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Author Topic: Tetris: The Hero's Journey  (Read 14154 times)
Evangolis
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on: May 26, 2005, 08:06:44 PM

This bit is moved by a couple of things I’ve been reading the last couple of days.  The first is the commentary over at Broken Toys about a less achievement oriented MMO.  Such discussions always bring to mind my fixation on introducing story into the character development process in MMOs.  The other source is Lajos Egri, who wrote a couple of books about writing in the middle of the last century.

Egri is an interesting writer if you are interested in writing.  I won’t recap his points; he does that well enough, indeed, his style is fairly emphatic.  While he is easy to read, the experience is a bit like having a conversation with someone who can barley refrain from grabbing you by the lapels and shaking you as he makes his points.  Assertive doesn’t half describe Egri.  His stuff is interesting if you are into writing, and can get past the style.  I rather like it, and recommend him if you have an interest in the details of storytelling.

It was the way Egri’s style effected me that really focused the thoughts I’m writing about here, although it was Lum’s bit that got me back on the idea, which has been bugging me since I heard some things the head of a local dev studio said about story.  He was unhappy with how the story on his last console action title had gotten mangled in the gears, leaving him the choice of delaying launch (and his company’s only income) six months, or releasing with a desperate abortion of a story.  He chose to pay his employees, and wear the cream pie.

From everything this fellow said he clearly regarded story as something told mainly in cutscenes.  He didn’t realize it, but he was defining story as something that happens when the player isn’t playing your game.  It is a fairly common way of looking at story, unfortunately, although I think this is changing as people realize the contradiction inherent in that view.  It is a natural enough view, given how we perceive story culturally.   For this cultural misperception, I blame whoever invented writing.  And the first guy to paint pictures.  He did some of it, too.  Damn Paleolithic Taggers.

Writing has warped our conception of story out of its true form.  We did not start telling stories with marks on a surface, although cave paintings probably didn’t follow far behind.  We began telling stories orally, in front of a live audience.  I was blessed to have a storyteller in my family, my mother’s father.  He didn’t think of himself as a storyteller; in his life, people just told stories.  When someone tells a story to an audience, they never really tell the same story twice.  Oral stories are like a river, in that way.  They adapt to the audience as a river adapts to the earth it moves with.  Both are reshaped in the process.

Many of us with an interest in MMOs have a background in PnP tabletop RPGs.  These are closer to the natural way of human storytelling, in my mind, and I think the recurring expression of the desire to have MMOs become more like PnP RPGs is in part a desire to return to a more natural form of storytelling.  Yet this goal has proven very elusive, for many reasons, which most of you can recite as well as I.  However, one of those reasons is not that the media of games is hostile to the art of storytelling.  In fact, I think all games tell stories, even ones we normally think of as totally devoid of story.

I think was in A Theory of Fun that Tetris was offered up as an example of a game without story, but maybe it was Game Design, Theory and Practice.  Either way, that idea clunks on my head every time I hear it, and I’ll dispute it now.  Tetris does have a story; one that is profound, modern and very meaningful, appropriate to our life and times.

My high school English teacher would have described the story of Tetris as being of the class of Man Against Nature.  The blocks fall down, and you scramble to fit them in, yet however nimble your fingers and quick your eye, the end inevitably comes; indeed, after a particularly intense game, defeat brings a sense of relief that the struggle is past, mingled with pride at how well you fought the inevitable.  Tetris tells a tale of an existential universe, where your struggle against the natural order is doomed to end in death, rewarded with at most a few odd glyphs on a computer screen none but you will ever see.  Yet it also is an experience of hope.  Despite its futility, there is pride and joy at a well-played game, a joy in excellence for its own sake, the satisfaction of all things done well for the glory of God.

What about plot?  What of setting, pacing, tone?  What of three acts marked by tension rising to a grand climax?  What of the Hero’s Journey?  What of characters, so prized by Egri in his theories of writing?  What of them?  Those aren’t story, those are just tools of story.  In Tetris, the plot is always the same, although the events of the plot always vary.  The setting, the pacing, and the tone are all set by the physics of the game.  The tension is similarly driven by the physics.  The Hero’s Journey is here in all it’s elements; crossing the threshold into the special world (that would be clicking the Play icon), the series of growing challenges until you find yourself in the Inmost Cave, where you encounter Death, and the return, where you tell your tale to the High Score Page.  And character?  That would be you.

And this is where traditional iconic depictions of story in writing and art fail us most in games, and where we may gain insight from the oral tradition.  With art and literature, the link of the story to the reader is vastly attenuated.  However moved you are by a work, you cannot change it.  At most, you may commit fanfic, but more likely you will just move on with satisfaction ruffled by a tickle of incompleteness.  But in games you are central to the story.  As with oral tradition, a good storyteller will shape the story to the listeners.  This is why stories told in cutscenes will always fall short of the storytelling potential of games.  In the ideal, every element of a game should tell the story, and the player should not be told the story, they should share in crafting it.

Of course, this is not easy, particularly since it gives the game developer one more damn thing to do, and one more thing that doesn’t have a manual to read.  Worse, much of what the experts of film, art, and literature know about storytelling is going to mislead, because the feedback of the player will disrupt conventional storytelling dogma.  But it is generally best to make a virtue of necessity, and this is what game makers must do if they wish to survive and excel.

Internet boards are another interactive medium, and thus I feel the need to note that I’ll be away several days working on my mother’s house, and so won’t be available to reply to anyone who has a comment.  That seems a poor reward for anyone who struggled through this whole thing, and so I apologize for my absence.  I’ll check back sometime after the weekend.  In the meantime, I hope that all will have a pleasant Memorial Day weekend, and, to quote what has become an old TV show, “Let’s be careful out there”.


"It was a difficult party" - an unexpected word combination from ex-Merry Prankster and author Robert Stone.
Xilren's Twin
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Reply #1 on: May 27, 2005, 02:02:57 PM

Begs the question, does story even matter in videogames?  The answer is highly subjective, and no even consistent from game to game (whole other thread on expectations could be put here).

The problem, or at least one of them, that you alluded too is the fluidity of storytelling.  Despite first reaction to the contrary, effective storytelling depends on the audience particpation and involvement.  (At a bare minimum they have to stay and listen and not interrupt your and deman phat lewts). And because you cannot accurately predict how any given individual will react to let alone participate in a story telling session, how on earth can you code around it in a computer game?

Reminds me of a section from the one of Steve Perry's books ("The Man Who Never Missed" or "Matadora" i think).  In my butchered restating, a martial arts teacher was trying to explain the concept of Chi to some children.  "Chi is like and iceberg" he said.  He spoke well and used words on the level of his audidence, trying to convey the point that much of the energy of Chi is hidden from sight.  When done he asked if there we any question, to which one boy raised his hand and said "Sensi, what's an iceberg?" 

The point being without a proper frame of reference, the story made no sense.  In the same way, until you know what your audience knows, no single static story will effectively reach all of them.  It may not even be possible to reach them all.  After all, was the the Lord of the Rings a story about a hero' journey, or was it condemnation of industrial progress in the modern world disguised behind elves and orcs?  Depends on who you talk to of course...

So back to Tetris; do you think the creator of Tetris was trying to tell a story at all?  Just because your english teacher could find a story there doesn't meant it designed to have one; it means the subjective audience brought it with them.  Hell, you can find symbolism and ascribe deep meaning to almost anything if you want to; it's just your personal take on something.

