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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Jaffe: ’storytelling not cracked properly yet’

mai said:

Though I usually barely tolerate Jaffe, I kinda agree with him on this "context" thing. The good example to illustrate a bare minimum of context are WarioWare games. Here's a good review of the very first WarioWare game by Chaim  Gingold (remember Spore game?) that specifically talks about "fiction" in that game. Quite educative text, it's easier to comprehend such things on WarioWare simple examples.

Reasonable said:

Sorry guys, but ME has good storytelling for a videogame but pretty weak storytelling in context to other mediums.

QFT, though even by videogame standards I could name a few more deep and original sci-fi stories than Mass Effect space opera (e.g. look for games made by Steve Meretzky of Infocom).

THANK YOU for that link.  That was one of the most refreshing things I've ever read about game design.  I'm gonna have to browse around that web site a bit.



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selnor said:
BW_JP said:
starcraft said:
He hasn't played the Mass Effect series yet.

That is all.

Mass effect has incredible story telling, but it certainly is not the best at that. It's the complete package that makes mass effect so good.

That being said, this blog, and your post took his comments out of perspective. He's talking about contextual interactive responses to progressing the story. He is not talking about the story in general. 

And he is absolutely right. Waggling around to progress a story is going to take me out of the experience because of a number of things ranging from force feedback and the fact that that the remainder of the game is played conventionally (or unconventionally in the case of the wii). 

Story telling has nothing to do with how you interact with the game. A good story is a stand alone entity. It can exist by itself without the medium surrounding it. If it can not, then it fails as a story. Mass effect could very well be a novel and its story would be just as good.

Jaffe is a very experienced game designer. He is a master of pure mechanics and has made a wide variety of games from very different genres. has anyone else here played Mickey Mania? that game was spectacular. 

That being said, jaffe has experienced presenting a story in a number of different ways. He certainly has the right to speak about story in game design and I think people are really missing his true message.

Jaffe is not trying to tell you that story has not been properly cracked, what he's saying is that until this day there has not been a game where the contextual input from the user affects the story and is believable to the point where it actually adds anything to the story.  

Motion controls are really what he is speaking of here, and while they may offer truck loads of game play intuitiveness, they are not an excuse for poor mechanics, and they certainly will not make poor mechanics better. 

Just in that same light, motion controls will not make you feel "in" the story. You cannot feel. Natal can not replace the feeling of slapping someone, it will feel unnatural. There's no force response. You're just wagging your hand. 

Natal and the motion controllers are fantastic for providing enhancements to solid mechanics. Super Mario Galaxy being the diamond studded crown of this notion. They will not provide enhancements to solid story telling.

What improves story telling? visuals, music, voice acting, character design, environmental design, mood, setting and a number of other emotional aspects of game design.

Jaffe's primary concern, for those that actually listened to him is that he is concerned that the motion control will be played as a key part to improving a story rather than simply spending development costs on those other direct relationships.

He means that until these alternative control schemes are able to actually put you in the game that they will only take away from the other parts of game design.

It is a very valid concern. 

Mass Effect series has by a long shot, the best storytelling of any game. And the most tense story moments. In 2007 people loved the last 3 hours of ME1. And in 2010, people were blown away by the first 2 hours and final 5 of ME2.

I'd have to disagree with that.  I'm sure there are Mass Effect fans who think so, but I don't think the arguement holds.  Heavy Rain, for example, easily outperforms Mass Effect for story - although to be fair Heavy Rain is a lot more focused on story than gameplay, Iso that shouldn't be a surprise, really.

Also, Mass Effect is far from having the tensest moments.  Silent Hill series, Heavy Rain, many other titles have inherently far tenser sequences, and not just action tense either but with far greater character involvement in the tension.

Mass Effect takes a generic SF story and characters and does a good job of using it to immerse the player, but it's far from the peak of storytelling IMHO.  The flow is jumping, character motivation very one note and simple, and it uses a now really overused (good/bad) moral metric.

