Actually - not all amnesiacal characters suck, *especially* in games, wherein this medium discovery and learning is one of the key aspects that can be used for fun, and a mirroring of this in the character can be an extremely good device when done properly.

Well, I agree with landfish.

Everyone can do best but there's a frensh 'sentence' that tells :' le mieux est l'ennemi du bien', translated it's about : 'best is the ennemy of good'.

This is very true, don't try to do BEST try to do GOOD.

This is a little bit different.

I also agree with Maitrek, a story can de good or bad, it really depends upon the story teller...

Games are games... well and movies are just movies ?
I don't agree a Game can be much more than a time waster thingy, you can send a message through it and tell things to people who are playing your game.

I will not have started to write a book and to design a game if I have no message to tell...


-* So many things to do, so little time to spend. *-

Edited by - Ingenu on September 6, 2000 8:39:47 AM

Mmmh, I dunno for sure if your post is good for the stake.
But I have some comments, and questions.

First of all, are you talking about the quality of writing as in "style", or about the quality of the plots as in "story". Because the difference is tremendous. The Lord of the Rings (to take an example), is not what I would call an exceptionnaly complicated plot. What makes it such a masterpiece is the quality of writing, the style, the lyrism, as well as the depth of the world the story evolves in.

OK, then about the Hollywood effect in the game industry. I read an interview of Chris Hecker the other day, and I thought he had some very good points. Basically one thing he said is, as long as the PC is the main used computer, we are gonna have all the big editors on our back, Hollywood style, tryign to manage the industry as a business, where the goal is to make moneeeeeeeeeey.
If the PC could go back to the amateur days, then maybe, we would have a bit more new ideas, risks taken, basically something more chaotic, and that would evolve, rather than a monolithic system where the evolutions are basically "do the same thing, only better".

I don''t think it has to do anything writers.

The lack of originality, the lack of depth, is really just a symptom of a much deeper decease. Doest it mean that we shouldn''t have better plots ? Of course not, but I don''t think you can change something that''s fundamentally broken by adding coats of shiny paint ... look at Windows ! I know you are not a programmer, but you must at least have some knowledge of DOS and Windows ?
DOS was a little Operating system developped by Microsoft. Then they realised that Apple was much much more user friendly, which meant more money, and so Windows was created. And it sucked *big time*. It was a layer of shiny polish on a piece of sh!t OS. It looked nice, it was much easier, but it made the situation worse. Then came all the versions of Windows... but never, ever, was the fundamental problem tackled, rather, everytime, Microsoft was trying to make something better, but compatible with the older sh!t they had done... thus slowing down their evolution, all this to keep their customers. Did they succeed ? Yes. Did they add something to the computing world... I honestly don''t think so. They jsut borrowed ideas here and there, and try to hammer those in their fuck3d up system...

What you are saying, getting better writers to improve the quality of games, is a noble effort indeed.
But we have an expression for this in France : you are trying to give jam to pigs. Oh yeah sure, there are people who are gonna appreciate the effort to its true value, but is it really gonna change something ? I don''t think so.
Now you are thinking, I am talking like a loser, well, probably. But what I am trying to say really, is that the problem is not to improve the quality of games.

The problem is to improve the audience.
The question I have is : why do we play games in the first place ? And then, how is this compatible with Art ?
It''s not a simple question, I have done enough Fine Arts study to realise that Art is not a funny thing, and I have played enough to realise that games are not artistic at all, even though they use sometimes some very artistic contents.

What we need before we improve games is to educate players !

I am sorry, but most graphics you see are not Artistic at all, in the sense that they don''t necessarily carry any intrinsic meaning, they are just a visual representation of something. It''s the same argument that all my art lecturers would give me when I showed them my painted miniatures, my drawings, etc. It was, as they call it :"illustration", not art, because it was a simple representation of something in my head, nothing more, no further meaning.
If you look at a Starcraft screenshoot, you don''t see the horror of war, you don''t see the meaninglessness of it, it doesn''t make you think "hey! couldn''t we find another way, couldn''t live in peace". Similarly, in an RPG, an evil character is plain evil, but meaningless. They don''t seem to have any *reasons* to be evil, they just are. They don''t make you wonder, you can''t identify yourself in them, which thus doesn''t teach you anything about good and bad, except that Good is good, and Bad is bad...

I said somewhere in those forums that it would be nice to make people ask themselves, make them *think*. Not about "how the heck do I get this key to open this door", or "how may more goblins do I need to kill if I want to get 30th level", but rather let them question their ethics, educate them...
As a scientific student (my cursus was mainly scientific), i was supposed to despise Philosophy. But quite surprisingly I found it very interesting, and an endless source of amusement when I would argue with my lecturer What Philosophy brought me, is the simple fact of questioning, arguing.
The only thing that is certain is that nothing is certain.

Now all this thinking bullsh!t is nice, you might say, but then this wouldn''t be games we would be talking about anymore, right ?
Well, precisely my point.
You are trying to mi two different things, and though I don''t say it''s undoable, I am saying that the difficulty are huge, and result most of the time in frustration. Because a game that tries to do philosophy will sound artsy fartsy to people who want fun, and will sound pseudo philosophic mumbo jumbo to people with a more cultural background.
It''s another problem of education, people don''t see what you did for them, they see what you didn''t ! The 12 years gamers won''t applause the fact that you added some clever content, rather they will despise you for the bad design, the playability hindered by too much dialogue, etc.
Of course, sometimes you will have this little jewel that will actually make it, somehow (I am thinking particularly at the Ultima series, especially the one where you discover that the Gargoyles are not evil at all).

