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| Re: History | |
| Posted By: Hawaiian Pig | Date: 6/21/12 4:18 a.m. |
In Response To: History (Cody Miller) : As far as I'm concerned, what you described is non fiction / history, not : story. Feel free to disagree. It baffles me how narrowly you'll define something when backed into a corner. This happened when we discussed the meaning of the term "gameplay". Step back and ask yourself what you're doing. How can you draw a distinction between what constitutes a "story" based on whether or not it's fiction? There are stories that are non-fiction. This isn't even an opinion, this is strictly how words work. My head couldn't be more buried in my palm, all of which is buried in the desk. A story is quite simply a recounting of a sequence of events. A good story is a fair bit more compelling than that, but we're not discussing what constitutes a "good" story yet. We're discussing whether or not a medium is capable of telling a story. If you accept that a choose your own adventure novel is in fact a story--or rather, a set of stories, notwithstanding whether or not they are good--then you can accept that reader-choice can be a part of the story telling experience. I mean, this is how art works. There is a level of control available to both the creator and the consumer. Yes, the viewer, reader, and audience have control over their experience. The level of which can vary, and in video games has the potential to grow beyond any other medium of storytelling to date. For example, while an artist may intend their painting to represent a given emotion, a viewer of
Ah, the way the paint splatter hits the canvas truly screams "Repressed childhood memories" to me. In a a bit more of a contrived example, when it comes to stories, a reader can choose to stop reading and ignore the remainder of a given book (or a gamer can choose to ignore entire games as "not canon"). The exciting part about video games as a medium for telling a story is the holy grail that Kermit referred to. The idea that we can develop a rich environment with multiple choices or viewpoints. That we can do this and still tell a coherent and compelling story. Take Pulp fiction. Pulp Fiction is one of film's best attempts to show many stories within the restraints of the linear nature of cinema. Many stories are told, but we view them from a select set of vantage points. Video games allow us to create all of these vantage points, and allow the player to view a select few as they play through. In a Pulp Fiction game, you could choose to play as Vincent and experience his story, making a few choices along the way, but largely sticking to script. Maybe the next time you pick up the game you choose to play as Jules and it's a totally different story, but in the same world. Each are compelling and the overall themes are still retained. A lot of your complaints about choice seem to be centered upon game breaking choices. Something like, "Well what if you, as Vincent, chose to not deliver the briefcase." RUINED. Right?
Fuck this Jules, I'm out. This is ridiculous. Developers are capable of limiting player choice. It's not like you, as the Chief, can choose to desert the warm and wander off the map. This is why we have soft barriers. The current problem is that games currently tell a linear story. These stories tend to suck because they're often limited to the action genre in order to incorporate gameplay. But they still tell a story. I mean, you wouldn't deny that would you? I know you'll argue that the story is told via other means (i.e. cutscenes or dialogue) and not by the gameplay, but I mean, that's the whole point of this discussion... The idea, here, is to allow the story to unfold via gameplay. The proposed solution is to present the player with meaningful choices, but control those choices in a way that guides the player through a story. Create a world where the all of the paths of all the various choices you can make each tell compelling stories. That is the holy grail of video game story telling. A lot of games are scratching the surface of this capability of the medium, but sadly no example exists yet. With Pulp Fiction on the mind, I look at games like Grand Theft Auto. This would probably be the best place to start. You could potentially tell multiple compelling stories in a sprawling city's gangland environment. The biggest restraint on this is not the medium, it's the fact that developers are unwilling to spend resources on developing content that many players may not see. It's already expensive enough to tell one story arc, Rockstar would probably be unwilling to work out all of the scenarios possible in Vice City. I mean, what happens if Tommy killed Lance in their first encounter? Something entirely different of course. That story wouldn't have the Lance-backstab twist at the end, RUINED. right?. Well the story would proceed entirely differently. Tommy would have never been able to take on Diaz (the drug lord in the middle of the game) without Lance. In fact, what would result is a totally different story. What's stopping that story from being compelling? Imagine that game. Imagine a game where if Lance died at any point during a mission, the story would shift seamlessly to another arc with another wholly different ending. Imagine that happening for a large set of meaningful choices in the game. In this example, you'd end up with something like The Wire. Where the story's most compelling themes are about the city and its system, and the character interactions are mostly incidental to this. Of course to develop something like this would require a very dedicated studio, very skilled writers, and several metric tonnes of resources.
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