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Decline "Stock" worldbuilding.

Lurker47

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I've found that a good portion of CRPG's or games that pride themselves on "worldbuilding" have developed their own little circle of archetypes and tropes- the hypocritical revolutionaries, honorable fascists, noble savages, and factions centering around all kinds of well-known dilemmas like "do the ends justify the means" with pros and cons as generic and base level possible. Having an interesting idea takes a backseat to constantly forcing moral ambiguity into token conflicts.

Factions also tend to focus on one single ideology or interesting idea and whose variety of perspectives come solely from mild differences on this one specific concept or idea. Economics, religion, government are all almost irrelevant to things like "lol robots should be free" in focus- that is if they even exist at all. If these elements do exist, they either poorly mimic the sentiments in the central idea or lack depth.
These differences in faction perspective are also more on the level of "lol all black robots should be free" than anything on a conceptual level as all of these ideologies tend to be pretty straight-forward and just barely abstract.

Some, despite being interesting and developed, don't have much of an ideological or philosophical bent to them at all, which I find a bit boring. That is more of a personal thing, however, and I can tolerate it.

That being said, are there any games that fit this kind of criteria? And do you agree that there's some sort of "standard worldbuilding template" to a lot of games?
 

Jokzore

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"standard worldbuilding template" to a lot of games?

Best stories in video games are often set in already established (built) worlds, aren't they ?

The reason it all feels so boring, uninspired and '' stock '' is because you can't really build a whole world from ground up in the time it takes to write a video game. Pillars of Eternity is a perfect example of it, locations, names, people, history, mythology, religion, philosophy, factions , geography , politics theres so much that makes up a world and you can't possibly cover all of it , making sure everything gets the level of attention, detail and quality it deserves, you have to throw something to interns who are almost all talentless hacks with useless degrees. So you end up with a world of mediocrity that feels rushed and forced.

Why do they keep doing it ? Publishers love it because they don't have to pay a licence fee to Wizard of the Coast. ''Gaming press'' LOVE it because they're cut from the same cloth as the interns, heck sometimes they're the same people. And finally the ''gamers'' love it because we always get excited about new IP and most of us are too young to know any better.

Tyranny was universally praised for its ''worldbuilding'' , but I wonder how much of that universe actually played anything before the current decade.

Conclusion: Fire half the writing staff, use the money you saved on a licence for a world people already know and let the real writers write something worthwhile, rather than fill yet another page of a lorebook nobody is going to read or care about.
 
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Glaucon

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Seems like you're talking about a certain strain of futuristic/sc-fi rpgs (no non-medieval historical settings come to mind, other than Pillars). Fallout, certainly the modern ones, encompass more or less what you're describing. I suppose Mass Effect. That god-awful new Numenera game. But the obsession with staging "morally ambiguous situations", without ever addressing the basic issues or thinking about them deeply--this is a vice of games writing generally. It's at least a step beyond mere cliche. I think of the current situation as being the adolescence of games writing, beyond childhood yet not quite mature. And yes, there are written games from the past, I'm just speaking in broad strokes.

As for "hypocritical revolutionaries, honorable fascists"--I have no idea what game you have in mind. New Vegas? Well, the NCR are hardly revolutionaries.
 

Glaucon

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Oh, how could I forget, the entire Witcher series is the poster child for the type of writing you're describing.
 

Lurker47

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Seems like you're talking about a certain strain of futuristic/sc-fi rpgs (no non-medieval historical settings come to mind, other than Pillars). Fallout, certainly the modern ones, encompass more or less what you're describing. I suppose Mass Effect. That god-awful new Numenera game. But the obsession with staging "morally ambiguous situations", without ever addressing the basic issues or thinking about them deeply--this is a vice of games writing generally. It's at least a step beyond mere cliche. I think of the current situation as being the adolescence of games writing, beyond childhood yet not quite mature. And yes, there are written games from the past, I'm just speaking in broad strokes.

As for "hypocritical revolutionaries, honorable fascists"--I have no idea what game you have in mind. New Vegas? Well, the NCR are hardly revolutionaries.
I took some broad strokes with my examples. This kind of thing is present in a lot of game writing, RPG's just have more focus on it.

