Geryk HATES NWN, mean guy.

[mtkafka]

I actually agree with his article! The complaing about the story that is. Less talking more bashing!

http://gamespot.com/gamespot/features/all/gamespotting/071202/p8_01.html

BTW, its not a review... just a Geryk rant. And didn't Eiesenstein do the montage theory? like knife, baby, person crying thing? (the poll on GS)

Also, heres some funny posts from VE about it.

http://www.ve3d.com/comments.taf?postID=29424

What the hell is Geryk going to med school for... he should be a poor good writer, not some snobby rich boring doctor. :lol:

etc

[algahar]

nothing satisfies everyone... :?

but to some extend, i agree too, nwn has too much text to read... for those hardcore 'story' gamers its nice, seems to provide a lot of 'depth'... it also makes the original story module not very mp friendly...

oh well

[Mark Asher]

It's not the length of the story but the presentation. Having two little characters stand together while you click on a dialog tree and read snippet after snippet tends to remove any sense of the dramatic from the experience.

Warcraft III does it much better. They use the game engine to generate in-game cinematics, shrink to a letterbox look, pan the camera for a more cinematic feel, and just present the story moments to the player without asking the player to select a dialog tree. The player's passive and receptive and just watches.

[JeffL]

Story is a means to an end - the end being to pull the player into the game, to allow a player to become immersed or "lost" in the world of the game. When you forget that and allow the story itself to become the goal, rather than the immersion, you end up with tedius dialog click-fests, poor pacing, etc.

[chet]

Geryk has it all wrong. He should stop reading books in the real world - then the books in the game would seem exciting and new. He is obviously not a hardcore gamer. I have not only given up books, but magazines as well, all to enhance my in game reading experience.

Chet

[Anonymous]

In my opinion, something about NWN's overall presentation felt off. Even when I knew where I was I felt sorta lost. Hard to describe the feeling. I just know I didn't feel that way in BG2, PT, or IWD.

Speaking of, IWD2 SOON! WOOO!

[Anonymous]

>I have not only given up books, but magazines as well, all to enhance my in game reading experience.


I hope playgirl and cracked can survive this blow to their circulation.

[Jason Cross]

Bruce is entitled to his own opinion, of course.

But when he said this:

"I know others disagree, but I now officially can't stand story in games. As in, any story. If I wanted to read a bad story about a faerie princess and her elf paladin boyfriend, I'd play that console game where the 8-year-olds save the world in their magic flying ships."

He immediately made everything he will ever say about games from now on totally irrelevant to me. Not liking NWN is fine, and comparing it do Dialbo 2 is apples and oranges, but he can go right ahead if he wants. But when he makes a blanket statement about hating any story in a game and then the absurd generalization about console RPGs, I think it's safe for me to say he's obviously looking for completely different entertainment than I am.

So now whenever I read a Geryk review or column or whatever, I'll just completely dismiss it. His opinions are valid; they just plainly don't apply to me.

"I read a message board post once about Dungeon Siege, where the poster said he wished he could just walk by some location in the general area of a quest, and he'd be credited with the quest being complete. I don't know if he was joking or not, but sign me up for that. At this point, there is just no story in any computer game that can hold my interest for more than about 10 minutes."

shakes head...

[Dave Long]

I'm not one to champion story in games. I love games that give me the gameplay enjoyment to create and tell my own stories once I've finished playing, but I think Jason's right on the mark here. Bruce's column invalidates his opinions of games for me.

The comments about RPGs on consoles especially... Japanese console RPGs have a long storied history of confronting a lot of issues such as religion, racism, love, honor and much more. Final Fantasy is so popular as a series largely due to the underlying social issues the games present. They're far from "that console game where the 8-year-olds save the world in their magic flying ships".

I guess it's easy to stereotype console gamers when you're on the PC side of the fence. It's been done that way for years. The console gamers aren't any better... they note how PC games are only for the pocket protector brigade that wants super-detailed numbers to crunch, gaming by spreadsheet if you will.

