Would anybody here miss cutscenes or storylines if they went away forever?

[Danpascooch]

I don't think anyone plays video games solely for storyline, but it would kill about 80% of the games I play if they had no story.

Gaming needs story.

 

[Danpascooch]

Cut scenes should be minimal as they take YOU out of the game.

I don't really buy that, I just think that cutscenes should only be used when they are showing you something that is so absolutely badass that it's worth not having control.

 

[GL2814E]

I completely disagree. Mass Effect and its sequel would be terrible without cutscenes. Same for the KOTOR games, even the Halo games, and many others.

Without cutscenes and the storylines, I'd just be playing some dude running around killing people or what have you.

And Bioshock and Half-Life 2 as great story examples... Poor choices...

 

[Amethyst Wind]

hence why I've never played Left4Dead, Borderlands or WoW, because those games are lacking a story by design so as to accomodate more players.

*blinks* You're joking right? WoW has no story? Hold on let me go make screen shots of the page upon endless pages of quest text and in game books, and scripted events that weave a very complex web of story arcs for the story loving gamer. To lazy to read your quests? Pity along with providing rich story they also tend to tell you how to finish your quest. You practically trip over story in WoW how can you say there is none? Lumping it in with Left 4 Dead or Borderlands is just flat out an ignorant statement to make.

There's a different between story and backstory. Everything you've just describes is providing an environment, not a story. You get told everything before you start the quest? Great, but going by what you've said after that it's onto the quest and the story vanishes again. There are no points during the quest where more and more becomes clear until you reach the dramatic crescendo at the end, you have your 'motivation' from the get go and after that it's a matter of get-it-done. That's not story, it's a mission brief. Now if that's not what you meant then tell me, because I haven't played and will never play WoW (Grindfests aren't my thing and subscriptions gall me).

 

[Acidwell]

Yes, yes, yes, a million times yes the story is the main reason i play through a game

 

[Audioave10]

What you are saying is fine...just don't draw it out to more than necessary.

 

[Anticitizen_Two]

I would miss them. Sure, they suck in most games, but every once in a while you find a game with a great story.

 

[KimberlyGoreHound]

I can do without cutscenes. Bioshock barely had them, Half Life 2 didn't have them, World of Warcraft has perhaps three in the entire game. However, these three games all have excellent stories, that are well conveyed by other means (WoW, if you actually read all the text thrown at you, there's a lot of story there, and personally, I think it's a deep and complex one).

I enjoy a few games without storylines, or at least with extremely shallow ones - Left4Dead (kill zombies), for example, or Donkey Kong Country (get your bananas). However, if storylines were lost entirely, I'd miss them.

 

[manythings]

Games without story = popping bubblewrap

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

I think what the OP is trying to get at is that you do not need large "story driven" elements in a game but more plot driven ones where the game flows along sub plots than a over arching story.

I mean take Zelda for instance I always felt opining aside it tried to run on a minimalistic story but deep sub plots. If that make any sense.

You make a very interesting point. In fact, you're absolutely right on the arty thing. Us concentrating on being more like movies or books maybe isn't so good. But games are a relative new medium, a very new artform that not many seem to regard as art and even don't even expect it to be art. Just a series of go here, shoot there, quick time event, goal.

It leads to a pretty interesting discussion. It's very important question in my eyes. We'll have to decide what path we're going to develop games in the future. A semi-knockoff of books and movies or a complete new way of telling a story through interactivity. Indeed, if pulled of it could work magnificently. Call of Duty 4 and Half-Life are some of the games that pop in my head. There's really no narrative, the details are out there for the player to experiance and interpret them as they wish. The downside of this method is that many times you can miss a certain vital detail thus missing a part of the story.

I wonder if I'm even making any sense?! I'll have to get back to this thread, it's late in Sweden and my head has started to swirl. GN

Heavy rain (its the return of FMV only with a deeper story.....) and BS are good examples of what happens when art out powers everything else wheres the gameplay and deep and or balanced mechanics there are non because they were not thinking about a game when they made them.

