Samuel_Tow

What I find interesting is we're talking about storytelling, and yet looking through and interview that praises Braid, a game with such BAD storytelling that even after reading plot analysis guides for it, I'm STILL not sure there actually is a plot in it. Yahtze postulates that in a good game, gameplay and storytelling go hand in hand, while in Braid, they're locked on both sides of a brick wall made of tigers, or something of that nature. And he's right. I don't expect high-society literature that requires years of analysis and deconstruction to glean what meaning it has, ESPECIALLY plopped on top of a game that appears to have about as much to do with that story as a Tiger Shark has with a Tiger Uppercut.

By and large, I believe what sinks modern gaming more than anything else is its absurd cost. Anyone who's been gaming for at least the past 10 years will have seen games become shorter and shorter as they became better looking and more intricate. A level in the original Half-Life is simple enough to where even a fan with imagination can pull off something decent in fairly short order. A level in Half-Life 2 is complicated enough to require a dedicated level designer and quite a chunk of time. A level in any UT3 game is so complex I can't imagine who has the patience to put in all those little curves and pipes and cables and ledges and UGH! As game production costs increase, game substance gets cut, and games become more shallow.

The problem with storytelling in games is the segregation between gameplay and storytelling. Amusingly, the Call of Duty games have always been pretty good about telling a simple but engaging story in such a way as it flows WITH the gameplay. I still have such fond memories of the siege of Stalingrad from Call of Duty 2 (was it?). And yet Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has got to be one of the WORST games about storytelling, not just because it turns what used to be a series about mostly realistic war scenarios into a Michael Bay film, but does so at a steep degradation of its actual story. There's just nothing INTERESTING there.

I enjoy Half-Life's way of telling a story by, largely, NOT telling a story but rather letting the player experience it. Even when there IS exposition, it consists of random clues thrown about by characters before they're interrupted, shot, eaten or abducted. The game DOES pause to deliver plot from time to time, but even then, it's never a case of the game basically sitting you down to tell you the plot to your face. It feels natural and it happens without taking you out of the experience.

Another game I feel does storytelling well is Mass Effect. Now, many have accused the game of being too wordy, but let's be honest here - Mass Effect, and especially Mass Effect 2 is as much a "point-and-click" adventure as it is an action RPG. In fact, more so. Many of the game's problems are solved by talking, and every important plot point is taken with a conversation decision. The conversations don't take you out of the game because they ARE the game. Even the cutscenes don't take you out of the game because, thanks to Paragon and Renegade interrupts, they ARE the game.

Basically, though, the worst thing games suffer from is crappy quality. Stupid games with no soul in them sell like hot cakes, I guess because there's always room for one more mediocre shooter, yet creative games lie in obscurity because... Well, they're not what everyone else is playing, and it probably doesn't have 4 at the end. Ugh...

OK, I'll bite

Player Name: We'll go with "Samuel Tow"

Character Stats: Inapplicable/Varied

1) What’s in a name?

I picked the name Samuel Tow for my very first unique fictional character. I pulled the name literally out of the air. I subscribe to the notion that any name, good or bad, must be given to a character and then NEVER CHANGED. That way, as a character grows, the name becomes part of his identity, develops nicknames and basically grows "into" the character organically.

Beyond that, "what's in a name" is cool factor. Anything that sounds cool, is unique or is unusual is applicable. I have plenty of characters with "name names," such as my namesake, I have plenty of characters with unusual names, like "Velcro Kitty" (seriously) and plenty of characters with vaguely descriptive names, like the Meat Machine. The name itself doesn't need to "fit" the character in any way, but its sound usually does fit the character's intended personality.

2) What’s in a job?

We'll go with Archetypes here. I play Scrappers, Blasters, Brutes, Stalkers and Masterminds, which gives me about half the game. My reasons for selecting these Archetypes is pretty simple - they focus on an aggressive, offensive "get it done" approach to problem-solving and are proficient enough to do their own job by themselves. I'm averse to finding "smart" solutions when direct solutions are viable and I prefer to stand my ground when that is an option. How that reflects on me as a person, I'm not sure.

3) What’s in a game?

