Games Need More Artfully Story-Entwined Gameplay 145
Movie and Game writer Justin Marks has written an impassioned plea for the industry to concentrate more on artfully story-entwined gameplay, exploring what he thinks major titles are missing these days. "But for the most part, we as an industry are stuck in the same trap that GTA exemplifies. We value narratives in games, we understand their purpose and their necessity, and yet we have no idea how to parse them effectively into the game's interactive structure. As technology gets better, the weaknesses of poor story integration are more exposed."
How about artfully Gameplay-entwined stories? (Score:3, Insightful)
Think: Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Grim Fandango.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In my opinion, the biggest problem is that there needs to be a reward for staying with the main story. In an open world (I'm thinking morrowing, oblivion, and GTA here), the
Re:How about artfully Gameplay-entwined stories? (Score:4, Funny)
The problem was that I couldn't actually put the damn thing away. For some reason the weapon switch stopped working, and I was walking around on the date with the gun out. I thought it might be a graphical glitch and pressed the fire button, but alas, I unloaded in the middle of the street.
Maybe I should have went to TW@ and ordered some little pills online.
Re:How about artfully Gameplay-entwined stories? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
JERRY: He what?
ELAINE: He took
JERRY: He took what out?
ELAINE: It.
JERRY: He took It
ELAINE: Yessiree Bob.
JERRY: He couldn't.
ELAINE: He did.
JERRY: Well you were involved in some sort of amorous--
ELAINE: Noooo.
JERRY: You mean he just--
ELAINE: Yes.
JERRY: Are you sure?
ELAINE: Oh quite.
JERRY: There was no mistaking it?
ELAINE: Jerry.
JERRY: So you were talking, you're having pleasant conversation, then all of sudden--
ELAINE: Yea.
JERRY: It.
ELAINE: It.
JERRY: Out.
ELAINE: Out.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
but they both did alot better than most of the stuff you see out there today
Re:How about artfully Gameplay-entwined stories? (Score:4, Insightful)
The trick is, weaving the story into the game, rather than making it a completely separate entity. Take Half-Life 2 -- there were no cutscenes, but occasionally you'd be forced to sit around and watch characters interact -- the simple fact that you could still walk around and explore made it that much more immersive.
But I think it goes farther than that, and I've pretty much only seen Valve get it right, though I suspect others have come close: Tell the story without ever stopping the game. Being trapped in a room while Barney, Alyx, and Dr. Kleiner talk to each other is pretty much a cutscene -- it may not stop the gameplay, but it does stop the game.
A good example: The original Half-Life. A few scripted sequences, and a few items left lying around the environment, but after the initial experiment gone wrong, the story was pretty much told within the actual gameplay. I'm talking about things like finding the Houndeye kennels, and the shark tank, thus showing you that this isn't the first time we've seen these aliens. Or the Barney who wanted to tell you something (and was then shot by a ninja). Or the Marines who you think are coming to rescue you, and then they start shooting scientists.
Or the final boss battle -- nobody told you that was a boss battle, and there was pretty much no dialog at that point, but you knew. And the headcrab boss -- just looking at the thing, you understand that this is where headcrabs come from -- again, no dialog.
There are other neat tricks -- in Portal, many of the same things above are used, as well as the constant voice of GlaDOS -- which never really stops you from moving through the game. Narration is fine, but this isn't a cutscene.
There was even some custom Half-Life (1) map which told an interesting story using nothing but the computer in the HUD. Not as developed a plot, but scolding the player for moving through the normal storyline...
Note: All of the above games are pretty much linear. It's not that I don't want games to be on rails. It's that either way, the story can be told without pulling you out of the game. Cutscenes are movies, and Half-Life 2 "cutscenes" are basically 3D movies. Half-Life (original) and Portal are games with actual plots.
Re: (Score:2)
Cut scenes, etc, just remove us from the game and make the story and the game separate entities. TFA is saying that the two need to be the same thing.
Course, if the game industry ever really does drop cutscenes altogether, I might have to quit playing games. I have yet to see a game which shows that storytelling, without cutscenes, can come anywhere near the story immersion that cutscenes provide.
Thankfully, a great many companies seem to get this, so I'm not too worried.
