375 réponses à ce sujet

[Addictress]

...You completely ignored what I just said 'Literal dialogue boxes' don't yet constitute telling, not showing. It's a matter of how, not what.

Also - many codex entries are actually in forms of letters, or stories, or poems that don't straightforwardly tell us background lore information. This is how they do "showing, rather than telling". It's the same with war table. And I'm not going to tell that war table is flawless, I'm just opposed to the idea that this is all about blatant exposition dump, plainly because it's not.

? That is what telling not showing means.
You're given information in a medium other than being shown it.

The story is not being conveyed through an interactive quest, or cut scene, or anything. It's literally being told. Through writing, not even talking.

[Abyss108]

The wartable was telling instead of showing because it was text? So I guess the number one rule of book writing is impossible because books are all text?

[correctamundo]

Well that's a problem, my intro is scout Harding, not the subject of the quest . Also scout Harding is generally introducing a whole region, not specific side quests. So it feels disconnected

 

She is introducing the main quest of the region. Of course that could have been done differently and I gues it is something for them to ponder in the future but still Harding probably have been a hit overall.

[robertthebard]

War Table tells, not shows, because both the set up, the doing, and the end result are all in literal dialogue boxes you read and click. They might have token impacts you see elsewhere, like in your rune example, but it's the most definitive example of telling not showing I can think of. They're stories, and subplots, not background lore information as would befit a codex.

Actually, this isn't exactly true, is it.  After all, we use the war table to open up missions, such as going to Val Royeaux to talk to the Chantry.  If physically walking in a location that was opened up specifically by the war table isn't showing, there's no such thing.  Sure, there was some tell as well, but frankly, it's not a movie, but a game, and the war table is just one aspect of it.  But let's look at where we could go in game w/out it:  Haven.  That's it, and we're already there.  Every other map is opened up by sending scouts to those maps, via the war table.  That's a lot of show, in and of itself.

[Addictress]

The wartable was telling instead of showing because it was text? So I guess the number one rule of book writing is impossible because books are all text?

It's not a book it's a game. And yes I love the codex. I love reading codex. Not reading actual playable plot in text, though

Imagine of you had a movie. It was one static screen, writing the plot.

That is what is happening.

[Addictress]

Actually, this isn't exactly true, is it. After all, we use the war table to open up missions, such as going to Val Royeaux to talk to the Chantry. If physically walking in a location that was opened up specifically by the war table isn't showing, there's no such thing. Sure, there was some tell as well, but frankly, it's not a movie, but a game, and the war table is just one aspect of it. But let's look at where we could go in game w/out it: Haven. That's it, and we're already there. Every other map is opened up by sending scouts to those maps, via the war table. That's a lot of show, in and of itself.

All the nobility alliances, Zevran's issue with the crows, Varric's Hard in Hightown stuff, the maintenance and requests from the various keeps, all of Leliana's espionage, all of it could've been shown.

[Addictress]

She is introducing the main quest of the region. Of course that could have been done differently and I gues it is something for them to ponder in the future but still Harding probably have been a hit overall.

Harding is fine but like I said there is imbalance between cut scenes afforded her and the actual subjects of the quests. Like ...pardon me, but look at any of the side quests on Skellige in the witcher 3.

[CronoDragoon]

I agree that the War Table is mostly telling with a bit of showing, but I don't find that to particularly be a problem. It's content that either exists in text form or not at all, since there's no way the budget could accomodate translating those missions even into cutscenes, let alone actual locations and playable missions.

[Addictress]

Well I was fine with the war table in ME3 and the reason is because the main narrative wasn't being moved THROUGH that war table. The ME3 war table had supplementary (even if sometimes critical) stuff, but then Admiral Hackett would grab your attention for each main chapter or quest introducing it in a cut scene.

And then yes, you can compare Hackett to Harding but frankly I think you weren't prompted to even listen to Hackett unless through some tasteful intercom announcement by EDI or something else happening in the interactive environment to prompt you to go to the hologram

[midnight tea]

I wouldn't mind Scout Harding, but there is a great imbalance between the cut scenes afforded her and the cut scenes afforded the actual participants - the subjects - of the story at hand. It wouldn't been more effective, narratively, to have some kind of cut scenes portraying the plight of Crestwood, introducing the mayor, etc. 

