Wow, that's weird. I liked DooM 3 especially because of its story. The shooting and blowing stuff up part wasn't so motivating I would have played through it all.

What kept me going was to find out what actually happened on the Mars base (eg. the Delta Labs pulling ever more power from the station, reading logs about people seeing "eyes" during teleportation experiments, the time when you have to step through an experimental teleporter yourself, how the scientists gathered specimens when they figured out the teleports lead "somewhere else", discovering the ruins of the original Mars civilization, and so on).

Maybe I'm just strange, but I like DooM 3's story better than, say, CoD 4/5, Vegas or Ghost Recon.

@the original topic, I don't agree. I'm happy seeing the same races in different games. It's like living out different adventures in the same world. I only hate it when it becomes obvious the designer just took those things from the shelf and didn't spend any time coming up with proper backgrounds, motivations and a history of his world.

Is the OP still around? He posted 5 things on the 15th and then nothing... this discussion has gone on for two pages without him returning. Not that it's not an interesting discussion, just curious :-)

So, we got the basic tool set of almost every video game plot in existence. It would probably be quicker for us if we started listing games that don't have these elements.

No elves? Guess someone should phone Miyamoto and tell him to trim down Link's ears. Otherwise nobody is going to buy the next Zelda game.

Don't forget that all Ancient Relics must have been broken into 3-7 parts. That way you can break your game into 3-7 sections - one for each relic piece. And then you get one more major section for doing something with the relic!

lol

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Original post by Konidias No elves? Guess someone should phone Miyamoto and tell him to trim down Link's ears. Otherwise nobody is going to buy the next Zelda game.

Do they ever call Link or Zelda elves? I mean, aside from having pointy ears, I don't recall them making a reference to their race. They are Hyrulians which is basically their nationality but I don't think it's ever been really been discussed. That being said, elves being a cliché and the Zelda franchise being very popular aren't really counter points.

Also, I absolutely love when the main character forgets their past. This allows me to explore the world and learn at the same pace as the character until I am comfortable enough to learn the back story of the character and actually care.

Really I think it's all in the execution. I absolutely loved the Protheans in Mass Effect or the Chozo in Metroid Prime. The races were actually mysterious and I'd always be glued to the screen when they'd leak information about them. On the flip side I didn't care about the Ancients in Final Fantasy VII (I'd like to come up with another game where I didn't like the "ancient race" but my brain is failing me right now [smile])

If done well, you can include as many clichés as you like. Warcraft 2 had an awesome story, yet I can't really think of anything that *wasn't* cliché.

Still, I play games more for the story than I suppose the game designers intended. I play Doom for the story, dammit. So yeah, some of those things get kinda old when they're not fleshed out.

Another well used alternative to amnesia is the farm boy who's never been further away from home than the home village. The effect is the same, he doesn't really know anything about the way the world works.

Being the "chosen one" feels kinda old to me. It's like you're just a cheap Jesus copycat. Why should I do this? Because the script says you should! Bah...

On the same note, any kind of "prophecy" makes me frown. Why do this? Because the script says so!

But why do science and magic not work together? Is it impossible to make a game about magic in our world where science rules supreme?

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Original post by Gazillion Quote: Original post by Konidias No elves? Guess someone should phone Miyamoto and tell him to trim down Link's ears. Otherwise nobody is going to buy the next Zelda game. Do they ever call Link or Zelda elves? I mean, aside from having pointy ears, I don't recall them making a reference to their race.

Link is part of the Hylian race. The Hylian race may be related to the Elvin race (in some concept writer's notes somewhere), but it's obviously not the same race.

From wikipedia:
Link has long pointed ears, a distinctive trait of the Hylian race (and their descendants), which supposedly allows them to hear messages from the gods.

However, since there are fairies in the Zelda universe, who also have pointed ears as one would expect, it wouldn't be far fetched to assume Link is in some way Elvin, or Demon, or Vulcan.

Hello, everyone. Apologies for the late return. I know you loved my post. I didn't think it would generate actaul comments and replies that meant something rather than simple, simple: "You are wrong, you suck, you know nothing about the world of games". Excellent.

