Why do people care so much about storylines?

[Plurralbles]

you rlogic is flawed. You don't have to play a game for its gameplay. Or is Myst not a game to you?

I don't know anything about Myst so I can't say

first person adventure puzzle game where you click to get from place to place.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIRtutbSwak


That's a speed run of the first Myst.

This is a video of Myst IV

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUs3537ZmRM

I couldn't hear the sound because I'm in the school's library right now but it looks like all it is is the same gameplay with a lot more story involvement. That's pretty much all it really is- Story.

Basically a comment on that vid sums it up best.

"Myst is Point&Click adventure game. You solve puzzles, read diaries whith memories, important informations erc. You can't die, you have as much time as you need. You can solve puzzles or just walk around and search the locations. Myst is like Syberia or The Longest Yourney but in FPP. Fortunatelly you don't have to collect 100000 items and use them on each other. You use machines, mechanisms etc. Puzzles are hard but solving them is very fun"

You could argue that people play myst for the puzzles, which is the gameplay portion, and ignore hte story, but those people are only seeing a miniscule part of what makes Myst good.

 

[zehydra]

A friend of mine once predicted, "Someday, they're gonna have movies, where you experience being as a character in the movie". I responded, "This already exists, they're called 'Videogames'"

 

[Tyrannowalefish_Rex]

When I play a game without notable storyline, like some kind of turnbased strategygame perhaps, there are still elements establishing atmosphere: music, graphics, character designs, a coherent world, voices, motivational goals, economics...
You might say stories are just another means of immersion, or all these things together. Some games just don't need a story as much, but others are better for it.
So in conclusions: lol, good thread.

 

[acosn]

Good stories propel games beyond the means of the immediate game play. I've played genuinely bad games because there was a story I wanted to see end. I've stopped playing good games by just the same mark- the story was repulsive.

 

[deus-ex-machina]

I remember playing games on the Gameboy and on the SNES and still today, some flash games on the internet, where you would put in hours of effort for you to complete the game and just get scrolling credits followed by 'The End' or 'Game Over' even though you've just won! What's the point of that? There was no sense of closure and certainly no reward in it for me. If there is a storyline, the story can end along with the gameplay and you can feel at the very least like you weren't cheated out of those pointless hours.

I can forgive fighting games and racing games for having virtually no storyline. Heck, I can forgive Rock Band/Guitar Hero for having terrible plots, because they don't really need it for the genre. To go up through the ranks is good enough.

But in an RPG? A ROLE-PLAYING game? Where you play a role? You know, where the developers probably try to come up with a storyline where the player can immerse themselves in the plot? I think then it's important, especially when you spend so much time levelling up. I think the longer the lifespan of a game is, the more important it is that it has a plot, because otherwise you're wasting a LOT of time for very little.

Although, that's my opinion - I appreciate good game play, but if I'm playing well, I want to see the fruits of my gaming loins.

 

[Xerosch]

you PLAY GAMES for the GAMEPLAY.

Not entirely. Gameplay is an importent part of a game, but it's far from being everything. I'm a pure Single Player and couldn't care less for Multiplayer content. Without a story there´s no real emersion and atmosphere.

Good stories propel games beyond the means of the immediate game play. I've played genuinely bad games because there was a story I wanted to see end. I've stopped playing good games by just the same mark- the story was repulsive.

In fact, well developed characters and an interesting plot can save a flawed game for me. Unfortunately this is an art long lost, today's tendency revolves around developing the most realistic brown-green-grey-Army-shooter including mute protagonists. Yes, being a gamer has become veeery boring in the last 5-7 years.

 

[Nomanslander]

Actually, it's really just this site, no one else really cares much about this stuff, we all just got here through Yahtzee and his common interests...lol

-demanding academy award winning story and acting...check
-hating JRPGs....check
-hating MP unless it's a Valve game...check
-thinking Valve is the greatest company evah...check

You go into your local Gamestop talking like this and all the 13 year olds and their 40 year old adolescent minded fathers will give you a wedgie...=P

 

[Soxafloppin]

Because a story can get your emotions envolved in the game, far better than gameplay can.

