Do FPS have better story than RPG games?

[Hawki]

Hawki, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.

Oh you.

Personally, if you were a Jedi and a you used the force to levitate something, but we lived in a universe where anti-gravity engines can make anything from tiny droids to flying cars and enormous starships levitate, I personally wouldn't take that as clear, hard proof in the existence of space magic, precognition and destiny and an all powerful energy field that binds together all objects in the universe as part of some grand cosmic plan. I would probably assume it was a trick of some kind and that you'd used some technological device I wasn't familiar with to achieve the effect I saw. But a more credulous person than me might indeed look at your "miracles" as proof that your entire belief system was true, even the parts that can't be demonstrated.

The difference here is not one of faith, but one of truth. You and I know that faith healing is a scam, and we know that (at least the way it is presented to us) the force is real in the Star Wars universe. But the person who goes to a faith healer and believes they have been healed doesn't think it's a scam, they don't think they're acting on blind faith, they think the power of faith healing has been proved to them because it worked. Similarly, someone in the Star Wars universe doesn't automatically know the force is real. Han Solo, initially, is skeptical. Even witnessing Luke deflecting the bolts from the training drone doesn't immediately convince him, despite the fact that it's "clear hard proof". Those who visit faith healers have faith in something that doesn't exist, and people in the Star Wars universe lack faith in something that does exist (at least in some sense) but it's still the same faith.

Big difference in all this is that while Star Wars has the technology to replicate the effects of the Force (and in the EU, it has), you could, in theory, still set up a scenario that removes any such potential stand-ins. For something to be true, it has to be falsifiable, and the Force most definitely is.

Thoros of Myr's powers are also real, and he's just a fat alcoholic whose only noteworthy distinction is that he happens to be a red priest.

Which is kind of my point. He can use magic despite having no real faith prior to using magic. The warlocks of Quarth can use magic. The White Walkers can use magic. Wargs can use magic. Magic, while rare, isn't tied to Rhallor.

Again, just because the force is a fact of life in Star Wars (at least in some sense) does not mean that the Jedi beliefs about it are anything other than faith, even if we accept the very faulty (I think) premise that a religion by definition is not true and can only ever draw on "faith" as a means of substantiating its beliefs.

The premise that religion is by definition not true isn't one I've made. I would argue that religion, by definition, involves faith. While the Jedi do have a belief system about the Force (Light side is good, don't use the Dark Side), and there's been different interpretations among the Jedi (e.g. the "Living Force"), that still strikes me more as an argument of philosophy rather than religion. After all, that the Force exists isn't a question of faith for the Jedi.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

Since Revan's Empire and the Sith are something that Jedi opposed on both fronts, I don't see how they fall into that. And the Jedi are the protectors of the Republic, not the rulers of it. They're subservient to the democratically elected Senate. Obi-Wan even openly spells that out in Episode 3, that his loyalty "is to the Republic, to democracy." Also, the clones being nameless, faceless people we aren't supposed to care about? Actually no. The 2008 clone wars series regularly gives them names, personalities, unique hairstyles and armor customizations, even entire episodes dedicated to the clones with nary a Jedi in sight. There's even an episode where a clone abandons the army to live in peace with a woman he fell in love with, and the Jedi look the other way. The Jedi regularly show care and compassion to their clone soldiers and the only one who doesn't turns out to be a Sith sympathizer. As for there not being an army, from what I heard in the EU, organized militas were used whenever there was an armed conflict, and until the Clone Wars that was enough because there was never a problem that spread beyond a planet or two. Plus it's clear that planets in the Republic have their own standing armed forces (see Naboo's fighters) just not the kind that are prepared for a galaxy spanning conflict. I'd call the Republic more complacent than stupid. Which, to be fair, was eventually considered to be a point as there were a lot of planets within the Republic who felt the system had become ineffective and clogged, that's why the Seperatists had so much support.