 

[fletch_talon]

but I honestly will not play a game if I think it's lacking a story, hence why I've never played...WoW, because those games are lacking a story by design so as to accomodate more players.

People always say this but its not really true in the slightest.
WoW has an overwhelming story and many stories within the overwhelming plot in the form of quests and quest chains. Personally, that's what I enjoy when I play WoW, exploring, discovering and reading about the plight of the people of Azeroth.

In saying that I'm not an chronic WoW player, I usually pay for a month or 2 and then stop for a long time before I feel like playing again.

 

[Ghored]

Cutscenes is a way to show a storyline, so No, a game doesn't need no stinkin' cutscenes.

Games can have one or the other, totally awesome storyline, or brain blowing explosions of sweet gameplay, trying to have both is a wild card, it can result in either a great, but not 10/10 great, or worse, a poor 2/10.


So yeah, there it is. right there. I have nothing more to say. really.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

I couldn't even follow what was happening in Super Paper Mario, for God's sake!

That kind of boggles my mind. Also kind of sad, because it's one of the few genuinely funny games I've played (most of the Mario RPG games are), up there with stuff like Portal and the old LucasArts adventure games.

I'm finishing up The Witcher now, and without the story elements, it wouldn't be worth playing in the first place. The combat and whatnot isn't bad, but it doesn't really stand out in any way and would get old if that were the only thing to do. The plot and character development and way you get to interact with it and influence it make it one my favorite games I've played in a long time, though.

There are plenty of games I like that have no story or would still be good without the one they do have, but a lot of my favorites do have a good story that makes them more interesting. It can definitely add to a game. Even Super Mario Galaxy, which doesn't particularly need one and is mainly good because the gameplay and level design is great, benefits from the totally optional storybook, which is actually one of the most mature stories I've seen (not in the "rated M for" sense, but in the more traditional sense; it's very The Little Prince, which fits well with running around little tiny planets). See also: Braid, KotOR, or dozens of other things

 

[Baby Tea]

I respectfully disagree that a game needs a storyline to be truly great...by missing out on Borderlands and Left 4 Dead, you're missing out on a great shooter/RPG, and a great multiplayer experience.

See, what we've got here is a totally subjective opinion. That's what this whole thread is.
Neither Borderlands or Left 4 Dead are 'great' games. Not to me, at least.

What makes a game great? For me, it's staying power.
I still play Baldur's Gate, and it was released in '97. That's a great game.
I traded in Left 4 Dead after about 6 or 7 months. It got boring. Fun game, certainly. But no staying power.
Borderlands? Only fun if I'm playing with someone. I would never actually buy the game, as a friend comes over once a week and me and him spend an evening of playing just a bit further. That's all I need of Borderlands.

It's funny that you wonder why people trudge through 'crappy' gameplay for an 'average quality' story, when you trudge through the same old gameplay (Left 4 Dead and Borderlands), for what? Borderlands might net you a gun that does a bit more damage. Hooray. Left 4 Dead might have you beating one of 4 or 5 episodes for the 900th time. Hooray.

But the bottom line is that we're talking about two totally different way to play games.
I love a great story in a game.
You prefer there to be little story, and just game.

There is a market for both of us. The 'Left 4 Dead's and 'Borderland's of the gaming world aren't going away.
And, thankfully, neither are the 'Baldur's Gate's and 'Mass Effect's.

I have a saying I've been using lately: Let's all just shut-up and play.

 

[SimuLord]

Finally, a topic that's right in my wheelhouse. Right now I only have three games in my regular rotation that have any story or cutscenes at all: Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3. In all three cases, the story gets in the way of me enjoying the game and I frequently just ignore it (except in cases in Oblivion and F3 that have unskippable control-leaves-the-player parts that are thankfully very short.)

