. WoW is probably the one place I don't really read outside of what's required to do a quest - too much and too busy trying to level up can't be bothered...

 

[spartan1077]

I read everything that is presented to me but I won't go out of the way for some book that sheds light on something.

 

[Yureina]

I read the text, but since I read faster than the voice acting says the lines out loud, I tend to miss alot of the spoken dialogue.

 

[likalaruku]

I remember the first time I played Morrowind & Myst; I read all of every thing I came across. If that area had books, I'd read each one. I do that with Hidden Object Games too; the HOGs that don't have diaries & journals tend to be very boring.

 

[Snotnarok]

I've read the entire Mass Effect Codex.

All of it.

With or without the monocle?

 

[CarpathianMuffin]

I tend to read as much of the text as I can so I get a handle on the situation. I may skip it if I've read it before and had to reload a save, for instance, but I'll read it for the most part.

 

[zombiesinc]

I read all of the text that's directly related to the storyline, but not so much of anything else.

 

[Dango]

I only ever read the dialogue. All the other stuff is a nice touch, but reading is not why I play video games.

 

[AngelicSven]

Well, Thanks to all JRPGs back in the PSX days when I was young, I obtained a college reading level/comprehension when I was in 8th grade.

 

[spartan231490]

It depends on how much i care about the world and the rp aspects of the game. In dragon age, i've read almost everythign that i have found, maybe all of it, but in mass effect, i read literally none of it.

 

[Traun]

I was sitting there a few days ago, enjoying Ultima 4(due to a recent article here I wanted to play it) and Ceaser III(the rest of the series became too easy), thinking how games today were extremely simplified. You know, Civilization ain't what it's supposed to be and RPG's are becoming more action-adventure than RPG's.

And then I see this thread. Reading the Mass Effect codex is a big thing, really? It's a collection of pamphlets for crying out laud. Not to be disrespectful, but ME is story light. At least you were interested in the universe enough to seek all the info about it.

 

[Snarky Username]

I read nearly everything in Mass Effect. Every codex, line of dialog, description. I just never read the planet descriptions because they were almost always useless and boring. I would always read a book I found interesting in Oblivion though.