The Compelling Story Within a Story in Shadow of Mordor

Yahtzee Croshaw

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The Compelling Story Within a Story in Shadow of Mordor

The main story of the new Shadow of Mordor game offers a forgettable character on a mission. But dig deeper and you find a narrative worth following.

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LaughingAtlas

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Outstanding how what was once a random kill-and-forget mook can tell a more gripping tale than a terminally ill child you need to fetch another fix of Not-Zombie for every damn day. I haven't played Shadow of Mordor, but I imagine it all ends in tragedy anyway if you have to kill the guy you helped ascend to Warchief on account of him being a Warchief, if that's how it works.
 

Neurotic Void Melody

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State of decay has this oft self generated storytelling, aside the whole 'teh zombies again?' thing. Very intriguing. I would imagine the healthier the imagination, the deeper the story, no? The only issue is not all gamers like to squeeze their imaginatory glands.
 

Alex Baas

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Rest in peace Khosh. I hope there are many alive things in the orc afterlife for you to kill.
 

SilverUchiha

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I'm far more invested in the game now that I'm actually working to get Orcs to positions of power (via brainwashing) in order to take over the armies. It's way more fun than whatever it was I was supposed to be doing.
 

Jandau

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The big problem with the Nemesis system (which I generally consider to be an awesome thing) is that it "punishes" people for being good at the game. You need to fail for it to really kick in. If you are too efficient and hunting down high ranking orcs you can easily end up pretty much amputating one of the game's major mechanics. And when I find myself saying "Alright then, let's get killed a few times to shake things up!", that kinda takes me out of it...

Again, I do think that Nemesis is a great concept and the implementation isn't bad, just that it (or other similar systems) need more work in the future.
 

freaper

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Yep. I pretty much had the same experience working towards some of the more interesting achievements. I posted 2 paragraphs in another thread, but in short, I love games where you can create your own narrative within their framework. Shadow of Mordor is almost perfect in that regard (a bit repetitive at times). Skyrim also allowed you to work on your own narrative, but that was more because all the main quests and such were completely unhinged and nothing really carried any consequences in the world.

Jandau said:
The big problem with the Nemesis system (which I generally consider to be an awesome thing) is that it "punishes" people for being good at the game. You need to fail for it to really kick in. If you are too efficient and hunting down high ranking orcs you can easily end up pretty much amputating one of the game's major mechanics. And when I find myself saying "Alright then, let's get killed a few times to shake things up!", that kinda takes me out of it...

Again, I do think that Nemesis is a great concept and the implementation isn't bad, just that it (or other similar systems) need more work in the future.
Yea, the game did get easy quickly once you got used to the controls and combat mechanics. Fingers crossed for an enhanced difficulty edition Witcher 2 style? :p
 

Demagogue

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I know I've read similar things a few different places, but Yahtzee this was the best non-review Review of the game it could have possibly gotten.
 

Gretha Unterberg

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Pretty much the reason why I love the Civ series .

A random seed, a fistfull of good mechanics/rules and you got story evolves around you.
Problem is that its requires a hell lot more efford then hard-coding/scripting "dramatic events".


And why should you do this from a buisness perspective?

People might be more interested ti play it more then once,
but this means they are less likely to BUY sequel that contains a different event.
 

Fdzzaigl

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The nemesis system was great, but it sort of fell flat on its face for me because of how OP the main character was. I could literally make 4 guys Warchief in an hour by destroying their competition easily.

Don't start about making button prompts invisible, not only is that a ridiculous way to improve the difficulty, but it wouldn't help much either. The path to win in this game is simply by staying on the outside, hitting something with the wraith stun and slashing him 5 times quickly in order to get two executions in a row or two combat drains / brands with the relevant talents.

Once you get a rune that heals you 30% on each combat drain its GG for the orcs.

A related issue is that the Nemesis system does give a lot of variety, but the "boss" mobs still sort of all behave the same way, except they have more health and do more damage + they're immune to some things.