 



Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...

Reasonable, I agree with some of what you're saying but you seem to be stuck on using "storytelling" in a narrative form.

For games to truly emerge as a unique form of storytelling, different approaches need to be explored. Mass Effect 2 was far from perfect but it was a huge step forward in pure storytelling because well over 50% of the game was ENTIRELY dependent on the player and how he or she wanted to interact with the Normandy's crew. Is that not "story" simply because it doesn't fill a preconceived plot system?

I'd argue the exact opposite. It could be an interesting new step forward for interactive storytelling; instead of trying to tell a story like a novel, play, or film, a game can eschew those linear storytelling elements (which ME2 still contains in its "main" story arc) in favor of letting the player create a unique experience of their own through characterization. It still tells a story, just not a conventional one compared to other media. Games are the first form of interactive storytelling in the history of man so we should stop thinking about these things so conventionally.

I keep bringing up Mass Effect 2 because it's the first game I've ever played that actually tried to push these characterization elements over traditional story elements. They became more important than the "main" story arc. I'd also argue against your statement that Silent Hill 2 was more tense than the final assault in ME2. IMO, the player connection to the characters created a much greater sense of danger than anything a conventional story would ever offer in a game experience, even one as good as SH2. I found myself caring about NPCs in the ME2; that almost NEVER happens in any game for reasons I've pointed out earlier. Once that connection is established, I cared more about those characters than anything else that was going on in the game. Although, to be fair, SH2 had a fair amount of that feeling as well.




Or check out my new webcomic: http://selfcentent.com/

selnor said:

Mass Effect series has by a long shot, the best storytelling of any game. And the most tense story moments. In 2007 people loved the last 3 hours of ME1. And in 2010, people were blown away by the first 2 hours and final 5 of ME2.

It tells a story well, and the interaction with characters is good, but at the end of the day the story is simplistic and the mechanics really do scream out at you. My first play through I loved it as I just played it as I would make the choices. However, in the following play throughs the game mechanics of paragon vs renegade interrupt immersion and story telling. So I'm going to have to disagree with you on that point.

If you liked the story telling in Mass Effect then I recommend you try the original Deus Ex. It was released in 2000 and runs on the old UE1, but it still has some of the best story telling in a game to date. As someone above mentioned, instead of just prompts and text (although it has that element as well), your actual actions determine a lot of the story details.

For instance (SPOILER) at one moment you meet a mechanic acting very strangely and if you look hard enough find a dead body of someone dressed like him. You can either choose to kill him or ignore what's happening, but your actions (completely unprompted and therefore your own) determine whther another character lives or dies.

After Deus Ex, games like Mass Effect and Bioshock are simply building on the foundations laid by Warren Spector and Ion Storm.



Reasonable said:
selnor said:
BW_JP said:
starcraft said:
He hasn't played the Mass Effect series yet.

That is all.

Mass effect has incredible story telling, but it certainly is not the best at that. It's the complete package that makes mass effect so good.

That being said, this blog, and your post took his comments out of perspective. He's talking about contextual interactive responses to progressing the story. He is not talking about the story in general. 

And he is absolutely right. Waggling around to progress a story is going to take me out of the experience because of a number of things ranging from force feedback and the fact that that the remainder of the game is played conventionally (or unconventionally in the case of the wii). 

Story telling has nothing to do with how you interact with the game. A good story is a stand alone entity. It can exist by itself without the medium surrounding it. If it can not, then it fails as a story. Mass effect could very well be a novel and its story would be just as good.

Jaffe is a very experienced game designer. He is a master of pure mechanics and has made a wide variety of games from very different genres. has anyone else here played Mickey Mania? that game was spectacular. 

That being said, jaffe has experienced presenting a story in a number of different ways. He certainly has the right to speak about story in game design and I think people are really missing his true message.

Jaffe is not trying to tell you that story has not been properly cracked, what he's saying is that until this day there has not been a game where the contextual input from the user affects the story and is believable to the point where it actually adds anything to the story.  

