55 years of the industry and i'm still not convinced that story in video games is a necessary or even contributing addition.
Traditional story telling often doesnt mix well with video games since its an interactive medium. But I dont think anybody dislikes a game that has some decent world building and lore. In Souls games the story has mostly already happened before you even start playing, I think this approach tends to work well and sets the stage for the player's own story
It's a weird thing about narrative heavy games. If there was a hollywood blockbuster that's advertised as 1,5 hours of just the script scrolling on the screen and nothing else you wouldn't have book readers filing the theatre because that's not their medium. If you had a movie that's advertised as a compilation of Rembrandts best work with no sound you would't have art appreciatiors filling the theatre because that's not their medium. Curiously though if you had a video game that's just cutscenes and barely any gameplay you'll attract movie enjoyers like flies to shit.
yeah i'm not sure anything would change about witcher 3 if you just removed the main story & side stories
>>736989230That's because the mode of consumption between literature and movies is far more distinct than that between movies and games. You consume books by reading text at your own pace in a leisure environment. You consume movies by looking at a screen, and you're already doing that by playing video games so the mode barrier is much more easily removed.
>>736989046It adds context to what you're doing, which can increase interest and engagement.It's kind of like artstyle in that way. If you like how the game looks then you'll be a lot more interested than if you didn't like how the game looked.You just have to be careful with it, since as implied by the above, it can also decrease interest if the story is shit or drawn out or just too intrusive.
>>736989328I think the question OP is prompting you to ask yourself is do you like The Witcher 3 because it's a good game or because it has a good story? Does it still have a good story if you're not playing it and instead watching a playthrough?
>>736989046Ff4 is overrated but otherwise most of the games you hear about with a good story do have one. It's more of a manga quality than book quality but good characters mean a lot and that's what Japan does well.
>>736989480>Does it still have a good story if you're not playing it and instead watching a playthrough?Obviosly yes, and?
>>736989046concordbro...
>>736989480that's why i mentioned witcher 3, the game is built around the story and if you removed it, it would be a much poorer game for it. i don't think anyone would disagree with that
>>736989480They lifted everything from actual books, try reading them before saying something so stupid
>>736989640Here's another way to look at it. If you had somehow watched a 100% playthrough that goes through every story line and sees every dialogue option play out would you still feel the need to play the game?
I was pretty firmly in the camp that video games couldn't have good stories. Even when I played all the supposedly "Good" story games I just rolled my eyes and thought they sucked.But then I played a game that actually had an amazingly good story and then it clicked for me.I know it's easy to be jaded and just think good stories in video games are impossible, and I doubt anyone who thinks that way in this thread is going to be convinced by what I say, but hey it happened to me after 20ish years of being convinced stories in games were a waste of time.I think a big problem is that when most recommendations for "Good story" games get thrown around, you usually end up with bottom of the barrel stuff. Things that appeal to the lowest common denominator will inevitably become the most popular and therefore get the most recommendations. That's why you have to go out of your way to find weird shit that doesn't look immediately appealing.
>>736989046*Ahem*
>>736989797Nta but that's only because the actual gameplay of the witcher is utter dogshit. This wouldn't apply to a game where the gameplay isn't just an afterthought and a vehicle to ship dialogue. Like Expedition 33 for example.
I think any game where gameplay is dominated by combat subset more than 55% of the time, or worse is the only aspect of gameplay, isn't really worth my time because the devs clearly couldn't figure out how to elevate themselves to a higher level.
>>736989046fuck you Carmack, that VR stuff is a waste of time and money, go back to developing actual games!
>>736989916Gameplay is hold attack and hold parry so u cannot possibly be hit. They take away any sense of danger and the witcher brews were gay in practice.
>>736989916If watching the entire story of E33 play out beforehand doesn't hinder your desire to play the game then what does the story contribute?
>>736989998combat is not and has never been the sum whole of all gameplay.
>>736989797for this one specifically, i think i'd spend so long watching the story that i wouldn't want to play it right away since there's so much of iti wouldn't say the same of other games with shorter stories though, even if the plot is impactfulbut like i don't think i'd every play a persona game if i had watched a full playthrough beforehand
>>736989046cool have fun playing counter strike or whatever
>>736990059And this is why interactivity in and of itself is an art form. You can cut through every single game in existance along that line to separate its interactivity from the other fluff found in other mediums.
>>736989046There is no such thing as "a necessary or contributing addition". There is no purpose to life. All your tools avail you naught. The end comes.