Now, I have more to say, but I guess I lost most people already (me indcluded ), so maybe some comments ?
I realise I am playing the Devil''s advocate here, because I sound like "it will never work", but I am trying to be constructive, let me know what you think.

youpla :-P

ps : (I''ll comment on part II later)
pps : And yeah I know there are paradoxes and contradiction in my reasoning, but they say its because I am Scorpio, Taurus rising So I just don''t really care that much...

Wow. Okay then.

Sunandshadow, I actually do acknowledge the Writing Samples thread, though I can''t say I''ve read it all. I think that we need more stuff like that on this site, to address the very problems I was ranting about. Go to the Suggestions forum and post about the Writer''s forum. I''ve already placed my vote for you as a Mod.

Felonius, you are a king among men.

Paul, as far as I know, Geoff no longer contributes to GDNet because he is a phallus. In fact, he is apparantly causing problems for GDNet, so he can rot in hell. You''re right, it all comes down to respect. But try to remember the difference between being "good" and being a "professional".

Madkeith, Moth and all the rest...

The key here is not to be egotistical or selfish. Most of what I found wrong with Deus Ex was stuff that they had the budget and manpower to fix. Little things like direction and voice acting.

If you''re a shit hot programmer out to make a game, the best thing you can do is find a good designer to help hammer out a concept. The best thing you and that designer can do is find some good writers to make your game important. The best thing those writers can do is constantly check with the rest of the group to see that they''re making what everyone wants. That goes for everyone else too. And the best thing the whole lot of them can do is put someone pretty smart in charge of the whole thing to make sure it gets done!

This is a little like how good movies are made. Not formula Hollywood films, but the good stuff.

Matriek, buddy. The rebels are always the best. That philosophy could be applied to anything. But I have a question: Was Schindler''s List a good movie? Was it FUN?

ahw? Microsoft logicis not a good way to win an arguement with me! But really, you''re right. It''s not JUST the lack of competant writers, but that''s a big contributing factor.

ahw,
Sure, 12-year-olds probably won''t appreciate artistic content, but those wouldn''t be the target audience. Wouldn''t it be great if some games were meant to be like opera or plays? It would be considered "cultured" and "intellictual" to play games with artistic content.

It''s not going to happen over night by any means. It may never happen at all. Maybe it doesn''t need to happen to that extreme either. It would be an interesting goal nonetheless.







"NPC's are people too!" --dwarfsoft

"Nazrix is cool." --Nazrix first, then Darkmage

My opinion is this: video games are not books, and they are not movies. They should not be even compared, as the other two are passive entertainment, and games are interactive. Video games are not "behind", they are just new compared to books and movies. The first books were not imaginary stories, they were true stories (no creativity). The first movies were not even movies, they were moving pictures, and not even good ones at that. Video games need to be given time.

Also, I don''t think of games as art. Games are it''s own entity. Just because it conveys a message doesn''t make it art. Books stir emotions, but so does the guy who cuts you off in traffic. I view games as a creative field, but not as art, because you cannot directly involve yourself with art. In my ideal game, you impact the story, and make a difference in the imaginary lives of the "people" in the game. No other medium can even come close to that.

All that said, I do think that good writing can take games to another level. Done well, finishing a good game will feel even better than finishing a good book, because you made a difference. It not only gives the story and emotional satisfaction, but a feeling of accomplishment. Games should go beyond books and moves. Some day. All we can do now is make good games. Whatever _that_ takes.

afterthought: if none of this made any sense, then you are in the same boat as me .

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"What's the story with your face, son?!?"

If someone cut you off in traffic, with the specific intent of eliciting a certain emotion from you for your own benefit, that would be art.

Games are NOT and interactive medium. Try as you might, you still cannot add something to a game that is not there to begin with, no more than in a book or movie. Your experience, or potential experience, is still entirely determined by what you are given to work with.

Games are art. They say something. They say it to you, for the expressed purpose of making contact.

I disagree. Maybe every game you ever played was like that, but I think games can be different depending on the player. I think that a game can be made, where the outcome is directly affected by the player. I know it is possible. You look at a piece of art, and no matter how many times you look at it, it will always mean the same thing to you. Games can send different messages, they have the capability. It just hasn''t been done yet.

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"What's the story with your face, son?!?"

Wrong. A piece of art changes as you collect more information in life. Radiohead''s okComputer means something TOTALLY DIFFERENT to me now then when I first got it.

And the sum of your experiences in a game is always something that was accounted for by the creator(s). Except the artistic interpretation that I described in the former paragraph, which just goes to support my opinion that GAMES ARE ART!

The meaning of the art changes to you as your perspecitve changes, true. The art never changes. Games can change. I said that the meaning of the art doesn''t change with the assertion that it cannot change the way it impacts you until you change. Games can. Games are creative, as is art. However, games are not limited as art is.

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"What's the story with your face, son?!?"