That was more from RPG-lite FPS's (ones with like, one choice at the end). I was thinking of things like Far Cry or whatever but that kind of style of "bad thing but with adjective"/"good thing but with adjective" is present in a lot of faction design.
 

Iznaliu

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The reason it all feels so boring, uninspired and '' stock '' is because you can't really build a whole world from ground up in the time it takes to write a video game. Pillars of Eternity is a perfect example of it, locations, names, people, history, mythology, religion, philosophy, factions , geography , politics theres so much that makes up a world and you can't possibly cover all of it , making sure everything gets the level of attention, detail and quality it deserves, you have to throw something to interns who are almost all talentless hacks with useless degrees. So you end up with a world of mediocrity that feels rushed and forced.

It's also harder than most people think developing a good world, especially when you have to pitch it to executives.
 

Lurker47

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The reason it all feels so boring, uninspired and '' stock '' is because you can't really build a whole world from ground up in the time it takes to write a video game. Pillars of Eternity is a perfect example of it, locations, names, people, history, mythology, religion, philosophy, factions , geography , politics theres so much that makes up a world and you can't possibly cover all of it , making sure everything gets the level of attention, detail and quality it deserves, you have to throw something to interns who are almost all talentless hacks with useless degrees. So you end up with a world of mediocrity that feels rushed and forced.

It's also harder than most people think developing a good world, especially when you have to pitch it to executives.
I'm sorry if I came off as entitled. I just really like getting in engrossed in an RPG world; it's the best feeling in the world.
 

JarlFrank

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"standard worldbuilding template" to a lot of games?

Best stories in video games are often set in already established (built) worlds, aren't they ?

The reason it all feels so boring, uninspired and '' stock '' is because you can't really build a whole world from ground up in the time it takes to write a video game. Pillars of Eternity is a perfect example of it, locations, names, people, history, mythology, religion, philosophy, factions , geography , politics theres so much that makes up a world and you can't possibly cover all of it , making sure everything gets the level of attention, detail and quality it deserves, you have to throw something to interns who are almost all talentless hacks with useless degrees. So you end up with a world of mediocrity that feels rushed and forced.

It also depends on what you spend your time on. If I remember correctly, Pillars had many references to other places in the world that aren't accessible in the game, and much of the info about the gameworld comes in long-winded infodumps.
Why not spend more time on developing the areas you actually see in the game? And more time on making the elements of the world's history and society actually visible in the gameworld?

I love the gameworlds of Arcanum and Morrowind. Yes, Arcanum feels a little empty on the worldmap due to its relatively few locations compared to the size of the landmass. Yes, Morrowind is based in a setting that has had several games appear in it before. Yet both games do an excellent job at creating interesting worlds that were made specifically for computer games. And while Elder Scrolls had been a long-running series already, Morrowind developed the history and culture of the province it takes place in from the ground up, except for some general stuff on what the province is like, they had no detailed sourcebook to follow. Yet it ended up becoming one of the most interesting and engrossing worlds ever made for a computer RPG.

What makes Arcanum and Morrowind so good? The lore is relevant to the world and what you're doing in it. In Arcanum, you travel the entire continent. If you hear about an elven city or a foreign country, you can visit it later and see it for yourself. You're not confronted with detailed lore of places that you know you'll never actually see. And even for the places you will see, you're not dumped with lore text about them - you get to explore the world on your own. The things you learn, the things you are told, they're all relevant. Same with Morrowind. Tamriel is a huge continent, but all you hear about the world outside of Morrowind are snippets and rumors. You're not being fed any details on the current political situation in High Rock or Elsweyr. Instead, you get a lot of lore and culture about Morrowind, because that's the place that is of interest to you.

When you put less effort into the irrelevant aspects of your gameworld and more into those that are actually relevant, the result will be much better.
 

Jokzore

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The reason it all feels so boring, uninspired and '' stock '' is because you can't really build a whole world from ground up in the time it takes to write a video game. Pillars of Eternity is a perfect example of it, locations, names, people, history, mythology, religion, philosophy, factions , geography , politics theres so much that makes up a world and you can't possibly cover all of it , making sure everything gets the level of attention, detail and quality it deserves, you have to throw something to interns who are almost all talentless hacks with useless degrees. So you end up with a world of mediocrity that feels rushed and forced.

