Bionic Reading

Did you ever play King's Quest? How about Thexder?

taby said:
Did you ever play King's Quest? How about Thexder?

Not really. Played some of the Larry games.
From my C64 home computer era, Zak McCracken was the most impressive / immersive game of that time. Even it felt technically behind some action side scrollers like Turrican or Katakis.
Recently i did read some retro / nostalgia blog about those early point and click adventures.
They wrote, the awesomeness of those games came from the feeling that ‘you can do anything in the game’. And that's exactly how it felt to me.
Regarding text adventures, Sierra graphics adventures, or Lucasfilm GUI adventures, they all have this property.

The interesting thing is that the feeling is a total illusion. You can type in any sentence, but only a few will have an effect on the game. The game itself is quite a static, predetermined path to the end, with almost no options beside the usual things of doing some actions in different order, or having multiple ways to solve a certain problem.

So we can say, the illusion of ‘being able to (eventually) do whatever you want’ actually happens in the imagination of the player. It's a cheat, but it worked good enough to make point and click adventures one of the most successful genres.

And this happened the second time in the history of games. The first was imagining great cover artwork while looking at just some colored boxes on the screen. (Other people likely could give different examples.)

I think spurring the players imagination is key to make games awesome, but it seems increasingly harder to accomplish this.
Today we have detailed, realistic graphics and huge RPGs, where you can do indeed a whole lot of things.
But imagination is not utilized or needed. That's an industry wide problem i think. Movies have the same problem, but they have full control and can just flood the observer with impressions.

The latest game where it worked for me was The Alien Cube, which is a indie horror walking simulator, so not much of a game. But it had an interesting story, with nice plot twist at the end, so i really liked it.
The story telling is implemented on text notes which you find at various places, similar to the former genre king of lone hero narrative shooters.
No audio, no cutsecnes. Just text. And although i do not like to read that much, that's still the best way tell me stories in games. Maybe because i have to use imagination to turn text into vivid story in my mind.

I think we must find new ways to spur imagination, which also work for grown up people. Pretty difficult.
I came up with ideas like: Don't show the whole world - some important parts of it must stay secret / imaginary. Then confront the player with this occasionally.
But i guess there should be better ways than just that. Something closer to actual mechanics, not just built upon story.

JoeJ said:
To me, walls of text were often an obstacle in games.

And this is the sole reason why German RPG Gothic and (especially) Gothic 2 are far superior to TES III: Morrowind (which I started multiple times and gave up multiple times for sole reason of walls of text - truth to be told, voice acted TES IV and TES V were good, and I've played through them - the sole problem being that dialogs didn't make any sense at all, you say one word and receive huge wall of text). By introducing voice acting - the walls of text were gone. Designers have to keep conversations sane and realistic (and therefore not having zillions lines to read) - which makes the game world much more immersive.

Some old school fans would bash me for this (but it is personal preference) - I personally refuse to read through walls of text - if I'm to invest multiple hours in just reading a story, I'm going to grab a book.

…

So the problem for me is not text nor reading itself - but trying to bury player in way too many information through walls of text and poorly designed dialogs. Sadly my favorite genre (RPGs) in general have this huge problem.

JoeJ said:
I think spurring the players imagination is key to make games awesome, but it seems increasingly harder to accomplish this. Today we have detailed, realistic graphics and huge RPGs, where you can do indeed a whole lot of things. But imagination is not utilized or needed. That's an industry wide problem i think. Movies have the same problem, but they have full control and can just flood the observer with impressions.

I'm currently playing through Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos (whenever I get an hour here and there between family and programming), and while it is a mod on aged game, I haven't had this great experience in RPG games since Enderal: Forgotten Stories - funny, again a mod. It was after few years when I grabbed the game I literally wanted to play (or mod to be fair). I personally consider both as extremely high quality products that are literally what great RPG should be.

Sadly due to games in this genre being pushed more towards action adventures and focused on broader community - which kind of kills the genre (it isn't role playing anymore)

Vilem Otte said:
Sadly due to games in this genre being pushed more towards action adventures and focused on broader community - which kind of kills the genre (it isn't role playing anymore)

The problem i see is that everyone does this - streamlining the experience, make it more accessible, etc. They all want to reach the biggest possible audience. So they all converge to pretty much the same teen power fantasy games.
In the end, not only big ‘niche’ markets are left behind, but even the players representing the average end up disappointed because one game is just like the other.

However, you could help me trying to understand RPGs. Why is it your favorite genre? What's the promise or expected experience?
I often try them, but i'm resistant to use mechanics implemented by abstract property sheets in multiple pages of GUI. For example i never observed a difference from trying multiple character builds, because i even try to not upgrade at all, so i do not have to use and understand those complicated GUI pages. Same for skill trees. I hate and ignore them. Thus i often get stuck because i'm too weak, then i use a trainer eventually and have fun with the game. But this way i can't learn what's the fuzz about RPGs, why people like it and what they expect from it.

What i want is to move those abstract mechanics into the actual world simulation instead, so no more GUI pages are needed. Actions, cause and effects should be all doable and observable from the main simulation. Currently, RPGs seem mostly a mix of realtime action video game simulation and board games implementing things with some abstract numbers and stats. Such distinction should not exist imo. There should be ways to fuse those two worlds to become one.

