id Software On Rage, Storytelling In Games

Tom Willits of id Software took some time recently to speak about storytelling as it relates to id's previous games, and how it will be a part of their upcoming shooter, Rage. He also dispelled rumors that Rage would suffer content cuts due to Xbox hardware limitations. Unfortunately, he called into question whether mods will be a possibility for the game, saying that the issue is still under consideration.

Comments

hmm

[nomadic]

As if reading the audience's minds, Willits began, "So id Software is actually giving a talk on storytelling -- that doesn't make much sense!" But Willits feels id's public perception is "sometimes a bit skewed."

No, our perception is spot on I think.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! Some of the best stories ever made are just about a lone marine killing tons of aliens, Nazis, and hellspawn. It is just like Shakespeare. Only without the words and with more firearms.

Re:hmm

[NuclearError]

More people die in Shakespeare though.

Re:hmm

[Dutch Gun]

To help clarify, I'll translate some key excerpts:

FPS pioneer id Software doesn't exactly have a reputation rooted in strong game stories.

Here at id, we feel that any "story" beyond "here's a gun, shoot anything that moves" is for pansies.

Yes, in the past, we have developed games that have very limited narratives. But to say that a game with limited narrative has bad storytelling is really a narrow-minded approach to what storytelling is.

But it turns out that there are a lot of pansies out there, and it turns out they have money. So now I'm going to actually redefine what "storytelling" is in order to make it fit more nicely with what we've done in the past, and more importantly, what we'll be doing in the future.

Information, he maintains, is learned through experiences, and the experience of playing a game is what forms a narrative, by its nature.

See, here we go. "gameplay" ------>>> "storytelling"... Done!

The first and most important thing is start with a solid, straightforward plot.

*Really* straightforward. As in, get a gun, kill anything that moves. That counts, right?

Matt Castello, who penned the story for Doom 3...

I'll bet that napkin could be sold on eBay for a bundle!

If you've played Doom 3 you know that our pacing was pretty intense. It started up easy enough, but then we kicked up the intensity and kept it there for the whole game.

Non-stop hellspawn popping out of closets behind the player! It was insane, I tell you!

Broad stroke visuals really portray to the user about the wasteland, and what the authorities are trying to do to the wasteland. A character is not trying to tell you, 'Hey these guys are bad, look what they did to the wasteland.' You can see it for yourself."

You can tell this is going to be an innovative game, because we're going to be subtle. And also, we have a *wasteland*! How original is that? Seriously, it's not just dark dungeons and corridors - er, well, it's mostly that inside - but outside, it's a wasteland!

Willits says that Doom 3 players "zoomed right through" the game's highly handcrafted levels, so for Rage, "we have focused on reusability."

It takes an assload of time to hand-craft these levels. Appreciate them, damn you!

His bottom line for Rage? Delivering more choices and more variety for more people, while still delivering "classic id-style mayhem."

Don't worry, it will all come down to shooting everything that moves anyhow.

Re:hmm

[oracle128]

What you talkin' bout Willits?

Re:hmm

[Incredible Elmo]

even the best 'storytelling games' involves really poor writing and really poor story telling

why place this demand on game developers?

if you want a good story, read a book
be sensitive to games - they can't attract the talent for story telling because ultimately, if your good at writing stories, you wouldn't be working in the industry

While that is true, I liked the stories of e.g. Deus Ex and Wing Commander IV, and of course several adventure games and RPGs (including KotoR).

Of course, none of these reach the levels of literature, but they are good stories, as opposed to "run through this level, shoot at everything that moves and push the button".

While shooting at stuff is cool, the story keeps me motivated enough to turn that next corner and shoot more stuff. Or, if there is a lack of story, I get bored relatively quickly.

New record?

[CaseyB]

The very first word in this post is wrong.

Nice work, Soulskill.

Games seem to focus too much on graphics

[modzer0]

It seems to me that as the quality of graphics have gone up the gameplay and story behind the scenes has suffered as many companies focus on graphics rather than gameplay. There are exceptions but a lot of games are just disappointing. They may look great but controls and bad plots take their toll on a lot of titles.

Re:Games seem to focus too much on graphics

[BPPG]

I agree, and it's also a bit frustrating when fancy graphics actually kind of get in the way of playing the game. Hi-res console games tend to look very poor on older and/or smaller televisions. I guess the assumption is that if you can afford a modern console, you could also afford a big-screen.

