Ravager said:
The real question is: Is F3 being made as an RPG or as a shooter?
Game Informer interviews Fallout 3 Producer about Story
- Thread starter The Vault Dweller
- Start date
The real question is: Is F3 being made as an RPG or as a shooter?
ChiSoxMcgee
First time out of the vault
Good article, I can't wait to hear more about the gameplay. Games should be all about the gameplay, because if its a "good" story (obviously not, compared to books or movies), but has crappy gameplay, why is it worth $60 to play. Hopefully, his sentiment comes through for the game and it will turn out good.
Morbus
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
cough cough planescape torment coughChiSoxMcgee said:
ChiSoxMcgee
First time out of the vault
Morbus said:
Never played, but I find it hard to believe that it would have been so great as to rival many of the "classics" in literature, film and even television. Of course this is all opinion based, but games that I find have good stories (fallout 1, half life, the first half of bioshock) still pale in comparison to my favorite films and books. Of course that game, assuming your right, or half life have a better story than some of the recycled garbage in theaters and on tv. However, if the gameplay would have been terrible, I highly doubt I would have liked it. I haven't found an exception to that personal rule yet.
Morbus
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
It's very good.ChiSoxMcgee said:
Huh... I don't really know what to say... It's like "the movies that I find have good stories (spiderman, transformers and 2fast 2furious) still pale in comparison to my favorite games". Fallout 1 has little to no story at all, half-life is kind of meh, but ok, whatever, Bioshock is uninspired at best, and strangely enough, I think the last part is the best...ChiSoxMcgee said:
Torment's gameplay is awful IMO. But so is Arcanum's and I love both games...ChiSoxMcgee said:
To make a good game, you need good gameplay anda decent story, that is suited for an average person's intelligence.
To make a great game, the good gameplay needs to be backed up by a solid story that is about important stuff and values, like life or death or what is humanity, for example. Or not about something particulary important, but something that is fun to get to know with.
To make a Planescape Torment-type game, which is more an animated book than a game in my opinion, you make a crappy engine and gameplay, then you throw shitloads of good written dialogues and a controversive story. A couple of these game is OK, but I don't think it's a good idea to make more of them.
To make an Oblivion-type game, you try to make a great game, fail, but you still tell everyone it's a great game and pay people to say what you want. Oh, and you totally ignore all criticism and flame on people citicising your game.
To make a great game, the good gameplay needs to be backed up by a solid story that is about important stuff and values, like life or death or what is humanity, for example. Or not about something particulary important, but something that is fun to get to know with.
To make a Planescape Torment-type game, which is more an animated book than a game in my opinion, you make a crappy engine and gameplay, then you throw shitloads of good written dialogues and a controversive story. A couple of these game is OK, but I don't think it's a good idea to make more of them.
To make an Oblivion-type game, you try to make a great game, fail, but you still tell everyone it's a great game and pay people to say what you want. Oh, and you totally ignore all criticism and flame on people citicising your game.
Again, Torment's gameplay mainly consisted of dialogues and exploration, which were well done. Combat isn't the whole of RPG gameplay.
I agree with several earlier posters that there is no real separation between gameplay, dialogue, plot, atmosphere and world exploration. Dialogue, plot and world exploration, along with combat, character advancement, and other aspects, are parts that, when combined, make for gameplay experience. I am under the impression that Emil doesn't distinguish between gameplay (a wider term) on one side and combat and character advancement (narrower terms) on the other side, which, along with experience with previous Bethesda's games and other information about Fallout 3, leads me to conclude that Fallout 3 will be entirely combat based game, with very little attention being paid to plot and dialogue, but we've already known that for a long time.
Regarding Planescape : Torment, combat was badly implemented, as it was IE game after all, but this applies even in greater measure to Arcanum and Vampire: Bloodlines (the worst combat ever). However, all these games have excellent gameplay, the fact that is primarily owed to dialogue, atmosphere, plot and world exploration. So far, I consider Fallout and Fallout 2 only RPGs (besides TOEE, but I haven't played that game, so I can't comment on it) from Interplay / Black Isle / Troika / Bioware / Obsidian with well implemented combat.