When a guy makes the comment above about console games while at the same time spending most of his reviewing talents on the wargame genre, who's to say the stereotype for PC gamers isn't valid?

--Dave

[Doug Erickson]

Yeah, his complaint is a little too fatuous for an entire article on a major website. Bitching about "the stupid story" is fine for a website such as this, where the conversation thrives on bombastic, ego-driven remarks like that, but writing a whole article on why Bruce Geryk hates stories without any sort of real argument other than listing what he does does not prefer in his games is, just, well, egotistical.

Bruce's argument basically boils down to "Bruce Geryk hates stories in games" because "Bruce Geryk hates dialogue trees", "Bruce Geryk hates role-playing fags" and "Bruce Geryk has grown jaded and wants his games to play themselves even though he still won't be able to shake his growing sense of dissatisfaction with the hobby." Fine.

It would've been nice if Bruce'd tried to break down WHY story in games like NWN doesn't work, beyond some rather subjective hand-waving about how its all crap with elves and how he prefers his dose of pulpy content in the form of pie-eyed waifs in bikinis searching for crystals. I mean, COME ON: NWN is a great start if you want to criticize story in games, since it manages to be the definitive example of how NOT to add story content with its contrived dialogue trees and distinct lack of cinematic sensibility - for God's sake, it feels generic and painful simply because that's the only way you can make a quest with the Aurora toolset. Write tools that make it easy for amateurs to create content, and you'll inevitably limit yourself to amateurish results. NWN's SP problem is that it feels like a Choose Your Own Adventure even though you're playing a video game, and that's not only incredibly cheesy, it's a bit insulting at times. If you wanted to take one of those "Lone Wolf" or other D&D-esque kids books like "Deathtrap Dungeon" and turn them into a game, the Aurora toolset would be an ace choice. In fact, it's got that approach nailed down so tight in its hapless need to be completely usable by any dork with a penchant for elvenkind, I'd suggest that it's the ONLY choice.

But I digress. I can see the parallels between Diablo 2 and NWN, but at that level of comparison, I could also make an argument for comparing NWN and Gauntlet, or NWN and Cadash. The devil's in the details, and by limiting his "comparison" to such a level of abstraction, Geryk completely misses the place where NWN fucks up - the details. Y'know, where it's nothing like Diablo 2 in the slightest, with the dialogue trees and 3E round-based combat and 3D camera issues.

Really, all one takes away from that article is a strong feeling that Geryk really, REALLY thinks role-players are total fruits. I'm not saying that sentiment is inappropriate after reading the VE message boards, but there's a lot of fruits in every aspect of this hobby and scribing up an entire article just to call fans of elf-based gaming a bunch of bumpokers is stupidly self-absorbed.

If you're going to write an article bashing NWN, at least try to muster up some real complaints that any theoretically literate game designers not writing reams of sentences describing Lady Aribeth's love life might be able to take away as criticism. At the very least, give the reader something to think about, rather than just a disfocused complaint about how Bruce Geryk just doesn't like games that much any more.

[Mark Asher]

"He immediately made everything he will ever say about games from now on totally irrelevant to me. Not liking NWN is fine, and comparing it do Dialbo 2 is apples and oranges, but he can go right ahead if he wants. But when he makes a blanket statement about hating any story in a game and then the absurd generalization about console RPGs, I think it's safe for me to say he's obviously looking for completely different entertainment than I am.

"So now whenever I read a Geryk review or column or whatever, I'll just completely dismiss it. His opinions are valid; they just plainly don't apply to me."

Bruce tends to review strategy games. I doubt his feelings about story apply very often to those.

[Mark Asher]

"Really, all one takes away from that article is a strong feeling that Geryk really, REALLY thinks role-players are total fruits. I'm not saying that sentiment is inappropriate after reading the VE message boards, but there's a lot of fruits in every aspect of this hobby and scribing up an entire article just to call fans of elf-based gaming a bunch of bumpokers is stupidly self-absorbed."

