The Story

[ischmalud]

ill go with something completely different, since it seems wierd that people in this discussion focus on shooter - "shooterish" games.
Wouldnt everyone agree that by definition the games with the best/ most immersive story line/ story telling tools should be rpgs? but having said that the 3 lads in the discussion probably pointed EVERYTHING out that EVER (at least the ones i played) mmorpg did wrong - yea we back to bitching about pages of "plot"...zzzzZZzzz. and even most singleplayer rpgs seems to make the same mistake, interessting at least from reading this thread and i havent played many of the games mentioned here it seems that the FPS comm by now gets better stories than us wizzard and elve nerds - kinda upside down.
i actually started a new mmorpg RIFT and TRIED to read through quests and give a shit about what i was doing.....that worked for about 30mins after that i was back to checkin my map for the cute circles telling me where to go to kill shit for w/e reason - what drove that home to me was that some kid warned me of a werewolf quest chain and some know bug. after being told that i realised i had finished that chain 4 hours prior without triggering the bug (by chance) but it took me another 2 hours of running arround to realise that ive done it thats how "immersed" i had been in the story - but hey i mad 4 lvls and earned 8 platinum in cash so who cares right ???
Also on a side note i gotta go with the flow of pps here saying that choices in discusions should have an affect on the game but rather than just locking some content if x choice is made it should lock one aspect and unlock another and visa verca.
Who knows maybe the idea of having a fully voiced mmorpg will actually make for an immersive mmorpg - looking at you SWtoR.
appart from that yea i think there should be story lines in some more complex games, but games like Serious Sam etc will never ever need much story or any at all since the reason u play those games is a different one.

 

[Drake_Dercon]

Yahtzee: Dead Space is one recent game I can think of that tends to keep its cutscenes within gameplay, as well as telling quite a bit of story in the background and ancillary details, but it still falls down for me because it lacks another vital component of storytelling, that is, effective pacing. The importance of that depends to some degree on what sort of game you're making, and in horror it's crucial.
As for dialogue trees, it depends how they're done. The Bioware standard of having the characters stand woodenly across from each other running down a shopping list of options one by one like a job interview, I always find that slightly tortuous. I liked how Alpha Protocol did it, with a little timer and an analog stick selector to keep the discussion ticking along, I just wish it could be worked more organically into gameplay.

I'd like an NPC to start talking to me as soon as I come close to them, rather than staring mutely at me until I hit the context-sensitive prompt flashing over their heads. I'd then like to still be in control of my character throughout the conversation, walking around, fiddling with ornaments, hunting through drawers, shooting arrows at bunny rabbits, etc, with dialogue options being selected with some quick on-screen prompt using a button or control that is otherwise unoccupied. I don't know if you guys saw the Plinkett review of Revenge of the Sith, but he makes a good point that all the dialogue scenes are just two people standing (or sitting) and gabbing at each other, and it's incredibly dull. People do other things while they talk; it makes for more dynamic discourse and an opportunity for characterization.

I agree with this statement.

That is to say that I think storytelling should be done NO MATTER WHAT. It should bear some form, be it an involved network to uncover, an ultimate goal or a distinct culture. Even sandbox games need that.

I also think that a decision that becomes inconsequential serves to diminish the game, though you should know what you're saying. To me, the ideal game offers dialogue options via the d-pad (because it's so rarely used), without interrupting gameplay. You always know what reactions your choices generally provoke (for instance, up is the moral high ground option, right is the suspicious option, low is the zero-tolerance option, left shifts to an alternate menu where up is the "it'll all be all right" option, left is the sarcastic option, down is the total prick option and right shifts back), while these will dictate future actions of the NPCs, you can't accidentally kill someone or block off a quest (accidentally applies to that, too). What it should do is dictate how the NPCs react to you, if they're likely to show a blatant dislike of you in public and how they propose character-specific quests, as well as the romance options because what game isn't better without those.

What I agree with is the fact that cutscenes are abused. Don't get me wrong, some are a good idea, but all too often they force the linearity of a game and are used much to frequently to do something an interactive medium isn't supposed to do, which is tell a story over which you have no control other than in which order the baddies die.

This may also overlap into an interactivity debate because even without conversation a player could influence the game. In a good game (a really good one) the way you complete one section could dictate parts of the next. Fire emblem almost managed this: if you let a character die, they no longer appear in cutscenes. But I think it needs to be farther-eaching than that.

If there is one thing that should be drawn from this it is that every part of a game should be its story. The environments and random NPCs/enemies define its culture, the important NPCs should be at least complete characters, all of the player's actions should have consequences (though only small ones) and the flow should never stop except for a very good reason.

That's a perfect game.

This would also call up the importance of atmosphere and atmosphere versus graphics, but I think I've run off at the mouth long enough for today.