Now when a creator intentionally tries to tell a story, you might have much success if they put some thought into what they want to express and how.  Cutscene storytelling might be good or bad, but from a bare bones view all they are is game breaks to give you something supposedly nice to look at.  Same deal with unlocking extra artwork in Soul Calibur 2.

Dang, im getting long winded myself.  At any rate; Some people want pure entertainment with no story needed even if they get one, some want good stories told to them in order to be entertained, and of course some want both.  And then there are those of us who prefer to create our own...

Xilren

"..but I'm by no means normal." - Schild
voodoolily
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Reply #2 on: May 28, 2005, 05:41:32 PM

Story does indeed matter in (some) videogames. In some games, the story feels like an afterthought and is completely extraneous to the enjoyment of the gaming experience (for me, MMOGs and GTA come to mind in this respect). Others are nothing BUT story, with the gameplay feeling almost obligatory to finding out what happens (Ico). However, it seems that there are only a few stories that are recycled over and over: save the princess, get all the bling, bring down the evil empire, or some combination thereof.

While playing Baten Kaitos, I've been wondering if my choice of responses has any bearing whatsoever on the outcome of the game. I suspect the answer is no, but what if it did? Wouldn't that be cool? If there could be the game equivalent of the "choose your own adventure" books of our childhood, I would be the first to hop on board.

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Glazius
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Reply #3 on: May 29, 2005, 10:09:01 AM

Story does indeed matter in (some) videogames. In some games, the story feels like an afterthought and is completely extraneous to the enjoyment of the gaming experience (for me, MMOGs and GTA come to mind in this respect). Others are nothing BUT story, with the gameplay feeling almost obligatory to finding out what happens (Ico). However, it seems that there are only a few stories that are recycled over and over: save the princess, get all the bling, bring down the evil empire, or some combination thereof.

While playing Baten Kaitos, I've been wondering if my choice of responses has any bearing whatsoever on the outcome of the game. I suspect the answer is no, but what if it did? Wouldn't that be cool? If there could be the game equivalent of the "choose your own adventure" books of our childhood, I would be the first to hop on board.
Are you sure you want to create the "choose your own adventure" books of your childhood? One good ending, 35 "you die horribly" endings, with maybe one "wuss out" ending if the authors felt like it. And the way to get the good ending is to make every choice as counterintuitively as possible.

--GF
voodoolily
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Reply #4 on: May 30, 2005, 10:49:47 AM

Heh, touche. Prolly not the ones from my childhood per se, but it's an interesting direction that game stories could move towards. Y'know on Animal Crossing where you ask a character if they need help with something, they say they do, then you say you can't do it? They get all pissed off with little steam vents blowing out their heads? That's true game enjoyment for me. More games should have an option of "Wrong answer, asshole! Now feel my wrath!"

Voodoo & Sauce - a blog.
The Legend of Zephyr - a different blog.
Evangolis
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Reply #5 on: May 31, 2005, 07:48:43 AM

Back again.

Does story matter, how do you deal with the limits of the audience and the medium?

When I started that, I wasn't thinking about Tetris in particular, but as I wrote, I realized that there was a story in Tetris, and explored that as an illustration of my general point.  I don't think Tetris was designed to have a story, but it does, and like all stories, it is ultimately defined by the reader.  What I think that generalizes to is that, no matter how simplistic your game is, readers can and will construct a story for it.  Where no 'conventional' story elements are present, as with Tetris, the story will entirely be told by the game rules.  Note that all endings to Tetris are 'wrong' endings, yet utter futility does not stop people from playing and enjoying the game.  The story is easily understood, because the game rules are self-contained and easily comprehensible.  Simplicity is a virtue in storytelling, and it complements another virtue, completeness.  Giving the audience all the information needed to understand the story, without losing their interest or exceeding their comprehension, is one requirement of the storytelling art.  Thus, I would argue that boring instruction manuals are one facet of bad storytelling in games.

Generally, I think that storytelling is inevitable when creating games.  Stories are patterns of meaning people create to explain the world they perceive.  The reason that we tend to think storytelling in games is optional is because it is so often done badly.  Fortunately, the key to better storytelling is also a key to better gameplay: make your game elements consistant, coherent, concise and complete.  Don't worry so much about meaning, the players will provide that.  Instead, look for the boring bits, the clunky bits, and smooth those into the whole.  As the Tetris example shows, storytelling in games is not about dialogue and exposition, it is about sublime gameplay.  Stories must be told in a manner consistent with the medium, and for games that means that stories should be told through gameplay.  The more you tell stories outside the framework of the gameplay, the more difficult it is to have either good stories or good gameplay.

"It was a difficult party" - an unexpected word combination from ex-Merry Prankster and author Robert Stone.
Kail
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Reply #6 on: May 31, 2005, 01:58:55 PM

Stories are patterns of meaning people create to explain the world they perceive.

I don't know that this definition of "story" makes a whole lot of sense to me, and it seems to be the central tenet of your argument.  Yes, you can ascribe meaning to Tetris, but you can ascribe just as much meaning to absolutely anything you want, up to and including any of the games you care to hold up as being examples of "How not to do it."  By defining stories as "patterns of meaning people create to explain the world they perceive" you're robbing the word of a lot of meaning, making it basically synonymous with the word "thought."

In games, the function of stories is generally to allow you to impart meaning to the events on screen.  That blob of pixels isn't really just a bunch of glowing dots, it's Solid Snake, and that other blob of pixels is a terrorist, and so on.  Thus, when you press the square button (or whatever, I'm too lazy to look at the manual), the wierd pattern of dots that shows on the screen means something other than "Hey, look, a wierd pattern of dots"; it means that Snake has shot the terrorist, and that terrorist is working for Liquid Snake, who kidnapped... I dunno, Mayor McCheese, or whoever, and so on.  Tetris largely doesn't do this; the pixels in that game are portrayed by the game's "story" as... um... squares?  "Blocks?"  If you move beyond this (asserting things like "Tetris symbolizes the clash of man against nature"), you're not getting that from the game, it's coming from you.  It's not intrinsic to the game's story, it's intrinsic to you.  Therefore, it doesn't say anything about the game, and you can't really hold it up as proof that it's got a story.

In general, I think stories are important for games.  I'm not a big fan of puzzle games, so this may not be the universal truth, but generally, I can find more interesting things to do than line up fruit or jewels or whatever to get three in a row.  I also think, though, that stories are probably one of the hardest things to get right in a video game.   The primary purpose of a game is (usually, ideally) to have fun.  To that end, having a story should make the game more fun.  It gives context to the players actions, and provides him with interesting challenges.  Plus, you can't let the player have all the control over the story; it would just be boring.  The average player has no clue how to construct a good story; this is why people pay good money to read stories written by someone else.  Additionally, if I wanted to make my own story, games would not be the first medium I'd turn to.  On the other hand, the player needs to feel in control, or else they may as well be watching a movie with crappy special effects.  The difficulty, from my perspective, is that for this to work optimally, you've got to write a story that forces the player to walk down interesting paths, but without appearing to force him anywhere at all.  I think that's the major reason for the generally fairly bland level of narrative in games: it's really difficult to write stories like that.
Evangolis
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Reply #7 on: May 31, 2005, 09:46:08 PM

I agree I'm employing a fairly broad use of 'story' here.  In this context, I'd call the sort of plotted and scripted work common to books, stage, and screen to be 'narrative', which is one way to tell story.  But I don't think that my view of story is overbroad.  Humans do try very hard to apply pattern matching skills to events in search of meaning, and the result is story.  Indeed, one of the things they worked very hard to teach us in graduate Geology courses was to avoid the tendency to create stories to connect data that might not have any connection.  Take Martin's theory of the Clovis hunters sweeping into North America, wiping out the large land animals as they came.  A great story that doesn't seem to be holding up as more data comes in.  People really do make up their own stories, even in static narrative; consider the mystery novel, which many read in part to try to solve the mystery independant of the author's narrative.

