315 réponses à ce sujet

[wolfhowwl]

I have TLoU sitting next my PS3 waiting to be played.

 

I hope Naughty Dog improved from Uncharted because that felt like a Chinese knock-off of Indiana Jones lol.

[spinachdiaper]

On the subject of Bioshock Infinite, the major problem was that they were trying to out Bioshock the original Bioshock and ultimately got lost in the reflection of the reflection

 

[In Exile]

On the subject of Bioshock Infinite, the major problem was that they were trying to out Bioshock the original Bioshock and ultimately got lost in the reflection of the reflection

A nonsense plot is not really the best way to go for depth, but I will give the game credit for being so phenomenally good at how it set out that plot that it takes a long time to realise the plot is both nonsense and that the writers are comically ingorant of the ideas they're playing with in the game.

[Cainhurst Crow]

On the subject of narratives in games, especially over multiple titles of a series of games, there really is no right answer to this question. On the one hand, the medium of video games is changing, more people are finding their way into the industry and finding means to create the games of their choice, and as said games gain popularity they change the landscape of what is and isn;t expected in games.

 

Story in games are on the rise, as in real story with characters possessing defined character traits, arcs of development, as well as possessing stories that aren't necessarily tied into the gameplay in order to be told, and an overall focus on bringing the players along to witness a series of events and interactions that shape the world and character they play, in order to get them highly invested in what occurs in their games.

 

On the other hand, one must not forget the roots of the medium. These are video games, the word game in their title denotes some form of interactivity and level of enjoyment other such games entail. One cannot call a blank wall a film if there is no such film or recorded video involved. Nor could one really call something like a street performance a "book" even if said performance involved paper.

 

Everyone has their own tastes and proclivities, and it is the folly of humanity that everything is attempted to fit into a definable answer, a "right" and "wrong". The simplest answer I have found is that a video game requires clear direction as to what it wants to be, and an understanding of how to achieve its state of being. This rule is what is needed to make video games good, and what so many genres and titles do not do.

 

For example, if a game strives to be fun and entertain, it must have a focus on making the interaction the player has with the game world fun and entertaining to do. There needs to be a focus on such elements because they are the backbone for which your game must stand. A good story can be found in these games, excellent narrative and even thought provoking concepts. But the gameplay should always be focused upon, for that is what allows most people to experience fun, and in the end it is the experience the designers need to strive for.

 

Games who want to create challenging or thought provoking ideas or a tight narrative or very character-development focused story need to focus on writing as front and center. Gameplay however is also required to be focused on, but rather then making it fun, it needs to be simple or streamlined. The reason is, that the people who want these story games often want to experience the story, and the gameplay segments serve more as a intermediate period, a means to get from one story scene to the next. So making these sections less strenuous helps to give the player the experience they want, again showing how player experience is key for getting the story across well.

 

In both sections, it was important for the game to have both elements, writing to tie the gameplay events together and gameplay to act as the transmission from one sequence to the next. Now, the problem lies more in trying to make a game story too much of the focus, and doing nothing to facilitate this shift. Games with minimal stories but solid gameplay occurs because they know how to focus on player expeirences to leave a good impression, such games as mario for example.

 

But a game who wants to tell a story well has to remember that the gameplay will reflect upon the story, as will things like aesthetics. It will in fact have more of an impact then it would on a gameplay focused game, as the aesthetics serve to enhance the player experience visually. While in a story-driven game, the aesthetics create an additional role of cognitive recognition and identification. Essentially, the aesthetics of a story-game must help to set the tone and show which character is who and what side of things they fall under, and will be scrutinized much more for whether they fit the narrative of the story, more then they would in a more gameplay focused medium where rule of cool can be key to a good experience.

 

RPG's in my opinon are some of the largest cardinal sin commiters of this problem. Half because their writers don't seem to think gameplay beyond a choice-picking interface is important, and the other half because their fans refuse to acknowledge that gameplay and aesthetics might be important, given most of their games were from an era of near-primitive understandings and resources for the visuals of a video game.