 

[OuroborosChoked]

To everyone complaining about Okami and Issun's interruptions:

Don't play Okamiden.

It's MUCH worse.

I just don't get it, either. It's a portable game, but it's LOADED with cutscenes, unnecessary characters, and exposition dumps. There are so many unnecessary characters in Okamiden, the made the plot needlessly convoluted just to make them fit.

Yes, the cutscenes are skippable, but most of the time you start in one situation, and by the end of the cutscene, everything is completely different: new partner, new location, new quest... and you're left wondering - "WTF did I miss??" *reset* *sit through dreary, dull, long cutscene*

ugh... rant over.

 

[Grabbin Keelz]

lol I kept clicking to go on the second page thinking the discussion wasn't over.

This kinda gave me some insight. As much as I love games like Fallout 3, I should still consider criticizing it on some bits rather than assuming its perfect.

 

[GodKlown]

Alright fellas, let's get into this topic. Storytelling is an important feature in any event wherein you want to draw someone into an unfamiliar setting. Some games are good at it (Saint's Row, GTA, Mass Effect) and others make you wonder what the hell you are doing or why you are doing it (sorry, no specific example jumps to mind but just add any generic game titles here that aren't triple A games). That being said, some games with a good story are just torturous to deal with.

Take for example Dragon Age. Everyone talked up what a great game this was, and the fact that Bioware was attached got a lot of fans frothing at the mouths. Being a fan of Bioware myself, I gave Dragon Age a shot a few months after it had come out and was more easily available. Granted, the combat was nice and the character animations were great, but I could have given two craps' less about the story... but you aren't allowed to really ignore it. Hours upon hours spent reading dialogue and going through trees just to try and resolve a conflict that you really had no stake in, you just need to complete this senseless quest in order to further the game. And you have to stand there for a virtual eternity while some dead-eyed doll lays out their life story for you. Not even half way through the game, I was just rushing through the dialog to get back to cutting off heads. The dialog got to be so much that I just didn't care anymore. Has that happened to anyone else? Have you ever had a game tell you so much story that it actually caused you to stop caring about it?

Back in Atari days, there were games either that had a brief story (sometimes in the manual) or had none. What was the story with Pitfall? Q-Bert? Pac-Man? Nobody knows, nobody cares. Once we started seeing stories and story arches play out in games, like the original Final Fantasy, it was exciting. You saw you were making an impact on this virtual world, and for you could clearly see you were doing something. Now? Sure, you get the same experience, just with fancier cut-scenes and voice acting. The concept is the same, only the technology has changed. Some would say it has improved the landscape, but really we're still doing things the same old way. Now if we could do something about the action-cutscene-action-cutscene-action formula...

 

[Skratt]

I like seeing the 3 of you put your heads together on topics like this, you should do it more often.

...I don't have time for unlimited playthroughs of a game, so I want the one play I DO get to be good. But I find myself afraid to pick dialogue options as I please, and instead scrutinize a walkthrough for fear that if I choose poorly then NPC 1 will die later, or Quest-Line X will lock down... all because I said "Yes" to someone who seemed nice at the time.

I had this problem, right up until the point I played Mass Effect. My OCD mechanism had an aneurysm and I'm pretty sure about 10 hours into the first game I heard the audible *ping!* of a mental spring flying across the room, but I was able to play through one time on each game and treated it like I would a really long but interactive movie. This sometimes left me skipping entire dialogue trees because some situations made some of the dialogue options improbable. Had a blast all because I just let go an imagined that this is how the story happened. I just gave John Sheppard a temperament and just tried to stick to that throughout the game making choices accordingly.

I wonder if, at least sometimes, it's not the story that limits our enjoyment but the player that limits themselves. I know it is that way with me. I often imagine that the (game play | cut scene | game play | cut scene) formula is to try and eliminate the "player" from ruining a "great game".

 

[Cenequus]

To an extend I disagree with them. While I can't stand japanese games and their long boring cinematics I'm not for the Half-Life/Bioshock kind of story telling. In my opinion only works with FPS in the way they can actually implement a story behind the mindless excuse for shooting stuff. Extending this to everything is 3D Avatar,crappy film but huge succes because of the 3D so everybody and his friends now makes 3D movies regardless if there is not "scenario" to benefit from beeing in 3D. Anyway point is I want games to have the classic way of interaction because it feels like a reward seeing how the chars act after the options you made along the way(good example DA2 with the long time span).

 

[rickicker]

I still say the prime example of a good story-telling in games are the ones who does it very little and let us connect the dots for ourselves. Remember how fun it was to play through "Shadow of the Colossus"? Half of that fun is because we came up with the story ourselves, with the game only dropping us hints of what the hell happened in that limited time and space. I agree with one of the earlier posters there, saying that "play, don't show" should have been the motto in good game-making/story-telling, harkening back to the days of yore when the only semblance of story we got is "plumber rescues princess from deranged giant mutant turtle".

