After Game Like Catherine,Open Narrative Feels Unimpressive

[Son of Max]

Let's revisit your original post...

Catherine presented us with thought-provoking, profound subject matter, elucidates us through the puzzle mechanic the phases adults must go through. The mechanics stands in close juxtaposition with the narrative. Its contemporary setting, contemporary conflicts feel familiar and intimate, resembling Yasojiro Ozu's Tokyo Story or Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru, life-affirming stories that stand the test of time.

Quest-based narrative just feels like incoherent rambling of a drunk,socialist bar attendant who randomly quotes Karl Marx for credibility, resembling garbage like comic books that seem to incorporate some political,scientific interests to look mature, although they are still seen as juvenile garbage without artistic merit.

Ultimately, quest-based stories have to disappear. They can not compete with the likes of Syberia or Catherine.

Do you even realize that you are, in fact, the drunk, socialist bar attendant here?

Now get me a scotch and soda.

[RetreatToLove]

You're deluding yourself if you think within 30 years there hasn't been a progress within how the gamers , critics alike perceive games. You can not fool them by selling them tell-your-own story anymore. They are not endearing, and most likely not life-affirming nor inspirational. It has to have narrative focus, exemplified by Red Dead Redemption , which i will categorize in the same level of focus as Catherine and Syberia, albeit less inspirational. As a matter of fact Red Dead Redemption has laid the blue-print for all open-world games to come, namely the quest-based-but-not-really design. And RDR was really close to Fallout than to GTA , because most of the environments consisted of plains and nature instead of buildings and human-created structures. One has to be idiotic not to take heed from RDR when designing an open word game, it's just plain foolish.

You might think i'm jumping from Catherine to Syberia to Red Dead Redemption haphazardly like a rampant hyena, but they all share the same traits that Wasteland 2 urgently needs to adopt, namely cut-scenes-based , narratively-focused game. Even Catherine offers more breathing room as its multiple endings exemplify. And that breathing room is the confinement within which Wasteland 2 should traverse. Breaking out of the room , whose blue-print has been laid by Red Dead Redemption would be highly costly and a fatal mistake.

[ffordesoon]

You're either a troll or the dumbest person to have ever heard of Yasujiro Ozu.

Given that you mentioned cutscenes, I'm gonna pick troll.

[paultakeda]

Breaking out of the room , whose blue-print has been laid by Red Dead Redemption would be highly costly and a fatal mistake.

I see you refuse to discuss the potential of immersive storylines within a party system RPG paradigm and instead insult it. You also don't see how Catherine's eight endings is limiting to a classic RPG paradigm and in fact hail it as offering more breadth. RDR is a main character sandbox game, so yeah, we get it: you want to be told a story.

Your final sentence, which I quote above, is the reason why you were asked if you work for Big Ass Games by another poster. You've expressed the exact sort of thing that caused Wasteland 2 to become a Kickstarter project when Fargo spent years puzzled as to why no one would understand people would buy the game as pitched: a classic CRPG.

Here we are, 3x more funding than asked. And you call it a costly, fatal mistake.

I'm done trying to provide you with a broader scope of understanding on game genre differences. Everyone's right. You're trolling.

[RetreatToLove]

What are you blabbering about ? Skyrim,your 'tell-your-own-story' poster-boy, sold millions. How are they not lucrative ? The turn-off was the grid-based combat, which i love .

What i was suggesting is that Wasteland 2 should not be complacent , and be 'Skyrim with guns'. You can not fool people anymore with games like LA Noire (Oh, now LA Noire comes into equation, you say), Catherine, RDR out there that people realize more and more that focused narrative is the ideal one, and 'tell-your-own-story' will fall out of favor (no pun intended) in the long,maybe short, run. Better jump out of the wagon now rather than later.

[Phaederuss]

What are you blabbering about ? Skyrim,your 'tell-your-own-story' poster-boy, sold millions. How are they not lucrative ? The turn-off was the grid-based combat, which i love .

What i was suggesting is that Wasteland 2 should not be complacent , and be 'Skyrim with guns'. You can not fool people anymore with games like LA Noire (Oh, now LA Noire comes into equation, you say), Catherine, RDR out there that people realize more and more that focused narrative is the ideal one, and 'tell-your-own-story' will fall out of favor (no pun intended) in the long,maybe short, run. Better jump out of the wagon now rather than later.

Dude almost every game out now is very heavily narrative based. He didn't say that open world games weren't lucrative either.

[cmagruder]

At least he's a creative troll. I've enjoyed him in his various incarnations.

[Phaederuss]

Yea, but on the other hand after reading this thread and "ignore JRPG for demise" I feel like my head is going to explode.

[rakenan]

At least he's a creative troll. I've enjoyed him in his various incarnations.

