Hear, hear!

RPG designers will eventually and inevitibly reach this impasse: where do you sacrifice story for gameplay? Do you even need to make this sacrifice? In my mind, yes. In your minds... well, that''s what this forum is for.

It is possible to combine excellent gameplay with a great story, but this requires one of two conditions: 1] the story and gameplay are not linked (Daggerfall, Doom), 2] the gameplay must be enjoyed by the player (FFTactics, System Shock).

Basically, this means half the population will like the game, and the other half will hate it. Personally, I cannot STAND the last two Final Fantasies. The stories were good, but the gameplay was absolutely horrible. I never sat through them for this reason alone.

But I''ve played through Quake. It''s story sucked something fierce. Which is more important, gameplay or story?

Well, I guess that depends on your point-of-view. When you pick up an RPG, you''re expecting a good story. If the gameplay were good enough, you would continue playing the game even if the story were horrible. To me, gameplay is more important than story.

I also want to admit that I love a good story. A good story can turn a good game into a fabulous game. Having reasons for what you do in the game and reaping narrative rewards can really change your outlook on an otherwise bland experience.

Where do you draw the line between story and gameplay?

Violence is conflict, but conflict may or may not be violent. Conflict is one component of a succesful plot, but does not by itself make a plot "good" or "bad". If that were true, then:

1. "Joe wanted to hit Jake."
   
2. "Jake didn''t want Joe to hit him."
   
3. "Joe did it anyway."
   
4. "Jake''s arm hurt for a week."
   

would be a good plot. It has all the necessary conflict elements of a plot!

So back to violence: Pointless conflict (I can''t really use violence anymore) does not necessarily make a bad plot. It depends on what you say is pointless. I think Little Women was kind of pointless, but it had a good plot. The central conflict has to matter w/in the scope of the setting, but that''s a more technical thing than plot.

But pointless conflict makes for a really bad game, because one of those cardinal rules that always seems to stick is: "Games are based on meaningful interactions." Interactions naturally involve conflict. If the player only makes trivial decisions (Dragon Warrior I: which sword should I kill the slime with? Should I take the king''s quest or sit here protesting until we both rot? I wonder if I should go find that harp everyone''s talking about?) well, the game suffers. But if these decisions matter w/in the scope of your game (directly impact the player''s chances of winning), you will have a good game. Video games can inhance this enjoyment through eye and ear candy, but games are still built w/in win conditions, as any one who has written a game loop can attest.

What any of this has to do with killing goblins is anybody''s guess.

If you see the Buddha on the road, Kill Him. -apocryphal

Ingenu''s right... Quake III Arena is a shitty game !
good graphics, but the interest is quite low.
Mixing adventure and action is the best way to build games with pretty good duration.

)@Ingenu

see U
Nours ( fucking dumb teddy bear :-p )

I think what makes a game fun for me is that it doesn''t become pointlessly repetative. If a game has no story and also is extremely repetative (I. E. Tetris) I generally get tired of it within a space of fifteen to thirty minutes. A game with a good story, usually no matter how bad the gameplay, I can play for eight hours straight and still go for more. Same with a game that isn''t repetative, but has a crappy story (a few good platform games: Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter) I can play about the same eight or so hours. I think that a game can have any number of different elements, but if they become just the same action, over and over again, it gets boring.

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official Necromancer of GameDev forums Game Writing section

tetris, quake3 and the kind has no story BECAUSE they GENERATE story, just hear someone after a party in those, the fact is that there is a lot of situation andshift in the ballance of faorce in these game, just like a story, that''s why somepeople like me stick to them, these game became boring when the outcome of the experiance became a little too previsble (pointless) just like someone is just too strong in a party and things to get redundant (i spawn, he kill me , i respawn he kill me, whithout those epic battle where even the shifting of weapon as importance)

and the other hand there is player which are more interest in traditionnal story shape, just like those in rpg, they tend to see that story is separate from the gamepley and is just the underlign which tied together dozen of minigames which illustrate the story than anything else

i''m working on something calles "dinamic story" or also called "interactive fiction" theory, the fact is that what game ARE.

in order to get a traditional story within game , we must PLAY the central conflict of the story rather than the consequence of it (actuak gaming in crpg) that''s mean we have to simulate the world in a STORY space, it''s easy, story can be define as a balance of force in conflict, if the player has influance in this balance then a dinamic story arise, every element must be define from this balance as ''pawn'' which can shift side according to the story simmulation

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
be good
be evil
but do it WELL
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I think that it is conflict that makes a good game. In a good story, there is conflict. Think of RPGs, there's always some kind of antagonist (Baldur's Gate, Morrowind ) or some inner conflict ( Torment ).
In good gameplay there is conflict, but the conflict is more personal. In chess the conflict is about being able to outwit your opponent. The same goes for Quake 3. Of course the opponent can be a computer, but I always prefer a human opponent.
So I'd say:

• Good conflict makes good gameplay.


• Good conflict makes good story.


• Bad conflict sucks.