|
It's more that he has a really elaborate plot. Then the players figure out what the plot is ahead of time because it's really pretty obvious. And he then spends years going "Nu-uh you didn't figure out my plot!" whilst frantically rewriting things to provide twists nobody asked for.
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 13:56
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 2, 2024 16:34 |
|
|
Natural 20 posted:It's more that he has a really elaborate plot. This phenomena isn't unique to Blizzard or even gaming. A lot of writers confuse audience surprise with audience satisfaction. Most of the time the audience is okay with or even wants a story to end in a narratively logical manner. And if the author is going to do something different, they need to prep for that well in advance - if it's a spur of the moment gotcha because they're upset their audience "is a bunch of smarks!", then it's going to go badly. Cythereal posted:Battle for Azeroth is where Blizzard really started to lean on the two factions getting told completely different stories. There's a raid where the Alliance assaults a Horde city, and the second half of it is split into two chunks, one covering the Alliance's actions and one covering the Horde's. You play through both, in an in-game disguise as the other faction as an NPC tells you what happened during the other faction's part. There is a way to do this that isn't moronic. Say that the Alliance version is the players that were actually there and experienced the events. Meanwhile, the version the Horde sees is a retelling from survivors that have an obvious bias. Instead, by doing this song-and-dance of "who can say what REALLY happened!?  ", Danuser has created some really ugly implications. It implies that the player's avatar may be self-consciously obfuscating information to the player - maybe the character you're playing actually really is a war criminal that's been hiding their worst offenses from the player. It sets a precedent that the author can and will emotionally manipulate the player in the name of being "2SHOCKING4U!!1"
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 15:09
|
|
|
SirPhoebos posted:Instead, by doing this song-and-dance of "who can say what REALLY happened!? Yeah, there are games where it makes sense for the main character to have secrets unknown to the player, but an MMO where everyone makes their own customised character and is encouraged to identify with them over a period of more than a decade isn't one of those games.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 15:28
|
|
|
alternately, the canonicity of either story is now dubious, so now you can reject both in favor of "BundtClast6969 really did do all these things, unite the factions, and save the world a ridiculous number of times; and all my favorite NPCs didn't do a bunch of idiotic things and my unfavorite NPCs died drunk in a ditch having never been important". Sure, no one else saw that happen; but none of the Alliance dudes saw this and none of the Horde dudes saw that, so that doesn't make it less canon.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 15:34
|
|
|
It's certainly made me feel more comfortable with not buying Dragonflight unless it releases to extremely positive reviews. As it is, I beat the next mission with only some selective cheating on attempt #4.  With the next update we'll be fully halfway through Warcraft 1, and I have been paying attention to the strong reception that the narrative I've added to the human campaign has gotten. I really was not expecting that.  So if there is still interest in the project and the narrative, I am prepared to do both sides of Warcraft 2 in a narrative fashion similar to how I've been doing the human campaign in Warcraft 1. Only this time the Horde campaign will be a non-canon alternate timeline, and the Alliance campaign, I've come up with a fig leaf for why some of the, uh, discrepancies will be scrubbed from history. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 15:41
|
|
|
SirPhoebos posted:This phenomena isn't unique to Blizzard or even gaming. A lot of writers confuse audience surprise with audience satisfaction. Most of the time the audience is okay with or even wants a story to end in a narratively logical manner. And if the author is going to do something different, they need to prep for that well in advance - if it's a spur of the moment gotcha because they're upset their audience "is a bunch of smarks!", then it's going to go badly. I remember, ages ago, learning that for the longest time, the Mystery Story actually used the summation to introduce new facts into the story, and this was considered normal. That the protagonist was acting on information that the readers could not have. It wasn't until (allegedly) Doyle and Holmes that having all the evidence be given to the readers and the protagonist then using the same evidence the reader had to make their conclusions became a thing. That a good reader could potentially figure things out in time with the story itself.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 15:55
|
|
|
Just look at GoT for an example of what happens when you prioritize subverting expectations over coherent plotting or character arcs. And bad writing, I guess. I'd say a good plot twist is the one you can naturally infer without spelling it out directly, because it makes sense. A great plot twist is the one that leaves you thinking "Why didn't I see this sooner!?"