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
On a side note, my wi
Re:How about artfully Gameplay-entwined stories? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a real shame, and it bothers me that people are spinning this like a need for a story in a game is a new thing. It's not. The industry dug themselves this hole. If they want to get out of it, they need to go give Ken and Roberta Williams a few millions dollars and bring back the adventure game.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd like to add Planescape: Torment to the list.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Still, one of the coolest CRPGs ever.
Re:How about artfully Gameplay-entwined stories? (Score:5, Insightful)
But all of those games have exactly the same problem with them: they're linear. Stories are, by definition, linear (unless you count Choose Your Own Adventure). If you're going to tell a great story through a game, you either limit yourself to one or two possible plotlines/endings, making for a *very* linear game, or you take on the enormous task of plotting out every option in the multiverse that gets determined by every choice you can make in game.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Put that into perspective a moment... I still play The Longest Journey. TLJ is a linear storyline, with zero branching at all, and its engine was already dated when it originally came out, in 1999. But the story it tells is so good, and so enthralling, that I can easily overlook those aspects and just enjoy myself.
I'm
Re: (Score:2)
the game & story were basically for kids [...] yet Ragnar Tornquist included profanity in the dialogue, which was totally out of place
You obviously didn't go to the same primary school I did. :-P
BTW: A very exclusive private school that shall remain nameless. Most pupils were children of people in show business, and we could all swear like sailors. As a result, I think I have a pretty good grasp of the difference between being offensive (which you can do using the nicest words) and using expletives.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sorry but I disagree entirely, gameplay is an end unto itself. The thing I've hated about Final fantasy 12 was that it completley takes the interactivity away from the user to such a degree you're babaysitting a robot, you're not a participant in the story so much as merely pushing a automated robotic dummy through the levels to the next cutscene.
Or take god of war, what if god of war played like FF12? It wouldn't
Re:How about artfully Gameplay-entwined stories? (Score:5, Insightful)
http://adamandjamie.com/nwn/ [adamandjamie.com]
What's wrong with linear (Score:2)
A book is linear. Television shows are generally linear. While dynamic entertainment may add to replace value, having a linear storyline that is *well told* is not a problem, it's just a difference in style.
That being said, it doesn't take too much to add small changes to keep the g
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
However, not until games can actually make your actions have actual, non-scr
Lots of fun comes for interacting (Score:2)
A book is linear. Television shows are generally linear.
Those media are typically simply consumed in a mostly (or in TV's case : definitely) passive way.
As opposed to a game where the player are supposed to interact with the game.
While dynamic entertainment may add to replace value, having a linear storyline that is *well told* is not a problem, it's just a difference in style.
It's not a problem for enjoying *the story*. But it's a little bit less interesting to play, when you have the impression that you are basically watching a (very well acted) movie, where you have to press "Next>" once in while to see the rest (although I really loved Dreamfall, that's how I felt sometimes).
Player enjoy having freed
Re: (Score:2)
Half-Life is also linear - but what a journey it makes!
The linear form allows you to build your characters, environments and environments with great care.
You can change the pace - moving from intense physical action through more problem or puzzle oriented scenarios, or moments of comic relief. Side trails can be explored without losing momentum.
The non-linear form will - in time - betray its own illusions. Stage sets and the
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Also - Tim Schafer is a rock star. I really enjoyed Psychonauts and highly, highly recommend it. Best story-driven game I've played in ages, which is strange since it's technically a platformer.
The genre is still alive... (Score:3, Informative)
- Funcom's (Norway) The Longuest Journey and DreamFall are nice example of a very well written narrative (by Ragnar Tornquist), and are considered as the major work which brought back the genre into interest.
- Another prominent example is Benoit Sokal (France), who after doing the Syberia duology, founded his own game company White Bird Production which works on either adapting graphic novels from renown European artists or helping them create new worlds for the medium
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
And, if you don't like being ganked, then play on a PvE server.
Re:Please, no more errands to run (Score:5, Insightful)
Because if there's one thing I like doing better with a game than solving a Traveling Salesman problem within it, it's not playing the game at all.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The second part is the Coupon Collectors Problem [wikipedia.org]. How many mobs with drop rate i must I kill to get set of items A?
Rinse and repeat for the dangling carrots of A1, A2, A3...Ax.
