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[GaelicVigil]

The problem I see with modern RPGs and their morality devices is that they feel extremely artificial.  People will argue till they are blue in the face at how awesome Bioware games are because of their legendary dialogue trees.  The writing is usually pretty good, the voice acting is also pretty good, there are lot of "choices", but in the end it just feels like utter crap. 

How many man hours must have gone into this system to give the illusion that the dialogue tree makes players feel like they are making important moral choices, when it really doesn't?  Why is it that I feel so much about my characters in Dwarf Fortress than I do about my characters in Dragon Age?

This sort of leads into another problem I have with people and their qualification of a good RPG.  I hear it time and time again that one of the most important aspects of a good RPG is it's "story".  I have been gaming since pong and I still don't get it: Why do people want to play movies instead of games?  Dragon Age, in nearly every mechanical way other than the Eastern Vs Western setting, felt like Final Fantasy 12 to me.  Yet, for some reason people can't see this, they thumb their noses at the JRPG model and then judge Bioware games to be gifts from a god when they are essentially identical.

I love a good story too, but gosh, I'm so weird - I like to create my own story in a game rather than be led by the hand down some narrow corridor of invisible walls the whole time.  Maybe it has to do with my age, maybe I am simply more creative and dislike people delivering imagination to me on a silver platter.  I read recently about a study that people are becoming less creative, maybe this has something to do with it.  This may be what my argument hinges on in my OP, the older generation of games seemed to allow this - they allowed far more freedom and problem solving.  They permitted us to tell our own stories.

I really, really wanted to like Dragon Age.  I played it (or watched it play) for several hours until it simply became unbearable.  The world felt like a Hollywood set piece, complete with props, 1 dimensional locked buildings, and random extras wandering about acting like something important was going on.  I was led by the nose through the whole thing.  There was no mystery, no discovery and no difficulty.

[3]

An abundance of "story" has nothing to do with so-called "movie-like" qualities. That is an error in production and it is due to the subject of the story being approached from the wrong narrative angle. It's something that people have supposedly been trying to fix for years, but it requires something approaching a paradigm shift to really work properly, and we haven't seen a great deal of progress since the mid-90s (which is, actually, when the issue first seriously emerged). And if you dislike linearity, then what do you suggest otherwise?

But I can otherwise agree, even if I dislike the initial post.

[GaelicVigil]

An abundance of "story" has nothing to do with so-called "movie-like" qualities. That is an error in production and it is due to the subject of the story being approached from the wrong narrative angle. It's something that people have supposedly been trying to fix for years, but it requires something approaching a paradigm shift to really work properly, and we haven't seen a great deal of progress since the mid-90s (which is, actually, when the issue first seriously emerged). And if you dislike linearity, then what do you suggest otherwise?

But I can otherwise agree, even if I dislike the initial post.

It doesn't need to be fixed because it already exists.  And I doubt any of the triple-a RPG outfits are trying anything at all to change what they are trying to do, I guess they are satisfied with doing the same thing over and over.  The model for player generated stories is already there in many of the early games I listed in the OP.  Dwarf Fortress does it extremely well.

[3]

I disagree. The issue does need fixing, because otherwise (I paraphrase from your previous post) games and movies will either essentially be the same thing, or will be even more homogenous than they are now. Games have a distinct advantage and need to get a grip on it without sacrificing anything, incuding singular artist visions.

Yes, procedural generation needs yet more attention.

[Sowelu]

I have never developed a strong emotional attachment to procedural or free-form games--not in the same way that I've developed an emotional attachment to characters in a book, or a movie...or a well-written game.

Now I'm wondering what I've missed out on, since there probably are good counter-examples.  I don't think DF is one of them...but what IS an example of good emotional attachment to a story, written from a non-traditional angle?  RPG or not, doesn't matter.

With great freedom comes a great lack of characterization, and a great lack of getting into your character's head.  You might invent some great love story, and have some terrible event happen and realize that your character ought to go through some horrible trauma and be screaming inside...but you have to write all that yourself, because your character just stands there looking dumb, and that ruins the immersion an awful lot.

[GaelicVigil]

what IS an example of good emotional attachment to a story, written from a non-traditional angle?  RPG or not, doesn't matter.

I don't know, try real life?  Are you more attached to yourself than you are attached to a character in a book or movie?  Isn't our own personal life a real story written from an unconventional method?

Now, if I could take my life for a second, place it in a virtualized world and add some spice to it, -that- would be the greatest story ever, because I would be writing it.

[3]

With great freedom comes a great lack of characterization, and a great lack of getting into your character's head.  You might invent some great love story, and have some terrible event happen and realize that your character ought to go through some horrible trauma and be screaming inside...but you have to write all that yourself, because your character just stands there looking dumb, and that ruins the immersion an awful lot.

Yep. And, additionally, regardless of what mechanics the game has implemented with whatever storytelling purpose in mind (indeed, as DF will have in the future), those mechanics will never be able to match up to the writing of a good dramatist, as the procedural nature of the mechanics themselves renders it difficult, or even impossible, to create consistent (or even coherent!) drama.

Are you more attached to yourself than you are attached to a character in a book or movie?  Isn't our own personal life a real story written from an unconventional method?

Your point is lost on me.

[GaelicVigil]

Are you more attached to yourself than you are attached to a character in a book or movie?  Isn't our own personal life a real story written from an unconventional method?

Your point is lost on me.

I was asked to provide a story that was non-traditionally written where you could have more emotional attachment to a character than a book or movie.  I provided a perfectly valid answer to that, or do you become more emotional to a movie character dying than yourself dying?  I would certainly hope not.

Placing ourselves, personally, into that virtually emulated environment would provide the ultimate immersion and freedom.  We would not be seeing ourselves from the perspective of an author's imagination, but from our own.

[3]

Life really isn't a valid example. It's not telling a story as such. I mean, categorially, you're probably right, but it doesn't help further your argument all that much as life is made up of a variety of necessities and we are talking about design.

Response to edit: Maybe. Maybe not. Is it even possible? What makes you a better author?

[Sowelu]

I guess I just don't understand people getting all attached to a made-up character who doesn't express any emotion on the screen.  It could be a lack of imagination, but to me, it kinda feels pointless.  I mean...if you're just going to make the story up yourself, why even play the video game?  And besides, why make it an RPG, you could just as easily come up with a compelling story when you're playing Asteroids.  I guess you could make an identical argument about "why play FF12 when you could read a book", though.  Playing an RPG that is full of freedom with minimal story feels like spending a hundred hours building this really awesome model train track...sure, it counts as imagination, but it's not for everyone.

The difference between Bioware RPGs and FF/Dragon Warrior games, is that the former does give you more moral choices, more control over how your characters develop, and often more freedom in your character builds.  The latter have more solidly developed storylines, where things develop in a specific way.  Not all eastern RPGs are like FF/DW!  Those are just the most well-known.  Of course recent FF games are all terrible, but I rather liked FF4.  The story and combat were paced pretty well against each other.

And of course a lot of big-budget games are terrible.  So are a lot of big-budget movies.  Hell, maybe even most of them aren't very good--but there's a lot of stuff that's worth watching once.  You've got to cut them a little slack (at least, games that don't spend the first two hours on one big tutorial, so if you decide it's not your thing you haven't blown more time than just watching a movie).

And yeah, comparing game vs. real-life is a total nonsequitor from game vs. game.  d:  Mostly because in real life, other people react to us in very compelling ways.  And in games, they never will in that same way.  Can someone in a game inspire us to be more artistic?  Can people in a game have compelling discussions with you, and teach YOU PERSONALLY new things?  Can you decide that you want to spend hours around a person who only exists in a computer?  That sounds...sad, to me.

[GaelicVigil]

Life really isn't a valid example. It's not telling a story as such. I mean, categorially, you're probably right, but it doesn't help further your argument all that much as life is made up of a variety of necessities and we are talking about design.

Ah, but life is a great example!  It proves that it is indeed possible to perpetrate a world or system that does not rely on a formal story to create consistent and coherent drama (as you stated it).  That world so happens to be the real world.  It is full of irregularities and dissimilarities, not forced and not pre-generated.  It is certainly most possible, the most perfect example, and this, not Hollywood or forced art, is where we need to look when creating virtualized worlds.

[3]

For the moment, I have but one response: What the hell is "forced art"?

[GaelicVigil]

For the moment, I have but one response: What the hell is "forced art"?

Ah, and I have for this moment but one response to that, my good sir:  Art that is man-made (Hollywood, Books, Movies, Sculptures, etc) as opposed to art that exists all-around us in nature (Niagra Falls, Relationships, the natural world).

You guys can't honestly tell me it would be more exciting to watch the Lord of the Rings than to actually walk into Middle-Earth in person?

[Sowelu]

Would living in Middle Earth be more exciting to someone who grew up in and never leaves Hobbiton than to someone who reads the books (even if they live in that world)?

Is daily life more exciting to a random nine-to-fiver, than reading a spy thriller set in the real world?

Of course a well-lived life is a work of art all its own, and everyone should aspire to that.  And certainly LPs can be great works of art to read.  But the game itself doesn't create that.  The player does, the game is just the canvas, just like the blank pages on a not-yet-printed book.  That does not make a blank piece of paper or canvas interesting, all on its own.

[3]

Besides the above, isn't there also an inherent contradiction there? You speak of people being "free" of intellectual rule, and then go on to make an example about "walking into" someone's else vision. (Eh. I don't usually try to go this way but I'll point it out anyway)