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 16:00
|
|
|
Doesn't unreliable narrator require a narrator, rather than "I can see what went there with my own eyes"?Cythereal posted:Edit: My God I loving hate catapults. I look away for a second and oops there goes my army because that red dot I wasn't looking at was armed with a nuke. 'till you the second sentence I thought you talked about the plot.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 17:06
|
|
|
GiantRockFromSpace posted:I'd say a good plot twist is the one you can naturally infer without spelling it out directly, because it makes sense. A great plot twist is the one that leaves you thinking "Why didn't I see this sooner!?"
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 18:24
|
|
|
Now you got me curious, Cyth. Hope to see the narrative you have planned for WC2. Great plot twists- see Horizon Zero Dawn, Metal Gear Solid, God of War (original and 2018), Chrono Trigger, Tomb Raider 2013, Assassins Creed 2009. Disappointing plot twists- any game where the plot is trite and predictable. Sadly this includes the sequels to all the above mentioned games except two.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 18:32
|
|
|
My memories of this game mostly involve dungeon crawls and (spoilers) demon summoning. Guess the catapults weren't a memorable issue at the time.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 18:51
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:It's certainly made me feel more comfortable with not buying Dragonflight unless it releases to extremely positive reviews. Whoo! I’m excited.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 19:34
|
|
|
Definitely do Warcraft 2. Story is whatever, but the game itself was pretty foundational to the RTS genre.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 19:39
|
|
|
My gold standard for a good twist in a video game story is still Revan's reveal in the original Knights of the Old Republic. It's a Rosebud level spoiler now, but at the time it legit blew my mind and completely recontextualized the game and even the gameplay mechanics up until that point. Oh, and on the off chance anyone hasn't read up on who Katrana Prestor is and why the thread was freaking out about her, I do intend to explain at the end of WC1.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 19:39
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:With the next update we'll be fully halfway through Warcraft 1, and I have been paying attention to the strong reception that the narrative I've added to the human campaign has gotten. I really was not expecting that. I personally like the "one side narrative, one side thorough action" thing you've been doing; I'm sure I'm probably alone in this, but it feels a bit weird to outright replace actual characters and actions in the canon story with originals, especially if it's done in a semi-dramatic fashion ala the alliance narrative you've got going on instead of complete farce (like using another OC with a complex characterization and history instead of, idk, a lost pandaren trying to find her wife and stumbling into acting as Turalyon's aide) that's worked really well for Warcraft 1, because it's a barebones game with pretty much no narrative to contradict, but it kinda feels like it almost takes away from the sense of mockery if you're no longer presenting the thing you're mocking, if that makes sense
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 19:54
|
|
|
Jen X posted:I personally like the "one side narrative, one side thorough action" thing you've been doing; I'm sure I'm probably alone in this, but it feels a bit weird to outright replace actual characters and actions in the canon story with originals, especially if it's done in a semi-dramatic fashion ala the alliance narrative you've got going on instead of complete farce (like using another OC with a complex characterization and history instead of, idk, a lost pandaren trying to find her wife and stumbling into acting as Turalyon's aide) This is indeed what I was worried about from the start, and why I'm trying to gauge what the thread is interested in seeing.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 19:56
|
|
Cythereal posted:My gold standard for a good twist in a video game story is still Revan's reveal in the original Knights of the Old Republic. It's a Rosebud level spoiler now, but at the time it legit blew my mind and completely recontextualized the game and even the gameplay mechanics up until that point. And KOTOR 2 nailed the whole “player character knows things that the player (initially) doesn’t” aspect by way of giving them a fairly fleshed-out backstory that slowly gets filled in as the consequences of their actions prior to the story’s start keep catching back up to them.