 

For example, in an average rpg, the way a character expresses information is through large quantities of exposition dialogue. Often times, these character also tend to stand in place as they do so, barely moving in either body or facial language. Additionally, characters tend to move in a somewhat awkward, boxy fashion, and again rarely have facial expressions when not in a cinematic cutscene. These can ruin the immersion of people playing, and they are wholesale ignored because of the "choices and story narrative" of the game. Ignoring that seeing a person awkwardly shuffle from one side of a room to the other with a blank face while talking about their family being murdered and sometimes no mouth movement, can make the entire narrative seem more like parody then good stroy telling. Like, imagine if every good movie had the actors replaced with community theater performers. It would hold almost none of the same magic the story telling masterpieces managed to capture.

 

In conclusion, if you're going to go and make a game with a story, you cannot afford to forget that you have gameplay to contend with, and that players will often not segregate gameplay and stories just for your benefit. Too often, story focused games fail to realize that how a game plays affects the experience of their audience. Not taking gameplay into consideration for telling a story in video games, ignores a key part of how the player gets to the story, and ultimately only serves to shoot oneself in the foot.

[Garryydde]

On the subject of narratives in games, especially over multiple titles of a series of games, there really is no right answer to this question. On the one hand, the medium of video games is changing, more people are finding their way into the industry and finding means to create the games of their choice, and as said games gain popularity they change the landscape of what is and isn;t expected in games.
 
Story in games are on the rise, as in real story with characters possessing defined character traits, arcs of development, as well as possessing stories that aren't necessarily tied into the gameplay in order to be told, and an overall focus on bringing the players along to witness a series of events and interactions that shape the world and character they play, in order to get them highly invested in what occurs in their games.
 
On the other hand, one must not forget the roots of the medium. These are video games, the word game in their title denotes some form of interactivity and level of enjoyment other such games entail. One cannot call a blank wall a film if there is no such film or recorded video involved. Nor could one really call something like a street performance a "book" even if said performance involved paper.
 
Everyone has their own tastes and proclivities, and it is the folly of humanity that everything is attempted to fit into a definable answer, a "right" and "wrong". The simplest answer I have found is that a video game requires clear direction as to what it wants to be, and an understanding of how to achieve its state of being. This rule is what is needed to make video games good, and what so many genres and titles do not do.
 
For example, if a game strives to be fun and entertain, it must have a focus on making the interaction the player has with the game world fun and entertaining to do. There needs to be a focus on such elements because they are the backbone for which your game must stand. A good story can be found in these games, excellent narrative and even thought provoking concepts. But the gameplay should always be focused upon, for that is what allows most people to experience fun, and in the end it is the experience the designers need to strive for.
 
Games who want to create challenging or thought provoking ideas or a tight narrative or very character-development focused story need to focus on writing as front and center. Gameplay however is also required to be focused on, but rather then making it fun, it needs to be simple or streamlined. The reason is, that the people who want these story games often want to experience the story, and the gameplay segments serve more as a intermediate period, a means to get from one story scene to the next. So making these sections less strenuous helps to give the player the experience they want, again showing how player experience is key for getting the story across well.
 
In both sections, it was important for the game to have both elements, writing to tie the gameplay events together and gameplay to act as the transmission from one sequence to the next. Now, the problem lies more in trying to make a game story too much of the focus, and doing nothing to facilitate this shift. Games with minimal stories but solid gameplay occurs because they know how to focus on player expeirences to leave a good impression, such games as mario for example.
 
But a game who wants to tell a story well has to remember that the gameplay will reflect upon the story, as will things like aesthetics. It will in fact have more of an impact then it would on a gameplay focused game, as the aesthetics serve to enhance the player experience visually. While in a story-driven game, the aesthetics create an additional role of cognitive recognition and identification. Essentially, the aesthetics of a story-game must help to set the tone and show which character is who and what side of things they fall under, and will be scrutinized much more for whether they fit the narrative of the story, more then they would in a more gameplay focused medium where rule of cool can be key to a good experience.
 
