Your Perfect game plot

[Monkfish Acc.]

In response to your question Zombie, I believe all of us have a story within us. Though your question is a little vague I'll do the best I can to answer it.

My ideal story is a long-winded conspiracy plot with plenty of twists and characters and organizations. It holds characters that make players think while also keeping them riveted in the action. It has to also have several very strong messages at the end as well as a possible "secret ending", which reveals a whole new level of epicness.

I think the best plots can be made within video games as a good one allows the player to experience things with the characters and go along with the story at their own pace.

My ideal plot is one that combines masterful storytelling with the immersion and effort that goes into playing a game. It has to have moral dillemas too. The ending has to be an epic final confrontation with the player's greatest fears and their own personal questions. The player has to be blown away by the sheer impact of what they face, while still remaining understandable and beatable.

I believe in a well done game and plot, the end result is not just a game, but an experience.

Sorry if I drifted off track a bit, but I find it hard to explain my ideal plot. My story is called Testimonial Midgard. I hope to achieve many of these things when I finally complete my story.

^^^What he said, only make the conspiracy thing optional. A conspiracy theory isn't as good in a fantasy game.

And now for my own contributation.

It would have to get the balance of angst and humor perfectly. Many an awesome storyline has been ruined because it either took itself too seriously or didn't take itself seriously enough. Sure, funny games do have their appeal, but it's hard to make a story that's basicly one big joke into an epic that will be retold for ages.

Also, it can't try too hard to be cool, or it'll end up really corny. You can't make the dialogue all one-liners. Take, for example, the Devil May Cry games. I almost found myself cringing at some of the corny ass shit from that game.

And for god sake, no testosterone filled bullshit! I hated the Gears of War storyline, because it wasn't really a storyline at all. It was just a bunch of guys fighting over and over and over, not taking any pauses to give the characters any personality other than black guy, asshole, and guy who likes fighting. And tough guy speeches get really old after a while. There's no way quicker to making a character unbelievable than to make everything he says a tough guy speech. Other than corny one-liners, of course.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

It doesn't exist yet, and probably never will. There hasn't been a perfect movie yet and that industry puts a lot more emphasis on a good story than the gaming industry most of the time.

In terms of the closest to perfection so far... Final Fantasy X's later scenes grabbed me despite being an RPG geared towards beginners. More recently I finished Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones and was suprised by the amount of dialogue for an action game- the scene in the dungeon was touching, and the Dark Prince a funny counterpoint to all the seriousness. For once I wasn't sure what Yahtzee was on about with the dialogue sounding 'forced', but then I haven't played Sands of Time. It must have amazing dialogue.

In terms of creating your own, the method I think would secure the most fans would be a duplicate of some of the greatest films in history without making it too inherently obvious. Preferably an action-oriented piece to accomodate the fact that it's supposed to be a game, not a movie. The Godfather comes to mind, but the critics often can't even agree on that. Just goes to show you that even if a 'perfect' game plot existed, it couldn't please everyone. Heck, I actually liked the plot to Dragonheart- it would have made a great game.

 

[n01d34]

Something that doesn't have the obligitory double cross halfway through it. In fact, no plot twists at all would be nice.

A simple character driven story with a solid emotional pay-off at the end is all I ask for, why is this so hard.

 

[OverlordSteve]

A game about a writer trying to write a good novel, so he travels around the world looking for inspiration and ends up saving the world. Then he writes a book about it.

 

[Bane07]

SCI-Fi
I cant really write out my dream plot, and if I could, it would be much to long to be reasonable on this forum. I can give examples to plots I love. Mass Effect would be one, Kotor could be another. Half Life 2 and the episodes are just god incarnate in terms of story in my honest opinion. Not really that they are so original, but more so that they are a common idea (Alien Invasion) polished and perfected to amazing standards. Call Of Duty 4 always makes me smile, remembering the nuke scene. Other than that, I loved Oblivion's Dark Brotehrhood and Morrowind's Morog Tong. That about sums it up for me

 

[-Seraph-]

Final Fantasy 6

 

[ToxicRevival]

You are not getting mine! It's in development as we speak! Back with ye you foul thief!

 

[dukethepcdr]

You are not getting mine! It's in development as we speak! Back with ye you foul thief!