Easy. What's in a game is ME. Any game which is so designed that I can feel part of it as my own - be that my own creation or my own achievement - rather than a predefined option the developers designed for me and let me "borrow," scores major points with me. Characters in City of Heroes are just this - MINE. I designed their costumes, I picked their powers, I chose their names, I wrote their stories, I got them to where they are. I can show up at a mass gathering with my character, and it will still be MY CHARACTER, not just a random Level 50 Kat/SR Scrapper, just another of those.

Customization is key to this. The more I can make the character like what I always intended, the better. What I would change about the game is likely going to involve expanding customization further, extending the base-building element onto each individual character the same way costumes are, while at the same time GREATLY simplifying the base-building process, to the point where a player must only be concerned with WHAT he wants, not HOW he can achieve it. Simple tools are always more powerful for the casual user, even if they sacrifice some level of complexity.

4) What’s in a story?

Outside of the occasional ragdoll fun or chance shot, nothing really stands out. In a game of numbers, "achievement" is a pretty meaningless term. As such, my greatest adventures have been following the storyline as presented to me, saving the world from an alien invasion (which later happened anyway), stopping and unimaginably large-scale conspiracy, discovering the truth behind an ancient civilization and facing off against a genuine goddess... All of that, along with the many mini-encounters, such as fighting giant flaming demons, or scores of killer robots, or sinister lawn gnomes, or walking plants, or 1920s gangsters, or space aliens, or time travellers or werewolves or, hell, even the Nazi! There's a lot of fun to be had here.

5) What’s in a friend?

Not too much to say here. Friends are always nice to have, and playing with friends is ALMOST always more fun than playing alone, but the game must still be judged on its own merits. Friends, as good as they may be, are not always available at my beck and call, and I need to be able to play in these times when they are not.

6) “What got you into MMOs?”

City of Heroes. Pretty much.

7) “What new MMO are you looking forward to?”[/QUOTE]

None. If my previous experiences are anything to go by, they all suck, and they're all the same, just variations on the EQ/WoW framework, just with different settings. I don't know what happened to City of Heroes to make it so different from the others and so not crappy like the others, but I'm one step from convinced that all MMOs other than this one simply suck.

I hope that helps

Huh... I thought you were going to talk about overlaying one texture over another, such as Tech Crey over Lizard skin. I'd be totally up for that.

Sounds like you're suggesting we have two pattern layers. I have no problem with that, and voice my support for it.

I hope this doesn't make me sound like an ***, but...

You know what? I don't care what you call the pack. As long as it has more options in the following categories:

*Monster heads
*Monster feet
*Tails
*Monster arms (usable as upper arms in Robotic Arms 1-3)
*Monster hands

Then I'll buy it. Call it Monster, call it Mutant, call it Splicer, call it whatever you want. We NEED more options in those categories.

Tony, you're gonna' get me in so much trouble with that!

Honestly, though, I'm kind of worried about it.

Oh, hey! Just thought of another "lack of a power" that kills sets for me. This comes in two parts of the same whole: AR/Dev Blaster

AR lacks almost any sort of single-target damage to it. It has kludges, like trying to use Sniper Rifle in combat (and failing) or trying to use Ignite via the complicated setup of immobilization + Ignite, but really - it's just BAD. Lacking Aim doesn't really help matters any, robbing AR of both frontloading its damage and handling bosses easily. Combined with the fact that Full Auto may well be the weakest, most limited of Blaster T9 powers, and "the lack of decent powers" kills the set for me.

Devices lacks Build Up and any sort of damage that I don't have to waste masses of time to set up beforehand and hope enemies will walk into it at just the right time. This, combined with AR's problems, is crippling. Add to that the fact that the set has a lot of garbage in it, like Cloaking Device, Smoke Grenade, Gun Drone and so forth which could have been used for WORTHWHILE powers, and this kills the set for me.

Both together ensure that I will never, EVER play an AR/Dev Blaster again until something happens to BOTH sets. And it's even worse because I played one to 50 already...

By the way, the more I look at those swords as depicted, the more it feels like someone sneezed green on them Still pretty good, though. I can't wait to try them out.

One BIG fear, however, is that they'll scale down so hard on the female model that they'll end up looking tiny. This is pretty much my biggest concern with any weapon, to be honest.