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General discussion (archive)Modern Triple A titles Must Have Storylines(57 posts)(57 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted February 23, 2009
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lukaszthegreat: (plus additional elements borrowed from RPG genre).

Like the stat-based aiming, which just feels... horrible. Still a great game though.
Posted February 23, 2009
I'm not against any game having a story. I like to read.
But I hate stories that are pointless and simply there for some filler. If it's backplot to the world, where I have no real interaction with, then why not simply: Deliver this, Shoot that, Match those gems.
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lukaszthegreat: System Shock probably should not be listed but DE is as much shooter as HL or Doom. just with that not-needed storyline implemented on much greater scale than in other FPS (plus additional elements borrowed from RPG genre).

I have to disagree with DE in the same area as HL and Doom. There is a far wider scope to the game than shooting and the occasional puzzle.
If anything, Doom 3 is the odd one that tries to do a bit more than it is needing to be.
Posted February 23, 2009
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Hammerfall: It all depends on the type of game it is. Are you arguing that you want less storylines in modern games or more games with less storylines? I doubt you'd want to play a.. ..single player FPS without a storyline.
I've bought multiple copies of doom within the past 3 months, and also on Xbox Live Arcade. So I think I've just proven you wrong.
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frostcircus: Let's take a quick break from talking about this as some kind of 'symptom' of modern games.
Let's instead cast our gaze over the top ten games on the GOG.com wishlist. Every single one of those games has a prominent story.
This is not new.
Not all the items on the wishlist were triple A titles.
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Aliasalpha: I do. I like context and to know why I'm killing people, I like to feel like I'm having a bit of an effect on the world and aside from a trail of corpses, the only real way is through a story.
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lukaszthegreat: I am with aliasa on that. just finished mod for HL2, called Minerva and without any storyline the game would suck (at least for me)
and there are Deux Ex, Bioshock and system shock, Chronicles of Riddick and hell, shogo too.
Without storyline they game wouldn't be what they were
This is also true, there's a time and a place for a great storyline.
The point I'm trying to make, is that not all games NEED a storyline. And a lot of people seem to think that if they want their game to be a huge block buster titles, it must have a great storyline.
believe me, I know about storylines, you should see me posting in the FF7 thread. But honestly there are many fantastic titles out there that don't have a storyline, and developers shouldn't need to tack one on just because.
Post edited February 23, 2009 by Weclock
Posted February 23, 2009
Perhaps i should take back saying that you wouldn't play a single player FPS without a storyline.
But i don't think Doom or any of those old school first person shooters should count. That was a time when the gameplay alone revolutionized the genre. And that makes the game a timeless classic.
But if you're talking about now, i really don't see the FPS genre revolutionizing too soon as it did back in the 90s. But if it does, i guarantee that whatever game it is, it'll come with a great storyline. In modern games, Without a storyline,you're devoid of atmosphere, emotional attachness, a purpose, and character interaction and i just don't think a game without those ingredients will get too much attention. When i think back at a past few newer shooters that i've played and loved, they've all had an excellent way of presenting a story. Bioshock, Resistence 2, Uncharted, and even Dead Space. The gameplay is there in all those games, take away the story, and IMO the gameplay suddenly serves very little purpose.
As for saying developers feel they NEED to have a storyline, i really don't think thats the case. The amount of triple A titles that have no need for storyline is pretty large. Rock band and Guitar Hero are huge hits, the Wii is the console winner because of its innovative gameplay, We got stuff like Audiosurf, Braid, Popcap games, The Sims, Spore, Civilization, a million online shooters, racing games, sports games fighting games, and MMOs. So its all that against pretty much just RPGs and FPS. Theres hardly that many triple A RPGs on the market, so all we really have left are FPS games which we have different views on. To me it looks like a sea of games WITHOUT storylines.
Post edited February 23, 2009 by Hammerfall
Posted February 23, 2009
I mostly play games for the story... hnce i mostly play single player games.
That said, it totally depends on the game. Best game i've played this year is World of Goo, which doesn't exactly have a story. (well, kind of).
Puzzle/shooter games excepted, I tend to find that if a single player game doesn't have a decent story then i get distracted and never finish it. For FPSes its not such a problem, as you can blow through them in a few days before you get bored. But for RTS, RPG etc.. games, if there isn't enough story to keep me playing i'm likely to quit well before the end.
I don't like the AAA game classification. Some indie games have way more love and originality and stuff poured into them than a so-called AAA game.
AAA game producers often strike me as wannabe film directors.
most of my all-time fave games have good stories though...
Posted February 23, 2009
I feel like an idiot for not knowing this, but what exactly IS 'AAA'? I mean, I have a general idea of the concept, but what concrete criteria are there that define what is and is not a AAA game? A budget to rival many Hollywood productions? Bleeding edge graphics? Projected first week sales? Biggest hype machine ever? Or is it one of those "it's AAA because we say it is" things?
More on topic, I'm of the opinion that a game needs the story that will make it work. Sometimes it's as simple as "Zombies! Evil! Kill them!" Other times, not so much. However, if you're taking an epic faux-medieval saga of love, loss, friendship, and barrages of fireballs scattered over three generations, and mixing it into an undead-hackfest FPS.....better take a step back and think.
And if you're mixing that story with the portal puzzle game du jour...I don't want to know. (EDIT: Exemption granted for Puzzle Quest, since it occured to me that might fall into that category. But they actually sat down and thought about the darn thing, as opposed to a quick C&P.)
Post edited February 23, 2009 by Calli
Posted February 23, 2009
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Calli: I feel like an idiot for not knowing this, but what exactly IS 'AAA'? I mean, I have a general idea of the concept, but what concrete criteria are there that define what is and is not a AAA game? A budget to rival many Hollywood productions? Bleeding edge graphics? Projected first week sales? Biggest hype machine ever? Or is it one of those "it's AAA because we say it is" things?
More on topic, I'm of the opinion that a game needs the story that will make it work. Sometimes it's as simple as "Zombies! Evil! Kill them!" Other times, not so much. However, if you're taking an epic faux-medieval saga of love, loss, friendship, and barrages of fireballs scattered over three generations, and mixing it into an undead-hackfest FPS.....better take a step back and think.
And if you're mixing that story with the portal puzzle game du jour...I don't want to know.