 

But you SEE the plight of Crestwood. The murky environments. The small hamlet beings surrounded by demons and zombies. The people fighting just as the party arrives to hamlet's gates. The skeletons and corpses we find in old Crestwood. A huge-ass Keep useless when it comes to protection, because it's overriden by bandits. The spirits drawn to death and memories found in flooded village. The atmosphere of the entire zone changing just by simple change of time of the day after we seal the rift under the lake.

 

This is all contextual telling of the story through visuals and content, entirely befitting interactive, visual medium.

 

Telling rather than showing can happen visually as well, you know. And really, for all the complains about telling and not showing, what you're demanding from the game is to literally tell you the story by shoving it into your face, rather than trust you to pick up the (fairly noticeable) details and piece at least portion of the story yourself.

 

See, this is how "showing, not telling" works - a lot of it relies on people picking stuff up on their own through things that are not there to give you everything on a silver platter, in one clear swoop. About trusting the audience to be smart enough to not require constant hand-holding through the story. So instead of the scene or text being there, saying "Oh, poor people of Crestwood! Look! Look how poor they are!" the same thing is accomplished just through us travelling through the environment and interacting with it, be it fighting, or discovering clues that piece together the story of a flooded village.

 

Oh, and one more thing - the fact that DAO had a few more cut-scenes in side-quests really appear to stem from the fact that DAO had a hard time telling the story through environment alone, which as mostly empty and static. It's not to say that the visuals or gameplay elements were ignored, but a lot of times they were not substantial enough for them not to rely on custcenes to fill in the details, plainly because there was no better or subtler way to convey the story.

 

 

? That is what telling not showing means.
You're given information in a medium other than being shown it.

 

 No it is NOT. You completely misunderstand what it is about. 

[Abyss108]

It's not a book it's a game. And yes I love the codex. I love reading codex. Not reading actual playable plot in text, though

Imagine of you had a movie. It was one static screen, writing the plot.

That is what is happening.

 

You can dislike the wartable all you want, and think it's not the appropriate format for a game all you want, but referring to it as "telling, not showing" just shows you have no idea what that term actually means and just harms the point you are actually trying to make. 

[CronoDragoon]

The War table both is and is not "telling not showing." In the sense that you experience the missions by summary from your advisors, they are telling. But beyond that, it's showing because what the War Table is representing is what is actually happening: that you, the Inquisitor, are receiving letters and reports and deciding what to do about them, and then hearing about the results. That's not telling; that is the actual event the game is representing. So I think the criticism is probably that one does not find that sort of indirect role-playing enjoyable, because it's not leveraging the audiovisual capabilities of the medium.

Nevertheless as I said, I think it's excellent as a supplement. I wouldn't want the entire game to be like the War Table, but it's different and I find the missions themselves interesting.

[vbibbi]

But you SEE the plight of Crestwood. The murky environments. The small hamlet beings surrounded by demons and zombies. The people fighting just as the party arrives to hamlet's gates. The skeletons and corpses we find in old Crestwood. A huge-ass Keep useless when it comes to protection, because it's overriden by bandits. The spirits drawn to death and memories found in flooded village. The atmosphere of the entire zone changing just by simple change of time of the day after we seal the rift under the lake.

 
Part of what I want in my story telling is a personal connection. Yes, we see that the village of Crestwood is being besieged. And yes, our role in the game is to bring order and stability, so of course we want to help. But I don't feel any personal connection to the village. The only person of any note is the mayor, and while his story is interesting, I would have preferred more characters to interact with and get to know. Same in Sahrnia, only the leader has any real story to her. In Val Royeux there is no one notable. In Redcliffe village there's no one really interesting. I view this as telling not showing, because it's up to us as players to invest any personal interest in saving/defending these places. Otherwise it becomes very detached and a check list: did we save the small town in this region in order to stabilize the area? Yes, good let's move on.

 

I know this fits more with the military theme of the Inquisition, so it's not realistic to expect such a personal connection. But that's a reason why I liked the more personal stories in DAO and DA2. DAI has huge themes of faith and power, but we barely interact with anyone to see how these themes actually relate to people. It's all too distanced.
 

Oh, and one more thing - the fact that DAO had a few more cut-scenes in side-quests really stems from the fact that DAO had a hard time telling the story through environment alone, which as mostly empty and static. It's not to say that the visuals or gameplay elements were ignored, but a lot of times they were not substantial enough for them not to rely on custcenes to fill in the details, plainly because there was no better or subtler way to convey the story.

How is this different from DAI? Other than the change in Crestwood and JOH maps, I didn't see environmental story telling. Yes, the maps were better and visually more engaging, but I didn't feel they served to support the narrative more than another game.
 

