What's /vr/'s perspective on stories in games?

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Wut?

>>2939208
A good storing is the driving force of what you're actually doing.

Sure, in a game like Mega man the story is irrelevant, but in something like an RPG you really need some kind of driving force for the plot to justify what you're doing.

Games can have good stories. You're just a fucking retard grandpa.

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>>2939208
Or you can write an engaging narrative and put in a blank slate protagonist in place of a character to create an immersive and meaningful first person experience even without direct input towards the outcome of the story.
What exactly are you trying to justify anyway?

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>>2939208
Gameplay first story second. Story to me is like icing on the cake. I like icing but I don't want a big ass plate full of nothing but icing.

>>2939230
And that RPG can have the gameplay itself tell the story instead of today's modern visual novel "RPGs" lay it all out for you in 5000 hours of goddamn cutscenes and pages upon pages of static dialog.

Even Ultima V, which had a good story, was more about "go do things and have dialog be a part of gameplay itself via the 'find the keyword to advance the dialog' mechanic" to make the story happen than today's boring story shit.

You're just trying to justify fucking intrusive stories in games.

>>2939230
Well with something like Megaman you get the basic story before you even press start. When you jump into the game you can select who you want to fight. Lets say you pick Bubbleman and you now start the level next to some water falls. The game never needed to tell you this. It just put you in there and you can see it. You can run around and kill a bunch of guys that are trying to kill you which could mean you are liberating this water area from one of the robot masters. As you go further you find spike traps and massive robotic crustaceans. Then at the end you face off against the robot master.

The game doesn't need to stop you at any point and tell you this. It doesn't need a text box come up while you are playing either. It is letting the player go in, do his thing, and have them interpret the situation as they will. With all of those enemies and traps it is obvious that the enemy was entrenched into the area but it never had to be brought up.

The strength of a video game is that the player can experience what is happening thus they can infer what the story is based on what is actually happening in the game.

>>2939274
It is one of the reasons to why I like the SaGa series at times. People complain about the lack of story. It doesn't need to continually stop you to tell you what you are already doing or what you are about to face because you are already going to head out there, it lets you play the game and interpret what is happening.

>>2939208
I never want the story to take precedence, unless I'm playing an RPG. Even then, I don't want long-ass cutscenes. Especially right at the start of the game. Begin the game by letting me do something for christ's sake, this should be a cardinal rule of game developing.

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>>2939312
Sure do love those intro sequences in Skyrim and Human Revolution where you're just stuck looking around while your character moves around on their own for like ten minutes before the game finally starts. I think this crap in general is why I've been slowly getting turned off by modern games, I'm alright with telling a story but stop making large chunks of the game play itself.

>>2939265
Please. tell me more about this image.

I think it is great.

>>2939317
http://www.collector-actionfigures.com/dash/blog/four-horsemen-reveal-screaming-eagle-and-flag-cape/

>>2939208
Why do we create and peruse fiction? Entertainment. And entertainment may come from several sources. While what you are suggesting may sound more immersive, it is perfectly acceptable to have it the other way and tell a linear narrative through dialogue and cutscenes. It is simply something enjoyed a different way, akin to watching a movie. Some things are better off this way. If everything is left up to player interpretation, then the characters and setting can become incredibly flat and dull, particularly for those of us who are not in the mood to use our imaginations. Don't get me wrong, though, experiences like you are describing can be good too. Metroid Prime is in my top 5 favorite games and it has almost no story if you don't read the logs. I find that a brilliant way to handle things. The story is there for those that want it but skippable for those who don't. The lack of any dialogue and the fact that the events in these logs don't overshadow what Samus does certainly helps make it stand out from other games that do this kind of thing.

In a way, this is also a false dichotomy. Some of the most memorable sequences in gaming are what are essentially interactive cutscenes. Take, for example, Final Fantasy V. Remember Galuf's death? It was essentially a cutscene, but the game still made you fight even at 0 HP. Moments like that show it can work both ways.

>>2939317
It's Donald Trump's Final Form.

Unless it's an RPG or Adventure game it's a pointless waste of time.

Most games don't need a long-ass story or even dialogue, but they do need context. A goal, a setting, and a sense of who the player character is.

If you replaced all the text in a game with gibberish, removed the music and turn every tile and sprite into random pixels, without changing the gameplay, would the game still be as good?

As far as RPGs go, I can't stand being given tutorials for the most basic shit. Yes, I know it's dangerous outside town, why do you think I'm equipped with a sword? It drives me absolutely mad when NPCs or cutscenes grab hold of you and start spewing 4th wall-breaking tutorial dialogue, especially early on in the game when you just want to get a feel for the gameplay and judge whether or not the story feels like it's got potential. A good RPG would let me tell that old man to go fuck himself and walk off. The best tutorials are those that just hover on the screen around elements that need explaining, not completely take control away from you. Otherwise, a decent help menu, or a physical manual I can look at and enjoy like the good old days of gaming is not rocket science. Stick a waypoint on a map and let me decide what to do, and when to do it, otherwise you can expect your game to get dropped so fast.

