Slashdot Mirror
How FPS Storylines Are Written
Might E. Mouse writes "Cynics might say 'Who needs a storyline for an FPS game?' and if we're talking Quake or Doom then fair enough. But to brand the entire genre as lacking in story is to condemn gems like Half-Life 2 or Chronicles of Riddick. So what goes into writing a really compelling storyline for an FPS game? bit-tech has an article exploring this topic with the likes of Martin Lancaster, writer / designer for Crysis, Rob Yescombe, writer of Haze and more: 'There's nothing wrong with that of course, back in the day Quake was amazing in its own, essentially plotless, right. But it's interesting that only recently has a push for coherently told storylines appeared among FPS fans, bought on by another few years of maturity in what is an undeniably young medium. Paintings and music have both been around since time out of mind, but computer games have only been around for a couple of decades and only recently have they begun to be recognized for the artistic merit posed by their interactivity.'"
Map designer: "Hey, check out this really cool Gothic arch I made in worldcraft!"
Lead designer: "Nice, that really looks like a gateway to hell. I like the guys chained to the stone walls suspended above a pit of lava too. It looks like their souls have been sucked right out of them."
Resulting game story: "You must pass the gateway to hell, and descend into the depths to save the damned before their souls are harvested."
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
... could be a nice start.
I'll save everyone some time from reading the article:
New games need story. Stories need writers. Writers need to think about the audience.
Some games already have stories.
There's a lot of plugs for the Haze game, for some reason.
And that's it... There's nothing else. They act all philosphical about how FPS's need story/etc, but it's absolutely no different than how other games need story, except in scale. RPGs need more, puzzle games need less.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
"Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important."
from wikiquotes...
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
"Technology adds nothing to art. Two thousand years ago, I could tell you a story, and at any point during the story I could stop, and ask, Now do you want the hero to be kidnapped, or not? But that would, of course, have ruined the story. Part of the experience of being entertained is sitting back and plugging into someone else's vision. The fact of the matter is, since the beginning of time, you could buy a Picasso and change the colors. That's trivial. But you don't because you're buying a piece of Picasso's $&#**^% soul. That's the definition of art: Art is one person's ego trip."
- Penn Jillette
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
They're not.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Ok, before you say ANYTHING about story in FPS games, you need to play Marathon, System Shock 2, Chronicles of Riddick, Thief, or anything more substantial than Half-Life and Halo. (To pre-empt the obvious question: the Chronicles of Riddick videogame is about 10 times better than the movie, which sucked.)
You're basically sitting here telling us that all movies are terrible, but all you've ever seen is Weekend At Bernie's. Watch some Kubrick films, then come back and tell me all movies are terrible, and I might lend your opinion a little weight.
Comment of the year