Isn't the whole concept of Gamespotting "seriously self-absorbed"? It's a bunch of quick take columns from the staff and freelancers at Gamespot. I don't think they're supposed to be taken seriously as studied pieces of writing.

But Bruce probably does think roleplayers are fruity. Heh.

[Toddy]

But that wasn't the point of the article, Doug. Bruce gave us a great novelty 45, you're looking for a Yes album. And this sentence still makes me laugh out loud: "If I wanted to read a bad story about a faerie princess and her elf paladin boyfriend, I'd play that console game where the 8-year-olds save the world in their magic flying ships."

As for story in games, I dunno. There are some genres that have to have a developed story, or you can't get into it. Take Eternal Darkness, for example. Chick bashed it in another thread for being just another zombie-fest, and noted that the story was meaningless to him (I'm pretty sure that was the gist of things, correct me if I'm wrong). Well, if so, you'll never get into a horror game, because story is integral to setting a proper atmosphere. But I would agree that poorly paced stories in RPGs are a real problem right now. There's got to be a balance between NWN and Diablo.

[Doug Erickson]

Isn't the whole concept of Gamespotting "seriously self-absorbed"?

Well, if that's the case, color me abashed/trolled; I don't read Gamespot unless I'm linked to it. What's the point of these "Gamespotting" articles, then - editor ego gratification? Or are the readers just supposed to delight in the parade of "wacky" gamespot personalities?

[Supertanker]

This was the best response from VE: "YHBT. HTH. HAND." Someone got it at least.

I basically agree with Bruce on the story issue, though. Most of it is hack, and I can't stand it. I'm also about fed up with the NWN campaign. I'm about 2/3 of the way through Chapter 3, and I have guessed all of the major plot points so far. Some of the side quests are great - they should be clipped out and made into separate dungeons - but the main plot is just one cliche after another.

[xahlt]

I think he meant to say:"If I wanted to read a bad story about a faerie princess and his elf paladin girlfriend..."

Their Gamespotting articles are the equivalent of op ed pieces. Often there are outlandish and bombastic things said (Kasavin's "Starcraft is the best game in the world EVER" article tops that for me, come on I know you have to write one every week, but..) More often you get a guy reminiscing about how Super Intrastar Gladiators for the Famicom has not been rivalled since.

[Kevin Perry]

Write tools that make it easy for amateurs to create content, and you'll inevitably limit yourself to amateurish results.

I disagree, at least with the statement as written.

If it's easy for amateurs to make content, you'll get a flood of amateurish content, true. But that doesn't mean that you'll be limited to amateurish results. The advent of cheap electronic keyboards means that any amateur finds it easy to make bad music-- but that doesn't mean that all professional musicians MUST use the keyboards. Or that Bach couldn't make that baby sing.

I think you meant to say that the Aurora toolset is so limited that only amateurish content can be produced with it. Again, I would have to disagree. The Quake codebase is quite limited, really. But both Half-Life and Daikatana came of it, along with others.

Execution and intent will hold, no matter the tools.

[wumpus]

"I read a message board post once about Dungeon Siege, where the poster said he wished he could just walk by some location in the general area of a quest, and he'd be credited with the quest being complete. I don't know if he was joking or not, but sign me up for that. At this point, there is just no story in any computer game that can hold my interest for more than about 10 minutes."
I think he's exaggerating, but he has a point. The story should always be secondary to the gameplay. And whatever the story elements are, they should NEVER get in the way of actually playing the game. See the first comments in the Op: Flashpoint Resistance thread for more proof of this.

It sounds like the story in NWN doesn't just get up in your face, it practically punches you in the kidneys. I can sympathize; that's annoying.

