Zero Punctuation

[Krynn72]

I think you just wanted to tell us about this, and used the blahs to seem nonchalant. Nerd.

I would have told the story much better than that if I had wanted it to be the focus. You're right though, I did want to tell it. I was actually writing a more in-depth version until I realized how necessary it was towards exemplifying my point. I had to rewrite it to make it more concise, in fact.


EDIT:

the best argument you guys come up with is 'his argument is invalid;

I'm guessing this refers to my post? If so, then do you disagree with me about it? I think the Halflife vs Fallout issue is the most proper example of this. I don't think you can hold the two to the same principal, because of the very fact that in one the story is already decided, and in the other it is not.

As for your "perks for backstory" argument, I don't really think its necessary. The game already lets you construct your character's skills, stats and perks from the very beginning. You know, character generation. The gameplay IS affected by your character's backstory, as determined by the player.

 

[Laivasse]

I just watched the entire vid again. He never once uses the word 'problem.' He never says the word 'lazy.' I don't know when these 'couple of sentences' occur where he says all these things. Here's what he says about amnesia:

You started posting in this thread complaining about the way we were characterising EC's vid, but sounds like you've neither read our posts closely or watched the vid closely. He asks 'how do we resolve the problem?' (of poor implementation of In Medias Res) and says something about not doing it with 'lazy amnesia stories' at around the 4:30 mark.

His whole build up to this has consisted of his extolling the merits of F3s adherence to structure over that of F:NV. So his argument appears to be:
1) F3 is superior in story to F:NV because of its adherence to three part structure <--- Not something that many people appear to support.
2) F:NV is a 'lazy amnesia story' <--- Very harsh... hell let's just say 'wrong' to call F:NV either 'lazy' or an 'amnesia story'.
3) In Medias Res tends be implemented poorly because it is 'cheap' <--- Not supported by anything he has previously argued.
4) Let's look at better implementations like Bioshock <--- Bioshock isn't better.

I was the one who said it was lazy--and yes, it's lazy...

Well, no, he was the one who first said it was lazy, and like you he appears to be saying it's lazy because it discards the first act. Evidently there are a great many people, all story aficionados, all True Scotsmen, who are able to engage sufficiently well with such games - and indeed find them better for the lack of a conventional first act - that this kind of storytelling does not suddenly become a 'problem' in need of a solution.

He directly addresses this too.

Or so he thinks, but uses no examples which support his argument. The one game he dissects negatively is found by most to be excellently written and engaging. The game he offers as an example of a solution to his non-problem features a form of amnesia, inconveniently for him. Nor does he cover himself in any way by using as a counterpoint the obvious examples of gaming which do do amnesia well.

That's his argument: That without act 1, you simply won't care as much about your character or the story. You want to make a counter argument? Argue this: if the entire argument in favour of a 3 act structure hinges on the assumption that act 1 makes us empathise with the character, it can be disproven if you prove that games can be just as engaging without a first act.

My argument is that there is not even a need for a counter-argument, since his premise is shoddy and the bolded part is self-evident. Most people found F:NV very engaging, far moreso than the three part structure of F3.

'Hackneyed,' eh? Name me a good movie that didn't follow it. Or a famous book. Pretty much every major piece of fiction more or less follows this structure, whether it was in order or not, intentional or not. You're seriously questioning the very basis of how to write stories? You want to defend yourself on that position?

LoL, what am I defending, the idea that games can be well-written without a first act? Scroll up. I guess the sky just fell because I questioned the very basis of writing stories. You're missing the point anyway, since I'm pointing out the weakness of EC's argument rather than making my own about tearing up the rulebook. Is there a problem with departing from three act structure or isn't there? Does F:NV discard the first act or doesn't it? If it does, what are we even arguing, since it's widely accepted as being better, story wise, than F3?

This is just nonsense, anyway, since the manner in which stories can be divided into acts in subjective, as evidenced in the way EC's many respondents disagree about the way F:NV, Bioshock, etc. can be divided up. People can't seem to define their terms, decide what is a subversion and what is not a subversion, or give examples consistent with their argument... The argument, and this one, is a waste of time.

I'm all for making the argument that games don't HAVE to have stories. In fact, I think that would make most games much better. But to claim that devs can take only pieces of the fundamental story structure, apply them to games, and have the structure still work flawlessly is delusional.

Delusional, yet supported by such poor implementations of In Medias Res as F:NV, Planescape...

Using amnesia a few times to good effect was fine. Using it as often as it has been, at the cost of good story, is laziness.

