/v/ - Video Games

Make just enough so that the viewer can create their own story in their head, but not enough where funds are going to useless writers.

A story is a story regardless of the medium

Regardless of audience and actors

Regardless if the actors aren't acting

Regardless if the audience isn't watching

Regardless if the audience is just passing by

A video game, movie, audiobook, comic book your very lives online and in dreams and in your working and law ruled social interactions all tell stories are all host to the capacity of story telling

Video games as it were are the top of the mountain that is multimedia expression. In them all thoughts and understanding in a time may be time capsuled and later learned from, enjoyed, or remembered. Even if that memory is to remember the worst and not just the best.

This thread is almost guaranteed to be retarded

Story and games aren't bad when separated, the pretense that it's a good thing that you're forced to walk while someone talks at you or you stare at them in a room while they slowly drone on being a good thing was a disaster. Traditional movie cutscenes are not a bad thing and if a developer falls back to valve style talk at the player cutscenes then they should just change their mind and do movies you can skip. With better tools and not having to be in-engine they can no doubt achieve a lot more with better cinematography or even help define the visual feel of the game like Thief the dark project achieved with its unique animation in cutscenes.

The reason I take this pragmatic view on the problem is because developers clearly are struggling to "push the medium forward" or even explore it reasonably. Use techniques that work, stop using ones that haven't worked for 10 years. People just want the ability to skip movies or pause then while they're playing. Then they're happy.

>>15939130

I always like it when I'm playing a game and I encounter some evidence of a preceding series of events. For instance, if I'm exploring a cave and I find a body, and next to the body there is a journal, and in the journal it details the recent events that led up to the character's unfortunate position, then I enjoy and find these things interesting. Of course, environmental storytelling only goes so far, because you can only gain a general idea of what happened and why. Generally speaking, it's better to allow the player to "live" through the story rather than shove it down their throats in a cutscene, but I would argue that different games would benefit more from one approach over the other.

Playing games for the story is like fucking for the diseases.

So fags should be right at home.

>>15939180

First Bioshock kinda perfected that Valve approach to storytelling.

Sure there were times where they restricted your movement for the sake of story but that happened only like 3 times in the entire game. Everything else was told to you beautifully through audio recordings or characters talking to you over the radio. Not to mention that you as a player was literally part of the story. It's really great example of using full potential of the medium.

There is nothing wrong with having movie style cutscenes during certain parts of the game, especially before or/and after a boss fight. Those worked even better when they were pre-rendered cutscenes/FMV while the rest of the game had PS1/PS2 style graphics, since they felt more like a reward for completing a part of the game(kinda like with unlocking artwork or character design sheets in the bonus menu). Another thing I like about cutscenes, is that they can provide a breather, so after a tough boss fight, I get 30 seconds of cool action scene or plot twist while I unnerve and prepare for the next battle, they can also work to pace the game, but with that said, I don't want a cutscene every 5 minutes, then the flow of the game gets broken.

Lastly I will say that movie-style cutscenes, either pre-rendered or in game engine, are better than the modern "interactive" cutscenes like in HL2, because with the former, I can at least skip them when replaying that part of the game, instead of sitting on my asshole waiting for the NPC to finish his line or go from point A to point B to open the door, so that I might advance.

>>15939321

Go away Critpoints

>>15939310

audio logs aren't really valve's style and I find them to be incredibly lazy for environmental story telling. There's only so many times you can hear the tragic end of a couple placed next to a skeleton on a toilet bowl before you stop caring about it.

1. Depends on the genre, Tetris or Gran Turismo don't need a fucking story, point and click adventure games are all about it.

2. Being all either 100% story or 100% gameplay is autistic as fuck, it's all how they mesh with each other. "Cinematic" shit could have the greatest story ever written but this shit is just boring. There are some games that have broken gameplay but an engaging world which makes up for it, like Arcanum. There are games where the story is adequate such as the Grand Theft Auto series from III to IV or Chrono Trigger but the format it's presented in makes the whole thing interesting.

>>15939398

Many players appreciate having control being taken away for a moment as a sort of break. Better yet many realize players want to skip it sometimes too.