Then you've got guys like Mark Asher who maintain that Starcraft is a better game than TA because it had a story. Never mind that TA had mind-blowing gameplay that was innovative, strategic, and visceral in ways that Starcraft's would never be. So now whenever I read an Asher review or column or whatever, I'll just completely dismiss it. His opinions are valid; they just plainly don't apply to me.

[wumpus]

I would also like to add that, although I enjoyed the gameplay, I thought the story in Final Fantasy 7 was really, really stupid-- cheesy, melodramatic, and cliched.

What I didn't understand is all the people raving about this part of the game as if it was some nobel-prize caliber literature. Are they 13 years old? Have they never read a book?

[wumpus]

Even the upcoming Doom, the first-person shooter series that puts players behind the blazing guns of a lone soldier out to stop God-forsaken demons, now comes fully equipped with a plot line, which annoys its creator.

"Games are not the best way to tell stories because the actors don't cooperate," said John Carmack, id software's lead designer at this year's E3 video game convention. "Games are at their best when they are treated as activities. Asking a game to be a story is like asking a basketball game to have stories. The better the story you tell, the worse the game becomes."


http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,53765,00.html

[Mark Asher]

And yet clearly the story elements in Half-Life made it a better game, and one that outsold Quake II also. Go figure.

[Chris Johnson]

As I sat here this weekend plodding through BG2 with an Inquisitor character and getting more and more annoyed with the in game chatter that various characters spontaneously broke into when I really didn't need any chatter - I'm not saying that I completely agree with Bruce, but I can understand.

[Bub, Andrew]

Carmack does sort of miss the lesson of Half-Life there... but Half-Life may be the exception that proves the rule (and HL mainly consisted of activities coupled with a cliched-yet-well-told-story, great pacing, mise-en-scene and all that). But Carmack's right. Activity or "game" should trump all efforts at narrative. Its worse to have a bad story (Quake 2) than to have no story at all (Quake).

[Qenan]

mtkafka, that was great, thanks for the link. :-)

[Qenan]

...his complaint is a little too fatuous for an entire article on a major website.

At least it was funny. I can forgive a lot for funny.

[Alan Au]

Oh, well for the BG2 NPC dialogue, it really just depends on which characters you have in your party. I agree it's jarring to have them start random monologues in the middle of the Underdark, but some of those conversations involving Jan are priceless.

I agree that gameplay must take precedence over narrative. With something like Starcraft, the narrative comes about as the result of gameplay. TA suffers from the repetitive nature of the missions, something that could have been avoided through more attention to "story" or at least a premise behind the missions. Take for example Mechwarrior 2, for which the story is almost entirely forgettable (and fortunately, ignorable). At the same time, it forms a basis for explaining the variety of the missions you play. Ghost Recon is much the same way. The story is entirely uninteresting except as a way to introduce various mission goals. Nobody mentions the storylines in these games, because the story isn't important.

Half-Life is an interesting case. The story unfolds as you play. It serves merely to explain why you must get from point A to point B and go through the obligatory sewers and warehouses. The narrative doesn't interfere with the gameplay. In fact, you can largely ignore the plot. The brilliance of the gameplay comes not from the storyline, but from the varied environments and combat encounters. Half-Life benefits from the story not because the plot is any good, but because the level design is good to begin with. You get new toys to play with, and new bad guys to blow up. It's Doom with more variety, but it's still a simple shoot-em up with linear gameplay.

Deus Ex is another interesting case study. This time, the story is very much at the heart of the gameplay experience. I have a love-hate relationship with the story. On the one hand, it's the glue holding together the various bits of random gameplay strewn about. On the other hand, the story seriously constrains the gameplay. You can't advance until you've gone through the sewers and the warehouse. Despite the open-ended play experience, you're still forced to jump through hoops A and B, etc. The story is a crutch, an interesting one to be sure, but a crutch nonetheless. Take away the story and the game falls apart.