It's also harder than most people think developing a good world, especially when you have to pitch it to executives.

That's what I meant. Developing an entire world in the time it takes to create a video game is almost impossible. Most studios don't have the time, money or talent to do it. How long did Tolkien take to write LoTR? 12 years? And he's far more talented than anyone writing for video games today.

The point is you don't have to establish a whole universe head to toe in order to write a good video game, just focus on a single story and then over time flesh out the rest of the world. It's not like they're not already planning 5 more sequels ,a spinoff and a comic series.
 

Lurker47

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It's not like they're not already planning 5 more sequels ,a spinoff and a comic series.
You underestimate how overlyeager companies can be. Just look at Law Breakers, the multibillion dollar franchise.

That kind of thing has quadrupled in popularity recently.
 

The Bishop

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"standard worldbuilding template" to a lot of games?

Best stories in video games are often set in already established (built) worlds, aren't they ?

The reason it all feels so boring, uninspired and '' stock '' is because you can't really build a whole world from ground up in the time it takes to write a video game. Pillars of Eternity is a perfect example of it, locations, names, people, history, mythology, religion, philosophy, factions , geography , politics theres so much that makes up a world and you can't possibly cover all of it , making sure everything gets the level of attention, detail and quality it deserves, you have to throw something to interns who are almost all talentless hacks with useless degrees. So you end up with a world of mediocrity that feels rushed and forced.

It also depends on what you spend your time on. If I remember correctly, Pillars had many references to other places in the world that aren't accessible in the game, and much of the info about the gameworld comes in long-winded infodumps.
Why not spend more time on developing the areas you actually see in the game? And more time on making the elements of the world's history and society actually visible in the gameworld?

I love the gameworlds of Arcanum and Morrowind. Yes, Arcanum feels a little empty on the worldmap due to its relatively few locations compared to the size of the landmass. Yes, Morrowind is based in a setting that has had several games appear in it before. Yet both games do an excellent job at creating interesting worlds that were made specifically for computer games. And while Elder Scrolls had been a long-running series already, Morrowind developed the history and culture of the province it takes place in from the ground up, except for some general stuff on what the province is like, they had no detailed sourcebook to follow. Yet it ended up becoming one of the most interesting and engrossing worlds ever made for a computer RPG.

What makes Arcanum and Morrowind so good? The lore is relevant to the world and what you're doing in it. In Arcanum, you travel the entire continent. If you hear about an elven city or a foreign country, you can visit it later and see it for yourself. You're not confronted with detailed lore of places that you know you'll never actually see. And even for the places you will see, you're not dumped with lore text about them - you get to explore the world on your own. The things you learn, the things you are told, they're all relevant. Same with Morrowind. Tamriel is a huge continent, but all you hear about the world outside of Morrowind are snippets and rumors. You're not being fed any details on the current political situation in High Rock or Elsweyr. Instead, you get a lot of lore and culture about Morrowind, because that's the place that is of interest to you.

When you put less effort into the irrelevant aspects of your gameworld and more into those that are actually relevant, the result will be much better.
I don't think that much effort went into developing areas you don't get to see in PoE. I mean, there are just a couple of short stories and some general description per area and that's about it? Also I'm pretty sure "lore dumping" is the least resource intensive way of writing a game. You need to have some descriptive text about areas you're designing anyway (or else designers will have nothing to work with), and then all you do is just feed some of that text directly into the game. To distribute this information in form of rumors and pieces of dialogue - that's a lot of extra work. And while the investment is well worth it, some games just can't afford to dedicate any more resources, so you end up with minimal and least expensive solutions like PoE (but not expansions, those are much better).
 

JarlFrank

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If you're planning the content from the outset while you're designing it, you can directly have the writers write the lore in a way that's nicely presentable, such as the form of rumors and pieces of dialogue. That requires constant communication between the writers and level designers, but hey, if you're not constantly communicating with the other team members you're already doing something wrong.
 

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Narrative blocks in an RPG are like Tetris pieces. The bigger and more elaborate each piece, the more holes you create as the player arranges them in arbitrary order.

