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Truths about video game stories

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Re: Truths about video game stories

#191

Post by watwut »

kibwen wrote: post #170
yeetaccount wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Books sales are sales of anything with an ISBN. This includes adult colouring books, which I’ve heard is responsible for possibly all the sales increases in the past few years.

After a flurry of activity in the last decade, I haven't heard anyone mention adult coloring books even once in the past two or three years. As long as we're all baselessly speculating, I will baselessly speculate that they were just an ordinary fad. My own anecdote is that disillusionment with internet content and electronic consumption in general has caused me to buy and read more books recently than at any point i…

They are prominently in bookstores. They did not disappeared and people did not stopped buying them.

Just the hand wringing over them stopped.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#192

Post by watwut »

bsanr2 wrote: post #126
watwut wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, I did played the game back then. I did not perceived it as subtle or indirect or needing to figure out. Back then years ago, that in the moment game moment was "ah, OK, soldiers are supposed to be bad guys and I am supposed to kill them". Back then, half life was one of the games that made me think about how linear games are evolving to be. At one place, you could decide to go left or right and it joined…

Games have always been pretty linear, though. The ones that had a notable degree of "freedom" found that freedom in a) Choosing which enemies to go and kill with your chosen color of pixel burst. or b) Choosing which set of text and vaguely representational spritework the game would expose to you. Many "linear" games offer tactical rather than strategic freedom. There is a sort of conservation of experiential depth,…

> Many "linear" games offer tactical rather than strategic freedom

Half life was not one of them. At the time, they were games that allows more strategizing and more tactic and more micro choices. Half life was as prescribed as it gets.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#193

Post by watwut »

nkrisc wrote: post #117
watwut wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you run into the marines you aren't told they're bad, they just start trying to kill you and you figure out that you're not getting a rescue. That is not exactly subtle nor needs much figuring. Them trying to kill you is game telling you they are bad in very straightforward way.

That’s the game showing you they’re bad with gameplay instead of telling you with a cutscene or text.

Games were showing rather then telling long before half life. That was not something special. I don't know whether people here did not played games other then half life back then or half life is only thing they remember.

And the difference between full cit scene and what happened in half life was really really minor.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#194

Post by unity1001 »

> Doesn't matter, because the vast majority of players just tune out the story. As long as you let them skip past it, it's fine. There are a lot of people out there who have put hundreds of hours into World of Warcraft, myself included. If you quizzed us all on World of Warcraft lore, 99% of us would get an F-, guaranteed.

Doesnt compute. Not only the above particular tidbit about Wow is his own personal perception, but also the longer you game, the more you get bored of 'pew pew' and you want something that actually is memorable.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#195

Post by bombcar »

unity1001 wrote: post #194

> Doesn't matter, because the vast majority of players just tune out the story. As long as you let them skip past it, it's fine. There are a lot of people out there who have put hundreds of hours into World of Warcraft, myself included. If you quizzed us all on World of Warcraft lore, 99% of us would get an F-, guaranteed. Doesnt compute. Not only the above particular tidbit about Wow is his own personal perception,…

I played WoW for almost a decade and the only story I remember with much clarity is that of Pamela.

Otherwise things happened quest objectives lit up and I think Arthas married Thrall or something.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#196

Post by thriftwy »

splatzone wrote: post #148
Toutouxc wrote: post #47

How exactly are Raiders of the Lost Ark or Breaking Bad storylines better than those of the first Mafia, The Witcher 3, Uncharted 4, Metro Exodus, Kingdom Come: Deliverance or Half-Life 2 + episodes? And I'm not even mentioning artistic pieces like What Remains of Edith Finch or Life is Strange. There are quests in The Witcher 3 you could make a movie from (Bloody Baron).

Human actors - Breaking Bad is about the process of a man changing into a monster. It takes great acting to make that story work Video games will never do drama as well as theatre or film, because we can't see into the actors souls - video game stories are puppet theatre Edit: thinking about this some more, I think I might be wrong - there are many animated films that I've found emotionally moving and involving that…

Games may do even better by forcing you to change your character into monster. Can't argue if you're the killer.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#197

Post by bombcar »

sethammons wrote: post #149
periphrasis wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video games have existed for over 50 years now. Video games have had as much time to mature as film had had by the early 1940s. And by the early 1940s film had produced numerous mature works of art displaying mastery of the medium that are still avidly watched and viewed as masterpieces today. The excuse that video games are a young medium may have held 20 years ago in the PS2 era, but it does not hold any longer.

How many movies does your avg movie goer know or can name movies from the 40s? Maybe, maybe half a dozen (it's a wonderful life, casablanca, citizen kane, Disney Fantasia and Pinocchio, and his girl Friday. I'm pretty sure your average person can name an order of magnitude more video games from pong to mario to sonic to modern day AAA games. And over time, some will have staying power, like I hope Breath of the Wild…

Half of those games you listed are actually game series. Most people can probably name Mickey Mouse, a movie character from the 30s.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#198

Post by VortexDream »

bombcar wrote: post #195
unity1001 wrote: post #194

> Doesn't matter, because the vast majority of players just tune out the story. As long as you let them skip past it, it's fine. There are a lot of people out there who have put hundreds of hours into World of Warcraft, myself included. If you quizzed us all on World of Warcraft lore, 99% of us would get an F-, guaranteed. Doesnt compute. Not only the above particular tidbit about Wow is his own personal perception,…

I played WoW for almost a decade and the only story I remember with much clarity is that of Pamela. Otherwise things happened quest objectives lit up and I think Arthas married Thrall or something.

I used to be deeply immersed in Warcraft lore. WoW helped me kick that habit, ironically. I think though if the game had good stories told well, more people would be interested in paying attention. And people are interested in WoW's story. Or else there wouldn't be as much squabbling about the latest way in which Blizzard butchered the story.

FFXIV shows how much many players want to care.

Some of my favorite story-based experiences in gaming were in an MMO (The Secret World).

Re: Truths about video game stories

#199

Post by watwut »

awild wrote: post #150
dudul wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be generic high fantasy work maybe because it literally defined all the codes of this genre. Blame everyone else who came after Tolkien.

That's exactly what GP is saying though? There's a borges fake essay on exactly this topic: Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote

No. One of the six things article complains about is repeating the same trick to death. Lord of the rings did not repeated the trick from other books, it created own.

It does not fit other points either. It does not uses meme humor. It does not allow you to ignore the story. It has individual human voice.

It does not fit the thing article is complaining about at all.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#200

Post by nottorp »

unpopularopp wrote: post #50

>The Last of Us has decent gameplay but became a phenomenon by having a story as good as a medium-quality zombie movie Seems like the writer is just hating AAA games But I'm also curious what zombie movies does this guy watch that have a so so much better story than TLoU

> Seems like the writer is just hating AAA games

He's not alone. But I don't hate them, they bore me to tears. Same goes for the current Hollywood blockbusters.

> But I'm also curious what zombie movies does this guy watch that have a so so much better story than TLoU

Zombieland :)

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