>>736990062It is what you're doing 80% of the time when you aren't watching cutscenes. The other 20% is horse riding. Combat is fucking unchanging for an 80 hour story but somehow that's okay? Weird cope.
>>736989046And that's why the best video game of all time has none of that.
>>736990159Okay, Pickle Rick. Whatever the fuck you say.
>>736990159The purpose of life is to find Christ.God bless.
>>736990253That's not dragon warrior monsters?
>>736990059>"If hearing the entire OST of The Godfather play out beforehand doesn't hinder your desire to watch the movie then what does the OST contribute?"
>>736990237What "Cope"? Gwent is gameplay. resource allocation and stats allotment is gameplay. questing/exploration/dialogue Choice selection? All gameplay. Wasn't even talking about the witcher games specifically.
>>736990385i mean that's still a fair question
>>736990417Okay so you backtrack, move the goalposts, and now the combat isn't the issue because "gameplay is diverse". Get your shit together.
>>736990385Because the cinematography and visual context of the movie is so good. People swear their lives on David Lynch movies and nobody understands what they're about and the soundtracks are all forgettable.
>>736990326Where's Christ in video games?
>>736990417Oh yeah and your original post says w3 gameplay is utter dogshit so enjoy the last you low effort retard troll.
>>736989046It's not necessary; it's a polar opposite to the videogame dynamic. Only gets a pass because a handful out of hundreds of thousands if of millions of games managed to pull it off without being an obstacle, taking away control from the player or leaving gameplay as secondary out of the spotlight and that conditionated mass audience after becoming a trend.Real games do enviromental storytelling as it should but they're quite few.
>>736989046Games are becoming insanely long in terms of text and voice lines. I hope we go back to stories being something you have to go out of your way to search for and piece together.
>>736990579Nope my first post was>>736990062 dingleberry. Good Lord, you're a silly schizo. Have a Yamada. Even though she is way too good for the likes of (you) www
>>736990553Don't forget the actor performances
>>736989134The best games make you feel the same way as the characters. If your character is defending someone or something, the story should make you care. If your character is seeking revenge, the story should make you want it too. Nine Sols was a solid metroidvania that was absolutely elevated by the story around the main character. If Goumang or Eigong or Jiequan weren’t such cunts, I would not have enjoyed killing them as much. If it weren’t for Yi’s drinking buddy Shennong or his surrogate son Shuanshuan, I would not have cared about saving the Apemen. And if it weren’t for Heng’s calls and flashbacks I would not have cared about Yi’s story at all. As with any aspect of a multimedia work, it can make or break the whole product.
>>736990631If your game doesn't have a silent protagonist with long distinctly crafted conversations with player input with characters or party members within the gam, even extending to 10-20 minutes of gameplay, It's probably not very good. Also players who skip these should be penalized in the end game.
>>736989046The games that last the longest in the zeitgeist are the ones with a good/interesting story. Sure is not needed but when its there and its good it elevates the whole experience.
>>736990752>If your game doesn't have a silent protagonist with long distinctly crafted conversations with player input with characters or party members within the gam, even extending to 10-20 minutes of gameplay, It's probably not very good.That's not a game.
>>736989797fuck that's a good point
>>736990838Games with that criteria have existed longer than the overwhelming majority of nu /v/ has been alive.
>>736989046Outer WildsReturn of the Obra Dinn999/VLRPragmata
I had this realization like 6 years ago and now i've become a hermit who plays nothing but nethack. I don't have the slightest grasp on the state of the industry at all.
>>736990671Uhh I hope we don't. Fuck Dark Souls.
>>736989046It's not for everyone. However, it is for me. And I enjoy story heavy games for the most part more than story heavy movies or tv shows. Taking cost into consideration (which it was for nearly half my life at this point without internet or piracy access) you get more bang for your buck out of a $50 40 hour story game (the going rate in terms of length and cost when I started getting into RPGs) than you do buying a box set of your favorite TV series with the same length or a trip to the movie theater.
>>736990950Again; not a game.>>736990975>999the excess of story helds it back. It could've been easily a book instead of software.
>>736991205>not a gameThe industry overwhelmingly disagrees and has for decades.
>>736991146>which it was for nearly half my life at this point without internet or piracy accessAre you 60 years old?
Attention entire thread:Super Double Dragon.The SNES one.It had its story removed, like entirely removed, due to time constraints.Have you ever caught anyone talking about Super Double Dragon?
