NSFW Best Thread Ever [No SJW-related posts allowed]

[RK47]

Numenero isn't a confirmed hit yet.
We'll see. I'm not convinced.

 

[Dexter]

This is probably obvious for Codexers but IMO where the games would shine as storytelling medium are the certain kind of high concepts, like in Planescape: Torment or what Torment: Tides of Numenera are doing, and especially if there's choices and consequences involved, "What if I do this and that, then this and that happens". Since those kind of games are rarely done I've become convinced that most developers and/or publisher and audiences are too stupid to get them, especially if they deal with more cerebral themes.

The way in which Choice & Consequence is often implemented in "the story" of most games can only be an approximation and has so far mostly been implemented as either Multiple-choice dialogue or simple almost binary Cinematic choice. There are a few of those type of games trying to be a little more subtle about it by implementing it within the gameplay (Who/What do I choose to shoot?).
But games like Roguelikes (FTL, Dungeons of Dredmore), Civilization-clones, X-Com, Dwarf Fortress to a certain extent some Online games like Day Z and the likes can tell a dynamic story (I helped another ship and now mine is fucked, I really need to find relief... oh no a bug planet, starving to death just short a supply room or starting a war against too many enemies and scraping to find an ally quickly to forego extermination or similar) that can be different each time with minimal "story" other than an initial premise as to your role, although in a simplified context and that can often also be when games turn out to be at their best and unexpected shit happens with real C&C while a linear "pre-defined" story where you pick between the dialogue choices or just decide to run left or right always has constraints (the more "cinematic" something gets, the more it also seems to involve QuickTime Events). It's also probably why a lot of Multiplayer games are so popular through their inherent replayability and fun/engaging gameplay while a lot of the others are one time things.

 

[Gurkog]

Resident Evil 1 was as cinematic as vidya games get and I don't recall QTEs in it. Granted I only played small portions at a friend's house 15 years ago.

 

[Jarpie]

This is probably obvious for Codexers but IMO where the games would shine as storytelling medium are the certain kind of high concepts, like in Planescape: Torment or what Torment: Tides of Numenera are doing, and especially if there's choices and consequences involved, "What if I do this and that, then this and that happens". Since those kind of games are rarely done I've become convinced that most developers and/or publisher and audiences are too stupid to get them, especially if they deal with more cerebral themes.

The way in which Choice & Consequence is often implemented in "the story" of most games can only be an approximation and has so far mostly been implemented as either Multiple-choice dialogue or simple almost binary Cinematic choice. There are a few of those type of games trying to be a little more subtle about it by implementing it within the gameplay (Who/What do I choose to shoot?).
But games like Roguelikes (FTL, Dungeons of Dredmore), Civilization-clones, X-Com, Dwarf Fortress to a certain extent some Online games like Day Z and the likes can tell a dynamic story (I helped another ship and now mine is fucked, I really need to find relief... oh no a bug planet, starving to death just short a supply room or starting a war against too many enemies and scraping to find an ally quickly to forego extermination or similar) that can be different each time with minimal "story" other than an initial premise as to your role, although in a simplified context and that can often also be when games turn out to be at their best and unexpected shit happens with real C&C while a linear "pre-defined" story where you pick between the dialogue choices or just decide to run left or right always has constraints. It's also probably why a lot of Multiplayer games are so popular through their inherent replayability and fun/engaging gameplay while a lot of the others are one time things.

The linear "pre-defined" C&C what affects more than just some lines of dialogue can be done purely by dialogue or by gameplay and obivously requires game not to use cinematic cutscenes, like in FNV but it's more CYOA than what I was meaning, that being said I understand why games with truely different outcomes and paths/branches aren't done as they must be complete pain in the ass to write and especially to script with all the variables.

 

[ManjuShri]

Can't believe I didn't know about this.

 

[Darth Roxor]

... WAT

 

[Zewp]

RPS writer dares suggest games are not for storyfaggotry, hipster commenters react with rage: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/06/11/maybe-games-just-arent-for-telling-great-stories/

It's ironic how the people in the comments section are lambasting Walker for saying story isn't important and lambasting shooters, meanwhile they probably heralded Bioshock Infinite as the second coming of christ.

