Gaming, a medium told entirely in second person?

I just read the trope page for Morrowind.

I really like the rare RPG that uses sidequests to create context for or alter the main story.

It gives the protagonist a reason to stop and do these things.

Where as most sidequests in RP Gs(both eastern and western) are just "do random stuff for people you don't have any reason to care about", which just come off as a bunch of boring Filler episodes.

Umbran Climax◊

Yep, few have tried that sort of thing, as I said.

In regards to my little test, there are only three total cutscenes in Morrowind (not counting the expansions). One is the intro, and doesn't really mess up my test. The other two respectively mark the halfway point and the end of the main quest.

At every other point in the game, the player is in control.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

Most sidequests for me come off as "Do this random thing for money" which is perfect justification for me.

And I don't really mind those quests that don't reward you (Which are rare, at least in the games I play)

But then, I'm a weirdo that does charity stuff. Or did, rather.

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."

@Jotun, last page: You have to compare Half Life to the notable FPS games that came before it:

Doom put us in the shoes of an unnamed Space Marine who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and then ends up shooting his way through nasties until killing the final boss. Quake put us in the shoes of another Space Marine who ventures forth into the breach and shoots his way through nasties until killing the final boss. For the more narrative-y bits, we only got text screens in both games.

Half Life came along and changed all that. Instead of playing as a military bad-ass, you're thrust into the role of an unwitting scientist who is only alive thanks to his job-mandated Power Armor and is also directly involved in a rather Doom-esque catastrophe (Doom had aliens invading through a teleporter disaster, Half-Life had aliens invading when a theoretical physics experiment went horribly wrong), but whereas Doom used said catastrophe in the backstory, HL made the player witness it. Then, instead of starting out with a gun, the player had to initially make do with a crowbar-an unlikely weapon. Then, instead of text screens, we have the level design being used to convey what's going on around the player (Black Mesa being destroyed thanks to the alien invasion), set pieces involving NPCs to help progress the narrative and other bits of scenery such as the Marine radio message giving the order to pull out and the G-Man randomly appearing and disappearing.

It sounds not-so-unique now because narrative in games has improved since then.

edited 23rd Sep '11 4:30:32 PM by RocketDude

"Hipsters: the most dangerous gang in the US." - Pacific Mackerel

You're not giving game narratives enough credit if you think Half-Life was ever a pinnacle of writing in the industry.

The series gets lots of credit for how immersive it was, but the actual writing was just adequate.

Sorry if I come off as a Half-Life hater or anything, I'm not. It's one of my favorite gaming series, and this is coming from someone who doesn't play FP Ss all too often.

edited 23rd Sep '11 5:59:11 PM by JotunofBoredom

Umbran Climax◊

Eh, I like the Portal series better myself, but that's due to them getting a different writer.

Admittedly, though, the world of Half Life 2 interested me quite a bit back before I even got the Orange Box.

edited 23rd Sep '11 5:36:42 PM by RocketDude

"Hipsters: the most dangerous gang in the US." - Pacific Mackerel

There's a time when I tried thinking of game ideas that's based on the separation of player and the player character. There was a surprisingly large amount of space to play in there, particularly if you consider the player view to be another entity.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.

I presume you mean other than Deadpool-esque antics, which is typically how it gets played when it does come up.

edited 23rd Sep '11 5:52:43 PM by TotemicHero

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

I'm not quite sure what that'll be, but one of the ideas is to have the camera be a first-person view of a certain character, but the player themself plays another character that the first character is watching, for example. There's actually already a game that does something similar to this, although I think it does have some potential.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.

Lemme guess. You're referring to Assassins Creed?

edited 23rd Sep '11 6:02:59 PM by JotunofBoredom

Umbran Climax◊

No. I'm talking about an old PS 2 game by, I think, Konami. The character you "control" and the character who's eyes you look through are two separate characters.

Although now that I think of it, Super Mario 64 did the same thing.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.

Oh I thought you were talking about how, when Desmond is inside the animus, the player is actually in the first person view looking at one of Desmond's ancestors.

Umbran Climax◊

When I came up with the idea, the current console generation didn't exist yet.

...Although that idea was a bit of series I was thinking what kind of games are possible that don't utilise a save system.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.

