Originality? WTF is that?

[JuryNelson]

Seriously. I've read one too many "hilarious" articles/imgurs/forum posts about how "x is unoriginal" or "Every RPG you've ever played goes like this."

What do you WANT. What would originality LOOK LIKE? What is it you expect out of Video Game Stories that you feel like you aren't getting?

 

[Lono Shrugged]

There are only seven stories in the world. Can't be original all the time. I want a Video Game version of Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Any other examples I can think of have been done. They just need to be done better. I would love a game where you explore alien planets in total freeform

 

[Lono Shrugged]

Double post.

 

[Reynaerdinjo]

What do you WANT. What would originality LOOK LIKE?

That's kinda the point isn't it? If you know what originality would look like, it would no longer be original. It's about expecting the unexpected.

 

[HT_Black]

Is someone feeling a bit sore in the nethers after that feature GI just ran? I'm just asking.

 

[Dexiro]

I had a bad case of the facepalm when I was talking about originality to one of my friends once.

He casually tells me "I don't get why they don't just make a new genre, it can't be that hard".
Then I ask him what new genres he had in mind and I just got a long silence followed by "surely they can think of something".

It's difficult to be original these days, especially when you're talking about gameplay. And the bigger game developers aren't going to risk making their game batshit crazy just for the sake of being different.

 

[Legion]

Normally originality sucks or when someone does come up with something new then people ***** about how it isn't as well done as that other thing where they have had a dozen sequels to polish it to perfection.

Mirrors Edge and Dead Space are good examples.

 

[JuryNelson]

Is someone feeling a bit sore in the nethers after that feature GI just ran? I'm just asking.

There was that, there was something on Cracked, there was a whole flamewar over Dragon Age's clichéd story?

It's like all the funny "Piracy isn't stealing because it confers many benefits" pictures. Just smug and annoying and logically bankrupt.

 

[Unrulyhandbag]

Comedy
Tragedy
Rags to Riches
Defeat the monster
The Quest
Voyage and Return
Rebirth

Those are the seven pillars of storytelling. Of course stories are going to be repeats and blendings of others but it's they way in which a story is presented that makes it good or bad.
Finding one good presentation and then just re-making it exactly time and again. It's that thing we call cliché.

We can live with the same stories being given new context, new sub-text and new characters (so long as they ARE new characters; Bioware) in fact we like to. Familiarity is good with a mix of the new.

Games have the bonus that they are a whole different medium so the old stories can be told in new way. new technologies and new ways of presenting story in a dynamic, intruiging manner are endlessly being discovered and used in the industry. In the face of one game giving a revolutionary new storytelling method and another using established ones which looks more original? But this is invention and you can't see the exact shape of that unless you are the inventing mind so to ask what it looks like is silly.

Some people are just being daft complaining that feature A has been robbed from game B and plot A has similar features to plot B. Comparison and criticism of the telling methods is fair but outright complaining of unoriginal story is just unfair.

 

[Shivarage]

It's difficult to be original these days, especially when you're talking about gameplay. And the bigger game developers aren't going to risk making their game batshit crazy just for the sake of being different.

Lady Gaga comes to mind...

 

[JuryNelson]

And the bigger game developers aren't going to risk making their game batshit crazy just for the sake of being different.

This. It's sort of like "We'll stop making conventional, genre-specific games when you stop buying them."

Mirrors Edge and Dead Space are good examples.

Excellent. That's what I'm looking for. I remember when those were announced. It was a huge surprise that friggin' EA was going to take these two huge risks.

Plot-wise, they seem pretty conventional, but I clearly have no problem with convention.

 

[Palademon]

Invader Zim game NAO PL0X!!
That is all.

 

[CitySquirrel]

Normally originality sucks or when someone does come up with something new then people ***** about how it isn't as well done as that other thing where they have had a dozen sequels to polish it to perfection.

Mirrors Edge and Dead Space are good examples.

Exactly. And people are going to want to imitate what they enjoy.

 

[ViaticalTarsier]

Gamers cry for orginality, but then when something like kinect comes around they scream "its gonna suck!" non-stop and they don't even look into the unique possibilities that could come from it. Its so hard to be original anymore since everything has been done before. I personally am happy with how things are now in the video game world as far as originality goes. To me, just because a game doesn't re-write a genre doesn't mean its not original. Games like Halo, Cod, and Gears all bring enough originality whether it be through their controls, gameplay, and even their story.

 

[Lyx]

What i want is games that can't be clearly classified as a certain "genre", and settings that aren't themes that have been done over and over.

Perhaps i can it explain better the following way: For most games nowadays, one could think that design of the game went like this: "Well do an with a -theme. Now, how can we come up with a story and content for that?"

I prefer games that apparently were designed the other way around: "Okay, lets make a game about this and that. Hmm, what kind of "shell" would fit best for that?"

With the first variant, you pick from a set of premade templates, and then fill it with a story and content. With the second variant, you instead first come up with an idea and story, and THEN think about how to turn this into a game - some existing templates may fit, or perhaps not and you come up with an own shell that matches the idea.

 

[Reynaerdinjo]

Comedy
Tragedy
Rags to Riches
Defeat the monster
The Quest
Voyage and Return
Rebirth

Where would a "coming-of-age" story fit in these categories?

 

[kasperbbs]

I don't care so much about originality since most of the time its some gimmick that doesnt really work all that great ,all it accomplishes is that its different from others. I would rather play some non original but well made game.