Mechanics that you want

[dondon151]

I mean, it does take kind of a budget to do more than static pictures talking at each other, and it's not like the first 8 games in the series had the adequate hardware to do much better anyway.

[Celice]

It's not really influence when it's a noose through which the player is forced to proceed. Nothing new arrives because everything is prepared for the player. They have no action which contributes to the experience--they can only initiate the next checkpoint, and be victim to the game. There is no level at which the player is equally in control of the game as the game is, no chance for the player to actually partake. It's a roller coaster, and it goes only where it's been led to go.

Words at least allow ones interpretive meaning to take place, which puts the reader in complete control of the experience. They must react to the text, not be victim to it. There's no reaction in Zelda. There's only repetitious procedure.

[Momo]

I mean, it does take kind of a budget to do more than static pictures talking at each other, and it's not like the first 8 games in the series had the adequate hardware to do much better anyway.

You're saying showing and not telling was not possible before the Gamecube?

[dondon151]

You're saying showing and not telling was not possible before the Gamecube?

No, that's not what I'm saying. You seem to have a strange habit of putting words into others' mouths.

[Momo]

You just said the first eight games did not have the adequate hardware to do such things. The ninth game is on the Gamecube.

That simply isn't true anyway, since games like Chrono Trigger have existed for decades.

[bottlegnomes]

Don't feel like quoting, so here goes.

So let me get this straight, Banzai. You think LoZ and the Metroid series (since Prime isn't any different than any of the others in terms of story, save Fusion) have the best stories because the main characters aren't defined, but you think having a character's personality be changeable depending on player choices, like in our previous splitting paths discussion, makes the story completely terrible in every way? The only difference is how much the player inserts him-/herself into the shoes of the main character.

Also, the reason people say "oh no Eirika's about to die" is because there is more than one playable character in the game, and you control multiple ones at the same time. In Devil May Cry, Dante still has a very defined personality, but when you're about to lose, you don't say "oh no Dante's about to die," you say "oh no I'm about to die." Even in DMC3 and 4, you still had the same feeling, though you could play as Dante or Vergil/Nero. It's entirely to do with how many characters you control directly.

Guess what? Those guys writing the greatest stories usually spent years writing them, often over 10. Video games don't have that much time. If they do, they end up as dated flops like Duke Nukem Forever or the new Wolfenstein. You usually have 5 years, being rather generous, to: come up with a story that has servicable gameplay, design everything in the game, consult with the people programming the game to see if what you want to do is possible, and actually make the game. That's a lot more work, though it is divided up, than putting words on paper. Also, writers commonly go to friends/associates for help with their works. Shakespeare often consulted with Marlowe on his works. Now, basically every book published has gone through several, at least, revisions from editors to improve them. 99% of things aren't made by one person alone.

I agree that the best way to tell a story is through gameplay, but that's quite difficult to balance properly, and more important (necessary to have well balanced) than something like unit balance in FE.

And finally, Othin, if gameplay is so easy to develop to a passable standard, why do games like Superman 64 exist? In some cases, it is just the game is a cheap cash in attempt by a studio, but in other cases, the people wanted to make a legitimately good game, but didn't have the knowledge, skills, resources, etc., to do so. Comparing a FF game to something is silly because FF has a massive budget, and has for a long time, while there are plenty of studios that have significantly less money to spend on multiple projects.

[General Banzai]

It's not really influence when it's a noose through which the player is forced to proceed. Nothing new arrives because everything is prepared for the player. They have no action which contributes to the experience--they can only initiate the next checkpoint, and be victim to the game. There is no level at which the player is equally in control of the game as the game is, no chance for the player to actually partake. It's a roller coaster, and it goes only where it's been led to go.

Words at least allow ones interpretive meaning to take place, which puts the reader in complete control of the experience. They must react to the text, not be victim to it. There's no reaction in Zelda. There's only repetitious procedure.

Well I wrote a huge big post and it got eaten. So let me say it again summarized.

The player is not forced to proceed in early Zeldas. Sure, the game won't end until you have all the Triforce pieces. But the player isn't supposed to know where those pieces are. Finding them is part of the adventure. The player isn't told where to go and what to do (unlike in newer Zelda games). What do you expect? That the player is given the opportunity to both hide the Triforce and then find it? Do note that the original people playing this game wouldn't have known that the pieces were hidden in dungeons guarded by bosses. There was no genre-savvy precedent that all we hardcores know so well today.

There's no repetitious procedure in old Zelda because the player does not know what the procedure is. They create the procedure instead. They may go to the cemetery or the forest or the mountains. Yes, the Triforce is and will only ever be in the forest. That doesn't detract from the player's creation of the story.