>>15939230

Cutscenes do not "complement" gameplay, they are a hard stop to gameplay, forcing the player to stop playing so that they can watch a movie. The only way in which exposition genuinely complements gameplay is when it is blended along with it, when it happens concurrently. This is simply not possible with cutscenes, and hamfisted attempts to mix the two together have only managed to give us absolute cancer like Dragon's Lair and modern quick time events.

just don't make the story contradict itself

>>15939398

Sometimes there are moments when control of the character has to be taken away, such as in action games when you finish the stage, a screen appears that tells you how many secrets you found, how many enemies you killed, how many times you died and what your rank of the level is. There is no "organic" or "gamey" way of doing this, and even Super Metroid ends with such a screen. Hell even Super Metroid has a cutscene at the start of the game and after the first 3 minutes of gameplay, so I don't know why you decided to pick that game. As >>15939411 and I did in >>15939333 cutscenes are sometimes welcomed and can work as a bonus/eye-candy as long as they are not intrusive(they happen every 5 minutes) and can be skipped.

>>15939395

I know. I was just saying that developers of Bioshock expanded on Valve style by not stopping player as much for something related to story. Audio logs are there and you don't need to listen to them if you choose so. There is a lot of visual details in that game that pretty much convey everything that you would hear in those tapes.

>>15939416

Sorry meant to include >>15939403 not cde373

>>15939387

who

>>15939411

>they are a hard stop to gameplay

Saying that they are a hard stop to gameplay, would imply that cutscenes always happen during the action and not before/after, that I am fighting ten enemies, and after defeating 3 of them an unskipable 3 minute cutscene appears. In that case yes, it's a hardstop, to the gameplay, but most games aren't endless runners or fighters like Devil Daggers, they have low points and high points, moments when you are fighting enemies, moments when you are going from room A to room B, maybe even have some platforming, sure you could say that it's all gameplay, but they don't have the same intensity. Let's have three scenarios, all of them happen immediately after defeating the boss of lava world

>scenario 1: after defeating the boss, a black screen appears, as the game loads and the player is thrust into ice world and starts fighting enemies

>scenario 2: after defeating the boss, a cutscene starts where a portal in the other side of the room appears and the player jumps into the portal and then is thrust into ice world and where he starts fighting enemies(the cutscene also hides the loading screen and it's also skippable after the next level is laoded)

>scenario 3: after defeating the boss, a portal in the other side of the room appears and to start the next level, the player character has to jump into the portal, there is nothing else to do in the room and the only exist is the portal. After the player manually jumps into the portal, he is thrust into ice world where he starts fighting enemies.

Scenario 1 and 2, don't take away any of the gameplay, and scenario 3 does give context on how the player goes from lava world to ice world, but to have to always go and manually jump into the portal will become annoying after several boss fights/replays. Scenario 1, might have worked in older games, but nowadays people want context on how they went from world 1 to world 2(even then they might have a map showing the player moving from one place to another). Scenario 2, takes away the gameplay, but it doesn't force to manually o into the portal, and if I can skip it, it's even better. If you want an example of a game that doesn't take control out of you, try playing Furi, and tell me it's better to manually walk from one boss fight to the next(with no other enemies/obstacles), instead of having a normal cutscene play while the player goes from boss A to boss B.

Lastly, a cutscene can work well, to introduce the boss, maybe even give a hint on how he will fight, kinds like what Devil May Cry did.

>>15939130

i think cinematic stories don't utilize the the true strength of games. instances like armored core or ace combat where the bulk of the story happens peripherally to game or systems like the internet in front mission 3 and the .hack games where the world building happens on the side as a form of downtime are preferable to cutscenes and walk & talks. the codec in mgs falls somewhere in between the two but i think that has more to do with the quality of the writing than its benefit to gameplay.

the big problem is that 'cinematic' has become synonymous with limiting player agency, dad of war being probably the most horrendous example in recent memory with forced slow sequences and contrived fake action setpieces designed to make the player feel cool without doing anything. dbfz & scvi are also terrible in this regard and prioritize making cool movies happen of the screen over granting the player tools to do cool things of their own volition.

storrytelling through aesthetics>emergent story>peripheral storytelling>preamble/epilogue>optional cutscenes>>> mandatory cutscenes>>>>>>>>micro cutscenes>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>walk & talks

>>15939130

>Why separated two in such a drastic way?