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 20:02
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:This is indeed what I was worried about from the start, and why I'm trying to gauge what the thread is interested in seeing. Considering my zero attachment to any canon Warcraft characters, I'm entirely down for their total replacement with more entertaining and sympathetic alternatives.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 20:09
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:This is indeed what I was worried about from the start, and why I'm trying to gauge what the thread is interested in seeing. I think it works while the stuff you're writing contrasts heavily with Blizzard's flaws. It feels like part of the critique then. Strategy games generally need a bit of extra spice to LP well, since you otherwise end up with just a list of "I made these units and they go here, the enemy came from that side with those units" reports. Especially for a game like WC1 with very limited room to make interesting decisions.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 20:12
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:This is indeed what I was worried about from the start, and why I'm trying to gauge what the thread is interested in seeing. The thread is still pining for that other narrative Warcraft LP so of course they want a full narrative rewrite. Keep one side pure action and played straight.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 20:54
|
|
|
Regalingualius posted:And KOTOR 2 nailed the whole “player character knows things that the player (initially) doesn’t” aspect by way of giving them a fairly fleshed-out backstory that slowly gets filled in as the consequences of their actions prior to the story’s start keep catching back up to them. There's a subtle thing they did in KOTOR 2, where the dialogue choices you don't pick still tell you things about what your character knows and about their past, without having to resort to diegetic exposition.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 21:33
|
|
|
Jen X posted:I personally like the "one side narrative, one side thorough action" thing you've been doing; I'm sure I'm probably alone in this, but it feels a bit weird to outright replace actual characters and actions in the canon story with originals, especially if it's done in a semi-dramatic fashion ala the alliance narrative you've got going on instead of complete farce (like using another OC with a complex characterization and history instead of, idk, a lost pandaren trying to find her wife and stumbling into acting as Turalyon's aide) Having one of the campaigns played straight serves as a foil for the made up one. But if this gets all the way to WC3, at that point, there’s enough storyline already included (and the billion retcons!) to just roll with the “canon” mess.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 22:22
|
|
|
I came for the mockery, stayed for the narrative for what it's worth.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 22:23
|
|
|
It's a huge pet peeve of mine when stories fail to maintain the sense that there's some kind of underlying reality or shared set of facts behind the choices players are making and the events that are happening. It feels almost like a kind of narrative gaslighting ("what you saw happen isn't actually what happened, who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"). Blizzard seems to really like doing this, too. Wasn't there some kind of Schrodinger's traitor plotline in Starcraft 2 where the player's choice to believe or disbelieve the accusation retroactively decided what happened (and set up so that whatever the player chose they would be right)? It's a completely false choice set up to flatter the player's ego that they got it right regardless of the choice they make, and for me that completely ruins anything that might have been interesting about that narrative. I think the idea that shock and surprise are equivalent to good storytelling has a lot to do with this, too. If you want to keep milking that factor and shocking people, the constant retcons make sense (you don't actually want to set things up! you want to change the past suddenly so that the big shocking thing is justifiable in "retrospect", but players couldn't have seen it coming since they'd have a "false" context that wasn't building to it). I am very, very glad I checked out of this franchise years ago. This thread is just an endless cavalcade of  and I can't wait to see how much worse it all gets.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 22:25
|
|
|
Explopyro posted:It's a huge pet peeve of mine when stories fail to maintain the sense that there's some kind of underlying reality or shared set of facts behind the choices players are making and the events that are happening. It feels almost like a kind of narrative gaslighting ("what you saw happen isn't actually what happened, who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"). There was in starcraft 2, but it wasn't as obvious there because there was kind of a sense that it was your own intervention that lead to the events in each split, not that events were being rewritten to make you right. It did it twice, actually. Anyway, as for the narrative: I wanna see more, because I like your writing.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 22:36
