Good luck with your site, btw. :-) I don't think it's true, though, that story and player freedom, or a quality story and a branching narrative are contradictive in any way. I always point to Quantic Dream's stuff. Heavy Rain is as good as it's ever gotten as far as I'm concerned, the best game story and one of the most changeable.I'm putting together (and hopefully launching within the next couple months) a website that will deal with what I'm right now calling "narrative media," (e.g., games, comics, films, etc.) and this is something that I mull over a lot. You used the word "focus" and I think that's key, because ultimately games are not designed to tell stories. On one hand, games can be tools for players to tell their own stories. On the other hand, games can be vessels for the creators to tell a story. But autonomy is the tension between these two potentials. If the creator is intent on telling a specific story, little control can be given to the player -- but at some point this subverts the purpose of the medium and suggests the story belongs in something other than a game. Conversely, the draw of a game may be its mechanics and player freedom. These are antithetical to structured narrative, which will put off narrative-driven players but will often garner the highest praises from "gamers."
I've tended to see this dynamic, in many ways, as the reason some people prefer, say, The Witcher or Skyrim. That's facile, perhaps, but then as I said it's something I think about a lot.
I think the real stress is between game mechanics and story. When you build your narrative to serve gameplay (level design, mechanics, etc.) and not the other way around, the story suffers however much accordingly. When you build your game to serve your story, both turn out for the better in my experience. And you also end up with variety across your gameplay experience, which keeps whatever you're doing from getting stale.
edit: It's also interesting that you bring up Witcher 3 as similar to Skyrim when they're on opposite ends of the spectrum to me. Witcher 3 is one of the best game stories to date, that just managed to also seriously nail a sweet spot in its gameplay. But that's because they adjusted for what didn't make sense with the story. No more twitchy dodge roll combat. Skyrim is almost totally about the mechanics, the dungeons, and the open world travel and exploration. Basically the only thing they have in common is the open world travel aspect.
Retour en haut
I am really hoping that it won't be too busy so I can go home early.
*drinks*