Bad writers cannot write about a character they cannot characterize in any way, several different ways. Good writers don't want to waste their time on that because it won't make a good overall story. All writers will inevitably show favoritism to characters who are not the PC because they have control over those characters.

Just like in tabletop games that have official adventures.

>>15939452

>would imply that cutscenes always happen during the action and not before/after

I guess you are implying here that action is the only form of gameplay. I wasn't. When control is taken away from the player, that's a hard stop in gameplay, by definition. Sometimes gameplay is action, sometimes it's moving from point A to B, but in all instances a player is only playing the game when they actually have input.

>a cutscene can work well, to introduce the boss, maybe even give a hint on how he will fight

Or… You could just fight the boss and find out yourself. Hurr? In fact in well-designed bosses, they either gradually build up to more challenging attacks, or they build upon something the player has already encountered while playing the game previously.

As usual, the faggot OP makes a thread on /v/ as if we're the ones making video games and we didn't know that interactive movies are shit.

>>15939464

I did sperge a little, so I guess the message wasn't all that clear, what I tried to say is that a game has low points and high points, a low point might be buying equipment in a shop, crafting an item or going from room A(that recently got cleared) to room B, you control these actions, but they don't require your full attention, a high point is fighting enemies, doing platforming, running from an invincible enemy, or fighting a boss, these are high marks, where you entire attention is needed. Of course I don't want a cutscense interrupting this, though I could always hardstop the game by just pausing it, or enterring the save/load/option menu(which I don't consider parts of the gameplay).

What I want to know, is if you think that it's wrong to have a cutscene in some of the low-points of the game, that it's always a bad design, say you just cleared a large dungeon(the game has no respawning enemies/random encounters), and you need to return to the village。Of course it would be maddening to go through the empty dungeon(a low point) just to return to the village, and having a backdoor that just takes you to the entrance of the dungeon(like in Skyrim) feels artificial, a black screen that transitions from the boss room to the village, is better, even if it hardblocked the game, and took control of the character away, just to put him in a different part of the game world, I would rather have that than to walk for half an hour. You could even have a skippable cutscene here, where the character exists the room, and the camera zooms out to show that someone was observing your battle, foreshadowing a future battle or plot twist.

So I ask not if a game should stop at any point, but rather if it can have an automatic transition between some of the lower points of the game(like existing the empty dungeon) and if it's always bad?

Also is there a difference between a character walking to a book

I always laugh at people who cry about stories in games like fallout and then go gush about shit like smash brothers or whatever fucking non story game they actually spend their time with.

The problem with vidya today is game designers don't follow the normal game design production method anymore; the devs used to do something called planning, where they would write up a game design document; this document listed all the information necessary to complete the game to the original idea. An ideas guy in essence would do maximum ideas guying, which is they would write down every last thing that happens, as far as script writing, what areas would be featured, where you go and in what order, enemy stories, enemy design, central plot points, every fucking twist and turn on the journey. The person with the idea would put absolutely everything necessary out on paper down to how the engine should work. With the idea, they take it to several different studio shops where it would be broken down to components; the artists would work on the character designs and draw up several concepts, level designs, and basic area structures and looks. While that's going on, the engine mages would be putting all their efforts into creating an engine that properly features all the things that the dev wants to see, coding and programing from scratch basically to create a unique engine that gave their game a specific feel. Writers were taken in to rewrite the script so it could work in the context of the story, though if you were satisfied with your vision of the script you could take it straight to the recording studio where you'd have actors record lines. At some point you should have a bard hard at work making songs for the game that fit the tone and feel of the game, which is completely written out if you aren't a fucking moron.