 

[Gerrard]

RPS writer dares suggest games are not for storyfaggotry, hipster commenters react with rage: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/06/11/maybe-games-just-arent-for-telling-great-stories/

Someone at RPS writes dumb shit (while trying to be "lel ironic" with those retarded pictures too), nothing out of the ordinary.
I am with the hipsters on this one.

 

[Zewp]

Anyway, story isn't unimportant. If you remove stories from the majority of games they'll become noticeably less interesting, but story should be the reason your game exists. A lot of game development studios seem to blur the lines between videogames and hollywood.

 

[RK47]

tetris...is about....kgb agents. ...cracking....the walls of.....help me guys.

 

[Borelli]

Spoiler

 

[Karellen]

One day people will understand that "vidcoms being art" is not about emulating movies... the most important feature is that vidcoms are interactive, and that's where they should excel to elevate their medium, not playing B-grade movies while you do QTEs...

This line of thinking is what I probably dislike the most about the "games as art" conversation. It's quite common for people to start with a premise - "art in games is about X" - and then proceed to suggest that any artistic game must abide by conventions set by that premise, or it's a failure in some profound, fundamental way. Often the premise is not bad or invalid as such - for instance, yes, intaractivity in a game is important - but then people extrapolate it into notions like "a game should never under any conditions have cutscenes, ever" or "taking control away from the player is always bad" or "the player should always have the ability to choose" and so on.

It seems to me that to date, there have been a lot of decent, good and excellent video games made with wildly different design philosophies. It follows, in my opinion, that there are many different ways to make good games, and even that there are many ways to make artistic games as well as good narratives in games. Theorizing about ways to make great games is all fine and good, but suggesting that there's only one correct way to do it that will "elevate the medium" strikes me as silly.

 

[Zewp]

tetris...is about....kgb agents. ...cracking....the walls of.....help me guys.

Not sure if aimed at me or not, but I said the majority of games, not all. Let's take Thief. I think we can all agree that the story isn't anything revolutionary, but remove the story and what do you have left? Still a pretty solid game, but made slightly less interesting by the fact that now you're breaking into places and stealing stuff simply because.

Story isn't entirely unimportant, but it shouldn't be the driving force of a game to such a degree that the rest of the game suffers (Bioshock Infinite).

 

[felipepepe]

One day people will understand that "vidcoms being art" is not about emulating movies... the most important feature is that vidcoms are interactive, and that's where they should excel to elevate their medium, not playing B-grade movies while you do QTEs...

While this is true to some degree, I think you're taking it too far. If you were planning on making a movie, you wouldn't say "movies aren't about emulating books. The most important feature than movies have are pictures, that's where they should excel at to elevate their medium. Not listen to a B-grade novel while you watch pictures". Movies borrowed from mediums before them, and video games should too. The fix for shitty writing is not to remove the writing, but to make it better.

Good book-based movies work when the director knows how to balance being loyal to the book and respecting movie's strengths. They use actor's expressions to convey what was a written "internal thought", they extend scenes that have great visuals, remove long internal monologues that wouldn't work, they add soundtracks that convey the scenes mood... the writing of the book and the audiovisual resources of video are masterfully blended together to make movies something unique.

What people praise the most as "ART", games like Bioshock: Infinite, are as far from that as possible. You have movie-like scenes and then game shooting sequences. They don't blend at all, they even get in the way one of another; sometimes you are too interested in the story and just want to see the next cutscene, others you are tired of cutscenes and just wanna play... The parallel with movies is if as they showed some very visual scenes in video, and then told the story in text, gloating afterwards how they married books and video perfectly... it's just retarded.

I'm not defending a one-correct-way, I'm just saying that the current trend is wrong. IMHO Half-Life is a better testament to storytelling in games than Bioshock:Infinite will ever be... simply making Bioshock's writing better won't solve the issue that it's still writing shoehorned into a shooting game. Shooting people/doing QTEs to unlock cutscenes is as much "ART" as solving a Monalisa sliding-puzzle to see the painting...

 

[tuluse]

And I'd say that a really well designed "video game" often doesn't even really need a story. Games didn't even really have one through their formative years, what is the story of Pong, Breakout or Tetris? They seem to be timeless classics and might at most have a "setting" where it is taking place in, but not much of a story. While "a really well told story" might just end up being a movie (or a book, depending on game type and "cinematic-ness") and is often antithetical to having proper, continuous gameplay in favor of exposition and plot sequences.