Compare to modern Zeldas where everything is perfectly spelled out. There's a map with a big blinking indicator light, there's a little fairy constantly reminding you where to go, there are NPCs saying "go here, do that". It strips the experience. It truly does make the game repetitious procedure. In my ideal Fire Emblem there would be no stated objectives. Perhaps the objective is to rout the enemy but there's a throne on the map. You go for the throne thinking that seizing it will end the fight but not so; seizing it merely causes a whole new wave of reinforcements to appear to try and reclaim it. Or perhaps you're faced which a huge amount of enemies that you think you have to rout, but in truth you only need to survive 10 turns and the fight ends. Or even better--perhaps there were a variety of ways to end the fight. Perhaps using different strategies you can win the battle in different ways, none of those which are known to the player. There would be huge, FE4-size maps, but without the FE4 nausea of fifty castles which you must capture in a specific order after specific plot-related events are fulfilled.

[bottlegnomes]

Well I wrote a huge big post and it got eaten. So let me say it again summarized.

The player is not forced to proceed in early Zeldas. Sure, the game won't end until you have all the Triforce pieces. But the player isn't supposed to know where those pieces are. Finding them is part of the adventure. The player isn't told where to go and what to do (unlike in newer Zelda games). What do you expect? That the player is given the opportunity to both hide the Triforce and then find it? Do note that the original people playing this game wouldn't have known that the pieces were hidden in dungeons guarded by bosses. There was no genre-savvy precedent that all we hardcores know so well today.

There's no repetitious procedure in old Zelda because the player does not know what the procedure is. They create the procedure instead. They may go to the cemetery or the forest or the mountains. Yes, the Triforce is and will only ever be in the forest. That doesn't detract from the player's creation of the story.

Compare to modern Zeldas where everything is perfectly spelled out. There's a map with a big blinking indicator light, there's a little fairy constantly reminding you where to go, there are NPCs saying "go here, do that". It strips the experience. It truly does make the game repetitious procedure. In my ideal Fire Emblem there would be no stated objectives. Perhaps the objective is to rout the enemy but there's a throne on the map. You go for the throne thinking that seizing it will end the fight but not so; seizing it merely causes a whole new wave of reinforcements to appear to try and reclaim it. Or perhaps you're faced which a huge amount of enemies that you think you have to rout, but in truth you only need to survive 10 turns and the fight ends. Or even better--perhaps there were a variety of ways to end the fight. Perhaps using different strategies you can win the battle in different ways, none of those which are known to the player. There would be huge, FE4-size maps, but without the FE4 nausea of fifty castles which you must capture in a specific order after specific plot-related events are fulfilled.

So you basically want a game that will frustrate a lot of people because they'll have no idea what to do and have to resort to wandering around aimlessly for a long time or using a guide? I also think you underestimate early Zelda players. After the wandered into the first dungeon and found a piece of the triforce, or at most a couple, I have a feeling they'd figure out that the pieces are in dungeons guarded by bosses and the only thing left is to actually find the dungeons.

Also, all this talk of integrating story and you don't bring up Myst?

Edited January 26, 2012 by bottlegnomes

[Lord Raven]

Would you say it's better than 95% of all video game writing, like Banzai said?

I'm saying some of it is written well enough to make me feel stuff (unlike many video games) so sometimes yes and sometimes no. The point is that you have no right to call someone delusional over their belief.

FE lacks the "show don't tell" portion which detracts from it, I agree. But there are times where the writing falls flat, and there are times where the writing does a good job of working around the fact that it can only tell and not show. And there are portions that made me feel things which is the most important thing- take for example the ending to FE8 where the twins first met Lyon.

And once again this is all subjective. There is a science to storytelling which an English professor taught me but I do not subscribe to that. I still think the games are more well-written than many games I have played and to call me delusional for that is ridiculous.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Mercenary Raven

[uguu]

Would you say it's better than 95% of all video game writing, like Banzai said?

I think Fire Emblem is written badly and I would still argue this

[Othin]

And finally, Othin, if gameplay is so easy to develop to a passable standard, why do games like Superman 64 exist? In some cases, it is just the game is a cheap cash in attempt by a studio, but in other cases, the people wanted to make a legitimately good game, but didn't have the knowledge, skills, resources, etc., to do so. Comparing a FF game to something is silly because FF has a massive budget, and has for a long time, while there are plenty of studios that have significantly less money to spend on multiple projects.

Seems unresponsive controls and involving just one thing to do ever are the things that ruined Superman 64's gameplay. Those are not problems any remotely competent game maker would face regardless of budget. I could make a game using basic game making programs that could avoid those issues and have the baseline competent gameplay level necessary.

FFVI's budget is irrelevant. It would not take a large budget to get gameplay that matches the basic results it turned out to have. That is all that matters here.