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:You would not be correct. You only find out about a lot of each faction's poo poo if you talk to someone on the other side or play a character on both factions - did you know the Horde stages a prison break in Stormwind and burns down half the city? Alliance players sure don't! Not unless they also have a Horde character or talked to someone who does! Holy poo poo that's awful. Just absolutely terrible. Unreliable narrators are fine, but in an MMO, you are your character, and what your character views needs to be correct (barring an illusion or a deception that is revealed later, of course). The two factions need to be able to reconcile what happened because both of them directly were involved in the events in question, and not being able to do so is horrid writing. berryjon posted:I remember, ages ago, learning that for the longest time, the Mystery Story actually used the summation to introduce new facts into the story, and this was considered normal. That the protagonist was acting on information that the readers could not have. It wasn't until (allegedly) Doyle and Holmes that having all the evidence be given to the readers and the protagonist then using the same evidence the reader had to make their conclusions became a thing. That a good reader could potentially figure things out in time with the story itself. I actually remember one Sherlock Holmes story that pissed me off because Sherlock specifically used information that was not conveyed to the reader as one of the most important parts of his conclusion. Specifically it was the Red-Headed League where he thumps his cane on the ground. Later, Sherlock reveals that the thump sounded different due to there being a tunnel underground, but none of that is conveyed to the reader, despite the reader "witnessing" Sherlock thump his cane. It disillusioned me from a lot of mystery books because so many of them rely on that sort of narrative trick where the protagonist gets so much more information out of an action or event than a reader does, leaving the reader at a major disadvantage when trying to figure out the mystery.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2022 22:39
|
|
|
Dirk the Average posted:Holy poo poo that's awful. Just absolutely terrible. Unreliable narrators are fine, but in an MMO, you are your character, and what your character views needs to be correct (barring an illusion or a deception that is revealed later, of course). The two factions need to be able to reconcile what happened because both of them directly were involved in the events in question, and not being able to do so is horrid writing. I want to point out that the Battle for Dazar'alor is a case of Unreliable Narrator inworld. If you're playing as alliance, you fight against Rastakhan yourself, but if you play Horde, the fight is "told" to you by a witness (And in fact when you do the fight you are one of the Alliance races and wearing Alliance PVP armor.) Same thing happens with a few different fights at the end of the raid, If you're Horde you are the one who fights Jaina, but if you play alliance the fight is "told" to you by a witness (And, again, you play the fight as a member of the opposite faction, with appropriate PVP armor)
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2022 00:14
|
|
|
Siegkrow posted:I want to point out that the Battle for Dazar'alor is a case of Unreliable Narrator inworld. If you're playing as alliance, you fight against Rastakhan yourself, but if you play Horde, the fight is "told" to you by a witness (And in fact when you do the fight you are one of the Alliance races and wearing Alliance PVP armor.) Same thing happens with a few different fights at the end of the raid, If you're Horde you are the one who fights Jaina, but if you play alliance the fight is "told" to you by a witness (And, again, you play the fight as a member of the opposite faction, with appropriate PVP armor) If that was the intent, then they shouldn't have muddied the waters with stuff like this: Cythereal posted:When called on this garbage, Danuser replied that the fog of war is a precarious thing and who can say what the truth is, really? And even without that, the game should have provided players that saw the inaccurate version a way of discovering the truth in game, rather than have to sift through stuff relayed through other players.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2022 00:29
|
|
NewMars posted:There was in starcraft 2, but it wasn't as obvious there because there was kind of a sense that it was your own intervention that lead to the events in each split, not that events were being rewritten to make you right. It did it twice, actually. IIRC, Tosh vs. Nova actually subtly says that Tosh was the correct choice regardless of what you choose, because the scientist lady outright tells you afterwards that Nova was bullshitting you about the dangers of Tosh’s Spectres, and those issues never come up if you sided with him.
