Do you need a "complete" experience?

This is actually a fairly simple question (the title itself, really), but I'm sure I can find a way to make it complicated. Skip down to the bottom if you don't want me to.

Recently, I've started becoming aware of something that is capable of ruining a good movie or game for me, and that's too much information, though not in the way you think. Here I'll be, happily running around in a game - say Arkham Asylum - and then suddenly I find a recording of the psychiatric evaluation of a tertiary character I barely remembered having seen. And as I'm listening to this, I catch myself repeating "I don't care about this. At all." over an over in my head. I've been doing this a lot in recent weeks, or at least have been catching myself doing it.

Here's the thing - some developers believe that the only way to make a good, immersive game is to provide a "complete" experience, which is to say lots of background and trivia on everything you can think of, as well as quite a few things you couldn't. How does this weapon work? Why is that character crazy? Where in the world is City of Heroes? Who put the Bomp in the Bomp-a-Bomp-a-Bomp? That sort of thing. And I know a lot of people enjoy having that in their games. I know a lot of people enjoy searching every last nook and cranny for more information on the game world, and in so doing feel more... Part of it, I surmise. In fact, I was out-and-out told, right here on these forums, that a particular poster was far more interested in just existing in a detailed, expansive world than he was actually following a plotline that could at all be defined as "interesting."

I, on the other hand, tend to have the opposite reaction to this. Scavenger hunts bore me to tears, and indeed have made me rage-quit out of games for lack of patience to deal with that (when a sufficient guide is not available), and too much background information diminishes my interest in a given game, movie or general story FAST. It probably speaks poorly of me as a person, but I would rather get down to the action, be that beating stuff up or progressing through the storyline, than I am in sitting down with the village bard to hear tales of people I couldn't possibly care about in a time so far away that it has no bearing on the plot whatsoever.

So here is my question to you, and those of you who skipped to the end, start reading now: Do you need your games to provide a "complete" experience with trivia, background, secrets and lore, or are you more interested in playing a fun game and following an engaging, but not necessarily plot-heavy story?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Better to have and not need than to need and not have.

I prefer to play in a world that is complete to the point that it's flexible for player needs while providing plenty of fodder for a variety of characters to develop in.

I think CoH hits the mark pretty well.

I need enough for it to matter but I don't need much.

No. I need them to look good, be fun and lack annoyance.

There's a balance here for me.

I know people that hate loose threads in a movie or book, but I like openings that encourage people to fill in things with their imagination. With the original Star Wars trilogy, you knew that there was a story to what caused Darth Vader's slide to the dark side, but you didn't know the details. Imagining what could cause that path to be taken... working off what scraps you had... that contributed to my interest in the movie. Getting the actual answer so many years later... well, there was no way that story was gonna match the one that I'd built up over the years...


I KNOW people that want it all spelled out- the how's, why's-- EVERYTHING. They need to be omniscient.

I don't...

...but I like enough hints dropped to give my imagination a framework to build on.

I usually like some of the background left in the dark. Explaining everything just kills some of the mystery and usually feels forced--the one that immediately jumps to mind for me here is Bioshock, where the recordings you could find sort of drifted back and forth between 'interesting' and 'why do all these people have their personal memoirs scattered across bathrooms, hallways, and ballrooms?' You almost never get the full story in reality, especially not in the thick of events, so it just feels contrived when it neatly lays itself out for me in a game.

There's a fine line between giving just enough information to let the player's imagination run with things and giving them enough information to ruin the mystery, though, and I suspect it varies widely from person to person.

I often find myself getting bored of gameplay in most games, and end up spending more time fiddling around with the background stuff. Especially exploring maps. For example, one of the things I'm most excited about in I19 is new exploration badges for hazard zones. I can't wait to search around for them and get new little bits of backstory. (And have my fingers crossed for the Shadow Shard being included.)

It's just a matter of taste, though. Different people prefer different things in games. Having a sufficiently deep background for which delving into is optional seems to be the best way to go for the largest number of players.

'Immersive' to me is a relatively thin band that exists between 'Uh, what?' and 'TMI'.

Not enough background, atmosphere, and in-game reveal information and the game simply becomes a puzzle game. Which isn't bad if that's what I'm in the mood to play, except that in that case I'd rather play something that is presented right from the get-go as a puzzle game. For RPGs, I want more.

Too much trivia, too often, and stuff that forces me into a cutscene that I can't skip, that's going into overload territory. Yes, allow me to find out about the NPCs/secondary characters if I'm interested, but don't forcefeed me info about their second cousin's third birthday party. If I don't care, I don't care.

I know who put the Bomp in the Bomp-a-Bomp-a-Bomp. It was Posi. However, I heard they're nerfing the Bomp in issue 19.

Eco.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

I like some mystery - and Praetoria is a great example of a detailed story that still leaves lots of unanswered questions for people to specualte on.

I suppose my answer is 'it depends'.

If I'm playing something like Left For Dead, I don't need a deep inner meaning for why the other characters are shooting zombies. But in a game where I'm creating a character, i.e. a fictional person, then I want the other characters in the game to be people, too.

To clarify, if something is well-written, you get the feeling that the characters you encounter existed before you met them, and will go on with their lives after you move on. I don't need to know every single solitary thing about them, but they need to feel *real* So the level of detail that I need is whatever is required to create that feeling of realism.

Yes, Sam, I do require it. The lore of this game is a good part of why I enjoy it. I say this because I come from a tabletop RP background. I was bored to tears if the only thing the DM had to offer was hack 'n slash.