Vilem Otte said:
By introducing voice acting - the walls of text were gone. Designers have to keep conversations sane and realistic (and therefore not having zillions lines to read) - which makes the game world much more immersive.

I remember voice acting was very welcome to me, replacing walls of text with something i can just consume without effort.

But the key problem remains the same: By displaying a cutscene, or by switching into a mode of multiple choice dialogue, or by showing a note we've just picked up, we interrupt gameplay no matter what.
That's like freezing the universe and kidnapping the player, interrupting his current experience, forcing him to adopt a completely different representation of the games virtual reality which does not fuse. One second you interact with 3D world and its simulations, next second all this is turned off and you end up in a situation where all you see is static content, your options suddenly are represented by just 3 choices, a QTE event, some lock picking mini game, etc.

That's not really ideal, and also the reason why i want to get rid of GUI to handle character stats, skill trees, crafting, etc. It constantly breaks immersion, it constantly exposes our limitations, hacks and workarounds.
It's worth to notice those issues were not present in early and simple video games. It became an increasing issue after we tried to do more than just eating cookies in a maze.
To me the solution seems to keep the interface to the player simple and consistent, and moving all the desired complexity to the games simulation. So we get rich options to affect the world in indirect and direct ways, all form the same simple interface.
But this won't change the fact that story itself remains a static asset, which can't be interactive, and thus can't be part of a simulation process at all.
Which brings me to the conclusion that story telling is not really our strength in context of action games. Or we just have not yet found better ways to integrate it.

JoeJ said:
Why is it your favorite genre? What's the promise or expected experience?

This probably dates back to the ‘good old’ D&D games. Pen and paper ones.

Good RPG is challenging - first of all you need to be immersed in the world, these are background details, but they are important. From player's point of view, there is a whole world to explore - it has to be realistic, have its own rules, and it has to be presented in proper - non exhaustive way. Most of current RPGs from indie scene absolutely fail at the last one - as they swarm you with walls of text representing lore. Often at once. The story in an RPG often unfolds at player's pace (you don't seem to be pushed that much in it - or at least shouldn't) and then you should be the one deciding how to play your character (which is where most modern RPGs absolutely fail). That includes how your character specializes (old Piranha Bytes games gave you often a choice - joining a major guild - and not just the gameplay, but also rest of the game had some major differences to it), and how your character behaves and develops (again Piranha Bytes did this to some extent, but it is other series - Mass Effect (first 2 installements) which shine at this out from modern, or the first 2 Fallout games - which were just The RPGs).

Additional to this, it often shines in giving player freedom of problem solving. I'll give you 2 examples:

Gothic II: NotR - Going to the city

Background: When approaching the city in ‘Chapter 1’ a player is stopped by guard (no matter which gate he chooses), that prevents him from entering. Stating that they can't let just anyone into the city.

The player eventually (by talking to other characters) is presented with 3 options - pretend to be farmer by wearing farmer's clothes (which you obtain by either buying, working for or stealing), bribing the guard (also you need to bribe correct guard, otherwise you're just going to get beaten), or having a citizen's pass (which can be obtained for ‘a favor’ in future). There is another hidden option of just getting there by swimming into the city and therefore completely avoiding gate guards (this option is really a valid option and author's took it into account - as once you're in docks there is a character remarking on this option and laughing that you rather swim than have anything in common with guards).

Mass Effect - Noveria port

Background: Upon entering Noveria planet (in port), while player needs to continue towards another location (Peak 15), he can't reach it due to planet being on lockdown. Only those with Garage pass can go.

The player is presented with easiest way - to rat out somebody - present evidence to corrupt administrator and he is free to go. There are other options though - you can obtain the pass from other character (that wants proving the corruption of administrator) - once evidence is obtained you will be presented with 2 options, one being trading the evidence for pass to the other character, or convincing this character to testify (based on another discussion with administrator's secretary - who is undercover agent). The player against has choice which has impacts on his character development (and also having some impact in second installment in the series when some characters re-appear).

It is entirely up to player which way he chooses and it will have further impact in the game (or even next installment in series in the latter case). That is the core element of RPG - giving player a choice in how he/she approaches given problem and allowing him multiple solutions (ideally more than 2 - not just “good” and “evil” in general). These are prime example of RPG experience.

JoeJ said:
I often try them, but i'm resistant to use mechanics implemented by abstract property sheets in multiple pages of GUI.

This is one of the complications with RPG games in general - overly complex system. While the underlying system can be complex. Now - keep in mind that I can get through those systems - but I don't especially adore them. I didn't mind them that much in original Fallout and Fallout 2. But I tend to dislike them. The Elder Scrolls (especially Oblivion and Skyrim) tend to go around the standard ‘point levelling’ systems quite successfully … similar solution had Kingdom Come: Deliverance). In some games (like Piranha Bytes ones), they had quite simplified system - which, while makes player still going through stats, tends to be much smaller obstacle.

Some newer games added auto-levelling, which I never used.