Tetris does provide the core elements of story.  What it doesn't have is the elements of narrative.  True, this means that any narrative elements are added by the user, as I did in my example, but the core story is there.  The important point is that narration in games is made difficult by the interactivity with the player, and by the player's expectation that the narration will follow the story the player constructs out of that interaction.  This is a narrative challenge antithetical to the static model.  Instead, the route to telling stories here is, in my opinion, to construct a consistent world model, as Tetris does, and attach to it consistent narrative elements that the player will use to create their own narrative.  If you can get the player to look for connection instead of inconsistancy, I believe that people will find the stories they construct to be rewarding.

I don't wish to forget the other point I was trying to make, namely that storytelling in games also needs to partake more of the oral tradition, to be more responsive to the audience.  Now, this is not something that computers are good at, and that is why I have emphasized the strong framework Tetris provides.  If you construct a consistent framework, you limit the narrative options, and thus make responsiveness a less complicated problem for the computer to master.

Thus my idea is that narrative storytelling is not a good fit for games, where the pattern matching impulse tends to highlight inconsistancy.  Instead, I want to use consistent worldbuilding, limiited responsiveness, and the introduction of fragmentary narrative elements to stimulate the pattern matching behavior of people to allow them to construct their own narratives in games.

"It was a difficult party" - an unexpected word combination from ex-Merry Prankster and author Robert Stone.
WindupAtheist
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Reply #8 on: June 01, 2005, 02:05:05 AM

Man, I bet this all gives Raph such a chubby.  Too bad it has shit to do with making a better game.  Pseudo-intellectual wank.

"You're just a dick who quotes himself in his sig."  --  Schild
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Kail
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Reply #9 on: June 01, 2005, 12:46:05 PM

I don't wish to forget the other point I was trying to make, namely that storytelling in games also needs to partake more of the oral tradition, to be more responsive to the audience.  Now, this is not something that computers are good at, and that is why I have emphasized the strong framework Tetris provides.  If you construct a consistent framework, you limit the narrative options, and thus make responsiveness a less complicated problem for the computer to master.

Thus my idea is that narrative storytelling is not a good fit for games, where the pattern matching impulse tends to highlight inconsistancy.  Instead, I want to use consistent worldbuilding, limiited responsiveness, and the introduction of fragmentary narrative elements to stimulate the pattern matching behavior of people to allow them to construct their own narratives in games.

I'm a bit unclear on where exactly you're drawing this split between narrative stories and "responsive" stories.  If you're talking about the whole "choose your own adventure book" thing (as in, someone writes an adventure, and you as a player have some choices over how events unfold), then yeah, I agree, but there's already a bit of a tendency to move towards games like that (compared to, say, ten years ago, anyway).

If you're saying that it's a good idea to give the player a blank slate and just tell them to run with it, then that I don't agree with.  It might work if your player is Stephen King, but most people can't just pull stories out of thin air whenever they power on the Famicom.  Your average sixteen year old GTA lovin' target audience member can't just spontaneously pull a coherent story together, nor is that automatically what they're trying to do when they sit down at the keyboard.  Look at, for example, Morrowind: it's a great big world, in which the player is given great freedom, and for a huge number of people, that game is extremely boring.  A lot of people I've heard from on this just didn't feel like there was anything to "do," like they were just wandering around killing Cliff Racers and crap.  I hear the same complaints about MMORPGs: there's nothing interesting going on, you just run around and kill badgers and stuff.  You're still doing (basically) the same things you would be doing in a game with a stronger narrative, but without any of the context, it feels empty.

I don't know that games are perfectly suited for straight linear narrative storytelling, but they're (in my opinion) a very bad setup for comepletely free-form storytelling, too.  If you want a completely free-form story, pull out a piece of paper and write one; it's way easier than trying to do so in a game environment.  If your primary goal is to tell a great story, then I can't imagine why you'd be using a game to do it.  Games exist to let us have fun: a story (as with any other gameplay mechanic) is only useful in as much as it helps the player have fun.  A bit of story does that; it gives context to the player's actions.  Too much structure to it, and the player feels stifled.  Too little structure, though, and the game looses the context that a story gives it.  If a few players can bring their own context to the game, that's great for them, but it's the game's job to help the player have fun, not the player's job to make the game fun.
HaemishM
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Reply #10 on: June 01, 2005, 01:08:29 PM

I think instead of using "Story" we need to use the word narrative. It has much less specific connotations to gamers.

A game's narrative is, IMO, the most fundamentally important part of a game. A game like Tetris has no pre-defined narrative; it's gameplay allows the player to create the narrative through his actions. It makes for an incredibly satisfying gameplay narrative while playing the game, but has no legs of its own. Outside of the game itself, and outside of the game's own internal language, it has no meaning. Let's call this dynamic narrative.

Most of the narrative gamers think of when you say "story" is linear narrative. It's pre-defined, with few variations, and usually given to the player through cutscenes and dialogue. It can change depending on the gamer's actions, but generally only within very pre-defined pathways, much like the aforementioned "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. As an aside, those books are the reasons I was attracted to RPG games in the first place. This kind of narrative, let's call it linear narrative, has legs of its own outside the game world, in that it is often relatable using typical literary language of plot, characters, etc. 

The trick is to making the dynamic narrative feel like linear narrative. To make us "feel like we are in the movie," or like we are a part of the game world, but without being roped into maze-like linear game structures with only binary or trinary choices. Developers call it emergent gameplay. Replacing NPC's with PC's is one easy (though fraught with peril) way to create this kind of dynamic narrative in games. Simplistic game mechanics with minimal decoration, such as Tetris, is another.

Evangolis
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Reply #11 on: June 01, 2005, 01:55:57 PM

Damn, I had great fun writing this reply up, and then Haemish and Kail go and screw it up with serious replies before I hit post.  Oh well, I'm gonna charge ahead, and postscript my reply to their comments.

Man, I bet this all gives Raph such a chubby.  Too bad it has shit to do with making a better game.  Pseudo-intellectual wank.

Thanks for your input, although I don't think it's pseudo, I just think you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground.  But you'll manage to muddle through, I'm sure.  In fact, that is what I'm generally aiming for here, enabling the clueless, both players and characters, to muddle through to a unique story in a game setting.  Now the reason to do this, as most people who have played an MMO know, is that narrative modes of storytelling generallly don't work well in games.

Look at the options.  First is linear storytelling.  The runs on a rail storyline has two advantages.  First, providing the player completes the game, everything you write gets used.  Second, the player can pretty much go for a beer while the cutscenes are telling the story.  This, of course, is what WindupAtheist expects of story.  If it does anything more than provide breaks to flex your hands on the controller, it is either a small bonus, or, more likely, it screws up an otherwise fun game.  The story is only there so the designer can claim this isn't a 'murder simulator' because, hey, we're informing people about America's Army.  Or whatever.

