I simply don''t understand the purpose of a story or backstory for a game. I have never experienced the joy of a backstory. I have always skipped the ''to read'' stuff. I recently talked with my brother about this and he mentioned that he can enjoy such a story and that he likes it like that as he gets immersed in the gameworld and then takes off. This was about certain rpg''s not fps. For fps he acknowledged that a backstory does not make sence when I told him that while playing Max Payne I don''t feel Max Payne nor do I feel hurt now and am angry because they killed my wife and son. I just like the shooting and the suspence and some cool action. So while designing a game I simply do not create a story attached to it, I create the world, and how it will work, and hiow it will look. I want the people when starting the game to get started as quick as possible, choose a character and go. And the world will reveal it''s depth and possible actions. So, if someone could convince me of the worthiness of a story or backstory for the gameworld, please do so as I would better understand this phenomenon.

A game without a story, is like a book with no words....... you just go through empty page after empty page until your fingers go numb and the fun wears off.....

[edited by - Crawl on June 22, 2002 4:07:31 PM]

the purpose of the story is to immerse the character. I want to know about the characters, i want to care about what happens to them. If something affects them, i want to know. A story makes a game believable. I find it hard to believe that, in doom, only 1 marine survived an alien onslaught, and defeated like 600 enemies. Thats just stupid. I want to know about the history of the whole damned planet if possible. I want to be immersed.

A game like tetris doesnt need a plot, a game life final fantasy does

For me, a story or set of stories help me get immersed in the worlds created. I love the feel of discovering new worlds so when I find a cool one I want to find out all about it.

For instance, for me the world of Baldurs Gate is extremely fun because it is fairly consistent, with mighty heroes and what have you, but I couldn't care less about the actual character that I'm supposed to be playing. For similar reasons I love it when you get rare items with their own back stories, it all adds to the world.

Also, novels/shorts with multiple stories set in a detailed world (e.g. Dune, Forgotten Realms) really excite me.

For a while I really got into going to RPG rulesets websites and finding out all about the worlds they were set in, reading as much as I could, purely for the world aspect.

Game/book stories with shallow world settings focusing only on characters, while I can find them enjoyable are ultimately discardable. OTOH, deep, rich, detailed worlds I will come back to again and again, and will always remember fondly.

EDIT: I'll never be a writer

[edited by - JuNC on June 22, 2002 5:12:50 PM]

May I ask how old you are? Just curious since I''ve noticed that younger people tend to enjoy the more visceral and superficial elements to games, while older folks tend to be more absorbed in the nuances and setting of a game.

Me personally, almost all FPS games are the same, with the only major differences being the weapons, certain ballistic calculations and the level design (and of course visual quality). For me what makes FPS more or less enjoyable is the background. For example, the background to Return to Castle Wolfenstein immediately caused me to shy away from it, but I loved MOH:AA. I will also immediately buy Hidden and Dangerous 2 when it comes out, simply because I like the setting.

FPS games tend to be about action but even here story and game backdrop can be important. I think they are more important to other genres like you mentioned, but I see it like this: it can never hurt to have a detailed and interesting storyline, but it can hurt if there is no story or or a stupid one

Well, simply put, story and backstory, plot, dialouge, Its all there to make the game more interesting. On a less shallow level, its there to create a sense of mystery so that rather than just trying to see around the next corner, the player has the natural human tendancy "curiosity" driving the game. This concept isn''t new. In fact, the whole idea as been in use since the days of the poet or poets called "Homer" that sang the Iliad and the Odyssey. Everybody would listen because the singing was entertaining, and they wanted to know what happens next to Odyseus.

Important to note, since this is a game development forum. Back Story, story plot, they''re all great, however, they have to be done carefully for it to work. Xenogears, a PSX RPG, had a far more interesting backstory, and managed to do it with less words than Starcraft, the PC RTS that we all know and love, did. The careful element to note is MYSTERY. Without the mystery, then 30 missions of similiar purpose or 80 hours of great rpg play are both equally worthless and boring. We''d all switch games after 1 or 2 hours.

-> Will Bubel
-> Machine wash cold, tumble dry.

Not to kick story in the head, but...

If you''ve read anything out there that''s acknowledged to be good for its field (mainstream fiction, SF, true crime, whatever) you''ll quickly see that most game stories couldn''t hold a candle to your favorite book. Furthermore, it seems that most designers/writers are ridiculously ignorant of established writing concepts like theme, coherent plot, pacing, and symmetry.