What you've done

>written fucking everything

>have an engine working that can hold objects in it without crashing

>have voices for your characters

>have the concepts drawn out for areas and basic maps done for how the levels will progress

>have some music

By this point, all the pieces are set in place, so you just need to take the art to the code monkeys and tell them to figure out how to make that art and map overlay as well as getting hard at work modeling the main character at the very least. Alert mode, the publisher needs something to show off to tell the world they have in fact been working on a game for the past however long. Using the art, maps, character voices, and music, mash that together in a miniaturized instance of your engine called a Technical Demonstration, which will show off a general idea of what you want to give to the public; by this point you are in the beta phase, ready to stitch together everything and put everything out on the market. This long long time has been a struggle, and though everyone is doing their best you do have to make budget cuts, so you can't have every single thing that you wrote down happen, but you got all the major things out of the way with a publisher yelling at you that you need to make the holiday season. It's finally time to put it all down.

that's what making a game was, you had an idea and you actually used all resources in a methodical manner, I don't care about whatever bullshit ideas new gamedevs have where they think they can just do everything simultaneously, because they can't; they don't stress test their engine so they don't have a practical manner to work out the bugs; they don't have an artist draw up the designs first, so all the characters look like shit, and they let the publishers stick their fingers into the pot too much to actually remain true to any vision, because their vision isn't a well thought out laundry list of "shit to do before the game releases"

>>15939507

You seem to be arguing that a cutscene can function as a shortcut… Even though you could just make the shortcut function in a more direct way that involves player control? Why is a cutscene necessary to accomplish this?

>What I want to know, is if you think that it's wrong to have a cutscene in some of the low-points of the game, that it's always a bad design

I do actually. Anything that can be accomplished in a cutscene can be done better with actual player involvement. Cutscenes are frankly a crutch for storytelling when narrators are unable to come up with a good way to involve the player, they have always been antithetical to game design.

>>15939810

>I have never played devil may cry and have no idea what I'm talking about

Cutscenes are just flashy scene transitions, you have to be some kind of child or a retard to think they were there for anything more than to split up the gameplay so your fingers could rest for a bit from all the action you did; it was a nice little thumbs up, as well as a way to get you from where you were at to the next point in the story.

A story in a game is fine, but it shouldn't sacrifice the gameplay of the game. Even then, it should be told in a way that makes sense for the genre of the game you are playing. For instance, when playing either Thief the Dark Project or The Metal Age, you usually get a cutscene before a mission detailing what's coming up (or what the main character Garrett is aware of or expecting). Afterwards, you see the mission list, given a chance to buy items to help in said mission, and then loaded into the level. From there, you go through the game however you want only limited by certain mission parameters, bought items, and game mechanics. The story unfolds during the mission similar to half life games, but done so in a way that feels more natural to the game and can help proceed in the level. During the level, you are never taken out of gameplay, and you can even interrupt story parts of levels. The only cutscenes are either before or after missions, allowing players to enjoy the game however they wish. It wasn't perfect by any means, but something that should have been adopted more by other devs (along with other things from the games). The Metroid games (barring a few) are another example of incorporating story in a way that doesn't sacrifice gameplay.

When story is focused on more than gameplay or vise versa, the game suffers for it (more often it's when the story is focused on more). If you're using a game to tell a story rather than challenging the player's skills, then it becomes boring and has no replay value. One example being the Witcher 3, which suffered this along with other issues. The Witcher series tries to pride itself for telling complex stories with long term consequences not necessarily apparent until a later date, but in 3, it becomes apparent that they focused more on the storytelling of the main and side quests than the gameplay (which feels like a boring action game with MMORPG elements that somewhat change how you play the game). If you wanted to tell a story rather than focus on creating a challenging game, you may as well write a book or make a visual novel with multiple choices/endings instead of making a game that feels soulless and trying to incorporate the open world mechanics that were popular at the time. There's no fun in playing and exploring a game with an interesting story when the gameplay is shit. Same kind of goes for many JRPGs, where they changed from having interesting turn based combat or action mechanics being the main focus, to cinematic tales with hour long cutscenes and grindy gameplay that's boring to play. Some managed to balance it out, but they are rare in this day and age of modern gaming that praises movies with quick-time events and walking simulators.

The story of a game should not the gameplay. The game should challenge the player either mentally or through reflexes first and foremost. Having a good story/world building should be a nice bonus rather than a core part of the game.

>>15940024

>The Metroid games (barring a few)

Let's be honest: most of them at this point. The Prime games do it entirely wrong by forcing the player to set their controller down and read logs in order to understand shit, and Fusion and Other M shove loads of awful expository dialogue and cutscenes. Only the original Metroid games do what you say, and the first and second game don't exactly have a lot to say.

>>15939810

>Even though you could just make the shortcut function in a more direct way that involves player control?