What about the appeal of adventure games? There, the gameplay is based entirely around story, or is it? I've played through Sam 'n Max literally dozens of times, not just to zip through the plot, but to savor the wacky dialogue and ridiculous antics. The game is not so much about advancing the story as it is about exploring the game environment. A truly linear adventure game has all the appeal of a rail-shooter (or worse, those FMV "interactive movies"). The story is just a hook to give you ideas about where to go or what to do.

Would games be better without a storyline? The cop out answer is that "it depends." A poorly constructed story can be as annoying as a graphical glitch, and even the best of stories can't rescue an otherwise mediocre game. Then again, a good story can make the player think, and thereby adds an extra dimension to an otherwise simple game. I suppose a storyline in games is like any other feature. It's a portion of a game's presentation value. A good story will garner praise. A poor story will draw criticism. Do it well, or leave it out.

- Alan

[Jason Becker]

"Carmack does sort of miss the lesson of Half-Life there..."


Most developers still seem to miss the lesson in HL. The very beginning were you don't start off the first level with a gun in your hand like EVERY OTHER fps was like "hey something diffrent". Four years ans many still don't get it.

[Brad Wardell]

I sure hope this guy never reviews any games I make. For me, I like games that try to provide players with a lot of background text. I like interactivity and answering questions and well role playing via dialog.

That said, I do agree that NWN didn't pull off this very well. Very mediocre execution. The game would forever give me the same dialog options when they were no longer remotely relevant. Too many times the game would treat someone I know as if I had never met them.

But really, this guy should be playing console games. Gauntlet-style arcade games are fun, I enjoy them, but they're not my idea of role playing. I found Diablo 2 very tedious after awhile.

[Dave Long]

*sigh* Every time Half-Life comes up as a bastion of FPS gameplay, I have to look no further than System Shock 2 to make the point that the FPS went even further than Half-Life, but many people didn't bother to play it. Same with No One Lives Forever... both of those games took FPS beyond Half-Life, but there's this constant harping on that game. I mean, it's a good game and all, but when I played System Shock 2, I immediately forgot about Half-Life.

--Dave

[Alan Au]

Shock 2 is about atmosphere. Take away the story and you're left to wander around a derelict ship. Shock 2 is not a shooter per se, and thus doesn't deserve treatment as one. I almost think Shock 2 would have been better if the combat had been abstracted more, maybe Tomb Raider auto-lock style or some such thing.

The Thief games are an even better example of this. The story is, again, irrelevant. The whole "play in a thief-y manner" thing is the real meat of the experience. Interestingly, I enjoyed the "burgle the manor" levels more than the "avoid the undead" or "uncover the Pagan conspiracy" levels.

NoLF is a good example of irrelevant but entertaining story. Except for the level-loading (and maybe the multiplayer support), it's strictly better than Half-Life. I was getting long-winded as it was and elected not to discuss NoLF in my previous post, but since you brought it up... :)

- Alan

[Supertanker]

I agree with Dave, I found both SS2 and NOLF much better than Half-life (not to say I didn't like Half-life). These are all just steps in the path, since all have their failings as games still - see Xen, Heart of The Many, and mandatory stealth levels.

I don't put any faith in anything Carmack has to say about game design. Forget story, he didn't even learn the lessons of Unreal Tournament, as proven by Team Arena. Remember: Doom 3 will blow (or suck, depending on your preference), especially if you need story in a FPS. Game/story-wise it looks like the promised 3D mode for Progress Quest.

[Mark Asher]

But...but if you don't have story in games, how can they be art?!?

Ok, just kidding, but it's clear to me that the foundation of a good game needs to be the gameplay, but I don't see why that precludes the insertion of interesting dramatic elements. If you add the drama in the right way, it should enhance the overall experience. My quarrel over NWN isn't that it has a story or that the story's poor (I think it's interesting enough), but that the story is fed to me in a way that at times irritates me.

I will say this -- NWN's single player experience managed to drive me from the single player game early in chapter 3 to playing NWN on a player-made persistent world server. I've gone from too much story to absolutely no story whatsover, just killing and leveling, and I'm enjoying the latter more.