What makes Planescape: Torment no.1 game in my opinion in spite of badly implemented combat, is the fact that the characters and their motivations felt real and their motivations are quite far from typical one-dimensional video game characters. Some people would argue that quality dialogues and detailed character portraiting don't belong in games, but in books, but I disagree. Video games give the player the opportunity to make their own story and participate in it, within the limits imposed by game designers' and writers' creativity. Implementing choices and consequences well throught interactions with different characters, both members of your party and outsiders cannot be done solely through combat, character advancement and rudimentary dialogue. As dialogue complexity and size increases, so does the possibility of implementing more choices and more consequences of those choices with regards to the PC, his friends, as well as his local and global surroundings.
To me, a perfect game would have dialogues and characters similar to Planescape: Torment combined with combat system and character advancement similar to Fallout's , with higher number of choices and consequences than in both games. I don't see how hiring a good writer and implementing a good rule based system with some nondeterminism is more difficult than implementing state of the art 3D graphics, still gaming companies consistently succeed in latter, while failing in former. I think that Fallout 3 will continue that trend.
In the meanwhile, I'll go on playing Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, the game which has pleasantly surprised me, as it is the first good "mainstream" RPG since Vampire: Bloodlines.
Regarding Planescape : Torment, combat was badly implemented, as it was IE game after all, but this applies even in greater measure to Arcanum and Vampire: Bloodlines (the worst combat ever). However, all these games have excellent gameplay, the fact that is primarily owed to dialogue, atmosphere, plot and world exploration. So far, I consider Fallout and Fallout 2 only RPGs (besides TOEE, but I haven't played that game, so I can't comment on it) from Interplay / Black Isle / Troika / Bioware / Obsidian with well implemented combat.
What makes Planescape: Torment no.1 game in my opinion in spite of badly implemented combat, is the fact that the characters and their motivations felt real and their motivations are quite far from typical one-dimensional video game characters. Some people would argue that quality dialogues and detailed character portraiting don't belong in games, but in books, but I disagree. Video games give the player the opportunity to make their own story and participate in it, within the limits imposed by game designers' and writers' creativity. Implementing choices and consequences well throught interactions with different characters, both members of your party and outsiders cannot be done solely through combat, character advancement and rudimentary dialogue. As dialogue complexity and size increases, so does the possibility of implementing more choices and more consequences of those choices with regards to the PC, his friends, as well as his local and global surroundings.
To me, a perfect game would have dialogues and characters similar to Planescape: Torment combined with combat system and character advancement similar to Fallout's , with higher number of choices and consequences than in both games. I don't see how hiring a good writer and implementing a good rule based system with some nondeterminism is more difficult than implementing state of the art 3D graphics, still gaming companies consistently succeed in latter, while failing in former. I think that Fallout 3 will continue that trend.
In the meanwhile, I'll go on playing Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, the game which has pleasantly surprised me, as it is the first good "mainstream" RPG since Vampire: Bloodlines.
Planescape Torment had a great story, dialogues etc; but I don't want to see more games like it (horrible gameplay but good story). This kind of games are very tiresome to play and I would like to actually *have fun* playing a game (not that I don't enjoy a good story, but you know what I mean). You can't do shitty work with gameplay and expect that the story will always compensate for horrible game mechanics. Games should be more balanced, they are more complex than a book or movie and have to consider more factors if are to succeed.
*Yet again* combat isn't the whole of RPG gameplay.Ravager69 said:
Corpse looting and potion hoarding is! Are?
Then say that you dislike the fact that one part of the gameplay is flawed, instead of continually saying that *all* of the gameplay is shit.Ravager69 said:
ChiSoxMcgee
First time out of the vault
Morbus said:
My point with those games is that the gameplay was so awesome that I was compelled to see the ending and thought "Ok that was pretty cool." There are several other games I feel that way about, but for many of them, I just love the gameplay and just don't care about the story, like Starcraft or CoH (never finished either campaign).
I'm not searching for an argument, but list some more games you have played with great stories and maybe you enjoyed one that I have also played and I could explain what I mean more.
