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What's the Franko, Botcho?
January 19th 2003, 14:19 CET by deadlock I have been a regular at PlanetCrap for a number of years now. In that time, we have discussed many many many wonderful things. Again and again, over and over, ad nauseum. However, one of the more interesting subjects that we touch on is the capacity of modern computer games for telling a compelling, interesting tale. With, like, proper character development and shit. I think we can all agree that games up until now have been largely devoid of any real depth. Storylines tend to be simplistic, characters one-dimensional and thematic variation very thin on the ground, the latter generally revolving around some kind of future dystopia. Or Nazi monster chicks in leather. I think we can also agree that games have a capacity to be so much more. What I would like for us to do in this thread is explore videogames as a medium for story-telling. Here are a few questions to kick things off... What are designers doing right? In this category, you've got Deus Ex, Anachronox, the Metal Gear Solid games, any number of RPGs etc. None of these games are perfect examples - Deus Ex, for example is set in a pretty much cookie-cutter future dystopia, albeit a very well realised one, thanks to the huge amount of background story that was added. The Denton brothers aren't the most multi-dimensional characters either; though you could argue that, in the case of JC, that's a good thing since it lets the player impose more of their own personality on the game. What are they doing wrong? Do I really need to expand on this? Duke Nukem? Quake? Almost every game ever created? Finally, Do we even want games with deep, meaningful plots? The aforementioned Duke Nukem and Quake didn't exactly suffer, gameplay-wise, because of a lack of meaningful plot or deep characters. People remember Half-Life's plot as being a lot better than it was, thanks to the fact that it didn't give you a lot of time to actually think about it. Ico, my current obsession, is beautiful in it's simplicity, both aesthetically and plotwise. So, over to you - agree with what I've said here? Disagree? How much importance do you attribute to a game's plot? |
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Topic: What's the Franko, Botcho?
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Caryn: That's the problem we faced. I hate cutscenes with a passion. Anything that drags the player out of the actual gameplay (apart from level loadtimes - not much we can do about that) just feels wrong, hence our decision to go for gameplay over story. Any plot advances can be done as between-level loading screens, or audio updates during a level (like having a commander radio you a new objective) You can't derail this train of idiocy, Shadarr. Not even with a big fat cow of logic on the tracks. - Bailey
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As long as it's fun, the storyline (there is one, but it's almost secondary to the gameplay) can bugger off. It seems like I keep going back to this example, but a game like Magical Drop III puts the lie to that statement. The characterization in that game adds so much to it. It's a good puzzle game, but it's got a unique personality that puts it far above puzzlers that are more generic. Same goes for fighting games. The storyline and characters make those games. If they didn't, you wouldn't need anything more than one model and a bunch of mocaps from different fighting styles. Super Tetsujin Bout 2003 would differ very little from Super Mokujin Bout 2002. I mean, would you say that games don't need music, or an interesting art style, or any number of extra touches? A lot of things you wouldn't realize how important they are unless they were completely absent. Warren, I was just giving your semantics a hard time. I'm still not sure if you've actually reversed your position on books in games or not, though. You said you're playing Devil's Advocate. "Is the internet making people less intelligent?"
"You mean like how video cameras cause thrown objects to hit men in the crotch?" |
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Warren, I was just giving your semantics a hard time. I'm still not sure if you've actually reversed your position on books in games or not, though. You said you're playing Devil's Advocate. I know, I was just going with the flow. On books in games ... if they carry the entire plot, that's bad. If they carry background information that is optional to read, that's OK. It's still not great, but it's acceptable. Put on your two step shoes, lose the blues and dance like it's year zero.