Think of AAA as over hyped, filled with eye cancer causing !!!!BLOOM!!!!!, console-to-PC port for the newer ones(remember when consoles got the ports???!?!?!?!), published by a huge conglomerate (EA), really buggy (GTA4 console-to-PC port....Fallout 3 anyone?), and very steep system requirements to the point that only a Cray supercomputer can run the damned game at a decent framerate. If the game in question has any of those qualities, it is an "AAA" (more like FFF am I right....?) game and most likely contains huge amounts of SUCK, a sprinkling of FAIL, etc. etc.
Has this reply helped you? y/n/maybe/abort/retry/fail?
Posted February 24, 2009
I think AAA is mostly a combination of expected sales and hype machine with a sprinking of "because we say so".
They're the kind of titles that a publisher expects to pay the bills for all the money they waste on cocaine, strippers & pointless anoying DRM rather than in funding the development of games that are actually unique and interesting.
Posted February 24, 2009
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Aliasalpha: I think AAA is mostly a combination of expected sales and hype machine with a sprinking of "because we say so".
They're the kind of titles that a publisher expects to pay the bills for all the money they waste on cocaine, strippers & pointless anoying DRM rather than in funding the development of games that are actually unique and interesting.

Oops, I forgot about the hookers, blow, and DRM in my definition of "AAA" titles.
Posted February 24, 2009
In a way, the hookers have DRM that you can only bypass with enough blow
Posted February 24, 2009
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Aliasalpha: In a way, the hookers have DRM that you can only bypass with enough blow

Dear Sir,
You must be confusing DRM with STD....oh wait.......nvm.
Posted February 24, 2009
That must be a heartbreaking doctors visit
DOCTOR: "Sir I'm afraid I've got some bad news, you've conracted securom. Your penis has 6-8 weeks to live"
PATIENT: "Oh if only I'd gone to GOG!"
Heh that'd probably make a good TV ad for GOG...
Posted February 24, 2009
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Aliasalpha: That must be a heartbreaking doctors visit
DOCTOR: "Sir I'm afraid I've got some bad news, you've conracted securom. Your penis has 6-8 weeks to live"
PATIENT: "Oh if only I'd gone to GOG!"
Heh that'd probably make a good TV ad for GOG...

Or a Soviet style propaganda poster XD.
Posted February 24, 2009
"in soviet russia, anti-piracy software hurts YOU"?
I think it's a bit more fallout than soviet though, I could imagine vault boy looking really dejected
Posted February 24, 2009
As long as we're on the subject of story, I think there is one genre that could easily do without yet always tries to have one. Fighting games. Seriously, in every single fighting game I played the story seemed to be merely a vessel to justify the design of specific characters and overall entirely superfluous (in a lot of cases completely ridiculous as well).
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)Modern Triple A titles Must Have Storylines(57 posts)(57 posts)
(57 posts)