SO MAYBE WE SHOULD LOWER OUR STANDARDS A TAD.

I can't speak for everyone who says that stuff, but the whole reason I say it is specifically to get RPG players to stop being such pretentious douches about their "RPGs are about the story" shenanigans. I tend to assume games are about being games, and there's no reason that someone should feel ashamed or like the medium is less important because of that. But if they're going to sit and tell me that the story is more important than anything else in a game, then hell, yes I'm going to tell them that the story they're working themselves into a frenzy over is crap.

Video Game(including RPG) plots are mediocre pulp fantasy fare at best. But the important point you should be taking from that is not "I need to make my story better to meet Shadowtext's standards of Story." It's "Maybe I should stop beating people over the head with how amazing the story in my game / Game X is if it can't stand head to head with even something as awful as Eragon, regardless of medium, and start giving a little more love to the other strengths of video games, which story-saturated media can't replicate."

I do make a distinction between visual novels, machinima, and video games, though.

I don't know I think that you need to raise your standards. The ridiculous shit that passes for writing in video games is unacceptable dude!

I've never been one to judge a game by its story (seriously, if a game doesn't have random encounters, I will play it all the way through, regardless of how god awful every other aspect of the game is), but I think there's something to be said about atmosphere in an RPG world. The characters and how the world feels are probably more important in an RPG than the story itself, and when you have extraordinarily boring characters and nondescript towns with bland NPCs, it distances the player from the game and they get the sense that the creator didn't even try.

I mean I don't think my personal non-gameplay standards are too high (and I haven't been here long enough to know how high everyone else's are). I just like to get the sense that the characters are people, not just heroes, and that the author did more to create them than just write out:

Class: SWORDSMAN
Motivation: WANTS TO SAVE THE WORLD

or

Class: THIEF
Motivation: WANTS TO PROTECT

Agreed with topic. I think the attitude that Shadowtext is noticing comes from video game fanboyism (which all of us contain in some amount). The belief that video game stories should be able to rival that of other media comes from the individual's self-validating belief that video games are a superior artform (I am a video gamer, therefore I should be able to argue that what I like is better).

While I personally agree with what others have said above, that you watch movies and read books for stories, and play games for gameplay, that's not necessarily the case for everyone. Some people genuinely do love to play RPG's for their stories, even if the gameplay is lacking or downright bad. It could be for that basic level of interactivity, that you, the player, are responsible for keeping the characters alive to make it to the next story scene.

Also, a good deal of professional games have embraced a cinematic story-telling style, that can either be accompanied by good or bad gameplay. They do this because they want their stories to be important, and some gems (FFXII and Shadow of the Colossus come to mind) actually pull off a great cinematic experience between sessions of rich gameplay.

More relevant to the topic: does this mean that us as amateur game makers should try to accomplish the same? That's where we probably need to lower our standards. Granted, it's hard to want to focus on good gameplay, when RM2k/2k3 was limiting the degree of gameplay that could be added. It took a lot of ingenuity to develop custom battle systems for the older RPGMakers, and quite simply, not many people were able to accomplish it. That makes a lot of people want to focus on their stories more. On the flip side, we don't wanna play the same game over and over and over with a different story. Thankfully the newer RPG Makers have provided tools to help make more unique gaming experiences.

Between what we know is now possible with all RPG Maker engines, I think it is much easier to balance our efforts onto the side of gameplay. If I were playing a game that was fun, I'd be much more forgiving of a story that didn't interest me.

I agree with many of your sentiments, especially those related to video games being compared to other, absolutely unrelated mediums. However, I don't necessarily believe that a way to amend this is through LOWERING STANDARDS. If we never push to expand the scope of what can be achieved in the realm of gaming, we're going to see the same thing for many years to come.

Now that technology is expanding to actually allow a compelling story-line to be told (See: Bioshock, MGS4), I don't see much sense in saying something along the lines of "Okay this is not a book so why even TRY?!" As a community, that should hold true just the same.

You know? :3

Totally in agreeance here.

People are waaaaaaaaaay to critical (hypocritical) of plots. "waaaa your game has an actual hero who is good natured and stops evil waaaa that's cliche and I'm a depressed teenager who only likes angsty gothy main characters who hate life"

Seriously though. In general, Zelda's plot is: Ganondorf is a bad guy. Link is a good guy. Ganondorf is trying to conquer the world, which would be bad.

Mario: Bowser big bad guy. Capture princess. Mario save princess.

Even our most popular RPGs have very simple plots. Dragon Warrior I: You're a hero. Your mission is to kill some guy who wants to control the world.

Let's see... hmmm..... the games I listed so far have been pretty successful. Why? Because the game is gameplay driven, with storyline supporting the gameplay.


Let me put this another way.

All the cads who whine about how our plots suck need to consider the alternative. Are they really willing to basically just read text in an RPG as a sign of their playing fulfillment? Probably not. If they are, why aren't they just reading a novel?

I know a friend who LARPs, NoblemanNick. I refuse to watch/join, because the one time that I did watch was absolutely terrifying (the... the costumes....).


If The Great Gatsby was a game, it would be a point-and-click where Nick had drunk gay sex and then turn into a Donkey Kong clone--you get to play Nick trying to run up and kiss Jordan while Jay Gatsby throws teacups and temper tantrums down ramps.

author=Craze link=topic=1340.msg20420#msg20420 date=1213716549
I know a friend who LARPs, NoblemanNick. I refuse to watch/join, because the one time that I did watch was absolutely terrifying (the... the costumes....).


If The Great Gatsby was a game, it would be a point-and-click where Nick had drunk gay sex and then turn into a Donkey Kong clone--you get to play Nick trying to run up and kiss Jordan while Jay Gatsby throws teacups and temper tantrums down ramps.

Also you forgot teh level where you have to drag race and hit Myrtle in such a weird way and exact your revenge as Goerge Wilson. LARPs.. yeah i think that would be weird, you see some guy with a ball of newspaper crushed together painted red. FIREBALL!