The next option is a branching storyline.  This is less predictable, but means that only some of the story you create is used on any runthrough.  Beyond that, players will often still feel railroaded, since branching stories are realy just a collection of related linear stories.  Whether you run down one long hallway, or a series of shorter hallways, in the end, you are still just running down the hall.

Lee Sheldon has a nice treatment of modular story telling in hia 2004 book.  The idea here is that you treat your story elements as Objects in the manner of OOP code.  My thought is to go beyond this, basing my thinking on Egri's ideas about characters; that the action of a story flows from who the characters are.  Thus I come back to the adaptability of the oral storyteller.  What I'm driving at is using AI techniques (a discussion of which exceeds my competence, alas) to create characters who act on 'story physics' the way that the blocks in Tetris react to the game physics.  That is to say that the character object would have characteristics which would interact with player manipulable elements of the game to enable specific story actions.  I reallize that this is still rather vague, but if it wasn't, I'd be emailing an outline of the notion to somebody like Raph, along with my resume.

So here is where my thought process on this idea has led me over the last week.

1) As with games, stories are a pattern matching/creating process which occurs in the mind of the audience.
2) Even very simple games, like Tetris, can produce stories in the mind of the player.
3) The interactive nature of games conflicts with the narrative method of storytelling that has come to dominate the modern age.
4) If we rendered characters in computer games as 'intelligent' objects within a physics-like framework, we could create a method of storytelling which:
   a) would be compatabile with the interactive nature of games
   b) would have the possibility of emergent story just as games can have emeregent gameplay
   c) would reduce the relative workload of gamemakers by reducing story production to the production of player expandable story elements.
5) WindupAtheist is a silly blowhard.

Postscript:

I think I've addressed what Haemish and Kail were saying in my comment above, but let me take note of the 'Tell Your Own Adventure' approach, because it has come up repeatedly here.  I also want to take note of the differentiation between narrative and my broader view of storytelling.  The TYOA method is a branching narrative, and I enjoyed them greatly, however, it does have the weaknesses of the branching narrative.  What I want to do is move away from the narrative models now used to a fully interactive method of storytelling, where a game designer might place a 'story object' (probaqbly a character) just as they might place a mob or other game object.  Indeed, in the ideal, all game objects would be potential story objects, depending on the game state at the point of encounter.  Regrettably, I lack the AI programming experience (and likely the ability as well) to construct such objects as anything but the vaguest of psuedocode, but the plan is that players would not perceive story as being in any way separate from gameplay.  Advancing the story would simply be one more aspect of gameplay.

Writing narratives is hard work, but experiencing them is easy.  There would still be creative effort needed for shaping the story objects, both as code and as story potentials.  The storytelling aspect might be more like gardening, where you place plants in a garden, thinking in terms of how they might change over the season, and how they might interact with the other garden elements around them.  It is difficult to achieve a precise analogy for how stories should develop in games, because the other representative arts are constructed specific to their own media.  Painting, architecture, the narrative methods, all are unique in how they convey 'story' (and some, of course, convey more than just 'story') because all are unique media.  Games are also a unique media, and I think that the natural tendency to adopt narrative conventions for games fails of the true potential for the medium.

"It was a difficult party" - an unexpected word combination from ex-Merry Prankster and author Robert Stone.
HaemishM
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Reply #12 on: June 01, 2005, 03:05:55 PM

I think the biggest task involved in your story objects idea wouldn't be the story objects, it would be in the story controller. The SC would be the digital GM, the thing that controlled all the story objects, all the interrelations between the multiple story objects in the game, and the state of each of those story objects. That's the bit of the code that would make or break the idea. Right now, MMOG's consist of nothing but story objects: i.e. quests. They are crude, and most often, they don't really interrelate in any significant way, nor do they really relate to the world itself as a whole, only certain flagged NPC's.

Think of most MMOG quests, especially the ones that are connected to other quests, with storylines involving an invasion or something with far-reaching consequences. Why is it that only the NPC's specific to the quest pieces you are dealing with react to the threat of invasion? Why doesn't the economy of the world go crazy, with price gouging on needed items? Why don't some NPC's just evacuate the town being invaded? For MMOG's, the reason is "other people." Your actions can't be allowed to affect other people to that point. You triggering a quest cannot disturb other people, or prevent them from experiencing that content.

Instancing can certainly help that immersion, but again, if the instance doesn't have effects outside of the world, it's not really the same concept.

I think the biggest problem with doing that sort of thing is that it raises the amount of content needed exponentially. I think that's what hurt Fable so much, is they just couldn't put it all together in time. They didn't have a robust story object controller. The problem is that every action on the story object must have some affect on most if not all of the other story objects. You are talking about a huge relational database of stuff, which is massively dynamic. And if that's an MMOG, it touches EVERY PLAYER.

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Reply #13 on: June 01, 2005, 11:16:10 PM

Yeah, what I'm aiming for isn't simple, and it isn't fully conceptualized, which is part of why I posted this, as an aid to my thinking.  I've been mulling this quite a while, at least since I read Sheldon last year, but Egri is what started me on this, with his idea of plot arising only from the motivations of the characters.

And that is where I want to go, ultimately.  I don't want the citzens of my game town to follow predefined narrative chunks, I want them to look at the situation in terms of their likes and dislikes, and take actions accordingly.  Which may mean that the Orcs in Chrushbone decide they have had enough being raided by the elves and their friends, and they leave.  Or head out to raid Kelethin.  Which is going to require some other different mechanisms, but I think games are still an infant artform.  Look how long it took movies to create LOTR.  Which I always thought was impossible.  The technology can get there, if we think to go.

I don't really see this as a major database project.  If you have a story object class of 'sentient', and a subclass of 'human', then all you really need for each instance of the 'human' story class is a few basic values for the raw state, a location variable, and an interface for the object to access the local conditions at the place it currently is.  Not a simple technical challenge, no, but one that needs solved only a few times for each game to provide you with a complete roster of actors, each working to satisfiy it's own goals, goals which may change as the local conditions change.

I agree that the story controller is an issue, although I would look instead for a 'story physics', an analog to the game physics.  What I'm looking for here are self-organizing mechanisms, as you see with the Life simulation.  Rather like Wright's point about characters in The Sims, and how people think that their Sims are thinking things, and creating narratives, when they really aren't.  Instead, the players project these narritives onto their Sims.  Much tougher to do with actual dialogue, instead of simple action, which is why I think the first examples would have to be fairly simple behavior sets, rather than the full blown dialogue and plot of an RPG game.  Create the Three Little Pigs before going for War and Peace.

I've gone into the woods again on this, I have to let things sort a bit.  Maybe I'll have a clearer conception tomorrow, but I know what I want.  I want to move away from authorial narrative and into participatory narrative.  Think of the problem with the cost of art in games.  Now think how much more it would cost to have comparable premade narrative content.  There has to be another option.  Well, there doesn't have to be, but I think there is.

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Reply #14 on: June 03, 2005, 11:02:17 AM

Okay, I’m going to approach this from a different angle, in light of what people have focused on.  I’ll begin by discussing narrative storytelling, then consider other methods of storytelling, and then go back to what I’m thinking about storytelling in games.

It seems clear to me that when people think about storytelling, they think almost exclusively about narrative storytelling.  This is natural enough, given that it is the dominant media of our time, TV, Film, and Print, are all primarily narrative media.  Telling stories is, after all, what language was designed to do, and games certainly have arisen in part from narrative sources.  In particular, I’m thinking of Adventure games and MUD/MUSH here.