---

Olimar from the Pikmin series is quite possibly the most developed character in all of fiction. I would say that stands as a testament to what video game stories are capable of.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Othin

[Anouleth]

I didn't say shit about creative vision.

Actually, you did.

FE lacks the "show don't tell" portion which detracts from it, I agree. But there are times where the writing falls flat, and there are times where the writing does a good job of working around the fact that it can only tell and not show. And there are portions that made me feel things which is the most important thing- take for example the ending to FE8 where the twins first met Lyon.

I don't think that FE really has a problem with telling instead of showing. Take, I don't know, FE10. The game doesn't "tell" you that the senators are evil. It shows you.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Anouleth

[Refa]

I'd say with a couple of exceptions, the writing is pretty terrible and generic. The storytelling consists of static portraits throwing words at each other.

That doesn't even have anything to do with writing. Unless you're being nonsequteur again. "Fire Emblem has lame writing, WHY CAN'T IT HAVE MORE CG CUTSCENES?!"

I think Fire Emblem is written badly and I would still argue this

You have an opinion on the internet and want to argue about it, congragulations, would you like cake with that?

FFVI's budget is irrelevant. It would not take a large budget to get gameplay that matches the basic results it turned out to have. That is all that matters here.

Yes, obviously because all RPG gameplay is derived from a fucking boardgame. The basic gameplay of any RPG is not big budget by nature. FFVI taken as an aggregate was big budget for its time, because surprise surprise, a game's made out of something rather than just pure gameplay. If pure gameplay was all we cared about, we'd all be playing NetHack.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Refa

[I.M. Gei]

That doesn't even have anything to do with writing. Unless you're being nonsequteur again. "Fire Emblem has lame writing, WHY CAN'T IT HAVE MORE CG CUTSCENES?!"

If you're going to call someone out on making non sequiturs, at least spell the damn word right.

[Othin]

Yes, obviously because all RPG gameplay is derived from a fucking boardgame. The basic gameplay of any RPG is not big budget by nature. FFVI taken as an aggregate was big budget for its time, because surprise surprise, a game's made out of something rather than just pure gameplay. If pure gameplay was all we cared about, we'd all be playing NetHack.

Precisely my point.

[General Banzai]

I don't think that FE really has a problem with telling instead of showing. Take, I don't know, FE10. The game doesn't "tell" you that the senators are evil. It shows you.

I don't think whoever made the original point about "showing versus telling" actually knows what that is.

So you basically want a game that will frustrate a lot of people because they'll have no idea what to do and have to resort to wandering around aimlessly for a long time or using a guide? I also think you underestimate early Zelda players. After the wandered into the first dungeon and found a piece of the triforce, or at most a couple, I have a feeling they'd figure out that the pieces are in dungeons guarded by bosses and the only thing left is to actually find the dungeons.

Also, all this talk of integrating story and you don't bring up Myst?

There's a difference between not telling someone what to do and being opaque. The original LoZ has several really stupid hidden things which require burning down random bushes, bombing random walls, walking through random walls; uncreative "puzzles" that the game could have down without. But in Zelda you always know what you're supposed to be doing; finding the Triforce and killing Ganon. An ambiguity of how exactly you do that wouldn't make the game frustratingly difficult unless the game itself is frustratingly difficult to begin with.

Same goes for my hypothetical FE game. The authorial influence would make it clear that your foes are trying to kill you. Thus, even if you don't know specifically how to end the fight, you would have a pretty good idea.

And I haven't played Myst in ages, don't know if I can discuss it.

[Paperblade]

I can think of no example where player/reader responses and reactions can influence the course of a story or the personality of a character except in video games. [...]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabletop_rpg

Also, I would argue that just telling the player "Hey you need to go save the kingdom from the Whatevers" without giving them any idea where the Whatevers are in relation to them is very, very annoying. It is possibly the most annoying thing in a video game.

[CrashGordon94]

I would personally hate this idea, I want to know the objectives!

[bottlegnomes]

Seems unresponsive controls and involving just one thing to do ever are the things that ruined Superman 64's gameplay. Those are not problems any remotely competent game maker would face regardless of budget. I could make a game using basic game making programs that could avoid those issues and have the baseline competent gameplay level necessary.

FFVI's budget is irrelevant. It would not take a large budget to get gameplay that matches the basic results it turned out to have. That is all that matters here.

---

Olimar from the Pikmin series is quite possibly the most developed character in all of fiction. I would say that stands as a testament to what video game stories are capable of.

