Gamespot storytelling feature

[Duncan]

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6120427/index.html

Link stolen from Trep who I think got it from someone else anyway.

It's pretty decent. Disappointingly, Schafer doesn't say a lot, which is sad because typically I love anything he writes.

A few other comments:

I still want to do a high school-based RPG set in the 1980s.[/Quote]

I would so play that and, I am sure, love it. I am so sick of fantasy RPGs and I have played like, one.

In some cases, we even use the story as a means to explain certain game mechanics (for example, there's a reason why the companions in Planescape: Torment and Knights of the Old Republic 2 follow you, even when it seems they would rather do anything but).

From someone who has played both those games, YEAH NO KIDDING.

Q: What would you say to someone who told you that games have universally terrible stories?

Chris Avellone: I'd say game stories can be a little formulaic at times and a little unpolished, but then I would point up at the sky and say, "Holy shit, look at that!" And when they do, I would punch them in the gut[/Quote]

Man, why am I only quoting Chris Avellone?

[MrHoatzin]

I don't know if I would be able to play the highschool RPG. I would find myself more often than not walking down the halls and killing cheerleaders, jocks and like whores with cold stares and no interesting prospect past their senior year...

[lailoken]

wow... deep

[MrHoatzin]

Having finished this little feature, I am left wondering why Tim is so curt when he is a part of mass interviews such as this one.

[Ninja Dodo]

He might be bored.

[Fairygdmther]

Having finished this little feature, I am left wondering why Tim is so curt when he is a part of mass interviews such as this one.

Some people react this way when nervous and afraid to say the wrong thing. I kinda wondered the same thing, though. Ragnar was the most interesting, IMHO.

FGM

[Simon]

I think it's also just cutting through some of the more vague ideas in those questions. Answering How do you balance the desire for a good story with the need for compelling gameplay?, Tim just says 'They don't work against each other at all! They don't need to be balanced. You can have both turned up all the way!' - which seems to ring true, and I don't think he needs to say anymore having established that position. Whenever Tim talks about game design, every sentence means something or makes a relevant point. Not to say the other interviewees are just talking fluff, but Tim kind of gets to the point.

Also, maybe he missed the tone when being interviewed and thought he'd just be padding out a Gamespot story article, rather than his quotes standing alone. Another possibility is that Gamespot always interview Schafer, so maybe he's bored of it. He's said most of this stuff on many occasions.

If you want to simply tell a story, you can create a film or write a novel.

Kind of funny, coming from Mr More-Cutscenes-Than-Gameplay.

In some cases, we even use the story as a means to explain certain game mechanics (for example, there's a reason why the companions in Planescape: Torment and Knights of the Old Republic 2 follow you, even when it seems they would rather do anything but).

I remember my party members in Ultima VII complaining when I murdered people or when they got hungry, but as far as I can remember, they never left me. We're still at about that level of character-realism. There's only so much depth RPGs can have if these characters surrounding the player voice disapproval, but don't do anything about it. Obviously it's very difficult to code/script for all the different eventualities, but if you're going to give the player companions, I think you should involve lots of possible dynamics, not just the surface of 'I don't think that's a very good idea...' when you do or say something evil.

[Bc9b]

The first lines are golden, because they probably are a send up of a form question from EGM.

[General Fuzzy McBitty]

I remember my party members in Ultima VII complaining when I murdered people or when they got hungry, but as far as I can remember, they never left me.

You obviouly weren't evil enough. I loved that game, but if you did too much evil, your own party would either disband, or attack you.

Once I managed to kill the lady that ran the mint, take her key, enter the mint with it, kill the guards, take the gold ingots, put the mint lady on the buggy, take her to Lord British and rez her, and have her pay me for the ingots.

When i did stuff like that I'd have to make my team wait for me someplace though, as they got pissed over stuff like that. Once I robbed a jewelry store, and they all tried to kill me.

[General Fuzzy McBitty]

Also, does anyone know how to make this game run on XP?

[Bc9b]

http://exult.sourceforge.net/

Thank God for Google

[Simon]

You obviouly weren't evil enough. I loved that game, but if you did too much evil, your own party would either disband, or attack you.

Once I managed to kill the lady that ran the mint, take her key, enter the mint with it, kill the guards, take the gold ingots, put the mint lady on the buggy, take her to Lord British and rez her, and have her pay me for the ingots.

When i did stuff like that I'd have to make my team wait for me someplace though, as they got pissed over stuff like that. Once I robbed a jewelry store, and they all tried to kill me.

Ah! You know, I was running over this game in my mind typing that post, I wasn't sure I was right about that. I had this niggling feeling that the party might have disbanded when you played too evil, but it has been a long long time, and it seemed more likely they didn't. That was a damn fine game. Still one of my favourite RPGs. It had everything, even baking to earn money.

I definitely did the Royal Mint robbery, but I did it alone. It was probably really easy, but it felt like a big deal at the time. I was so happy I'd pulled it off.

[General Fuzzy McBitty]

Ah! You know, I was running over this game in my mind typing that post, I wasn't sure I was right about that. I had this niggling feeling that the party might have disbanded when you played too evil, but it has been a long long time, and it seemed more likely they didn't. That was a damn fine game. Still one of my favourite RPGs. It had everything, even baking to earn money.

I definitely did the Royal Mint robbery, but I did it alone. It was probably really easy, but it felt like a big deal at the time. I was so happy I'd pulled it off.

Yeah. I agree. It was probably really easy, but I felt really smart at the time. Especially when I realized that Lord British would Rez ANYONE I'd killed, so long as I took the body to him.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Even when I did understand the reason behind it, I was still peripherally upset when they decided not to include child murders in Fable. Imagine how it could be, when you choose to kill a little girl, and the game's A.I. generates an unavoidable subplot out of it that haunts you for the rest of your hero's life. A few years after you had murdered her, you wander back into her village, only to find the ENTIRE townsfolk attacking you with pitchforks and torches, literally grabbing you to lynch you in the square, right in front of a memorial statue of the dead girl itself. And you may be all powerful then, but you can only defend yourself so much, how long can you last against the onslaught that even a cheat code wasn't made to withstand?

[netmonkey]

Hideo Kojima:

If you want to simply tell a story, you can create a film or write a novel.

I agree. Messing with the "underground" adventure game movement, I run into a lot of people that just want to make an adventure games because it's easier than making movies, which means that they're making games for all the wrong reasons. It's much more complicated than that.

From Simon:

Kind of funny, coming from Mr More-Cutscenes-Than-Gameplay.

It's funny, because he also has extended intros with credits all over the place, too, which is kind of movie-like and overly redundant. I just attended this show/lecture thing by Kyle Cooper, who made movie titles for Se7en, Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man (and 2), etc, but also did the titles for MGS 2 + 3. I asked him about that and he said something along the lines of "Hideo Kojima is my friend. He gives me enough freedom to do whatever I want."