Ok, there is a story of sorts that's arisen out of the shared experience. There's a player-thief most of us hate and will kill on sight. He's become the elusive foozle we want to slay.

[Murph]

What's the name of that server, Mark?

[Mark Asher]

The server name is War in Avalon and you'll find it listed in the PW Action list. Jason Cross was the first to post about it here.

The problem is that it can only hold 10 players at a time. I wish BioWare would set up some high-end hardware and host some of these better mods and allow the creators access to update them.

[Gordon Cameron]

BTW, its not a review... just a Geryk rant. And didn't Eiesenstein do the montage theory? like knife, baby, person crying thing? (the poll on GS)


If you're talking about the idea that you could intercut a closeup of a man's face with a baby, then with food, etc., and each time we would extrapolate his emotions differently, then this is in fact the Kuleshov Effect. Whether that means Kuleshov "invented" montage theory as the poll suggests, I don't know. What I gather from old film school lectures is that all those crazy Russians got together and cut a print of Griffith's "Intolerance" six ways from Sunday, figured out the concepts behind dialectical montage, and the result was such immortal masterpieces as Potemkin, October, etc. Unfortunately we didn't spend much time on Russian silent cinema. My film professors had peculiar preoccupations. One of them was in love with Doris Day and had a strange fascination with the films of Blake Edwards. Another lectured at length about the subtextual meaning of Garfield cartoons and claimed Bert and Ernie were actually a gay couple. :?

As for Half-Life, I still consider it far and away the best FPS I have ever played. However, that may be in part because it was the first FPS I ever played at any length, and it was a hell of an intro to the genre. It provided me with one of the best gaming experiences I have ever had (along with Ultima III, Ultima V, Baldur's Gate II, and a few others), and nothing else has come close within that genre. I must admit I have not played NOLF. As for SS2, it didn't do much for me. Respawning zombies frustrated me, and I kept struggling with the inventory interface while more zombies would come along and bonk me on the head. I didn't think the RPG elements meshed well with the action elements, though it may only have been on the superficial (but, to me, all-important) level of interface-smoothness. My other complaint about SS2 can't exactly be called a criticism -- it was too scary for me to keep playing! Same thing happened to me in the "Return to the Cathedral" level of Thief. Too scary.

I'm still not sure why Half-Life worked so well. I don't know if it was really the "story." The plot was simple and cliched (experiment goes horribly awry, aliens run amok, throw in a little X-files government conspiracy, Bob's your uncle), though I will admit the game had a great setting (Black Mesa feels like a real place) and some fantastic setpieces (the initial explosion when the experiment goes wrong, Tentacle, the soldiers rappelling from the chopper). Half-Life didn't have a good plot but it did have good *moments*. I'm dubious about the importance of "story" in computer games anyway... isn't gameplay what matters? But then story can provide a context and make gameplay more interesting. For instance, I have fond memories of air-duct-crawling in Half-Life. This isn't good gameplay in itself, but I enjoyed it because I was coming from great gameplay moments, going toward other gameplay moments, and wondering what would happen next. Three obvious "gameplay" aspects of Half-Life stick out in my mind: 1) superior AI in the grunts and assassins; 2) good pacing, contrasting different types of level (i.e. Residue Processing's puzzle-based gameplay segueing into the increasingly combat-intensive Questionable Ethics and Surface Tension); 3) Great use of boss creatures (i.e. the Tentacle, the Apache Helicopter, and Gonarch, the way they didn't just pop up at the end of a level, but rather pervaded it). Add to that a very slick presentation, some striking (at the time) innovations (no cutscenes, lip-sync characters talking directly to you), some indelible images (I'll never forget the headcrabbed scientist in the chair, with flickering light being cast from his laptop), and a great setting with a "pervasive sense of doom" atmosphere, and I think that's why Half-Life ended up being a classic. IMO it really was more than the sum of its parts. And I've played it through about six times...