Overall, this concept is from pen and paper D&D where it makes sense. In games - it depends. Some games use this as a natural barrier (you can't get to locations where enemies are too strong - like in Piranha Bytes ones - although skilled player still can). Fallout was a prime example of how these tables impact game (low intelligence character playthroughs are legendary up until this time). Most of RPGs I've played just had statistics to have them though - they didn't implement any impact apart from being able to do more damage or unlock more complex chests. At such games I consider such system completely redundant and more an obstacle for player.

My point is - if the statistics is there - it must have direct impact on gameplay, not just increasing number of damage you do. It shouldn't be there (especially not if it is overly complex) just for the sake of being there.

JoeJ said:
By displaying a cutscene, or by switching into a mode of multiple choice dialogue, or by showing a note we've just picked up, we interrupt gameplay no matter what.

The masters of interactivity (even while “cutscenes” - which are really not cutscenes in that game) are Valve with Half Life, especially HL2 and episodes. You stay the whole time as protagonist - therefore immersing you even further into the world. Now, the problem is that he really isn't participating in the dialog at all - as he doesn't say a single word during all of the games.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim had multiple choice dialog, and during the time other character was talking you could still interact with the world, note it does also have a system where NPCs talk to each other, the whole world simulation went on during the dialog either (which you could leave and walk around the room). Original Gothic games caught you in dialog with cameras looking at talking characters (it is 3rd person game) - but the game still ran. Fun fact, it is entirely possible to get caught in the dialog while an animal attacks you (or other NPCs) and yes it is possible to die during dialog. On the other hand F.e. Mass Effect is prime example of cutscenes (and huge load of them).

As you mentioned VR - a game that worked really well with it - was Lone Echo and Lone Echo II. Despite me not playing through them (I had a chance to just play them once for a short while) - these games did in fact have the most immersion I've seen in VR games. Truth to be told I haven't played Half Life: Alyx (it's good to mention - that these are probably main 3 story heavy games for VR that were designed purposely for it). Neither of those is role playing game though.

Vilem Otte said:
It is entirely up to player which way he chooses and it will have further impact in the game (or even next installment in series in the latter case). That is the core element of RPG - giving player a choice in how he/she approaches given problem and allowing him multiple solutions (ideally more than 2 - not just “good” and “evil” in general). These are prime example of RPG experience.

Probably i should take a look at older Fallout games then. Fallout 3 was my first RPG, but i treated it like some FPS and did not pay attention to RPG mechanics. Same for Mass Effect games.
What you describe is close to what i want, but if current games offer this, then i may just miss most of the options i could choose from.
Sometimes it's even hard to figure out what's the goal of such game. I can get more powerful, yes. But why? What's the motivation? Huge worlds, infinite quests, many options, many stories to explore. Oh so often it's just too much, overwhelming, pointless.

Vilem Otte said:
Gothic II: NotR - Going to the city

Say there are 3 or 4 options to pass the guard. That's nice, but all of them are manually designed and predetermined content. I can choose, but i can not do what i want. I can play a role, but i'm not free and can't define my role. I can only choose ‘my’ path through a predetermined graph of potential actions, where i have no affect on this graph beside opening or closing some doors depending on my former decisions.
Now i don't say we should get rid of that. We need it to tell stories, which we can not generate dynamically or procedurally.
But i think we want to extend those static options with dynamic options which emerge from the games simulation. E.g. if we use RTS methods to model things globally, the player could observe, manipulate, exhaust, using his own ideas. There might be supply lines like conveyor belts to transport ammo and equipment to enemy factions. The player could block the lines by putting a big rock on it using some excavator. Or he could sabotage some controller electronics to stop the supply. Things like that.
Ideally the players can come up with their own solutions to problems, which the devs did not expect or consider. But if the world simulation respects laws of conversation of energy, meaning ammo can't be generated out of nothing, but needs resources, the game still works.
That's kind of what i expect from future games. It's basically what we get anyway as we continue to merge genres, and having more advanced simulations.

Vilem Otte said:
The masters of interactivity (even while “cutscenes” - which are really not cutscenes in that game) are Valve with Half Life, especially HL2 and episodes. You stay the whole time as protagonist - therefore immersing you even further into the world. Now, the problem is that he really isn't participating in the dialog at all - as he doesn't say a single word during all of the games.

Ha, i remember it was pretty confusing to me, when FPS games started to have talking avatars. Because i was ‘in the game’, but the voice was not mine. : ) So that voice broke immersion. When i saw HL Alyx, i even was disappointed about her comments during gameplay. I'd rather like at least some developers sticking at muted avatars for first person games.
But that's just a specific detail about first person. Ignoring this, HL was not yet the narrative story shooter which became the standard a bit later, e.g. Singularity, Bioshock, Titanfall2, Dishonored, etc. Those later games do active story telling, but in HL it was more about giving a background, using mostly enviromental storytelling.
I think it's still very effective, and it would play well with dynamic games of the future as mentioned above. HL used scripts to make their NPCs interesting. Likely we could use dynamic AI instead to get similar natural behavior, which could add well to unpredictable player actions.