Motion controls are really what he is speaking of here, and while they may offer truck loads of game play intuitiveness, they are not an excuse for poor mechanics, and they certainly will not make poor mechanics better. 

Just in that same light, motion controls will not make you feel "in" the story. You cannot feel. Natal can not replace the feeling of slapping someone, it will feel unnatural. There's no force response. You're just wagging your hand. 

Natal and the motion controllers are fantastic for providing enhancements to solid mechanics. Super Mario Galaxy being the diamond studded crown of this notion. They will not provide enhancements to solid story telling.

What improves story telling? visuals, music, voice acting, character design, environmental design, mood, setting and a number of other emotional aspects of game design.

Jaffe's primary concern, for those that actually listened to him is that he is concerned that the motion control will be played as a key part to improving a story rather than simply spending development costs on those other direct relationships.

He means that until these alternative control schemes are able to actually put you in the game that they will only take away from the other parts of game design.

It is a very valid concern. 

Mass Effect series has by a long shot, the best storytelling of any game. And the most tense story moments. In 2007 people loved the last 3 hours of ME1. And in 2010, people were blown away by the first 2 hours and final 5 of ME2.

I'd have to disagree with that.  I'm sure there are Mass Effect fans who think so, but I don't think the arguement holds.  Heavy Rain, for example, easily outperforms Mass Effect for story - although to be fair Heavy Rain is a lot more focused on story than gameplay, Iso that shouldn't be a surprise, really.

Also, Mass Effect is far from having the tensest moments.  Silent Hill series, Heavy Rain, many other titles have inherently far tenser sequences, and not just action tense either but with far greater character involvement in the tension.

Mass Effect takes a generic SF story and characters and does a good job of using it to immerse the player, but it's far from the peak of storytelling IMHO.  The flow is jumping, character motivation very one note and simple, and it uses a now really overused (good/bad) moral metric.

 

Cant comment on Heavy Rain.

But Silent Hill I have finished all but the latest. And Mass Effect destroys them imo. Silent Hill was tense due to it being a horror game. But it's story elements were weak. I'm not talking about the actual story either, but how it is told. Silent Hill is not in my top 10.



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Scoobes said:
selnor said:

Mass Effect series has by a long shot, the best storytelling of any game. And the most tense story moments. In 2007 people loved the last 3 hours of ME1. And in 2010, people were blown away by the first 2 hours and final 5 of ME2.

It tells a story well, and the interaction with characters is good, but at the end of the day the story is simplistic and the mechanics really do scream out at you. My first play through I loved it as I just played it as I would make the choices. However, in the following play throughs the game mechanics of paragon vs renegade interrupt immersion and story telling. So I'm going to have to disagree with you on that point.

If you liked the story telling in Mass Effect then I recommend you try the original Deus Ex. It was released in 2000 and runs on the old UE1, but it still has some of the best story telling in a game to date. As someone above mentioned, instead of just prompts and text (although it has that element as well), your actual actions determine a lot of the story details.

For instance (SPOILER) at one moment you meet a mechanic acting very strangely and if you look hard enough find a dead body of someone dressed like him. You can either choose to kill him or ignore what's happening, but your actions (completely unprompted and therefore your own) determine whther another character lives or dies.

After Deus Ex, games like Mass Effect and Bioshock are simply building on the foundations laid by Warren Spector and Ion Storm.

Any story is generic. Quintin Tarantino's stories are bland to say the least, but he tells them in such a way they are brilliant. If you break down any story of any game or film, they are pretty bland. It's the characters stories and how they are told that make good stories.



selnor said:
Scoobes said:
selnor said:

Mass Effect series has by a long shot, the best storytelling of any game. And the most tense story moments. In 2007 people loved the last 3 hours of ME1. And in 2010, people were blown away by the first 2 hours and final 5 of ME2.