Right, time to get down to businesss. I'm the kind of poster who is a true eccentric. Some of the stuff (Lie/Read: Almost all the stuff I write) requires double if not triple thinking. I'm not trying to be patronizing here, just that I'm pleased that so many actually responded. You are most definatly going to think something is amok with me, which is generally true in most cases. I think this debate here that I started on just a few simple ideas was, incidentally, one of actual debates on here that I've read that acutally has people talking about the little things that matter, rather than the *cough* rubbish *cough* MS *cough* VS *cough* Java *cough* debates (Damm I've got a bad cough). *cough* Most *cough* poster *cough* are *cough* rubbish *cough* game *cough* players *cough* that *cough* only *cough* try *cough* to *cough**cough**cough* get the game *cough**cough* done *cough* and not *cough* understand *cough**cough* the story *cough* (Man, I spluttered all over my keyboard and monitor).

One of the biggest gripes I have with Elves, is that since Everquest and World of Warcraftkalsh (Heh. *Cheeky Smile*) brought herasy upon them, by injecting the whole idea with some sort, I quote a converstation I had here with older gamers: "Beautiful eleves, magic kingdoms and amazing wonders".

This has completely ruinied the ideas that were supposed to be instigated for them. They were originally a xenophobic, hate-filled, arrogant and inter-bred race of beings that lost a very large piece of hummanity long ago around the same time of the First Age (I'm quoting low fantasy here. Actually that idea sounds so much more interesting than the other stuff people have come up with. I just pulled out my ass from learning about that type of fantasy and the lores. Almost all gamers won't know what I'm talking about). They had no ties to actual family, nor love, which is why elves lose their long lifespan if they so happen to find it both outside and inside their race. They had ideas of weapons, buildings and societies far greater than other races yet their intellect refused them the actual mental capacity to design the architecture that would allow them to construct such marvellous wonders of pure fantasy. In other words, elves are "Idiot Savants", destined to live centuries behind the more capable, compentent and creative humans.

Gnomes, essentially, are mountain and desert dwellers that seek to gain enlightenment from the arts of science, infrastructure and engineering. They are the only ones capable of pure physical exhaustion that gives them the ability to work non-stop on intense metal projects without breaking down. The mountanious dwellers are the most popular version of Gnomes in both Low and High fantasy; they are the ones you see performing alchmeical feats or crafting amazing and fantastical machines.

Desert dwellers are the rare type of Gnomes that like to dig burrows to fit around half a dozen of them and then set to work in these small little burrows to create amazing machinery that will allow all creatures, but especially them, to survive the harsh wilderness that surrounds them (Again, I'm pulling this straight out of my ass. It actually hurts! Maybe I shouldn't have asked that Female Thai massuase to "massage" me like that. They do things to you that are unspeakable, particualaly when they put brilliant ideas for damm boring fantasy genres in your Sphincter).

Quickly, most ancient races or societies (Maybe I should have put that in. Oh well, we can't anger everyone can we. Or least those people who think that their comments are bitting, witty and sardonistic; they need to sit down on a comfortable chair, put their hands to their eyes and cry a little. Hey, if it worked for Edward Groove and Tsng-Pho, then it will certainly work for you) are, without a single doubt, rubbish; pure and utter rubbish. I'm not sorry and most of you know why ancient races that created by most writers are so (Come on, you know. Like the one in Grandmaster Kung-Fu IV and the one in Dungeon Krazy II: The Last Emerald!). The only ones that acutally warrant any interest are the Keepers (Society formed around the civil construction of a Steampunkish European society), The Enclave (Genocide crazy, self-righteous and pro-american dream secret pre-war society) and the... Ughhh, I can't think of another one. Where's that damm monkey! MEMORY, MEMORY, where art thou?

Heh. I guess I'm finished. It probably doesn't make much sense, but if you read through it and try to understand from the perspective of an eccentric (Everyone who isn't one cannot. It is scientifically impossible, as determined by the Sproctor-Agalie scale) you'll know what I'm talkin' bout. Remember, vote Krusty the Klown for best clown in cartoon and real-life forms.

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Original post by Dex Jackson ...They were originally a xenophobic, hate-filled, arrogant and inter-bred race of beings that lost a very large piece of hummanity

Ahhh,... Where the HELL are you quoting that from? "Originally" is rather vague, seeing as what you described sounds nothing like what Elf and Fairy legends I've studied from the early iron ages.

Elf, Fae, etc etc, are NON-Human Humanoids, and that is about as far as you can take a solid definition that applies in all cases.