Good comment (Score:5, Interesting)
Bethesda are great at trying to avoid this, and they spent a ton of time on it (compare the Morrowind to Oblivion engines, and see the designer commentary on all the work they had to do just to get the "watch a guy hide something" quest early in Morrowind to work right). But they still sometimes fall back on the trap.
The basic problem is, for a quest/story mechanic to work, you need triggers. Somewhere in the game, there's a bit or routine that checks for X, Y, Z completion requirements. "Is X in inventory and talking to Bob selecting Dialog Option 3" make for a really easy set of variables to code for, and then the game flips the bit so that X is removed from inventory. Even quests that are "Go talk to person X" are really fedex quests - you're "carrying" a bit that signifies that you're on the quest and person X is who you need to talk to, thus when you talk to them, the appropriate dialog box (which probably wasn't available before) is opened up... you've just handed in the "plot coupon [tvtropes.org]" as it were.
The better a programmer hides the triggers - making you hide somewhere (in-game) and spy on someone, or specifically avoid encounters to get a really good item or piece of info - the better and more seamless the story will seem. The underlying programming still needs those triggers, though.
My suggestion? Stop buying crappy games like GTA, and go with games where the programmers put some thought into the storyline and making it fit better. The industry could survive just fine with a few less programmers making crappy movie-tie-in games (*coughIronmancough*) and a few more making really GOOD games like Thief or Oblivion.
Re:Good comment (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all in the presentation -- and WoW really tends to skimp on it. There's a "main quest" for most of the races, and some of the quest chains like Duskwood have real potential to be interesting, but when it's all told entirely in text popups and a few canned emotes, there's something lacking in the dramatic presentation department.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's all in the presentation -- and WoW really tends to skimp on it. There's a "main quest" for most of the races, and some of the quest chains like Duskwood have real potential to be interesting, but when it's all told entirely in text popups and a few canned emotes, there's something lacking in the dramatic presentation department.
All true, but Blizzard squandered the stories even further by not completing them. The Undead story is quite interesting then quickly peters out. The Night Elves suffer nearly the same fate. Gnomes have no story, other than an instance anyone can run in their 30s. The Trolls have nothing but a tiny village in Durotar. The Tauren get a cool starting area then are dumped into the Barrens with everyone else. Humans and Orcs are the only two races with any semblance of a racial storyline because the othe
Re: (Score:2)
I should mention, I don't have any problem with usi
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Good comment (Score:4, Insightful)
Oblivion and Morrowind feel dead, like worlds populated by robots, all saying exactly the same sentences (how hard would it have been to change the sentences slighty for each of the different voices...??) and all doing the same 3 or 4 meaningless actions over and over again.
Then there are the hundreds of scripting bugs and inconsistencies (Oblivion was never actually play-tested before release - extensive playtesting is what made Half-Life great), a nonsensical game world (shared by NWN), where random crates and barrels spread all over the game world each contain half a dozen gold coins (sometimes with a beggar sitting right by the crate - why doesn't he grab the coins, and why are the crates and coins there anyway?), monsters that drop random objects (in Oblivion sometimes a wolf will drop a gold coin or a fork - WTF?), and so on. Baldur's Gate, despite a more consistent and interesting story, has an even more static world (NPCs standing on the exact same spot 24/7, etc.).
It's really depressing that games made so recently, by huge teams, with several gigabytes of art and code, are so far behind a game like Ultima VII, in terms of immersion and game world consistency. You made more use of your brain just navigating the dialogues in Ultima VII than playing through Oblivion ("follow the arrow, click here, kill that monster, repeat"). The only bearable part of Oblivion was the Thieves' Guild quest line; the rest is just a good-looking (but clearly rushed) hack'n'slash game completely ruined by a bad story, bad scripting, and designed for 8-year-old Xbox players.
Valve needs to bring toghether the people who made Ultima VII and System Shock 2 and show the industry what a real RPG / free-form adventure / world simulator looks like.
Re: (Score:2)
You've obviously never seen the list of stuff they've found in shark stomachs. [elasmo-research.org] I don't find it at all beyond reason that a hungry predator might gobble down a coin or small metallic object along with its meal.
