Modern Games: Endless Landscapes! 1,000s of NPCs! Amazing Sandboxes! Shallow, Empty, Primitive.

[Drago-Morph]

Obviously, Skyrim is not as bad as DA2 when it comes to characters but still

. . . Really?

I mean, seriously?

I love Skyrim, but it doesn't have characters. It has NPC's with either expository or functional dialogue. Say what you will about Dragon Age 2, but it had awesome characters, and even if you disagree with that, it had characters period. Skyrim doesn't.

 

[ResonanceGames]

Modern Games: Endless Landscapes! 1,000s of NPCs! Amazing Sandboxes! Shallow, Empty, Primitive.

Modern gamers : unable to grasp the concept of immersion, not willing to role-play a little.

But, pray tell, how do you role-play with a field of nothing, and NPCs with the personality of cardboard cutouts?

It's not that hard, the majority of CRPGs were that way until the mid-late 90's (Ultima and a few other series excluded).

 

[Pharsalus]

Dude, you have very nicely articulated one of my biggest criticisms of Skyrim. It's just walking around allot, slogging through dull combat, and constantly performing a weight/value ratio analysis on everything you see.

 

[skywolfblue]

What if Bioware condensed the cast of characters down to, oh, three people. Imagine putting all of that time and effort into just that small group of NPCs. You'd have pages upon pages of dialogue, countless interactions of all sorts, tons of options and behaviors. Why isn't anyone going this direction? Why is it basically "okay, this NPC has a recruiting quest, a backstory quest, a resolution quest, three romantic stages, and one token conflict with another NPC - next character..."

The tricky thing with that is, people have to LOVE all the characters or they'll hate the large section of the game that deals with companion(s) they don't like. It's hard to get broad appeal with only 3, it's a lot easier with 6 or more.

Also, some people feel that too many companion quests detract from the overall game. I personally think companion quests are awesome and I'd love to have 4 quests per companion. But a lot of people complained about ME2 having too much time spent on companions and not enough time fighting collectors/reapers.

Personally I'd probably love to see such a game. But I can imagine a lot of people throwing fits over it.

 

[ResonanceGames]

Modern Games: Endless Landscapes! 1,000s of NPCs! Amazing Sandboxes! Shallow, Empty, Primitive.

Modern gamers : unable to grasp the concept of immersion, not willing to role-play a little.

But, pray tell, how do you role-play with a field of nothing, and NPCs with the personality of cardboard cutouts?

It's not that hard, the majority of CRPGs were that way until the mid-late 90's (Ultima and a few other series excluded).

So you role-play with yourself? Alone? In a field? That sounds depressing.

Wow, you're really committed to your straw man, aren't you? Yeah, that's exactly what I meant. Good call.

 

[Thaius]

This is not true of all game design. You're just looking in the wrong places.

With the exception of most of Bioware's work, Western RPGs are all about the world and culture, and very little about story or character. If you want good character-based stories, look to Japanese RPGs. Most western RPGs focus so much on freedom there's little room for a real, impacting story. JRPGs keep the story linear and often limit the player's customization to the battle system rather than the story, but as a result they are able to craft complex and relatable characters.

Point being, this is one cultural trend for one genre. Look in other genres and other cultures, and you'll find this isn't always the case.

 

[omicron1]

And here is where simulation comes in handy.

Ever played Dwarf Fortress? Heard of it? One guy, in a few years' time, created a world that keeps track of everything from mega beasts (that can pose as gods and take over temples, for instance) to toenails.
That. That right there is the other future of gaming.

Imagine a world where every npc has a personality, wants, and needs - is essentially playing his own copy of the sims. A world where people remember, talk about, and share accounts of things they see and experience. A world where the shopkeeper you killed's brother won't sell you discount cabbages, but organize a raiding party bent on vengeance. Imagine this running in real time on today's computers because, holy heck, we have four cores all over the place by now!

 

[ResonanceGames]

Modern Games: Endless Landscapes! 1,000s of NPCs! Amazing Sandboxes! Shallow, Empty, Primitive.

Modern gamers : unable to grasp the concept of immersion, not willing to role-play a little.

But, pray tell, how do you role-play with a field of nothing, and NPCs with the personality of cardboard cutouts?

It's not that hard, the majority of CRPGs were that way until the mid-late 90's (Ultima and a few other series excluded).

So you role-play with yourself? Alone? In a field? That sounds depressing.

Wow, you're really committed to your straw man, aren't you? Yeah, that's exactly what I meant. Good call.

Then tell me what you mean, oh honorable Grand Wizard.

There's nothing to enlighten you about. That's literally what I meant. You got it. You just play in an empty field in those games. I was obviously not referencing the broader theme of "emptiness" in games which was being discussed in the thread, I was just literally answering your question about empty fields. The one that was not a straw man at all.