And for the argument that gameplay isn't only combat, I whole-heartedly agree, but I shouldn't just be about narrative or advancing story, in games I play. Mass Effect tried to do that with the conversations, but I wasn't really enthralled by them. I will say it is the best gameplay mechanic they have because the combat was completely not fun, for me at least.
I disagree with people who say that bad gameplay prevents one from experiencing the story.
I played through all of xenosaga two, even though that was the hardest game with the cheapest turnbased AI and the lamest quirks (2 back to back boss battles with no opportunity to save)?
Just so I could get the rest of the story.
I may be a masochist of some type, but hey.
I played through all of xenosaga two, even though that was the hardest game with the cheapest turnbased AI and the lamest quirks (2 back to back boss battles with no opportunity to save)?
Just so I could get the rest of the story.
I may be a masochist of some type, but hey.
I despised the gameplay in all three Xenosaga games more than any video game I've ever played, but when I look back on them, I think only about how utterly excellent the story was.
Don't even get me started on Planescape: Torment. It's my favourite game of all time. In my mind, it's blasphemy to even suggest that the story and dialogue could've taken some hits in order to improve the combat. Who the hell plays PS:T for the combat? People look back on the game as one of the greatest (in many cases, the greatest) storytelling experiences in gaming history. If they cut off a chunk of story or sidestory proportionate to the amount of time it would've taken them to create one of the funnest combat systems in an isometric RPG, we'd look back on the game today the same way we look back on HeroQuest. Remember that game? Neither do I.
I can't help but imagine some xbox playing casual gamer when I hear that gameplay is somehow leagues more important than writing and story, even in RPGs. There are so many things wrong with this way of thinking that I can't bring myself to argue with it, no matter how topical it is in today's gaming world. These people play video games for a different reason. When Halo or Gears of War or Oblivion are given examples of "great" games, they're simply beyond help.
And yet, it is obvious now that these are the very people developing Fallout 3.
Don't even get me started on Planescape: Torment. It's my favourite game of all time. In my mind, it's blasphemy to even suggest that the story and dialogue could've taken some hits in order to improve the combat. Who the hell plays PS:T for the combat? People look back on the game as one of the greatest (in many cases, the greatest) storytelling experiences in gaming history. If they cut off a chunk of story or sidestory proportionate to the amount of time it would've taken them to create one of the funnest combat systems in an isometric RPG, we'd look back on the game today the same way we look back on HeroQuest. Remember that game? Neither do I.
I can't help but imagine some xbox playing casual gamer when I hear that gameplay is somehow leagues more important than writing and story, even in RPGs. There are so many things wrong with this way of thinking that I can't bring myself to argue with it, no matter how topical it is in today's gaming world. These people play video games for a different reason. When Halo or Gears of War or Oblivion are given examples of "great" games, they're simply beyond help.
And yet, it is obvious now that these are the very people developing Fallout 3.
ChiSoxMcgee
First time out of the vault
RhymeBomb said:
So by your train of thought, us "xbox playing casual gamers" are somehow inferior because we would rather have fun playing a game, rather than listening to a story. I'm not saying Halo was the greatest story ever, or even a good story, but to say it can't be good because of it is a little pretentious. By your logic, games like TF2 or Battlefield, without story at all, can't be good, even though I know people, including me, that have a blast with both. I'm not saying get rid of games like Planescape or even make it different because the more types of games the better. I just don't think I would like it if it didn't have good gameplay, but by all accounts on here I can respect that a ton of people like it and it probably is a great game. I'm not trying to attack you dude, but your stereotype is a little pretentious. I respect that you probably love games just as much as I do, but we have different tastes in what we want to play. And just for the record most of my favorite games of last year were PC games (TF2, Portal, CoH OF, Bioshock, Stalker).
RhymeBomb said:
Well, I say that, and I certainly don't own an Xbox.
The whole logic of narrative over gameplay is so backwards it's ridiculous. It's fairly simple, if a designer is faced with conflicting narrative and gameplay, he should sacrifice narrative. When you do that, you end up with games like Fallout, weak on narrative but strong on interaction. If you don't do that, you end up with PS:T if you're lucky, but you end up with BioWare games if you're out of luck.