Re: (Score:2)
No, the fork, like the gold coin, is simply being generated by a random "treasure script" that takes the type and "level" of the creature, the player's level, and generates "appropriate" treasure. In other words, if you kill the wo
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Stop buying crappy games GTA (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem is that there aren't too many of them to choose from, and what's available is mostly meh.
What's worse is that a LOT of the critically acclaimed games which had excellent stories ended up flopping which is really really sad (eg Anachronox, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, Psychonauts, etc) and has made story less of a priority for publishers.
Re: (Score:2)
it's an interesting idea (Score:5, Insightful)
then it finishes and you turn to your buddy and say "so it's 'wade in and kill everything' like last time then?"
OTOH, i like 'wade in and kill everything'. 'wade in and kill everything' is great.
Re: (Score:2)
Um... TFA forgot something... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
See, the Nipponese don't have the same problems with narrative that US game makers have. They may have their own pitfalls, but I think there's much more acceptance of a creator expressing themselves through the game. Many w
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The minigames and collection goals, for the most part, do advance the story. There's the obvious "I can't continue until I do this" part of it, but the minigames and collection goals also serve to make the world of Okami more complete. I've played the game through five times now, and each time, I notice a little bit more how the gameplay is inseparable from the mythology of the story.
There are exce
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, there wasn't a lot of storyline going on beyond "there's a bad guy trying to take over this country... sort him out", but since it was largely following two infantry grunts, that's ok by me. You're average Marine probably doesn't get much more information then you got in the game. "Go here, protect this tank until it can be fixed". "You're helicopter just got shot down." etc.
M
We Need Better Characters First (Score:2)
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines had some of the best writing and voice acting to ever hit the video games. Unfortunately, the game itself was obviously rushed (The developer went bankrupt right afterwards, sadly) and left with a la
Two words: Planescape: Torment (Score:2)
Definitely not Oscar-caliber, but some of the richest, most nuanced characters ever seen in a video game.
It CAN be done.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Eh. I think the best argument against this is Portal. You the player... Are mute, uknown, and have no backstory.
In fact the only identifiable character throughout the entire game is GladOS (which I suppose counts as a character), the gun droids, and the unseen other player leaving clues about the situation. Oh and the companion cube could count as a character...
But anyways... Portal's story wasn't about the character. You hardly really knew much
Re: (Score:2)
A change in the weather, by Andrew Plotkin.
Should run on IE7, FF2+, Safari and Opera.
Interactive-fiction games are absolutely delicious.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The very best, most memorable characters throughout history, are ones that are built off of traditional architypes, but which the creators then used to mould a very complex persona. Games that strive for completely ORI
Re: (Score:2)
I thought that all of the Belle Morte posters found around town were a nice touch. I was pretty good acquaintances with them back in the day. I wasn't good friends with the band by any stretch, but would hang out with them whenever they were playing nearby.
I think the one major mistake that was made with the game was the lack of mod support. You'd think it would have been easier to include with it being built on the Source Engine, bu
How else? (Score:2)
Games are different of course since we are in the story and interacting with the environment, but how else are they going to introduce the storyline? The narratives help us from having to go into every single building (where is that guy?) or reading every book
Call me old fashioned.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Nice idea, but the devil is in the details (Score:5, Interesting)
The key, I believe, is to write generic stories, and fill in the blanks with details generated during game play. For instance, instead of specifying a specific location where a scene takes place, specify what type of location and other elements necessary to trigger the scene, then when the players meet the criteria, the scene is triggered with the specific details coming from the environment, not the author.
Same goes for characters, write them generically, and use appropriate game-generated character that meet the plot criteria instead of saying it has to be a certain person.
As for plot, multi branching plot structures aren't really that hard, people have been doing it since the 50s in romance novels. The big publishers had a flowchart outlining the accepted plot possibilities and stables full of mediocre writers to fill in the details.
The key is in understanding dramatic tension. You raise tension by posing meaningful questions and you lower it by answering them. In some sense, it doesn't matter what the questions are or how they are answered, only that they are meaningful to the reader. By using game generated specifics to ask the questions, and player choices to answer them, it becomes more likely the player will find the questions meaningful.
So in a basic sense, one can look at a plot element as consisting of entry conditions, scene, props, characters, questions, and exit conditions. You specify what has to be true for the element to become active, what types of scene, characters and props are involved, what questions are asked, and what the possible outcomes are.