Ostensibly, stories are there to draw us along and give our actions meaning. The story is trying to give us a sense that the game is actually going somewhere. But after playing so many mission / story games, I''ve come to the conclusion that, since most designers / game writers can''t seem to write their way out of a paper bag, I''m no longer interested in where the story is going. So I''ve gone to Xen to kill the big ugly monster... so I''m the son of Baal... so I''ve been accused of murder and exiled out into the Fringe... so I''ve travelled all over Europe just to kill Heinrich... none of this really means anything...

It would be different if the writing was actually interesting. Or, if I weren''t limited to linear choices, and could make decisions (even bad ones) where I have to play out the consequences. Or, if they weren''t bracketed by fail and restart gameplay which not only has me repeating the same tenditious cutscene, but has me completely unimmersed should I be past the third try (you know, the point where you start shotgunning the stupid mission briefing advisor, because you don''t care anymore?).

Now that I know that bloated cutscenes and voiced-over "briefing information" steal time away from developer''s efforts to add smarter AI, more novel gameplay options, and more responsive game worlds, I find myself somewhat resenting games that are essentially what I played years ago, but with a different story (and gfx). We''re past the wow of DVD and CD-ROM and Siliwood, and no matter how many times a game tries to start up looking like a theater movie, I know that in most cases those doing the writing aren''t going to be able to pull off anything approximating theater.

So I''m with MarcDM in this case: Better a large, engaging world, and a game that quickly lets you jump right into it. At least until we get out of the land of B-movie game stories...






--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

Hmm I regret that nobody posted with an opposite opinion on this. For I, I will simply not create a story, a background story of my world. The emphasis will be on play, what you can do there, how everything is related and how you can impact the world and other players, what kind of society will grow there, how it will work, how the political system will be, ec... .

People who play my game and enjoy it will talk to other people about how they are a leader of a community there, how they battle for success, what relations they have with the other community leaders, who''s the most powerfull, and a myriad of other things.

I create a framework where stories, grand stories, grand experiences! they had through their actions!! can grow.

I think that here is a big divide between two different sort of games. The story ones tend to be lineair.The ''create world/environment'' ones tend to be open-ended. Although the first will remaine to exist the latter is the one with huge potential and extremely big growth. There will pop-up incredibly dynamic worlds that everyone wants to experience. They will be like a virtual world where you come back and back.

Storytelling as telling a story, a one way giving of information, is not the way to go for this medium. This medium allows for telling a story through the working of the gamerules, worldrules. They experience the rules through action. The rules decide what meanings, gameplay dynamics, situations will be experienced by the players. That way you make it possible that people experience great things. You create WORLDS not stories!!

- MarcDM

Normally, I don''t play games for the stories. To me, the point of a game is to provide entertainment. Even when playing an rpg, I normally don''t bother concentrating on the stories, as they can be long (some of the final fantasy stories, an example). Needless to say, some story is needed. But nothing to large. When I want to be immersed in a complex story, I read a book.

If this question is not meant to be a joke,
I can imagine what kind of movies you watch...

btw:
Well, of course, the story about Max Payne is nothing
new, but I liked it, and the way they arranged the game
arround it, the music, the dialogs with some gangsters etc.
All this gave me the feeling of these old b/w "detective movies",
and I think this is exactly what the creators of this game
want.
Games like QuakeIII have no chance to get installed on
my computer, at least no longer than 20 minutes for testing
the demo, to see how it looks like.
I''m tired of such mindless shooting, it''s lame, as brilliant
as the graphics may be.

Games like Max Payne are a bit of a "role playing" game.
(maybe not the understanding of "role play game" as most of you
have, maybe more the direct meaning of the words)
However, the player doesn''t get confronted with some
rather complex game elements that RPG''s have, but get''s
nontheless fascinated by the story and its athmosphere,
ie by watching such things like relationships between persons
as kind of movie sequences here and there.
That has the effect that, people (like me) play the game
who don''t have the time nor are willing to get into these
really complex and time consuming games,
but want to delve into "foreign worlds", or scenarios
from their favorite type of movies, for two or three hours.

Think about this:
If games had no story, especially shooting games,
what would remain? Shooting. What was the difference between
the games? Nothing (but the graphics engine).
The reason why crap like Q3a doesn''t get onto my hdd.