Honestly, I think this system would have been much more impressive if it was done in a generally more interesting game and if it wasn't the only thing the game had going for it. Shadow of Mordor was a very flat experience for the most part: characters had as much depth as a bulldozed pancake, the story could be written on a piece of toiletpaper, few enemy types besides the nemesis system, boring environments.

Not to mention
an ending that exists entirely out of QTE's FFS.

Imagine that same system in a game like Skyrim though, used to give each faction even more replay value? Epic win.
 

Thanatos2k

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I can't wait to play this game 6 months from now when they finally release a "complete" edition. DLC ruins everything.
 

Muspelheim

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To the memory of Khosh, the Drunken Greenskin that Could.

EDIT: Come to think of it, this is the sort of thing that Dwarf Fortress does really well, if you take the time to get into the heads of your little beardy charges.

Like the expedition leader, who worked his fat fingers to the bone making the settlement livable, only to be subplanted as mayor by the slimy soapmaker that arrived last summer. Or the mason and mother of six who were found drained of blood in her bed one morning. That murder was later linked to that very same soapmaker, who were exposed as a charismatic vampire after a failed drain attempt.
The best part is that the husband of the killed mason was the lawd0rf on duty that carried out the beating the former mayor was sentenced to. Amusingly, the mayor was killed by it, despite the fact that I equip all lawd0rfs with wood truncheons specifically to avoid that.

Dwarven Justice. It isn't elegant, but I welcome it nonetheless.
 

RandV80

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I hadn't heard about the nemesis system until Yahtzee's video, I'm pretty damned impressed though. Honestly This is the type of 'innovation' I was expecting we'd be getting 10 years ago when the PS3 and Xbox 360 launched and were highlighting their multi-core architecture. An actual new innovative way of making games rather than the same old with higher graphics. If you have multiple CPU's running at once you should be able to make them 'do stuff' in the background that creates dynamic content while the rest processes what's currently on screen for the player.
 

Skeleon

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Crud, the more I hear about this game - and, yes, Yahtzee isn't the only one reporting such experiences with it - the more I'm tempted to buy it. At this point I'm pretty much certain I'll get it. But for the first time in ages, I'm actually tempted to buy a game soon after release rather than when it goes to budget price. Still, I've got a lot of Skyrim and other games to play, so, honestly, it'll probably be waiting. But I can't deny a certain... glee and expectation.
 

dangoball

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Jandau said:
The big problem with the Nemesis system (which I generally consider to be an awesome thing) is that it "punishes" people for being good at the game. You need to fail for it to really kick in. If you are too efficient and hunting down high ranking orcs you can easily end up pretty much amputating one of the game's major mechanics. And when I find myself saying "Alright then, let's get killed a few times to shake things up!", that kinda takes me out of it...

Again, I do think that Nemesis is a great concept and the implementation isn't bad, just that it (or other similar systems) need more work in the future.
See, I haven't played the game yet, but I've followed the discussion and this came up quite often. I would go about it with a bit of role-playing. Talion is immortal and aware of it and provided he has more tactical nuance than "TALION KILL ORK" I could imagine him actually brainwashing an orc and then dying on purpose to promote him up the ranks. Anyone trying to take on Mordor has to see the advantage of having an army at his command and one doesn't have to be Sun Tzu to see that army of sleeper agents is a marvelous thing.
So even if you're good at it, dying doesn't have to be just "shake it up", but "how do I die to help that one bugger rise in the ranks". And if you active your sleeper agents at will, is it possible to not activate them at all during a battle? If so, you might let your agent kill you on purpose to let him grow in power. That's how I would make use of Talion's immortality.
 

Bedinsis

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Gretha Unterberg said:
Pretty much the reason why I love the Civ series .

A random seed, a fistfull of good mechanics/rules and you got story evolves around you.
Problem is that its requires a hell lot more efford then hard-coding/scripting "dramatic events".
I prefer Crusader Kings II. It gets more relatable when the individual actors in the game are actually meant to simulate people rather then more abstract concepts such as "nations".
 

Sniper Team 4

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A very good story, Yahtzee. I can't wait to get this game. Next month I get a PS4, and this will be one of three games that I get with it. So looking forward to this.