RPG's in my opinon are some of the largest cardinal sin commiters of this problem. Half because their writers don't seem to think gameplay beyond a choice-picking interface is important, and the other half because their fans refuse to acknowledge that gameplay and aesthetics might be important, given most of their games were from an era of near-primitive understandings and resources for the visuals of a video game.
 
For example, in an average rpg, the way a character expresses information is through large quantities of exposition dialogue. Often times, these character also tend to stand in place as they do so, barely moving in either body or facial language. Additionally, characters tend to move in a somewhat awkward, boxy fashion, and again rarely have facial expressions when not in a cinematic cutscene. These can ruin the immersion of people playing, and they are wholesale ignored because of the "choices and story narrative" of the game. Ignoring that seeing a person awkwardly shuffle from one side of a room to the other with a blank face while talking about their family being murdered and sometimes no mouth movement, can make the entire narrative seem more like parody then good stroy telling. Like, imagine if every good movie had the actors replaced with community theater performers. It would hold almost none of the same magic the story telling masterpieces managed to capture.
 
In conclusion, if you're going to go and make a game with a story, you cannot afford to forget that you have gameplay to contend with, and that players will often not segregate gameplay and stories just for your benefit. Too often, story focused games fail to realize that how a game plays affects the experience of their audience. Not taking gameplay into consideration for telling a story in video games, ignores a key part of how the player gets to the story, and ultimately only serves to shoot oneself in the foot.

[Cainhurst Crow]

Didn't continue reading. Seriously, Read the codex. You should know what you're talking about BEFORE talking about it, Not after.

 

I don't think I'm the one who didn't read the codex. Not with the copious amounts of protest and salt you're coming with.

[Cainhurst Crow]

Actually, I have. You haven't. Or else you wouldn't say the things you said.

 

Sorry, I don't treat the codex like the bible. Just because the codex says it happened, doesn't mean the codex makes any more sense.

 

For example, the planet Alchera is a frozen planet the normandy crashed upon, with a temperature of −22 °C, or -7.6 F. It also says the planets atmosphere is supposed to be composed of Methane and Ammonia, and that it has H2O water and a carbon surface. This doesn't make sense at all, because Methane's freezing point is -295.6°F, or -182 C. Ammonia freezes at -107.9°F, or -77.73°C.

 

This means that both gases should have acted as a thawing agent when mixed into the H2O alone, at the very least turning the planet into a slushy marsh instead of the frozen solid rock. That's not even taking into account the use of thrusters on this planet, which considering the fusion reaction they use generates a large quantity of heat, which anyone can tell you is very bad to use on a highly flammable gas the planets atmosphere is composed of.

 

So please, tell me how the codex somehow makes this stuff make sense, and not defy the laws of physics and thermodynamics.

[Cyonan]

So please, tell me how the codex somehow makes this stuff make sense, and not defy the laws of physics and thermodynamics.

 

[Cainhurst Crow]

If you're criticizing a fictional content, You should have all the info before speaking about your criticism. And, No, I don't know anything about this issue. Might be something that they have got wrong. Might be something that you're missing, Don't know since I have not studied thermodynamics that thoroughly.

 

So you don't know, but you're still gonna insist that not only are my criticisms invalid, but that I'm in fact to blame for this discrepancy existing. That's your own words, not mine.

[SlottsMachine]

Leo gonna Leo. 

[breakdown71289]

[SlottsMachine]

inb4 LotGH

 

 

bruh

 

[Rannik]

All a great videogame needs is great gameplay.

 

You might be able to cover OK gameplay if you have a really good story though, but a game that plays badly is a bad game, period.

[Commander Rpg]

All a great videogame needs is great gameplay.

 

You might be able to cover OK gameplay if you have a really good story though, but a game that plays badly is a bad game, period.