The entire rest of my collection is city builders, tycoon games, straight-battle RTSes, Civ-style empire builders, or open-ended sandboxes like Mount&Blade and (to an extent) The Sims. I don't like story in my games. I like what Will Wright called "toys" to differentiate them from standard story-based kill-the-monster objective-based games.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

I couldn't even follow what was happening in Super Paper Mario, for God's sake!

That kind of boggles my mind. Also kind of sad, because it's one of the few genuinely funny games I've played (most of the Mario RPG games are), up there with stuff like Portal and the old LucasArts adventure games.

I'm finishing up The Witcher now, and without the story elements, it wouldn't be worth playing in the first place. The combat and whatnot isn't bad, but it doesn't really stand out in any way and would get old if that were the only thing to do. The plot and character development and way you get to interact with it and influence it make it one my favorite games I've played in a long time, though.

There are plenty of games I like that have no story or would still be good without the one they do have, but a lot of my favorites do have a good story that makes them more interesting. It can definitely add to a game. Even Super Mario Galaxy, which doesn't particularly need one and is mainly good because the gameplay and level design is great, benefits from the totally optional storybook, which is actually one of the most mature stories I've seen (not in the "rated M for" sense, but in the more traditional sense; it's very The Little Prince, which fits well with running around little tiny planets). See also: Braid, KotOR, or dozens of other things

Funny weren't you praising the witchers combat system in the other thread? *jab jab jab*


I am from bizaro world..... gameplay is everything to a game IMO, if I want story I'll watch a video.

I respectfully disagree that a game needs a storyline to be truly great...by missing out on Borderlands and Left 4 Dead, you're missing out on a great shooter/RPG, and a great multiplayer experience.

See, what we've got here is a totally subjective opinion. That's what this whole thread is.
Neither Borderlands or Left 4 Dead are 'great' games. Not to me, at least.

What makes a game great? For me, it's staying power.
I still play Baldur's Gate, and it was released in '97. That's a great game.
I traded in Left 4 Dead after about 6 or 7 months. It got boring. Fun game, certainly. But no staying power.
Borderlands? Only fun if I'm playing with someone. I would never actually buy the game, as a friend comes over once a week and me and him spend an evening of playing just a bit further. That's all I need of Borderlands.

It's funny that you wonder why people trudge through 'crappy' gameplay for an 'average quality' story, when you trudge through the same old gameplay (Left 4 Dead and Borderlands), for what? Borderlands might net you a gun that does a bit more damage. Hooray. Left 4 Dead might have you beating one of 4 or 5 episodes for the 900th time. Hooray.

But the bottom line is that we're talking about two totally different way to play games.
I love a great story in a game.
You prefer there to be little story, and just game.

There is a market for both of us. The 'Left 4 Dead's and 'Borderland's of the gaming world aren't going away.
And, thankfully, neither are the 'Baldur's Gate's and 'Mass Effect's.

I have a saying I've been using lately: Let's all just shut-up and play.

O-0 ME2 is L4D with a story..........and worse gameplay mechanics.... Mass effect has become just another sloppy series for a watered down mainstream game.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

Funny weren't you praising the witchers combat system in the other thread? *jab jab jab*

"Praising" might be stretching it a bit. More like saying it's not nearly as bad (to me) as you were saying and that it's pretty similar to other things you were saying were better. I think it's ok, but I wouldn't play it if it were just that combat system without the rest of the game. Without going back to check, I think it was Mr. Chalk who was actively praising it (and while I like some of the same things about it as he was talking about, they're not enough to take it from "just ok" to "good").

That said, a great story/art design/music/etc. can make up for so-so gameplay for me, but not for bad gameplay. The game itself has to at least be ok to begin with.

 

[StarofAzura]

I would probably stop gaming altogether. The reason I play videogames is for story, and I completely disagree with you that most game stories are terrible. Some of them have flaws, yes, but they're not "completely terrible" like you claim.

I can't believe someone actually suggested this.