One thing that surprises me is that the "no cutscenes" approach of Half-Life and its X-packs (and, before them, Unreal) has not generally been emulated in more recent FPS's. I would have though it would become standard in the genre -- it's very immersive; cutscenes tend to take me out of the story. Ah well...

[Gordon Cameron]

Yeah, Neverwinter Nights makes you do a lot more reading and elf-pretending, but these are two things I do not play computer games for to be able to do better.

"Elf-pretending"... that's nice. I thought Geryk's rant was hilarious, though I am still reluctant to just bite the bullet and admit that RPG's are nothing more than tactical combat sims in which all the dialogue and plot is only busy-work... (I maintain they are tactical-combat-plus-career-advancement-plus-clothing-accessorizing-plus-exploration-plus-money-management sims in which plot and dialogue are busy-work.) Like Bruce, though, I dropped NWN like a hot potato after Chapter 1.

[JeffL]

For some reason I think of XCom as a great example of how the story drove the game and vice versa. Particularly the first time you play through and events are unveiled.

[Alan Au]

X-Com? It didn't contain any narrative per se, except perhaps for the opening sequence and the ending sequence. The story in the game takes the form of information gathering, which drives and is driven by the gameplay. It's proof that narrative isn't the only way to tie a game together. :)

- Alan

[Kevin Perry]

X-Com's story was both emergent and compartmentalized, which was why it was so cool to play the first time and still so cool to play again mutliple times.

Story and replay are tought to manage together.

[Jason Becker]

"*sigh* Every time Half-Life comes up as a bastion of FPS gameplay, I have to look no further than System Shock 2 to make the point that the FPS went even further than Half-Life"

I wouldn't really compare them myself. To me their very diffrent experiences(both great).


"I'm still not sure why Half-Life worked so well. I don't know if it was really the "story."

The best one word answer I've herd before is "execution". It wasn't any single big thing but several small things that added up to a terrific game. The phrase "greater than the sum of its parts" comes to mind.

[Tom Chick]

X-Com's story was both emergent and compartmentalized, which was why it was so cool to play the first time and still so cool to play again mutliple times.


Whatever this means, it's right. I think Kevin is saying, in fancy-pants talk, that the story was basically the stuff you unveil in the UFOpedia as a backdrop for the narrative you create with your own troops. Like in Civ, the story is the sweep of history as a backdrop for the narrative you create with your own cities.

Is that what emergent and compartmentalized means?

-Tom

[Kevin Perry]

I guess. I was being pithy.

The compartmentalized part is the really impressive bit. You don't need to see ANY of the 'plot text' after you've played the first time; the UFOpedia is quite separate from the play.

And it's emergent because the REAL story, your own narrative, is composed of small discrete bits randomly assorted by the game and your own choices. Within the larger framework, of course.

This meant that the overall 'story' was somewhat oblique, of course, but in X-Com's case that added to the mystique, I think. I wouldn't necessarily do that with Mary Kate and Ashely Meet Tha Pimp.

However, bringing the thread back home, there's no reason that a game couldn't be done with the same features using the NWN toolset. Bioware, however, chose not to make that game.

[Brooski]

I’m currently in the middle of science deadline Hell, and have been for several days, so I’m sorry I couldn’t join in on this earlier, and I’m sorry I can only post this once for now. As far as the column goes, only one question really matters. Was it funny? If yes, then you’re welcome, I hope you had a great rest of your stay, and we look forward to flying with you again soon. If not, you wasted all of three minutes. Maybe. And another fifteen seconds to read this far to hear me apologize for wasting three minutes of your life.

The problem with stories in games is that people (total fruits to use Doug’s term) take them seriously as stories and thus designers get this crazy idea that somehow making the story the game is the best! The truth is more emergent, which is a word meaning “what Kevin Perry thinks” in that you just have to make people anticipate the new stuff without worrying how it all fits together as literature. The revolutionary idea behind X-COM was that aliens were invading the Earth. I think. From this one idea, you could design a game in which, for stupid reasons, you got new guns, and thus fought bigger aliens, and wondered what would happen next. It’s not that complicated. I don’t know what nutjob thought that I would be so captivated by a story about yet another polygon princess that I would happily click on three different text things just to say goodbye to her, but I swear to God it wasn’t me.

