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Ragnar Tornquist On Video Game Storytelling
Ragnar Tornquist is respected as one of the best storytellers in today's game industry. He's done work on Anarchy: Online, Dreamfall, and upcoming MMO The Secret World. Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a lengthy three-part interview with Tornquist about how good stories are crafted, how they interact with other aspects of the games, and what his preferences are for building a compelling character.
"We had all these characters who were on a journey of faith, and we said how can we ensure that this theme is carried through, and have a clear view of how their journeys happen. So we said, every single major character had to fit into this model. Everybody starts out at the top. Faith can be anything — it can be religion, it can be a belief in yourself, in your abilities, in the work you do. As we face challenge, there's a process where we have loss of faith. It can be a minor thing: thinking one day, 'God, I suck at what I do. I can't do this.' And a lot of people after that point turn themselves around, face those problems, challenge them and they conquer them, and they say, 'Screw that, I am good at what I do.' I think most happy people live in this loop."
Ragnar Tourqist was born Wilbur McDougal in Peoria, Illinois and developed his fantasy- writing skills as an excape from the beatings he suffered in high school at the hands of the elitist chess club. He enjoys painting figurines and staging epic battles with his Pez dispenser collection. Also, he likes ponies.
This sounds like one of those made-up names the guys on MST3K would come up with. Ragnar Tornquist? If ring-wraiths were real and were active in the adult film industry, they would have names like this.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
When problems overwhelm us and sadness smothers us, where do we find the will and the courage to countinue?
...he thought, "If that squirrel
can take care of himself
with the harsh winter coming on so can I."
well the answer may come in the caring voice of a friend a chance encounter with a book or from a personal faith.
for Ragnar, help came from her faith but it also came from a squirrel.
"Once i broke my problems into small pieces I was able to carry them, just like those acorns, one at a time."
Your Brain + EEG + LEGO Robots = Brainstorms
God, I suck at what I do. I can't do this.
But then I hit 'submit' and my post is modded +1 Funny.
All is well again.
Dreamfall's three primary characters were a washed-up, gothy 'heroine' from the previous game, a generically plucky artist, and a generically honorable warrior who discovers that his government is corrupt. They inhabit a story that wanders at best, is never resolved in any way, and cuts off at not just one, but three separate cliffhangers.
'God, I suck at what I do. I can't do this.'
George W. Bush et al. said "We are good at nothing. We can continue the biggest theft of the U.S. federal budget by relying on my parents' associates to pull our collective ass out of every fire we light but cannot extinguish".
Examples include Iraq, Afghanistan, the collapsed U.S. economy, and U.S. provocation of Georgia's losing battle with Russia.
I think most happy people live in this loop.
Unfortunately, 99.9999...% of happy people are dumbfucks.
Ragnar was the CEO of TTI.
I misread and got excited because I thought the upcoming MMO was called "The Secret World: Rock, Paper, Shotgun." I have no idea what a game named that would be like but I'd probably pay money to find out.
From the intro to the latest Pure Pwnage:
:O
If I wanted a compelling story, I'd read a book. There's only a few million of them already in exsistence, the majority of which were written by people whose talents compare to the best video game writers the same way Kobe Bryant's penis might compare to that of a poorly endowed tit mouse. If enduring 90 minutes of CGI cut scenes dubbed with pornography grade voice acting sounds exciting to you, I suggest you immediately navigate your web browser to the neighborhood torrent site and start downloading something called a movie. Any of them really, because apparently you're very easily satisfied.
:D Confession: I really liked the Xenosaga series
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
I have mixed feelings about Tornquist. He created The Longest Journey which was absolutely amazing, particularly for its story. My favorite game ever. Vivid, detailed characterization, intricate world-building, compelling plot. The tech wasn't impressive (3D figures superimposed on 2D backdrops), but the story was so great that I didn't care.
Then came the sequel, Dreamfall. Oh. My. God. The game was a lot prettier, a good deal more tech glitz. But the UI was atrocious (horrible camera control, unplayable on PC without a USB controller), gratuitous fighting scenes built in (complete with lousy combat controls), and the puzzles (such as they were) didn't make sense. Worse, the plot was incoherent at many crucial points, and the main character (Chloe) completely failed to engage my sympathy or even interest. I got to the end and was sorry she hadn't died permanently somewhere along the way.
