Things I hate about modern gaming: stories - Maddox - General

[QUOTE=Yummy Pie;48661125]Nothing wrong with having a nice story in a video game. My problem is when developers prioritize story and writing over the gameplay. I'm looking at you The Last of Us.[/QUOTE] Idk I thought TLOU was a pretty videogame-ass video game.

[QUOTE=RichyZ;48661384]half-life cutscenes really aren't that amazing cool i get to jump around and throw physics objects at the actors in the scene, how fun[/QUOTE] in hindsight it might not be that much but when it was innovative and different when it came out otherwise nobody would ever had talked about it

Half-Life might not be absolutely perfect in any way, but it was one of the first to attempt storytelling in such a way. While some of the unskippable scenes might be similary standing in the way of gameplay like primitive cutscenes, they are still making much more use of the medium of gaming than them. Also who says you cannot learn from mistakes and make these short scenes even shorter or give you an option to just leave them behind entirely? Just because there is one aspect not being perfect, it doesn't invalidate the whole concept. Primitive cutscenes however naturally take away almost any kind of interaction, and if they are not skippable, they force the player to just watch stuff happen on the screen. I'd take breaking Kleiner's Teleporter over that any day.

I play visual novels for the gameplay.

I'm sure Maddox recognizes that games like Half Life are well justified in having a well-developed story, I think the point here is that the standard has become that any new game coming out has to become some massive cinematic experience when in reality, most of them fail miserably and would be much better off just focusing on being video games. Does anybody actually care about Call of Duty lore? Or Battlefield (Save for Bad Company 2 which was a pretty good storytelling experience thanks to the characters). I think the point to take away here is that a story shouldn't be a mandatory component of a good game, games like Call of Duty and Battlefield and other series with no real meaningful story to speak of would be better off putting their budget towards gameplay rather than putting an entire feature length film into their singleplayer mode that 10% of actual players play.

[QUOTE=srobins;48661496]I'm sure Maddox recognizes that games like Half Life are well justified in having a well-developed story, I think the point here is that the standard has become that any new game coming out has to become some massive cinematic experience when in reality, most of them fail miserably and would be much better off just focusing on being video games. Does anybody actually care about Call of Duty lore? Or Battlefield (Save for Bad Company 2 which was a pretty good storytelling experience thanks to the characters). I think the point to take away here is that a story shouldn't be a mandatory component of a good game, games like Call of Duty and Battlefield and other series with no real meaningful story to speak of would be better off putting their budget towards gameplay rather than putting an entire feature length film into their singleplayer mode that 10% of actual players play.[/QUOTE] Well he could have chosen less shitty examples of this problem then.

[QUOTE=Yummy Pie;48661402]Don't forget you can't skip them on second playthroughs. I'd much rather have a video cutscene I can skip instead of waiting around for 10 minutes for NPCs to do their stuff.[/QUOTE] Half-Life 1 arguably handled this better by keeping almost all of those expository scripted sequences relatively short. You also had the option of just blowing up any scientist who starts yapping too much, which is a welcome one to anyone like Maddox who doesn't care much for the story in the first place. Many of the scripted sequences in HL2 and episodes on the other hand outstayed their welcome. The saving grace was that the masterful pacing of these games meant those sequences usually came at a point when some downtime from the action was fitting.

[QUOTE=Mort Stroodle;48660209]Imagine Bastion, Half Life, Portal, Transistor, or Batman: Arkham City without the story. They'd be far less interesting.[/QUOTE] Imagine MGS without the story... Wait... Would that make it less, or more complicated?

Asking out loud if stories are really necessary. Yeah, that'll make me want to watch the rest.

[QUOTE=Water-Marine;48660216]Normally enjoy his rants, but the past two have felt REALLY rushed.[/QUOTE] the one about pepperoni was an assault. Who doesn't likes pepperoni?! fuck this, imma go eat a pepperoni pizza just because of it

[QUOTE=kweh;48661677]the one about pepperoni was an assault. Who doesn't likes pepperoni?! fuck this, imma go eat a pepperoni pizza just because of it[/QUOTE] pepperoni is garbage tho

[QUOTE=RichyZ;48661687]pepperoni is garbage, its greasy and tastes only vaguely of meat, but mostly grease there are better toppings, like jalapenos and bacon[/QUOTE] bacon on pizza is a waste And while I agree with you about MOST pepperoni, there is excellent high quality pepperoni out there that is delicious, as well as high quality salamis that put bacon to shame as a pizza topping bacons awesome and all, but I don't like it on pizza.

[QUOTE=Tudd;48661522]Well he could have chosen less shitty examples of this problem then.[/QUOTE] Agreed. The Indie game market has tons of games where stories take the back burner. There is a more than adequate catalogue for these types of games where story isn't as important as gameplay. Did he seriously try to shit on a game that is SUPPOSED to have a really great story for unnecessarily having a story? Video games are perfectly viable platforms for telling stories. Fuck his opinion. Also love your avatar, Its fitting in this case.