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Matthew: The storyline and characters make those games. Obviously, I'm not totally bereft of all storyline - there's a backstory, and all of the characters are developed in terms of background, personality etc. What I mean is that there isn't a large, overarching storyline a la Deus Ex. You get given the backstory and an objective, then go forth and decimate. I mean, would you say that games don't need music, or an interesting art style, or any number of extra touches? Of course not. However, a storyline that drags the player through the game isn't necessary in my opinion. The gameplay should stand up for itself in this type of game. Some games will concentrate on telling a highly involving story via the main character and game events, but that's not what I'm doing. You can't derail this train of idiocy, Shadarr. Not even with a big fat cow of logic on the tracks. - Bailey
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Quick thoughts... o I much prefer to play the story, rather than be presented the story. This is perhaps the biggest innovation that Half-Life brought to the FPS genre. o Games are about interactivity--doing something within the gameworld--and most stories in games are non-interactive. That's why the gamers that hate cut-scenes, etc., hate them. o The non-interactive stories we're seeing in games are usually boring, which doesn't help matters. Better stories would help us tolerate non-interactive story presentations. o The best stories are about characters, the way they change, and the way they change the world around them. Most game writers don't understand this. (Or, plot doesn't provide drama, characters provide good drama. This is why big action movies can still fail if their characters don't have an arc. For example, in Star Wars, five characters have a life-changing arc. In Phantom Menace, only one character had an arc, and it was a character no one cared about, Jar Jar.) o Unless execution is perfect, non-interactive story presentation hurts immersion. That's why it's much better and safer to push forward the story within the interactive gameworld whenever possible. A lot more to this, gotta run, wife calling me! "One of the most difficult tasks people can perform, however much others may despise it, is the invention of good games..." -- C.G. Jung
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I wouldn't play an RPG with little to no story. I wouldn't play an adventure game that was the same way either. However, I'll play a FPS with no story as long as it has online team-oriented game play, but that online mode will be the only part I play. I like story. I like being a part of someone else's story. If it's a choice between middling game with a great story and great gameplay mechanics with nothing else, I'll honestly probably go for the great story. It won't have any impact on DNF. Nothing really does.
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I wouldn't play an RPG with little to no story. But what about Japanese console "RPGs" (I use the term loosely) that are very linear and are essentially interactive movies? |
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It depends on if I'm interested in what their characters are doing. I don't mind cut-scenes, I don't mind really lengthy cut-scenes, and sometimes I just want to be told where to go and what to do for my next reward. Skies of Arcadia is one of my favorite games and the storyline is very linear. It won't have any impact on DNF. Nothing really does.
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This will probably invalidate everything else I'll ever say on this site, but: I agree with everything Scott just said. To expand: I'm not going to be able to play any more games in the Serious Sam style. I simply don't have the patience for games that don't engage me on both the story-telling level and the more visceral gameplay level. People can talk about how thin Half-Life's plot was all they want, but that doesn't really matter; the presentation was the single best that the FPS world has ever seen, and that made it engaging for hundreds of thousands of people. Deus Ex has cutscenes and in-game literature, and I think they'd do well to trim both in the sequel and focus more on scripted sequences, but fortunately the ones in the first game are executed well enough that I can tolerate them. The cut-scenes are usually fairly brief, and the in-game literature is thoroughly skippable. It just provides background information on the world, as should be the case. GTA3 also tells plenty of story, without too much of it getting in the way of playing the game. The bar's been raised way up in the past couple of years. Thus far, only the RPG world has consistently been able to deliver games with interesting stories. The games in the FPS genre that do are isolated flukes. Hopefully that'll change... because if it doesn't, then it really doesn't matter what the game is, it's still essentially Quake 2 in prettier clothing. -chris |
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Re: Resident Evil Online If the communication method is, as I can only suspect, similar to that of PSO, the game looks great. Going through an RE game with three other people would be a hoot, though a full-length RE would likely be too long for that sort of thing. Maybe if it had 8 1-hour missions, or somesuch. Cheap, but not as cheap as your girlfriend.
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chris To me, there are few things more offensive than playing an FPS and having to stop and read a book or PDA or whatever in the middle of a mission. Especially if there are about ten per level, and it's fairly important that I read all of them. Scott brought up some valid points, but these are the same points they rehash every year at the GDC. For all the discussion events and round tables with these self-same bullet points, few people seem to be applying them on a regular basis. Cheap, but not as cheap as your girlfriend.
