Quote:

Original post by ArchangelMorph Has any of us ever played a game where a character has displayed some kind of relational emotion towards another in that way..?

Sure. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. And they did it in a verrrry interesting way.

Consider when the Prince kills his father the king, who had been turned into a sand creature. Now, the king had not before that moment been in much of the game content; just a few of the cutscenes near the beginning. Enough to let us know that the Prince loves his father, not enough to make us love him too. Which is fine, because we don't have any "love your father" minigames. Instead we kill the grotesque, waggling version of the king. Afterwards, the Prince, asked if it was difficult to have killed his own father, replies "that was not my father." Which is pretty much the way we feel.

Another example: when whatsername (Farah?) dies. This happens in a cutscene, not a "forget to use your other damn hand to save her" minigame. We can't do anything about this, and (at least in my experience) we really are pissed that she's gone. So what does the game give us next? A fast-paced combat round, using the most badass sword in the game to downright obliterate everything that moves. We are handed rage together with the ability to actualize that rage.

The key features there, I think, are keeping characters (and therefore players) on a relatively deterministic emotional track, and using emotions to explain and enable the player's actions.

But are such emtional ties merely a tool for justifying the next set of "goals" in the progression of the gameplay or can they be used in much more elaborate and integrated (i.e. not just in cut-scenes but all around the player and present in the game world) way..?

They can be integrated in more than dialogue seens and such. But there still has to an emotional tie with them, or it's not going to matter much. Ties are created by interaction, situations, etc... They have to be triggered.

There's actually a very sad story behind Halo's gameplay, but they hide it in most of the games because half the players could care less. If you read the books, you will understand everything a lot more.

Quote:

Original post by ArchangelMorph Quote: Games don't have this aspect to them, because making a minigame called hug the characters daughter does not convey the same effect as watching it knowing that it might be the last time. But how do we know that?

Because I'm introspective and know that if the hug becomes a minigame then I am less emotionally involved in the hug. (At least, in the sense that matters. I may or may not be emotionally involved in it as a game, but that depends on how good the minigame is.)

Or you want something a bit more empirical? FFVII allowed you to "date" Aeris, Tifa, Yuffie, or Barret at the Golden Saucer. Once I knew this, and knew what affected it, it killed the scene for me emotionally. Sure, I could then strive to get the date I wanted. Now, you might point out that which I wanted was influenced by my emotional attachment to the various characters, and that's true, but the date scene itself still lost its emotional impact on me.

Quote:

Has any of us ever played a game where a character has displayed some kind of relational emotion towards another in that way..?

How do you mean? Deus Ex? The Final Fantasy Series?

Quote:

The best attempts at emotion i've seen so far are in games like final fantasy and the metal gear solid series but the biggest problems i have with how such emotional aspects are portrayed reside in the fact that these games communicate the characters in a very japanese way.. I can see how a japanese gamer could get very emotionally involved in the narratives of these games as they are told in a way which reflects japanese media cultures like japanese film, anime etc.. Although these styles of "storytelling" work well in entertaining us westerners, they tend to miss the ball when it comes to creating emotional ties between the player and the game/characters/story as the way we recieve it is different (not to mention the added layer of localisation often ruins the key aspect of creating an emotional plot; the dialogues..)

I'm not Japanese and their techniques seem to work fine on me, and I'm not even obsessed with Japan like so many nerds are. Maybe if you were more specific about which techniques you thought were failing...

Quote:

I would love to see how a game could fair that isn't all about action and "gameplay"..

A game... not about gameplay... [rolleyes]

Quote:

I mean lets look at Halo for example.. You have a supersoldier fighting through an army of aliens on a quest to save the world.. But what's his motivation..? why does masterchief continue to fight..? Not only does the game not give the player any indication of this but it also doesn't allow the player to relate to the character in any way.. All dialogue throughout the game is focused soley on the mission.. never at any point does masterchief show human characteristics.. He never gets tired.. He never has doubts about his abilities or his orders.. He never portrays any kind of consideration for the sentient life forms he continuously guns down, he never worries about the futility of his fight even though he's been doing it for so long..

I haven't played Halo; is the player the masterchief that continues to fight? If he is, then I believe you'd get many people complaining about how you forced emotions on the player if he showed emotion. In a shooter (which is the genre I understand Halo to be in) I don't want my character getting tired or doubting his abilities. I don't want him to hesitate before he shoots the alien. I want to shoot things. Tiredness, doubt, and hesitation get in the way of my shooting things.

Quote:

Either masterchief (and so many other game protagonists, if not all of them) is a robot or the games designers failed him in a really big way.. they failed to create a character that was both courageous and powerful, and also human.. As a result the player goes through the game treating the whole experience as if nothing matters.. without caring about the character you don't care about the world.. without caring about the world you don't care about the plot.. without caring about the plot what do u have left..?

Guns, and aliens to shoot with those guns.

Quote:

Original post by ArchangelMorph But are such emtional ties merely a tool for justifying the next set of "goals" in the progression of the gameplay or can they be used in much more elaborate and integrated (i.e. not just in cut-scenes but all around the player and present in the game world) way..?

I don't think they can be "more integrated", at least not without taking away their force:

• Cut Scenes - Effective, but not integrated
  
• "Atmosphere" - What's the right word for the books and such you find lying around? Well, somewhat integrated, but not effective (at least I don't think ArchangelMorph finds them effective).
  