This is why all the pieces should be very compact, localized and devoid of writer's emotional and moral bias, to make them as close to being 1x1 Tetris blocks as possible, which would eliminate creation of holes in the story as the player stacks them randomly.

As result, the player creates a flexible continuous narrative which, however laconic, is still supported by the game's writing and NPC reactions, and doesn't dissolve into nonsense. This creates immersion.

Fallout did a lot of things right in that respect. It wasn't a full-blown "choose your own adventure" game, but this approach significantly improved the perceived elasticity of the gameworld.
 

Iznaliu

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This is why all the pieces should be very compact, localized and devoid of writer's emotional and moral bias, to make them as close to being 1x1 Tetris blocks as possible, which would eliminate creation of holes in the story as the player stacks them randomly.

That isn't very pleasant from a writer's perspective though.
 

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This is why all the pieces should be very compact, localized and devoid of writer's emotional and moral bias, to make them as close to being 1x1 Tetris blocks as possible, which would eliminate creation of holes in the story as the player stacks them randomly.

That isn't very pleasant from a writer's perspective though.

The moment a writer attempts any sort of emotional manipulation of the player or continuity of narrative, he starts destroying immersion and suffocating player agency.

Games are a different medium, and so very few learned over the years how to write for them. The player cannot be forced to immerse, nor can he be forced to feel. If the player does develop immersion, it's because the fourth wall was left undisturbed by the writer's ego. If the player does care for someone or something in the game, it's because he was given a neutral ground on which to develop his own feelings toward the matter.

For example, you can find a sad little girl in the game. But you cannot be explicitly told that she's sad. You should see how she talks, and decide if she looks sad to you, and whether you care to sympathize with her. If you get a quest from her, you don't have to go do it, and the quest title can't say "Help sad little girl find her lost parents", because that's the writer dictating to you how you should feel about her. It should say something like "Find Karina's parents". If you do care for her, it will be something YOU developed - a genuine caring. And if you don't, you won't feel annoyed by the game poking your face into it.

Fallout 1 did this mostly right, but pretty much every other game didn't.
 

coldcrow

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^ This a hundred times. Fucking industry forgot that games are different from books or movies. Might also be the zeitgeist of emotionalizing everything.
 

Iznaliu

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^ This a hundred times. Fucking industry forgot that games are different from books or movies. Might also be the zeitgeist of emotionalizing everything.

The players forgot this as well. Ironically, this might be the result of having game writing as a profession.
 

Sneaky Seal

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I think there are several factors contributing to it:

- in real world there is an established spectrum of political views, ranging from left-wing to right-wing or something similar. Very often they have populist stands on various controversial subjects (birth control, guns, etc.), which allows voters to identify with one of the sides. The video game worlds mimic that;
- very often game writers focus on smaller-scaled personal stories and leave the political forces and ideologies as sort of a background, done in broad strokes;
- it will not definitely benefit the game to have some complicated value systems for various parties, as it does in some strategies. Having a hive-mind kind of nation is fun in Stellaris as it works well with the global strategy game mechanics, but I don't see it being as fun role-playing a bee warrior.
 

Zanzoken

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The best worlds all have an element of mystery and suspense to them. If a writer can convince me that there are secrets worth finding then I will dive in.

Games that have done this for me in the past are PsT, Morrowind, and AoD.
 

Zakhad

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Sturgeon's law. 90% of game-writing is shit, because 90% of all writing is shit.

Players are demanding more depth. But the majority of writers haven't all suddenly got better, and aren't going to. So we get writers *emulating* depth, writing games with the *outward signs* of depth, or what they think those signs are... lots of complicated lore, muh moral ambiguity, some grimdark bullshit. It's a cargo cult of actual good writing, where they copy the apparent shape but not the spirit. And most audience don't know any better either, because, again, Sturgeon's law: 90% of us are shit.

And so it goes.
 

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What is known in non-interactive mediums as "good writing", is terrible for games. What is good writing for games - extremely compact, very modular and tone-neutral - is bad writing for non-interactive mediums.

I'm not a fan of Torment's writing. Don't know how else to describe it, but it's... LARP-y.
 

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