id Software On Rage, Storytelling In Games 97
Tom Willits of id Software took some time recently to speak about storytelling as it relates to id's previous games, and how it will be a part of their upcoming shooter, Rage. He also dispelled rumors that Rage would suffer content cuts due to Xbox hardware limitations. Unfortunately, he called into question whether mods will be a possibility for the game, saying that the issue is still under consideration.
Games seem to focus too much on graphics (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:FPS Storytelling? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have to read text in a game to find the storyline, the game is doing it wrong. You should participate actively in creating the storyline, not read about it! Or is someone confusing storyline with backstory?
Re:FPS Storytelling? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, the interesting story in Bioshock was almost all backstory. Even the Clever Twist midgame was all done in backstory. While playing I kept thinking "why is the game set after all the interesting stuff is done happening?" Good storytelling would have been playing through the fall of the civilization, and influencing how or whther it fell apart, not coming along *after* all the action and learning about it through sound clips.
Bioshosk stands about because it had any storytelling *at all*, not because it was good at it.
Re:Are There Still "id Fanboys"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like how Apple is a relic from the 80's.
Re:Games seem to focus too much on graphics (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree, and it's also a bit frustrating when fancy graphics actually kind of get in the way of playing the game. Hi-res console games tend to look very poor on older and/or smaller televisions. I guess the assumption is that if you can afford a modern console, you could also afford a big-screen.
The Prettiness factor tends to wear off quickly, anyways. And just because it's very Pretty doesn't mean it's easy to look at, or understand what's happening.
Re:FPS Storytelling? (Score:3, Insightful)
I should mention Deus Ex, as it was very sharp in the way they allowed your actions to have consequences without blowing the budget. You could save your brother, or not, and influnce that actions of various characters, and choose whether to kill certain bad guys before the character was sure they were bad guys. It was all limited, but the impressive thing was how well they worked it into the storyline.
Your actions would have definite consequences in terms of dialog and "color", affect what items you had available for a fight, and so on: changes that just required a bit more diliog writing during game develpment. Regardless, you fought in the same sequences of areas - no expensive artwork was "wasted". It was a great way to give you the felling of participating in the story without having to be unrealistically open-ended in terms of level creation.
Creating a story that feels immersive and open ended the first time you play really doesn't need to blow the budget of the game: it only takes thoughtful story writing.
Re:http://marathon.bungie.org/story/ (Score:3, Insightful)
How did you get from "actively participating in creating the storyline" to "all in your head"?
In most FPSs you actively participate in creating a pretty dull story. "I shot zombie #1 with my pistol .... I blew up zombies #154-157 with my rocket launcher". Not much there. OTOH, look at Half-Life 2. The story wasn't very deep, but you participated in a lot more of it. The important events in the story most happened where you could see them as you played. "Show, don't tell" and all that.
Typo on the guy's name (Score:2, Insightful)