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2022 00:39
|
|
|
SirPhoebos posted:If that was the intent, then they shouldn't have muddied the waters with stuff like this: They often don't give anyone the truth behind things in game, in order to sell books that cover said storylines, backgrounds, and motives. They also semi-regularly remove content that acts as a lead-in to new plots, areas, or even major world events. There's one particularly egregious example I can think of that I suspect Cythereal is saving for maximum impact.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2022 00:56
|
|
|
There's a couple MMOs that do that, relatively story critical events that never happen again and leave anyone coming later completely missing context unless they read a wiki, the most natural way to consume a narrative, and I just don't understand how game developers keep making that mistake, it's one you can see from afar, it's so obvious because it is not just embedded in the design of the event, it is the design of the event.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2022 01:04
|
|
|
Not to get ahead of ourselves, but I'd like WC3 to be told from the perspective of the same characters, just where they are now in the story. Then again, that might be too depressing.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2022 01:14
|
|
|
ungulateman posted:Not to get ahead of ourselves, but I'd like WC3 to be told from the perspective of the same characters, just where they are now in the story. Then again, that might be too depressing. This one I'm flatly saying no to. Validormi letting Isidora have a peek at other timelines is within the realm of possibility, but her timeline has already gone off the rails and is only going to get more so. If I do narratives for WC2, it will be new characters and will not follow from the human campaign of WC1. WC2's story is told exactly the same way that WC1's is, it's just a more complex story and has actual characters and logical sequences of events. I do have an idea for how to add some character commentary to WC3, but that game is so plot-driven that I feel there's not really room to add an OC narrative to it. SIGSEGV posted:There's a couple MMOs that do that, relatively story critical events that never happen again and leave anyone coming later completely missing context unless they read a wiki, the most natural way to consume a narrative, and I just don't understand how game developers keep making that mistake, it's one you can see from afar, it's so obvious because it is not just embedded in the design of the event, it is the design of the event. My guess is that Blizzard doesn't see it as a mistake. They see it as an incentive to get players to log in every day so they don't fall behind or miss anything. Jen X posted:They also semi-regularly remove content that acts as a lead-in to new plots, areas, or even major world events. There's one particularly egregious example I can think of that I suspect Cythereal is saving for maximum impact. Yeah.  As a big night elf fan who originally got into WoW specifically because of them, I am dreading the lore writeups I'll have to make in Warcraft 3.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2022 01:21
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:Yeah. It's been a REALLY long time since I touched WC3 but my memories of the Night Elves in it were that they were Badass and super cool.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2022 01:30
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:I do have an idea for how to add some character commentary to WC3, but that game is so plot-driven that I feel there's not really room to add an OC narrative to it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2022 01:53
|
|
|
Regalingualius posted:IIRC, Tosh vs. Nova actually subtly says that Tosh was the correct choice regardless of what you choose, because the scientist lady outright tells you afterwards that Nova was bullshitting you about the dangers of Tosh’s Spectres, and those issues never come up if you sided with him. If you side with him he is absolutely still a psychotic murderer building an army of psionic supersoldiers loyal to himself. I always saw the choice as being more of a thing were the player has to decide between supporting blatant evil that is also opposed to their foe or supporting an agent of their foe that is "good." (Let's be real, she's still an assassin for an evil empire, but the games never really give her any moral gray for it) The outcome changes because Jim's support tips the scale in a fight that was happening between the two. Now the doctor curing infestation or not depending on if Jim believes in her on the other hand...... well gently caress it, torch the planet and merc her, curing infestation was a stupid plot point anyway.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2022 03:36
|
|
|
Phrosphor posted:It's been a REALLY long time since I touched WC3 but my memories of the Night Elves in it were that they were Badass and super cool. Yes, which is why lore write ups that will also include everything that blizzard did to them afterwards will make someone that loved that sad.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2022 03:38
|
|
|
Phrosphor posted:It's been a REALLY long time since I touched WC3 but my memories of the Night Elves in it were that they were Badass and super cool. Badass, super cool and so very clearly designed by a horny 15-year-old in all their visual aspects.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2022 09:12
|
|
|
Dirk the Average posted:I actually remember one Sherlock Holmes story that pissed me off because Sherlock specifically used information that was not conveyed to the reader as one of the most important parts of his conclusion. Specifically it was the Red-Headed League where he thumps his cane on the ground. Later, Sherlock reveals that the thump sounded different due to there being a tunnel underground, but none of that is conveyed to the reader, despite the reader "witnessing" Sherlock thump his cane. It disillusioned me from a lot of mystery books because so many of them rely on that sort of narrative trick where the protagonist gets so much more information out of an action or event than a reader does, leaving the reader at a major disadvantage when trying to figure out the mystery. Holmes was mostly written before the "rules" of mystery fiction got solidified, so it's very inconsistent about whether clues are conveyed in advance
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2022 09:24
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 2, 2024 16:34 |
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:Badass, super cool and so very clearly designed by a horny 15-year-old in all their visual aspects. There are worse options on the table than that, I'm sure we'll meet some on our way.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2022 12:47
|
|