[Addictress]

 

But you SEE the plight of Crestwood. The murky environments. The small hamlet beings surrounded by demons and zombies. The people fighting just as the party arrives to hamlet's gates. The skeletons and corpses we find in old Crestwood. A huge-ass Keep useless when it comes to protection, because it's overriden by bandits. The spirits drawn to death and memories found in flooded village. The atmosphere of the entire zone changing just by simple change of time of the day after we seal the rift under the lake.

 

This is all contextual telling of the story through visuals and content, entirely befitting interactive, visual medium.

 

Telling rather than showing can happen visually as well, you know. And really, for all the complains about telling and not showing, what you're demanding from the game is to literally tell you the story by shoving it into your face, rather than trust you to pick up the (fairly noticeable) details and piece at least portion of the story yourself.

 

See, this is how "showing, not telling" works - a lot of it relies on people picking stuff up on their own through things that are not there just there for pure exposition. About trusting the audience to be smart enough to not require constant hand-holding through the story. So instead of the scene or text being there, saying "Oh, poor people of Crestwood! Look! Look how poor they are!" the same thing is accomplished just through us travelling through the environment and interacting with it, be it fighting, or discovering clues that piece together the story of a flooded village.

 

Oh, and one more thing - the fact that DAO had a few more cut-scenes in side-quests really stems from the fact that DAO had a hard time telling the story through environment alone, which as mostly empty and static. It's not to say that the visuals or gameplay elements were ignored, but a lot of times they were not substantial enough for them not to rely on custcenes to fill in the details, plainly because there was no better or subtler way to convey the story.

 

 

 

 No it is NOT. You completely misunderstand what it is about. 

 

Okay well I'm not a simpleton and I'm not asking for my hand to be held. You're either an atmospheric game like Skyrim, which succeeds at doing what you describe, which is telling a story through disparate elements of setting - ie bodies lying around, structures, observations of the aftermath of events which happened in the past. However, Bioware is not that kind of game and thus feels disconnected. It is really an in-the-moment game, in which you are moving through the story in the moment by observing real-time passions and actions of characters in the world. Then suddenly you're asked to wander fields and flooded towns, the bridge between the two feelings being the dialogue boxes which you clicked. And they didn't even bother to have the advisors say anything in particular about the opening of each region, but had a dialogue box next to the advisor with what they would say.

 

For instance, it was good when the advisors talked about Adamant. Actually talked about it. Same with Halamshiral.

 

But these huge regions don't have similar treatment. Just text in a box, and then bodies and floods lying around.

[Addictress]

The War table both is and is not "telling not showing." In the sense that you experience the missions by summary from your advisors, they are telling. But beyond that, it's showing because what the War Table is representing is what is actually happening: that you, the Inquisitor, are receiving letters and reports and deciding what to do about them, and then hearing about the results. That's not telling; that is the actual event the game is representing. So I think the criticism is probably that one does not find that sort of indirect role-playing enjoyable, because it's not leveraging the audiovisual capabilities of the medium.

Nevertheless as I said, I think it's excellent as a supplement. I wouldn't want the entire game to be like the War Table, but it's different and I find the missions themselves interesting.

The missions ARE interesting, which is why it's disappointing they're just dialogue boxes.

 

Conceptually the inquisitor is receiving letters and information and reports...yeah... so.... why is this conveyed through click-click-dialoguebox-click-out? Is that really the best way to convey something when in the same amount of time you could have the advisor have a customized introduction to the mission, a few cut scenes or shots of the setting of the mission they're talking about, or something?

[robertthebard]

All the nobility alliances, Zevran's issue with the crows, Varric's Hard in Hightown stuff, the maintenance and requests from the various keeps, all of Leliana's espionage, all of it could've been shown.

No, they really couldn't.  Not all of them, anyway.  You're talking about making something 100s of hours longer while we "show" the spies ferreting out information on Varric's book being "pirated", or Leliana's assassins dealing with the assassins after Josephine, all of that is literally hundreds of hours long.  The note from the Warden takes 18 hours to complete.  So we're going to watch an 18 hour cutscene of what, exactly?  Are we going to watch 2 months of repairs being done on a Keep?  This is, essentially, what you're asking for, to see all this "busy work" that goes into making the war table seem like a living entity of it's own.  There is literally not enough money in the budget for that, and there's no way to recoup the cost, because it's going to price the game so high that few would buy it.  After all, none of these resources are free.