But narrative isn’t the only way to transmit story.  Think of cave paintings and the Bayeux Tapestry.  These tell stories entirely without words, using only images and context.  Consider architecture, particularly the Gothic Cathedral, which was liberally decorated with sculpture telling the stories of the Bible, in order to better transmit them to an illiterate populace.  Look at Japanese gardens, which have established conventions in garden design that convey meaning, and make statements about the relationship of man, heaven, and the world.  Look at monumental art, where the story of an event can be told by form.  Look specifically at the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, which gives the story of that war from one perspective.  All of these can tell story by the use of images in a context, without using any words, although words can help, particularly in focusing the context.

If you look at the propaganda of WWII, particularly in the Japanese/American conflict, you quickly will see that the real power of the work comes through the images much more than the words.  The impact of stories told in this manner is potentially very great, because they are delivered at an almost subliminal level, sneaking past the filters of logic and reason that narrative must generally pass.  Consider another mode of propaganda, the sales floor of a car dealer.  The atmosphere and presentation are as considered and powerful as the salesperson’s patter.

Despite being full of shit, WindupAthiest made a good point when he asked what this has to do with making games better.  It is common and easy to think of story only in the narrative sense, but that is an error. Story in games is heavily influenced by the game physics and setting, by the user interface and by the graphic style, by level layout and design.  Yet I know from my own experience that some skillful and successful game developers don’t explicitly consider how these elements and their narrative story mesh.  They see story as independent of the game.  Recognizing that games have multiple aspects, including story, that must work together is an important step in making better games.

That is part of where I was going with the Tetris example, trying to show that there are elements of story even in simple games that wholly lack narrative elements.  But I also was driving at the non-narrative elements of story even in games with extensive narrative elements.  Consider the typical RPG combat system versus the typical military tactical simulation, say Baldur’s Gate versus Close Combat.  In BG, the combat engine must produce an extended combat experience to support the heroic mode the game is seeking.  One-shot kills are anathema.  In CC, by contrast, the possibility of one-shot kills is essential in creating the gritty, dangerous setting of modern warfare.  Context is heavily influenced by your game systems, and context is a vital part of all storytelling, narrative or otherwise.

Having come to grips with game systems and context, it then seems to me that there are storytelling choices exposed here unique to games.  For all its dominance in games, I don’t think narrative storytelling is the best general fit for creating story in games.  Narrative, at least as we have created it, tends to be a linear thing, while computer-based systems seem more effective in modular formats.  For example, instead of creating a scripted narrative version of The Three Little Pigs, we could have simple modular elements of Wolf, Pig, and Shelter.  Wolf would move toward the nearest Pig.  When Pig spotted Wolf, Pig would move to the nearest Shelter.  Wolf would react to Shelter by employing a breath attack.  If Shelter’s strength was less than the attack’s power, it would collapse, and the Pig would move again toward the nearest Shelter.  If the Shelter resisted, the Wolf would continue his attack until exhausted.  If the Wolf becomes exhausted, the Pigs execute a victory dance.  Note that simply by how we arrange the initial objects, we can change the story without creating any new content.

Obviously, this is a simplistic example, but I think it points toward a different way of creating story, one that meshes better with how games work.  There are, of course, many issues unresolved, not the least of which is the AI coding.  As the Camp and Pull playstyle shows, there is much yet to be done with object AI in games.  And when you look at MMOs, which are dialogue intensive in some areas, the problem seems overwhelming.  However, I would point to the numerous ‘chatterbots’, Eliza and her realtives.  While still far short of passing a Turing test, these offer at least a start toward making dialogue something generated by NPC objects rather than by writers.  Of particular interest to me are the models that incorporate heuristic elements, opening the possibility to game objects becoming responsive to player input as well as developer input.

Thus I think that there is a path away from the narrative mode of storytelling that games have followed, toward a different mode, better suited to the medium of games.  In the short term, developers can improve their games by recognizing the non-narrative elements of story in all games.  Over the longer term, this can be developed into relatively simple non-narrative modes of story creation.  As technology progresses, and experience develops from these earlier steps, we might then see games which create stories that have the appearance of narrative story, but are in fact far more flexible.

Anyway, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

"It was a difficult party" - an unexpected word combination from ex-Merry Prankster and author Robert Stone.
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Reply #15 on: June 08, 2005, 04:55:10 AM

But narrative isn’t the only way to transmit story.  Think of cave paintings and the Bayeux Tapestry.  These tell stories entirely without words, using only images and context.  Consider architecture, particularly the Gothic Cathedral, which was liberally decorated with sculpture telling the stories of the Bible, in order to better transmit them to an illiterate populace.  Look at Japanese gardens, which have established conventions in garden design that convey meaning, and make statements about the relationship of man, heaven, and the world.

/quibble

Actually all these examples are narrative mediums.  Just that the "rules" preceded the medium's ability to narrate itself and so required the original interactive longbearded storyteller to speak, explain backstory, and take questions. (which is why biblical parables and testaments are most;y non-understandable to today's readers)

Cave paintings are an animated movie where all the frames are on the same canvass. Anyone who's ever watched a four year old draw a picture while telling her story is watching the original cave painter unfold his story to his adepts and the bishop interpreting the images on the cathedral ceiling to an enthralled audience.  Eventually the adepts grow up to re-narrate the story, the illiterate parent interprets the image for his child.

/end_quibble

The trick is crafting the technology to effectively narrate itself.  Tabula rasa is a great place to start but requires interaction to jumpstart imagination before the mind can paint itself further.  Up until now narration in interactive games has been passive and linear so it's boring.  Or non-existent so the players can "make their own content".  Neither approach is effective by itself.

Quote from: Ecclesiastes
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new"? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.

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Reply #16 on: December 18, 2005, 04:57:32 PM

This thread makes me warm inside.

I mentioned elsewhere that, as a player, I don't particularly care about the game's story. I care about what stories I can tell about the game. The Tetris narrative is, I think, what makes it engaging... but it doesn't give me much to tell my friends other than to brag about my score. If they're there watching me play, they may be just as engaged as I am. If they've never played Tetris, they won't be terribly impressed.

Universal narratives, the sort of stories which get told and retold, have characters and romance and daring deeds because that's what we like to talk about. The vicious and the selfish get their just deserts while the kind and altruistic marry the princess and become the king. Or whatever.

You want your players to retell their stories, especially to people who have never played, because that will turn those listeners into folks who will buy your game. One of the least appreciated problems with cut-scene stories is that you cannot tell your friends what happened without spoiling the experience for them. There is only one storyline, and its surprises are surprises only once.

Stories players tell about their own experiences within a game world, accent on world, are unique. It's hard to feel proud of your avatar's actions in a cut-scene, it's easy to feel proud of your Tetris high score.
« Last Edit: December 18, 2005, 05:22:42 PM by pxib »

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Reply #17 on: December 18, 2005, 05:14:43 PM


Bingo. I pretty much agree with pxib on this except that I'm going to phrase it as "I like games that create memories.". I'm not going to remember your cutscene but I am going to remember my time sailing a pirate ship in UO. Tetris doesn't create memories (except for your highscore). Random 4v4 arena battles in Guild Wars don't create memories. UO created memories.
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Reply #18 on: December 18, 2005, 05:22:15 PM

Bingo. I pretty much agree with pxib on this except that I'm going to phrase it as "I like games that create memories.". I'm not going to remember your cutscene but I am going to remember my time sailing a pirate ship in UO. Tetris doesn't create memories (except for your highscore). Random 4v4 arena battles in Guild Wars don't create memories. UO created memories.