In conclusion, let me just say that it is a good thing I am so scientifically minded, because otherwise I'd have to treat my article-induced emails as absolute proof of the role-players = fruits postulate. Instead, I'll defer until I have more data.

[mtkafka]

Its not a story I'm looking for in a game, but moreso the details in the game. The backdrop to the game... the essentials like who what where when why. After that, I'm ok with just playing it. Strategy and RTS games dont need so much a story as more of a theme. I still h aven't played a game that had a narative element that was great... cept maybe some adventure games but even then its a puzzle hunt. Anyway, I just wanted to say that a story could be one way to fill in the narrative to the player of the gameworld, to include the gameplay within the narrative....but whats really important is getting the 'feel' of the game right moreso the story. :?:

etc

[xahlt]

But you did play Grim Fandango, right? I guess that could count as a puzzle hunt as much as any adventure game, but that game... man was that good. Hell of a story.

[Alan Au]

Grim Fandango is a puzzle game where the puzzle locations and solutions are alluded to via the story. In turn, the story is told through the completion of the puzzles. Not quite 'emergent' story, but definitely more intertwined with the gameplay than say, Myst or the 7th Guest where the 'gameplay' is abstracted from the story.

- Alan

[Toddy]

"The Thief games are an even better example of this. The story is, again, irrelevant. The whole "play in a thief-y manner" thing is the real meat of the experience. Interestingly, I enjoyed the "burgle the manor" levels more than the "avoid the undead" or "uncover the Pagan conspiracy" levels. "

I'd go further and say that the Thief games make up the best example of blending story with gameplay. The cutscenes are fairly short, yet extremely well done and serve as great teasers for what you'll find out in the following missions. They really set a mood, which is then paid off in missions where you'll tell your own story by completing the job and gain some clues to what's going on with the main plot. Thief II really did this well with the early missions. I remember the huge warehouse one where you found robot parts in boxes--nice foreshadowing.

[Peter Frazier]

Way to go with the rant, Bruce. I thought it was both funny and spot on, so unlike a few other people around here I won't be black banning your reviews.
However, there is a good reason for story in these games. You need to give gamers a purpose for carrrying on so that they can tell others that it is the engaging plot that keeps them playing. Otherwise they'll have to admit to the world that they are grown men pretending to be young elves
http://pixyland.org/peterpan/

[Murph]

Ugh! Did you have to drag (pun intended) that site into this!

That guy scares me. A lot.

[chet]

I remember the huge warehouse one where you found robot parts in boxes--nice foreshadowing.

Wasn't that the warehouse where you had to steal to pay your rent? That was the end for me. I didn't want to have go on and play the level where I had to steal quarters to do my laundry.

Chet

[Ben Sones]

Grim Fandango is a puzzle game where the puzzle locations and solutions are alluded to via the story. In turn, the story is told through the completion of the puzzles. Not quite 'emergent' story, but definitely more intertwined with the gameplay than say, Myst or the 7th Guest where the 'gameplay' is abstracted from the story.

It's funny that you say that, because I've always felt that Myst integrated gameplay and story better than any other contemporary adventure game. I won't try to convince you to like it if you don't, but just out of curiosity, why do you feel that Grim Fandango's puzzles are better integrated?

[mtkafka]

Myst's puzzles are more abstract... though they have a logic to them they really don't feel like a part of the game as Grim Fandango's puzzles were. Just like the Infocom classics, Myst sorta takes that approach, whereas Grim Fandango takes the Sierra Roberta Williams KQ approach (haha Chet Roberta Williams rules! just like Wil Wheaton!). Just a though...

etc