Planescape Torment has a terrible gameplay but people continue to praise it because of the well written story/characters.

I think it's a bad game, though.

[Cainhurst Crow]

Planescape Torment has a terrible gameplay but people continues to praise it because of the well written story/characters.

I think it's a bad game, though.

 

That's because most people look at it from a nostalgic point of view, valuing for how it was back when it came out. They don't acknowledge how advances in technology, gameplay mechanics wise, writing quality wise, and aesthetics and visual wise, have really made the games flaws stand out strong.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

PS:T's flaws are mostly with the mediocre gameplay and combat design stemming from the fact that it's really an Adventure game trapped in the shell of an RTwP D&D RPG. Stuff about technology is nonsense in this particular case and the visuals hold up remarkably well. As for writing, it's lengthier, subtler, better utilises symbolism and deals with more complex subject matter than the overwhelming majority of modern games. No two ways around it.

I honestly prefer Mask of the Betrayer's writing over Planescape's (despite the similarities), so it's not like I consider it GOAT or anything. But to say it doesn't compare modern RPGs just because it's old, IDK what to say man.

[Jester]

Pfff. With a universal currency, language, economy, and aliens who can breed with any other species and still produce the same creatures with minor deviating appearances? 

They don't have universal language. Everyone is using cybernetic translators as far as I remember.

They have universal currency (galactic credit), but hardly universal economy. 

 

And Asari don't "breed" with any other species. They are a species with singular sex, that use partner's genome as a template for modification of their own genetic material. They don't mix their genes in any way with their partners - daughters have the genetic material only from their mothers, but it's modified in this "breeding" process.

My bet is on some alternate/modified version of crossing over combined with insertion of randomized sequences.

They specifically say, that Asari don't actually copy any genes from other "parent" species (it wouldn't make much sense), so it can't work as DNA replication of other "parent" and then insertion of replicated fragments into daugther genome.

 

The idea of the process is to give advantages of sexual reproduction, without actually doing sexual reproduction.

Now, apart from how the hell it works on a biochemical level, this is actually a well thought and realized concept otherwise. 

 

While there are two parent species, only one of them is an actual parent. The other one actually loses on this process - at best time, at worst, resources, time and possible chances for breeding herself. Therefore, there is no possibility for natural selection to favor genes compelling Asari to be used as a template - but there is a huge selection pressure towards genes, that would guarantee Asari that other organism would want to be used as a template. Now, there is a strong evedence of the second one - Asari are highly sexualized and fascinating to ALL non-Asari species in Mass Effect universe, which makes sense, as they evolved to be as tempting as possible (at least for every species on their planet), while humans, Krogan, Salarians etc. have evolved with no defence mechanisms against that.

On the other hand, Asari should avoid being used as a template at all costs (wasted time, resources, chances for having a child of their own), which also is evidenced here - "purebloods" created by the union of two Asari is a social taboo almost on the level of incest at the time that other species are coexisting with Asari.

 

Now, the only possibility I see, is that despite what Liara says about Asari "breeding" among themselves before they discovered other races, that simply cannot be true. Unions between two Asari must have been very rare, because they are not an evolutionary stable tactic. They must have been making "unions" with other species on their planet, preferably those that don't breed as Asari do (at least some have to "breed" the same way, otherwise Asari couldn't have evolved - some time ago, their common ancestor must have mutated in such a way, that this kind of "breeding" was enabled). So, the shameful past of the Asari is that they ekhm... coexisted with their equivalent of dogs, cats or other animals, that they could easily dominate and use as a genetic template. 

[Cainhurst Crow]

They don't have universal language. Everyone is using cybernetic translators as far as I remember.

They have universal currency (galactic credit), but hardly universal economy. 

 

And Asari don't "breed" with any other species. They are a species with singular sex, that use partner's genome as a template for modification of their own genetic material. They don't mix their genes in any way with their partners - daughters have the genetic material only from their mothers, but it's modified in this "breeding" process.

