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| Experiment: Is a Storyline Needed For A Good Game? |
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| Silent |
 Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2005 2:09 am Post subject: Experiment: Is a Storyline Needed For A Good Game? |
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BLUE
Joined: 10 Jan 2005
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I'm doing an experiment to see if a storyline is important in the modern word of gaming.
Okay, I'm bored. But I also was interested in an argument posted on Greg Costikyan's blog...about the "war" between two camps of elitle professors battling over what a game is, in the article "No Justice, No Peace": No Truce in the Narratology/Ludology War.
http://www.costik.com/weblog/2005_06_01_blogchive.html
"... [t]he stereotype is that it's a struggle between those who view games simply as an alternative form of story-telling media ... and those who maintain that 'narratologists' are essentially scholars from other media...wishing to annex game studies to their own discipline, and that the brave, few ludologists who understand games as formal systems must fight to the death to insist on the primacy of rules, structure, and interaction."-Costikyan
Now, I place myself inside of the "narratologist" camp. I like a good story, and I play games to find out the stories hidden inside of them and interact
with it. However, this is not what the topic is about. Instead of lecturing to you the glory of reading a game, this topic is an attempt to prove that narratologist ideas may be right concering gaming.
Arguments over ideas are good, but until you can get some concrete evidence to support your beliefs...your talk is just talk, unsupported. In an attempt to prove that a narrative is an important part of a game, and should not be taken away, I must attempt to show that. To do that, I must subject my belief to a test, an experiment. If it succeds, it backs my hypothesis. If it fails, well, I may have to conclude defeat to the Ludologists.
If a narrative is the most important thing a game needs, therefore, if a story is added to games that do not have any "narrative", the quality of the game will be improved greatly, providing much innovation and increasing the amount of postive reviews of this game.
To do this, I will have two games, both very similar in style and content. The difference is that one of the games have a storyline attached to it, while the other game does not. I compare the average amount of good verus bad reviews for each game, and therefore, conclude if a game is good because it haves a narrative.
Hence, the reason I posted this topic. I hope you can get involved in this experiment by posting the reviews of the two games and seeing which one is better.
The game used in this experiment is the wonderful, and prehaps plentiful game of "Tetris". Its popluarity has allowed for fans all over the world to play. It does not have a storyline, however, and my hypothesis is that if Tetris had an engaging, fun, and great storyline, more people would play it. (I know they are hunderds of verisons of Tetris. It doesn't matter which verison you play, as long as you play the same verison twice for the duration fo the experiment)
The subject in question will review 2 "games", one without the storyline and one with. So, without further ado, below, in white text, lays the storyline of Tetris, which I, myself, had made...do not read this storyline until after you played Tetris once. Then, play Tetris again, and see if your review of the game changes, keeping in mind the storyline. (Highlight the white text to read the storyline. If you do not want to take part in the experiment, then highlight the text to read the storyline.)
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T.E.T.R.I.S.
In the 21st century, as the world becomes more interconnected with computers, and as more data becomes digtalized, hackers began to arrive to take advantage. They are considered a dangerous threat to the safety of the individual. Computer users began erecting firewalls and running virus scans. Encyrptions become more and more complicated. And yet, the hacker reign supereme.
When they first appeared, hackers were not unified. Aside from attending annual conventions and keeping tabs with one another, the hackers are loners, who work for their own sake. However, as the years goes on, hackers soon formed small companies. These companies sells their 'uber skillz' to anyone with the cash. You want blackmail? These hackers can get it. Want some denial-of-services attack to just strangely target your competitior? You've got it. These services, while illegal, were in roaring demand, and these small companies grew into large enterprises.
You are employed in one of these large enterprises, T.E.T.R.I.S. Named after its trademarked destruction, the Trichomonadida Eukaryote T'ai Relationship Introductary Syndrome, T.E.T.R.I.S is one of the most famous and dangerous criminal enterprise. An hacker, you dream of being one of the elitle masters, though, wheter you want it just for the joy of the job of screwing innocent people over, or for the joy of being rich for screwing innocent people over is unknown.
Your hacker client, the N-MAP, is useful. In this state-of-the-art cracking equipment, you gain access to a blank screen. Blocks fall down onto the blank screen. Getting the blocks to go together into a straight line allows you to mine for any data hiding in the database, and destroys the line in the process to allow you to gain the data, which can therefore be sold to gain income for T.E.T.R.I.S. The more income you generate, the more cash and fame you get in the company. Doing a T.E.T.R.I.S. Attack, which is making 4 data lines, gets you extra fame and cash, since it establishes the repuation of T.E.T.R.I.S. and makes it more fearful, which generates to more contracts. You desire of being the Head Hacker, the one that contorls T.E.T.R.I.S.