When does a trope get used so often that it stops working in a story? Which tropes have not yet been used to this degree? This is my fundamental problem with the argument: it's not an argument, it's a statement to the tune of 'I'm bored of seeing amnesia in stories' with a poor argument tacked around it, an argument that doesn't even use an amnesia story as its main example. Well people get bored of things, that's not news. I don't want to have to pretend I've watched a lesson on storytelling when in fact I've just watched a guy bellyaching about his preferences.

In medias res and tabula rasa characterisation are completely independent of each other.

I've said as much.

You're comparing an RPG, where your personality choices and characterisation actually affect the story, to a linear FPS, where you have zero choice or influence on your character or the story. Um, wat?

What's the problem here? Both have characters, both have stories. Both are examples of a similar storytelling principle across different genres. The tendency of people to project their own emotions onto Freeman's character is well documented, and the decision of Valve to keep him mute has been said to be calculated to foster this. Saying it's a linear FPS where you can't affect the story... I just don't see the relevance.

Notice how when he's talking about your character backstory in F:NV he talks about adding perks to fix its lack? Not text, not backstory, perks. That's because the story should affect gameplay: it's part roleplay, part game. They're called role playing games because when you roleplay the game will change. My pretending Gordon is an invisible transvestite with downs has no affect on whether the humans defeat the combine, whether Alyx lives or dies, whether I work with the Gman or not. Valve has decided that for us. I can't believe I have to make this distinction.

Shame you made it then, because I have no idea what your point is. I will say I thought his perks idea was pretty poor. Much like the rest of his vid it was a non-solution to a non-problem. There are already plenty of callbacks in games like F:NV to who your character might have been.

End of this. If you want to quibble, just PM me.

No thanks, I'll keep it to the thread as long as you're melodramatically asking me to 'defend myself'.

 

[Viperidae]

You've just made this argument entirely pointless by failing to address most of my points, or at least having the tone of 'refuting' them on unrelated, superficial levels ('it wasn't an argument, it was just a statement! doesn't count!'). This discussion will devolve into each other trying to make sense of each other's points, even though mine were fairly clear.

I give up. Welcome to HL2.net, viper, it's smarter here.

 

[Krynn72]

Viper, see my edit in my last post please. I got crowded out by a multipost

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Sometimes, you ******* just type too goddamn much. ZP is an entertaining guy, eh reviews games and doesn't afraid of anything.

 

[Laivasse]

I give up. Welcome to HL2.net, viper, it's smarter here.

Way to martyr. What points did I fail to address or only pretend to 'refute' by way of tone? The bit where I pointed out how you definitely didn't pay enough attention to the vid...? Or the bit where he was saying what you said he wasn't saying?

I don't understand why you're repeating his suggestions to me about how to improve storytelling/roleplaying, when I've spelt out a dozen times that he has failed to show that the problem lies with either a) non-adherence to three act structure or b) over-use of the amnesia trope. Repeat them to someone who agrees with EC and who thinks his argument stands up, despite being based on nothing but unrelated points. I don't agree. Apparently even you don't agree.

 

[Krynn72]

Sometimes, you ******* just type too goddamn much. ZP is an entertaining guy, eh reviews games and doesn't afraid of anything.

Zero Punctuation wasn't what sparked the discussion. It was Extra Credits.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Ignoring the veracity of his arguments for a moment, I don't think his solutions hold up too well, either. The one he cited from that RPG - about your units having pre-existing debuffs or something that give you a glimpse into their past - is kind of crap, and doesn't really subvert the methods he disapproves of as well as he seems to think. He's against expository text dumps to get across a game's backstory (although apparently not in audiobook form ), and yet this example is really just the same sort of thing, albeit much snappier and wrapped in a convenient game mechanic. Sure, the debuffs probably have descriptive icons that suit their purpose, but how do they actually get their point across? Flavour text. More crucially, what do these paltry details tell me about the characters that are more descriptive than "was a courier." He's old? He's missing an eye? Big deal. These are things could have been (and possibly were) displayed on the character models quite easily and serve the exact same purpose, especially considering the developers balanced the units' stats against the debuffs so as to render them functionally pointless. (Edit: Oops, maybe not, I think I had the wrong game in mind after looking up some screenshots. Still shitty.)