My bet is on some alternate/modified version of crossing over combined with insertion of randomized sequences.

They specifically say, that Asari don't actually copy any genes from other "parent" species (it wouldn't make much sense), so it can't work as DNA replication of other "parent" and then insertion of replicated fragments into daugther genome.

 

The idea of the process is to give advantages of sexual reproduction, without actually doing sexual reproduction.

Now, apart from how the hell it works on a biochemical level, this is actually a well thought and realized concept otherwise. 

 

While there are two parent species, only one of them is an actual parent. The other one actually loses on this process - at best time, at worst, resources, time and possible chances for breeding herself. Therefore, there is no possibility for natural selection to favor genes compelling Asari to be used as a template - but there is a huge selection pressure towards genes, that would guarantee Asari that other organism would want to be used as a template. Now, there is a strong evedence of the second one - Asari are highly sexualized and fascinating to ALL non-Asari species in Mass Effect universe, which makes sense, as they evolved to be as tempting as possible (at least for every species on their planet), while humans, Krogan, Salarians etc. have evolved with no defence mechanisms against that.

On the other hand, Asari should avoid being used as a template at all costs (wasted time, resources, chances for having a child of their own), which also is evidenced here - "purebloods" created by the union of two Asari is a social taboo almost on the level of incest at the time that other species are coexisting with Asari.

 

Now, the only possibility I see, is that despite what Liara says about Asari "breeding" among themselves before they discovered other races, that simply cannot be true. Unions between two Asari must have been very rare, because they are not an evolutionary stable tactic. They must have been making "unions" with other species on their planet, preferably those that don't breed as Asari do (at least some have to "breed" the same way, otherwise Asari couldn't have evolved - some time ago, their common ancestor must have mutated in such a way, that this kind of "breeding" was enabled). So, the shameful past of the Asari is that they ekhm... coexisted with their equivalent of dogs, cats or other animals, that they could easily dominate and use as a genetic template. 

 

A translator that somehow works in real time, has 0 delays or technical issues, can't be taken out by anything((seriously, EMP's, Extreme weather conditions, Massive Kinetic Impact, and they never stop working even for a second), and only ever has trouble translating a single drell word. Yeah I'm calling BS on that.

 

Without a universal economy, mega-corporations like Exo-Geni, Binary Helix, and the various military and para-military orginizations could not managed to sustain their growth over such wide spaces as the ones presented in mass effect. On Illium there is even mention of a galactic stock market, something that seems to indacate a galaxy-spanning interconnected economy to me.

 

And I don't buy any of the asari bs for 1 second. Mainly because applying any logic or reason to the asari is like trying to apply logic and reason to Q from star trek, or the force from star wars, or conducting a serious analysis on cartoon-physics. It's a pointless endevour in trying to understand something that at its fundamental core, has no grounds in logic or reason. Pursue for fun, but do not for any other reason. They wanted a race without a male present, a race to fill the beautiful alien trope, and ultimately did not vary their designs for cost-saving reasons. Everything else about them randomizing their DNA and somehow having control enough to do so, not altering themselves in any way physically from generation to generation, yet somehow having the process not work on their own kind, is just bull, plain and simple.

[RZIBARA]

Do all you people above me realize how ****** stupid you look? Who the hell gives a **** about all that crap? It's a ****** video game. Holy ****.

 

Go do something productive with your lives for God's sake

 

I'm going to say one thing on the topic of translators: Would you prefer to read subtitles the entire game? Yeah, no thanks.

[Cyonan]

Do all you people above me realize how ****** stupid you look? Who the hell gives a **** about all that crap? It's a ****** video game. Holy ****.

 

Go do something productive with your lives for God's sake

 

I'm going to say one thing on the topic of translators: Would you prefer to read subtitles the entire game? Yeah, no thanks.

 

but if we don't ****** about every little tiny detail, then who will?

 

Also, having to read subtitles didn't bother me in KotoR.