Too much story in modern games? *spawn

[fearsomepirate]

My most-played single player experience based on hours actually played is the Combat Training mode in Call of Duty: Black Ops. But that's just me.

I think the important thing is to understand that no one person's or group's preference can or should be normative of "gaming."

 

[bkilian]

Yes, that's one example, in thousands of years of human play (chess, draughts, tiddlywinks, skipping, football, basketball, cards, gomoku, snakes-and-ladders,...) proving that in general, games have been story-led..

Absolutely, you find one small example that contradicts the assertion, state it as if it now invalidates the assertion, and then keep redirecting when anyone questions you about it. Isn't that how things are done in the Console Forums?

 

[Bigduo209]

For exactly the reason you allude to here...

The story mode consumed development resources and imposed limitations on the training mode. It's not that the story mode was bad, but it wasn't good and was immaterial to the game proper. I doubt anyone's buying Starhawk because of its fabulous single player experience! So if the investment isn't generating a better game or better sales, why bother creating it? The game, the online multiplayer experience, would be better served with a more open training ground. LBI should have invested in a more open level editor instead of comic cutscenes, recording dialogue, and scripting in-game events. If they didn't consider story at all, I hope they'd have seen this.

But you said a bot-training mode would've been more of a value for those who only wanted the offline experience. Why would a story mode with some actual context behind it be worse than a training mode that has no context whatsoever? The latter seems more counterproductive to me than the former.

If LBI chose the story mode it is because it's the best way to introduce the gameplay and some of the multiplayer options with some actual context behind why the game is what it is. A bot-training mode for someone who's new to the series wouldn't provide the same kind of motivation to even play the game in the first place, let alone someone who doesn't want to touch the online portion (that's why it's a nice addition, not a substitution).

You automatically assume that a consumer who's interested in the game is going to automatically know it's all about multiplayer, and you automatically assume that a potential customer isn't going to even fathom the idea of touching a single-player portion to a series that they don't have much of an idea about. Don't assume that you know what everybody is going to want, assume that everybody has everyone has different expectations and then start from there.

Imagine if Call of Duty and Battlefield 3 scaled back a bit on the linear portions of their single-player for more open combat, and added a limited version of Killstreaks. That's what Starhawk did, they kept a way to make the gameplay equally accessible to both audiences without sacrificing much to do it. Is it as cinematic as CoD and BF3? No, but it's still a way of handling the single-player differently from what most shooters do nowadays.

That's an example of where there's 'too much story (emphasis)', and where the game would be better if the gameplay was never compromised for the story and the story was dressed around the gameplay in a way more respectful of the game.*

I don't completely disagree with the issues VC had, but I think your statement in bold is describing what Starhawk did with it's single-player. Starhawk's single-player did dress the story around the game in a respectful way without sacrificing gameplay in exchange.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But you said a bot-training mode would've been more of a value for those who only wanted the offline experience. Why would a story mode with some actual context behind it be worse than a training mode that has no context whatsoever?

Because a training mode could give more gameplay variety and challenges, as there'd be no story it'd have to follow. A load of varied scenarios could be put in, and an open scenario creator (load of parameters to play with), and you'd have plenty of single player gameplay.

If LBI chose the story mode it is because it's the best way to introduce the gameplay...

But I don't think it is. I think that's just contemporary thinking. Bot-training with progressive levels would work just as well, introducing the gameplay devices one at a time.

You automatically assume that a consumer who's interested in the game is going to automatically know it's all about multiplayer, and you automatically assume that a potential customer isn't going to even fathom the idea of touching a single-player portion to a series that they don't have much of an idea about. Don't assume that you know what everybody is going to want, assume that everybody has everyone has different expectations and then start from there.

I'm not making such assumptions. The only marketing for this game has been on the internet with internet coverage talking about the multiplayer. It's unlikely uninformed purchasers are going to walk into a store, pick up the box (which isn't any known franchise) and decide to buy it. Anyone who would buy the game for a single player experience is no doubt going to be disappointed, as it's very short and not great. The solo campaign is clearly a bolt-on training mode. To make a proper, full game for a single player would have needed a lot more effort. Which is kinda my point. The story-mode itself isn't enough to be worth a game like Uncharted or Infamous. It's just an addition. So why even go there?

Starhawk's single-player did dress the story around the game in a respectful way without sacrificing gameplay in exchange.