I've never much enjoyed trolls. Then again, I think everybody should be required to carry a loaded handgun at all times - immediate enforcement of consequences against people who go out of their way to start fights could only make the world a better place.

[cmagruder]

At least he's a creative troll. I've enjoyed him in his various incarnations.

I've never much enjoyed trolls. Then again, I think everybody should be required to carry a loaded handgun at all times - immediate enforcement of consequences against people who go out of their way to start fights could only make the world a better place.

A good idea if you think the Kamakura period and the Wild West are a better place.

[alexandergr]

I don't like burgers. 'Burger King' is stupid for making burgers. What is a burger? It's like two slices of white capitalistic bread trying to strangle the multiculturalism of the other ingredients. And the millions of French(or should I say Chinese) fries have become more than a side-dish. Just horrible.

They should make a Pizza, I like it better.

[Interloper]

I don't think we should be so quick to discredit such profound insight. It is a valiant argument, but hardly unassailable:

Is it not true that while the intricacy of Catherine's script painted a striking portrait of contemporary romantic ideals, that it retained a heavy authorial bias towards the more anti-establishment perspective? Outside of so-called "gameplay" areas (hereafter referring to sections of the story in which the player was no in direct control of his or her avatar's actions) much of the choice was forcibly removed from the player's control. This is to say, the exact progression of the "plot" was ultimately a deterministic expression of the game designer's attitudes towards relationships, rather than truly allowing interactive agency in the way so-called "western" role playing games tend to aspire to. To wit, it is not through player choice that the affair with Catherine and the subsequent "gameplay" sections occur, but through writer fiat. The implication of course is that the foundation of the touted ethical dilemma Catherine is premised on, is forced on the character in such a way that any subsequent choice can be said to be meaningless, undermining the thematic integrity of the piece in a way that an open narrative simply cannot be.

You see, while an open narrative may lack direction, the verisimilitude of the player avatar's story is generally not threatened by the fallacies of writer-conscripted artificiality. The so-called socialist drunkard in that respect is quite preferable to a scholarly and sober lecturer for the audience's stated goals of self-actualization through interactive media. Which is to say, by taking a more Coen-esque, deconstructive approach to storytelling, the agents of the narrative, both under player control or otherwise can generate a plot that while directionless or even anti-directive, offers a more Socratic experience in exploring hypothetical scenarios that pertain more closely to contemporary, real issues. It stands to reason that in a medium defined by the agency of the audience rather than that of the writer, a true narrative exemplar ought to find depth in dialogue with the interactor who may in turn take either an affirmatory or contradictory position at their leisure to collaborate in the synthesis of meaning, rather than merely engaging in a monologue to a non-participant who cannot aid in meaning's construction.

Or shall we continue to succumb to the fallacy of media homogeneity?

[RetreatToLove]

That discovery does not exist. If a city in a video game is plagued by a disease , the protagonist gets the choice of a) seeking an alleviation to the disease or b) killing the entire city before plague spreads to other city and thereby affects gameplay . You can apply that loosely to a milk in your refrigerator that has passed the expiration date, do you only throw the milk away, or the entire content of your refrigerator to the garbage bin ?

Yeah, 'discovery' is a neat concept, and 'human interpretation' is a neat experimental ground , but what is more powerful than the power of nature itself , with its precise defined laws that are not open to interpretation, that direct and inspire the way we life, and we are powerless to defy, and leave us to succumb ,obey and emulate , just like linear storyline ,that direct us to a certain path and inspires us, because that is how we perceive the world, we emulate, we learn from our predecessors,nature and pass through our knowledge to the younger ones. Even with breakthrough in medicine like magnetic resonance tomography, you can be sure as hell that it will only be available to the those who can afford it, and most likely not to a beggar in Calcuta. Poverty will always exist , regardless of 'breathing room' in technology. We are powerless to defy the force of nature that is poverty. There is not really that much breathing room in real life, so why should there in games or other entertainment medium? Why not just lead us down that path, that we are used to in real life ?

[Phaederuss]

Are you serious? Are you trying to compare the law of gravity to a story and an open world? This guy is spitting pure nonsense and people actually responded to his threads. They are self contradictory and nonsensical, every single one. Are you saying there are no choices in life? There are no choices in games? Both propositions are obviously false and even if they were true it wouldnt follow that there should be no choices in games, however there are choices all the time. Even checkers has choices or connect four.

[cmagruder]

Visual novels I tell you! Visual novels with lengthy cutscenes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBDoD-InUUE

[Brother None]

You can not fool them by selling them tell-your-own story anymore.

Too bad. That's what this game is.

I don't get threads like these. "This game should be different because it doesn't suit my tastes". So play a different game.

Anyway, this thread is a mess. Locked.