These are some interesting thoughts, although something I feel I should argue is that...I want to say around half of fiction could apply to that, considering that a good deal of it applies to a small concentration of people making very important decisions. And I do agree with you that openly siding with abuses of power is icky, it's why I despise Frank Miller's take on Batman, because he more or less writes the guy as autocratic. Honestly, I think the fear of abuse of power is why so many superheroes have stupidly strict no kill rules (and I say stupidly because it kind of gets dumb when everyone thinks Batman killed the joker and there are mobs of people in clown paint demanding justice for him, that's just going too far in the other direction) and it's why when Batman gets crap for doing something wrong, it isn't presented as "he makes mistakes but he gets results" and more "he's on the wrong path and if he doesn't change now it's going to end very badly." Honestly I don't really disagree with anything you said and part of me doesn't really know why I'm arguing with you, but I'm honestly enjoying this conversation.

 

[wings012]

Disregarding any hybrid genre games...

RPGs just provide more room for story telling. RPG tend to have non combat segments, large portions of gameplay where you simply talk to people - more room for exposition. And this sorta thing is expected of the genre.

FPSes tend to want to keep the action going. To prevent the base of the game being ruined, they tend to throw you into the action and generally don't have as much room for information dumps, exposition, dialogue and the like.

I wouldn't say either are inherently better for storytelling.

Also plenty of gamers have absolute rubbish taste in story, and mistake there being a story for there being an actual good story. Having lots of dialogue and cutscenes does not a good story make, all it shows is that they spent more money and effort on it.

 

[CaitSeith]

Except there's a clear distinction between the Force and the Christian (and other) religion. For instance, if I was a Jedi and used the Force to levitate something, that's clear, hard proof of me having a tangible effect on reality.

Did you forget that Star Wars is fiction? Nothing in fiction stops religion and faith from having tangible effects. There is no evidence that such distinction exists in the Star Wars universe.

 

[Hawki]

Darksiders 1

We calling that an RPG?

Also not sure if I'd really point to Darksiders as an example of stellar storytelling (decent, maybe), but meh.

 

[CritialGaming]

It's funny how people complain about B-Cell's one-minded nonsense posts that barely offer opinions let alone general subjects to discuss, and yet his threads always seem to generate pages of replies. Clearly he must be doing something right.

To the mods that are oh so carefully reading this thread. I don't think people have strictly a problem with the OP exactly. What they have a problem with is the apparent inconsistency in which warnings get handed out for posts that offer nothing to the conversation at hand, yet the OP does little more than that most of the time and seems to be immune from your eye.

On top of that when people voice frustration with this, you issue them warnings. Though perhaps their language could be better.

It's a clarity issue and people worry about things being too heavy handed with suspensions and bans on a forum that is struggling to hold onto it's life as it is. If I remember correctly isn't it an infraction to post multiple threads with the same subject. If so, shouldn't this thread be deleted because he already did this other one http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.1036332-Why-do-people-claim-FPS-have-bad-Story? The subject is the same even if the post itself is reworded.

So we see B-Cell do things that warrant at LEAST warnings, and nothing comes of it. Where as other people don't seem to have the same leeway or freedoms.

All we ask is a little clarity. That's fair isn't it?

 

[CritialGaming]

Darksiders 1

We calling that an RPG?

Also not sure if I'd really point to Darksiders as an example of stellar storytelling (decent, maybe), but meh.

The whole thread is pointless if you think about it. Every game can be called an RPG, you are playing a "role" are you not? In Doom you are the Doomguy, in Deus Ex you are Adam Jensen, etc etc.

The problem is that as we as gamers get older, it becomes harder to impress us with stories. It becomes too easy for us to see the twists coming and it's rare that a game will surprise us. Think about your favorite game stories, I'm willing to bet they are games you played when you were in your mid-late teens right? FF6, Chrono trigger, Fallout 1 or 2, whatever game was the big story game of that given era.

These days it isn't so much that game writing is bad, it's just typically easier to spot the story coming a mile off.

But games still come out with great stories. Horizon Zero Dawn, Persona 5, God of War, Pillars of Eternity, Divinity, The Witcher 3.

I also think it is too hard for people to give credit where credit is due. You might not like the story of Horizon for example, but not liking something doesn't make it a bad story. And people can't ever separate themselves from that.

I mentioned this before in a Witcher 3 thread. People have said, "Oh the Witcher 3 is a bad game". Which should actually be rephrased as, "Oh I didn't LIKE the Witcher 3." Because nobody should be able to look at The Witcher 3 and say that it's a bad game. Nobody.