Like, go to a real quality pizza joint, an excellent example is Lola in Minneapolis(pepperoni and sausage) or Via Tevere in Vancouver, Luigis(there's a specific one) in San Fransico, they know what real pepperoni is about. and you can usually just buy their stuff from the local butchers as it turns out, that's who usually makes it. Pizza's like my second all time favourite food after sushi and I used to travel a lot so, I've found pepperoni is pretty great [editline]11th September 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=RichyZ;48661836]the thing being that bacon is inoffensive on a pizza, whereas pepperoni is just gross in almost all scenarios[/QUOTE] I highly disagree

Is it just me, but has he always looked like a junkie?

IMO Maddox should've used more modern examples TBH, Mario and other old titles didn't usually have stories because of the limitations.

[QUOTE=kweh;48661663]Imagine MGS without the story... Wait... Would that make it less, or more complicated?[/QUOTE] MGS without the story: "Yo Snake, go sneak dat shit"

[QUOTE=kweh;48661663]Imagine MGS without the story... Wait... Would that make it less, or more complicated?[/QUOTE] VR missions was pretty fun. The detective mode and grey fox challenges were great. He's got pretty bad examples though. Most games now use stories to supplement their gameplay. RPG's can have great gameplay and little to no story like every single roguelike out there.

If a game is story heavy or at least if the story plays an important role in the game I much rather have a well designed, well animated, well shot cutscene that can be skipped/paused than what HL2 did. If you want the story to be told through the setting or you don't want the control of the PC to be lost then go for something like Dark Souls. I feel like most of what HL2 did was just throw the directorial aspect of the cutscene out but keep the mandatory waiting around part intact. Great, I can run around a room while the scientist yaps, thank god I still retain control. What has that really changed overall though? I prefer the cinematic experience where the story the game designer had in mind is delivered to me in the best possible way over the false sense of control. All this being said, not all games require a deep story to be shoehorned in and the interactive aspect of gaming has the power to work even without a story.

[QUOTE=Mort Stroodle;48660209]Imagine Bastion, Half Life, Portal, Transistor, or Batman: Arkham City without the story. They'd be far less interesting.[/QUOTE] Arkham City is one of the shittiest batman stories ever, though. The game's fun, don't get me wrong, but the story was trash.

[QUOTE=Pappi_man;48660934]I sort of agree. There's crap loads of games that doesn't really need a ~deep story~ like Call of Duty Games, Borderlands 2 or heck, even Batman Arkham series.[/QUOTE] yes and that's the weird thing about it he's not saying "games like X, Y or Z shouldn't have stories" he's saying "no game should have a story ever", i don't get it at all

I'm half way through the video and this is so painfully satire I can't believe anyone's taking it seriously. Seriously, he nitpicked at a 5 second "cutscene" in Ms. Pacman.

[QUOTE=kweh;48661663]Imagine MGS without the story... Wait... Would that make it less, or more complicated?[/QUOTE] I don't think many would notice a difference.

The problem I had with TLOU was that the biggest draw for me was the relationship between Joel and Ellie but that dynamic wasn't really ever shown through gameplay only in cutscenes/walkNtalk sections and the swimming puzzle that got really annoying after you realized that they were going to keep reusing it. Would have been cool to see their relationship expressed through gameplay in a way similar to ICO or something [QUOTE=Zukriuchen;48662309]yes and that's the weird thing about it he's not saying "games like X, Y or Z shouldn't have stories" he's saying "no game should have a story ever", i don't get it at all[/QUOTE] He says that cinematic stories work in some games at 1:23

[QUOTE=Im Crimson;48661617]Half-Life 1 arguably handled this better by keeping almost all of those expository scripted sequences relatively short. You also had the option of just blowing up any scientist who starts yapping too much, which is a welcome one to anyone like Maddox who doesn't care much for the story in the first place. Many of the scripted sequences in HL2 and episodes on the other hand outstayed their welcome. The saving grace was that the masterful pacing of these games meant those sequences usually came at a point when some downtime from the action was fitting.[/QUOTE] That reason is why HL1 speedruns are much more interesting than HL2 speedruns. A lot of the run is roadblocked by NPCs having to say their script. It can be somewhat sped up by bopping their head with a physics object, but that only works to an extent.

This is like saying you hate movies with dialogue

Counter-Strike: Condition Zero...Delete Scenes.

[QUOTE=I Am A Rock;48664755]Counter-Strike: Condition Zero...Delete Scenes.[/QUOTE] better than opposing force edit: my bro this post is satire

[QUOTE=chunkymonkey;48660628]I hate when a game has skippable cutscenes but the devs use them to hide loading screens so you can't skip them until they're nearly over anyway.[/QUOTE] Alternatives include: - A loading screen that says "Loading" and maybe a gameplay hint Yeah, no I'm going to take the cutscene, thanks. It's something versus nothing. What could you hate about them?

[QUOTE=itisjuly;48661010]If you listen to his podcast, you will quickly learn that maddox is an idiot, a funny idiot but still an idiot. He is wrong on a lot of shit but pushes it as if he is right. That's his game.[/QUOTE] Not really. He isn't an idiot, but he is not as smart as he thinks he is.