But this is much harder than simply dictating what will happen in a story. And it guarantees that every player is going to miss some content. No writer likes to think they are writing something that might not even get read, but for dynamic stories to work, that is what has to happen.
Re: (Score:2)
The trick is not to have the "object oriented" methods just be pixel and name swaps. Make the actual elements unique in not only surface presentation, but also in gameplay mechanics.
Re:Nice idea, but the devil is in the details (Score:4, Interesting)
If the game play mechanics are open ended enough, and the elements contain enough individualized characteristics, and there are enough connections between elements, then the elements will be unique. For instance, the author specifies 'big dumb fighter' as a necessary character for a scene in a tavern. The game searches through instantiated characters for one meeting the criteria, and it turns out that not only has the player interacted with a 'big dumb fighter' before, the fighter has a brother who is commander of the watch. This was not specified by the author, it just happens to be true in this particular instance of the game. Suddenly, the upcoming bar fight becomes a lot more interesting.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Some creators want to dictate to their audience the exact nature of the experience. Ot
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Boring work? The details are where the ART is, in anything. That's where the creator gets to express themselves, and where they audience gets to connect with the creator. The details are what makes a work of narrative: human.
Re: (Score:2)
In some sense, in a video game, the player is the performer and the author is the composer.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But I don't have any interest in being the "performer" in a video game. I lead a very creative life as it is. I'm a video producer by profession, I have a band and am a composer. I play games along side reading books, watching movies, and listening to other peoples' music.
It's not that I want to be lazy, but I want to be intellectually and emotionally stimulated. I want to take on the roll of "explorer" not "performer
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The only reason that sandbox games are disconnecting and unempathic is because they are built that way. You should check out the work of Brenda Laurel, she is a pioneer in the field of computer/human interaction and started a game company for girls that focused on realistic emotional situations and responses. Way ahead of its time, unfortunately.
Written correctly, even singl
Re: (Score:2)
I'd gladly pay a small fortune to have been the one to say that wonderful line. Congratulations! I wholeheartdly agree.
All this no-goals, open-endedness just means putting savages in a world where they can play god. And they do it the old bestial gods way. It really doesn't matter putting enough detail and whatever when people enter the game just to shoot everything and behave like
Re: (Score:2)
Oh please (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Games need more... Gameplay (Score:5, Insightful)
Title fixed.
Seriously, I'm all up for well told stories in a game, but when it interferes with the game and game mechanics it has the potential to make the gameplay seriously suffer. And if the story is only so-so, then the entire game sucks that much more (and why have the story in the first place?)
If you have a story to tell that needs to be told interactively, a game is a great medium to do it in. If you have a story to tell where the audience is supposed to mainly watch and listen, make a movie. If you have an indepth story with deep characters, a huge plotline, where no interaction is really necessary - write a novel. And if you have NONE of the above, reconsider what you're making story-wise. Your medium is your message after all.
There really seems to be some sort of confusion about what medium a story should be told in.
Re: (Score:2)
If you have a story to tell that needs to be told interactively, a game is a great medium to do it in. If you have a story to tell where the audience is supposed to mainly watch and listen, make a movie. If you have an indepth story with deep characters, a huge plotline, where no interaction is really necessary - write a novel. And if you have NONE of the above, reconsider what you're making story-wise. Your medium is your message after all.
Counterexample: Final Fantasy 7, which, for my money, is the best damn game ever made, even though it has the type of story you say should fit a movie. The gameplay is fun, but the story is what truly makes the game excel. Gameplay is not, in my opinion, the be-all end-all of games like people say it is. It's one element in a diverse collection.
Re: (Score:2)
Final Fantasy 7 was one of those games for me that I would seriously question on whether or not I was actually having fun amidst an admittedly somewhat interesting story line. The actual "game" portion which involved either running around doing mini quests (like dressing up as a girl) or doing battles which were, in my opinion, okay at best. Do you find doing battles fun or is it just gratifying to level up and "grind" your characters for higher powers?
There was some cool story-oriented parts that you could
Re: (Score:2)
My point is just that, for me at least, an excellent story can trump mediocre gameplay. Conversely, excellent gameplay can trump a mediocre story just as well (GTA 3, hell, all GTA ga
"We, as an industry," (Score:3, Insightful)
Most gamers like to talk about what they did in the game. Narrative fucks that up to some extent, and is nearly always at odds with the player's goals for the game thereby breaking the illusion they hope to set up.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A better approach is to mix the two together such that what you do in game *is* the story.