Could you give an example, that is better than simply transitioning from one level to another(like arcade games for instance), either with or without a cutscene?

>they have always been antithetical to game design.

I disagree, I also viewed them as a reward for finishing a certain section of the game, especially in the late 90s, early 00s when some of the cutscenes were pre-rendererd and had a much higher quality than the in-game ones, kinda like with unlocking artwork in the bonus section.

I hope you do not defend "walking and talking" type of storytelling, that was popularized with Half-Life 2, and say that just because you have more "control" and "interactivity" that they are better than traditional cutscenes.

You also seem to view games as purely gameplay constructs, and ignore other stuff, like artwork, music/soundtrack, level design, good camera and so on. You don't really control the music of the game, besides the volume, like you would control your character. All of these elements should help direct the flow of the action/game, the enemy placement in conjunction with level design and music, mark the high action points of the game(fighting a boss) and the low points(walking from the shop to the city gates). Not all games can be Devil Daggers and be all action and not all games can be walking sims and have no action, most games have high and low points. A low point, is immediately after the defeat of a difficult boss, you don't expect, that after his defeat a huge mob of enemies will come to fight you, and then the level ends, no after a huge battle, the game needs to slow down to give a pause to the player, to rest a bit and enjoy his victory, and sometimes you can even slow down the flow so much, that a cutscene starts as a reward for your accomplishment, maybe it just to transition from one area to another(again, just having control over this, doesn't make it any better), maybe the camera pans out to show that the boss isn't actually dead, but just as he rises, the floor crumbles and he falls to his death, maybe a bit of story is told, anything can happen.

As I said in arcade games, after completing a level, the game would actually pause(take control out of you) and tell you how many secrets you found, and what's your score, should this also be removed as it stops the flow of gameplay as you say it? How would you end a game anyway, should it not at least have a congratulations screen at the end(which again is a reward for your accomplishments), or do you believe that a game should never end, that they should be like Devil Daggers or PacMan?

>tl;dr can't a cutscene be a reward and should games never end?

>>15939168

What do you mean by player interaction?

>>15939130

its video games. telling stories is cool, so is not telling stories. to say theres only one sensible way is asanine, but there are definitely dumb ways to go about it.

>>15939567

>playing guitar in a room with a corpse

>not just playing in literally any other room without a guitar

stupid image

>>15941289

*room without a corpse, fuck she probably doesn't even know how to tune said guitar anyway to it probably sounds like shit and she doesn't know any better anyway

>>15939130

Zelda OoT and MM did this well. I assume this was Koizumi's work as Miyamoto is a NO STORY IN GAMEU kind of guy. I wish Auonuma and Koizumi would switch jobs.

>>15941335

>Yes, story is important in video games.

I never said that story is not important. I'm just really annoyed that game developers don't try to make story blend with gameplay more seamlessly, especially since you have games that have done it in the past and are considered masterpieces today.

>>15939130

I'm more of an Arcade type of guy so I hate most story driven games that I could easily watch unfold otherwise on jewtube, but I'll say that I really enjoy it when a relatively story-light game has tidbits of lore that are sprinkled here and there through the environments and random bits of dialogue or context (i.e. the fact that Smash Bros games are about an autistic child playing with his toy figurines, which justifies the existence of characters as trophies and the fact that it's one giant crossover).

>>15939161

This. Discussions in general tend to be a clash of common, untaught opinions that amounts to nothing new, which is ok, but story in videogames discussion manages to get in a new level of uselessness because faggots who actually stopped to reflect and study about their own points tend to get even deeper on their own denseness. Simulationfags preach the only form of storytelling in videogames can be achieved in emergent behavior in complex systems and everything else is gay, even when some of the best level designs in single player games are linear and predefined, which means that'll need to have at least a fragment of linear writing to justify the journey, even that means only pointing the final objective. Storypurists will cry about how the videogame medium is the perfect artform and the best platform for storytelling or some schizo shit like that and if that stories in most of videogames doesn't even compare in quality to some basic literature and movies, that's because "we didn't reach the peak technology yet", and eventually someone will create a "story machine" that will story arcs perfectly independently of player choices, because some dude killing every character for no reason and spinning on a table can be the apex of drama, of course. Gamepurists will sperg about how any amount of "excess" plot is damaging the game, because those time and resources could be better applied making more gameplay content and balancing what is already made, these kinda people visualize tetris as the perfect videogame design, which means even graphics will be seen as an "excess" depending on the project, they completely disregard the fact that the majority of game classics have some basic storytelling, worldbuilding and imagery that iconizes that game in the players' imagination, making them come back for more play, making them come back for potential sequels. They don't realize that's generally a fundamental gap in their theories and are not open to explore other possibilities, and naturally, they don't realize that the best stories applied in vidya are a subtle mix of everything they deem god and everything they deem unacceptable, with different proportions in each game.

