Game Informer interviews Fallout 3 Producer about Story

The Vault Dweller

The Vault Dweller

always looking for water.
The well-known magazine Game Informer has recently printed an article concerning Fallout 3 producer Emil Pagliarulo's opinion on story. A quote:<blockquote>When I was a kid growing up in South Boston, the trashcans in our backyard were dragged to the curb for pickup, every week, by a homeless man named Vinnie Trashki. Yeah, I know. "Trashki." Bitter irony or cruel nickname?

...creating fiction for a video game poses one very distinct challenge - you've got to accept that the whole of your writing - characters, narrative, everything - is simply not as important as the gameplay...
</blockquote>You can read more at the Fallout 3 Blog.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
 
Emil is a dumbass.

Its one of the reasons why open ended sandbox games like ...our own Elder Scrolls series are so awesome.
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Elder Scrolls Morrowind and Oblivion are the most unimaginative and boring games I have ever played. Don't you ever mention Maxis' Sim games in the same sentence that mentions Bethescrap.
 
Just when I thought they couldn't sink any lower, Emil pulls another rabbit outta his arse.

Seriously Bethsoft had better fire this guy before he causes any more damage...
 
Morrowind was decent.

But to say the story is not as important as gameplay is something I can't agree with, ESPECIALLY when it comes to RPG games.
 
I dont think so. Simple Emil has self opinion and told about it. Sometimes his words like bullshit... yeah, I agree)))
But unfortunatly Emil lead designer and now not so funny...
 
dumbfuck said:
...creating fiction for a video game poses one very distinct challenge - you've got to accept that the whole of your writing - characters, narrative, everything - is simply not as important as the gameplay...
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:clap:

cheers!

excellent trolling!
 
I'm not sure what you guys are on about.

What he's saying doesn't seem particularly insightful or clever from the extracts. Hell, he's drawing the wrong conclusions, but the basic logic of "narrative in games just isn't the same as narrative elsewhere" is solid. And yes - narrative is or at least should be secondary to gameplay. These are games, not books.

The problem is his conclusion. Sandbox games like GTA or Oblivion solve the problem of narrative in gaming by more-or-less removing the narrative wholesale. That's like curing a disease by cutting off someone's limb. Sure, it works, but it's not really an ideal solution. He doesn't seem to realise that, and thinks the sandbox solution is the best, as opposed to other solutions like Fallout's world reactivity.
 
Story on the Fallout games was almost irrelevant, a macGuffin with a few stories to keep the player interested in what was really important, the game world and interactions between that world and the character, leading to all sorts of meaningful consequences.

So people should be worried that he might put too much story, an over worked linear central story, and not about what he wrote there.

Now the fact that they changed the Fallout gameplay while they recognize how much more important it is particularly in this context (not on other games) is a different matter.
 
Brother None said:
What he's saying doesn't seem particularly insightful or clever from the extracts. Hell, he's drawing the wrong conclusions, but the basic logic of "narrative in games just isn't the same as narrative elsewhere" is solid. And yes - narrative is or at least should be secondary to gameplay. These are games, not books.
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sorry, but i find it funny to hear him say stuff like that after we had to hear how VATS isn't RtwP (shows some heavy gameplay insight right there) and that IMMERSHUN is the holy grail (which is likely more than a little gained from good storytelling, don't you think?).

but then again, i'm damn tired so a lot of things seem funny to me atm.
 
Brother None said:
And yes - narrative is or at least should be secondary to gameplay. These are games, not books.
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That would make Planescape Torment a super-shitty game, which it is not. Same for Vampire : Bloodlines.
 
Actually, PS:T IS a relatively shitty game. The dialog, characters, story and setting help make up for it, but it has the least appealing combat of all the Infinity Engine games. Not to mention some questionable game balance, like letting you wander into Baator when you're low enough level that pretty much any creature in there can bend you over. The story makes PS:T worth playing, but I can't help think that it would've been better as a book.
 
Jiggly McNerdington said:
Not to mention some questionable game balance, like letting you wander into Baator when you're low enough level that pretty much any creature in there can bend you over. The story makes PS:T worth playing, but I can't help think that it would've been better as a book.
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There's nothing that stops the Vault Dweller from going towards the mutant base after he/she leaves Vault 13. Arcanum does that to, so does Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. Pretty much all the great infinity engine RPG's. Being able to walk anywhere you want, even if you're going to get killed. That's pretty neat, compared to Oblivion's level scaling.
 