You may visualize levels being spilt into breifing screens telling you, the hacker the mission. After completing the mission, you will see a cutscence of you completing the mission. You will get cash that you can use to make your N-MAP better, and cooler. Also, you may add in some office politics, even a competition between you and another hacker, just to spice things up.
The goal is, this is a great storyline. Now...how does this affects your view of TETRIS?
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Give a small review on both games, the TETRIS game without a storyline, and the TETRIS game with the storyline. Rate from 1 to 5 stars, with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest. Pretend that when you are reviewing the second game, that you haven't played the first (and thereby assume that I just tacked a storyline onto a game...which I did!) If my hypothesis is correct, then by adding this storyline, then Tetris becomes better and more famous. I hope I'm right, because if I'm not, then this means that the story is not important in games. If it is not important, then that means that it is a justified pratice that story writers don't be hired much, and if they do get hired, won't get paid. This is not good, because I want to be a game story writer, and I think game stories are good. But I can't let gut insticts guide me, I must test this.
To anyone who is going to take this experiment...thanks in advance.
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| Allandaros |
| Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2005 3:00 am Post subject: |
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Armed Forces General
Joined: 26 Dec 2003
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Silent, I think there's something you're missing. Storylines don't work for all games.
Solitaire: "The cards are attempting to escape from the lair of the evil DeckMaster! Help them evacuate in an orderly fashion by arranging them by number and suit."
...nyet, am thinkink NO. It don't work. Same thing with Tetris. You need CHARACTERS for a storyline. Puzzle games generally don't have characters, and so don't have storylines.
A game's strength depends on its fun value and gameplay, no matter what sort of game it is. Good stories add to the fun, but the absence of a good story doesn't really change anything. DOOM, for example. I don't seem to recall much of a story in the original DOOM. If there was, I wasn't aware of it (beyond "Demons on Phobos! Marine - KILL DEMONS!"). But that didn't change the fact that DOOM was a rockin' game. You wandered around a level and shot evil squidgy things from beyond space and time, and it was a well-designed game.
A storyline is not neccessary. And for a game like Tetris, I can't help but think it's rather silly.
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| Random-R-BSV |
| Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2005 3:25 am Post subject: |
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ORANGE
Joined: 23 Aug 2005
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Bravo, Allandaros. I could'nt have said it any better myself (I will however throw my 2 cents in...don't ask me why I feel compelled to do so) . The fact of the matter is that the argument between narrative and ludology is ludicrous on its face. There is no law that says that a game has to conform exclusively to either side. While I will admit that I enjoy a game with an engaging storyline, I also have to admit to needing concrete rules and systems to maintain the regulation of said game. Though the argument has seemed to take on a life of its own with the different versions of Paranoia. Some want more rigid codified rules to ease player interaction, while some want a more entertaining storyline that isn't necessarily constrained by rules. In the long run, it does'nt really matter which way you want it, or how you want to flavor it, as long as you get enough people (or in the case of solitaire, just yourself) to go along with the game and have fun.
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| Silent |
| Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2005 3:29 am Post subject: |
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BLUE
Joined: 10 Jan 2005
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Sorry Allandaros. Guess I wasn't thinking.
How come what I thought were great ideas turn out to be just plain old silly ideas?
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Last edited by Silent on Sun Sep 18, 2005 3:32 am; edited 1 time in total |
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| Random-R-BSV |
| Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2005 3:32 am Post subject: |
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ORANGE
Joined: 23 Aug 2005
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Dunno, maybe it's genetic. Don't worry though, silly ideas need to be aired also, so that people can get a good laugh.
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| Silent |
| Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2005 3:51 am Post subject: |
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BLUE
Joined: 10 Jan 2005
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True, but the issues I raised up were important. If Random-R-BSV and Allandaros are right, then this means a story writer is just as important (or a little less important) as the person programming the rules for a game. I, of course, think that a story writer is much more important than the programmer, but that because I'm a story writer, and have a personal stake in this argument. Storywriters are paid very little to zero pay for their work. This is, of course, because without a game, there is no story. And it is not as important as I would like it to be, as Allanadros said:
| Quote: |
"Good stories add to the fun, but the absence of a good story doesn't really change anything."
"A storyline is not neccessary." |
People believe in these two statements, and therefore, don't hire story writers much.