I do remember a game back in the day called Omikron, where the player's view was stated to be basically the player's soul inhabiting an NPC's body. This also allowed you to instantly escape to another NPC's body if you got "killed".

edited 23rd Sep '11 6:22:21 PM by Fluid

I was all ready and set to agree with Totemic about how games need to harness interactive storytelling better, but then I heavily disagree with the idea of being able to walk around during a cutscene for the sake of interactivity. Agency is the one true thing that differentiates gaming from other media, yeah, but throwing it in just cuz usually doesn't end well. See Assassins Creed 1 where you get to walk around while Altair and Al Mulalim chat, but the only thing you can really do is make it so Altair has his back to Al Mulalim while the camera has a dramatic close up.

The interaction has to do something. I'm not talking about choice. My favorite example of something like this would be the microwave tunnel in MGS 4, where it's just a glorified split screen cutscene where all you have to do is mash one button, but because the mashing tempo had to increase over time while both movies climaxed, you got an even deeper feeling of anxiety as it was going and catharsis when it was all over.

Alternatively, Jason Rohrer's Passage, which is just you walking around obstacles from the left side of the screen to the right side of the screen. But as you progress, your character's appearance gets older. Eventually you pick up a wife and both of you start walking around those obstacles getting older, and sometimes those tunnels are too narrow for both of you to get thruogh, so you have to pick a different path. And you can always just go back and not age, but you won't finish the "game." (i mean let's be honest, it's not really a game so much as an experience, but then again, all media is about experience)

In regards to Morrowind, I haven't played it, but I do think that one of the biggest advantages gaming has in storytelling is in world building. In other media, you have someone, be it a narrator or a character, having to tell you about history or backstory or whatever. Ideally, you get a flashback or a setting devoted to some piece of the world. But the thing is, if you want to actually look around the world to answer any questions you have, you're out of luck and just have to hope the author's got your back. In a game, you're free to wander around and discover things as you please.

"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." Twitter

I agree that gaming storytelling only truly shines when they can make the player and the character experience the same feeling (ie: the microwave example). Personally, being able to walk around during cutscenes just makes me feel even less in control than otherwise, since they tend to make you trapped in a room until it's over. The sensation of being able to act yet not having anything meaningful to interact with is pretty terrible really. Might work well for a prison sequence though.

I'd say less feeling and more understanding.

Umbran Climax◊

You keep forgetting about the power of hindsight.

In Half Life, a new player back in 1998 wouldn't know how much about these typical scripted set pieces, let alone how they would end. Putting that together with the fact that the game leaves control in the player's hands would quickly give the impression that the player always has to be ready for something to happen.

It's easy to look back and say "oh, that sounds boring", but we have over a decade's worth of perspective on the game. Seinfeld Is Unfunny is in full effect.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

That doesn't sound like a problem in hindsight, though; that just sounds like a misuse of agency in "story" segments and awful use of the medium. Ideally, you should keep giving players control during those segments only if you plan on having something awful happen at one point or another to interrupt them. Then that interactivity actually had a point beyond "for the sake interactivity."

"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." Twitter

You're just making it sound like people were impressed with the novelty of it, rather than whether or not it worked well.

edited 23rd Sep '11 7:28:07 PM by JotunofBoredom

Umbran Climax◊

Well, you can't just have interruptions every single scripted segment. That's just as boringly predictable as having no interruptions at all. That's why control was always there, even if nothing happened; to keep the player on their toes. And you can't argue it didn't work, given how successful Half Life was.

If they were impressed by the novelty of it, it worked. That's kind of the whole point of doing something novel in the first place.

There's a difference between watching a video of a game and actually playing the game.

edited 23rd Sep '11 7:32:01 PM by TotemicHero

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

Honestly, when I'm watching videos of games (usually RPG videos are the worst offenders) the single most immersion-breaking thing is when the player initiates a conversation, and then wanders away. For starters, you should not be able to hear them clear as day once you move away from them. But also, no one would start a conversation, and then start running around the room. Allowing you control during what should be a cutscene breaks the experience, in my opinion.

I didn't say you should have interruptions in every event. I said that you should have them "at one point or another."

Dunno how you managed to interpret that as "every single time there is interaction have an attack."

Essentially, all I am doing is extrapolating off the idea of Chekhov's gun, except instead, it's more of a chekhov's skill for the player. If they have the ability to run in a cutscene in act 1, they sure as hell better use that running in act 3.

"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." Twitter

At the start of this gen, the mainstream console press was still impressed by the illusion of choice and binary morality meters.

Still doesn't make them inherently good.

Umbran Climax◊

To be fair, novelty is pretty important in attracting and surprising people in all forms of media. It's why we value playing with tropes.

But if you use novelty as a crutch it becomes a gimmick.

"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." Twitter