You're right, it did, but it was unnecessary to the game, and in the case of Starhawk the solo experience would have been better IMHO if the developers hadn't worried about a story container and had just given people a game like the Good Old Days, when game developers were happy to just give a load of levels. A tutorial level introducing the mechanics and a series of progessive levels introducing equipment would have been easier for the devs to make and more beneficial to players. It wouldn't have been as 'pretty' but that's a misplaced investment, because games don't always need to be 'pretty' if they're 'fun'. It would have been possible for LBI to add a training mode as well, but as a developer who hasn't got uinlimited resources, they shouldn't stretch themselves too thin and chase too many targets.

 

[tuna]

The story mode consumed development resources and imposed limitations on the training mode. It's not that the story mode was bad, but it wasn't good and was immaterial to the game proper. I doubt anyone's buying Starhawk because of its fabulous single player experience! So if the investment isn't generating a better game or better sales, why bother creating it?

Obviously, the people who payed for the game thought that a story mode could be positive for sales. Also, you do not know how the game was budgeted and planned. Maybe the only reason they got the game made is that they made both a story and online game.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Obviously, the people who payed for the game thought that a story mode could be positive for sales.

They may have thought that, but that doesn't mean it was. The current industry thinking is that Story = Good and must be added. I'm suggesting they are barking up the wrong tree in some (many?) cases, and the games and sales would be better if they didn't care about story and instead focussed on the game mechanics and presenting gameplay to the gamers.

 

[RobertR1]

Yes, that's one example, in thousands of years of human play (chess, draughts, tiddlywinks, skipping, football, basketball, cards, gomoku, snakes-and-ladders,...) proving that in general, games have been story-led..

The "video" aspect of video games allows for a story to be told. I would say that the genre took a while to grasp that ability and is still clearly working on it as evident by one poor story led experience by another.

It's also easier to market characters and games series with a desirable story arc than not.

I don't foresee a scenario in which the industry goes to a gameplay only for shooters, action, platformers genres.

Sports and online version of board games will likely be the best contender for finding gameplay only genres.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I don't foresee a scenario in which the industry goes to a gameplay only for shooters, action, platformers genres.

Well, we are seeing gameplay only games in all genres, just only as downloads and not as full-disc titles. Best-selling, crtiically acclaimed titles like Trials Evoution are founded on just gameplay - bloody good gameplay. The focus on story for story's sake seems limited to disc-titles, as though an obligation. I wonder who in the development chain is requiring story with everything? Is this a publisher led thing, or something devs are wanting to do themselves? The apparent movement back to pure gameplay from devs turning indie to me suggests its pressure from publishers.

 

[tuna]

The focus on story for story's sake seems limited to disc-titles, as though an obligation. I wonder who in the development chain is requiring story with everything? Is this a publisher led thing, or something devs are wanting to do themselves? The apparent movement back to pure gameplay from devs turning indie to me suggests its pressure from publishers.

A near zero game mechanics game like Journey is apparently the best selling PS Store game. So I do not think that this is only applicable to disc games.

 

[Dominik D]

I quite like that explanation.

Here's a tl;dr version:

Games are objective-based*, heavily interactive experiences.

*explicit or implicit

I personally understand why we get lots of cinematic-experience focused games these days (this way gaming blurs the line with movies, which is easier to accept for broadening gaming audiences) but I'd argue that this more often than not pushes us away from the actual game part of the game. :S

Except for D&D and every other role playing game.

That's not true. P&P RPGs draw from three pools of basic behaviors: Gamism, Narrativism and Simulationism (hence: GNS theory). D&D is heavily gamist. There are primarily story- or character-driven RPGs though.

 

[RobertR1]

Well, we are seeing gameplay only games in all genres, just only as downloads and not as full-disc titles. Best-selling, crtiically acclaimed titles like Trials Evoution are founded on just gameplay - bloody good gameplay. The focus on story for story's sake seems limited to disc-titles, as though an obligation. I wonder who in the development chain is requiring story with everything? Is this a y publisher led thing, or something devs are wanting to do themselves? The apparent movement back to pure gameplay from devs turning indie to me suggests its pressure from publishers.

Trials is a sports game. As I stated, sports games still tend to gameplay only. That is the expectation and that is the basis for judgement.


The focus of a story for digital games likes, Braid, bastion, shadow complex, from dust, and a long list of others that review well and sell well show that story focuses is genre specific more that medium specific. Of course these games have great gameplay also.

In some ways story linked genres are harder to develop for since you will be judged on both and the expectation is for to be present. No such expectation for the sports genre and a fees other.

