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On August 03 2011 05:02 Destro wrote:
ive never been gripped by a video game's story. never ever ever. writing for video games is ridiculous, usually the bottom of the barrel as far as writers go.. its a shame people care so much for something so trivial and un-interesting.
If you're referring to your standard FPS or whatever, then I 100% agree. However, a lot of RPGs have amazing storytelling. Sure, even more RPGs are generic shitfests, but there are quite a few that truly shine in weaving a tale that you'll actually listen to.
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I like StarCraft and I play campaign because I'm a fan and it influenced me so much when I was younger. That being said, I have neither illusions about the quality of its storyline nor its storytelling.
It's filled with plot holes and it's pretty generic.
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On August 03 2011 04:57 Aeres wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2011 04:51 TheGlassface wrote:On August 03 2011 04:47 Aeres wrote:
You can only do so much with science fiction stories before they begin to mesh. For all its awesomeness, StarCraft's plot is pretty damn generic, and Halo's is the same. I completely disagree with this statement as I hate to say there is anything "finite." Especially when it comes to storytelling. Buuuuut.... To be fair, the Zerg are the Borg anyway. The Protoss aren't exactly groundbreaking and Terrans are...well, it's Starship Troopers with some Aliens mixed in. That's true insofar as science fiction goes in terms of novels and movies and such. However, I think video games are fairly limited in this category, since the main purpose of a game is... well, gameplay. With a book or movie, the author or director is free to develop the story as he wishes, but a video game producer often doesn't have that luxury, since the story is only part of the finished product. Of course, I'm speaking in generalities, but I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that sci-fi games tend to hold more generic and less compelling stories. But I'd like to hear what you think. Why exactly do you disagree? The possibilities for storytelling are infinite, I suppose, but similarities, archetypes, and cookie-cutter tales do appear over time.
I don't necessarily see why a game's storyline is any different from a story of a book or a movie. The gameplay can be edited to fit the story in these cases. To be fair, yes the video game writing team is most likely under constraints but I don't see how a storyline for a game needs to be any more restricted, that's for sure.
My problem with saying that one genre is more constrained is simply, as an aspiring writer, I certainly don't claim to know the next breakthrough for storylines, archetypes, etc. but I just don't...as a human being...like saying we've hit a limit on anything. It seems wrong, in the truest since of the art, to claim we've hit the peak and can go no further, ya know?
People thought there couldn't even be a thing such as sci-fi at one point and then came along greats like Herbert, Gibson and Dick and showed the world just what we can accomplish. For every time we say "No!" there seems to be a way to eventually come up with a "yes!"
I just hope the next *great* advancement could either (lol) be me doing it or (more likely) come along after I'm long and gone myself. Someone has to dream up the next dreams, just like one day someone looked into the sky and said, "what if there were spaceships?"
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On August 03 2011 04:51 TheGlassface wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2011 04:47 Aeres wrote:
You can only do so much with science fiction stories before they begin to mesh. For all its awesomeness, StarCraft's plot is pretty damn generic, and Halo's is the same. I completely disagree with this statement as I hate to say there is anything "finite." Especially when it comes to storytelling. Buuuuut.... To be fair, the Zerg are the Borg anyway. The Protoss aren't exactly groundbreaking and Terrans are...well, it's Starship Troopers with some Aliens mixed in.
Not true at all they are the opposite biological organisms and mechanical. HALO and SC are both stories slightly changed with a new name of a special little games workshop title called Warhammer40K that came before everything even the armor is similar between terran and space marines. Zerg are tyranid no question and protoss are eldar (they even have dark eldar)
Warhammer40k is always getting ripped off  [edit: Cho'goth from LoL]
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On August 03 2011 05:01 striderxxx wrote:
It's obvious that Halo borrowed Starcraft material from the start, in fact they tried their own version of SC2 with Halo Wars!
Halo was originally going to be an RTS for mac too btw before the fps it became for the Xbox.
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On August 03 2011 04:47 Aeres wrote:
You can only do so much with science fiction stories before they begin to mesh. For all its awesomeness, StarCraft's plot is pretty damn generic, and Halo's is the same.
i dont think thats fair, sci fi is just a backdrop or setting.