>>736991369Mid 30s. Didn't have reliable and consistent internet until I was around 19. Not everyone had internet in the 90s and early 00s. My family would OCCASIONALLY have shitty dial-up when they paid the bill that I couldn't even play flash games on. And it was one computer in my parent's room that I was only allowed to use for homework anyway. Then my internet in my dorm when I went to college was still shitty for my first few semesters.
>>736989046if the story's good but the gameplay sucks, what's stopping me from just watching it on youtube?
>>736991643having tried to watch a youtube playthrough of a shitty game with completely alternate story routes I just can'tI need my hands on the controller because watching the gameplay segments between cutscenes and not being able to play them is torture. Even rudimentary shit like which direction to go first in town whether it's the store or talking to NPCs is something out of my control and I can't stand it.but if it were possible to play movies and tv shows I'd rather do that than watch them too
>>736989046you never hear about games with amazing gameplay and dogshit story
>>736989046The story of a game is just as important as the gameplay. The two need to be balanced properly or else you have something that is either too slow and constricting (i.e. The Last of Us) or something that is too broad and confusing (i.e. Dark Souls), both of which distract from the act of actually playing the game. They ruin your immersion. Immersion is the key to great storytelling in videogames, the ability to suck the player into your world and really put them into the MC's shoes, make them feel what the protagonist is feeling and get you invested into that world. When gameplay and story are in harmony, they're not fighting for your attention, they're performing an elegant dance together, weaving this grand tapestry of the game and its world. This requires cleverness and also a harmony between the game's writers and its programmers, which is why you never see this from AAA games these days because the two are always fractured and kept at arms length. One of the most effective ways of doing this is to literally include the player in the game by breaking the fourth wall. This doesn't have to mean that the NPCs in the game literally talk to you, the player, like the cliches that you're thinking of. This can be done in small ways too, like using the UI or other traditional game elements as methods of storytelling. Think of some of the most defining moments of gaming and you'll notice that a lot of them employ some kind of fourth wall breaking in order to achieve that immersion and really leave a lasting impact on the player:>Halo Reach's Objective: Survive>The Psycho Mantis fight in MGS>The final boss of Earthbound>Most of Undertale (Deltarune too but it's not done yet so the jury is out)>Most of Asura's Wrath>The entire second half of Baba Is You
>>736989046>>736992584The reason that this imbalance between gameplay and storytelling is only recognized by few, is because there is an imbalance in most players: They lack the mechanical skill or the intuition to notice and engage with these storytelling elements. They are either not good enough at the game to reach the story's full potential, or they're not paying enough attention to even notice that part of the story is there. Or they're not even playing the fucking game at all and they're just watching a streamer play it. Take Cruelty Squad for example: Everyone who lays eyes on it takes note of the abrasive artstyle and music and unconventional tactical shooter gameplay, but few who play it ever realize that it's a game about breaking the conditioning of your world and earning your humanity by standing in front of the three gods of creation. Most people don't even know that there's a second ending. That's an entire swathe of the game's identity remaining completely hidden to most of its playerbase because they weren't good enough to reach it. That's why when you find a game like this, one that is able to perfectly marry the storytelling and gameplay elements, you have to cherish it, because few people are ever going to be able to appreciate that game or that moment the way that you can.
>>736992072Dark Souls and all of its sequels
>>736989046Story can be good, but not all games need story.
Not necessary but absolutely contributing. No one has properly realized a "choices matter" branching story game.
>>736992684Your (you)
>>736992684yeah right, enter whatever ost video on yt all you'll see are lore bits and namedrops
The thread ended here.>>736991383
>>736992849Baldur's Gate 3
>>736992849Langrisser has completely different scenarios based on shit you do in each battle that can result in a different story with a different cast and different locales. The game is from 1991.