MrBumble said:
That would make Planescape Torment a super-shitty game, which it is not.
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I said narrative should be secondary to gameplay, not that a game with great narrative and shitty gameplay can't be a great game.
 
Plissken said:
Jiggly McNerdington said:
Not to mention some questionable game balance, like letting you wander into Baator when you're low enough level that pretty much any creature in there can bend you over. The story makes PS:T worth playing, but I can't help think that it would've been better as a book.
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There's nothing that stops the Vault Dweller from going towards the mutant base after he/she leaves Vault 13. Arcanum does that to, so does Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. Pretty much all the great infinity engine RPG's. Being able to walk anywhere you want, even if you're going to get killed. That's pretty neat, compared to Oblivion's level scaling.
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What he means is, that at the point you are supposed to go there in the story, your level is to low.

And Baldur's gate and Icewind dale don't let you do that. You can't go to Cloackwood after leaving Candlekeep in BG and in Icewind dale you can't go to, let's say, the Severed hand after you leave the first town. The infinity engine RPG's don't let you go where you want from the beginning of the game.
 
I have to soundly disagree with you for once BN, to me the story is paramount over gameplay, and narrative is certainly part of that.

I may be a minority, but I don't mind reading my games and shows, I don't mind monologues, I don't mind narrative, in fact I'd prefer it over a combat heavy game /w lots of grind like most RPGs.

It is my opinion, as such easily dismiss-able, but at the same time I'm just saying that things like narrative are needed to make a good story driven game.

GTA is an action game, they can live without it, and Oblivion was a terrible game for story on top of it's action oriented gameplay.

If I wanna play a sandbox game, I'll play Civ or Evo, if I wanna play something with a storyline that I can sink my teeth into, I'll play a cRPG of merit.

Those are getting fewer and fewer these days though...
 
Mord_Sith said:
I have to soundly disagree with you for once BN, to me the story is paramount over gameplay, and narrative is certainly part of that.

I may be a minority, but I don't mind reading my games and shows, I don't mind monologues, I don't mind narrative, in fact I'd prefer it over a combat heavy game /w lots of grind like most RPGs.
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I think you're missing my point.

Games are an interactive medium. It is what they are primarily, as opposed to books and films that don't have any choice than to simply tell the story to the consumer.

A game can be great without any narrative, because its interactivity allows it to focus the consumer on other things. It'll have a harder time being great without any gameplay.

It annoys me to no end that failed novelists or film makers have come to dominate the gaming world and think they can simply apply the rules of non-interactive media to interactive media. It's that kind of failure which leads to abominable ideas like Mass Effect's abortive attempt to be a faux-film in game format.

It simply shows little respect for the medium. And we're going nowhere, fast. Experiments in translating books into game format already happened and are - indeed - occasionally a success, like PS:T. But there's zero progress here, nobody is looking at ways to actually use narrative as a part of gaming's interactivity. Instead people like BioWare try to wrestle gaming's interactivity down in favour of their grand narrative, while BethSoft chooses to simply cut out the narrative in favour of the game's interactivity. Neither answer makes sense, nor is either ideal.

But who's looking for real solutions? From the sound of it, Emil gets the problem, but he's not looking for the solution either.
 
Jiggly McNerdington said:
Actually, PS:T IS a relatively shitty game. The dialog, characters, story and setting help make up for it, but it has the least appealing combat of all the Infinity Engine games. Not to mention some questionable game balance, like letting you wander into Baator when you're low enough level that pretty much any creature in there can bend you over. The story makes PS:T worth playing, but I can't help think that it would've been better as a book.
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I have the planescape torment book, its pretty accurate towards the video game but there are some differances. I didn't like the game much but the book was intereasting, suprised planescape hardcore fan's didn't know about it.
 
The book is based on the video game, cody92, not vice versa.

It's also shit, in my opinion. Goes against the game's canon, and its story is significantly worse. Written by one of the Planescape setting creators, though, so it's more accurate in that I guess.

(unless you're talking about the fan-made novel)
 
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