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On August 03 2011 05:01 HaXXspetten wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2011 04:51 TheGlassface wrote:On August 03 2011 04:47 Aeres wrote:
You can only do so much with science fiction stories before they begin to mesh. For all its awesomeness, StarCraft's plot is pretty damn generic, and Halo's is the same. I completely disagree with this statement as I hate to say there is anything "finite." Especially when it comes to storytelling. Buuuuut.... To be fair, the Zerg are the Borg anyway. The Protoss aren't exactly groundbreaking and Terrans are...well, it's Starship Troopers with some Aliens mixed in. It's not "finite", however you can't deny the fact that ideas get taken all the time, thus the amount of unused ones gets reduced all the time: I.E. it gets harder to make up new stories for every day.
Disagree. We create ideas and then from there, there's new things. I just refuse to accept that we'll run out of ideas at some point. Again, I will never claim to know what these new ideas are but I will never say there's a "pool" of them we keep pulling from and eventually will run out of either.
My point being, "harder" is relative to how you view it. Creating an entirely new concept is hard, no matter what we're talking about.
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On August 03 2011 04:59 Kgst wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2011 04:56 101998 wrote:
Saying Halo and Starcraft are similar is like saying Oceans 11 and Inception are similar because they are both heist movies. Not really. At all. If Oceans 11 and Inception were both about going into a persons dreams and changing their innermost thoughts and ideas in order to steal from a casino then yeah, I'd say the comparisons are pretty similar.
That's my point. The movies are not similar at all beyond their heist style themes, just like Starcraft and Halo are not similar beyond the basic sci-fi themes. You could make the same connections the OP is making for Oceans 11 and Inception (or to Sneakers, Italian Job etc) and it would sound idiotic because everyone has seen those movies and knows the similarities are extremely weak. Most people don't know enough about Halo and Starcraft to see how off-base the OP's points are and I was using an analogy to illustrate that.
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On August 03 2011 05:07 Sylverin wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2011 04:51 TheGlassface wrote:On August 03 2011 04:47 Aeres wrote:
You can only do so much with science fiction stories before they begin to mesh. For all its awesomeness, StarCraft's plot is pretty damn generic, and Halo's is the same. I completely disagree with this statement as I hate to say there is anything "finite." Especially when it comes to storytelling. Buuuuut.... To be fair, the Zerg are the Borg anyway. The Protoss aren't exactly groundbreaking and Terrans are...well, it's Starship Troopers with some Aliens mixed in. Not true at all they are the opposite biological organisms and mechanical. HALO and SC are both stories slightly changed with a new name of a special little games workshop title called Warhammer40K that came before everything even the armor is similar between terran and space marines. Zerg are tyranid no question and protoss are eldar (they even have dark eldar) Warhammer40k is always getting ripped off [edit: Cho'goth from LoL]
Lol, fair enough. I mean the whole "infest, enslave and adapt." thing.
That is a good point though, and I remember seeing the original warhammer pictures too. They always cracked me up as to how similar the units were.
Speaking of...warhammer has Orcs right? Tolkien made those little fellers up. So...