A good story teller is not necessarily a good gameplay designer and vice versa. Having both work in unison is likely going to produce the best results.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Trials is a sports game

I had a sports-studies degree student tell me that chess is a sport too. The distinction between sport and game is a tenuous one. They follow exactly the same principles. Whether you count tiddlywinks or football as sports or games doesn't affect people enjoying playing them without having any plots to follow.

The focus of a story for digital games likes, Braid, bastion, shadow complex, from dust, and a long list of others that review well and sell well show that story focuses is genre specific more that medium specific.

I wasn't trying to suggest story-based games are exclusive to discs, or that all download games forego story and focus on gameplay. I was just using the download space to show there are lots of developers producing game-only, story-lite titles, but these seem to be confined to downloads, limiting the scope of the games. No-one's going to be making AAA fun-games, except Nintendo I think. I'll count LBP as a 'AAA fun game' too. This thread was spawned from the E3 discussion, where Sony and MS were both showcasing their big pet projects which are all story-heavy.

A good story teller is not necessarily a good gameplay designer and vice versa. Having both work in unison is likely going to produce the best results.

But not for every title, because some just don't need story. They can get away without it, except the developers would rather throw in a second-rate story instead of acknowledging they are just making a game based on pure gameplay and don't need it.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It's also easier to market characters and games series with a desirable story arc than not.

You would think that, but it isn't necessarily true. Castle Wolfenstein and Doom had only the barest vestige of a story and nothing that could truly be considered a story arc, and those did just fine.

The first Halo compared to the first Uncharted featured virtually no story at all compared to the rich storyline in Uncharted. Yet the Halo series and it's minimalist story telling continues to attract consumer attention far more than Uncharted and its much more expansive story telling. I believe the minimalist Halo: Combat Evolved has sold quite a bit more copies than the story rich Uncharted along with more recent big budget story based FPS shooters (ME2 and ME3 for example or one of my personal favorites, Bioshock). The mega-blockbuster COD series at least features a somewhat more fleshed out, if somewhat disjointed story. And people that are fans of the single player likely wish less time was spent on the story if it could have meant there was a longer SP campaign. And even its story is considered quite bare bones by many. It could be argued that if you reduced the story down even further to just small cutscenes every 3-5 missions to string together the mission that it would have sold just as well.

It's also interesting to note that the Halo games that attempt to focus more on the story (ODST and Reach) arguably didn't perform as well as their more gameplay focused predecessors.

Granted that may be due to the lack of Master Chief, but Master Chief is a rather anonymous and silent protagonist anyway which lends very little to a rich storytelling experience. Kind of like the Doom Guy, another series with very little in the way of a story or story arc.

Hell almost all of the good story telling action games from the past are dead and buried. Noone Lives Forever (fabulous), Wing Commander, Interstate 76 (best driving game ever), Thief, System Shock (at least Bioshock is somewhat of a spiritual successor), Half-Life (over half a decade since HL2 Episode 2 with no word on episode 3 or even HL3), etc.

And the best thing about all of the above was that the storyline never interfered with the gameplay. It was either part of the gameplay (NOLF, Half Life, System Shock 2) where you could completely ignore almost all of the story by just not bothering to listen or look at items in game, or in cut scenes between levels (Wing Commander). And most importantly, no F$#ing QTEs.

I don't foresee a scenario in which the industry goes to a gameplay only for shooters, action, platformers genres.

For AAA games, yes, that's highly unlikely. But I do think we'll continue to see some of the best selling "action" games featuring only a light veneer or patina of a story versus the rich story telling of many others.

Noone is arguing that an absolute Zero of storytelling is necessarily desired for all games. I think the main argument is how extensive the storytelling is and whether it impacts the gameplay negatively when too much focus is paid to the storytelling over the gameplay.

And obviously there are people that are going to prefer rich story over gameplay. There's nothing wrong with that.

And, as a last bastion, thankfully there are countless games in the indie and low budget scene (XBLA, PSN, or PC) that focus almost entirely on gameplay with very little time spent on story. Dungeon Defenders and Legend of Grimrock come immediately to mind. Both games would do equally well with or without their light veneer of a story which most people ignore anyway. I can't even remember what the story was in Dungeon Defenders, despite spending nearly 100 hours in it.

Regards,
SB

 

[RobertR1]

I had a sports-studies degree student tell me that chess is a sport too. The distinction between sport and game is a tenuous one. They follow exactly the same principles. Whether you count tiddlywinks or football as sports or games doesn't affect people enjoying playing them without having any plots to follow.