His solution for New Vegas is terrible for a completely different reason, though, and it comes down to the one thing he seems content to all but dismiss - the importance of having a blank slate, of forming your own character outside the rigours of a focused story arc (however you choose to define that). Granted, I haven't played NV, but I think I have a rough idea of what the developers were trying to accomplish, and I'd argue the minimal details about your character's past were an intentional plot device, at least in the beginning. Having little idea of where they came from empowers the player to move forward with their own version of the character without feeling as though they "owe" anything to their past self. His solution of having a selection of pre-defined perks, whether temporary or not, doesn't really mesh with this as it imposes a version of the character that might not sync up with what the player had envisioned. Obviously, they might discover some details about themselves later on that don't fit with the character they've created, but these have more impact as the player has been given the ability to diverge from their past self. Presenting a more concrete idea of who you are/were at the very beginning serves only to limit the player's perception of their character. They might still choose to create an entirely different persona, but they would already be aware that they were intentionally diverging from the game's version, and so the impact of any future discoveries is lessened.

Anyway, I don't really have my own solutions for these, but that's mostly because I don't see that they need a solution. Storytelling in games hasn't really evolved to the point where it can be reliably held to "standards," but I also think it has the potential to transcend them as an interactive medium, so imposing traditional structure onto stories like these seems a little clumsy.

 

[Sheepo]

The thing is though that three act structure is pretty much interchangeable with beginning, middle, and end, which is pretty much the necessary skeleton of any narrative ever. Obviously the order these pieces can be arranged in and how much time one is given can differ from story to story, but he isn't "imposing traditional structure". The problem is that, for either the purpose of convenience for the video or from a lack of proper attention given to the game, he doesn't accept the core idea of RPGs, that you create the character during the game, therefore your introduction to him and his world begins whenever you start to play. He's not trying to impose the wrong context on it, he's just imposing the context on it and seeing everything wrong.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Zero Punctuation wasn't what sparked the discussion. It was Extra Credits.

I'll take your word for it :dozey:

 

[Bad^Hat]

The thing is though that three act structure is pretty much interchangeable with beginning, middle, and end, which is pretty much the necessary skeleton of any narrative ever. Obviously the order these pieces can be arranged in and how much time one is given can differ from story to story, but he isn't "imposing traditional structure".

Hmm, I probably worded that wrong. I guess my issue is that he's only considering one type of beginning. Throughout the video he seems to always refer to the first act merely as a backstory, something that happened before the character was struck with amnesia, or in other words before the game started. Couldn't the beginning be just as accurately represented by the character discovering and reacting to the world post-amnesia? In fact, most first acts take place in the present tense, with the characters being introduced, relationships mapped out, and the world given some kind of setting and context. In a game like New Vegas, this could take the form of the player "inventing" a character, playing through the initial stages with them, and the game world feeding into that and reinforcing it (or in some cases contradicting). Which isn't to say that character creation by itself is an adequate stand-in for a proper first act, but a well-handled beginning could introduce the characters and setting just as well without concerning itself too heavily with the past.

Edit: At the end of that video he says to check out "Rev Rants," so I did. They're uhh... certainly ranty.

This one's somewhat relevant, though. To the discussion, that is. Not the thread. Heh.

Anotheredit: Well that is just the least appealing still image ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH1wXRvhSNA

 

[Gargantou]

Can I watch that vid about amnesia and story-structure without getting spoiled if I haven't played through New Vegas yet?

Since I am under the impression I should do that before reading through all these posts.

 

[Bad^Hat]

No spoilers nope, he concerns himself solely with the beginning of the game, which is pretty common knowledge.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Hey remember when this thread was about Zero Punctuation.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/2737-Dead-Space-2

tl;dr - the scares are repetitive and it lacks tension also buzzsaw yay.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Meh review. I'm surprised he didn't mention the other characters or storyline even briefly.

 

[Viperidae]

Dead Space fanboys rage.

 

[Stigmata]

Decent review, and for some reason I enjoyed it more than his other less-recent-but-still-recent-overall reviews, but anyways, getting back to New Vegas!

I'm having trouble understanding where all this amnesia talk comes from. Cinematic opens, you're a courier, you get shot in the head, you wake up in Doc Mitchell's place, and the game starts. When exactly is it made clear that you've lost your memory and that you have to figure out who you were? It's my understanding that your character history is intentionally vague so that, as BadHat says, you can inject whatever history you like to make the character your own. The history is vague and distant precisely because that's all you can do with a customisable-character-based RPG with an in media res beginning. The alternative is to either define the character so clearly that it constricts the believability of the players' actions, or to give the character absolutely no basis for existing in the game world.

I'm not even going to touch what Yahtzee said about story structure. I want my blood to keep pumping.

 

[Shakermaker]

DC Universe Online

 

[Bad^Hat]

"WoW had two opposing factions so now every MMO has to!"

Seriously. I mean. Seriously. He actually said this. The idea of two opposing teams is now something people are copying from WoW.