But if you want to do something more than just copy an existing game's gameplay, you can't just have premade gameplay. Then there's also the problem of actually implementing it, which takes a lot of testing to make sure everything works properly (coding is a fickle bitch). As for you doing it, go ahead. How about you make a completely playable, enjoyable game that doesn't simply copy another game's gameplay in, say, 6 months. As for replicating FF6, yeah it'd be easy now, since it's already been done and technology has progressed a lot so the hardware would have no problem supporting it.

As for Olimar, can't say. Haven't played Pikmin much. But he did have a lot of exposition, through his log, so that's really not much different than most other games.

Precisely my point.

You're oversimplifying gameplay design and implementation. There are a lot of games with bad gameplay. And it's not for lack of care on the designers'/developers' part.

There's a difference between not telling someone what to do and being opaque. The original LoZ has several really stupid hidden things which require burning down random bushes, bombing random walls, walking through random walls; uncreative "puzzles" that the game could have down without. But in Zelda you always know what you're supposed to be doing; finding the Triforce and killing Ganon. An ambiguity of how exactly you do that wouldn't make the game frustratingly difficult unless the game itself is frustratingly difficult to begin with.

Same goes for my hypothetical FE game. The authorial influence would make it clear that your foes are trying to kill you. Thus, even if you don't know specifically how to end the fight, you would have a pretty good idea.

And I haven't played Myst in ages, don't know if I can discuss it.

I haven't played the first Zelda, so can't really say. The original Metroid could easily leave players frustrated and not knowing what to do/how to do it.

From the sounds of it, you want games to be more adventure based (like Myst). That is good since it helps incorporate the story, but not all games are supposed to be adventure games. It'd be like making a horror movie and trying to use the established formula for a rom-com.

As for your idea, I'd be willing to help design one if someone with more experience with patching is willing to work on implementing it. We could give it to the people on here and a couple of other sights and see what their reaction is. It might be good, and that's great, or it very possibly could be bad. It'd sort of go along with my idea of having one huge world map where you can go back and forth, like FE4 but on a bigger scale, and just having save points every so often, so no "chapters," more like Zelda but with FE gameplay.

Edited January 26, 2012 by bottlegnomes

[CrashGordon94]

On another note, I think it'd be cool if we had a Lord that promoted in a perfectly normal way (i.e. Master Seal or Level 21) like everybody else.

[Refa]

If you're going to call someone out on making non sequiturs, at least spell the damn word right.[/size]

Why do you feel the need to be pedantic? Why does me spelling the word wrong, as long as it is not mistaken for some other word or random gibberish, have ANY impact on my argument? What, does spelling non sequitur wrong display a fundamental lack of knowledge on the word?

[I.M. Gei]

Why do you feel the need to be pedantic? Why does me spelling the word wrong, as long as it is not mistaken for some other word or random gibberish, have ANY impact on my argument? What, does spelling non sequitur wrong display a fundamental lack of knowledge on the word?

You know, making dumb spelling errors like that make it that much harder to take your argument seriously, especially with your attitude.

[Thor Odinson]

On another note, I think it'd be cool if we had a Lord that promoted in a perfectly normal way (i.e. Master Seal or Level 21) like everybody else.

FE4 Gen2 had that, and it was nice. I can see why most previous Lords have forced promotions due to storyline reasons, but I don't see why not have a storyline where the lord can promote whenever fits into it.

[Othin]

But if you want to do something more than just copy an existing game's gameplay, you can't just have premade gameplay. Then there's also the problem of actually implementing it, which takes a lot of testing to make sure everything works properly (coding is a fickle bitch). As for you doing it, go ahead. How about you make a completely playable, enjoyable game that doesn't simply copy another game's gameplay in, say, 6 months. As for replicating FF6, yeah it'd be easy now, since it's already been done and technology has progressed a lot so the hardware would have no problem supporting it.

As for Olimar, can't say. Haven't played Pikmin much. But he did have a lot of exposition, through his log, so that's really not much different than most other games.

You're oversimplifying gameplay design and implementation. There are a lot of games with bad gameplay. And it's not for lack of care on the designers'/developers' part.

Indeed, there are games with bad gameplay. But based on your original point, you were saying that bad gameplay might be a result when focusing too much on story. Tell me: Do you know of that ever happening? Do you know of a game that failed because of gameplay being sacrificed for the sake of a good story to the point that it ruined peoples' ability to appreciate that story?

There's a bit more to Olimar than that. I'm curious what anyone who feels they have indeed played both Pikmin games enough to judge might have to say about that; I didn't intent the point to be directed at you specifically.

[Refa]

You know, making dumb spelling errors like that make it that much harder to take your argument seriously, especially with your attitude.

I'd be less mad if it didn't seem like you were nitpicking instead of actually reading what I had to say. I can't believe that someone's opinion on whether or not an argument is legitimate revolves around the spelling of "sequitur".

Edited January 26, 2012 by Refa