 

[triggrhappy94]

It's kind of interesting to see how well this also applies to gaming and NPCs.

 

[LilithSlave]

I've got to admit, as a jRPG fan used to Tales of skits and constant, constant character interaction, Oblivion left me feeling, kind of, lonely. The reason Tales of is my most favourite RPG franchise instead of the most prestigious and important and original jRPG franchise, Dragon Quest, is that even Dragon Quest leaves me a little on the lonely side a lot of times.

Oblivion didn't just feel like a culture shock, it felt like an endless dungeon crawl with just a few ugly NPCs in between. Probably the most interesting character interaction I had was with Sheogorath. Made me feel bad because he wanted me to do cruel things to adventurers, but nonetheless he was a sure laugh.

As I played, I kept thinking, "where's my party", "where's my backstory?", "where's my comradery". You know I really eat up that "power of friendship" cliche so common in shounen comics and shoujo comics and of course even jRPGs, heck, you see it in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. And I'm used to the Asian culture in jRPGs about how there's always this close group of people and different degrees of closeness and how people will talk to each other differently based upon how close they are. In Oblivion, everyone feels like a stranger. I kind of miss that close experience with fictional characters when playing a sandbox like Oblivion. Having a tightly knit party that sticks together through thick and thin is a nice bonding experience. Sure, they're not real, but hey, that's the fun of fiction, and I get kinda lonely without it. I feel more entrenched in a fictional world if I feel like I miss somebody when I walk away from it. Oblivion just doesn't give me that feeling.

 

[briankoontz]

The problem is that game developers think of games as "worlds" and therefore must be big. A highly social game could be great - Quantic Dream (maker of Heavy Rain) works in that direction but not in an open-world setting.

Another problem is that developers and publishers like to think of games as "cinema" so games end up being big nice-looking eye candy without the intricate social reality that comprises real life.

 

[ultrachicken]

Why is the title referring to all of modern gaming when you only refer to one game? And why is the lack of human interaction what makes a game shallow, empty and primitive? Skyrim has a richly detailed, believable world, with tons of places to explore and stories to uncover by looking at the environment, and you call it primitive because the dialogue isn't great. There's no such thing as a perfect game, you know.

I'll agree that we aren't moving towards perfected human interaction as fast as we maybe should, but it's not like old games were all shining examples of storytelling. Hell, most didn't even have stories.

 

[JesterRaiin]

Modern Games: Endless Landscapes! 1,000s of NPCs! Amazing Sandboxes! Shallow, Empty, Primitive.

Modern gamers : unable to grasp the concept of immersion, not willing to role-play a little.

But, pray tell, how do you role-play with a field of nothing, and NPCs with the personality of cardboard cutouts?

Some of my RPG sessions took place in practically "I am Legend" setting (but without that chocolate gentleman that ruined whole movie). Also, "field of nothing" is pretty strong description.

 

[JesterRaiin]

Modern Games: Endless Landscapes! 1,000s of NPCs! Amazing Sandboxes! Shallow, Empty, Primitive.

Modern gamers : unable to grasp the concept of immersion, not willing to role-play a little.

But, pray tell, how do you role-play with a field of nothing, and NPCs with the personality of cardboard cutouts?

Some of my RPG sessions took place in practically "I am Legend" setting (but without that chocolate gentleman that ruined whole movie). Also, "field of nothing" is pretty strong description.

I can see that. But I Am Legend had a lot more going on in the environment. Also - massive lulz at "that chocolate gentleman".

One can always pretend that he/she is real outlander and doesn't understand sh*t from what Skyrim's denizens say. Problem solved - there are no flat personalities since there's no interaction with them.

 

[Zetona]

No one's yet mentioned Red Dead Redemption, a Western game with a large sandbox and an abundance of things to do, but which nonetheless has an excellent story and characters. Of course, you have almost no control as a player over the story, and you're definitely not role-playing, but there's a small group of characters who are thoroughly realized, while the rest of the world is populated mostly with NPCs going about their daily business. The "quest" structure is really interesting. The game's fetch quests, like "Collect X of this flower" are not given by an NPC, and you can go about them at your leisure to gain some neat rewards. There are also the neat ambient encounters, like the people who challenge you to duels or ask you for a lift in the middle of the desert.

Most relevant to the original topic, though, are the true sidequests, the ones designated by a "?" on your map, which generally involve a series of encounters with an NPC across the map, giving you a glimpse into the life of an interesting character who is otherwise inconsequential to the story. Remember the dude on the cliff with the flying machine? He sure beat the dull fetch quest givers of most games.