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On August 03 2011 05:07 TheGlassface wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2011 04:57 Aeres wrote:On August 03 2011 04:51 TheGlassface wrote:On August 03 2011 04:47 Aeres wrote:
You can only do so much with science fiction stories before they begin to mesh. For all its awesomeness, StarCraft's plot is pretty damn generic, and Halo's is the same. I completely disagree with this statement as I hate to say there is anything "finite." Especially when it comes to storytelling. Buuuuut.... To be fair, the Zerg are the Borg anyway. The Protoss aren't exactly groundbreaking and Terrans are...well, it's Starship Troopers with some Aliens mixed in. That's true insofar as science fiction goes in terms of novels and movies and such. However, I think video games are fairly limited in this category, since the main purpose of a game is... well, gameplay. With a book or movie, the author or director is free to develop the story as he wishes, but a video game producer often doesn't have that luxury, since the story is only part of the finished product. Of course, I'm speaking in generalities, but I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that sci-fi games tend to hold more generic and less compelling stories. But I'd like to hear what you think. Why exactly do you disagree? The possibilities for storytelling are infinite, I suppose, but similarities, archetypes, and cookie-cutter tales do appear over time. I don't necessarily see why a game's storyline is any different from a story of a book or a movie. The gameplay can be edited to fit the story in these cases. To be fair, yes the video game writing team is most likely under constraints but I don't see how a storyline for a game needs to be any more restricted, that's for sure. My problem with saying that one genre is more constrained is simply, as an aspiring writer, I certainly don't claim to know the next breakthrough for storylines, archetypes, etc. but I just don't...as a human being...like saying we've hit a limit on anything. It seems wrong, in the truest since of the art, to claim we've hit the peak and can go no further, ya know? People thought there couldn't even be a thing such as sci-fi at one point and then came along greats like Herbert, Gibson and Dick and showed the world just what we can accomplish. For every time we say "No!" there seems to be a way to eventually come up with a "yes!" I just hope the next *great* advancement could either (lol) be me doing it or (more likely) come along after I'm long and gone myself. Someone has to dream up the next dreams, just like one day someone looked into the sky and said, "what if there were spaceships?"
I think you're twisting my words into something that I didn't say (or at least, I didn't mean to imply as such). I'm in agreement with you, that there's infinite potential for a story to be made, but I feel that in general, the opportunity for creating an original, well-presented story for a science fiction-based video game is a good deal more slim than for a novel or film. Constraints are in place for video game writing teams, as you said, and while it's not implausible to go the extra mile to write a compelling story, it's often more convenient to stick with the generic sci-fi stuff.
I personally love nothing more than a good story, and I too would like to see some breakthroughs in VG stories, away from the boring old archetypes and such, but this is simply the experience I've had as a gamer. Video games are not as bountiful a source of good storytelling compared to other forms of entertainment media, due to the balance between gameplay and plot that has to be addressed. I don't think we've hit a limit (perhaps we CAN'T hit one), but it is simpler and easier for a writing team to stick with what works, y'know?
On August 03 2011 05:09 WniO wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2011 04:47 Aeres wrote:
You can only do so much with science fiction stories before they begin to mesh. For all its awesomeness, StarCraft's plot is pretty damn generic, and Halo's is the same. i dont think thats fair, sci fi is just a backdrop or setting.
Perhaps my choice of words was poor. By "science fiction", I refer to the genre that tends to involve futuristic worlds, space travel, friendly/hostile aliens, and such. Sci-fi may be a backdrop, but backdrops require some key elements to fulfill that setting, yes? You can't have a sci-fi movie with everything set in the Stone Age, right? A bit of an extreme example, but I hope I'm making myself clear here. = /
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On August 03 2011 05:10 101998 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2011 04:59 Kgst wrote:On August 03 2011 04:56 101998 wrote:
Saying Halo and Starcraft are similar is like saying Oceans 11 and Inception are similar because they are both heist movies. Not really. At all. If Oceans 11 and Inception were both about going into a persons dreams and changing their innermost thoughts and ideas in order to steal from a casino then yeah, I'd say the comparisons are pretty similar. That's my point. The movies are not similar at all beyond their heist style themes, just like Starcraft and Halo are not similar beyond the basic sci-fi themes. You could make the same connections the OP is making for Oceans 11 and Inception (or to Sneakers, Italian Job etc) and it would sound idiotic because everyone has seen those movies and knows the similarities are extremely weak. Most people don't know enough about Halo and Starcraft to see how off-base the OP's points are and I was using an analogy to illustrate that.
I disagree strongly.
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On August 03 2011 04:53 Slakter wrote:
And both of these are the exact same as Warcraft 3.
Storys dont change, they just switch a few details here and there.
First, wc3 came after sc1; second, wc3's story is still dictated by the lore of the overall universe which is actually quite different. The titans are more like shapers who changed existing life, not creators. Sargeras is the main antagonist, who has created things like the Burning Legion and the undead. Old gods are also involved in corrupting life.
SC2 revealed that perhaps the Fallen One had a large hand in pushing the zerg to where they are which would be a similar link to Sargeras, but there's still a lot of uniqueness in the stories.
The Halo/SC stories do seem INCREDIBLY close though, even considering how similar sci-fi usually is.
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On August 03 2011 05:08 EndOfTime88 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2011 05:01 striderxxx wrote:
It's obvious that Halo borrowed Starcraft material from the start, in fact they tried their own version of SC2 with Halo Wars! Halo was originally going to be an RTS for mac too btw before the fps it became for the Xbox.
(Taken from the wiki page for Halo) "The first Halo game was announced on July 21, 1999, during the Macworld Conference & Expo.[12] It was originally planned to be a real-time strategy game for the Mac and Windows operating systems, but later changed into a third-person action game."
The fact that there are similarities is probably because they wanted to match the success of Starcraft in the same genre of games.
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As generic as the general setting of Starcraft/BW's story is, you have to be nuts to say the actual story is "generic and boring".
It's easily the best RTS campaign ever (although I did love WC3/TFT's as well), and one of the best gaming stories ever created imo.
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I think you're twisting my words into something that I didn't say (or at least, I didn't mean to imply as such). I'm in agreement with you, that there's infinite potential for a story to be made, but I feel that in general, the opportunity for creating an original, well-presented story for a science fiction-based video game is a good deal more slim than for a novel or film. Constraints are in place for video game writing teams, as you said, and while it's not implausible to go the extra mile to write a compelling story, it's often more convenient to stick with the generic sci-fi stuff.
I personally love nothing more than a good story, and I too would like to see some breakthroughs in VG stories, away from the boring old archetypes and such, but this is simply the experience I've had as a gamer. Video games are not as bountiful a source of good storytelling than other forms of media, due to the balance between gameplay and plot that has to be addressed. I don't think we've hit a limit (perhaps we CAN'T hit one), but it is simpler and easier for a writing team to stick with what works, y'know?
No intention of twisting by any means. I just don't see how we can say a videogame is more constrained for story. What makes it so? For that matter, how do you mean?
Do you mean that in science fiction gaming, we can only have certain types? Why is there a difference between the storyline for a game vs a novel? Do you mean because of the market and what's been produced? Abe's Odyssey for example certainly isn't Starcraft and that certainly isn't SaGa Frontier...which is nowhere near Mechwarrior...
Maybe I'm just confused here. I just don't understand how a videogame places limitation on storyline. Writers and managers of writing teams place limits, I'd say.
Edit : and for the comment about you can't have sci-fi in the stone age...why not? Cavemen with laser pistols? I'm down...I guess that starts to bleed into post apocalyptic though...
Ewwww...genre-fication!
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United States7483 Posts
On August 03 2011 04:49 Talin wrote:Two cheesy sci fi storylines are similar, that's shocking indeed.  I didn't think anybody even paid attention to stories in games anymore. Isn't Mass Effect basically the same thing as well?
Not quite, Mass Effect has the similar element in the idea of Protheans having vanished, leaving behind artifacts, but if you'd played through the game you'd notice enormous differences.
Every story can be boiled down to one of two traits: Protagonist goes on an adventure or adventure comes to the Protagonist. That doesn't mean that they actually resemble each other on a more than superficial level.
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You'd be hard-pressed to find a truly unique plot. I'm convinced anything that doesn't star Adam Sandler has a plot copy-pasted from someone else . It happens all the time, just look at Avatar and Pocohontas. You can only go with a space marine storyline for so long before bad guys start to mimic their predecessors.
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Seems someone beat me to the "Ever heard of Warhammer?" line
but i'll throw an even older quote into the fray
"Every story you can think of has already been told" (in its basic storyline anyway)
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On August 03 2011 04:50 KeksX wrote:
Dude and I was just about to go buy the last harry potter book and watch the new twilight movie.
Grouping Harry Potter with Twilight is an unforgivable sin. May your permaban be swift and god have mercy on your soul
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EPT