As I said early, sports and board games are good example of gameplay only.

But not for every title, because some just don't need story. They can get away without it, except the developers would rather throw in a second-rate story instead of acknowledging they are just making a game based on pure gameplay and don't need it.

Again, not every title has a story. Certain genres lend themselves to a story more than others.

Shooters are a good example where story is split from gameplay. You have cinematics and story (good or bad) in which gameplay is used to advance the story. Then you have the MP portion which strictly focuses on gameplay. I find that to be a good balance.

 

[Billy Idol]

Well, I bought Bulletstorm today! This is a game, where the story is at most secondary! The pure focus is on gameplay....and it works! Great game!

What is important for me: we can have both!!! Gameplay driven games, story driven games...and sometimes games with story and good gameplay

The absolute beauty of gaming is...that you have free choice

 

[green.pixel]

Stories in games get too much attention, while they shouldn't. Individually, they are pretty unimportant. They serve as the part of the game's presentation, along with visuals, music, sound. That's the "style" part, the substance is in the interactivity/mechanics, regardless of the genre. Movies in video games aka cutscenes are all style.

The best way to express ideas is to use pen and paper (or keyboard or typewriter) or your mouth. Don't use highly technological boxes to do that by forcing the player to watch badly written and directed cutscenes or obscuring them behind visual metaphors.

Having said that I still love to play JRPG's where the meta mechanic is and always has been grind grind grind, rewarded with story piece..

Huh? So you see nothing wrong with mechanics which rob the game of real challenge and make it feel like work instead of recreation? And enduring all that for terribly written plots and characters like say Lost Odyssey?

Except for D&D and every other role playing game.

The term role-playing refers to the plot-interaction/elasticity aspect of the original RPGs. Players interact with the story to the point where the game and story are seamlessly combined. At least, that's how those games should work. Dialogue choices are just an easy way to provide an illusion of role-playing, instead of creating a dynamic world which reacts to player's actions, a task which is much more diffucult to accomplish. Many of the games labeled as RPGs are just dungeon crawlers with tactical combat. Progress towards greater plot interactivity has been stalled because everyone seems to be locked into the "RPG = stats/character development" mentality. You can divide RPG's mechanics into combat, strategy, and roleplaying mechanics. Strategy ones would be character's stats and progression (why called them "strategy"? because of the element of strategy in developing your char. throughout the game) and the roleplaying ones would are story splits and dialogue systems.

 

[Arwin]

I also just realised that almost nothing I play on the Vita has a story, except for Uncharted, and perhaps Escape Plan. Wipeout, Lumines, Rayman (only has a hint of a story in its opening cinematic, but it's a pure storyless platformer otherwise, The Blob has a story, but it's basically all in the gameplay), MotorStorm, Trials of Montezuma, Virtua Tennis, etc. have no story whatsoever.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's interesting. I wonder if that's do to the scope of handhelds being considered similar to the scope of download titles? I wonder if these choices are even conscious by the developers?

 

[Arwin]

That's interesting. I wonder if that's do to the scope of handhelds being considered similar to the scope of download titles? I wonder if these choices are even conscious by the developers?

The answer is partly in that many of these titles have identical PS3 versions, so I guess if anything, it affects the decision to port, perhaps, or downloadability. But games with a bigger story also sometimes take longer to port. I've also seen that stuff like cinematics aren't desireable for download titles - Resistance uses them for instance, but I hear they're pretty terribly compressed, so that doesn't work that well.

Certainly I miss high quality big screen story driving scenes wtih high fidelity audio a lot more when I am playing on the big screen at home (although I have to admit I also often think, after playing Vita for a while: "oh yeah, THIS is why I will never fully abandon home console gaming for portable!").

 

[Prophecy2k]

The prevalence of story telling in modern games has more todo with writers being hired as designers than anything else.
Some of the worst designers I've ever worked with were writers first and "game designers" second. Too many times I've seen people trying to jam game mechanics around a story or worse a focal point in a story.

I do think games provide an interesting vehicle to tell a story, but I'm also from an era where the gameplay mattered and the story was an add on.

Having said that I still love to play JRPG's where the meta mechanic is and always has been grind grind grind, rewarded with story piece.
Hell my favorite game of all time Xenogears is great because of the way the story unfolds, and the main characters roll in it.

:snottynosedcryinganimeface:

I thought i was the only one

:tearsofexhuberantjoy: