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[Jopax]

The problem with Lovecraft is that he's become so omnipresent that it can't be scary anymore, when you got Cthulhu christmas sweaters you can hardly call it an elder god which inspires dread and madness. That said, the themes present in the mythos can be used to great effect as a horror backdrop, the feeling of discovering something far greater than yourself and how, despite your increasing knowledge and power there is little to nothing you can do about it, and even if you do win it won't leave a good taste in your mouth because in the process you might have lost your humanity to do so.

And all of this can not only be an aspect of story, but one of gameplay as well. And as far as recent games go, From are probably the best in blending gameplay mechanics with narrative themes in a way that feels natural and fun, the best example of this being Bloodborne (which manages to have tentacle gods to boot, double whammy!)

[Neonivek]

The problem with Lovecraft is that he's become so omnipresent that it can't be scary anymore, when you got Cthulhu christmas sweaters you can hardly call it an elder god which inspires dread and madness. That said, the themes present in the mythos can be used to great effect as a horror backdrop, the feeling of discovering something far greater than yourself and how, despite your increasing knowledge and power there is little to nothing you can do about it, and even if you do win it won't leave a good taste in your mouth because in the process you might have lost your humanity to do so.

And all of this can not only be an aspect of story, but one of gameplay as well. And as far as recent games go, From are probably the best in blending gameplay mechanics with narrative themes in a way that feels natural and fun, the best example of this being Bloodborne (which manages to have tentacle gods to boot, double whammy!)

I think it is more that people don't know how to implement it correctly so much so that games that do Lovecraft right are often games that aren't even trying to do so.

They don't give it the proper gravity it needs or really do much writing.

Lovecraft didn't rely on the popularity of his other books to carry future ones. In fact to my knowledge he wrote each book as if the people reading it never read any of his other books.

[muldrake]

Lovecraft did quite a bit more then just put a giant creature in the story and expect it to be scary on its own.

His giant creatures also came with a giant thesaurus to tell you every way they were giant, and when he had trouble describing them, the thesaurus would also describe all the ways they were indescribable.

Not to dis Lovecraft, whom I love, but in his less genius stories, he was inclined to adjectivitis.

[Silverthrone]

I believe Bloodborne had immense help from From's very, very good habit of not plodding on about things that can be reasonably picked up from context and the environment. I cannot say that their menagerie was particularly horrifying, but it was certainly intriguing, and it simply worked with the setting. It was, in this day and age, Lovecraftian horror done right. Not expected to frighten everyone's underpants off due to its mere presence, but as an engaging undercurrent to a story and setting. Less about cashing in some potential cheap scare, and more about being fascinating. Jolly good.

Of course, the general pastiche of a Lovecraft story is someone or other finding some creature and going irrevocably mad by how different and un-right they are. I mean, a Shoggoth would be unnerving to be faced with, certainly, but it would not be very difficult to adjust to it, surely? They are more intriguing than they are mindblowingly scray omg omg!11. Speaking of, the monsters from Amnesia: The Dark Descent. I rather liked the game (well, I wish there were more I could do than just slink off into a cupboard and suck my thumb), but after I got one good, long look of the main monsters, I could not take them seriously, with their long, happy-slappy jaws.

[Neonivek]

Lovecraft did quite a bit more then just put a giant creature in the story and expect it to be scary on its own.

His giant creatures also came with a giant thesaurus to tell you every way they were giant, and when he had trouble describing them, the thesaurus would also describe all the ways they were indescribable.

Not to dis Lovecraft, whom I love, but in his less genius stories, he was inclined to adjectivitis.

He was also very racist and that definitely did end up in his stories. As well some of his creatures are hilarious by today's standards.

I am not saying he is some unreachable genius...

I am only saying that going "Ohh, the problem with Lovecraft is he is overdone" when the fact of the matter is that hardly anyone really does Lovecraft... they reference.

[muldrake]

Lovecraft did quite a bit more then just put a giant creature in the story and expect it to be scary on its own.

His giant creatures also came with a giant thesaurus to tell you every way they were giant, and when he had trouble describing them, the thesaurus would also describe all the ways they were indescribable.

Not to dis Lovecraft, whom I love, but in his less genius stories, he was inclined to adjectivitis.

He was also very racist and that definitely did end up in his stories. As well some of his creatures are hilarious by today's standards.

I am not saying he is some unreachable genius...

I am only saying that going "Ohh, the problem with Lovecraft is he is overdone" when the fact of the matter is that hardly anyone really does Lovecraft... they reference.

And they're mostly referencing from other people who badly imitated him.

And yes, he was a racist.  And even an anti-Semite, even though he married a Jew.

In his defense, he did become deeply embarrassed by his previous views, if you've read his letters.  It's a shame he didn't live longer.

[Silverthrone]

Such things happen. Quite a few influencial people have some rather unfortunate luggage that comes along with the general estate when their authorship ends and they have died. Indeed, Martin Luther was quite the anti-semite himself, which is still a rather troublesome piece of luggage to handle.

To meander back up the topic stream, I imagine it must be easy to reach for the easy and basic Lovecraft references, since it is an incredibly easy way to get attention and create a basic impression.

[Jopax]

Not overdone Neo, just, he's become pop culture, you can hardly evoke the fear of the unkown cosmic horrors by using something almost everyone knows of in one way or another. And no, he was far from a brilliant writer, just a guy with some cool ideas that happened to help kickstart an entire genre of fiction (also a flawed human being as others have pointed out). He himself wasn't always good at doing Lovecraft and that's ok, what's problematic is that the mythos has become a lazy answer to the "So who's our big bad?" question where people just toss it in without much thought as to why a certain elder god is like that or how best to use it to serve your story/point.