I don't wanna be an old codger about this, but really fellas, I feel that the original GTA games was much more fun to play due to the fact that it was not bloated with too much story. As one smart guy whom I can't name at the moment and is too lazy to look up: "Perfection and beauty in art is when a piece allows the viewers' imagination to roam free", and I guess we can agree that our beloved medium IS an art form, right?

 

[rickicker]

To an extend I disagree with them. While I can't stand japanese games and their long boring cinematics I'm not for the Half-Life/Bioshock kind of story telling. In my opinion only works with FPS in the way they can actually implement a story behind the mindless excuse for shooting stuff. Extending this to everything is 3D Avatar,crappy film but huge succes because of the 3D so everybody and his friends now makes 3D movies regardless if there is not "scenario" to benefit from beeing in 3D. Anyway point is I want games to have the classic way of interaction because it feels like a reward seeing how the chars act after the options you made along the way(good example DA2 with the long time span).

Hooo boy, won't you be disappointed when watching Yahtzee tore DA2 a new one in this week's review. "Gobbing your handsome friend". LOL! XD

 

[Cenequus]

Why would I be disappointed? He's doing shock humour reviews anyway.

As for the review itself I found it pretty mellow and he could have done way better if he was on the hate wagon.

As for the gay jokes he always does those why this time would have been different.

As for the lack of "epicness" of the story I actually enjoyed a change in the usual "you're the Chosen save the world" game story that all RPGs have. Yahztee sees that as a minus I see it as a plus.Different tastes who cares right?

 

[Yoshi Dragon]

in regards to that last comment in general how did noone notice how bad gaming stories were? maybe it's because noone was reading the slips of paper that came in the boxes with the games you know the instruction manual and other crap. i mean to see how bad it has always been just take a look at the story for yars revenge for the atari 2600 in this game your apparently playing a mutant space fly thing whose race eons ago had hitched a ride on some human astronaughts ship as they cruised the galaxy, not the humans are gone the race evolved and can eat any material and crate energy bolts from, which is good because your planet yars has come under attack by a race that it doesnt go into. your job is to kill thier big death ship by eating it's protective layer and shooting at it while it shoots energy bullets at yolu which you can hide from inside a radiation belt radiation apparently doesnt kill space mutant flies.

and thats basically the kind of backstory you get from alot of those old games least the ones who didnt have comics or tv shows.

but even if you do the story integration right i doubt it can be as immersive as a good book. to illustrate i'll give the example of a good book i read not to long ago called farseer, about a race of dino like creatures who evolved intelligence. the plot revolves around this races version of leonardo davinci who defies local religious authorities and starts telling and proving the planet is round and such theres a scene in it after he gets rounded up by the authorities where he gets his eyes stabbed out with a dagger and what makes this scene so powerful at least for me isnt merely the description but how the entire thing was built up. i dont think you can do that in a game because such things kind of need to lead you around a bit to get you where you need to be when you need to be there to get the effect wanted. all games have an element of players free will in them players usually explore the levels in whatever order plus theres death and repeat which all breaks that immersion little by little. thats not to say you cant get some really good story elements into a game but death randomness in which players do things and exposition all in my mind work against getting a real immersive story

 

[Nenad]

I'd like an NPC to start talking to me as soon as I come close to them, rather than staring mutely at me until I hit the context-sensitive prompt flashing over their heads. I'd then like to still be in control of my character throughout the conversation, walking around, fiddling with ornaments, hunting through drawers, shooting arrows at bunny rabbits, etc, with dialogue options being selected with some quick on-screen prompt using a button or control that is otherwise unoccupied. I don't know if you guys saw the Plinkett review of Revenge of the Sith, but he makes a good point that all the dialogue scenes are just two people standing (or sitting) and gabbing at each other, and it's incredibly dull. People do other things while they talk; it makes for more dynamic discourse and an opportunity for characterization.

This is a great idea. I wish someone would try it. Witcher 2 will not have this, you won't be able to control your character, but he should be walking around and gesturing and in doing so look real and natural.

 

[zobeda]

I love games to give me context. I will never enjoy a game about jumping around and shooting people in the head for no reason other than to shoot them in the head. I will never enjoy platformers either. Jumping around on blocks does not appeal to me at all. I like good playable stories.

I don't think that games should move away from cutscenes or deep stories or conversation trees that actually have a demonstrative effect on the story. If you like a game that doesn't "trouble" you with a good story play games like that. If you like depth in story telling and cut senes (not super long ones like Final Fantasy but thrilling and appealing ones like a Mass Effect) then play those games. I use to be a FF fangirl for a while too so if you like 90 hour movies where you get to play the game for like 1/2 of that go for that too. The LAST thing the gaming industry needs is a pairing down on game/artistic diversity.