It tells a story well, and the interaction with characters is good, but at the end of the day the story is simplistic and the mechanics really do scream out at you. My first play through I loved it as I just played it as I would make the choices. However, in the following play throughs the game mechanics of paragon vs renegade interrupt immersion and story telling. So I'm going to have to disagree with you on that point.

If you liked the story telling in Mass Effect then I recommend you try the original Deus Ex. It was released in 2000 and runs on the old UE1, but it still has some of the best story telling in a game to date. As someone above mentioned, instead of just prompts and text (although it has that element as well), your actual actions determine a lot of the story details.

For instance (SPOILER) at one moment you meet a mechanic acting very strangely and if you look hard enough find a dead body of someone dressed like him. You can either choose to kill him or ignore what's happening, but your actions (completely unprompted and therefore your own) determine whther another character lives or dies.

After Deus Ex, games like Mass Effect and Bioshock are simply building on the foundations laid by Warren Spector and Ion Storm.

Any story is generic. Quintin Tarantino's stories are bland to say the least, but he tells them in such a way they are brilliant. If you break down any story of any game or film, they are pretty bland. It's the characters stories and how they are told that make good stories.

That's partly true, but the game mechanics still shouldn't interfere with the story. It interferes with immersion. Bioware seem to realise this by doing away with any good vs evil mechanic in Dragon Age. In Mass Effect they have to keep it for all 3 games now as they have an effect on your character.

Anyway, my post was mainly to point out Deus Ex to you as a game that should be tried. Mass Effect 2's story mechanic reminded me of it so I thought it might be something you'd enjoy. The story mechanic in it is IMO actually superior to Mass Effect's even though it's an old game.



Scoobes said:
selnor said:
Scoobes said:
selnor said:

Mass Effect series has by a long shot, the best storytelling of any game. And the most tense story moments. In 2007 people loved the last 3 hours of ME1. And in 2010, people were blown away by the first 2 hours and final 5 of ME2.

It tells a story well, and the interaction with characters is good, but at the end of the day the story is simplistic and the mechanics really do scream out at you. My first play through I loved it as I just played it as I would make the choices. However, in the following play throughs the game mechanics of paragon vs renegade interrupt immersion and story telling. So I'm going to have to disagree with you on that point.

If you liked the story telling in Mass Effect then I recommend you try the original Deus Ex. It was released in 2000 and runs on the old UE1, but it still has some of the best story telling in a game to date. As someone above mentioned, instead of just prompts and text (although it has that element as well), your actual actions determine a lot of the story details.

For instance (SPOILER) at one moment you meet a mechanic acting very strangely and if you look hard enough find a dead body of someone dressed like him. You can either choose to kill him or ignore what's happening, but your actions (completely unprompted and therefore your own) determine whther another character lives or dies.

After Deus Ex, games like Mass Effect and Bioshock are simply building on the foundations laid by Warren Spector and Ion Storm.

Any story is generic. Quintin Tarantino's stories are bland to say the least, but he tells them in such a way they are brilliant. If you break down any story of any game or film, they are pretty bland. It's the characters stories and how they are told that make good stories.

That's partly true, but the game mechanics still shouldn't interfere with the story. It interferes with immersion. Bioware seem to realise this by doing away with any good vs evil mechanic in Dragon Age. In Mass Effect they have to keep it for all 3 games now as they have an effect on your character.

Anyway, my post was mainly to point out Deus Ex to you as a game that should be tried. Mass Effect 2's story mechanic reminded me of it so I thought it might be something you'd enjoy. The story mechanic in it is IMO actually superior to Mass Effect's even though it's an old game.

Deus Ex was one of the first PC games to really inspire me. I enjoyed it. But times move on, and I guess part of immersion is graphics to. I remember it fondly, but ME has the crown for me.

Only the first Deus Ex was good though. The others were horrible.



rocketpig said:

Reasonable, I agree with some of what you're saying but you seem to be stuck on using "storytelling" in a narrative form.

