Poll Do you like the stories and dialogue in games?

Depends on the game. If there's emphasis on it (like the Final Fantasy series), definitely. That's a large purpose of the game.

For stuff like World of WarCraft quests, etc...I don't read it at all. That was being a (former) fan of the WarCraft lore too.

These polls are shit. For the most part it just depends on the game.

Long unskippable cutscenes that repeat if I fail to reach a checkpoint? Rage-inducing bullshit.

You should always have the ability to speed through conversations if at least for the sake of replay or lack of interest in that particular dialog. So if its voiced, it should have a subtitle option, which you can read ahead to skip through it faster.

I believe the worst offender outside of a pile of JRPG's would be whatever Zelda it was that not only did not give you any ability to speed up dialog, but also t y p e d e a c h l e t t e r s o s o s l o w - to the point that people play it in japanese because it makes the game 45 minutes(!) shorter.

I really appreciate the games that take advantage of the unique medium to convey story or information. Wolfenstein: TNO is a surprisingly decent example, as you get a very different feel for the world and the depth depending on whether you pick up all the lore objects and read them or not. If you don't, the limited dialogue and cutscenes are all you have to go on and the whole thing is pretty straightforward pew-pew soldiering. If you do read through everything, there's a lot more emotion involved and you can even question what you're doing at times (until you remember they be Nazis, yo)

Bastion also told a story in a way that wouldn't work in a book/movie, with dynamic voice over based on your actions, and an important choice popping up at the end. Spec Ops: The Line is all the more of a descent into despair because you're playing through it instead of just watching it. Games like Epistory, Hue, Stanley Parable, and Hyper Light Drifter would be impossible or very different to tell through another medium, but harness the game itself pretty nicely.

Some games make it a little too.... gamey, let's say, to actually get the lore, like compared to Bastion I would say Transistor falls into this category, even though I liked the game itself better, the lore was buried beneath using every ability/socket in different ways and requires multiple playthroughs.

Games like Baldur's Gate, Fallout 2, etc. are what people usually think of when they think of games with stories, but in a lot of ways, those are the most similar to books/movies/whatever, the story is only tied to the game itself insofar as what order you talk to people. You get more of the uniqueness of game storytelling in the side areas that you have to look for, where sometimes things aren't just spelled out and you instead piece together lore from pieces there. These are often the favorite spots in the new Fallout games because they stand out and the 3D exploration adds a little more weight to the experience.

If a game assaults me with pages of dialogue and written lore, like literally hours and hours worth of reading, it needs to be a pretty high caliber because otherwise it's just effectively a shitty book in the way of your game.

When I was younger I used to read every line in a game I liked and totally nerd out. I remember getting sucked in to the world. FF1, the original, did that to me hard. I had my entire squad at lvl99, talked to every pixel in town, etc....

Now, maybe it's due to pure age, lack of as much free time, or maybe being jaded knowing that the morons writing most of the stories for MMOs are just normal douchebags but I literally cannot remember the last game I played where I didn't skip cut-scenes and just mash the "ACCEPT/OK" button for a quest. In fact, I find myself getting actively annoyed when I cannot skip a cut-scene, so I use the time to go get another beer.

I'm not 100% against a good story or dialogue, but they need to make it part of the environment in today's day and age and NOT a pause in the action.

I love the story and vocal aspects of Grand Theft Auto. Hell, every one has been great, but 5 was fucking incredible.

I'm bipolar with this issue and have thought about it before this thread.
Sometimes I read all of it, love it, read it outloud, think about it when I'm gone - doesn't even have to be great and complicated writing if it hits right.
Other times I'm like *click*click*click COME ON LET ME PLAY

There's a serious lack of decent story in a lot of games these days (hell, TV shows and movies too) but for the ones that make the attempt I prefer voice acted. FFXV cemented that fact after all of the cut content forced them to stick text box journals and notes in random places, including in one of the worst levels I've ever had to play through.

I like it when the stories are interesting/coherent and the choices matter. Most MMOs rob the player of that, and it's just, at best, trite, so I click away as the quests become a means to an end.

I like Dialogue and Story when it is well thought out and doesn't just exist to give you a reason to grab 4 bear asses because we needed 50 quests in this zone to make sure your character leveled 5 times so that they can move onto the next zone where the quest dialog will exist to tell you why you need to gather 4 wolverine asses.

I do hate the fuck out of "RP" you can't skip in group content, though. I don't need to spend a minute and half listening to you set up the intro to this raid fight the 20th+ time I'm doing it.

Sometimes there's a good quest chain with a great story, but they beat most of it to death with repetition. Which is probably to be expected, when you have to feed baby a stream of quests to level cap or else they'll become confused and shit themselves.

Also, most MMOs keep trying to tell the YOU ARE THE TRUE SAVIOR! stories, which are nonsense in an MMO setting, since you are literally surrounded by 20-40 other dudes who've all done the same shit each raid night.

Overall, I prefer a *setting* with interesting shit squirreled away, more than I prefer a core storyline to follow. Create a world with cool shit, and if I'm interested in it, I'll hunt down wherever you've tucked lore.

Red Dead Redemption, I actually got sick of the gameplay and just played for the story from about Mexico on. That was about 100 hours in, though.

I love the story when it is done right. Older games especially. Starflight, Star Control 2, hell, all the King's Quest series...actually, most Sierra/Dynamix titles, really. Even the Broken Sword series. Hell, most Adventure games have great stories. Some RPGs have good stories. Few FPS have good stories. Zero racing sims have good stories. It's a genre thing.

In MMO...ehhh. I mean, I liked when EQ had GM events that moved the story. Also, incorporating atmosphere as part of the story is huge (For example, Ambassador D'vin). The epic quests were pretty cool, too. I did not feel that way in WoW, though. The super long quests were just something to get through to get my next piece of gear.

Basically, for MMOs, I do not want to be forced into the story...I either want to make my own or to discover the narrative that is driving the actions in the game.

I feel like everything is way too tolkien-y, so much so that the genre has been uninteresting lorewise for probably 2 decades for me

Maybe that explains why I have a preference for Sci-Fi MMOs as of late, you can only kill orcs and goblins as dwarves and elves for so fucking long

qwertyqweqwertwqert said:

It is way too tolkeiny. Again I wouldn't even mind if the quality was really high, but it just never is. The average standard of RPG story and dialogue is unbelievably low. It just shows how dumb the average gamer is.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't say dumb, I just don't think they care about story but game developers don't know how to structure an MMO without billions of "story" driven quests

lore is an element of gaming that's not really in high demand but is half-heartedly inserted anyways in every game cuz reasons

I genuinely believe it's extremely heavily skewed in the "Don't care" category, I guess I'm just thinking more about MMOs but with games in general this somewhat applies as well