Arguable. Arguable only using Final Fantasy as examples. But if you expanded that to include Deus Ex, Fallout, God of War, and a number of other things, it would be crushed to shit. The only MMORPG I have memories of, ironically, is SWG. I'm just saying, properly placed and emotionally charged cutscenes can make a game 10x better.

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Reply #19 on: December 18, 2005, 05:26:15 PM

I'm just saying, properly placed and emotionally charged cutscenes can make a game 10x better.

Only in as much as they make it feel more like a movie. More like a fixed narrative. This is why I'm not sure "create memories" is the right turn of phrase. I have a number of fond memories of cut scenes, but I don't feel like they were something I did.

I don't want to tell you about them because I worry I'd spoil the game.
« Last Edit: December 18, 2005, 05:31:07 PM by pxib »

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Reply #20 on: December 18, 2005, 05:57:08 PM

See, here's the thing. I don't care about creating memories in games. More often than not, it has nothing to do with the game mechanics themself. I'd prefer to experience a good story than create one. If I wanted to create a good story or experience I'd play Microsoft Word.
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Reply #21 on: December 18, 2005, 07:12:49 PM

And that is probably why you play console games while I for the most part do not. If I want a good story I will read a book. If I want to MAKE my own story I'll play something like UO. Cutscenes don't do shit for me and are only memorable in the sense "I came, I saw, they showed me this movie and now I know the story". A current example is EVE. Do you play EVE to watch someone elses story or make you own?

Fallout has a lot of worldy elements that let you create somewhat of an original tale but the overall storyarc is set is stone and therefore nothing better than a book. Granted I can't unload the full clip of a minigun into a two headed cow in a book while I can in Fallout and that is the worldy element I just mentioned.

If you don't remember the game then what was the point? Tetris is mental masturbation. "This game was fun." So what? Do you go around telling people about the time you made your character jump in Mario and got a mushroom? So if I go and play God of War, afterward, what do we have to talk about? "That game was fun, it had this story twist that really threw me!" That sounds like interactive TV.

Do you remember anything you created/discovered/did in a video game 10 years ago that is worth telling anyone about?
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Reply #22 on: December 18, 2005, 07:37:38 PM

See, here's the thing. I don't care about creating memories in games. More often than not, it has nothing to do with the game mechanics themself. I'd prefer to experience a good story than create one. If I wanted to create a good story or experience I'd play Microsoft Word.

I hate it when I agree with Schild, but in this I agree completely with him. 

It's also why I argue for MMO Games vs Worlds, I'm not a sandbox player. Different motivations for different folks.

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Do you remember anything you created/discovered/did in a video game 10 years ago that is worth telling anyone about?

No, but then most people I interact with look at me oddly enough for being 31 and playing video games at all, much less ones that don't have 200X and "EA Sports" attached to the title.  Rightly so, since they're just a way to waste time between doing things that have some sort of meaning.  I won't be telling my grandkids about that time I completly pwned a noob in Arathi Basin.

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Reply #23 on: December 18, 2005, 08:04:52 PM

Rightly so, since they're just a way to waste time between doing things

See, I can't do that. Must...create/broaden...horizons at all time. Tetris et al. might help you grow some neurons or something but other than that it's useless. I'd rather lose sooner than later in Tetris.
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Reply #24 on: December 18, 2005, 09:07:44 PM

A current example is EVE. Do you play EVE to watch someone elses story or make you own?

Answer: You don't get anywhere near Eve. You read "The Great Eve Scam" and realize there's nothing interesting left there. No offence to CCP but the scam was so beautiful it's...well, let's put it this way. In the top 10 things I've ever heard about MMOGs it's in the top 5 right under "I pk ur flax" and "I'm in ur base killing ur doodz."

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Fallout has a lot of worldy elements that let you create somewhat of an original tale but the overall storyarc is set is stone and therefore nothing better than a book. Granted I can't unload the full clip of a minigun into a two headed cow in a book while I can in Fallout and that is the worldy element I just mentioned.

Do you know why I enjoy games more than books? Because I still read and I get more enjoyment out of a well told story in a game. Interacting > Looking at text. Just like how text zombies aren't real zombies.

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If you don't remember the game then what was the point? Tetris is mental masturbation. "This game was fun." So what? Do you go around telling people about the time you made your character jump in Mario and got a mushroom? So if I go and play God of War, afterward, what do we have to talk about? "That game was fun, it had this story twist that really threw me!" That sounds like interactive TV.

God of War could feasibly be examined in the way ANY mythology is today. And as for tetris, man, comeon. You're just reaching here. Discussing strategy in any video game is like discussing strategy in any board game. For every Risk there's Civ. For every Monopoly there's a Culdcept. For every Bridge or Poker there's Star Chamber. I mean really, why do you hate games?

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Do you remember anything you created/discovered/did in a video game 10 years ago that is worth telling anyone about?

I don't tell people about them. I make them buy it and experience it. Like I did my roommates with Indigo Prophecy and God of War and like I did Haemish with Resident Evil 4.
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Reply #25 on: December 19, 2005, 12:29:49 AM

Ideally, a game has both a good story (or narrative) to sustain the gamer through the experience, AND allows to create memorable moments to share with other people that care about the same topic.

But if I have to choose one of the two, I choose the story. What I absolutely hate are lazy programmers that make games that I have to make memorable moments about because they were too lazy to do so themself. Yes, you can choose to shoot cows in Fallout, but if there wasn't a story, a setting surrounding that, it would just be "Deer Hunter Postapocalypse: Two Headed Cows".

There are some games that work on a different level. My father for example plays Solitaire because it calms his mind and he thinks about other stuff while doing it. Story would be distracting to that. But then, my father would never pay for Solitaire, and he would never get a Solitaire II. I, on the other hand have over hundred computer roleplaying games at home. With marginally different to exactly the same game mechanics in some cases. What sold them to me: Their stories. And that the gameplay supported experiencing those stories and didn't distract me. Curse of the Azure Bonds would never have sold on gameplay alone, its exactly the same as Pool of Radiance+2 classes.
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Reply #26 on: December 19, 2005, 03:22:36 AM

It Walks The Earth Again!

Surprised to see this wake up.  There is a thread on Raph's site on narratology vs ludology.  Perhaps someday I will get my thoughts clear on this topic.

Edit:

To add a little actual content to this reply, I'd suggest that the problem with constructing an after-story for a game like Tetris is that there are no real landmark moments in the game, no points you can reference with other players; no 'this one time at the Brit Bank' references.  That is one advantage to cutscenes; they give players common references to peg stories to.  MMOs have similar advantages, with shared locations and experiences that provide a common base for story.  One thing I'd like to see in MMOs is a way to use commonalities to tell stories within the flow of the game, and not just as post-hoc references for relating ingame events.  I'm thinking here of some MMO equivalent to Once Upon a Time, an Atlas Games card game.  The general notion would be for players to be able to collect story elements as quest rewards (as an object that would trigger a sequence or potential sequence of events), and put them into play to generate in-game story events that would tie together with other story events and change the world, at least on a temporary basis, since other player-events might result in an effective reversion.