For games to truly emerge as a unique form of storytelling, different approaches need to be explored. Mass Effect 2 was far from perfect but it was a huge step forward in pure storytelling because well over 50% of the game was ENTIRELY dependent on the player and how he or she wanted to interact with the Normandy's crew. Is that not "story" simply because it doesn't fill a preconceived plot system?

I'd argue the exact opposite. It could be an interesting new step forward for interactive storytelling; instead of trying to tell a story like a novel, play, or film, a game can eschew those linear storytelling elements (which ME2 still contains in its "main" story arc) in favor of letting the player create a unique experience of their own through characterization. It still tells a story, just not a conventional one compared to other media. Games are the first form of interactive storytelling in the history of man so we should stop thinking about these things so conventionally.

I keep bringing up Mass Effect 2 because it's the first game I've ever played that actually tried to push these characterization elements over traditional story elements. They became more important than the "main" story arc. I'd also argue against your statement that Silent Hill 2 was more tense than the final assault in ME2. IMO, the player connection to the characters created a much greater sense of danger than anything a conventional story would ever offer in a game experience, even one as good as SH2. I found myself caring about NPCs in the ME2; that almost NEVER happens in any game for reasons I've pointed out earlier. Once that connection is established, I cared more about those characters than anything else that was going on in the game. Although, to be fair, SH2 had a fair amount of that feeling as well.

No I get it 100%, I'm just responding to certain posts and the fact the medium insists on using linear narrative (or trying to) which makes it fair game for criticism when it fails.

I'll summarize:

For quest based games like an RPG, I'd say drop the central quest entirely.  Have a set of quests, some of which get 'turned on/off' depending upon your actions and just let the game emerge.  For example, imaigne ME but you are just a peace keeper and you go about your business, you might loose some of your team, you might not, and the overall experience varies and changes on your choices but the whole isn't hindered by trying to fit this around a linear 'plot'.  This is I believe your point and I agree 100%.  Oblvion without the silly central quest, just the guilds and what used to be 'side' quests, Fallout 3 with just the various factions and no central quest, same for Mass Effect as well.  In addition, this makes it easy to extend the game via DLC if popular as you just push out additional quests (Oblivion and Fallout 3 showed this well I thought).

decisions should be transparent.  the issue is developers worry we want to know what we might have missed or not 'get' the full experience, so they expose the mechanics, they highlight choices and as Jaffe points out well this stops it being a story and makes it an excercise in making game choices.  Bioshock is a simple examaple.  I'd bet a huge sum of your money that most players chose to harvest/not based on understanding the gameplay mechanism then deciding whether to be 'good' or not or get more Adam.  Now imagine that decision is properly blind, and you live with the consequences.  Deus Ex had great choice mechanims, and actually better than recent efforts like ME 1 & 2 IMO with less 'telegraphing' as did Silent Hill 2 as I've said.  Actually, I must post when I have time some examples but SH2 had the best mechanism for the impact of choice I've ever played.

Tension I think is a little in the eye of the beholder, which was more what I meant to say to Selnor - just saying ME has the most tense moments ever is something you can't substantiate.

I would argue that, to date, I'd be surprised if a majority of people didn't find some of the situations in Heavy Rain as arguably the tensest ever, as it offers some surprisingly crazy moments where your character is in danger which are not fantasy based (I admit again this is a natural advantage for Heavy Rain, playing as a woman in danger of being raped is intrinically more realistic and tense that a SF setting).

I think we see this the same from your comments, that game designers should put more effort into non-linear, choice based gameplay and less into trying to prodouce better narrative stories, because it's unlikely that they're going to come anywhere near matching novels or films in that regard.



Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...

Reasonable said:
rocketpig said:

Reasonable, I agree with some of what you're saying but you seem to be stuck on using "storytelling" in a narrative form.