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I don't want to read, hear, or watch a story when I play a game. I want to be the story. I owe me nothing.
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Gamespy to be making friends and influencing people for weeks on end. Cheap, but not as cheap as your girlfriend.
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I love how a generic problem with UDP packets gets blamed on GameSpy simply because our technology uses them, and we're a convenient scapegoat. -chris |
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I can't stand games without story. Maybe it's just me, but I want a story. That's how I get entertainment. From a movie, from a book, from a tv show, from a game. If it doesn't have a story, I have little reason to play it. Spoilers may be rampant in the rest of this post, and if you don't like it, fuck you. Look at a game like Metal Gear Solid (The first one). Engaging story and interesting plot, and only a few characters in the game, who develop, who play an important role, and who you become attached to. Play MGS1 was like being in control of a movie. Despite the linearity and the fact that the story was told in cutscenes, it still felt to me like the perfect mix for proper emotional impact of the story. Of course, it helped that MGS had some of the best voice acting games have ever seen, as well as having a plot that was relatively simple to understand, even while being entertaining. But when you get to know the backstory for characters, or you converse with them a lot, and then they get killed off, it has an impact. And that's what games need more of. They need to be emotionally engaging as well as fun to play. I also liked the way System Shock 2 presented its story. For the most part, it was completely audio, and completely non-modal. I liked that you could pick up a log, then listen to it while you continued onward completing the goals of the game. I can only imagine how annoying it would have been if every log actually triggered a video instead. Or if every time shodan talked to you it took control away and did some goofy cutscene thing. Also, the ghosts you would see were also a good way of doing it. When you ran in to them, they'd just reinforce the creepiness of the game, and give you a little piece of story. Half life did a good job because it had the makings of a good quality movie. You spend a whole lot of time searching for the first goal... but then you find out that the goal was misleading (ie: When you find the troops... and realize they are after you as well). All the trappings of a good movie. Also, some of the cutscenes were extremely memorable, and really did lots to suck you in to the game. Crawling through a vent and all of a sudden you hear two troops talking. "Blahblabhalbh... shhhh! did you hear that?" pause, then the duct you are in gets peppered with bullet holes that let the light shine in. That was a quality gaming moment if there has ever been one. However, I don't agree that half-life's way is the ultimate way. I'd have prefered minicutscenes for those parts where the scientists were blabbing at you. That way I know I can let go of the mouse, sit back and absorb what they are saying. Instead, I'd be constantly moving around, angry that they left me control of the game but aren't actually letting me proceed. It was a minor issue, but I believe it deserved mentioning. Also, Half Life had no characters. There was yourself, and some generic cops and scientists. I think that character interaction is important for games, and I like having people to talk to in a game. Or at least, I like seeing characters develop, because that is what entertains me. Whether you liked it or not, I think NOLF2 was one of the best delivered stories in a game I've played to date. It had all the feel of being part of a movie. It had tense moments, it had character development, and it had an entertaining storyline. And believable NPCs. Like has been said, when you hear two of the people you are about to kill talking about day to day stuff, it really impacts how you feel about your own actions in the game. I like that a lot. And here it comes... I think Deus Ex had one of the best ways of delivering story. Like SS2, a lot was delivered through audio, so you didn't have to stop in order to absorb it. When you found someone to talk to, it took a random camera angle so you could see yourself talking to them. Cutscenes were few and nonintrusive, and extraneous story (logs, info booths, email) were mostly short and sweet. But all together, it gave the feeling of a living world that you were existing in, and it made you feel like you were the one developing the story, rather than having it fed to you. Perhaps the story told was a little over the top, but the delivery method was top notch. "People who give John Edwards money are stupid, and you're stupid for defending them, stupid." -- Your Friend |
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Holy fuck! "People who give John Edwards money are stupid, and you're stupid for defending them, stupid." -- Your Friend |
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Or, if you like, What? But it's considered bad form to What? yourself. Put on your two step shoes, lose the blues and dance like it's year zero.
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Well, it didn't feel like I wrote that much. Just pretend each paragraph is a different post, that should make it acceptable to the common ADHD of PC. "People who give John Edwards money are stupid, and you're stupid for defending them, stupid." -- Your Friend |
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Deus Ex was fantastic; I think the best thing about it was that it let you impose your own personality on JC Denton to a certain extent. For example, it was largely up to the player whether they should kill or sedate their enemies. Half Life did much the same thing, except to a lesser extent. You had no real choice but to kill marines and killing Barneys or scientists had no impact on the outcome of a section, other than to occasionally impede your progress through a door. I think Half Life takes the edge in one respect: apart from at the start, where it tells you your 'character's' name, at no point are you playing as anyone other than yourself. You never see Gordon Freeman, you never hear his voice. |
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Well, people refer to you as "Gordon" and "Freeman" throughout the entire game, but I agree on the whole ... Put on your two step shoes, lose the blues and dance like it's year zero.
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Games don't need a story for me to enjoy them. There are some games with heavy story that I enjoy (The Legacy of Kain games, Planetscape: Torment), but I'd say 95% of the games I really love have either no story or a really flimsy ones. And games with no story (assuming they aren't RPGs, of course), don't suffer from it at all IMO unless they go out of their way to bind you to some pre-scripted story in a way that feels unnecessary. (As an example here, I thought Mafia could have been a decent game but it was ruined by having an uninteresting story binding your actions and making the whole affair feel super-linear.) People can talk about how thin Half-Life's plot was all they want, but that doesn't really matter; the presentation was the single best that the FPS world has ever seen, and that made it engaging for hundreds of thousands of people. I liked Half Life as much as the next guy and agree the presentation was top notch, but the much ballyhooed 'story' of the game was just as flimsy and derivative as people say. Which, IMO, says that consistency of vision and well designed gameplay mechanics (including control, physics, and level design) are hugely important. Story? Not so much. 2000/XP is better than Win9x in every way.
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GTA3 also tells plenty of story, without too much of it getting in the way of playing the game. GTA3 mostly gets out of the way and lets YOU tell your own story. That's the magic of it. But as far as existing storyline in the sense of Planetscape, there's really none there (in GTA3). 2000/XP is better than Win9x in every way.
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Warren we already established that the character's name is Gordon Freeman, what is your bitch? Do you want them to call you "Hey guy!" or "Yo, buddy!" ? You still never see Gordon or hear his voice. Open 'em wide
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I don't want to read, hear, or watch a story when I play a game. I want to be the story. I agree with this 100%. Games that are plot based (games that are not Tetris, etc) should present a situation and enviornment in which *I* will do things that people will write about in the future of the fictional world I'm in. Let me PLAY A GAME, not view a pseudo-interactive movie (*cough*Final Fantasy*cough*). Don't put me in a virtual library with tons of badly written backstory novels. That is the true power of gaming. Leave the non-interactive (or barely interactive) storytelling to the book & movie industries. 2000/XP is better than Win9x in every way.
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It's also the reason MMORPGs are so fucked up. Cause everybody is the hero. And that is kinda disupting to the gameplay. Critical spawn camping anyone? |
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Yeah, I don't play MMORGPs. YMMV. 2000/XP is better than Win9x in every way.
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I'm really not sure what to think about this. It all sounds well and good but... Specifically, the stuff I look at tries to take ideas from conventional AI [artificial intelligence], linguistics, cognitive psychology and ideas about narrative theory and look at computational models of narrative, so that you can take these computational tools that are well founded on the other theories from other disciplines and automatically create stories inside a virtual environment. Duh. I have messed around with ideas like this a couple years now, and I believe I have even talked about it here before. Of course, I realize I'm not the first or second or hundreth person to think of it. I just can't help but think that when it comes to actually making games, this guy has zero clue. You can't just build a sandbox and expect an interesting and engaging story to magically arise from it. Also, why is this in a business section? It seems about as anti-business as you can get. On the other hand, I would love to play a game like this. Assuming it was, you know...fun. Maybe in my lifetime... I owe me nothing.
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lwf Warren we already established that the character's name is Gordon Freeman, what is your bitch? Do you want them to call you "Hey guy!" or "Yo, buddy!" ? You still never see Gordon or hear his voice. I was responding to the post immediately before mine, which read : I think Half Life takes the edge in one respect: apart from at the start, where it tells you your 'character's' name, at no point are you playing as anyone other than yourself. You never see Gordon Freeman, you never hear his voice. My point was that you hear that name throughout the game, not just at the start as deadlock said. So yes, you don't see him or hear his voice but you DO hear his name, which I imagine would take most people out of character. Deus Ex solved this by giving you a real name, and a codename. By using your codename throughout the game, the believability is still there. Put on your two step shoes, lose the blues and dance like it's year zero.
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Warren: So yes, you don't see him or hear his voice but you DO hear his name, which I imagine would take most people out of character. why? because his name isn't that of the person playing the game? if that is so, then the fact that the guy is an employee at a top-secret research lab would also take people out of character. or when he puts on the hazard suit, handles weapons like a trained shooter... things like that. I don't think that giving a character a name means less immersion. I think it means more immersion, just like reading a book: you sympathise with a main character more, if you know who he is. People are going to have to imagine being someone else, as if they're playing a role. "Since most elephants don't comply with the AGP 2.0 specification, we recommend that God does a product recall on all elephants"
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In my mind, it turns you into Gordon Freeman. You can immerse yourself by pretending your name is Gordon Freeman and impose your own personality on him, but that's about it. You can't pretend to be yourself because, unless your name is Gordon Freeman, the people speaking to you and the spray painted signs don't make a lot of sense anymore. Put on your two step shoes, lose the blues and dance like it's year zero.
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You can't pretend to be yourself because, unless your name is Gordon Freeman, the people speaking to you and the spray painted signs don't make a lot of sense anymore. but is that such a bad thing? the only alternative would be to have the scientist say "Hi buddy!" to you all the time, like lwf illustrated. Would that make the immersion better? Or if you'd have to fill in your own name at the start, would that make it any better? I'm not just countering your arguments here, but asking your opinion. "Since most elephants don't comply with the AGP 2.0 specification, we recommend that God does a product recall on all elephants"
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Warren - You know, I quite like the protagonist to have a specific identity, other than my own... Perhaps it's because I loved play-acting as a kid and computer games are an extension of that, but getting into another person's skin is part of what's interesting to me. There are times when it's not as appropriate, sure, but in a way it heightens the immersion of a game because in order to believe that you are that guy in a secret military research base, with an MP5 in your hands and a degree from MIT, facing down aliens and whatnot, you must have already bought into the fact you are playing the role of someone else. Unless you have a side to your life you've not mentioned to us Warren... |
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Insert gripe about being unable to choose your gender in most games here. It won't have any impact on DNF. Nothing really does.
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And, unrelatedly, The Way Of The Gun DVD is brilliant. The cast interviews are crap, but the directorial commentary is fantastic... |
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Foody - Is that really a problem? I don't object to playing women in games because they are women. If I object to it it's only because they are often even more shallow and cliched than the male roles, with a few notable exceptions. |
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Foodbunny: Insert gripe about being unable to choose your gender in most games here. I thought all women like to pretend to be a man sometimes... Marsh Davies: Perhaps it's because I loved play-acting as a kid and computer games are an extension of that, but getting into another person's skin is part of what's interesting to me. exactly. Like I said, character immersion such as in Half-Life, means you must play a role. It's just that not everyone digs that, but I don't see any other way to unite a zitty dork in an armchair and a futuristic underground research lab with a hero that battles evil. "Since most elephants don't comply with the AGP 2.0 specification, we recommend that God does a product recall on all elephants"
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Hey, if Warren can gripe about Gordon having a name I can gripe about him not having a vagina. Honestly the gender thing doesn't usually bother me too much, but I'm all for more choices. It won't have any impact on DNF. Nothing really does.