I would counter the obvious argument that players hate to have their play experience altered by suggesting that this is in part a failure to control expectations.  If you know going in that other players can change the play experience, and that doing so is a valid sort of play, a sort of PvP storytelling, then players might be much more accepting of the whole thing.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2005, 04:06:59 AM by Evangolis »

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Reply #27 on: December 19, 2005, 11:31:15 AM

Do you know why I enjoy games more than books? Because I still read and I get more enjoyment out of a well told story in a game. Interacting > Looking at text.

I don't think I've ever recommended a game based on story. Setting, yes. Story, no. In fact I don't even read quest dialogs anymore. I just skip past them and follow the minimap.

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I mean really, why do you hate games?

I think I must grok the pattern too quickly in 100% gamey games. Take racing games for example. After the first lap I'm done with the game. If there isn't a multiplayer element or cheat codes to unlock all the tracks it's just over.

Did anyone play Doom1/2 for the story? Raise your hand. Me, I played Doom1/2 multiplayer with mods like the dragon riding wizards from Heretic as the player characters.

Quote
but if there wasn't a story, a setting surrounding that, it would just be "Deer Hunter Postapocalypse: Two Headed Cows".

Fallout could be Fallout without the central story arc. I like the setting but the central story was pretty blah.

Setting is defined as "setting. n. - The context and environment in which a situation is set; the background./The time, place, and circumstances in which a narrative, drama, or film takes place.". While story is defined as "story. n. - A usually fictional prose or verse narrative intended to interest or amuse the hearer or reader; a tale.". However, it gives an additional definition of story as "The background information regarding something".
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Reply #28 on: December 19, 2005, 12:06:09 PM

Ideally, a game has both a good story (or narrative) to sustain the gamer through the experience, AND allows to create memorable moments to share with other people that care about the same topic.

But if I have to choose one of the two, I choose the story.

A bit off topic here, but lately, I've noticed that I tend to dislike a lot of games with very strong stories.  I want either a game or a story, not to have to take turns going through something that's both. Take God of War, for example.  It's a fun game, but my entire first playthrough, I was basically just trying to rush through as fast as possible to get to the next story sequence.  Fight fifty skeletons, turn some cranks, open the door, okay, is that Pandora's Box, no, DAMMIT, jump over some pits, fit some more skeletons, new room, is that Pandora's Box, no, DAMMIT, and so on.  Looking back at the game, my impression was that it was decent, but that the gameplay was kind of tedious.  Playing through a second time, my experience was almost completely different.  I knew how the story went, so I could sit back and enjoy the game... and I actually had a lot more fun with the actual gameplay that way.  Fable was the same way, for me: the first time through, I was focused on the story, but on repeated playthroughs, I had a lot more fun as I said "screw saving the world, I'm going to collect tattoo cards" or whatever.  I have a similar problem with console RPGs: I just want to see what happens next in the story.  I don't want to fight dogs and birds for twenty minutes just to get to the next chapter.  It occured to me several times as I was playing Final Fantasy X that I'd enjoy the "game" a lot more if they just skipped from plot point to plot point without wasting all that time juggling potions and fighting random encounters.  Then I remembered that we already have games that do that, only we call them "movies."  Then I wondered why the hell I was playing Final Fantasy X when I have a whole shelf full of movies.  

This is why I don't look for stories in games any more.  If I want to read a story, I have several bookcases full of material.  I don't have to jump through hoops to get to the next chapter, I don't have to do side quests to get a better sword or go shopping for healing potions.  I just turn the page.  If I want to write a story, same deal applies.  I fire up notepad and I'm good to do.  I can write whatever story I want, I don't have to worry about how the game works or how much freedom the developers elected to give me.  I just write.  If you're concerned primarily with stories, I don't see why you'd be very interested in video games.  It seems... less than optimal, to me, somehow.  I dunno.
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Reply #29 on: December 19, 2005, 01:58:45 PM

There are many games where I skip through the dialog. But when I come across that gem, like Vampire or Deus Ex or uh, Katamari Damacy - I do not skip. I cherish the story. It helps games ascend beyond what books can give me.
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Reply #30 on: December 19, 2005, 09:11:45 PM

Ideally, a game has both a good story (or narrative) to sustain the gamer through the experience, AND allows to create memorable moments to share with other people that care about the same topic.

But if I have to choose one of the two, I choose the story.

A bit off topic here, but lately, I've noticed that I tend to dislike a lot of games with very strong stories.  I want either a game or a story, not to have to take turns going through something that's both. Take God of War, for example.  It's a fun game, but my entire first playthrough, I was basically just trying to rush through as fast as possible to get to the next story sequence.  Fight fifty skeletons, turn some cranks, open the door, okay, is that Pandora's Box, no, DAMMIT, jump over some pits, fit some more skeletons, new room, is that Pandora's Box, no, DAMMIT, and so on.  Looking back at the game, my impression was that it was decent, but that the gameplay was kind of tedious.  Playing through a second time, my experience was almost completely different.  I knew how the story went, so I could sit back and enjoy the game... and I actually had a lot more fun with the actual gameplay that way.  Fable was the same way, for me: the first time through, I was focused on the story, but on repeated playthroughs, I had a lot more fun as I said "screw saving the world, I'm going to collect tattoo cards" or whatever.  I have a similar problem with console RPGs: I just want to see what happens next in the story.  I don't want to fight dogs and birds for twenty minutes just to get to the next chapter.  It occured to me several times as I was playing Final Fantasy X that I'd enjoy the "game" a lot more if they just skipped from plot point to plot point without wasting all that time juggling potions and fighting random encounters.  Then I remembered that we already have games that do that, only we call them "movies."  Then I wondered why the hell I was playing Final Fantasy X when I have a whole shelf full of movies.  

This is why I don't look for stories in games any more.  If I want to read a story, I have several bookcases full of material.  I don't have to jump through hoops to get to the next chapter, I don't have to do side quests to get a better sword or go shopping for healing potions.  I just turn the page.  If I want to write a story, same deal applies.  I fire up notepad and I'm good to do.  I can write whatever story I want, I don't have to worry about how the game works or how much freedom the developers elected to give me.  I just write.  If you're concerned primarily with stories, I don't see why you'd be very interested in video games.  It seems... less than optimal, to me, somehow.  I dunno.

Having been a gamemaster for many years in many PnP games, the reason I want to see interactive stories in games on par with what Evangolis has been discussing is so that all of those wonderful story ideas that I get from reading about a setting have a shot at being realized/experienced. When I gamemaster, I hardly ever know what is going to happen, I don't plot out anything, I just let the players respond and decide. It's the closest thing I have ever done in regards to collaborative storytelling.

The primary problem I have with collaborative storytelling in PnP is that I have to get the people together to do it. If an online game could give me a similar experience, I would eat it up.

As for the ideas about how to get more interaction in the world, it was already mentioned that Sims is a good place to start at when you look at how to have NPC's react over time to the things that happen to them. In an MMO, it's finding the constraints of what the players can do to the NPC's and what the NPC's will do in response that would be the fun part. What rules of the world would you enforce to make the story parts believable? Do the NPC's die permanently or just for you if you kill them? Could a player conceivably screw the world up so badly that noone else would be able to have fun?

I like some pvp story things like "Good guy - protect this caravan that goes out monthly", "Bad Guys - Rob and destory this caravan that goes out monthly", then throw in some npc guards and bandits and have the event always happen regardless of who joins on which side. If the caravan makes it, good guy city Zeta gets a certain crafting item that makes awesome shields. If it doesn't, bandit camp Charlie gets the item. It stays that way til next months caravan.