For games to truly emerge as a unique form of storytelling, different approaches need to be explored. Mass Effect 2 was far from perfect but it was a huge step forward in pure storytelling because well over 50% of the game was ENTIRELY dependent on the player and how he or she wanted to interact with the Normandy's crew. Is that not "story" simply because it doesn't fill a preconceived plot system?

I'd argue the exact opposite. It could be an interesting new step forward for interactive storytelling; instead of trying to tell a story like a novel, play, or film, a game can eschew those linear storytelling elements (which ME2 still contains in its "main" story arc) in favor of letting the player create a unique experience of their own through characterization. It still tells a story, just not a conventional one compared to other media. Games are the first form of interactive storytelling in the history of man so we should stop thinking about these things so conventionally.

I keep bringing up Mass Effect 2 because it's the first game I've ever played that actually tried to push these characterization elements over traditional story elements. They became more important than the "main" story arc. I'd also argue against your statement that Silent Hill 2 was more tense than the final assault in ME2. IMO, the player connection to the characters created a much greater sense of danger than anything a conventional story would ever offer in a game experience, even one as good as SH2. I found myself caring about NPCs in the ME2; that almost NEVER happens in any game for reasons I've pointed out earlier. Once that connection is established, I cared more about those characters than anything else that was going on in the game. Although, to be fair, SH2 had a fair amount of that feeling as well.

No I get it 100%, I'm just responding to certain posts and the fact the medium insists on using linear narrative (or trying to) which makes it fair game for criticism when it fails.

I'll summarize:

For quest based games like an RPG, I'd say drop the central quest entirely.  Have a set of quests, some of which get 'turned on/off' depending upon your actions and just let the game emerge.  For example, imaigne ME but you are just a peace keeper and you go about your business, you might loose some of your team, you might not, and the overall experience varies and changes on your choices but the whole isn't hindered by trying to fit this around a linear 'plot'.  This is I believe your point and I agree 100%.  Oblvion without the silly central quest, just the guilds and what used to be 'side' quests, Fallout 3 with just the various factions and no central quest, same for Mass Effect as well.  In addition, this makes it easy to extend the game via DLC if popular as you just push out additional quests (Oblivion and Fallout 3 showed this well I thought).

decisions should be transparent.  the issue is developers worry we want to know what we might have missed or not 'get' the full experience, so they expose the mechanics, they highlight choices and as Jaffe points out well this stops it being a story and makes it an excercise in making game choices.  Bioshock is a simple examaple.  I'd bet a huge sum of your money that most players chose to harvest/not based on understanding the gameplay mechanism then deciding whether to be 'good' or not or get more Adam.  Now imagine that decision is properly blind, and you live with the consequences.  Deus Ex had great choice mechanims, and actually better than recent efforts like ME 1 & 2 IMO with less 'telegraphing' as did Silent Hill 2 as I've said.  Actually, I must post when I have time some examples but SH2 had the best mechanism for the impact of choice I've ever played.

Tension I think is a little in the eye of the beholder, which was more what I meant to say to Selnor - just saying ME has the most tense moments ever is something you can't substantiate.

I would argue that, to date, I'd be surprised if a majority of people didn't find some of the situations in Heavy Rain as arguably the tensest ever, as it offers some surprisingly crazy moments where your character is in danger which are not fantasy based (I admit again this is a natural advantage for Heavy Rain, playing as a woman in danger of being raped is intrinically more realistic and tense that a SF setting).

I think we see this the same from your comments, that game designers should put more effort into non-linear, choice based gameplay and less into trying to prodouce better narrative stories, because it's unlikely that they're going to come anywhere near matching novels or films in that regard.

Absolutely. While I don't see the need to eliminate a traditional story arc entirely (for some games, others may want to let the game emerge over time without a main arc), I think the most important thing is that developers try to move away from competing directly with film (which we're both saying). I don't mind ME2 having a main story arc because it ends up playing a lot like a well-honed pen & paper RPG module run by a good GM. Some games will thrive under that environment. Others may want to lose the main story completely.




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