Mario (Score:1)
And that's what video games need to be. If they have a great interactive story, so be it.
What games need, Obviously (Score:3, Funny)
More Cutscenes. [joystiq.com]
A little would go a long way. (Score:3, Insightful)
Even games like Zelda where you get a visual of time passing (day and night) and weather make a big difference. In HL, I can stand outside for ever and the sun never moves in the sky. Wasting time crow-bar-ing boxes should mean... oh crap, now I have to fight the zombies in the dark!
In GTA, you can be the biggest crime boss/bad-ass but the NPCs never react differently to you (I haven't played the more recent GTA games, if this has changed). If I have a rocket launcher in my hands, or a reputation for evil... the NPC should react to me- flee, faint, turn away, refuse to serve me, etc.
Little things like this would go a long way.
Non Issue (Score:3, Insightful)
As a developer, what do you want to do with a game? If your first and foremost goal is to tell a story, then do just that. Use cutscenes or other non interactive elements. Use interactive elements. Use whatever. If it best tells your story, do it. It's a fallacy to think that the story must be interactive. Interactive story presentations and non interactive ones both have strengths and weaknesses. A game that really wants to tell a story will not be afraid to use both where appropriate.
No they don't (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Naruto is good story telling, just because it's not to your tastes has no bearing on whether it is good storytelling or not. It's success most certainly tells you that it definitely IS. Not all of us grown ups 'grow up' (whatever that's supposed to mean anyway). And I would venture to imagine that anime watchers do MORE reading since many of them are reading subtitles of fansubbed anime. Just because you like to watch something, it has no be
Movies cost $7 (Score:3, Interesting)
For it to be worth $50, you have to give me something I want to play over and over again. Story is a nice accent for a game, but keep it in its proper place. Put the game play first and make sure that when the game play conflicts with the story it's the story that loses.
The other thing is this: as a brilliant software architect, you are neither a brilliant writer nor a brilliant producer. Play it smart: play to your strengths.
Games need more game play (Score:3, Insightful)
Narrative Vs Emerging Gameplay (Score:3, Insightful)
What the original article and many people seem to be discussing mostly here is Narrative gameplay - where a storyline is created and more or less followed by the player one step at a time. It may be branching so that decisions made by the player - or failure to achieve specific goals - result in different outcomes, but at its core its still a railroad. You still follow one of the paths chosen by the developer who wrote the storyline in the end
Emerging Gameplay is where the game sets conditions and possible actions, but leaves the path up to the player, and what happens emerges from the results of those actions. Most people don't see this as a "storyline" per se, but really what your character does becomes their story in the end. This style of game design is immensely complex to implement but is the only one that will result in truly dynamic and evolving gameplay. In most modern MMOs, the character is free to do whatever they want (subject to level restrictions for access to a zone etc) and thats all emerging gameplay, but when they take a quest or a mission, its essentially a mini-narrative in a lot of cases (say City of Heroes/Villains). As such the quests all start to look alike pretty quickly.
Narrative gameplay will always be limited by the time and imagination of the developer/level designer/whatever and thus players will always be able to burn through the content pretty quickly, certainly far far faster than it can be developed
Emerging gameplay has more potential. If a game could be developed with sufficient AI on the part of the NPC characters in the game such that they react to the conditions of the world, then we can see the potential for Emerging gameplay come into its own. If for instance in some fantasy world, kiling off all the mobs around a town made it easier for the NPC Bandit King to invade and conquer the town, and the AI for that entity was sufficient for it to recognize the condiditions under which that would be an advantageous action, then player actions collectively might result in a change to the game environment, even if its the unintentional result of many players individually hunting the mobs around that town because the pelts are worth selling. If each NPC could be imbued with defining characteristics to their character then perhaps the timid Bandit King might act less aggressively than the Driven Bandit King and killing the latter off might result in the former inheriting and not being able to keep control of the village etc. Then the quest to free the town is open to whichever group discovers the problem and decides they must fight their way to the Bandit Camp and defeat the leader there to break his hold on the bandits and thus their hold on the town etc. None of this would be scripted, it would all emerge from the conditions and characteristics inherent in the game design. This would happen when the conditions made it the viable choice for the NPCs involved. Beefing up the guard at the township might mean the whole bandit camp moves to some other area entirely etc.