[Addictress]

You can dislike the wartable all you want, and think it's not the appropriate format for a game all you want, but referring to it as "telling, not showing" just shows you have no idea what that term actually means and just harms the point you are actually trying to make. 

Do you even know what telling not showing means?

[vbibbi]

The War table both is and is not "telling not showing." In the sense that you experience the missions by summary from your advisors, they are telling. But beyond that, it's showing because what the War Table is representing is what is actually happening: that you, the Inquisitor, are receiving letters and reports and deciding what to do about them, and then hearing about the results. That's not telling; that is the actual event the game is representing. So I think the criticism is probably that one does not find that sort of indirect role-playing enjoyable, because it's not leveraging the audiovisual capabilities of the medium.

Nevertheless as I said, I think it's excellent as a supplement. I wouldn't want the entire game to be like the War Table, but it's different and I find the missions themselves interesting.

To take this a step further, I can see it as telling in a sense because the war table is divorced from the rest of the game. We have the few operations where we unlock specializations, spend energy building bridges or unblocking environmental obstacles, some companion approval/disapproval, but the majority of the table has no affect on the world we can see. It is telling us the affect the Inquisition is having across Thedas, but we're not able to see this effect.

 

Did we conscript the Wardens and use them to hunt down the darkspawn and the Venatori supporter? Did we successfully defeat the darkspawn or were the Wardens decimated? Either way there's no change to the game. We all know the famous Lavellan clan war table mission where there is no reaction if the clan was destroyed. Bioware obviously recognized this since they had Sera mention it in Trespasser.

 

The point is, the war table was a good idea to show how the Inquisition spread beyond what the player could see. I don't think it was implemented as well as it could have been, and would like to see a similar set up in future games be more integrated into the rest of the game.

[midnight tea]

It's not a book it's a game. And yes I love the codex. I love reading codex. Not reading actual playable plot in text, though

Imagine of you had a movie. It was one static screen, writing the plot.

 

The game is neither a book, nor a movie. The game can be entirely visual but it doesn't have to - it's an interactive medium that relies on many devices to tell a story: lines of dialogue, cinematics, environments, gameplay and yes - text as well.

 

Also - show me which movie lasts up to 100 hours, like Inquisition does? Which movie is interactive, like a game??? There are no long texts in movies plainly because the movie has no time to spend on presenting text. Hence you don't see much of it.

 

 

And the fact that you want to see a text in a game doesn't yet make it an inferior way of telling a story in a game - especially that, save tutorials or things like menu, a great majority of this text exists in entirely fitting, immersive format of documents and books, or scrolls or written pieces that are entirely appropriate to the world (if it was a game set in a stone age, when people haven't yet invented written text, then it could be a problem). It's not just pure, unadorned exposition that exists somewhere outside of the game.

 

Heck, even WOT 1 and 2 that are not part of the game are still pretty great examples of "showing, not telling" through text, because they take the format and nature of a text written from an in-game perspective, riddled with biases and unreliable narration.

[CronoDragoon]

The missions ARE interesting, which is why it's disappointing they're just dialogue boxes.
 
Conceptually the inquisitor is receiving letters and information and reports...yeah... so.... why is this conveyed through click-click-dialoguebox-click-out? Is that really the best way to convey something when in the same amount of time you could have the advisor have a customized introduction to the mission, a few cut scenes or shots of the setting of the mission they're talking about, or something?

It's not the best way, but it's the best compromise to avoid going massively over budget on voiced dialogue lines. Like I said, the choice is either the War Table or nothing at all; there's really no way considering there are hundreds of War Tables missions for them all to be given that much attention.

[Addictress]

No, they really couldn't.  Not all of them, anyway.  You're talking about making something 100s of hours longer while we "show" the spies ferreting out information on Varric's book being "pirated", or Leliana's assassins dealing with the assassins after Josephine, all of that is literally hundreds of hours long.  The note from the Warden takes 18 hours to complete.  So we're going to watch an 18 hour cutscene of what, exactly?  Are we going to watch 2 months of repairs being done on a Keep?  This is, essentially, what you're asking for, to see all this "busy work" that goes into making the war table seem like a living entity of it's own.  There is literally not enough money in the budget for that, and there's no way to recoup the cost, because it's going to price the game so high that few would buy it.  After all, none of these resources are free.