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the only alternative would be to have the scientist say "Hi buddy!" to you all the time, like lwf illustrated. Would that make the immersion better? Or if you'd have to fill in your own name at the start, would that make it any better? That's hardly the only option. "Thank God, you're alive!" "I'm glad you're here..." "Be careful! There's something up ahead..." "Greetings!" "Excuse me, but I'm rather busy at the moment." "Morning sir. I had some message for you, but ..." These all convey the same basic things the scientists/barneys say to you. Does the exclusion of "Gordon" and/or "Freeman" make them any better/worse? Now, you can argue Max Payne back to me at this point, but that game, IMO, is a different scenario. The game was created around the characters name and the character is integral to the story. Gordon Freeman in Half-Life, was not. Put on your two step shoes, lose the blues and dance like it's year zero.
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And, done the way Warren mentions, there would be no issue of gender, either. "Dream of me... and maybe, just maybe, this nightmare will end."
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And, done the way Warren mentions, there would be no issue of gender, either. Gotcha! "Morning sir. I had some message for you, but ..." "Is the internet making people less intelligent?"
"You mean like how video cameras cause thrown objects to hit men in the crotch?" |
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warren: These all convey the same basic things the scientists/barneys say to you. Does the exclusion of "Gordon" and/or "Freeman" make them any better/worse? the dialogue itself not, but if you make Gordon Freeman nameless, then he is nothing. Because he is also faceless and voiceless (although you do see his face, in the Loading image, as well as on an Employee of the Month sign somewhere, or was that in Opposing Force?). You might say that giving him a name gave the player less room for imagination, but I personally thought it was a perfect equilibrium between imagination and a pre-created character. Whenever a guard or scientist said: "Hello, Mr Freeman", I immediately realised they were talking to me. Whereas if they'd said: "Hey you there, in the orange suit" or something like that, they could be talking to another guy in an orange suit. even though there isn't any. and it would imply that they didn't know you personally. for me, the setting was so much more compelling because the character really fit in there. "Since most elephants don't comply with the AGP 2.0 specification, we recommend that God does a product recall on all elephants"
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Gotcha! Damn it. But just to be anal, isn't the use of sir towards women a formality as well? "Dream of me... and maybe, just maybe, this nightmare will end."
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Just remove the word "sir". KISS. Gunpoint We're just arguing opinion at this point, so let's not bother. Heh. Put on your two step shoes, lose the blues and dance like it's year zero.
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But just to be anal, isn't the use of sir towards women a formality as well? On Star Trek, but not in present times. "Is the internet making people less intelligent?"
"You mean like how video cameras cause thrown objects to hit men in the crotch?" |
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Warren: alright then. this is btw the first time a discussion between you and me didn't end in you What?ing me. And I know what you're thinking, but it's already EOD so it's no use to What? me now. "Since most elephants don't comply with the AGP 2.0 specification, we recommend that God does a product recall on all elephants"
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I think the reason for naming Gordon Freeman was also a (cough) marketing issue: he was the uber-geek, the dorky science guy with Coke bottle glasses who became the wish fulfilment figure for pathological latent serial killer nerds everywhere. Of course, that excluded a significant portion of society from sharing in the full experience (cf: Foodie), but I guess the devs knew their demographic. |
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alright then. this is btw the first time a discussion between you and me didn't end in you What?ing me. Well, honestly, it's the first time you didn't end up trolling me at some point. Put on your two step shoes, lose the blues and dance like it's year zero.
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Que? "Since most elephants don't comply with the AGP 2.0 specification, we recommend that God does a product recall on all elephants"
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Its more and more common in the military that people will call a superior sir regardless of gender. |
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A big hearty fuck you to everybody who has made me add Max Payne, Sin, Half-life, Opposing Force, and System Shock 2 onto my games to play list. It's a replay for those, but.. goddamnit. Oh, and unless the Age of Mythology regular multiplayer shit is fun, I'm going to give up on this game. I can't get into this fairy campaign mode. |
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