For platformers, I really do not want story beyond, "there's a bad guy, he's doing bad things, stop him", and your presentation of that better be brief, because it's a fucking platformer and I want to play. Most classic games do this well, like original Spyro, Mario, Sonic, etc, but more recently they got the idea that shoehorning in real-world drama was somehow a good idea for games people use to escape from that very nonsense.

I actually can't be bothered to state preference on more genres, but basically, if you're not tutoring me or telling me the story while I have full control of the game, all you've done is make a movie with interactive sections.

>>2939208
Videogames do not have narratives they have dialogues instead.

There, are you satisfied? It wasn't a very complicated answer was it?

>>2939208
Actually anon, I'm actually reading this now and I'm going to have to give you a failing grade. I don't think anything you're saying here hasn't been said before, and you really provide no substance to strengthen your arguments. I know it probably seemed like a pretty slick realization, but anon, you're high, and nobody is going to care until you produce actual results. Something we can sink our teeth into.

F+

Make more of an effort! You can do it! Aspire to mediocrity! :)

>>2939425
Check your privilege shithead, stop telling other people to work harder when you don't even have a job

>>2939449
Looks like somebody just failed Gaming Journalism 101.

Darn.

>>2939208
Wow aren't you a big fat fag.

>>2939315
Make a hard save after tutorial/intro, just before the game asks if you want to change your character or anything.

Boom, never have to sit through a Bethesda opening again.

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>>2939208
The story in any videogame should be nothing more than incidental.

You're creating a game, something that is meant to be actively played by someone and be fun for its intrinsic game mechanics first of all, if you put story and narrative before gameplay you're creating an interactive movie, which might be just what a lot of people would like, but it's still not a game.

That of course doesn't mean that stories are necessarily bad, videogames offer a great way to implement narrative into gameplay, look at how successful was Dark Souls on this matter, and it's a game that it's basically devoid of what you'd call an orthodox story. If you want to put a story implement it into the game itself in form of environment, hints, visual clues, short texts that varies from item lores to small dialogues with NPCs, inferences but please do not flood the game with longass dialogues, cutscenes and most of all needless melodrama for every little thing.

Make the player actively participate in the story not only by playing a role, but by giving him/her bits and pieces of info to put together by him/herself, let gameplay be the tool for telling a story rather than cutscenes, there's no need to make me wade through boring, cliched dialogues about the meaning of life or pathetic imitations of bildungsroman stereotypes when it comes to developing a character, its actions already define the character for what it is, I don't need to listen to his inner dialogues or fights with his bae and buddies over muh morality for 50% of the game for god's sake.

Please, don't let games be an outlet of your failed movie director/bookwriter career like Kojima or Cage do, don't try to make them into "meaningful media" that must give players some sort of message about whatever you want like Mother or Undertale, make a GAME that is fun to PLAY, not to listen to or watch, make something that I want to play for hours and hours on end and use to have fun with my friends.
Thanks

>>2940059
>video games can never be a worthwhile narrative artistic medium cuz i just want to play 4 le points xdddxddxd

>>2940059
>I'm going to define a game as not being allowed to have a story, therefore if you make a game that has a story, it's still not a game.

>>2940285
I don't completely agree with that guy's perspective on story but you're incredibly retarded if you think video games have to have a story to be a serious artistic medium. Your logic is what gives us shit like The Order.

>>2940302
>if you think video games have to have a story to be a serious artistic medium
anon never said that. You're doing a false dichotomy

>>2940306
>cuz i just want to play 4 le points xdddxddxd

That part of their post is completely devaluing the gameplay portion of video games in favor of narrative. That with "worthwhile narrative artistic medium" implies video games aren't worthwhile unless that have a narrative.

>>2940323
that part is merely mocking the exclusive focus on gameplay and fuck everything else. The implication is not the exclusive focus on narrative and fuck all else. It is that narrative can have value and should not be dismissed on a general level.

>>2940323
>That with "worthwhile narrative artistic medium" implies video games aren't worthwhile unless that have a narrative.
Also wrong. It says that the medium can be worthwhile for narrative, again in response to blind dismissal of narrative aspects. It does not say that the medium must have narrative at all costs. That's just the false dichotomy you're building up

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>>2940302
That's why I qualified it with 'narrative'

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>>2940285
>>2940301
Can you guys even read english or are you here just to shitpost?