*sigh* you wouldn't show an 18-hour cut scene. You only need like... a three-frame cut scene to introduce something. And yeah, those supplementary busy work quests shouldn't take up resources, that is true. But the introductions to each major region at least should've been animated.

[Addictress]

The game is neither a book, nor a movie. The game can be entirely visual but it doesn't have to - it's an interactive medium that relies on many devices to tell a story: lines of dialogue, cinematics, environments, gameplay and yes - text as well.

 

Also - show me which movie lasts up to 100 hours, like Inquisition does? Which movie is interactive, like a game??? There are no long texts in movies plainly because the movie has no time to spend on presenting text. Hence you don't see much of it.

 

 

And the fact that you want to see a text in a game doesn't yet make it an inferior way of telling a story in a game - especially that, save tutorials or things like menu, a great majority of this text exists in entirely fitting, immersive format of documents and books, or scrolls or written pieces that are entirely appropriate to the world (if it was a game set in a stone age, when people haven't yet invented written text, then it could be a problem). It's not just pure, unadorned exposition that exists somewhere outside of the game.

 

Heck, even WOT 1 and 2 that are not part of the game are still pretty great examples of "showing, not telling" through text, because they take the format and nature of a text written from an in-game perspective, riddled with biases and unreliable narration.

It is a matter of proportion. The text is unlocking very critical aspects of the plot.

 

Text has its place in games. It should not be a manner for narrative instigation but rather a user-interface tool and reserved for supplementary codex, or letters. A few letters can even be plot-critical. But unlocking huge segments of narrative through text feels cheap.

[midnight tea]

 Part of what I want in my story telling is a personal connection. Yes, we see that the village of Crestwood is being besieged. And yes, our role in the game is to bring order and stability, so of course we want to help. But I don't feel any personal connection to the village. The only person of any note is the mayor, and while his story is interesting, I would have preferred more characters to interact with and get to know. Same in Sahrnia, only the leader has any real story to her. In Val Royeux there is no one notable. In Redcliffe village there's no one really interesting. I view this as telling not showing, because it's up to us as players to invest any personal interest in saving/defending these places. Otherwise it becomes very detached and a check list: did we save the small town in this region in order to stabilize the area? Yes, good let's move on.

 

I know this fits more with the military theme of the Inquisition, so it's not realistic to expect such a personal connection. But that's a reason why I liked the more personal stories in DAO and DA2. DAI has huge themes of faith and power, but we barely interact with anyone to see how these themes actually relate to people. It's all too distanced.

 

Well, you've just answered yourself as to why many things are the way they are. The distance between Inquisition and the people is actually a team that is actively explored in the game. You may not like it, but the way things are portrayed actually serve the story.

 

 

How is this different from DAI? Other than the change in Crestwood and JOH maps, I didn't see environmental story telling. Yes, the maps were better and visually more engaging, but I didn't feel they served to support the narrative more than another game.

 

I cannot even stress just how much more environmental storytelling there is in DAI compared to DAO. It's on such different level I can only express confusion that you don't see any of it. Perhaps it stems from the fact that I'm a visual artist so I simply pay attention to such things, so I see it pouring from everywhere, but I cannot even begin to start to list examples of environmental storytelling in each zone, from tiny little things (an enemy's skeleton pinned to the practice target with arrows in Exalted Planes) to absolutely huge clues (basalt columns exist anywhere there is a Titan. In Deep Roads section of Trespasser, or all along Strom Coast, under which Descent takes place. There are also basalt columns in the Hinterlands, especially close to Vallamar. Conclusion - there's a Titan under Hinterlands and it's probable that it's Blighted).

[AnimalBoy]

Doesn't bother me either way. I'm someone who plays video games to experience the story, the characters and get from start to end. I play as myself playing the game, i don't become my character. I fight and kill the bad guys, i don't use tactics or positioning to do so. I just kill them. It would seem that my way of playing is in the minority around here but as long as i get a game with good characters and a good story and i can beat it i don't care how they style it.

[Abyss108]

Do you even know what telling not showing means?

 

Yes, it's a very basic term taught in highschool English Literature classes, which refers to how things should be shown through description rather than stated by the author. 

 

Eg. "His eyes lit up", rather than "He felt happy".

 

It has nothing to do with the medium the information is presented in, and can be used in movies or games as well. For example, a character in a movie could state to another character that she was happy, rather than showing it through body language or actions. Same in a game. You can argue whether the specific text presented shows or tells, but it does not tell by simple virtue of being text.