The Prettiness factor tends to wear off quickly, anyways. And just because it's very Pretty doesn't mean it's easy to look at, or understand what's happening.

FPS Storytelling?

[Enderandrew]

There are a few FPS games that do a decent job of storytelling. Half Life comes to mind, but even that doesn't have much of a storyline. id did some nice things with datapads in Doom 3 and such to try and tell a story, but id games, and the FPS genre in general is certainly not famous for story.

Re:FPS Storytelling?

[rhyder128k]

John Carmack: "Woah guys!"

Employee: "JC, what's up man?"

JC: "Oh baby, I just had a dream and it's INSPIRED me to take Id in a totally new direction story wise!"

E: "Story? You mean a new way of utilising pixel shaders for better lighting?"

JC: "No, an actual story, IN the game."

[silence]

E: "To be honest, we've already got a guy to write the bit on the back of the box."

JC: "Come on guys, the game could have a story to it this time rather than the best looking renderer in a shooting game. We could finally put all that red key/blue key shit behind us."

[silence]

JC: "Erm... I've though of a new way of drawing shadows. It means that everyone's going to have to upgrade their rig or play on minimal settings."

E: "Whoohoo, top notch man! The Carmackster does it again. Working here rocks!"

Re:FPS Storytelling?

[lgw]

If you have to read text in a game to find the storyline, the game is doing it wrong. You should participate actively in creating the storyline, not read about it! Or is someone confusing storyline with backstory?

Re:FPS Storytelling?

[lgw]

Sadly, the interesting story in Bioshock was almost all backstory. Even the Clever Twist midgame was all done in backstory. While playing I kept thinking "why is the game set after all the interesting stuff is done happening?" Good storytelling would have been playing through the fall of the civilization, and influencing how or whther it fell apart, not coming along *after* all the action and learning about it through sound clips.

Bioshosk stands about because it had any storytelling *at all*, not because it was good at it.

Re:FPS Storytelling?

[WNight]

System Shock 2 was that way. One of the bits that stands out was finding survivors and then watching on the other side of an absolutely unbreakable door as they get slaughtered, seconds before you could have really interacted with them.

Neat game, but way too forced. It's only in comparison to the other FPS games of the era that it looked like a masterpiece.

Re:FPS Storytelling?

[lymond01]

FEAR...no idea why I'm referencing Wikipedia for this.

That was a first-person shooter with a great story, was actually scary, and had you reeling at just how screwed up it all was after you finished playing. I recommend.

Re:FPS Storytelling?

[Joelfabulous]

They took the whole notion of picking up PDA's and examining them from System Shock 2. I highly recommend it, as it was well written and a seminal FPS masterpiece. You can get a higher poly texture update from various fansites on the internet.

Good luck getting it running though... It's kind of flaky as it came out just before the major transition over to Windows 2000 IIRC. Sometimes it works flawlessly on XP / Win2k, whereas other times it might not even load past the title screen.

I can't say that any other game has been as genuinely disturbing as that, though Clive Barker's Undying is a close second at points. I'm guessing this Rage game will be a rental grade formula shooter... I hope id will prove me wrong, but I don't see the point in getting my hopes up.

Re:FPS Storytelling?

[lgw]

I should mention Deus Ex, as it was very sharp in the way they allowed your actions to have consequences without blowing the budget. You could save your brother, or not, and influnce that actions of various characters, and choose whether to kill certain bad guys before the character was sure they were bad guys. It was all limited, but the impressive thing was how well they worked it into the storyline.

Your actions would have definite consequences in terms of dialog and "color", affect what items you had available for a fight, and so on: changes that just required a bit more diliog writing during game develpment. Regardless, you fought in the same sequences of areas - no expensive artwork was "wasted". It was a great way to give you the felling of participating in the story without having to be unrealistically open-ended in terms of level creation.

Creating a story that feels immersive and open ended the first time you play really doesn't need to blow the budget of the game: it only takes thoughtful story writing.

Re:Are There Still "id Fanboys"?

[BiggerBoat]

"Let's see... just our recent mobile games have sold over a million copies, and our last in-house PC title was our best-selling ever, but Anonymous Coward here says we should close up shop! Hmmm... what to do, what to do..."

Re:PC/PS3 Version and 360/Wii Version

[morari]

Ideally, Id should just work on the PC for the real version and let another company do a downgraded console version.