They could arrive at this simple conclusion with they were open to listen others, but this will not happen anywhere.

>>15941250

Thanks, Carmack.

>>15939430

It's better if you don't know, trust me.

>>15941430

By that logic there should never be any discussion about politics, cars, sports, or whatever, because there will always be camps that will defend their points of view to death. I have more respect for someone who has a different point of view than I have, but can articulate and defend his, than someone like you who basically says "lol every side is dumb and everybody is dumb, but me".

No one complains about story, only how its delivered and presented. Most people aren't fond of hours of cutscenes and exposition dumps and very few get away with providing they have good gameplay to make up for the sheer volume of cutscenes. More devs need to utilize the interactivity of video games for story purposes though. OP has a picture of Silent Hill 2, a game acclaimed for its story and gameplay. One great thing that game does is tie how you are playing into your ending which is a genius way to pull you further into that world.

>>15941447

No, because every topic you cited there has an active discussion and general intellectual production which is precisely what I'm defending it should have, what currently happens is people shitflinging baseless opinions and reinforcing confirmation bias, which is common in every community, what is not common is the discussion limiting itself to that and only that. Story in games is such an underdiscussed topic that people believe in intellectuals debates that never occurred such as "ludologists vs. narratologists", probably because it reinforces their tribalistic needs of being part of one side.

>than someone like you who basically says "lol every side is dumb and everybody is dumb, but me".

You are inverting my whole argument, my point is precisely that everyone thinks they are the know-it-all hence these discussions don't go anywhere, just look at the fucking thread. If I weren't dumb I wouldn't even bother researching about this subject at all because my knowledge would be sufficient.

Also, nobody gives two shits about your respect, give an argument or gtfo.

>>15941430

Welcome to discussions in general.

Story is great. I've always cared about it even in fighting games and such, but these days I consider any "game" with pure gameplay as unfinished - something you turn on to play for 15 minutes and dump in the trash. Hitman Codename 47 did well to integrate story with gameplay.

>>15942251

even in "pure story" games there should a little bit there in the setting.

>>15942276

Don't get me wrong, I don't care much for "visual novels". But you need story to explain why you do what you do, and get you motivated. It's such a great way to keep the player engaged, I pretty much consider the genres that don't usually include a story inferior (Racing, Fighting). Though it can be done even there, but it's tough. Shooters and RPGs tend to storytelling more naturally.

/v/ hates story because they imagine it's just a thousand of cutscenes getting in the way, but it's not at all like that IF DONE WELL. Again, see Hitman C47, Thief, even something like RTCW.

Good thread.

>>15942286

>But you need story to explain why you do what you do, and get you motivated.

To this day, despite these games being over a decade old, I still have no clue what the story in DOOM or QUAKE is, nor any Shmups that I've played like Ketsui or Battle Garegga. There was no need to explain what I needed to do, what I do or get me motivated, just play the game because it's fun. Lack of story has never really been a problem at all, it's a nice bonus at best as long as it doesn't get in the way.

I don't care for it when it's up in your face from the get go. At least try and court me a bit first with some game before whipping ya donger out.

When they are done well, they are easily better than movies.

Only movies that even come close to having a sense of adventure like the Witcher trilogy or Gothic or even TES are LOTR and Conan the Barbarian.

Indiania John? What a fucking joke.

Unlike most common plebs, I play vidya first before getting into movies, so I easily see the flaws of movies.

>>15939130

Total Annihilation does it better, and it's not even a 'deepest lore' kind of story, because the game is pretty straight forward without having (You) waste time on it and get to playing right away