• Part of the Game - Integrated for sure, but now it's part of the gameplay. That kiss is desired not for love of the character, but for love of the stat bonus or, failing that, as a trophy.
  

I believe that games that create an emotional reaction have to know their audience fairly well. Every now and then you can hit on something that really speaks to an entire generation or subculture, but it won't necissarily have the same impact on all groups of people at all times. For example, would a game about impending disaster at the turn of the century have the same impact now as it may have 10 years ago? Or would a game about a terrorist plot on your home town had the same impact 10 years ago as it would now? When you go from nation to nation, the disparity in reactions will only get more diverse.

I was a teen when FFVI came out and I found such an emotional connection. I haven't had a similar connection since with any of the others in the series. These days I attribute that mostly to being a teen at the time. I'm curious to play FFXII to see if the trend continues.

to me roleplaying is similar to this. If it was an MMO you could require people to show emotions and act like their character would for example. Like in Dungeons and Dragons you wouldn't say "Sup dude" you would say something like "Greetings" or something like that. So by having a player use their character's personality in an MMO that works.

In single-player you could be made to take a little personality test and the options you have are based on those as well as your main goals and maybe even alignment. Example: A person answers all the questions in a way that shows dishonor and weak morals, they have the option to beat the truth out of a prisoner where as one who shows some honor in their answers and is kind would have options to get information is less brutal methods.

These have emotion but if you want a way to make games have that feeling where you want to cry, laugh, or smile at the end then you could make you single-player game have emotional parts such as clips where a boy watches his family brutally murdered. Example: In "The Hills Have Eyes" I heard that the dad is blown up in front of the helpless family. This kind of cruelty would make people feel emotions, why not have something happen to characters that would make you feel bad, happy, sad, cheerful, or like rolling over laughing.

Just my thoughts.

Quote:

Original post by kseh I was a teen when FFVI came out and I found such an emotional connection. I haven't had a similar connection since with any of the others in the series. These days I attribute that mostly to being a teen at the time. I'm curious to play FFXII to see if the trend continues.

I have a theory about that actually. Final Fantasy VI was virtually unique among the character-driven Final Fantasies in that it had no main character. Starcraft's single-player campaign is also frequently thrown out as an example of a well crafted game narrative--again, no main character. While I can think of counter-examples (such as TLJ/Dreamfall, for instance), I think there might be something to that.
My theory is that having a clear main character in a game narrative represents a big risk to the player's ability to form an emotional attachment to the game. Some players will identify very well with the M.C., and their experience may be especially rewarding. Most will not, however, and the dissonance between their own reactions and that of the M.C. will inevitably disrupt their ability to enjoy the emotions and development of the other characters in the game. For example: let us say you really don't like Cyan, from FFVI. You think he's boring, overly formal, kind of depressing with the whole tragic failure to protect his wife and son, etc. None of that interferes with your ability to become attached to the other characters in the game, though. Indeed, you may just decide not to play Cyan that much. Now let's say you can't stand Tidus, from FFX. That is a much bigger problem; you can't get rid of him, and you can't help feeling he somehow represents you personally within the universe of the game.

Of course there's another way to prevent this, which is making your M.C. a cipher, a la Chrono Trigger or Zelda. I like FFVI's solution better though; the other seems like an enormous waste of narrative space.

Quote:

Original post by Way Walker Or you want something a bit more empirical? FFVII allowed you to "date" Aeris, Tifa, Yuffie, or Barret at the Golden Saucer. Once I knew this, and knew what affected it, it killed the scene for me emotionally. Sure, I could then strive to get the date I wanted. Now, you might point out that which I wanted was influenced by my emotional attachment to the various characters, and that's true, but the date scene itself still lost its emotional impact on me. ... I don't think they can be "more integrated", at least not without taking away their force: Cut Scenes - Effective, but not integrated "Atmosphere" - What's the right word for the books and such you find lying around? Well, somewhat integrated, but not effective (at least I don't think ArchangelMorph finds them effective). Part of the Game - Integrated for sure, but now it's part of the gameplay. That kiss is desired not for love of the character, but for love of the stat bonus or, failing that, as a trophy.

Honestly, I think you've hit the nail square on the head. The problem with giving the player the ability to control the relationships between characters is that it suddenly degenerates into nothing more than another mini-game: make the right dialogue choice!

A good example for a game which is good at conveying emotions is Vampire Redemption. It has a fairly linear storyline - there are a few choices - but which is very well told, possibly *because* it is fairly linear

The only game I've played where I felt some tie to it's characters was baldurs gate. I think these elements in BG helped for that:
- characters can act on their own will
- characters have their own stories too, not necessarily related to the plot.
- good dialogue and lots of it
- most important: interaction and banter, details matter.

In bioware's next pc rpg, Dragon Age, there will be a several opening stories from which you can choose. The idea is that how people play rpg's is according to a limited set of archetypical roles. Having these as a background, affecting the plot and dialogues, seem like a good idea to increase to kind of immersion mentioned.

One problem is that such a character driven narrative, with many dialogues, is very difficult and involved to craft. Just think of all possible combinations. A movie is very simple in a way, you only press the play button and then characters can be presented at will to make you belief in their lives.