What can be done to improve VG stories?

Here's what David Jaffe has to say about video game stories:

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3152251

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nash

Here's what David Jaffe has to say about video game stories:

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3152251

I don't even know where he's going with that. Maybe it's because I'm tired.

http://davidjaffe.typepad.com/jaffes...7/changes.html

Hmm. Just sounds like he's pissed at busting his ass to create a canned experience for other people, one that he can't enjoy. Anyway, great gameplay can cover for a shit story. The reverse isn't true.

Advent Rising sucked in terms of story(in terms of everything else too). Potential for good story is in all games, it comes down to execution.

Real writers wont work. Or, I should say, don't matter. The real crux of the problem is that...

Writers need to work closer with designers. I get the feeling from reading post mortoms on games and reading various articles that stories, whether they are written by regular authors or an intern whos usual job function is coffee fetcher, are just tacked on and not really integrated along side the story. If story is to improve in games, then it neeeds to be a consideration from the get-go and not just an excuse to make it to the next level.

Quote:

Originally Posted by omfgninjas in iraq

It's not that you have to improve stories, it's that you have to improve how the player receives the story. Video game stories aren't that much more cliche or fucking dumb than movies or novels.

Hardly anyone in World of Warcraft knows what the fuck is going on or why they have to do what they do in the game, but they do it, and 7 million players are doing it for stupid amounts of hours everyday. You show a player an incredible item upgrade, you show them how to get it, and they'll do it. They don't give a fuck if Richard K. Vaelestrasz is guarding the item or why, but they can read quest logs and game context if they really care to know.

This is what a lot of games don't understand. Players generally don't give a fuck about the story. We didn't need one to like Mario or Street Fighter and want to beat it. Put in a simple backstory and make it completely optional to the player whether or not they want to know the story. Give the player an objective and a simple reason to want to do the objective, and they'll do it.

Aeris dying didn't make anyone want to continue the game to kill the bad guy as much as just levelling your character up to ridiculous numbers, seeing the world and the addiction that goes with that.

You are arguing narratology vs ludology more than improving stories(and I guess you state as much). But I still agree with you. People in WoW don't care mainly because the game isn't designed to make them care. As are most games. Like I said, story in video games is simply there to give the player an excuse to advance to the next level or what-have-you. Esspecially when the gameplay is base and derivative. MMOs though, are kind of a different beast. The story contained within them will never be as exciting or deeply touching as the stories that result from the humans interacting in that world. If someone laid out the story from begining to end of the WoW universe, it wouldn't be half as interesting as the story of a player adventuring through the world and the experiences they gain as they go through it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by buttcheeks

Yes, the problem of the monolog cut scene, where they give long speeches for this and that.

But how exactly do you get around that if you want to tell a story with any kind of depth?

Like say someone wanted to make an rpg that explores the concept of how the “devil” character is usually is anti instrumentalism, and you give the hero a choice between being an instrument of society, or being his own person.

How would you tell that story without monologs? And how do you connect that story to our day to day lives where our own decisions fall in between doing what is right for our self and doing what is right for everyone, without monologs?

How do we communicate the complicated and abstract, and YET leave the player immersed in the gaming world?

I agree completely, and I don't think I have an answer. If I had the skills I'd be able to test out some theories I have on the idea, but as of right now they are just silly ideas. To me though, this is the direction we need to be headed.

Games are games first and foremost. I don't need a story to want to destroy my friend in Chess. The Knight doesnt need to hate the bishop. We are playing a game for the sake of playing a game, so I question the value of story in the context of a game. But thats not the discussion I guess.

In the end I don't think there is a clear cut answer, but working with what we have at the moment it really seems to me that it comes down to a few things.

1) Stop using other mediums as templates for story telling. It doesn't work in video games.

2) Get better writers... more creative writers. Have them work along side the game designer from the begining instead of phoning in stories.

3) Stop using stories as a shuffle tool and start integrating them into the actual game design. Is my character sad? Make him less effective in battle...(bad example maybe, I dont think anyone would enjoy that game, but you get the point.).

Thats how I feel about it anyway.

As has been said, hire quality writers.

But for the most part, you don't need great writing for video games. You can enjoy the story of the LOTR movie, then play the LOTR game. Look at the two as a whole part of the experience, and don't expect the vg to do it all. It's not easy to make movies interactive, either - remember that TV show where you would watch the show while shooting the bad guys?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nash

Here's what David Jaffe has to say about video game stories:

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3152251

What a shame that their are aspect of his job that he doesn't like... :rolleyes:

The only story video games will ever need is "Terrorist organization 'Crank Head' has captured the President's daughter. Infiltrate 'Crank Head' and shoot the core before the world asplode!".

Playing video games for the story is like reading Playboy for the articles.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cheebs

Playing video games for the story is like reading Playboy for the articles.

IBTN

Playboy does have some damn good articles.

Games would be worth playing for the story if the story was good. Like I said I think Deus Ex's story is great, and it makes the game a zillion times better. There are even fake novels in there that are good enough to be printed. I think its definitely worth playing, even if you dont like FPS or RPG games, to see what they did with the story.

So to say, "games aren't worth playing for the story" is fallacious reasoning.

No, it's dead-on. No story can make-up for shitty gameplay, so saying that a game can be worth playing solely for the story is the fallacious side of the argument.