 

[alexelric]

I can relate to both ends of the spectrum somehow. it's all about inmmersion, a good story can drive you into the game and make you plow trough gameplay flaws just to know what happens next, yet a purely gameplay driven game is fun if well presented

I love JRPGS and WRPGS for the history, even if sometimes one has to deal with less than good gameplay (final fantasy 8 comes to mind, more recently the magna carta series). and I have played them just to see how the history develops, where are the characters going and how different their worlds are to ours. Yet, one of my favorite time sinks is monster hunter; a game with a story that can be sumarized as "go make dinosaurs and dragons extint and wear their skin as underwear" and I freaking loved every one of the 200+ hours I have in that savefile because the gameplay is fun and challenging.

for me it comes down to what do you want in a particular instance, sometimes one wants to lose himself on a distant world where you need to save it from certain doom, or a tale of war and the people that fight them, and sometimes one just wants to master the game, be having that shiny armor made of pieces of big lizards or getting to billion point marks on tetris.

 

[Baldry]

Its the reason I finish games, I want to see if the guy gets the girl, or the dragon is destroyed, or if your dogs okay.
If not for the story I may not play games!

 

[JPH330]

Saying that we should only play games for the gameplay is like saying we should only watch movies for the graphics.

Out of curiosity, did you like Transformers: ROTF?

 

[elvor0]

You ever read a book?

 

[Brad Shepard]

It gives the game a soul, look at bioware games, they got story comming out the ears, and there some of the best games in my view.

 

[Brad Shepard]

Saying that we should only play games for the gameplay is like saying we should only watch movies for the graphics.

Out of curiosity, did you like Transformers: ROTF?

you just listed the only reason people went and watched Avatar.

 

[Simon Pettersson]

Actually no storylines is not a requirement, but it can make the game more interesting. A game without a storyline must have really good gameplay to go up against other games with a good story.

 

[JPH330]

Saying that we should only play games for the gameplay is like saying we should only watch movies for the graphics.

Out of curiosity, did you like Transformers: ROTF?

you just listed the only reason people went and watched Avatar.

Actually, I disagree with that. A lot of people who went to see it were expecting more than just top-of-the-line graphics. Why else do you think so many people have been complaining about it on forums?

 

[Brad Shepard]

Saying that we should only play games for the gameplay is like saying we should only watch movies for the graphics.

Out of curiosity, did you like Transformers: ROTF?

you just listed the only reason people went and watched Avatar.

Actually, I disagree with that. A lot of people who went to see it were expecting more than just top-of-the-line graphics. Why else do you think so many people have been complaining about it on forums?

i just thougth the story was crap that ive seen millions of times before, the only reason in my view is that the only reason people saw that movie is just for the billions of dollors spent on graphics.

 

[Snarky Username]

To me, that's like saying you watch a movie just to see things blow up or for the sex scenes. Or to watch people explode while having sex. While I like games that just consist of beating the opponent's head in until it explodes just as much as the next guy, but when a game tries to have a storyline, I feel like it had better get it right. That doesn't mean I don't like games like MW2 where the main storyline consists of shooting people in the face, but if a game like Final Fantasy comes out with an atrocious storyline, it definitely takes away from the experience. In my eyes, storylines are just as much part of the game as the gameplay. Look at games like Psychonauts. The gameplay was terrible. A great deal of he game was a huge scavenger hunt for figments, luggage, and... Scavenger hunt items and the camera was being operated by a blind monkey. But the story and humor more that made up for the gameplay.

Summed up: Gameplay isn't everything.

 

[Fingolfin High-King of the Noldor]

Because stories add another element. A good story makes you think you are playing a character in a movie or something like that which makes the experience that much better.

 

[Sipo]

Some games rrly dont need a story line(like ya know COD) but really if im going to play a JRPG for a million and 5 hours it better keep be interested with some kinda half decent storyline and not have me kill random shit for no reason.