And again, coming back to Bloodborne, it has the Lovecraftian theme of a regular person coming into contact with fucked up stuff that becomes more and more fucked up and crazy as they learn more of it. Sure the player is nice and safe in their chair, but imagine what must be going trough the mind of the person in question, that what began as a really shitty hunt for werwolves/mutants spirals out of control into grappling with forces and creatures beyond this world, and worse yet, they were dragged into the thick of it without any choice in the matter.

It's not just about going mad because you saw something big and squid-faced, it's going mad because of the implications that the existance of something big and squid-faced brings with it.

[Arbinire]

Lovecraft wasn't entirely what I was getting at but yeah it's a pretty fair example of oversaturation within the market atm.  It's like, I know this is beating some kind of dead equine species, but Blizzard games, Starcraft 1 was amazing because it was a human story, even with the aliens.  Starcraft 2 was a huge let down because space gods.  Warcraft 1-3 and Vanilla WoW and TBC...story was definitely popcorn fantasy but it was engaging because again, it was a human story...now we're in WoD and Legion days and guess what...oh, the Legion might not be so terrible after all because of space gods..excuse me void lords.  Halo, space gods.  Mass Effect, space gods.  Why can't the wonder of space and aliens and the infinite be that by itself?  World building doesn't have to be a damned linear path that inevitably leads to frickin' space gods.

[itisnotlogical]

Wasn't Archimonde a space god? And I seem to remember some space gods in Frozen Throne, although the space connection was a lot less clear (unless you read the manual).

But yeah, the sci-fi stuff in the Warcraft universe always seemed really tacked-on and unnecessary, I can barely even stand the steampunk shit. Can't we have a real low-tech fantasy universe for once, without magical steampunk robots?

[Virtz]

This leads to my current pet peeve with games in general these days.  Writing obviously no longer being a concern in story driven games.  I understand most games aren't going to be masterpieces of the written word talked about at Shakespearean levels in 600 years(which Shakespeare would probably find humorous himself), but at least put as much passion into your writing as you are putting into other areas.  Can we stop with the "space gods" and "twists everyone saw coming before game was even announced" already?

I'm kind of having a hard time remembering when they had particularly good writing, tho. Like a lot of the classics people remember fondly had fairly laughable to mediocre writing (discounting the ones that were actually trying to be funny). Maybe I could name a couple that were good, but the more I try and remember, the more I suspect they might not have been that good either.

Though I do share the sentiment of game storylines over-escalating everything way too much.

[Jopax]

Warcraft is a mashup of some Silmarillion and Lovecraft actually.You have the titans making shit, they make Azeroth as a prison for not-Cthulhu and co. and then one of them goes bad and starts wrecking shit by way of space demons or something. Not sure what they changed in the past several expansions since I stopped following it, but I don't recall exact space stuff, the Legion and all it's demonic members do come from different worlds, but I always took it as different realms or something, connected trough magic and the like.

[Silverthrone]

Wasn't Archimonde a space god? And I seem to remember some space gods in Frozen Throne, although the space connection was a lot less clear (unless you read the manual).

But yeah, the sci-fi stuff in the Warcraft universe always seemed really tacked-on and unnecessary, I can barely even stand the steampunk shit. Can't we have a real low-tech fantasy universe for once, without magical steampunk robots?

Well, not quite. He was more of an incredibly over-powered demon lord. He was technically an alien from space, since he came from a different world, however. There were some Lovecrafty Ones, too, but I believe those are native to the Warcraft world; imprisoned by space gods (the Titans) an awfully long time ago.

I would, theoretically, like there to be more low-tech fantasy universes, but I must confess, I tend to be bored horribly, absolutely stiff if there is nothing more advanced than a windmill or some elementary fire ball spells. I am a sad, sorry gunpowder addict. I want these around for the sake of inclusiveness, but I would not stand long, myself. I can give Conan a special pass on account of old times, but that is about it.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Wasn't Archimonde a space god? And I seem to remember some space gods in Frozen Throne, although the space connection was a lot less clear (unless you read the manual).

But yeah, the sci-fi stuff in the Warcraft universe always seemed really tacked-on and unnecessary, I can barely even stand the steampunk shit. Can't we have a real low-tech fantasy universe for once, without magical steampunk robots?

Well, not quite. He was more of an incredibly over-powered demon lord. He was technically an alien from space, since he came from a different world, however. There were some Lovecrafty Ones, too, but I believe those are native to the Warcraft world; imprisoned by space gods (the Titans) an awfully long time ago.

I would, theoretically, like there to be more low-tech fantasy universes, but I must confess, I tend to be bored horribly, absolutely stiff if there is nothing more advanced than a windmill or some elementary fire ball spells. I am a sad, sorry gunpowder addict. I want these around for the sake of inclusiveness, but I would not stand long, myself. I can give Conan a special pass on account of old times, but that is about it.

I really just want to see people get away from the standard fantasy setting.  For example, flying around on the backs of Pterodactyl-like creatures in a world where civilization is stretched across several spires above a roaring ocean, old temples built into the side of them that you can go into, with the primary weapons being from circa the Napoleonic Era.

[Rolan7]

For what it's worth [drunk] [never dared play WoW personally, just listened]
I have a lot of respect for Warcraft, not just because I played WC2 and enough of WC3, but for the...  Arthas arc.
And while I'm very cynical about Sylvanas's popularity, I heard out one of my friends, and I have to say her arc is pretty strong too.  As a story.
Especially the more general conflict between high and dark elves...  They did manage to turn that on its head.  Elegantly.  Much like the Eldar and Dark Eldar in Starcraft & Broodwar, but still.

... also, since I'm drunk, and it's actually thread-relevant, fuck Blizzard https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/04/10
Though really, they took their fucking piracy as a base and proceeded to spin a pretty neat setting from it.
Still waiting for Starcraft: Ghost.