That's why I put video game in quotes. Unfortunately, there are no common terms to use to really differentiate between games like pong and "games" like say Facade. Facade is really more of an interactive play than a video game, but the nomenclature doesn't exist to easily communicate this.

I'll end on this: if a game has a story, it should be integrated, not separate.

felipepepe I completely agree with that post.

 

[Horus]

And I'd say that a really well designed "video game" often doesn't even really need a story. Games didn't even really have one through their formative years, what is the story of Pong, Breakout or Tetris? They seem to be timeless classics and might at most have a "setting" where it is taking place in, but not much of a story. While "a really well told story" might just end up being a movie (or a book, depending on game type and "cinematic-ness") and is often antithetical to having proper, continuous gameplay in favor of exposition and plot sequences.

[/quote]


First examples of any said media are generally simple.

 

[DraQ]

Good book-based movies work when the director knows how to balance being loyal to the book and respecting movie's strengths. They use actor's expressions to convey what was a written "internal thought", they extend scenes that have great visuals, remove long internal monologues that wouldn't work, they add soundtracks that convey the scenes mood... the writing of the book and the audiovisual resources of video are masterfully blended together to make movies something unique.

What people praise the most as "ART", games like Bioshock: Infinite, are as far from that as possible. You have movie-like scenes and then game shooting sequences. They don't blend at all, they even get in the way one of another; sometimes you are too interested in the story and just want to see the next cutscene, others you are tired of cutscenes and just wanna play... The parallel with movies is if as they showed some very visual scenes in video, and then told the story in text, gloating afterwards how they married books and video perfectly... it's just retarded.

I'm not defending a one-correct-way, I'm just saying that the current trend is wrong. IMHO Half-Life is a better testament to storytelling in games than Bioshock:Infinite will ever be... simply making Bioshock's writing better won't solve the issue that it's still writing shoehorned into a shooting game. Shooting people/doing QTEs to unlock cutscenes is as much "ART" as solving a Monalisa sliding-puzzle to see the painting...

But then any good cRPG must still be ike playing a bad PnP session while watching the pixels.

Am I right, Codex?


Still the main problem about stories and games is that games are inherently interactive. Stories, while already in story format, aren't.

That's why if you really need a story, backstories are so good - they don't *need* to be interactive even when put in an interactive medium. Their exploration may be interactive, but they can afford to remain static.

 

[Gurkog]

I thought Tetris was a metaphor for why the USSR was doomed to fall apart. You are constantly building a wall to keep out the foreign influences, but every time its near completion the conflict is escalated and your prior work is deemed useless. You have to keep perpetually fighting a battle against a faster evolving world society and losing is inevitable. Or some bullshit like that.

 

[Infinitron]

Fear of women body in modern videogames

Western fear of boobs in videogames make my displeased. Dragon's Crown become victim of Kotaku's criticism, Obsidian ban boobplates in Project Eternity, UK and Australia ban Pamella Anderson advertising. Guys, do you are really so mad? Human body for you too much sexist? Maybe it's good time to ban womens breasts, let's force them to amputate this vessels of sin. Maybe someone think this witch-hunt against human nature is progressive and feminist thing, but IRL feminists have noting against women's (and men's also) body. Something rotten in modern European/American culture.

 

[FeelTheRads]

But but lol it's about realisticz armorz honestly not a fag

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

BioWare speaks about resource management and risk vs. reward design

 

[SCO]

The funny thing is that a text heavy game, say betrayal at krondor 'immersed' me more replaying it than cutscenes in recent games. I think it's a question of information content, and that you're actually using your imagination.

 

[SCO]

... WAT

It's just the author of clan quest derping and herping.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I thought Tetris was a metaphor for why the USSR was doomed to fall apart. You are constantly building a wall to keep out the foreign influences, but every time its near completion the conflict is escalated and your prior work is deemed useless. You have to keep perpetually fighting a battle against a faster evolving world society and losing is inevitable. Or some bullshit like that.

And Pong is about two guys playing table tennis. Or some bullshit like that.

 

[Jarpie]

The funny thing is that a text heavy game, say betrayal at krondor 'immersed' me more replaying it than cutscenes in recent games. I think it's a question of information content, and that you're actually using your imagination.

Letting the players' imagination to fill in the blanks with the right quantity is crucial for immersion and that's one of the things the mid-late 90s rpgs got right.