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>>2940357
You implied that games shouldn't compel the player to progress through story because YOU prefer gameplay. You made a statement about how games should be made instead of stating an opinion.

>>2940357
You are stupid. Saying something like "SOME STORY MIGHT BE GOOD LOL" after a load of nonsense talking about how it's "not a real game it's an interactive movie", is not a good post.

Also, randomly inserting a guy with a gun to his head for no apparent reason is the mark of a retarded and unstable individual, though that did not affect my response it's annoying and just stupid.

Tired of that type of cliched shitposting masquerading as good posting.

Jesus, /v/ truly has taken a hold of this place, it was fun while it lasted /vr/.

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>retarded analogies

Different games go for different things, if your autism can't handle that then the only option is to stop playing games. Nobody is forcing you to play a game that focuses on characters and writing, but there are people who enjoy that and there's nothing wrong with it.

>>2939208
If a game wants to focus on story, that's cool. If a game wants to have no story, that's cool too. A game can tell a story well. It can also tell a story poorly.

I don't understand why so many people here are adamantly opposed to the inclusion of story in games. It's so limiting. It's like saying that Ulysses and Tender Buttons are automatically bad books because they contain sentences that are ungrammatical.

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Miyamoto said this all 16 years ago in more succinct words.

OP try to not be so verbose when speaking. It helps out your quality of life greatly I've found when you just expect your listener to be smart enough to understand.

Also. I know you came from the Zelda thread where I mentioned Miyamoto's mentor left because of this reason.

>>2939452
Nice ad'hom matey. You gonna contribute something worthwhile now?

>>2939352
>Bald Eagle

>>2941632
Perhaps I will when I have something to look at other than a 40 year old argument with the same tired opinions being rehashed.

>>2939208
>that image
This is why some boards turn to shit. They get too smug and believe they're of superior quality, and that leads to them attracting the very worst sort of people. /tg/ has become a horrible place now - all discussion is tainted with meta shit or tumblr fanatics endlessly droning on about sexism in PnP games.

Don't ever fucking pretend this board is somehow superior to any other board here, otherwise things go down the shitter.

>>2941656
Not rehashing anything. They were my own thoughts, uninspired by anything anyone else has ever written.

If my thoughts are the same as others, then I guess collectively there is clearly an audience for games made in that way.

Bump for interest

>>2939425
>For platformers, I really do not want story beyond, "there's a bad guy, he's doing bad things, stop him", and your presentation of that better be brief, because it's a fucking platformer and I want to play.
I thought Shovel Knight struck a nice balance with how to tell a story in a traditional platformer since it mostly did it through brief dialogue exchanges between the bosses that made them a bit more memorable.

they can increase the value of a game when done well, but I very rarely see a game that does story well.

Story can be important but isn't a necessity for a good game. Some games do tell good stories but most fail as they just dump text and cutscenes instead of using the gameplay to tell the story.It's wierd to me how much I see some people try to deny story as if it has absolutely no place in games, they typically just post the carmack quote and say anyone who wants story doesn't understand video games.

I feel like very few games have ever gotten story delivery correctly. I might catch flak for this but I feel the Metal Gear Solid series is the only one that incorporated actual heavy storytelling into a game that seemed up to snuff with a SyFy tv show (I am implying that's as good as it gets). But the way it was delivered defeated its purpose as a game because it was segmented with lengthy exposition via codecs and cutscenes. I enjoyed them, but to tell a story through a video game and maintaining it as a video game is damn near impossible.

I appreciate a game like Super Metroid where it's bits of story are delivered in pantomiming while never really stopping the game to tell the player what's happening.

I think that story is important to consider, because there are a lot of interesting ways a game can deliver its story that no other medium can do. You only have to read two or three visual novels to figure that much out.

>>2941642
>bald eagles have no feathers on their head

>>2946958
Metal Gear violates "show, don't tell" extremely hard. To me a good example of story + gameplay is Deus Ex. It still has cutscenes, and plenty of them, but a major driving force in the story is the PC and their actions.

>>2944214
When given the bare minimum, you can fill the blanks in your head.

Gameplay is always more important, but I mostly enjoy games that have some element of immersion. The "immersion element" doesn't necessarily mean story; a game with an incredible atmosphere like Super Metroid is also incredibly immersive. In my opinion, Majora's Mask does the best job of balancing gameplay, story, and atmosphere.

>>2949486
Super Metroid is quite strong on story. It's just not told through hamfisted dialog or cutscenes.

>>2939208

my perspective on games' stories?

well, i perceive them.....

thats about all.

>>2949532
>well, i perceive them.....
sad. You should control them. Otherwise it's just a movie with some gameplay mixed in

Any more?