The age ol' question. I'm looking for opinions here. What do you guys think is more important in a game, the gameplay or the story. Don't give me any of that on the fence bull shit. If your gonna' post, pick a side.

Define "gameplay".

From what I've read there are as many definitions of "gameplay" as there are designers, so the end result of your poll won't really mean much. I prefer not to use the term as it leads to confusion.

Given you demand I pick a side, and that I define gameplay to be the experience of perception between the player and the game (with an emphasis on interaction; it's a bit of a vague definition!), then I pick "gameplay". Note though that I define the story in good games to be part of the gameplay [smile].

I define Gameplay as everything that isn't the story of the game. The controls, the mechanics of the game, anything that doesn't have to do with the character development or story progression of the game.

A choose your own adventure story - I dare you to separate the gameplay from the story. Sometimes the story IS the gameplay.

How about we answer the damn question instead of knitpicking about the wording.

Quote:

Original post by KymTheAssassin How about we answer the damn question instead of knitpicking about the wording.

Therein lies the problem, as you can't seem to see. There are many different ways to define gameplay and story. As zoid said, there are as many definitions of the word as there are designers, so if you expect an intelligent response, you need to give more information.

Now onto your question. Unfortunately one is not more important then the other. You can't really have a game without a story, and you cant really have a game without good gameplay. I think you need to rethink your question though.

The "knitpicking" as you put it is the problem with the question.

A game with good "gameplay" may have that because of a good story, or that game may not even have a story.
Sometimes the story is defined by the gameplay, sometimes the story is seperated from it.
Sometimes the story is only in the cinamatics and isnt part of the game at all. At that point it doesnt really matter which was more important, because the game is two seperate
pieces.

A good game is the combination of all the parts. If you make story not a part of the game, then the
gameplay is important (arcade games), if you make the story the important part, then the gameplay
can be less fantastic if you get the story telling right (RPG, some FPS).
A great game puts it all together in a seamless fashion that keeps you wanting to replay the game.

I pick gameplay. The story is not that important. I've never heard of anyone buying a game for the story.

The question should have been;

What would you choose?
1) A game with great gameplay but with a bad or no story.
2) A game with a great story but with crappy gameplay.

Sure, the story is improtant. but if the game doesn't have one, its still a game.

So if you're going to have a story it better be a great one (or at least good). There's no way I'm going to interput the player's game to show him a crappy story. I rather have no story at all.

so what it is now? gameplay:2 story:0?

I'd rather go with Story Telling Game vs. Replayability (you can have both also). I don't even think about a game that would gave up gameplay quality for story (I can't imagine how can you do this btw - long ).

Let's say the story is good and you want to know more and more. You play. If gameplay is giving you a headache, even you finish the game, at the end the perception of game would be "bad". You should enjoy your action of play because story is "revealed" after completing gameplay goals. Otherwise go for a book or movie.

My conclusion is that story telling in games should not compete books and movies on their own ground. Story should be a layer that hook player further into the game along with quality gameplay.

Also story (my own belief) should not be used to create replayability (multiple endings and all these). It's gameplay's task.

Chess doesn't have a story, but I consider it to be an excellent game.

The gameplay in Final Fantasy is very simple, but the games tend to have long and involving plots. I don't think I'd play these (or similar) games for very long without the story there to keep me interested and give me goal.


In short, I'm afraid I can't really let go of the "on the fence bullshit" because it runs between different groups of games and I like what I see on both sides.




Of course what I'd really like to say is that both (excepting cases where a story isn't present) play an equally important role in shaping the final player experience, but that's not what you want to hear. [wink]


Now, what actually interests me is what value you're trying to get from asking the question? Are you planning on using the data gathered to alter the amount of effort you'll put into each area? The point I'm trying to make is that there are people on either side of that fence, and plenty squarely on the fence who refuse to budge, and unless you've got a suggestion for how to change that you'll just have to live with either working hard on both areas or leaving some players unhappy with your game.