Thats what the next generation of MMOs needs to offer - or at least treat as their Holy Grail I think.
What do stories have to do with games? (Score:2)
The Japanese have it down... (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's how I would describe it: The US is OBSESSED with unique complex plots with twists and turns everywhere, cliches are completely taboo. However, the storytelling is dry and purposefully attempts to extingish the idea of a creator. It's very post-modern in that respect, games really attempting to put the world into the hands of the player, and not give any emotional opportunity for the artist.
Japan, on the flipside, has no problem with a distinct separation of powers between creator and audience. Games are played from a more traditional artistic/entertainment standpoing: there is a creator who shares his/her thoughts and stories with an audience that genuinely engaged with them. Japenese storytelling may relly very heavily on architypes and cliches, but the details are all very original, with the creator's individuality coming through very strongly.
I truly feel that the USs post-modernist approach to game storytelling (ie: GTA, Mass Effect, Oblivion, ect.) will be shortlived and is doomed to inevitable extiction, for the same reason folks don't sit around the camp fire and listen to John Cage. This is a phase we're going through due to our current socio-political climate and fascination with the gadgetry of a new medium. It's sort of like the German expressionist film period. Eventually people will settle into video games being just another narrative medium like any other, with a distinct separation of powers between creator and audience. Obviously games will always provide a little more interaction than other mediums, but eventually that will be relegated to things like time frame (when and how you chose to interact with the story), and not in the actual creation of a story itself.
Most of the pleasure of a plot comes from not knowing what's going on, learning about the characters involved, and exploring the world that the creators have created for you. Something is very lost when the creator says things, "you create the characeters as you see fit", and "you create the structure as you see fit". and "the plot is yours to make". The enjoyment of LEARNING about the game-world is subtley but inexpicably lost.
This is a wholey american phinominon that is little more than a decade-or-so long passing phase. I think GTA IV or GTA V will see this come to a close. Things like Bioshock will probably be closer to what we'll see in the future, with set paths but subtle choices along the way.
Re: (Score:2)
Look to a game like Half Life 2 or Portal to see strong storytelling blended with gameplay in the way that TFA suggests.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ya know, I'm gonna start hatin' on films because they include music and drama. They aren't "pure", we should go back to silent films. It's just like video games that may include
Re: (Score:2)
Course, I find Half-Life 1/2 and Portal to be exceptionally weak in terms of storytelling (for the love of God, Valve, learn to use the cutscene! It's by far the best way to immerse your players in the drama, things just feel detached when you go through a first-person view), so we'd probably have to chalk the disagreement up to a matter of personal taste.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh please, could you possibly use any more hyperbole? Yes, there's perhaps more postmodern abhorrence of cliche in the "western" creative process, but when push comes to shove, people still enjoy swinging swords and saving princesses within their comfortable fam
Re: (Score:2)
And don't get me wrong, I have NOTHING against complex challenging storylines. For instance, I'm currently reading Cryptonomicon right now and absolutely loving it... and it's far more complex than a simple architypical plot. My point is, however, that if you have a complex plot, y
There should not be a noticable difference! (Score:2)
Modern games should be one contiguous experience with the player in ultimate control and able to swap "modes" on the fly. The games should be like life.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm interested that no one has yet mentioned Half-Life or Portal. Valves use of so-called in game cut scenes has made them, IMHO, a role model of how to integrate story into gameplay--especially in HL2 and its assorted episodes, where there are many scenes where plot-related events occur simultaneously with active gameplay, and even those scenes where you are basically just standing around listening to someone talk are made seamless with the rest of the gameplay--only in very rare instances is control ever actually taken away from the player in an obvious way.
Sure, the story itself may not win any awards for depth compared to RPGs and text adventures, but the integration of story and gameplay is excellent.
Yes! Yes! That's gaming done the right way! Get better at this kind of continuous story/game-play then you may some day see game plots that are rich and complex and don't ask the user to sit through cut scenes. How often do players just skip cut-scenes anyway?