I used to think that way, until I looked into what it really takes to get anything to market. I invented a board game a few years ago. I checked out one of those inventer's kits. It turns out that it takes a lot of legal wrangling and meeting just the right people at the right moment and a whole lot of money to develop an invention. I doubt I'll ever have enough money or resources to get any of my ideas to market. So steal away if you've got the ability.

Here's my idea:

You are The Doctor, the greatest sci fi hero ever created. He's the hero of the very long running TV series Doctor Who. You are a Time Lord who cannot die. If the body you inhabit is killed, you come back with a different body and a different personality but most of your previous memories. Your appearance is generated randomly by the game so that you look different with each incarnation. If you "die" your abilities, strenghts and weaknesses change and some of your saved progress info could be lost (in the TV show, The Doctor has amnesia sometimes after he changes). You travel through both time and space in the TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimentions In Space) machine. The TARDIS is both your vehicle and your base in the game. You can modify the TARDIS's abilities and change it's rooms (it's huge on the inside and as small as a police call box - which is disguised as one).

You use the TARDIS controls to choose which planets you want to visit and which time periods on that planet you want to be in. The TARDIS then takes you there, or not, depending on if it malfunctions or if an outside force attacks it (just like on the TV show). Once you get to the planet, you have the option to help the people who ask you for it. You can decide which side of the conflict to be on or to moderate between the two. Some problems can be solved by diplomacy, some by combat, some by trickery etc. You run into classic villians from the TV show and books like the Daleks, Cybermen etc. as well as new ones not seen before.

You also have the option of picking up a traveling companion who will them help you in your quests. Different companions have different abilities and weaknesses. After you have leveled up enough, you can have more than one companion. At some point, you also have the ability to get a robot companion similar to K-9 who has lots of different abilities and gadgets for you to take advantage of.

You always have your trusty Sonic Screwdriver which has many uses including driving screws, picking locks, reprograming devices, detecting creatures etc. You do not carry weapons and instead rely on your wits and the weapons of allies (if needed) to defeat your foes.

The game is in first person perspective and you interact with other characters by choosing which responses to give to what they say. You can also approach characters and chose what questions to ask. If the technology of the game allows it, you could even type in questions and responses of your own and see how the characters respond to it (that would be awesome to see actually work like it should). Douglas Adams tried it in his game Starship Titanic but it was wonky at best.

The game would never be the same twice as decisions you make change what happens in the future and in the past on each available world that you can go to. If it were an online game, new worlds and time periods could even be added as the game is developed.

The game could be multiplayer with other players also playing Time Lords. Only one person could be The Doctor, of course. Otherwise, it would be too confusing.

That's my idea. If it's like many of the other ideas I have, it'll probably be made in some form someday. I've seen lots of things come along that I thought of years ago.

 

[Thirtysomething]

You wake up in a strange mental facility having lost your memory. Through interacting with the people their you discover that there is a government conspiracy to use a virus to kill of 75%of the worlds population, and that everyone incarcerated are actually rebels caught trying to overthrow the evil oppressive government.

Your goal is to escape the facility and find your way to the Government headquarters using either guns, stealth or psychic powers. Along the way you will gain a sidekick who you have to escort through some levels so she (who is of course very attractive) can help you get into the building. Eventually she betrays you and you have to kill her even though you'd fallen in love with her because she turns out to be working for the president, who at the end of the game is revealed to be your father.

At this point the game will branch off in a revolutionary moral choice system never before seen in a videogame - you have to choose whether to kill your father or save him. If you kill him, the game ends as you assume his position, get corrupted by the power that no single man can ever handle and destroy the world anyway. If you save him you get a good ending where after you talk to him you make him see the light and he halts the project and gives you your memory back and you live happily ever after. This will give the game an unprecedented level of depth.

At the very end, after the credits, a short cutscene indicates your betraying sidekick was never really killed and vows to get her revenge, leaving a place for a sequel.

Yes, incase anyone hadn't caught on by now, I'm being sarcastic. Come on you dumbass developers, if you can't think up stuff that's better than this kind of shit (which is understandable and nothing to be ashamed of, you're into programming for fucks sake) then hire professional scriptwriters that can.

 

[Sword and Shields]

Hmm interesting it can be pretty much anything. My perfect game plot would include religious controversy as well as racial controversy to give yourself that happy feeling if you free the slaves (or enslave them.)

It would also either be a fantasy or sci-fi based setting.