If I could have proven that statement, then hopefully, word would have gotten around, I would have gotten the demand for story writers (as well as their pay) to go up, and hopefully, earn myself a raise. If it failed, then few people will offer up much cash for a story...which means we are left with crummy storylines for many console games, as well as me with a low paycheck. Guess my idea to support the "narrativist" position may fail.
But still, I would prefer for at least some people to do the experiment. I understand on the surface it seems strange, but at least pay some contribution to the efforts. Who knows? You may be suprised at the results. It've been done before.
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| NekoAbyss |
| Posted: Tue Dec 26, 2006 11:07 pm Post subject: |
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GREEN
 
Joined: 14 Jun 2005
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Silent and I were talking about this concept, and we came up with a better idea, using the game Asteroids to see if a plot would make it better.
The game without plot: Destroy asteroids without being hit by them
The game with a plot: You are a space ace, a veteran of a war between the planets. A dimensional overlap has caused the creation of immense asteroid fields at the edge of the solar system, headed inwards. You are sent to scan what the asteroids are made of, but you get caught in a field, then must survive and escape. This gets you system-wide renown, and you are sent to destroy various asteroid fields which areheaded towards various colonies, until eventually you have to clear a huge asteroid field which would otherwise destory Earth.
The gameplay is the same, destroy asteroids and not me destroyed yourself, but with the addition of a plot the motivations change.
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| Adam-R-LON-1 |
| Posted: Tue Dec 26, 2006 11:39 pm Post subject: |
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BLUE
Joined: 23 Aug 2004
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Doesn't the game sort of build a storyline around itself anyway? It isn't like Tetris, in that instead of a pointless abstract activity (fitting coloured shapes together) you have realistic ideas within the game. Let's review:
1. You're in a spaceship, in space.
2. You're surrounded by asteroids that blow you up if you crash into them.
3. You are able to shoot and destroy these asteroids, and you are rewarded for doing so.
With these overt thoughts in mind, any number of circumstances could become background or motivation for the game. If someone can't define their own plot from these threads, well, frankly he's a moron.
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| Silent |
| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 12:41 am Post subject: |
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BLUE
Joined: 10 Jan 2005
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The difference is, in your example, the movivation is supplied by the player, who is trying to jusitfy playing the game to himself. Since the player already contorls the variables of his own story, it is not exactly fresh, or interesting. He already knows what happens.
In Neko's example, the designers are offering the movivation and the story, and the player does not know what happens next. This provides excitment and fun for everyone, and provides players with a reason to continue playing, so that they can see more of the storyline, and be suprised at what happens. The player does not know the full story until they complete the game.
EDIT: At least, that is what I think is the reason. I could be wrong. Ask Neko.
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| Aratos |
| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 1:08 am Post subject: |
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BLUE
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I ignore backstory, meself. Storylines, ditto unless they're so amazingly brilliant or amazingly crappy that I have a twisted desire to see what happens next...
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| Spider Jerusalem |
| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:12 am Post subject: |
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ORANGE
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I never much carried to longwinded plot, just the fun of RPing.
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| Professor Von Kripplespac |
| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 6:05 am Post subject: |
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ORANGE
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I love storylines, especially in FPS's. A well thought out storyline can make even a rather mindless shooter exciting.
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| Aratos |
| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 11:43 am Post subject: |
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BLUE
Joined: 06 Aug 2004
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| Professor Von Kripplespac wrote: |
| I love storylines, especially in FPS's. A well thought out storyline can make even a rather mindless shooter exciting. |
Which is why Half-Life was a great game, and HL2 was mediocre until the last three levels, and Doom is the greatest FPS ever. No, wait, that last bit doesn't work.
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| Scalene |
| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 11:58 am Post subject: |
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BLUE
Joined: 06 Jul 2006
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| Aratos wrote: |
| Professor Von Kripplespac wrote: |
| I love storylines, especially in FPS's. A well thought out storyline can make even a rather mindless shooter exciting. |
Which is why Half-Life was a great game, and HL2 was mediocre until the last three levels, and Doom is the greatest FPS ever. No, wait, that last bit doesn't work. |
And why I'm on the edge of my seat, drooling at the sight of Halo 3. I mean, come on. Have you read the reports? |
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| Aratos |
| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 2:20 pm Post subject: |
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BLUE
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No, no, I got fed up with Halo becasue the gameplay was generic, the difficulty unbalanced and the maps unimaginative and dull. Not even a great storyline could save it in my eyes.
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