Dreamfall had the most severe case of sequel-itis I've ever seen. The original was amazing, astounding, wonderful, and sold a bazillion copies. Then the corporate types took over and threw a ton of cash at the sequel, and it sucked hard. The only comparable thing I can think of? Indiana Jones -- Raiders of the Lost Ark was terrific, and Temple of Doom sucked so hard that nobody ever plays it on TV, not even at 4 AM to fill up time. That's how Dreamfall was.
I have hopes for the third TLJ installment -- after all, The Last Crusade rescued Indiana Jones from one-hit wonder status. It could happen again. But then I think of how the Matrix series went downhill, and fear.
The idea that all you need is belief in yourself to succeed makes for a great feel-good fantasy experience, but it's as true as the age-old myth that you'll get ahead if you pray hard enough and bring God on your side.
Success requires a combination of intelligence, effort and good fortune, where fortune is the sum of events over which you have little control. The man born dense can believe in himself to his grave, but he is unlikely to get very far. The most successful man is merely (and I use that word to indicate that it was due to a sequence of logical events, not supernatural or otherwise faith-induced) the result of the three properties listed. Life's really not that fair, I'm afraid.
Personally, what I liked least about The Longest Journey was how seriously the writer seemed to take the idea that one woman should out of nowhere be selected by the fates for some inevitable world-saving mission, lifting her to glory through duty; it's so very religious. Once I broke the fourth wall, as it were, attempting to wrench from the story the lingering message that it was somehow reflecting real life, it became a very enjoyable game.
He didn't make the Baldur's Gate series. Move along.
Actually, Dreamfall was pretty cool.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it -- I'm huge!
Can I cite this comment as a source on Wikipedia?
Maybe it's because I just came from reading the Bill Roper interview, but this John Walker interviewer sure didn't leave a big impression on me.
Several of his little kinks like: "RPS: For years I've been trying to write this book for teenagers. I've got three chapters into it so many times, but never got any further.","RPS: Itâ(TM)s more Buffy season 7 than Buffy season 1." and so on frankly drew my attention off the interview to a point where I had to reread parts of it.
You know what's an important part of storytelling?
FINISHING THE FREAKING STORY
Like, when you've gotten through the backstory and the character development, and you get to the first big climax, the cliffhanger where you have the audience wondering which of their heroes will live and which will die?
That is NOT the right time to roll the credits. And if there are a half dozen important subplots that haven't even reached their climax yet? Then it is DEFINITELY NOT the right time to roll the credits.
Oh, who am I kidding. I could turn this rant into a treatise, but I know I'm still going to buy The Longest Journey 3 (or Dreamfall: Chapters, or whatever it gets called), even if it doesn't come out for another five years. And he knows people like me are still going to buy it, even if it's only sold for two hundred dollars with an uncrackable installer EULA which can only be accepted by submitting a video recording of the prospective customer saying "Please, Mr. Tornquist, I humbly beg for permission to play your sequel."
Yeah this guy works for funcom, what the hell does he know about making a game that is compelling or playable? Age of Conan and Anarchy online were and are crap. This upcoming MMO of his will suffer the same fate as both of these games, good initial sales with absolutely horrid customer retention.
There have been decent game stories around for years now - going back at least as far as Ultima IV. We've also been seeing them much more frequently recently. I must confess, though, I wouldn't have ranked this guy or the games he's put out right up there at the top of the list. As others have said, the Longest Journey was great, Dreamfell was weak and Anarchy Online... oh come on, is that really the best you can do? I'm not sure about individuals, but there are plenty of developers around in the industry who can do it better.
Bioware are obviously very good at crafting stories, but I think Planescape Torment is their only real masterpiece, from a story point of view. Their other games have had stories ranging from the great to the truly excellent (KOTOR and BG2 in particular), but PST was the only one to really go beyond the category of "fantastically well-done, but nevertheless formulaic fantasy/sci-fi fare".
Square-Enix are, if anything, even better. Their heavily cutscene-based style isn't to all tastes (though it is to mine), but they've gone beyond the point of just writing good stories and to the kind of level where, when they're on form, their games have well developed structures and themes. Look at Final Fantasy IX (not my favorite installment) and note how the game has theatre scenes at the beginning, the intermission, and the end. Also note how the two little jester guys act as a chorus throughout most of the game. Again, in Final Fantasy X, there's a consistent theme of "death" running throughout the entire game. Yes, it has bright and colourful graphics and a few irritating characters (yes, Wakka, I'm looking at you), but almost every character back-story, side-quest and main plot element in the game revolves around death.