In other words, I like story stuff that doesn't break your world, but does have consequences for what choices the players make.
Tebonas
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Posts: 6365


Reply #31 on: December 19, 2005, 11:19:40 PM

Quote from: Krakrok
I think I must grok the pattern too quickly in 100% gamey games. Take racing games for example. After the first lap I'm done with the game. If there isn't a multiplayer element or cheat codes to unlock all the tracks it's just over.

Interestingly enough thats my problem as well. Game patterns are something that jumps me into the eye very soon. The one thing that keeps me playing after that, is story and character building. The two things that keep me playing after that are story, character building and achieving a goal. The three things...

Well yes, story is not everything. In games like Nethack or Fate it is completely nonexistant and nobody cares. In games like Diablo its just boring dialog to scroll through. But in Planescape for example story is the whole allure of the game. The gameplay is exactly the same as in 164 gold box games before it, the character building is a joke with the more itemization and more or less inconsequental character levels. You achieve nothing at all in the end. But the story pulls you in, lets you play through the whole experience and beckons you on to discover the background story of your character and his party members. Its still one of the most profound gaming experiences I had. Because of the story.

Quote
Did anyone play Doom1/2 for the story? Raise your hand. Me, I played Doom1/2 multiplayer with mods like the dragon riding wizards from Heretic as the player characters.

Well, I played Doom for the unique gaming experience that I didn't know before that. But then I was done with shooters until shooters with a better story came out. Which was a long while after that. In some FPS shooters I basically drudge through them from cutscene to cutscene, the difficulty setting getting easier and easier as I get more and more bored of the "shoot everything that moves" concept. Could be that it isn't my genre and I should play Eve and read a good book instead.

Quote
Setting is defined as "setting. n. - The context and environment in which a situation is set; the background./The time, place, and circumstances in which a narrative, drama, or film takes place.". While story is defined as "story. n. - A usually fictional prose or verse narrative intended to interest or amuse the hearer or reader; a tale.". However, it gives an additional definition of story as "The background information regarding something".

That is true for Fallout 1. But how do you want to sell Fallout 2 without the story. The setting is basically the same. The only difference IS the story.
Typhon
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Posts: 2493


Reply #32 on: December 20, 2005, 10:21:51 AM

Think of the problem with the cost of art content in games.

(strike-through is mine).  Note: I'm not saying much new here, but using alot of space to say it.  Apologies for length.

This is the driver that will get someone to do one of the following: 1) game-as-setting, AI within the game creates the story, or 2) create a game engine that makes it easy to have a story realized in-game.  Personally I'd prefer the former, the latter is where I think most of the money is currently going.  But if story ideas just fell out of trees we'd be seeing more (some?) Hollywood movies with better scripts.

Here's what I think are the steps to get to the game-as-setting idea;

Next Step: Actors
The game is a world setting and has entities with agendas.  Entities should have conflicting agendas (orcs and elves).  Some entities will win, some will loose.  In this way the world is changed.  [Simplest version is a chess-like land war.  Pieces are NPC and player alike, play continues until one side wins, at which point the game resets in some way (death of a king (entity) results in the fragmentation of the powerblock, for instance).  The world setting tells the player that they are in a world, but the real action occurs on a chessboard the the players cannot see.  A 'battle' could be the sum of wins/losses of instanced conflicts fought between the two sides.]

Entities will entice Players to be the agents of change (questing), thus becoming allies/vassals of the entities (but players don't "loose" along with entities that loose, they simply need to find another entity).  Successfully completing the quest furthers the Entities agenda, and furthers the players career.

This game has plot and conflict but no specific character development or narrative.

Step After:  Fate
The step after that is to add to the game a mechanism that progresses a narrative and/or assigns characterizations to game events (a wagging the dog type of concept where a noteworthy game event is given a backstory after the event occurs - similar in nature to the story that Evangolis created for Tetris.  This requires human interaction - a story master using game events to further narrative and character development within the game "story".  Player read about the back story as if it were news being reported).

Additionally/alternatively the "Fate" entity could be given the power to modify game variables to make victories/defeats more or less likely.  Depending on the taste of the game maker, Fate either tries to maintain balance while promoting an acceptable level of change, or it attempts to cause certain events to occur (battles, discoveries, etc) to further a narrative.

The game then becomes a collaborative effort between entity creators giving entities agendas and characterizations (and developing those characterizations), players choosing sides and fighting battles and the fate master/story teller furthering the narrative.
Krakrok
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2189


Reply #33 on: December 20, 2005, 11:50:53 AM

That is true for Fallout 1. But how do you want to sell Fallout 2 without the story. The setting is basically the same. The only difference IS the story.

I play Fallout for the setting. I don't remember the central story from any of them.
Alkiera
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Posts: 1556

The best part of SWG was the easy account cancellation process.


Reply #34 on: December 20, 2005, 11:58:53 AM

Think of the problem with the cost of art content in games.

(strike-through is mine).  Note: I'm not saying much new here, but using alot of space to say it.  Apologies for length.

This is the driver that will get someone to do one of the following: 1) game-as-setting, AI within the game creates the story, or 2) create a game engine that makes it easy to have a story realized in-game.  Personally I'd prefer the former, the latter is where I think most of the money is currently going.  But if story ideas just fell out of trees we'd be seeing more (some?) Hollywood movies with better scripts.

Here's what I think are the steps to get to the game-as-setting idea;

Next Step: Actors
The game is a world setting and has entities with agendas.  Entities should have conflicting agendas (orcs and elves).  Some entities will win, some will loose.  In this way the world is changed.  [Simplest version is a chess-like land war.  Pieces are NPC and player alike, play continues until one side wins, at which point the game resets in some way (death of a king (entity) results in the fragmentation of the powerblock, for instance).  The world setting tells the player that they are in a world, but the real action occurs on a chessboard the the players cannot see.  A 'battle' could be the sum of wins/losses of instanced conflicts fought between the two sides.]

Entities will entice Players to be the agents of change (questing), thus becoming allies/vassals of the entities (but players don't "loose" along with entities that loose, they simply need to find another entity).  Successfully completing the quest furthers the Entities agenda, and furthers the players career.

This game has plot and conflict but no specific character development or narrative.

Step After:  Fate
The step after that is to add to the game a mechanism that progresses a narrative and/or assigns characterizations to game events (a wagging the dog type of concept where a noteworthy game event is given a backstory after the event occurs - similar in nature to the story that Evangolis created for Tetris.  This requires human interaction - a story master using game events to further narrative and character development within the game "story".  Player read about the back story as if it were news being reported).

Additionally/alternatively the "Fate" entity could be given the power to modify game variables to make victories/defeats more or less likely.  Depending on the taste of the game maker, Fate either tries to maintain balance while promoting an acceptable level of change, or it attempts to cause certain events to occur (battles, discoveries, etc) to further a narrative.

The game then becomes a collaborative effort between entity creators giving entities agendas and characterizations (and developing those characterizations), players choosing sides and fighting battles and the fate master/story teller furthering the narrative.

I like what you have to say, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

or however that goes.  To quote everyone's favorite ghost... "Thinking the same thing!"

Alkiera

"[I could] become the world's preeminent MMO class action attorney.  I could be the lawyer EVEN AMBULANCE CHASERS LAUGH AT. " --Triforcer

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