>>736992858>>736992902The story and how it's presented to the player is fucking terrible. Making the player stop playing the game to read item descriptions in order to get just a slight hint at what's going on and who the characters are is not an engaging way to tell a story. Fromsoft is bad at telling stories. They hired a fucking world-renowned author to co-create Elden Ring and they COULDN'T EVEN BE BOTHERED TO PUT THE ENTIRE STORY IN THE GAME WHEN IT RELEASED MOST OF THE NPCS JUST DISAPPEAR HALFWAY THROUGH THEIR STORIES BECAUSE THEY WEREN'T FINISHED YET>"Oh but durrrr dere's a bunch of documentaries on YouTube about the lore, dat means dat it's a goooood game"If you need an entire cabal of fucking autists to spend years piecing together your game's story in order for people to digest it then, storywise, your game is an utter fucking failure
>>736992849Deus Ex has some pretty big game-changing choices, and it's very good at obscuring the aspects of the story that you can't affect. It's just that the game never tells you that you can make these choices, so many people play the game without ever knowing that they're there
>>736993057you are so autistic it hurts
>>736993312Explain how I'm wrong
>>736989046If the creator wants to use the medium to tell a story regardless of the quality, should they not be allowed to? Now your problem could be justified if we're talking about a product made with no passion behind it that is being made to have a story as means to make it the most profitable game it could be, that's just what happens when you have people making games as a means to stay afloat rather than something they're genuinely passionate about. You're gonna have to take that one up with the suits invest in this shit though, just buy games made that appeal to you and not games that don't. Can't stop anyone else from eating shit. I like some games solely for the story though and vice versa
>>736989480I love 13 Sentinels and could easily do without the game. I like the combat in Persona but there are some times I'd rather just be playing the daily-life sim and I guess you could consider that "gameplay" too
>>736989797I did this with Class Of '09. Definitely didn't think i needed to play it. But I loved playing VA-11 Hall-A and I saw someone play a bit before getting it myself, even if the gameplay didn't need to be there at all I still just enjoyed the vibe it was going for. Something I don't think could be replicated as well in a medium other than video games. I guess you could just stream, but there'd be episodes, or it'd be a movie. But like a book I can start and end as wanted or needed, and the audio visual aspect is also something a book can't do like a game can.
>>736989134Souls games suck
>>736989046It's not necessary. It can be a contributing addition.
>>736989046I think trying to have a bunch of story in a video game just conflicts with each other>want to play a game you enjoy>cutscenes / journal entries keep popping up that stop you from playing the game
>>736994328Story can be told without interrupting gameplay, my guy.
>>736989046>SpongeBob Zoomer spotted.Video game stories can be good if they are a backdrop to the gameplay, or if they are interactive stories. I don't hate movie-games but they have little merits of their own in terms of storytelling.
>>736994464>Zoomer spotted.
>>736989480TW3 is complete garbage both in terms of both gameplay and story.
>>736993812Based contrarian
>hurdur how does an elaborate holistic experience benefit from one of its parts>mechanics are the only thing that matters, by the way i solve game theory problems recreationally instead of actually playing video gamesthe real reason the medium of vidya is forever cursed to these arguments is braindead nominativists trying to argue what should or should not count according to their autistic preconceptionsyou'd think the absolutely dogshit genre names would clue some people in about the foibles of rigid classification, but no, they are still stuck in gun-and-ball world of moviegames with not a clue about parser-based text adventures or stupidly complicated world simulations
I uninstalled Hi-Fi Rush the first time the music audio lowers so you can hear the characters quipping about nothingI was fucking baffled.
>>736989480it is neither lmao
>>736989046i remember thinking like this when i was 13.It's only a bad thing when it's an active detriment to the gameplay
>>736989230It's because people have been bombarded with years of "cinematic game" copium from no-talent hacks trying to excuse their poorly performing, deceptive, cookie cutter slop.Normalfags want what they are told to want, and they have been told over and over that games are better when they're movies, because that was the easiest corner-cutting way to shart out yearly-release shovelware during the period when the industry was trying to tap the normalfag audience.>>736989413You can also consume a book while looking at a screen, there is no real mode barrier, most people are just functionally illiterate.>>736992849That's because it's a bit of a meme idea, kind of like open world or photorealistic graphics.Trying to actually implement it gets exponentially harder with complexity, so you don't want to actually fully populate it, you just want to trick people into thinking that you did in a way that holds up to some scrutiny from the right angles.>>736994328That's just bad writing.
>>736989046All a video game story has to do, is not to be offensive to their audience on purpose. That's it. People don't expect the Karamazov brothers when they launch an indie or AAA game, they just don't want to be lectured about teenage lesbians and transexuals in a zombie game.
>>736989046Story at least provides a more meaningful contribution than graphics, nigger-kun.
>>736989046To be fair there's different tiers of story."This character goes from A place to B place" is a story albeit a simple one.
>>736989046If I don't have some kind of goal of reaching an inevitable end, then I'm not interested. >Get the highest score lol Not interested. If that's all the goal you need, great, but a lot of us, we need more than that.