Persona 3 really impressed me from the story point of view. Not because its "go to school and save the world in your spare time" plot is new or exciting, but because it structured itself so as to do a really good job of capturing the feel and structure of a 26 episode anime series (Shakugan no Shana was the one that leaped to mind for me, but other parallels are equally valid) in the format of a game.
I didn't rate Valve's storytelling in Half-Life 2 or its expansion - I just can't buy into the mute Gordon Freeman as a protagonist in that setting. Portal, however, had an absolutely fantastic minimalist story, told through some really clever techniques.
Finally, after a really, really dodgy start with Blue Dragon, I was really impressed with the level of the storytelling in Lost Odyssey. I'm not talking about the main plot here, which is a fairly standard steampunk affair (with heavy inspiration from Final Fantasy VIII). Rather, I'm talking about the dreams you unlocked throughout the game. These were nothing more than animated text, on a lightly illustrated background, with a couple of minimalist sound-effects, yet they did a fantastic job at bringing the game world alive and building up Kaim's character far more effectively than any traditional device would have.
Anybody else stop caring about this guys opinion about storytelling in video games after they found out he only had MMO's and a Casper game to his name?
Let me know when you interview someone like Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid) or a writer of one of the Final Fantasy games.
However, I have one serious criticism: for every minute of cutscene, there were maybe two minutes of gameplay - and this high level of hand-holding increased towards the end. Pretty much the entire last 20-30 minutes of the game was cut-scene, and I quickly lost the sense of immersion and attachment I'd tried to build up.
Seriously, there was a small handful of creative problem-solving set pieces, and most of the rest was either cut-scene or entirely prescriptive "gameplay". Given that it wasn't a long game, it ended up feeling as though someone had written a script for a film, and then tried to cram a game in the edges. Which was a shame, because the engine and dynamics were superb.
So while I won't criticise Tornquist's ability to tell a good story or create a compelling character, I would seriously question his authority on having the story "interact with other aspects of the game".
Meta will eat itself
So what about stories that feature non-men?
In terms of movies: "March of the Penguins" (or pretty much anything on the nature channel).
In terms of games the first one I could think of is SimAnt (Nature Vs Nature), but there may be others.
Storytelling is overrated in favor of good old WOW factor and immersion. Consider the (first) Half-Life.
10 minutes went by before you could even exit the monorail. You were drooling at the attention to detail and immersion. And that was before you saw the spider walker construction equipment moving around.
And it was another 20 after that before you shot your first shot. It was already one of the greatest games ever made before you did much more than look around and "go to work" that day.
The first Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, some others, these all had an astounding WOW factor, but very little in terms of some deeply moving story. Much more of a wrapper thrown around some levels.
Subsequent Quakes actually lost a lot of this charm by changing the "story" from one of a marine fighting mythical monsters to one of a space marine fighting another species trying to invade Earth.
So while a good story can add to a game, it neither creates, nor is sufficient, to generate the WOW factory necessary to make a hit.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Yeah Ragnar is ok I guess. But BioWare has some of the top writers in the industry, period. KOTOR is one of the best when it comes to story and dialogue, the plot is far far more interesting than most of the shit Lucas has cranked out lately, for sure. Mass Effect was pretty good too, but did feel a lot like KOTOR. Now, Dragon Age I'm looking forward to, as that project has some of the same writers who also worked on Baldur's Gate II and KOTOR, which are both stellar.
</end fanboy rave>
Tried to post this about 20 times last night but was very drunk. Anyhow... I was wondering why there are no modern day monkey island 1 or 2 games. Rightly or wrongly I thought that there isn't a team who can write it the way it needs to be done to be enjoyable like those games were. Then I thought, why not start a project in a decent adventure game suite and then shunt it out to the community. You could vote/moderate opinions on the next 10 minutes/x encounters (which is funniest/ most original/entertaining etc) and then lather rinse repeat until you have an epic story for an adventure game, with most of the art/anim/sound ready for production. Could that be done collaboratively? I'd love it if it could. Who's up for trying?
Tried to post this about 20 times last night but was very drunk.
Best opening line of any Slashdot post. Ever. Congratulations.
That is all.
"Three eyes are better than one" -- Lieutenant Columbo
10 minutes went by before you could even exit the monorail. You were drooling at the attention to detail and immersion. And that was before you saw the spider walker construction equipment moving around.
And it was another 20 after that before you shot your first shot. It was already one of the greatest games ever made before you did much more than look around and "go to work" that day.
.
You do understand that what you have just described is pure storytelling?