Really though, Id has a lot to prove after Doom III. RAGE, while it does sound like a good design, has a lot of iffy little catches floating around it. The mere fact that Id is questioning whether or not to have mod support is bizarre to say the least.

Welcome to the emerging future of gaming, where everything is dumbed down so as to be marketed toward console kiddies.

Re:Are There Still "id Fanboys"?

[delysid-x]

Just like how Apple is a relic from the 80's.

http://marathon.bungie.org/story/

[MrMista_B]

Well, if you're supposed to 'participate actively in creating the storyline', as you inside, then there's absolutely no problem with today's FPS's. If it's all in your head, why spend the time creating a story for the game?

Personally, I prefer a well-wrought story, that allows the ability to affect the story, around the edges. Branching level progression, for example, that depends on player decisions during the game.

http://marathon.bungie.org/story/ , for example, Bungie's previous FPS trilogy before Halo, is still regarded by many as one of the pinnacles of story design in an FPS, and this came out in the mid-90's.

Re:http://marathon.bungie.org/story/

[lgw]

How did you get from "actively participating in creating the storyline" to "all in your head"?

In most FPSs you actively participate in creating a pretty dull story. "I shot zombie #1 with my pistol .... I blew up zombies #154-157 with my rocket launcher". Not much there. OTOH, look at Half-Life 2. The story wasn't very deep, but you participated in a lot more of it. The important events in the story most happened where you could see them as you played. "Show, don't tell" and all that.

Other games with good stories

[BPPG]

Story games are good, but sometimes you have to appreciate the games that take a minimalist approach to story-telling.

Re:PC/PS3 Version and 360/Wii Version

[lowlymarine]

Also the 360 is closer to the Wii graphically than the PS3 and desktop PCs. The 360 graphics hardware is designed for 480p with 4XAA.

I know you're just a troll, but this "360 graphics suxx" thing is an absolute fabrication. The 360's GPU is more powerful than the PS3's. Xenos is a prototype R600 (eg, HD 2900), while the RSX is based on the G70 (eg, GeForce 7800). So please, stop posting this nonsense.

Re:id Software on storytelling in games?

[duckInferno]

And while I'm ranting -- ideally a game designer shouldn't even need to shoot down any rumours regarding graphics. A good game doesn't need to rely on super realistic FX... and this goes for "mindless" FPS games, too. Just look at Painkiller for the epitome of a fun game where you shoot things with guns (mind you, any game with a lightning-enchanted ninja star gun is going to come out ahead).

Re:PC/PS3 Version and 360/Wii Version

[CronoCloud]

Indeed. One of the things that killed the possibility of a trilogy for Deus Ex was the second game, which was made for PC and XBox. The problem was that rather than making it for the PC and then downgrading it for a later console port like what happened with the first game, they made the sequel with the console as a baseline!

Ever play the PS2 port of Deus Ex? It's not actually downgraded. I'd use the term..altered. They upped the graphics (character models are better), divided up levels into pieces, kept most of the interface with some minimal streamlining AND they put keyboard and mouse support in (though I personally recommend playing with analog stick and mouse)

Re:Gimped 360 Version Confirmed

[renegadesx]

Didn't you get the memo from Sony? The Wii doesn't really exist

Typo on the guy's name

[mon196k]

It's Tim Willits, unless the guy recently decided to change his name. Although I didn't read TFA, isn't story supposed to be "just there" like in pr0n? Seriously, the only good games ever came out of id was the ones adhere to that principle. I'm still waiting for a Q3 or Doom with modern day graphics.

Re:PC/PS3 Version and 360/Wii Version

[johannesg]

I think you are only partially right though: the first game was great because it had a great story that turns out to be more and more like the world we live in. The second game had dumbed-down mechanics, but it also had a crappy irrelevant story where you could switch allegiance on every level if you wanted and it never mattered.

As for Deus Ex 3... It is in production, but I fear the worst. About the only info we have is that it will be a game about "what it means to be human". That's not at all what DX1 was about - DX1 was about what it means to live in a world where those in power are unscrupulous powerhungry bastards.

Ok, so maybe we don't actually need a game anymore to see what the result of that is, but that is what DX1 was about. That, and open, non-linear gameplay, and interesting locations and characters, and mildly amusing AI and physics problems ;-)