****ing christ.

 

[Viperidae]

I don't think he meant teams in the regular MP sense...? Didn't he just mean that in WoW you have two armies to fight for, instead of all players fighting the same monsters in the same instances? Was WoW the first mmo to have that? I don't know anything about mmos.

 

[Acepilotf14]

Off the top of my head Star Wars Galaxies had the Empire and the Rebellion. Planetside had three sides. Most other MMOs didn't really have sides, you just sort of.. did stuff.

 

[Krynn72]

You had sides in Ultima Online.

 

[Bad^Hat]

I don't think he meant teams in the regular MP sense...? Didn't he just mean that in WoW you have two armies to fight for, instead of all players fighting the same monsters in the same instances? Was WoW the first mmo to have that? I don't know anything about mmos.

Doesn't matter. He said (something to the effect of) "they only have two factions because WoW did it!" Does it matter that it's an MMO? MMOs have been borrowing features from non-MMOs and vice versa for years now, and the two opposing factions motif is extremely well established not only in video games in general, but in the bloody comics this game is based upon. Was it really necessary for him to point that out? Of course it wasn't, he's just trying to fulfil his ****ing WoW comparison quota again.

Then again he did make a joke about it, so he's at least aware of it I guess.

 

[morgs]

If MMO's didn't borrow ideas most of the ones coming out these days would be terrible.

 

[Krynn72]

Doesn't matter. He said (something to the effect of) "they only have two factions because WoW did it!" Does it matter that it's an MMO? MMOs have been borrowing features from non-MMOs and vice versa for years now, and the two opposing factions motif is extremely well established not only in video games in general, but in the bloody comics this game is based upon. Was it really necessary for him to point that out? Of course it wasn't, he's just trying to fulfil his ****ing WoW comparison quota again.

Then again he did make a joke about it, so he's at least aware of it I guess.

Honestly, I'm pretty certain that hes doing it just to annoy people like you. I'm sure theres many other people who watch it and get pissed any time he makes a WoW reference, or get pissed when he a game they like to WoW. Hes the kind of person who will sit there and read comments like yours and just laugh at how you're doing exactly what he expected you to do.

 

[Bad^Hat]

oh no Im have been troled on intenret

 

[Acepilotf14]

You had sides in Ultima Online.

Did you? I played the fan version for a while and maybe I just never noticed it. I just sort of bro'd out with a guild.

 

[Sheepo]

Honestly, I'm pretty certain that hes doing it just to annoy people like you. I'm sure theres many other people who watch it and get pissed any time he makes a WoW reference, or get pissed when he a game they like to WoW. Hes the kind of person who will sit there and read comments like yours and just laugh at how you're doing exactly what he expected you to do.

This is the wierdest post in the world. Are you deliberately not saying 'troll' here to emphasise something? If not, do you realize you just wrote a paragraph defining the word 'troll', when you could've just, y'know, used it.

 

[Rizzo]

Stop trolling Sheepo.

 

[Shakermaker]

MindJack

I hadn't even heard of this game until this review.

 

[Deleted member 56031]

he reviewed mindjack??

i need to watch this now

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Another episode of Extra Credits worth sharing: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2794-An-Open-Letter-to-EA-Marketing

 

[Krynn72]

If EA execs had hearts, hearing a reading of their old statement would have brought them to their knees in shame. I almost teared up just imagining how it would have affected me if I were EA.

 

[kupocake]

Having worked on the periphery of marketing, I'm kind of non-plused why they think that kind of crap is endemic to a games publisher. Immature, off mark and essentially shit is the remit of all marketing.

 

[ríomhaire]

If EA execs had hearts, hearing a reading of their old statement would have brought them to their knees in shame. I almost teared up just imagining how it would have affected me if I were EA.

You honestly think any of the same people work at EA from when the published that magazine ad?

 

[Bad^Hat]

Should also be pointed out that they never refer to themselves as "Electronic Arts" any more, no doubt a deliberate move on their part.

 

[Shakermaker]

Two Worlds II

 

[Stigmata]

Wow. Yahtzee has really kicked it up a notch lately.

 

[Shakermaker]

I'll just put this in here:

Extra Credits - Ludus Florentis

 

[Krynn72]

I'll just put this in here:

Extra Credits - Ludus Florentis

That mother****er said ARMAII is a CoD clone! Everything hes ever said is now invalid.

EDIT: Oh, they just used the wrong box art.

Oh god! You guys are totally right. That was supposed to be a picture of Bad Company. Bah, GDC week. Sorry for the lack of quality control.

(Normally I wouldn't respond to game image choices because I stand behind all of them [and do think that Bad Company moved the series a lot more in the MW direction] but that's just the wrong image)

Now I can continue watching the video.